Fred Smith, Vietnam Veteran
We do a lot of oral histories at the Oldham County History Center and the Veteran’s Project is one aspect of those. In 2001, The Oldham County History Center joined with the Library of Congress and the AARP to begin these series of oral histories collected from veterans in our area. Below is an excerpt from one of our oral histories transcribed by history center educator, Jan Jasper.
Vietnam Veteran Fred Smith
Fred Smith was born January 2, 1933 in Atmore, Alabama. In 1953, in his second year in industrial engineering at A& M University at Huntsville, Alabama, he joined the Army and was trained for clerk duty. By 1968, Smith had served numerous posts and was appointed Warrant Officer One by the President of the United States. “I left Fort Knox and went to Fort Riley, Kansas, where we formed a unit, a personnel company. We didn’t have anything. So we formed this company from nothing… They gave us all these guys out of the jail house. They turned out to be some of the best clerks I’ve ever seen.” It was at that time, in 1968, he and his ‘dirty dozen’ personnel company headed to Vietnam.
“We were over there and supposed to be going to, they said, we were going to land in Cam Ranh Bay. So we got to Cam Ranh Bay. ‘Nope, you’re not supposed to be here. You are supposed to go up to Dong Ha.’. So by the time we started up, ‘No, you are going to Da Nang.’ So when we got to Da Nang, they were not prepared for us. Nobody was there to load us. We had no place to stay. It was just a mess. So we had a shelter and a half. Two officers would get together and put two shelters and halves together to make a tent. That’s where we stayed. We stayed on the beach for the first two months, just out there under the stars.”
During this time Smith said that there were about 200 men in tents. “We were under the Third Marine Amphibious Force. We couldn’t fire back at a Viet Cong or anything, like that, unless we got permission from the Third Marine Amphibious Force to shoot back……It was not anything like I had ever read about with regards to lines. You conquered this today and everything behind you was free and clear. But today you would go out and have a little battle here, and go back tomorrow; it is re-infected with the same folks you ran out.”
“One night we had what they called an LCU that had just come up from Saigon and Long Behn. And I guess it had 150 people on it. And by being warm at night, they were laying on top of it. This thing, it’s kind of like a duck. It could go in the water, on the land, through the water, back on the land, where ever it was. So that’s what they hauled the troops in. These guys were laying on top of this thing trying to get cool. And unfortunately, a 122MM round hit the top of that boat and just mangled it. I don’t know how many people. I mean just bad stuff. So as part of my job, being Personnel Manager, I had to go to the morgue every day, to make sure everything there was going on OK.”
Smith relates another story about “sappers”. “Sappers, these were individuals who had just had a loin skin and a little back pack, and their bodies were greasy. They would grease their body down so you couldn’t hold them if you caught them. They would come through lobbing hand grenades into your buildings. We had that happen a couple times.”
“When I got back in the States, I got to Seattle-Tacoma. I got off the plane there. One of these flower children spit in my face; called me a baby killer… I just said, ‘I hope God forgives you.’ I don’t believe the person did it to me because I was black or anything like that, but because of the uniform I had on.” Asked to reflect on his experiences, Smith said, “I don’t think that God intends for us to fight among ourselves. I don’t believe that…because what happens, I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but you know who pays the price for war? Our 18 year olds and our 21 year olds. I’d go to that morgue every day. Those kids! They just look like they are asleep, and that’s somebody’s baby, somebody’s child. Then I was wondering when their parents got the letter that I had written to them saying, ‘Sorry that you son’s killed.’
“While serving in Vietnam, it never occurred to me how much a soldier’s service in a war impacts family members. I have first-hand knowledge of this impact now that my only son – the baby of my family – is now serving as a rifle platoon leader in Iraq. He has a four year old daughter that is greatly impacted by his absence and service in the war.
Even though I have said that I’m against war, I feel… as though every American who enjoys the freedom that has been gained by other people who have gone before us – WWI / WWII vets - I feel that everybody should be afforded the opportunity to at least serve; to know what it is to defend this country. I think every American who enjoys the freedoms here needs to have an opportunity to serve.”