Veteran Interview with Euell White (E)
(6:00) Mr. White tells about his experience in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive Interview with Euell White June 22, 2011 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood Clip 5 Clint Alley: So you got to go back to Okinawa after you wer...
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| Format: | Electronic |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library
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| Online Access: | https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/war/id/159 |
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Electronic |
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War Years at Home and Abroad Collection |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Military life |
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Military life Veteran Interview with Euell White (E) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Military life Military maneuvers; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 |
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(6:00) Mr. White tells about his experience in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Euell White
June 22, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5
Clint Alley: So you got to go back to Okinawa after you were wounded.
Euell White: Oh, yeah. I went back there and then in 1966 I went to Korea. I spent about six months in Korea in 1966. I went down with the planning group for the guerilla warfare exercise and then they designated me to be the logistics officer for the exercise and so I stayed there after everybody else left to make preparations so I spent about six months in Korea in 1966 and that was the last [??] thing I was involved in. And when we came back to, ah, I was assigned to the Infantry School, as instructor of the Platoon Tactics Committee in the Company Tactics Department. And that was supposed to be what they call a stabilized assignment. In other words, when they get you, you’re gonna be there for so many years, you know. Well I was there and I was required to attend a little instructor school and I’m shopping for a house and, and just, we’d just made the deal to buy the house that they’d, we’d already moved in it although it hadn’t really been closed, they let us move in it. And I was just about to finish my instructor training. They’d already given me a job; I was a Team Chief in the, in the committee there and I was going to school and doing my job at the same time and I get a call from the Pentagon, the personnel, telling me that they’re getting ready to send me to Vietnam and I’ve got to go to Ft. Bragg and go to school to be an advisor to the Vietnamese. And I said, “Well, what happened to the stabilized tour?” He said, “Well, you haven’t been to Vietnam, yet.” And I said, “I haven’t?” And they said, “No.” And I said, “Well, explain to me how I got the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart.” And he said, “But you were just on a six month TDY tour.” And I said, “The guy that shot me, didn’t seem to matter to him when I was—.” But anyway, that’s what I did, I went to the—.
CA: Goodness.
EW: So I just put my house up for sale and we, in the fall I think it was I went to—you know, I still had a few months there but, so then I was, I went to the Binh Duong Province, which was not far from Saigon. North, about, I was about fifteen miles north of Saigon on my second tour and I was assigned as advisor to an Infantry Battalion, Vietnamese Infantry Battalion.
CA: Okay.
EW: And I was wounded during that tour from a grenade, a rocket-propelled grenade during the Tet Offensive. That was ’67. I got there in December of ’67 and the Tet Offensive started in February. CA: So, where were you during the Tet Offensive? Were you in Saigon or were you still—?
EW: No, I was at—we, my battalion had a mission before the Tet Offensive. We were in the re-development thing, you know, we had a, we were in an area called An Son, redevelopment area and it was about, well in miles I’d say about five by, five by three miles, you know, that size area and it was, it was bounded by a highway, two rivers and a, what I would call a creek. Saigon River was on our western boundary and another river called the Ba Lua River was on the north and main Highway 13, well the main highway there is just a two-lane paved road, you know, that was our eastern boundary and there was another little stream to the south and the people inside there they had a fish farm, you know that some, I guess Americans had—, and they had a pig farm, you know where they decided that they’d raise pigs and they give some and a lot of tropical fruit there, you know. And our job was to try to keep the peace for them, wanted to keep the Viet Cong from harassing them, you know, and so it was, till the Tet Offensive came. When the Tet Offensive came, we left enough there just to secure our camp, you know, and, and we had other missions all during that time.
CA: Um-hm. So did they, did the, did the Viet Cong, did they start the attacks like in the middle of the night in the Tet Offensive or was it—?
EW: Yeah, it, that was pretty well rou—you know, all the attacks I had from them, that was—
CA: Yeah.
EW: ― you know, right close to midnight.
CA: Oh, okay.
EW: Like I say, they didn’t touch us at first. You know the first two or three days went by and we were hearing about all that’s happening around us and they didn’t, you know, they didn’t, we weren’t, maybe we weren’t important enough, I don’t know.
CA: Okay.
EW: But the first, first thing we had, we got, we got ordered to go out to the Highway 13 and secure a certain section of it starting where the road from our area, camp went to the highway to the south, you know, and the first thing we encountered was a school called—in a little town called Bung, B-u-n-g. A boys’ school and a girls’ school there right on the side of the highway. And when we got to the school, they had taken, they had felled concrete utility poles, you know and then, and then taken the, the furniture out of the schools which was tables you know, tables and chairs and piled it up and made a barrier in the road, course they had it booby-trapped.
CA: Yeah.
EW: So we had to blow it up, you know. And after the Tet Offensive was over my Battalion Commander was punished for destroying school property. The communist, you know, the government, the Viet Cong was behind that, you know, they’d get the old schoolmaster and file a complaint. That’s, see that’s a good illustration of how the communists can do something and then work it to their own, you know work it against you.
CA: Um-hm. My goodness, that’s crazy. Destroying school property. |
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Veteran Interview with Euell White (E) |
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Veteran Interview with Euell White (E) |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Veteran Interview with Euell White (E)Military maneuvers; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975(6:00) Mr. White tells about his experience in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.Florence-Lauderdale Public LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryEuell White2011-06-22sound/textaudio/mp3; text/pdfEnglishPart of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library CollectionMay be protected by U.S. Copyright laws. Contact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Euell White
June 22, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5
Clint Alley: So you got to go back to Okinawa after you were wounded.
Euell White: Oh, yeah. I went back there and then in 1966 I went to Korea. I spent about six months in Korea in 1966. I went down with the planning group for the guerilla warfare exercise and then they designated me to be the logistics officer for the exercise and so I stayed there after everybody else left to make preparations so I spent about six months in Korea in 1966 and that was the last [??] thing I was involved in. And when we came back to, ah, I was assigned to the Infantry School, as instructor of the Platoon Tactics Committee in the Company Tactics Department. And that was supposed to be what they call a stabilized assignment. In other words, when they get you, you’re gonna be there for so many years, you know. Well I was there and I was required to attend a little instructor school and I’m shopping for a house and, and just, we’d just made the deal to buy the house that they’d, we’d already moved in it although it hadn’t really been closed, they let us move in it. And I was just about to finish my instructor training. They’d already given me a job; I was a Team Chief in the, in the committee there and I was going to school and doing my job at the same time and I get a call from the Pentagon, the personnel, telling me that they’re getting ready to send me to Vietnam and I’ve got to go to Ft. Bragg and go to school to be an advisor to the Vietnamese. And I said, “Well, what happened to the stabilized tour?” He said, “Well, you haven’t been to Vietnam, yet.” And I said, “I haven’t?” And they said, “No.” And I said, “Well, explain to me how I got the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart.” And he said, “But you were just on a six month TDY tour.” And I said, “The guy that shot me, didn’t seem to matter to him when I was—.” But anyway, that’s what I did, I went to the—.
CA: Goodness.
EW: So I just put my house up for sale and we, in the fall I think it was I went to—you know, I still had a few months there but, so then I was, I went to the Binh Duong Province, which was not far from Saigon. North, about, I was about fifteen miles north of Saigon on my second tour and I was assigned as advisor to an Infantry Battalion, Vietnamese Infantry Battalion.
CA: Okay.
EW: And I was wounded during that tour from a grenade, a rocket-propelled grenade during the Tet Offensive. That was ’67. I got there in December of ’67 and the Tet Offensive started in February. CA: So, where were you during the Tet Offensive? Were you in Saigon or were you still—?
EW: No, I was at—we, my battalion had a mission before the Tet Offensive. We were in the re-development thing, you know, we had a, we were in an area called An Son, redevelopment area and it was about, well in miles I’d say about five by, five by three miles, you know, that size area and it was, it was bounded by a highway, two rivers and a, what I would call a creek. Saigon River was on our western boundary and another river called the Ba Lua River was on the north and main Highway 13, well the main highway there is just a two-lane paved road, you know, that was our eastern boundary and there was another little stream to the south and the people inside there they had a fish farm, you know that some, I guess Americans had—, and they had a pig farm, you know where they decided that they’d raise pigs and they give some and a lot of tropical fruit there, you know. And our job was to try to keep the peace for them, wanted to keep the Viet Cong from harassing them, you know, and so it was, till the Tet Offensive came. When the Tet Offensive came, we left enough there just to secure our camp, you know, and, and we had other missions all during that time.
CA: Um-hm. So did they, did the, did the Viet Cong, did they start the attacks like in the middle of the night in the Tet Offensive or was it—?
EW: Yeah, it, that was pretty well rou—you know, all the attacks I had from them, that was—
CA: Yeah.
EW: ― you know, right close to midnight.
CA: Oh, okay.
EW: Like I say, they didn’t touch us at first. You know the first two or three days went by and we were hearing about all that’s happening around us and they didn’t, you know, they didn’t, we weren’t, maybe we weren’t important enough, I don’t know.
CA: Okay.
EW: But the first, first thing we had, we got, we got ordered to go out to the Highway 13 and secure a certain section of it starting where the road from our area, camp went to the highway to the south, you know, and the first thing we encountered was a school called—in a little town called Bung, B-u-n-g. A boys’ school and a girls’ school there right on the side of the highway. And when we got to the school, they had taken, they had felled concrete utility poles, you know and then, and then taken the, the furniture out of the schools which was tables you know, tables and chairs and piled it up and made a barrier in the road, course they had it booby-trapped.
CA: Yeah.
EW: So we had to blow it up, you know. And after the Tet Offensive was over my Battalion Commander was punished for destroying school property. The communist, you know, the government, the Viet Cong was behind that, you know, they’d get the old schoolmaster and file a complaint. That’s, see that’s a good illustration of how the communists can do something and then work it to their own, you know work it against you.
CA: Um-hm. My goodness, that’s crazy. Destroying school property.http://server15947.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/war,159 |