| Summary: | (9:00) Mr. White describes his experiences with the anti-war movement and his life after retiring from the military.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Euell White
June 22, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 9
Clint Alley: When you came home, I know we talked earlier about the, the antiwar people and the treatment some of the soldiers got. Did you experience any of that?
Euell White: No. Not on my, I don’t know why but nobody ever met my flights. I don’t—. I just got—there was nobody there, you know. But, ah, no, the only time I, the only time, only twice that somebody was ins—well, I, I could think of three instances where somebody irritated me. When I was stationed over at Huntsville in the National Guard I enrolled at the University of Alabama Huntsville and one of my courses was, I had daytime, one daytime course and it was American History and of course big class and there was mostly, it was a freshman course, you know, and of course mostly kids in there, you know. And, ah, I always, I had this hearing problem and I didn’t have hearing aids, yet and hadn’t ever admitted I had it to the Army, but anyway, I always get as close to the teacher as I could so I could hear.
CA: Um-hm.
EW: And, ah, one day, ah, this kid come up to me that was over on the other side and he said, “That woman—” there was a woman over there about, I guess about my age, middle age, well she was trying to be a, you know, she was dressing like the kids, you know, trying be one of them and said, “She’s trying to get a petition.” And I said, “What about?” And he said, “To stop you from wearing your uniform to class.” And I said, “A lot of people sign it?” And he said, “Nobody signed it." And this guy that was teaching the course, he was teaching American History but he was more interested in World History and he’d done, he’d been on some contract jobs putting up for the Defense Department, you know, to foreign countries. He was interested in anybody that’d been somewhere he hadn’t been. We started going to lunch together, you know cause he’s picking my brain about where all I’d been and everything. That just really infuriated her, you know. So one day she ambushed me out in the hall and said, “I want to ask you a question.” And I said, “Okay.” We was just coming out of class and she said, “Why do you wear that uniform?” And I just acted dumb. And I said, “Well,” I said, “I’m an officer in the United States Army and this is the uniform they told me I’m suppose to wear.” “That’s not what I mean!” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” “Why do you wear it to this class?” I said, “Why not?” She said, “Are you waving it?” And I said, “Well, I never heard that in relation to a uniform but if you’re talking about a flag, yes, you know, I wave the flag.” She said, “Will you, will you go to, and have lunch with me over at the student union building?” I said, “Okay.” So we went over and so she started in you know with her, the whole bit, communism is not evil like they say it is, there’s nothing to the Domino Theory and [??] and stuff. I let her go for a little while, I said, “How many communist countries have you visited?” She said, “I’ve never visited one.” I said, “I have, so you don’t know what you’re talking about.” So that kind of ended that. But that was fun more than, you know, than anything else. And I remember once when I was in Bible College, not college, I went to college but, I mean later on I went to Bible College and two things happened. Once a st—a young man just kind of latched on to me, you know, I reckon needing a father-figure and hanging, hanging around me and so one day we was having an exam and, and the next day and he said, “Can we go study together?” Which meant I need some help, you know. And so I took him over at my house. And I mean, you know, we’re studying together, I’m helping him cram for the exam and he said, “Have you apologized for Vietnam?” And that really shocked me. I mean, because this kid really looked up to me I thought, you know. I said, “No, do you think I should?” And he said, “Well, I guess.” And I looked, looked out the window and there’s kids playing in the street out there, you know and I said, “You see those kids out in the street?” And I said, “If a car comes along and hits one of them and you and I go out to help them and we do everything we know to keep them alive but he dies,” I said, “do we, do we owe anybody an apology?” “No.” And I said, “Well, I don’t owe anybody an apology.” I said, “I was indoctrinated that we were going to save the people from communism. I did all I could. It’s not my fault that we didn’t. I didn’t quit.” But, ah, and then I was telling earlier about being in the class, this was in my last quarter, it was sort of a, wasn’t a, labeled a speech class but it was a teaching class. But the, the teacher who was a retired Air Force colonel himself or Air Force pilot, Ace guy, you know, he wanted us to start off by each one of us giving a little, you know, thing about our history, telling about our lives. I’m up next and a guy over next to me leaned over to me and said, “When you get up there we don’t want to hear anything about your military service.” And it shook me for a little bit, you know. I think, “Is that what they all think?” But I just got up and said—pointed him out and told what he said to me. Gave me a good introduction, you know.
CA: Yeah.
EW: And I said, “I’ve spent most of my adult life in the military so if I can’t talk about that I don’t have much to say.” You know. That was the only speech that was applauded that night. And I didn’t know him well enough for him, you know I didn’t know him, so I don’t know how he knew that about me but I guess he was one of those protesters, you know.
CA: Yeah.
EW: He was right, about the right age for that I guess.
CA: Yeah. Well and so did you, did you get to retire in '72 like you had expected?
EW: Yeah, I did. I, I, one statute said that if you were a, a reserve officer you had to have at least ten years commissioned service to retire in grade. And another statute said if you’re a reserve officer you had to retire at twenty years. Well, I was, had ten years and seven months service when I got commissioned so they made, they made an exception, you know and let me get my ten years in, you know. But theoretically I had to retire then but I was offered a chance to stay a little bit longer but I didn’t, by that time I didn’t, didn’t want to, you know, everything in such a mess.
CA: Yeah. Well what did you do after the military? I know you said you went to Bible College.
EW: Well I went to, I entered Columbus College as a junior in Columbus, Georgia. It’s Columbus State University now. Cause you know I, after I got commissioned, everywhere I went I’d take college courses, you know, course I’d, I’d gotten a GED shortly after I got in the Army and then had taken the Army—they had a college level GED, the Army gave me credit for one year with that, you know. So I entered the Columbus College as a junior and majored in Business Administration and graduated in seven—that was in ’72 and then graduated in ’74, same weekend my daughter graduated from high school.
CA: Aww.
EW: And then I came back here and worked for Reynolds for a little while as a foreman. Didn’t like it. But, anyway, I turned down a lot of good jobs because I didn’t, just couldn’t put my heart into it and didn’t want to take one and not be dedicated to it and then in 1977 I finally admitted what my real purpose was and that I was called to the ministry, so I’ve been in full time ministry since then until 2001 I retired because of health.
CA: Okay. At what church did you preach?
EW: I, I was the associate pastor at Christ Chapel up in, up in Petersville.
CA: Okay.
EW: My main ministry though was not preaching, it was counseling. I, I built the counseling department there. Still, still going strong.
CA: Um-hm. That’s wonderful. All right. I think we’ve covered everything. As much as we could. Well we sure do thank you again for coming out here today and, ah, do you have anything else you’d like to add before we turn the things off here?
EW: Well, it’d be political if I did so you don’t, you don’t want that.
CA: Well, you can say whatever you’d like. It’s fine.
EW: No, I guess not. I’m, I’ll just say this, I’m really concerned about our nation because I feel like that it’s being, I don’t know if the word led is, is really appropriate or not, but by people who for the most part are not patriots. They don’t love our country. Politicians deal with issues based on what it will do for them personally rather than convictions, you know. And this is, I know this is a generalization, it doesn’t apply to everybody.
CA: Yeah.
EW: Applies to most of them though, I think.
CA: Yeah.
EW: For example, we’re killing babies and they don’t look at it as a moral issue; they look at as a political football, you know.
CA: Yeah.
|
|---|
