T. Harry Williams Center for Oral
History Collection
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Robert L. Wooten #
4700.0994
IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran
INTERVIEWER: Dale Jenkins
PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam
DATES: 12/6/75
FOCUS DATES: Jan. 6, 1963-May 26, 1970
ABSTRACT:
Tape 1450, Side A
Born in Kelly, LA, near Monroe; parents' occupations; ordinary
country boy childhood; education; attended Southern University in
Baton Rouge; involvement with ROTC; leadership training at Fort
Benning; assigned to Korea in March, 1963; trained Korean
soldiers; returned to States, responsible for training recruits
in weaponry; sent to Vietnam right after marriage; reasons he was
told for US being in Vietnam; arrival by ship; responsibilities
in Vietnam; visiting beach; lived in villa in city of Vung Tau;
describes typical workday; moved to Chu Lai, where they became
logistics base for newly activated Americal division; built base
in Chu Lai; recreational options at Chu Lai; career officer's
course at Fort Benning; training not Vietnam-specific; advanced
training; reassigned to lead mechanized infantry company at Fort
Knox, KY; training a stateside combat unit; jungle training
school in Panama; jungle survival skills; Wooten served as
advisor during second tour in Vietnam; lived off local economy;
traded with American units when possible; chronology of his
movements after Panama; served as deputy senior advisor at Tan
Tru; Vietnamese attitudes about being trained by Americans;
suggesting tactics to Vietnamese; Wooten's Vietnamese interpreter
who became his close friend; composition of Wooten's unit; low
education level of rural Vietnamese; ARVN officers better
educated than most Vietnamese he knew; limited contact with
ARVNs; daily contact with civilians; regrets never learning
Vietnamese; visiting with professionals in area.
Tape 1450, Side B
Division of hamlets, villages, districts; villages as gathering
places; description of hamlets; hamlet, village and district
chiefs; most chiefs lived in the province capital for their own
safety; security of villages; VC appointed their own chiefs to
each hamlet and village; danger Wooten faced in villages; program
wherein Wooten rated hamlets for safety from VC; dangerous trips
Wooten made alone to villages; VC tax collection system;
intelligence work, hunting for VC sympathizers; several of
Wooten's informants were assassinated; bribing the locals with
soap and candy; tried to be friendly and respectful with
civilians; getting out of tradition of honored guest eating the
chicken head; drinking rice wine and tea with locals; learning
local customs, e.g. eating with chopsticks; Vietnamese housing
arrangements after marriage; Vietnamese weddings; wedding
receptions; introducing Vietnamese to custom of dances; class
differences in Vietnamese society; visiting villages; getting
warned by villager about VC in village; two forms of prostitution
-- "girlfriend" hired by the month, or bar girls; VD
risks; no prostitutes in area Wooten was in during his second
tour; mamasans, bar owners, who pimped young girls; female
companionship; Wooten didn't go with prostitutes; enlisted men
paid less for prostitutes than officers paid; high cost of
virgins; drug problems in Vietnam; officers had to set example,
turn down all drugs; drinking alcohol; misuse of cough syrup;
Army's attempts to curb drug use; no obvious divisions between
drug users and non users; black market activity in cigarettes and
camera equipment; attitude toward superior officers; opinion on
enlisted men; race relations; racial incident when movie
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" shown on base.
Tape 1451, Side A
Favorable impression of the Vietnamese; substandard living
conditions; Vietnamese adopted American materialism; discrepancy
between farmer's earnings and American soldier's salary; drinking
with Vietnamese men; war effort was unsuccessful; democracy
wouldn't work there; enemy was more motivated to win than the
South Vietnamese; mistake of relying on body counts as indicator
of winning; US should have kept bombing Hanoi; Americans couldn't
win hearts and minds of Vietnamese people; how the war changed
him; corruption in government; opinion on Watergate.
TAPES: 2
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 2 hours
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 4 page index
RESTRICTIONS: none