Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
Veterans Archives is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information. www.veteransarchives.org
Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
From Vietnam to Veterans: A Marine's Journey Through War and Healing (Mike Omstead)
The weight of war doesn't end when the boots leave foreign soil. In this deeply moving conversation, Marine Corps veteran Mike Omstead takes us through his remarkable journey from the streets of Detroit to the jungles of Vietnam and back again.
Growing up dyslexic in a large family, Mike found his calling in the Marine Corps after a brief college football attempt. His candid recollections of boot camp, where drill instructors "taught us to be killing machines," give way to raw accounts of his 13 months in Vietnam as a radio operator. The vivid details—from close combat encounters to bathing in a pond with fellow Marines while a massive snake approached—paint a startlingly authentic picture of the Vietnam experience rarely captured in history books.
But the true battle began after returning home. Greeted with a Dear John letter at the airport and struggling with what we now recognize as PTSD, Mike spent nearly a decade unable to discuss his experiences. "For the first ten years, it's either got to be destroyed or it goes my way," he explains, describing the rigid mindset that plagued many returning veterans.
The turning point came through love and community. His reconnection with Linda, a childhood friend who understood his struggles as both a nurse and compassionate partner, provided the foundation for healing. Today, as American Legion commander, Mike creates space for veterans to find the brotherhood that saved him. "If you can find the brotherhood and love of other veterans and share that with everybody, that'll make your life better," he reflects.
Whether you're a veteran seeking connection, a family member trying to understand, or simply a student of human resilience, Mike's story reminds us that our deepest wounds—and our most profound healing—often come through our relationships with others.
Today is Wednesday, july 16th. We're talking with Mike Amstead, who served in the United States Marine Corps. So good afternoon, mike. Good afternoon I've got to say Semper Fi. I grew up in a Marine Corps household.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Semper Fi Right back at you.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, you asked before we really started recording. What's the first question? So the first question I keep it simple is when and where were you?
Speaker 2:born. I was born on the east side of Detroit and when I was about four years old we moved to the west side of Detroit, eight miles south of Southfield, before there was an expressway, and Dad always thought that they should have taken the house, because the expressway came right through the backyard. They took half the backyard but they didn't take the house.
Speaker 1:That must have made for a lot of noise. Yeah, a lot of noise.
Speaker 2:We were right on the exit coming off on the 8 Mile.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, so you pretty much grew up on the west side of Detroit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, well, tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up. Did you have brothers and sisters?
Speaker 2:Yep, my brother Jerry, jimmy, passed away, and my brother Jerry and myself and Marsha and Susie. And then when my aunt passed, we got picked up, kim and Mark, and we're one big happy family Lots of kids, then Lots of kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where did you fall in the food chain there?
Speaker 2:I was the second oldest, okay, my brother Jerry's the oldest. Okay, that survived.
Speaker 1:So you had some responsibility, not all the responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, my brother, jerry, got married early, at 18, and that left me in the house there taking care of all the girls and stuff the kids Wow, with mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what did your parents do?
Speaker 2:My dad was a toolmaker. He was an accountant by trade but he didn't like the accounting business so he went to work for his uncle in the machine business and ended up working on a boring mill and he enjoyed that. He worked with little tiny fine numbers, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, liked working with his hands then too, and all that, yeah that, yeah, liked working with his hands then too, and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dad always liked to work with his hands.
Speaker 1:And then what?
Speaker 2:about your mom. Mom was a housemaker. She was an artist but she could draw and paint beautifully. But basically she raised us kids Okay.
Speaker 1:What was it like growing up with kind of a mixed family right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was challenging at times, depressing at times and a lot of fun at times. The two kids we picked up, Mark and Kim, are my physically cousins, but they became my brothers and sisters. Mom and dad adopted them. My aunt was murdered in a sad situation. Oh, and she had four kids and we took two. My mom and dad took two and adopted them, and the older two went with my younger aunt in Toledo.
Speaker 2:Okay, now do the families get together very often, then yeah, we would get together at least once a month or so.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:All right. And then, once I hit 18, 19 years of age, I was gone in the service.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, how was school for you? Can we talk a little bit about that? What was school like?
Speaker 2:School was tough for me. I'm dyslexic. You know what dyslexia is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:And so it was very difficult. The biggest fear I had was if anybody asked me to read out loud yeah, because in your head you're reversing things nonstop, always. And so it went slow. But but I found that my retention was much better than most kids. So I did good on the tests, but I didn't do well in the classroom. Also.
Speaker 2:I went to, went on, graduated from high school and went to the University of Michigan. Thought I was going to play football and they told me you're Mike, but you can't run for crap. Oh no, I said you better find something else to do. My dad was a pilot in World War II. Oh, okay, and I couldn't get in the Air Force because I had bad eyes. But we had a neighbor, nick Stingle, who was one of the original guys on Okinawa that put the flag up and all that jazz Really, and he was a United States Marine. And Dad and Nick would be bullshitting and I'd be listening to him and I said, man, if I couldn't do the Air Force, I'm going to join the Marine Corps. So I joined the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:You know, that's interesting to me because when I was in the military I did some time as a recruiter and typically people that joined the Marine Corps, that was it. They didn't have their sights on anything else but the Marine Corps. But you, it was almost a second choice.
Speaker 2:Almost yeah, almost. But once it became clear to me I couldn't be a pilot, I definitely wanted to be a Marine. Clear to me I couldn't be a pilot, I definitely wanted to be a Marine. Once you get in, well, because I had been playing ball and I was in pretty good shape. I was better physically than the other recruits, so boot camp was easy for me. However, they pointed me out to try and pick on me to make me look smaller to the other guys, and I remember I spent two years looking for my drill instructor. Once I got overseas I said if I ever see him, I'm going to talk to him real close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be a one-way conversation. One-way conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he used to take great joy in jumping up on top of a garbage can right outside the 50 gallon barrel. He'd jump up on there, he'd kick me in the chest with his foot like that and he wanted me to break and I wouldn't break. Yeah, so that was part of the training, you know let's try to see how far he could push you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, what was your? So I, you know, of course basic training wasn't all that bad. But what was your? So I, you know, of course basic training wasn't all that bad. But what was your like initial impression when you got off the bus and you got to basic training?
Speaker 2:Ah, that was kind of fun, first time I'd ever been on a big airplane. Flew flew out to California. They picked us up at the airport. The bus got off. Okay, stand on those yellow footprints. We stood on those yellow footprints. We stood on the yellow footprints. They took us in, shaved our heads. I remember Barbara saying how do you want it? I says what are you talking about? Gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just leave a little on top.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and from there on it was just day after day. You know get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and hit the rack at whatever time it got dark.
Speaker 1:So you were there in San Diego then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, San.
Speaker 2:Diego Butted up right to the Navy, basic training, in fact during Vietnam we had to give blood every 10 weeks, so we would go. We didn't mind that, because it's the first time you get to sit still and lay down, you know. So you're laying on a gurney pump and you look out the window and you'd see these guys with little white hats and blue uniforms. We'd say who's that? He says that's the Navy's boot camp. It's the Navy's boot camp and we're sitting there with these bright orange shirts on yellow shirts, orange reddish pants and high-top sneakers. So we couldn't get out the gate without somebody saying, hey, we know who you are Right. So that made it very, very competitive once we got to Oceanside with the Navy. That's why they became our dance partners.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that what that is? Yeah, I'll never forget. So I went to boot camp in San Diego for the Navy. And we had a guy that went AWOL but he jumped the fence. But he jumped the fence in the Marine Corps boot camp and they kept him for a couple of weeks and he was never the same when he got back.
Speaker 2:but he didn't want to go anywhere but Navy boot camp after that yeah, we had one guy go under the fence because it was right up to the airport.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right up to the airport and they brought him back and they put him in a wall locker and they put ammonia on a sponge for a couple hours in there. When they took him out his eyes were all swollen shut and stuff. He didn't want to go nowhere anymore after that.
Speaker 1:Oh no, he became a pretty good recruit then Became a pretty good recruit, then All things you can't do anymore Things they used to do to us.
Speaker 2:it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, I know They'd call our moms names. Oh sure, all kinds of you can't do any of that anymore.
Speaker 2:I remember they used to when you had mail call they would feel it all through yourself, like my girlfriend wants a couple pieces of gum or something. In a letter he says go ahead, chew the gum. I said I didn't tell you to unwrap it. I said chew the gum, oh no, you get aluminum foil in your teeth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all kinds of ways to torture you. Oh yeah, now they still do the crucible when you were in boot camp, what they call it the crucible where, like where, at the end of boot camp you do this whole field training exercise. I can't say no At the end of boot camp.
Speaker 2:we had a regular graduation ceremony. Yeah, I think we went. You know it's been 50, 60 years, but I think we went home for a couple of weeks and then came back and we went to uh, went to 29 palms and uh gave us some hand-to-hand stuff and uh, from there then we we were shipped over to okinawa spent a night or two in okinawa, okinawa to denang, denang, right up to vandergrift wow, I want to back up on a few things you said there.
Speaker 1:So what was it like coming home after going through boot camp? What was that like for you?
Speaker 2:My friends and parents couldn't believe the difference as far as discipline and doing things just so Because it used to be okay. Now it was yes, that type of thing, yeah, it'll change you for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it'll change you.
Speaker 2:My dad. He kind of understood because he was in the military Right and he was the only one that did understand. And my dad and I had a very close connection after I got into the service. It was very, very nice close connection. After I got into the service. It was very, very nice. I remember him telling me things about when he was in the service. He would write me letters and he kept writing letters all the way through, whereas you can't ask an 18-year-old girl to stay with you for two years, no, so her letters kind of weaned off. And when I got home I got the old Dear John in the airport. And the reason I got it in the airport is because my dad had told me please don't do that to him in the mail. Right, he might do something stupid over there and I probably would have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You're a kid, yeah. You're just a kid, yeah. So you come home, you go back. Now I know everyone in the Marine Corps is infantry right.
Speaker 2:So was that your MOS or was that your job? My MOS was 2531 radio operator Okay. But everybody's a grunt in the Marine Corps, so you have to be trained in close combat. Because I ended up working with recon anyhow and after a while it kind of became my team, so to speak, because I was the longest surviving guy in the group. Really Because you've got a seven or eight man team, you lose a couple of guys, either get injured or they go all the way. Yeah and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how long were you at 29 Palms then?
Speaker 2:29 Palms, I think. We were there for four weeks Four weeks of close combat, that kind of stuff, and learned to use a knife real good and it came in handy yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad served in Korea, or my stepdad served in Korea, and I don't think his experience was anywhere near the Vietnam veterans' experience, but he did talk about the things that they taught him he used when he was there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they basically taught us to be killing machines, right, and it came in real handy. Yeah, until they started using what they now call Agent Orange. You know you could be from me to that door from one of the little bricks and you wouldn't know it in the jungle. You know, first guy that moves, he gets it. You know that type of thing.
Speaker 1:So you flew from there. You said okinawa, and then okinawa.
Speaker 2:We spent two days in okinawa for some reason, I don't know why, but okinawa was was weird because, uh, people all lived in the cardboard boxes. It looked like outside the gate of the of the base really yeah, I remember taking the bus from the airport into the base and all of our Sea Rat boxes were all put together and made into little houses and stuff and all along the road as you go into the base there was people living in them or sleeping in them. Of course, this is 67.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and so you flew from there to Vietnam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from there I went right into Da Nang, from Da Nang to Van Der Riff what was it?
Speaker 1:like landing in Da Nang. What was that like? Your first impression of being in Vietnam?
Speaker 2:Well, when you first get off the plane you say, son of a bitch, it's hot here, and within two weeks you don't even pay any attention to that.
Speaker 2:But at first you thought it was hot and, uh, you're wondering what's going on and and they start, deal they, everybody on the plane ends up in a different unit somewhere, uh-huh and you, you get sent to your unit, that type of stuff now did you, uh, when you went to your, your final unit, um, was there anybody that you had been in training with that went with you?
Speaker 1:Or is it just you?
Speaker 2:No, any of the guys I went to boot camp with or went out to bits and that type of stuff, I don't remember seeing any of them.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you get there. You're the new guy and you don't know anybody. Don't know nobody, yeah.
Speaker 2:But we go to Vandegrift in the rear was almost like being on at at the boot camp base, not quonset huts but regular tents, that type of stuff. And then you were assigned out to different units and as a radio operator I would one day I'd be with with recon, one day I'd be be with with a field team, that type of stuff. And you got to know about everybody in the division, so to speak.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I guess that would be good in a way. I think it'd be.
Speaker 2:was it a little bit tough, like moving from group to group Because they're pretty much a no, because the Marine Corps is so small, you get to know everybody and we all worked together. Okay, there was me and Sergeant Lufau were basically the. We were the two biggest guys in the whole battalion and we kind of took care of whatever the officers wanted us to do, like guys weren't allowed to have personal weapons and some guys they'd get like an oatmeal box and inside there's a .45 or something like that or .38 personal weapon and they wouldn't give them up. And the officers asked me go down there and get that away from those guys. And the next thing I know I got a gun on my face and the MPs come. They empty out the unit. The sergeant says which one of those guys put the gun in your face? He says that one.
Speaker 2:He says, these are yours and I beat the shit out of him.
Speaker 1:They let you take care of business. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:He wouldn't mess with anything I got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no fun in being on the business end of a gun.
Speaker 2:No, no, you don't like having a .38 in your face, mm-mm.
Speaker 1:No, now you were there. So were you at that base the whole time that you were in the country then, or did you? I was in.
Speaker 2:Vandergrift went up to Khe Sanh and I'm trying to think of the name of the other place. They had the farthest north. It could go where they had a runway and they would blow the damn runway up at least once or twice a month and then they'd have to rebuild it.
Speaker 2:That was as far as you could get a fixed-wing plane in. We used the. Every time they blow the place up, we'd take the uh, the big metal grapes that they had. That all interlocked we'd do is the top of our hoochies and we put sandbags over top of them. We'd be pretty safe in there yeah because there was always. Every night there'd be airstrikes, but most of the time after about two, four, five months, I spent most of my time in the jungle.
Speaker 1:So you were there for a year. Then Was it a total year.
Speaker 2:Well, Marine Corps' hitch is 13 months.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because the Army was 12, Marine Corps had to do more.
Speaker 1:Right, of course, yeah, first in last out, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our hitches were 13. I was at my second hitch when they took us out. In fact, if you recall, nixon was trying to get re-elected. He brought guys out of the jungle. We didn't know what the hell was going on. All we knew was get back to the rear. You're on a plane getting the hell out of here, turn in all your personal stuff, don't take any weapons. And we flew home.
Speaker 2:Wow, and when we got off, it was kind of ugly, because I remember getting off the plane and all the colors that you hadn't seen. You hadn't seen bright colors for like two years, yeah, you know. And they just were shocking and the cars going by, and then there were people outside the thing and they were yelling at us. However, the damn officer was there, not an officer, but a politician, and he was giving out. He was a little gold star. You know, we all had a little gold star to give out. I still got it on my, my honor guard uniform Anyhow.
Speaker 2:But they told us you're going to go home, don't wear your uniforms home and get street clothes. Well, I didn't have any street clothes with me. I remember in Hong Kong I went on an hour and an hour to Hong Kong. I had three suits made because when I got home I was going to go to work with my brother. Well, by the time I got out of there I opened up the duffel bag where they had been stored. They were just rotted away. Oh no, yeah, back in the 60s, if you remember, man, we had bell-bottom trousers. Oh yeah, double-breasted. They were really smooth, big old, wide collars.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, man, I remember all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was dapper as hell, but they rotted away in that duffel bag. That was worthless no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Something that you probably have heard from other guys from Vietnam when the shit happened, when stuff happened, never see an officer around. I remember one time I had an officer around. I remember one time I had an officer around. He's on a chopper. We're going into a hill we had taken over two days before, so the hill's supposed to be safe. We don't know because we hadn't been there in two days. We're going in and I got a major or a colonel I forget what it was with me. I'm his radio operator for this particular deal and he's going to go up to the top of the hill now, get back on and go home and he's got all this crap on his door. You know well understand, the officers and Marine Corps back then were all reservists and they probably were on a desk yesterday like Ed McMahon. They pull them out of there and they send them over to Vietnam for a little stretch. And I told him. I said, sir, you don't want to get off with all that crap on you.
Speaker 1:I didn't say crap.
Speaker 2:I said you don't want to have those insignias on you when you get off the chopper. He says don't worry about it, don't worry about it, corporal, don't worry about it. Okay, we didn't land. We got down within about three or four feet of the ground. He jumps out, he took two steps and bang, he was shot and there was three of them, or four of them, behind a log and we lit up that log, something terrible. We got rid of them but had to get a new major.
Speaker 1:Some people you just can't help. Yeah, right, yeah, because they know it.
Speaker 2:Then the night I got hurt, we had incoming coming in and it was 1 or 2 in the morning, whatever, and one of my buddies I think it was Gerald Smith would fall asleep outside and the incoming. I go out to get him. I'm dragging his ass back in. He's waking up and shit's dropping all around us and we get back in the hole. Somebody says he's hit. Oh shit, we couldn't find no blood. It was me. Oh no, I hadn't gotten hit.
Speaker 2:They called a corpsman. Corpsman, give me the poppers. Poppers are the greatest things in sliced bread. They flew me back to Da Nang. From Da Nang I went out to some ship. I was on a ship. I remember the gangplank, it was the hallways all the way down, body bags, the whole thing. Jesus Christ, this is not the place for me. Next thing, I know I think they sent me to Japan and I was in a Japanese hospital, but with British nurses, and that's the biggest lie they tell you. They say if you get hurt you get to go home. Bullshit, it's all about your R&R, it's all about your MOS. Yeah, if you're a straight grunt, maybe you get to go home, but they needed radio operators so I had to go back and I went back.
Speaker 1:So they patched you up and you yeah. So they patched up up and you yeah. So you, uh, they patched up and sent you back but so how?
Speaker 2:what was your injury? What had happened? Uh, I had, yet I had yet a shrapnel down through the groin here, uh-huh and uh, uh. Apparently I got a little ding in the back. I thought it was a ding and then Corman just patched that up. But they were concerned about this and they patched me up down there. I think they did surgery.
Speaker 1:I'm not real clear because you know it was like in and out, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And it all happened. Just I was just out crawling on the ground to drag Smitty back in the hole, that's it. But you know mortars, they go out like this. You know the concussions, so that was that?
Speaker 1:Did you get used to it? I found I got used to a lot of stuff in combat. Oh, absolutely, when you first get there you're not used to it for sure, but somehow it just becomes how it is.
Speaker 2:It's like the heat. It rains half the year. I don't remember it raining, but it did. I don't remember the heat because we didn't pay any attention to the damn heat after a while. But the guys Smitty and John, you become really tight. The group. Once you get a group that you work with on a regular basis, you become real tight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it really does become a brotherhood, right? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what this place, this place here, this post, has saved my life. I've got PTSD and I have a service service dog and I'm allowed to bring my service dog in here, but I have a new one now because my other one passed, yeah, and she's in training, so anyhow, uh, if it weren't for these guys, it's unbelievable. Your life is, your life is like it starts all over in the military. You got your life before the military. You got your life before the military, you got your life after the military. But everything goes back to the military and then it goes back out as far as what you're thinking about, how you operate, what you might do, what you think you're looking at, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, it changes you right. Oh yeah, Not only do you grow up, but you become a different person.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, I'll never be the person I was before in the service.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think to some extent too, you're never the same person when you come home from combat either. No, the people that left with me are not the same people that came back. We were all changed by it.
Speaker 2:When I came back I didn't talk to anybody about anything. I think it took about 10 years. My wife, I got married to the first thing in skirts when I came home because I got deer johned Right and that lasted about three or four years and we separated and I met my wife, linda again because Linda and I went to school together as kids, went to kindergarten together and the whole thing, and then we got married. We've been married now 48, 49 years or something like that. Wow, but I never said anything to anybody and Linda made me go get some help. Yeah, and I saw a couple of therapists. In fact there's one of Sharon that worked out of this club here. It's down in Florida now and we see her when we go down there. She got married and we went to her wedding and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Anyhow. So to back up a little bit, so they patched you up, they send you back. How much longer did you stay then, once you went back into Vietnam?
Speaker 2:I think that was like mid-summer, okay, and they drug us out of there in between Christmas and New Year's of 1969-70.
Speaker 1:And that's when we came home, so you came home and got your gold star, yeah, so you didn't have a suit to go to work in. So did you come back to Detroit then, after you returned? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I came back to Detroit. Then, after you returned, yeah, okay, yeah, I came back to Detroit. And I remember, because at this point I didn't know but the girl I thought I was engaged to, her name was Mary, and I remember calling her from someplace overseas. I think we must have stopped to fuel the plane, like in Okinawa or something like that. I'm not sure where it was, but I called her and I said meet me at the airport, all alone, we'll go someplace. And then the next thing I know I get back to Detroit. I get off the plane. I'm expecting nobody there but her, and there's every person I ever knew in my life, and all the way in the back of the group there's Mary.
Speaker 2:I says something's wrong here right yeah, hi, mom, hi, dad, hugging and kissing and all the jazz. And I get back to her and she says we got to talk. Is oh, I know what this means. Yeah, and like I told you earlier, you cannot ask-year-old girl to wait two years for a guy. We were madly in love when I left, but that didn't last.
Speaker 1:Rarely, rarely does it last, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:And then I, in that first 10-year period I was all screwed up in the head anyhow. Yeah, and for some crazy-ass reason I went over to find out who the hell she's seeing and she's got this new boyfriend and his car's parked outside her parents' house and it was like 11 o'clock at night. I destroyed his fucking car, I don't know. I just busted all the windows and everything and I sat there and waited for him to come out. He wouldn't come out, no, and they wouldn't call the police. They didn't call the police or nothing. I finally just left and that was my kiss goodbye to those two idiots, right.
Speaker 1:Probably, if you had it to do all over again, you might not have done that. I wouldn't have done that, yeah.
Speaker 2:But when I came home you know for the first 10 years that's got to be destroyed or else it goes my way. There's only two avenues Right, you're done or you're me and that makes you hard to live with.
Speaker 1:Oh, very yeah, very hard to live with. So how did?
Speaker 2:you meet your first wife. The guys that were my buddies, my high school buddies, set me up on a blind date about two weeks after I got home and we went out and we went to a dance place. We danced and she liked dancing, and so we had a dance place. We danced and she liked dancing, and so we had a good time. And about a week or two later we had done our thing together and I asked her. I said well, why don't we just get married? She says okay, and so we got married and I went to work with my brother.
Speaker 1:My brother, worked for the.
Speaker 2:AFL-CIO and I became an agent for the AFL-CIO, a local union, 876. And I came home and she was a smoker and I didn't like smoking cigarettes at all. If you smoke cigarettes in Vietnam, you're just a target. You know that little glow, oh yeah, yeah. So I didn't care for cigarette smoking and I'd come home and she'd be smoking. She'd be asleep in the chair with a big cigarette, do a hang day, and it is this one day she's going to burn down a house or something. And uh, she drank a little little too much when I wasn't around by herself. Yeah, you know, I don't mind having a drink with her, but when she's all by herself and she's getting loaded up. So we ended up getting a divorce and about that time we had our 10-year high school reunion, 10-year high school reunion. And that's where I met Linda back up again.
Speaker 2:I said well, you're looking good. But when we were kids she's an only child, my wife and when we were kids her mother used to dress her real nice, you know plaited skirts. So we thought she was the rich kid and we were the poor kids that wore jeans with holes in them. So I never really talked to her a lot as a kid in school. But we dated for it was six, seven months and found out that everything we had was in common. She liked the things I liked. She loved going up in the woods, her dad was a deer hunter, she liked all of that stuff. So we ended up we moved in together. We lived together for about six months, maybe seven months, eight months, whatever it was. And I says, well, let's get married. And we did, and we've been happily married now for 47 years, whatever it was. And I says, well, let's get married. And we did, and we've been happily married now for 47 years.
Speaker 1:I think it is 48. I'd have to check with her. Yeah, yeah, well, that's pretty amazing. Did you find that, did she?
Speaker 2:did she have like a calming effect on you? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, she's a nurse and she helped me with a lot of stuff. She understood. She understood a lot of the crap that was going on with me and uh, it took about 10 years and about two or three different therapists and stuff like that and uh, I could start talking about it like I could never do what we're doing right now. When I first came home, I just told you no, thank you and walked away, but she's the center of my universe. She's just now starting to get involved up here. She's a workaholic. Like I told you, she's a nurse. She ran an NICU for babies for 15 years and she worked in a cancer unit. She didn't like cancer units because everybody ended up checking out the wrong way. And now she's an educator, a nurse educator. She retired but she's working with what they call a contingent and as a contingent nurse she teaches and does all the paperwork and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And we're happy together. Today I got to put her on an airplane. She's going to New York. Oh, what's she going to New York for? My granddaughter is some sort of competition or something. And she's going to go with my daughter to New York and they're going to putz around a little.
Speaker 1:Nice, yeah, nice. So you got married, yeah, and it sounds like you had children, or one child.
Speaker 2:When I got married, linda had one son Okay, she had gone through a divorce. Linda had one son Okay, she had gone through a divorce. My father-in-law owned his own business and one of the guys that worked for him and my wife. Now, when I was married the first time, they were together.
Speaker 2:They got married and had a boy, tim. Well, he just disappeared and he quit working for my father-in-law and they got divorced and I adopted Tim and he was only now he's 50-some years old. Yeah, yeah. So we went through absolute hell trying to have children because of the injury I had.
Speaker 2:Hell trying to have children because of the injury I had and we finally threw all kinds of embarrassing stuff with sperm banks and all that crap. Anyhow, we had one daughter. I've got a daughter and a son. I've got one of each because I don't make a third variety. I don't have a third variety. I got one of each because I don't make a third variety, I don't have a third variety. But I'm proud of my kids. Neither one of them have ever been arrested. They both got a good education. One's got a master's degree. The other one's owned her own business and works for the school. My kids go to school now and she's going to open up her business again, I think, once the kids are out of school or into college and out of the house.
Speaker 1:Well, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, it is. That's a success story.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, you always want your kids to do better than you, and both of mine have my son he's the one with a master's degree. He's a classic. He's a school teacher and the guy can't. When I remember him as a teenager, he couldn't balance a checkbook. I'm pretty good at numbers. Because of his dyslexia, he had real problems with numbers and I don't know how he made it through all the schooling that he did go through, but he did. He's a language arts teacher. He speaks German as well as he speaks English and I guess, not too far off, he'll probably end up being a school principal up there. He's in Carroll.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were working for the AFL-CIO when you got married the second time. It was both first and second Okay, and so is that where you worked?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell me about your career.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Before I went into service, when I was going to school, I worked for Great Scott Supermarkets. Do you remember them? I do, honestly. I worked for Great Scott supermarkets. You remember them? I do, honestly, yes, work for Great Scott supermarkets. And I was. I was a night crew leader and so I could go to school in the day and work nights. And I became a union steward and I got involved with this Union and my brother went to work for the union. I'm a union steward and my brother works for the union. I was involved with the union.
Speaker 2:His father-in-law ran the Oak. It was Herschel Womack. He came from California, took the local over from the Teamsters back in about 58 or 59, something like that, and he said you get done with the Marine Corps, you come to work with me, boy. I said, well, okay, so that's what I was thinking when I bought those suits, right, and I says, because they all wore suits, you know the guys on staff, yeah, so I says, well, that's what I had the, the suits made for, and then the suits ratted away. But anyhow, I came back and I went to work for the Union. Oh, within the first year or so we'd be back and I and I worked back in the stores immediately when I came back at night. I worked night crews and I worked for the local for 30, I think 35 years. I retired in 2002. And from 2002 until now I've been very involved around here. I'm the American Legion commander here. So that's my program and these guys keep me on the straight and narrow. Oh, I'll bet.
Speaker 1:I'll bet they do, but it's also nice to serve other veterans. Oh, absolutely, that's what it's all about, because there's guys that come back probably in the same shape you were and you can talk to him about it.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely yeah. We got a guy that came in here and he left and he said he wasn't ever coming back. But he's starting to come back a little bit now. Brian, he's a Marine and I kind of put him under my wing. Hopefully he'll speak, but he's all screwed up in the head too. He's in that period where I had first 10 years. First 10 years I wouldn't go near a VFW, especially when my dad took us into one. They said I can't serve this guy. He's not a vet.
Speaker 1:He says Vietnam wasn't a war. Yeah, there's a lot of things that happened in the past. I think that they've fixed but, it left a bad taste.
Speaker 2:A lot of people yeah well, from I came home in 70 yeah, from 70, 75 they declared a war. Right, you weren't allowed to go into vfws or american legion dolls because you weren't a vet. Yeah, in their eyes, right that's life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, now, when I talk to people, I always ask did you serve? Because a lot of people don't feel like they're veterans.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And you know, I know there's that definition out there. But if you served, you served, hey, if you served, you served.
Speaker 2:If you did something to help guys out, it's all there. You know, yeah, even if you're pushing the numbers and making the planes go where they need to go, like Stevie, that's part of it. It all helps.
Speaker 1:It does and I think that people sometimes people don't understand that. Even the folks that stayed stateside, that made sure we got everything we needed, they helped that effort, they did something. They helped us survive over there.
Speaker 2:There's a sense of like. When you're in the woods, the jungle, you know that you got, they got my back Right If anything happens. I got this radio and I got these guys that I'm, you know, communicating with. I can get help out here anytime I need it.
Speaker 1:You know that's hard to find once you get out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, it is, it is. It's hard to find once you get out. Yeah, you know, yeah, it is, it is. It's hard to find someone that'll do anything you know I mean anything for you.
Speaker 1:You know, Right, We've covered a lot. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:I'd like to talk about the American Legion and the Post and the VFW. These guys are the best human beings in the world to me Stevie there I'd do anything for Steve. And there's a guy, tim Maher. He's been fighting cancer for five years. He's in his mid to late 80s. His wife's in a nursing home. He goes and visits her every day Comes here. He's the one that started the AMVETS here. He's a big time Marine and he was in the Marine Corps League in 141 and Howell and they told him the Marine Corps League said you can't wear your dress blues anymore. You got to wear the and he didn't like that.
Speaker 2:So he came here and he started the AMVETS. And he started the AMVETS basically as a backup to the Marine Corps League and now we got a Marine Corps League group here now and I don't know if they understand what it was really started for. And then Tim I would do anything for him but he's losing it, fighting cancer, 80-some years of age, and I hope that the rest of the guys understand as much as I do and Steve understands that you don't want to hurt the guy. I love the guy and I hope that the rest of the guys understand as much as I do and Steve understands that you don't want to hurt the guy. I love the guy and I want him to enjoy what he's got left of his life.
Speaker 2:And you've got Steve here who's 100% disabled. You'll never know it. He's an extreme type A and you've got to know Steve and be around him for a while and you'll find that he's the greatest guy in the world. I love the dude. When he first came here he was so active. We thought, hey, he's trying to take over. What's going on with this guy? But that's just him. That's the way he is and he's kept this place going. Basically, he's like having four other guys in charge, you know good guy.
Speaker 1:Well, and you have a unique situation here because you have the amvets, the american legion, the vfw all under one roof. Yes, and I've been to all your meetings. Yeah, it seems to work yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:The vfw physically owns 55 of this place. American legion physically owns% of this place. American Legion physically owns 45% of this place. A few years back there was a guy I won't mention names because this might go public someday but he wanted to run the American Legion. He says, oh man, we're in trouble, we gotta get out of here. He says, let's split off and go someplace. I just wait a minute. If we split off, we take our 45 go, the whole thing's going to fall apart. You know, you got to keep it together. So we kind of told that guy to take a flying leap and uh and uh.
Speaker 2:I think I've been instrumental with the american legion ever since keeping it together, and that's back when our mortgage here was over a million. Now we've got it down where it's like 300,000. And hopefully I'll live long enough to see this thing paid off. And we've got some wonderful ladies at work here Christine out here and Sharon they're the greatest in the world. And Christine, who runs this place, she does a nice job. So we're blessed with good people and the guys get along so well together. If you understand the membership, I have about 250, somewhere around 250 members of the American Legion. You only see 50 of them, right.
Speaker 2:You know, but I get when the dues come in. Some of them they're retired in Florida, Arizona, whatever, but they still pay their dues here. I guess it's cheaper than up there so they can say that they're a member and that's why it's like that, you know. But the active guys, it's amazing what they do around here. Oh yeah, you know, I used to be more physically involved and then when I got COVID for me to walk across the parking lot, I'm I'm out of breath, so but and they understand that and they work with me about it. But other than that, I just love these guys, love this place.
Speaker 1:Well and they love you too. I've noticed that Like there's just it's well. I mean, when you get out of the military. It's hard when you come back to your civilian life because you miss those military guys. So I think the VFW and the American Legion and the other groups it's a great place to reconnect with people and you don't have to have served together.
Speaker 2:I could tell you two quick stories about stuff that happened in Vietnam that just popped into my head. That's fine, that are not miserable, because I don't want to tell you any of the miserables no that's. I was on radio watch down in a hole at night, four hours on, four hours off. I'm in a pit and I had to take a leak. The whole time I was there I did not take a weapon with me. I went out to take a leak.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting there, I got my you-know-what in my hand pin on a tree and all of a sudden there's a bush that's moving like this. It's a goddamn goop with all kinds of crap on his helmet. He sees me, I see him. I said he don't know, I don't have a weapon, and he's diving down the hill. I'm diving back into the hole with my schwanza, my hand. We went up the side of the hill but never found anything. The next morning that's what you do. Most everything that went on in groups went on at night over there. And then the next morning you go out and count what you did. That's why any guy says, well, I never aimed a weapon the whole time I was there. Well, you do a spray.
Speaker 1:We call it spray and pray. You got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got it. And then the other one. That was funny, that happened. I think we were on 881. Yeah, we were on Hill 881, and down to the east of us, down the bottom of the hill, there was a river and it had ponded up. There was a beautiful little pond down there and about seven or eight of us went down there skinny dipping and we left the guy up on the hill and we were just about we were screwing around in the water or whatever we were doing, and the guy up on the hill that was the guard you know you have to have. He starts laughing his ass off. I said what the hell's going on? We look over. It looked like a dinosaur coming at us, the biggest fucking snake I ever saw in my life. We said shoot it, Shoot it. We're screwed, shoot it. And he's laughing. He waited until it was from me to you and he opened up blood and guts all over the place and we carried that. They ate it.
Speaker 2:It was good Because we've been eating sea rats and whatever we could find for like three or four weeks at that point, man, that fresh meat was all right. That was one of the things that sticks in my head. That and peeing on a gook.
Speaker 1:That poor guy was probably peeing on a tree too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he probably was too. He was snooping and pooping. I'll tell you that much. Yeah, if he'd have come closer he might have thrown a grenade down our hole, but I scared him away without even a weapon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something. You're not a small guy, though, so yeah yeah, so that's about.
Speaker 2:That's about all I got to tell you right now.
Speaker 1:All right, well, I got one last question for you. Ask everyone the same question. So, when people are listening to this story down the road and you and I aren't here anymore, what would you like to leave people with? What piece of advice would you like to leave people with?
Speaker 2:What piece of advice would you like to give people? If you can find the brotherhood and the love of other veterans and share that with everybody, that'll make your life better. It'll make other people's lives better and the closeness you'll never understand the closeness of veterans Even though we didn't serve together, we all served and we all know what that's like. And there's a brotherhood and that brotherhood is a love of individuals. If that can be shared, that's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you for that. Thanks for taking time out this afternoon to sit and talk.
Speaker 2:Hey no problem.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
