T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: William Quilter #4700.0975

IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran

INTERVIEWER: John W. Davis

PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam

DATES: 2/15/74

FOCUS DATES: 9/65-8/69; 9/66-9/67

ABSTRACT:

Tape 1424

Family; joined Marine Corp Reserve; training at Paris Island; methods used to break down recruits; curriculum of basic training; infantry training; disciplinary problems; conspiring with buddies to injure each other to avoid harsh training; finished stint with Marines in 1965; enrolled in college, dropped out; signed up for four years in Air Force; problems with superiors because he didn't think he had to attend Air Force boot camp; joined Military Air Transport Service; sent to the Philippines that March; got sent to Vietnam in September, 1966; stationed at Da Nang; aerial view of Saigon; description of Da Nang; duties of an air passenger specialist; making extra money cleaning planes; living conditions of soldiers; consuming large quantities of beer; being bombed with Russian MIGs; communist spies; getting attacked by rockets; unloading planes in line of fire; sitting in fox hole for six days; having to leave the dying and save those who might live; soldiers who helped out at Vietnamese orphanage; prostitution; prostitution in Bangkok; black market; drugs in Philippines; attitudes about war in retrospect; Vietnamese better prepared for war than Americans; North Vietnamese didn't all support war.

TAPES: 1

TOTAL PLAYING TIME:

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 25

RESTRICTIONS: none