For my Vietnam project, I had the pleasure and extremely wonderful opportunity of interviewing a Vietnam veteran by the name of Frank West. At 17, Frank would join the armed services and would be forever changed by the events soon to follow.
On July 2nd, 1971, Frank West registered in the United States Air Force just days before his number would be called to be drafted into the United States Army. On July 18, some several weeks later, Frank turned 18 years old and started his training for his upcoming journey serving in the
Vietnam War. Frank was young, naive, and very openly conservative. Some several odd months later in October of 1971, Frank West was sent over to Vietnam to start his services. On October the 12th, 1971, Frank began his journey into what he and many former G.I.'s of his time would call "Hell".
Frank West, now in the country of Vietnam serving at
Korat Royal Thai Air force Base, began his time there alongside the infamous "Canine Corps"-which would soon be his specialty. Every G.I. there would receive his own personal dog in which he would train alongside and take care of. When Frank switched out with the man going home, he took over in the care of a sweet, yet killer of a dog named Fritz. To Frank, Fritz was a puppy, pet, and best friend. To some unfortunate Vietnamese enemy fighters, Fritz was a terror, a killer, and a vicious attacker. Throughout their daily trainings in the Vietnam base together, Frank and his new found friend Fritz, a loved German-Shepherd, would go through each obstacle course time and time again. Frank started timing Fritz and Fritz saw this as an opportunity to run and have fun with his new owner. Frank was in the United States Air Force Security Police (or SP for short), and not once did he regret it. "Most of the guys," Frank said, "took two or three weeks to get to know their dog...This was not the case for Fritz and I. We were attached to each other two days after we met. When I went home, it was as if I were losing my own best friend." After each run at the obstacle course, Fritz would bolt towards Frank with a grin, and after he was embraced by his dog, Frank received the biggest kiss on his face from his canine friend. At nights, or sometimes in daylight, instead of being with Fritz, Frank West would often have to go guard his post at the base and often worked on a daily basis from dusk until dawn. Very few breaks were rewarded to him, yet he just continued to obey his orders-despite his lack of desire for most of them.
His first month there, West was scared to death, as many of his fellow comrades were. The thoughts running through Frank's young mind at the time were "...when do we go home?...will we get blown up today?...and when does this endless fighting really end?". Frank, along with many others of his rank just simply did their duty. They had no desire to kill, yet if they were ordered to fire off some 100 odd rounds or so, they would. An order was an order. Frank's main thought of the reasoning behind his fighting was "to save the Vietnamese people (civilians) from the Communists". Pretty soon, West became a Passive Activist, yet simply wanted peace treaties to be discussed. He explained this fighting on a consistent basis as "uncomfortable". His training became his mission for saving the Vietnamese people and that's all he needed to know. To West, it was the Communists vs. Democracy.
During this service time, West came to love and adore the Vietnamese people. To him, they were just like the Americans back home-the ones who loved them and cherished the fighting they were doing for them. Days on end, Frank and his fellow soldiers would walk amongst the Vietnamese villages and observe and get to know some of the Vietnamese villagers themselves. West started to learn various bits and pieces of the language, however, the Vietnamese learned English more than Frank learned of Vietnamese. Frank described there being a "language barrier". Nonetheless, during daily walks, West and his fellow American men viewed Vietnamese living as very sad, very poor, and very desolate. They seemed like they ought to have been so depressed, yet Frank saw that this was exactly the opposite. Even though he took pictures of Vietnamese women doing their laundry in medium-sized tin tubs with the "dirtiest water you could ever imagine", they seemed to be grateful simply for things like having their village still be there every morning. The Vietnamese had housing very similar to the Air Force base's housing. Frank and men like him, all slept and lived in small, wooden huts elevated some couple feet above the dirt called
"Hootches". They were small and had plastic window coverings, yet eight full grown men like Frank slept and resided in the tiny huts for however long they were over there for. Four to a side, and eight to a hootch. It was hard, but it became something Frank and many others adapted to over time. It was a way of life, not just a time of fighting. Frank said he chose to sleep in a hammock due to the ventilation provided by the holes in the bottom. If he hadn't, Frank and all the rest of the men would have sweated themselves into a miserable puddle. When asked about what was one thing he missed most while in Vietnam, Frank simply replied, "My bed".
The days were hot and the weather was tropical. Some days were so hot that Frank just wore a pair of shorts and no shirt. Other days, as he puts it..."Just like in Forrest Gump, we had rain coming at us from all sorts of angles. Seriously. It would be coming up from upside down sometimes. You would go to bed and it would be raining. When you woke up, it would still be raining. Then you went to work, and...it was still raining! It never seemed to stop at times." It was monsoon weather and Frank, being the North Carolina country boy that he was, was definitely not used to this kind of weather. Not only did the weather play a part on Frank's time overseas, but the fellow soldiers he fought alongside with did as well. He recalls that everyone smoked Marijuana. There were maybe two or three that didn't. That was it. West said there were three main groups that every single soldier could be divided into: the heads, the boozers, and the lifers. The heads got their name from being potheads. They constantly smoked marijuana to simply calm themselves down or just to keep themselves stable. Then came the boozers who as you might guess drank and drank and drank, all the time. They were so drunk sometimes that when they went out to guard their time at the post, they would just be sick the whole time. Then finally came what the men called the lifers. They neither smoked nor drank, and made up the minority of the American soldiers' population. Frank spoke of there only being about two or three men he knew that were lifers. Frank said that also cigarettes were used in place of marijuana at times because they too calmed the men down from the reality that faced them each day. Even with these so-called "stabilities", some men faced what was known as "Shaky Pete Syndrome". This was where the soldiers were so terrified that they would fire rounds of their ammunition at anything that moved-be it fellow soldier, enemy, or wild animal, of which there were all kinds. Frank even recalls that there were snakes everywhere, and mosquitoes so loud, so big, and so many that the noise they alone would make would be enough for you to make you think you were going insane. There were also ticks ALL OVER THE PLACE! He described this as when walking through the jungles of Vietnam, you would brush up against a bush or simply move it aside as you walked forward and after each encounter, you would be covered in ticks. Not only was Frank afraid of the creepy-crawlies all around him, but there were constantly jaguars, and all other sorts of huge animals traveling throughout the jungles right next to him.
Each man, along with Frank West himself, was responsible for their own one-quarter of a mile at the base. They would have to guard it and look after what came in, out and was killed in that space. Whatever happened in their own personal one-quarter of the mile was all their responsibility. Within the living quarters called hootches, there were what the soldiers called
"hootch-girls". There would be an older woman by the name of Mamasan who would look after all the girls. The hootch-girls were young Vietnamese women that polished the American soldiers' boots, cleaned their laundry, made their beds, and did all other sorts of things for the men on the Air Force Base. They were paid what Americans would call a measly $5.00 a month, yet to the girls, they considered themselves rich! Frank remembers that it was so unusually refreshing to see their faces light up just for getting the $5.00 and was so ecstatic that what the soldiers would consider garbage, the girls as well as all the villagers there, would consider a treasure. Literally, these people had absolutely nothing to call their own, yet smiled uncontrollably when receiving what some American people would make in an hour.
At Frank's Air Force Base, many planes landed and took off in such a fury that it cost Frank West a loss of about 20% of his hearing by the time he left. The loudness of the
F-105 Thunderchiefs,the
B-66 Sam site Jammers, and other various fighter planes left the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in a state of awe and possibly a sense of pride in the weaponries and possessions they had. About five miles off the base lay the Ammunition Storage Area that contained bombs, missiles, and all kinds of ammunition that if blown up by the enemy, would have as Frank said, "left a 5 mile wide crater in the Vietnam land". Not only that, but it would have killed off all the soldiers and villagers within its perimeters-including Frank himself. Also on the base upon which Frank West was stationed, sat many tall gun towers. These towers would send off things to light up the area if there was any of the enemy surrounding them, thus making it easy for Frank and his fellow comrades to fire round upon round of bullets into their enemy's line.
Frank said goodbye to his soldier buddies, and to his dog/best friend Fritz on October the 12th, 1972. It was a leap year in 1972 and Frank vividly recalls counting down the days until he could leave Vietnam's land just so that he might go home. 366 days and Frank West's time in Vietnam ended. Even though he was relieved to return to his family and friends back in North Carolina, Frank desperately tried in several attempts to keep Fritz for himself. He loved Fritz and leaving him was like leaving his best friend behind. He tried to see if the Armed Forces would let him take Fritz home with him, yet they denied his request and Frank left Vietnam leaving a buddy in combat. After the war ended in Vietnam, out of a total of 4,000 canine specialty dogs just like Fritz, only 300 were saved from being destroyed by the Army. Frank became devastated, thinking if only they had accepted his claim to desire Fritz's company back home. When Frank made his return back to United States soil, he came home to utter chaos and disgusting situations. Frank explained that upon his arrival back in the States, hippies came up from all sides and started spitting on him and his fellow G.I.'s and calling them such names as "baby-killer". Frank was deeply saddened. He had just fought for his country and this was how they were repaying him? Frank felt hopeless in his efforts and made his way to NORAD in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he would soon meet the love of his life.
In December of 1973, while at
NORAD, Frank West met his true love. She was in the Air Force as well, even though back then women were not allowed to fight in actual combat. She was a California girl, and he was country boy from North Carolina. They married on January 16th, 1974. After this marriage and becoming parents, Frank West and his wife left the Air Force some time after.
Frank West feels he was fighting for liberation. Not necessarily the liberation of the American people, but rather for the freedom from Communism for the Vietnamese civilians he had come to love while stationed at the base in the country itself. War to Frank West can be solved through coming to peace. He feels war is not a matter of winning or losing, although that is ultimately the result, but rather the success gained from peace talks amongst whomever is involved. When it comes down to it, Frank says that despite the desires of the Armed Forces wanting to involve and enforce what they called the
"Rules of Engagement" (a book of rules for war), he feels that when any soldier faces what might be their last move, that same soldier will end up defending not only himself, but his fellow men as well as the civilians that are innocently brought into the line of fire. Ridiculous commands such as "yelling 'halt' in three different languages" and so forth are things that when a soldier is nose-to-nose with an enemy who might just lead them to their death, are things no man wants to hear. Covering yourself in kerosene daily to keep mosquitoes away is not the one thing that most American soldiers or any soldier for that matter wants to hear in order to continue his fight in battle. Yet even in these times, Frank West, a man among men of his time to fight for liberty of civilian rights and an activist in what it means to really obtain a sense of what is really worth fighting for, did this so that we may all enjoy the liberties of our modern-day lives. Sure he bought a great American muscle car just like many of his fellow returning men when he got home, yet Frank West knows what Americans have and wishes for the people of not only this great nation but the rest of the world to remember what Vietnam really was, what it stood for, and to never forget the honorable men that gave their lives on the field way back when. To him as well as to most Americans of today, false media propaganda and faulty politicians are what lead to the Vietnam War's ultimate outcome. He craved to see peace. Then and now. He resembles this to Korea's 38th Parallel. Frank explains, "We used to say that the canine bases have or never will be overrun. We lost 2,500 P.O.W.'s and thousands of M.I.A.'s and some were never found until weeks or months after when bodies were found." The regular pay for Frank's position was around $500.00 a month and an extra $100.00 was added to that sum for their "combat pay".
Frank West was not in it for the money. Frank West was not in it for the fame or glamour-we all should know it does not bring those things anyway. Frank West, one of my heroes, was in it for liberation and courage against the wrongdoings of Communistic ways and for the freedom of the civilians that may not have been his own origin, but his own kind. Vietnam left an unforgettable impression on Frank West and it should be the same for us all as Americans. We should fight for rights and Vietnam shall never be forgotten. As Frank said, "War was hell." We should be willing to pay our respects to those both dead and alive for their brave services in this war, even if the history books count it as loss for the United States of America.
*A BIG thanks to Mr. Frank West, a man whom I have come to admire...*
