Juan Espinosa

Tactical Aircraft Maintenance

US Air Force

Vietnam War

Q: Okay, so if you could start with your name, spell it for us, your birthday, and where

you were born.

JE: Hi, my name is John Leroy Espinosa. Espinosa's spelled E-S-P-I-N-O-S-A. I prefer the

name "Juan," and that's the name I've gone under most of my professional career. So, I

was born in Montrose, Colorado, December 7th, 1947. I forgot, anything else?

Q: Oh, that's it. So if you could, tell us a bit about your background and then what led

you to be in the Air Force?

JE: What led me to be in the Air Force probably more than anything was family tradition. My

grandfather was a doughboy in Europe in World War I. My father was in the Navy in

World War II. He was aboard a destroyer. Then, I have uncles and relatives that were in

Korea and all the little conflicts in between and when I saw Vietnam on the horizon, I just

assumed that it was something I was going to have to do, because it just seemed like

that's what our family did.

When I was 18 years old, I almost wrecked a car, and I got a ticket for driving under the

influence. When I went in front of the judge, he said that he thought I needed to go into

the service, and he encouraged me to volunteer for the draft, and he gave me 30 days to

think about it or I was going to have to serve unspecified jail time. Before the 30 days

were up, I had joined the Air Force.

I'll tell you, I think it's a funny story. The moment I got up, I told all my friends that I was

going to go down and volunteer for the Selective Service. I didn't want to do four years.

That's why I didn't want to go to the Navy or the Air Force, so I was going to volunteer

for the Army and so we had a big party the night before, and I left the apartment and

headed down to the post office where the Selective Service office is, and as I was

walking by at a little mini-mall, and there's this Air Force guy out there swinging this

gold chain, and I just remember the sun glinting on that gold chain, and that reminds me

of the song from Bob Dylan where it says, "There stood Rita looking just like Tony

Perkins."

Anyway, he's twirling that chain, and he said, "Where you going," and I said "I'm going

to go join the Army." He says, "Well, why the Army?" He says, "Well, why not the Air

Force?" I said, "Because I don't want to do four years." He says, "What's your name?" So

I gave him my name, and he said, "Just a second." He went inside, and he came out, and

he had a manila folder that had my name on it. He said, "You realize that you took a Air

Force entrance exam when you were in high school as in an achievement test?" I said,

"No, I did not know that." He says, "Well, [inaudible]," he said, "You got great scores."

He said, "I'll get you in any field that you want to go in to."

And anyway, that was what the clincher was he says, "I'll put you on the California

Zephyr to Denver," and everybody else that went, went on a bus. I go, "I'm going to go

on the California Zephyr, and I'm going to join the Air Force." So that's how I got into the

Air Force rather than the draft, when we went and got swore in a couple of days later, he

said, "Okay, all you service inductees step up." So we all stood up, and they go, "Okay,

count off. One, two, one, two, one, two, and so all you twos, you're in Marines." So I was

never happier to be in the Air Force then I was at that moment. So that's how I ended up

in the Air Force.

Q: And after you were sworn in, what was the process? Did you go to boot camp right

away, or was there a period?

JE: I did. I did. We jumped on a plane and we headed off where Lackland Air Force Base,

which is where the Air Force had their boot camp but while we were in the air, they told

us we're going to Amarillo Air Force Base because they have spinal meningitis break out,

or outbreak, whatever, at Lackland, and so they took us to Amarillo. It was kind of a big

thing because Amarillo wasn't set up to do boot camp and so our boot camp was about

three weeks shorter than a normal boot camp. And I'm guessing maybe even easier. But

anyways, that's how I ended up. I went to boot camp. And after that, they gave us our

choice of tech schools. Or, actually, it was like a wish list, you picked the tech school

you'd like to go to. However [inaudible] you wanted. I got Denver, Colorado and Lowry

Air Force Base and electronics which was the two things that I wanted. I ended up

coming to Denver. I spent roughly one full year here.

The tech school was one of the longest in the Air Force. And we learned the weapons

control system on an F-4 Phantom jet fighter. Highly classified. We were in such demand

that they were running the school 24/7. I went to school, we marched to school at 11:00

at night and got off at 6:00 in the morning. Our books were considered so highly

classified that at the end of our class we had to go to into a vault and lock our books up in

the vault. So overall it was all intriguing and exciting and kind of interesting and

electronics was over my head. You know you had an aptitude for it, but I didn't learn it

[inaudible]. But I did alright. I have good intuition.

Q: And from there where did you go? What was the next [crosstalk]

Ff Well we went to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. And that

was what they called OJT, on the job training, so from the tech school we had to have ... I

think it was under a year that you had to have OJT before you could be eligible for

Vietnam, right. So I did my, I think the interesting thing to happen to me at Davis-

Monthan was that, I don't remember how many guys there were, maybe 20, 30 of us that

showed up all together. And everybody got to work on the flight line but me. They said,

"No, Espinosa, you gotta work on the mock up in the shop." What we had is we had the

radar system inside this shop and we could do everything that the radar system could do

in the airplane, but what it was for was they'd bring in broken or faulty parts and we

could put them on our mock up and we could duplicate the error and fix it and then check

that, make sure that we fixed it.

So, what it turns out is the guys who were on the flight line were just pulling big units

and bringing them into the shop. I was [inaudible] we went down and fixed the actual

individual resisters or diodes or tubes and in about another year that paid off invaluably.

That knowledge.

Q: How so?

JE: In Vietnam we didn't have the luxury sometimes of taking a part into the shop. If we

couldn't fix it on the flight line we had to abort the mission, aborting a mission, that,

people were dying at the other end because our planes didn't show up. So I was able to fix

planes on the flight line, just about I think better than anybody else because of my

experience in the mock up shop back at Davis-Monthan.

Q: What was the culture like in training? Did you make friends, did you, what was that like?

JE: I think it was somewhat typical. I mean I've seen movies and the things that fascinated

me were accents, people talking with different dialects, different accents from different

parts of the country, and instead of seeing Tennessee on the map I had a guy from

Tennessee that he'd seemed like he ought to be from Tennessee. You know what I mean?

It's like all of a sudden you see these kind of regionalisms and stereotypes of different

parts of the country and they kinda play out right in front of your eyes. I found that very

interesting.

I was in great shape physically. I'd been a wrestler in high school and the obstacle courses

and running and, nah, none of that was difficult for me. And it was almost too easy. And I

don't know why I say that except that it was a struggle for a lot of guys. A lot of guys

who went into the Air Force were older guys that didn't want to do the rigor of the Army

or Marines. So, among that crowd I was a star. You know what I mean?

Q: Then after, so when did you, did you receive orders to go to Vietnam? Or what was

that process like for you?

JE: You know what, I just knew that I wasn't gonna get out of the Air Force until I did a year

in Vietnam. So as soon as I was eligible, I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I basically

wanted to get it out of my way. That was my whole motive for enlisting, not only to

satisfy the judge, but also to get this Vietnam War business out of my way. Because I

knew, like I said, I knew I was gonna, you just feel, you're sitting in that class in high

school, and the guy's telling you, "We're getting involved in a new war." And you go,

"Oh my God, here it comes," because, you know. So I was kind of in a hurry to get it out

of the way, so I volunteered. It was strange, and of course they did take volunteers, and I

headed out right away.

I arrived in Vietnam on April, March, no, February 7th, 1968. And the Tet Offensive

started roughly the 3rd, 2nd or 3rd of that same month, February in '68. And our bases

were just getting hit, from one end of the country to the other. And the Tet Offensive is

considered the big turning point of the war. I was on the very first plane to land, civilian

plane to land at Da Nang, after the beginning of the Tet Offensive. And they flew us in

on Flying Tiger Airlines. Flying Tiger Airlines was like a transport company. They had

had, they did mostly boxes of stuff, right? But they were started by World War II pilots.

And I don't know this for a fact, but my feeling was, is they were the only ones that they

could get, to fly in to Vietnam at that particular week.

We were landing at Da Nang, and it was close to midnight. And it was dark, except for,

there was probably 10 or 15 flares floating under parachutes, on both sides of the base. I

don't know if you know how they used to use those flares. But they'd light up areas so,

for security, particularly around the perimeter. They could see any movement. And the

flares were not daylight, but they were pretty bright.

So it was surrealistic. I mean, I really wasn't in a war zone, I looked out the window of

the plane, and here is these flares, and the place is kind of flickering light. And then, on

the hillside, Da Nang is surrounded by pretty good sized mountains, on two sides. And

the hillsides were on fire. Before we landed in Da Nang, we landed in Okinawa, in Japan.

And all the Marines that were with us up to that point got off the plane, and stayed. And

they brought in a whole bunch more Marines. And these guys were ready to go into the

field. I mean, they had their helmets, their flak jackets, and their packs, their ammunition,

I mean, their grenades, and their weapon. I mean, they were ready to go to combat, and

they made those guys up, so when we landed in Da Nang, they were the first ones off.

And watching out the window, I could see that what they did is, those Marines created a

perimeter around the plane, for us to get down, because there had been a lot of sniper fire,

and that's what they were there to prevent. So, it got real serious almost instantly. And I

remember, I was the very last person off the plane. I was in no hurry to get off that

airplane.

But anyway, we landed, and it was over. For about two weeks, all I did was fill sandbags

to build bunkers. I didn't get to my unit for a couple of weeks. I developed a rash, during

those two weeks of filling sandbags. So I went to the clinic, and they said, "Well, we've

seen a lot of this rash. We don't know what it is, so we're gonna send you to Cam Ranh

Bay. See if they know." So I was the guinea pig. I jumped on a, decided to spend the

night in a MASH style hospital, a field hospital. And here I am, with a little rash, and

these people are amputees, and our soldiers, a lot of burn victims. I remember a guy with

his hands wrapped in gauze, and he had a pen sticking through the gauze, trying to write

a letter. And I just remember those, I mean, just thinking how unworthy I was to be in the

hospital, and flying to Cam Ranh Bay with these people that were so severely injured. I

mean, I think on the plane, I was the only one that didn't have an IV running into me.

And like I said, I felt embarrassed. I got to Cam Ranh Bay, and they found out it was just

some kind of a nit that was in the dirt, that was burrowing in our skin, and then it was

over. Right? Didn't [inaudible] honorably my career there.

I worked in a little shop at one end of the flight line. We had three fighter squadrons. I

don't remember their names anymore. There were three TAC fighter squadrons. TAC,

Tactical Air Command, was, that's the Air Force overseas. SAC is Strategic Air

Command, and that's all the Air Force in the country to protect the [inaudible] of our

country.

When we went overseas, we were always TAC. So we were in three TAC fighter

squadrons. We must have each had about 40 airplanes. So probably had about 120

airplanes that we worked on. And we were in a Quonset hut that was maybe about twice

the size of this room. And we'd just sit around tables drinking coffee and smoking

cigarettes and talking about home, until we'd get a work order. And sometimes the shop

would be empty, because there's so many work orders. And sometimes, I remember

Nixon called off bombing over the DMZ. And for that period of time, there was no flying

over the DMZ, we all just sat on our hands. There was no flights going up. Very few.

But most the time we were jumping, and we could barely keep up. As I said earlier, my

experience in the mock-up shop in Arizona paid off big time. Because when my sergeants

realized that I could fix a plane on the flight line because we had a mock-up shop there,

too. And we had the luxury to take a part off and bring it in to the shop. But we had what

they'd called a Red Ball. A Red Ball call is, that plane had to get off the ground in five

minutes, or we were going to abort the mission. So my sergeants started sending me on

those kinds of calls. I said, "Oh, Espinosa can, if anybody can fix it, Espinosa can do it,"

right? That was kind of the rep that evolved. I gotta tell you, there were some excellent

technicians that I worked with. And we kind of shared the knowledge, and we became

very good. And when I told sergeants, I says, "You know what? You ought to just make

us a team." And that was all the Red Balls. And let the guys that take their time, let them

work on the planes that we'd have time to work on. And they were convinced, and we

basically having our own truck, and our own little crew, and we would respond only to

the Red Balls.

And when we got there, the pilots were putting on their 45's, and getting ready to fly.

And the planes, many times, the engines were running. On occasion, they were on the

end of the runway, ready to take off. And the engines are running, and all of the bombs

and the weapons, I mean, our System Control, the [inaudible] lever, the rockets, we

dropped the bombs. I mean, we controlled all the weaponry. Well, all those had safety

pins stuck in them, so that they wouldn't accidentally get set off, right? Well, when they

were standing on the end of the runway ready to fly, the crew chief had already

pulled…[phone interruption]

Q: Okay. So the safety pins.

JE: When the planes were at the end of the runway ready to take off, all those safety pins had

been pulled out. And so the weapons were armed. And I worked on the system that set

them off for firing, and we had to be very careful of course. But the other thing, those

engines were running. Those engines, the intake of the engines were probably, easily,

four feet high, and about maybe two feet wide. And they'll suck you up like a big vacuum

cleaner. And I've sat on the edge of a pilot's seat with him holding on to my belt so I

could work on the radar scope, with the engines running. So that's the kind of the

excitement. I mean, total adrenaline, right. We were adrenaline junkies. We loved it. We

couldn't have more excitement. So, anyway, that was, fast times.

I can talk a little bit about our time off. We did 12/7. 12 hours, seven days a week when I

first got there, and that was the Tet Offensive of course. And then after that it kind of got

to where we were working only five days a week, and it got to where we were, we always

worked 12 hours, there was only two shifts.

When you got on days after you've been there for a while, you get on days, the nights

were for the nightclubs. We had nightclubs, we had [inaudible] clubs, right? And we had

shows from the Philippines and maybe from Saigon, mostly Asian groups but they were

doing covers of the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and whoever was doing the Rolling Stones.

And they were good. If you weren't looking at them, you'd think wow, there's the Rolling

Stones, and they were all Asian bands.

And it was all men, the clubs were all men except for the girls that served the beer and

they were Vietnamese women. If there was a [inaudible] after them, they weren't there.

So we drank a lot of beer, the clubs were, basically it's all people would do. They just go

to the clubs and say let's get a drink before it's time to go to bed, or before they passed out

or whatever, or before there was a rocket attack. Frequently if you're at the club, you'd

hear the sirens and then you start to hear the explosions. And the rockets were scary

because they were, they could make a pretty good size crater. Probably about the capacity

of maybe three or four grenades, explosive capacity. They were always trying to hit our

airplanes, so they were usually along the flight line which was about a quarter of a mile

away from where our clubs were, right? So, we always felt relatively safe, but they'd

close the club, and that really made us mad so we'd have to go home and drink beer.

But then, I remember this place that was called Camp LeMayne [ph]. It was all Air Force.

But, we had a MASH hospital and a helicopter landing pad there, so that a lot of Army

and Marines would go through there using that landing pad, or they'd get discharged from

the hospital while they were still trying to make it back to their unit. They'd be there for a

couple of days. They could eat in our chow hall, but they couldn't go to our clubs. So the

clubs had these big double doors, and at night when we had a show, there'd be Marines

six or seven deep as wide as the door trying to watch the show. And we'd be over

drinking our beer and say man, those poor guys, they can't come in here.

So then one day we decided, well let's adopt one. So we picked one out of the crowd, and

said "Hey, hop up. If you're willing to put on an Air Force uniform we can get you in here

into the club". And he said man, let's go. So we took him over, we borrowed an Air Force

uniform, we took him back to the club, and we made friends with him. His name was

Brian Faber, and I never have seen Brian since Vietnam. I worry about him, I've been

worrying about him since we were in Vietnam. He was up in Khe Sanh. He told the men

that he'd been shot in the butt, and he had to be treated but it wasn't serious enough to do

it. So they cut him loose, but he had no place to stay, and he could eat in the chow hall

but he couldn't. So we adopted him. He was there for about a week.

And then he goes back to Khe Sanh, and then, I don't know, maybe a couple weeks later,

a month later I don't know, some guy says "hey Brian Faber told me to look you guys

up". And I didn't know him, so we took him up, we put him in an Air Force uniform. So

then we started all over and wait for a while in our center, and it was all Faber's guys that

he would send back. And if there were ever one of Faber's guys that [inaudible] they'd do

the same thing, pick another couple of guys, and I didn't know what we were doing. I

guess we were trying to give those guys a break.

You already might have seen the China Beach series that was on TV 20 years ago. But

anyway, there was a television series called China Beach. Well the real China Beach was

about 5 miles from my Air Force base. And there was an in-country R&R center. The Air

Force, when we were on R&R they sent us to places like Hong Kong, or Manila, or

Honolulu. But the poor Marines and Army, when they got R&R they had to go to China

Beach which was still in Vietnam. And we could go there on our days off. So we got

probably the best deal possible in Vietnam.

I remember, well I will give you an example; Everybody I knew in Vietnam drank.

Drinking was like the acceptable vice. There was a lot of opium and there was a lot of,

not a lot of marijuana, not really, but every once in a while you got into marijuana. But

we could buy, and Air Force person could buy, I think it was like four or five liters of

hard liquor a month and we could buy up to eight cases of beer a month.

Marines for example couldn't buy any hard liquor. I don't think they could buy more than

a couple cases of beer. So in that regard we had a commodity that we could trade for.

Once we had the mobility we could go to the Marines side of the base and trade, bottles

of VO for example, for a case of steaks. All the food came in on the Marines side, I don't

know why, we didn't have refrigerators or something, but they had steaks and cheeses is

what we got and some chicken. But we'd jump in our truck when nobody is looking and

drive to the Marines side of the base and trade liquor for steaks, and chicken, and cheese.

So the Air Force had it good. And you know what, when we talk about Vietnam, I've

heard the stories while I was there from Brian and his friends that he sent back and the

funeral Khe Sanh year was hell. There was like a 90 day period that nobody got in or out

of Khe Sanh. And the people who got shot and dead stayed there in the trenches with

them. We weren't even taking bodies out. It must've been hell. So we knew what they

were experiencing even though we weren't experiencing it. Like I said we heard the

stories.

I also saw my friend got the, [inaudible] turned into just a cold blooded killer. One of the

last times I saw him he was laughing and telling the story of how he struck a bayonet

through a big duck and beat an old man to death with the butt of his rifle and that wasn't

the guy that I met. It was after Khe Sanh. So anyway war is hell and we all knew that

going in but seeing it firsthand, and maybe kind of not even firsthand, seeing it

secondhand is close enough. And I guess like I told you, I started to question a little.

Started to wonder, "Why are all these young guys dying?".

The other thing we had at Da Nang that I found interesting was we had a POW camp.

There was a POW camp for medical purposes but it was Vietnamese captives that had

serious injuries. Most of them were amputees. And they keep them in a big cage next to

the clinic where they were being treated. But it was like going to the zoo, a human zoo.

These guys were all just kind of sitting around and they all had serious bandages and

stuff. And I don't know why but on my days off I decided I was going to go see if I could

communicate with them through mental telepathy. And I would sit outside the perimeter

there of their little area and just look at them and asked them in my own mind, "Why are

you trying to kill me and why am I trying to help and try to kill you? And what's this all

about?" Of course I never got any answers but the thing that occurred to me while I was

doing that, these guys look like members of my family. The Vietnamese looked more like

my family members then the Americans I was serving with. And I found it harder and

harder to hate them. I really felt that they were victims the same way I felt that I was a

victim. We've all just have gotten caught up in some terrible thing where we had to try

and kill each other.

In June, 1968. The other thing, let me throw this out before I go to June, Martin Luther

King was killed, was assassinated that year, that spring. And then Kennedy, Robert

Kennedy was assassinated that summer. That's a pretty strange thing to experience when

you're outside of the country fighting for the country, when you think about what's going

on.

In the Air Force, in the field I was in, there was only a handful of black soldiers or black

airmen. I remember the night we found out about Martin Luther King, all of the dark

airmen moved into a barracks together. And they wrote on the side of the barracks in real

large letters Black Power. They were about two-foot-high letters. Probably even scraped

it, I don't know how, but they wrote it on the side of the barracks Black Power, and they

all went there and everybody else seemed threatened by that.

I guess, I think what I'm feeling now, I really think that's when I decided I'm a minority

like they are. I'm more like them than the rest of these guys that I'm working with, and I

wasn't threatened by them. It didn't scare me. I just thought that sounds like a smart thing

to do, if you think you're being threatened then you circle the wagons, right?

That experience, I don't think I would've articulated it then, but it made me start to think

about Mexicans in this country and how we have been treated for, in our history and the

things that I grew up as a child. I remember the Mexican was a half a word. The other

half used to be dirty. Dirty Mexican. It was such a common adjective that we would

jokingly call each other dirty Mexicans. My dad, when he would get out of the car in

front of somebody's house and honk the horn they'd come out when we were visiting

people that we hadn't seen for a while go, "Hey, you dirty Mexicans get out here!" And it

was just that kind of an exchange jokingly using the derogatory terms but I realize now,

almost 50 years after now and knowing more about my family's experience in the San

Luis Valley of Colorado's that we were second class citizens at best.

The thing is that experience brought that out of me that I identified with. After Martin

Luther King I felt I understood what black Americans were going through. I also started

to feel an empathy for the Vietnamese. These people are fighting for their country, this is

a civil war, this is their lives. I mean we're just here, I'm gonna do my year and get out of

here and go home and try to forget. I'm not competition for these guys. They're fighting

for everything they've got.

In June 1968, somewhere around the middle of the month, I believe, between the 15th

and 20th, I was working the night shift and I went out to work on an airplane. When I got

there the crew chief had a stencil of a star about this big. He was spray painting the

stencil on the side of the fuselage. I said, "Wow! What does that mean?" And he said,

"We got one, man. We got a confirmed kill." I said, "Really?" And he said, "Yeah, we

got some helicopters coming over the DMZ." The first time in the war that the North

Vietnamese [inaudible] have brought helicopters over the DMZ, and we got one.

Then everybody got fired up. The pilots were fired up. Because the pilot's all wanted to

be Ace's. And they had to get five confirmed kills to be considered an Ace, which is a

very big deal in the Air Force. More red stars after missions. This went on for about a

week. And I think I counted 14 red stars all on planes that I had worked on. And it got to

be such a big deal, I remember the pilots would say "Hey! You mind taking our picture?".

We were just grunts on the ground. We were unimportant to them. Anyways, all them

and all their buddies would be standing in front of the plane with the red stars on it. And

we would take their pictures. I took so many pictures. And there I remember that towards

the end of the week, when some of them had two or three kills. And they were like maybe

entertaining the idea they might become Aces, they would meet them. They would ring it

in, "I got another one, I'm coming back, and da-da-da." They're buddies would meet them

with champagne. Soon as their plane taxied in and parked. They'd come down with little

lighters and the corks were popping. We were all drinking champagne.

Then, a few days later, I'd go out to work on one of these plains, and the crew chief was

breaking over the right stuff. And I said "Well, what happened?" "We're having a party

getting all fired up, this is what we'd been training for right?" And I said, "What

happened to the red stars?" He says, "Nothing happened." I says, "What do you mean

nothing happened?" He says, "Nothing ever happened." All the red stars got painted over

and you know, they never talked about it. I'm reading the Stars and Stripes. And the Stars

and Stripes says, "The Army has lost a bunch of helicopters over the DMZ."

And me and my friend, Tom Caney [ph], he probably died about 20 years ago. And my

friend Tom Caney and I, well I would consider him my best friend at that time. He was

my best friend in a war zone, anyway, Tom and I started to talk about helicopters. We

shot down a bunch of helicopters, and now we don't talk about it. I think we shot down

those helicopters. And then, we looked at that. We didn't have any proof either way, but

whatever happened, nobody thought of, [inaudible] pretend that it didn't happen, and

[inaudible] would go away. And to this day, I don't know what happened, but I'll tell you

what I found out later.

I was in the government bookstore in Pueblo, Colorado where a lot of government books

are printed, the government printing office is in Pueblo, and they [inaudible] bookstore

and [inaudible] were printed and publications so I was in the Vietnam section, probably

ten years later, and I see a book that says, "Air war in Vietnam, real war [inaudible]

book." So, I was in the Air Force, I want to know about the air war in Vietnam. So I

pulled that book out and was going through. It says, "Helicopters over the DMZ" So I

read that chapter, and what that chapter said, is that the Air Force claimed that they had

shot down some helicopters over the DMZ, but those claims were never confirmed. But

we know for sure that we did sink a Australian gun ship. On water, if you get the 8 hour

situated where the boat is actually in the air, and so we shot the gun boat, and Australian

gun boat thinking it was an aircraft.

And that was in that report, and then it went on to say that they couldn't really confirm

that the Air Force ever did shoot down any helicopters, but there was a pissing match

going on between the Air Force and the Army over air space over the DMZ. And the

Army says, "We're gonna follow the DMZ without filing flight plans because we're

responding to troops' calls on the ground, and we didn't have time to file flight plans for

the Air Force. And the Air Force says, "If you don't follow flight plans, we don't know

your [inaudible] coordinates and we're gonna shoot you down." And these are two

generals that received memos, and it's well documented. And then after the [inaudible] of

helicopters and all that, and them missing helicopters, there was a big [inaudible] in Da

Nang to resolve the differences. So I don't know, I still don't have any proof that we shot

down those helicopters, but I've always had that nagging feeling. I'm [inaudible].

In November I went to Hong Kong on R&R and I started reading papers from other parts

of the world about the war in Vietnam, and they were really a lot more objective than the

Stars and Stripes. When I got back to Da Nang in late November, I went into the

commanding officer's office and I told him, "You know what, I don't think we should be

here. I don't feel like I can continue to work in support of the war. " I didn't know the

term conscientious objector then. And I don't know if I really had that kind of a

conviction. All I had was this bad feeling, and I didn't want to contribute to that war

anymore, had a bad feeling of it. And he says, "You know what?" Air Force guy

[inaudible], but he went into the other room, he pulls my folder out, he's got my new

[inaudible] and says, "Well you really got a pretty decent career here". And he says, "I'd

hate to see", he says, "you know, this is treason. In a war zone, refusing to serve is

treason." And I said, "Well, it is what it is, sir." Something like that. He was kind of

waiting for me to change my mind.

He says, "Well, I tell you what." He says, "What can you do? Could you deliver the

mail?" "Hell yeah, I could deliver the mail." He said, "Well, you're our new mailman, go

take the test at the Marine side of the base, at the Post Office." I had to go take a test to

become a mailman. And he gave me a Jeep. He said, "Here's the keys to that Jeep out

there." And he said, "That's your Jeep, you go pick up the mail twice a day, you post it in

the Post Office." And we had our own little post office in our barracks. So for the last two

months that I was in Vietnam, almost three months, I was the mailman. I'm truly grateful

for the Major. I don't remember his name, but he had my fate in his hands and he turned

out to make a very wise decision on my behalf.

So anyway. That's probably the most, it's the thing I think about the most about Vietnam.

I tried very hard to do as well as I could, what I was trained to do and I think I did that,

for the most that I did that. I also think that I recognized the morality of that war. I'm

proud that I stood up. I could've easily just done my time without feeling bad. But I feel

like I did what was needed to be done. In all cases. You guys probably think this is the

right thing to be doing. I can't do it.

I got a lot in that three months, I somehow got more involved with the Vietnamese

community. I have a letter that I wrote and it was about the New Year's celebration. And

they celebrate Têt. First week of February. So they were doing a New Year's celebration

and what happened in the winter of 2000, or 1968. We went to the moon. We saw the

Earth from the moon that year, that December I believe. And I remember the Vietnamese

did a skit. And it started out they were like, they had these little miniature airplanes. And

they'd come out like they were pilots and they were dropping bombs and flying around

Vietnam. It was real military right? And it went on and on and on but the last thing they

did was they were astronauts. And they were circling the moon. And they were showing

pictures of Earth. The big blue marble. That image didn't exist before 1968. Now we see

it everywhere. But the image of the Earth from space was just powerful. And it was really

done for all of us. We are all on the same sinking ship.

But I just thought it was so cool that the Vietnamese kids were aspiring to be astronauts.

And I don't know. I don't even know why I said that accept that you know it gave you a

sense of hope. And when I left Vietnam, I didn't care if the south won or lost. I felt the

war was already lost. But I felt that even though what happened, Vietnam was going to be

alright. It was generations that was just sick of war.

You know what? It turned out, I think Vietnam is all right. There were times in this

country, that we didn't want that to happen. But you know what, by all communications,

they're pretty all right. I remember 20 years ago, somebody sent me a picture of a Ford

Motor plant in Hanoi, flying the Vietnamese flag, the North Vietnamese flag. And he sent

it to me to make me angry. “Doesn't this make you mad?” And I thought, no. Right on.

You know? We're not at war with them anymore. At least we can do is decent in Cuba.

Yeah. And I've been going on for about 45 minutes.

Q: I have a few questions. Could you tell us about your camera?

JE: Oh yeah. Well the only thing we did besides drink a lot of beer was play poker. I have

never been a very good poker player. But I've had some streaks. One night I was hot.

About three o'clock, we played till everybody was broke. Somebody went home with

everyone else's money. And I was cleaning the [inaudible]. And I had everyone else's

money. On the last round, I raised and this guy says, “I'm out of cash but will you accept

this camera as a wager?" The wager was $20. I said, "Yeah, it's worth 20 bucks. Throw it

in the pot." Well I won the hand and I won the camera. And I started taking pictures.

One of the things I've done professionally in my life was photography. I thought I was a

fine arts painter and that's probably not a bad thing but photography has really given me

an outlet to my artistic side. It was serendipitous [inaudible] I think I got the camera and

the first the thought I had was I wonder what I can get for this. But then I started taking

pictures and you know what? I had friends that were already photographers and they said,

"Man, that's a great little camera." It was what they called a Canon half frame. What it

did, it took a 35 millimeter picture but got two exposures on one frame. So instead of

getting 36 pictures out of a little film, I could get 72 pictures and I thought man that's

great. Seemed like a lot of pictures right? The more pictures you take the better you get.

And all of a sudden I realized I could take pictures. If I had gotten a regular camera,

maybe I wouldn't have been as interested. It was a very inexpensive, inexpensive camera

to get a lot of pictures with. Unfortunately, most of those pictures have been lost in time.

I went on to be a photographer. We're just here today because I have an exhibit in your

library.

Q: So did your experience in Vietnam influence your involvement with the Chicano

movement? You said that the ...

JE: Well, let's go. I was very anti-Vietnam and I talked about it. I encouraged people to avoid

the draft. I encouraged people to oppose the war. I went to Mesa College in Grand

Junction. After I got discharged from the Air Force I went back to Mesa College. I've

actually flunked out of Mesa College right out of high school. I was only there for all the

bad reasons. And after two semesters, two quarters they told me take a hike.

I had to go back in order to transfer to CU, is where I wanted to go. But I was on

probation at Mesa College. So I had to go back there right? So I'm back at Mesa College,

there was an anti-war movement and some people I had met. They said, "Hey you're a

veteran. How do you feel about the war?" I said, "I'm against it." They said, "Good!" We

need veterans against the war."

So I ended up getting stuck speaking at a rally. Had this bell tower in the middle of the

campus. And I remember we all climbed up on this bell tower to make our speeches. And

I don't even remember what I said. Just that we had no business there and it was immoral

and all these different things. So I had kind of joined the anti-war movement. And some

of the people in the anti-war some them were the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Some of them were the SDS, Society for Democratic something. Students for a

Democratic Society. And then the one other were a spin-off of that. So anyway, all of

them have disenfranchised people. Protesters were kinda killing the night, and I'd just

figured a couple of those events.

On September 16, 1971, no 1970, I was in a Colorado History class, and I hear shouts

from the street. And I think the professor even went over and closed his windows to

drown out the sound, but I looked and there was this man, a young man, leading a bunch

of kids. And they pumped the air with shouts of Chicano power, and so I said wow

September 16 is actually Independence Day. And I'd been hearing a lot about the

Chicanese [ph] stuff, and I go "Oh, I'm gonna go see where they're going."

So, I left my class. Got down on the streets, and looked. I wasn't ready to march on the

street yet. I walked on the sidewalk, parallel to them, to where they were at. And then,

this guy named [inaudible] got up in front of the crowd and made some very good,

sensible comments. He's also a Vietnam veteran, and he's a Vietnam Veteran Against The

War, but he was also very much a leader in the Chicano movement. And we became

friends, and he recruited me in the ways to the Chicano movement. It just seemed natural

to move from the anti-war movement to the Chicano movement because once you started

looking at the other factors. We had, we were getting dropped at a higher rate. We were

being put in the front lines at a higher rate, and we were being wounded and killed at a

higher rate.

And so we have, as a people, Chicanos have a very good reason to be against the war.

And I realize that the two things just fit like a dovetail. And I stayed involved in the

Chicano movement I think up until two minutes ago. [crosstalk]

Q: Yeah cool.

JE: So, yeah, it's become very apparent, a focus of my life.

Q: Mm-hmm. One more question for you, when you were in the military, when you're

in boot camp or when you're training before you went, did you face any,

discrimination for being Chicano or was there? Some other guys had voiced some

discrimination, I was wondering if you could share.

JE: I was in the Air Force in my twenties, and now it's become a very white crowd. I don't

think I got that much discrimination as most of the guys thought I was Italian. They'd call

me Esposito.

Q: Oh my goodness, that's really funny.

JE: So these guys who did, I liked the Italians and the Jews they were both from New York.

They were great, and they took me in, so anyway, I figured, every guy there thought I

was Italian.

Q: Oh wow.

JE: Kind of like a Chameleon. You know what I mean? When you're that young, you can

almost adopt anything right? And so, but I'll tell you one thing, the Chicanos in the Air

Force were looking out for each other, and I'd explain it any better than [inaudible]. You

know, seven guys who are lifers, you know what a lifer is right? Lifers are the guys who

stayed for two or more tours. They'd look out for you and say, "Hey!" They'd talk to you

in Spanish, and if you talked back to them, then they'd go, "Oh yeah okay." Sometimes

they'd tell you a secret or give you a double helping of steak when you're going through

the chow line or any number of just little subtle things right? Or if they're in the shop,

where we're getting out parts and there's like two shops asking for the same part, and they

know me, they'd say, "Hey Juan." I got the last generator.

So, anyway, I can't say that there was so much discrimination. I think more

discrimination was against the black. There was hardly any Mexicans or Chicanos in that

part of the Air Force honestly, and maybe the Air Force in general, except near the

border.

Q: And where did you meet Devra? Was this after the war?

JE: At Mesa College, when I came back from the service. I was already [inaudible], and we

met as students there.

Q: When you transferred to CU Boulder.

JE: We got married the summer between Mesa College and CU Boulder-[inaudible] That's

what I wanted to say, but I didn't.

You know what something I think that's worth talking about is Ernie Medina. Captain

Ernie Medina. Do you know the name?

Q: Mmm-mmm (negative).

JE: You know the My Lai Massacre?

Q: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Clay: Ernie was the commanding, he was the captain. He was the highest ranking officer in the

field during the My Lai Massacre. They said that he gave a speech to his troops the night

before My Lai and told them, "You got to kill everybody." So after the My Lai Massacre

became common knowledge, he was charged with the war crimes, him and Lieutenant

Kelly. Lieutenant Kelly was convicted. Ernesto was not. Ernie Medina was not convicted.

But the reason I bring him up is that I knew Ernie. I know Ernesto. He grew up in

Montrose. He's 10 years older than me. My parents and his grandparents were great

friends, and we used to go visit them all the time. He had an apple tree in his backyard,

and it had a rope hanging from it that had a little noose at the bottom of it. And I climbed

that apple tree and I put that noose on my foot and I was swinging back and forth having

a wonderful time until I lost my grip. And I was hanging upside down by one foot from

that apple tree, well, it seemed like a really long time until Eddie Medina came out of the

back of the house. Oh, he came over, he picked me up, took the weight off, took the

noose off my foot, and I just remember thinking what a great guy this [inaudible].

So then he ... 1969 I think he gets charged with My Lai Massacre, and I realize that's the

same guy. It's Ernie Medina from Montrose. And Montrose had just started having

Mexican fiestas. I think it was 1969 or '70, I'm not sure which, they had the Mexican

fiesta in Montrose, and they invited Ernie Medina to be the parade marshal. Even though

he was under indictment for war crimes, war atrocities, but Americans [inaudible] in

Montrose indicted him, and a lot of people are, "Oh my God," you know, "this is so

embarrassing now. It's bad enough he's from Montrose, but bad enough, but then we got

to have a parade for him." And they met him at the airport.

I remember he came in on a little small aircraft with a little mariachi band that they put

together to meet him in style. Welcome him home. Everybody talks about how they

didn't get welcomed home. Ernie got welcomed home. In Montrose, Colorado he got

welcomed home. He was in the parade in a convertible and waving to the crowd, and I

don't know how much after that, he was acquitted. I don't know if he was innocent or

guilty of war crimes because I would say easily 25% of the troops [inaudible] could be

guilty of war crimes.

We are so arrogant. We are just so arrogant. We would drop flyers on the village that

says, "If you're here tomorrow we're going to shoot you because we've declared your

village a free fire zone." And we [inaudible] machine guns from the air [inaudible] that

village. And we said, "Oh, we warned him. We dropped these flyers on them. Told them

that they had to leave." Oh, would you leave if that was your village? And if that was

your only home. If you had no place else to go. I don't know.

I'm just saying, the way we fought that war was atrocious. And there are many aspects of

war crimes being committed. And I really think that Ernesto and Lieutenant Kelly and

that whole outfit that went down with My Lai Massacre was the scape goats. Oh, at least

we caught some, and now we're going to punish them. We don't do that. And everybody

acted like we're better than that, but we're really not. We're not better than that. We

weren't better than that in Vietnam.

You know what, I've heard a lot about how we weren't welcomed home and that. And in

a sense I wasn't welcomed home, but you know what? By the time I came home I was so

embarrassed of being in Vietnam because of what I knew what was going on there, I

didn't want to wear my uniform. And then we landed at Norton Air Force Base and then

they took us to LAX by bus. I was at LAX at least six days. I didn't even buy a plane

ticket, because I didn't want to go home. I was embarrassed. And I was taking sponge

baths in the sinks in the men's room, and just kind of wandering around LAX wondering

what to do next. Called my friends in Denver and said, "Hey!" They agreed to meet me at

the airport in Denver. I flew into Stapleton.

And the most damning thing I can remember, nobody spit at me, or anything like that, or

called me a baby-killer, but I remember this one girl, when I got off the plane, I heard her

voice, "He looks like the Frito Bandito!" In Vietnam, we had these mustaches. The

bigger, the longer, the better because it meant you'd been there longer, right? We had our

folks sending us wax from home; by the time we got off Vietnam, we all had these

mustaches out to here. So I did look like the Frito Bandito. I had no idea who the Frito

Bandito was, but I didn't like the sound of that. For what it's worth, that's one of the most

insulting things I ever felt that I was called as a Vietnam veteran, was the Frito Bandito.

And the Frito Bandito is such a stereotypical negative image anyway. It's probably why I

had that negative reaction; I was sure proud of the mustache.

Q: Yep. And then you went back to Montrose or you stayed in Denver for a bit?

JE: I stayed with my friends in Denver for a few more days and then I went to Montrose. I

kind of like eased back into civilian life. I don't remember how many days. I had to do

another extra year in the Air Force.

Q: Oh, really?

JE: I didn't get discharged out of Vietnam. I went to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. And

I worked on [inaudible] I was there. You know what it wasn't a war zone; we weren't

killing people. No it wasn't. But I worked, again, in Vietnam I had a lot of different jobs.

I don't know why they kept rotating us.

For a short time, for about two months, I was in what they called the debriefing shack.

When pilots would go out on their missions, and after they would come back from their

missions and park their planes; they'd go to this debriefing shack; and there was about six

of us. And each little, they would stop and talk to me, and then they'd talk to the next guy,

and talk to the next guy, and talk to the next guy. And what they'd do is be debriefing

them on their systems. They would talk to me about their radar system, how it worked,

whether or not they'd hit their targets and things like that. And I would write up work

orders if they needed work on their planes. What baffled, or surprised me was the targets,

the military targets. Did you hit your targets? I go. Oh yeah. Well what was your target?

Oh, water buffalo. And we're bombing the water buffalo, because? Oh, well they could

use them for food. We're destroying their food supply. Yeah, I guess we were. Drop a

2,000 pound bomb on a water buffalo doesn't make sense to me.

Those are the kinds of missions we were flying, so there are all kinds of different ways

that I was getting this information that we don't need to be here. This is not the right

thing. You know what, I say that, with all due respect to the troops that fought the war

and didn't have those feelings. They were doing exactly what they were trained to do.

And they were doing what they were asked to do. And they were fighting for their lives

and all they wanted to do is get home. And there wasn't one of us that wouldn't give

another six months in Vietnam to drag [inaudible] once. You know, everybody had their

eye on the prize. The prize was getting home, alive, and then without any permanent

injury.

Look at all the permanent injury we created to ourselves. Have you interviewed anybody

from Ranch Hands? The guys that handled the Agent Orange?

Q: Mm-mm [negative].

JE: On the entrance to their camp there was a giant Smokey Bear. And he had a sign that

said: Only you can prevent forest. More of that arrogance, isn't it?

Q: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

JE: And those poor guys are paying a terrible price if they're still alive.

Q: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

JE: That was a carcinogen and a half, so-

Q: You said your family tradition was having multiple generations in wars. Did your

grandfather or father talk about the wars to you?

JE: Hmm. My Dad used to tell a story. He was blown off the deck of a ship, probably by a

kamikaze. He was feeding ammunition to one of the big guns, and the plane came

underneath them and blew the gunner and him and everybody else he was working with

out to sea. And when I heard his story, the seaman that was on the deck saw my Dad in

the water unconscious, and decided to jump in and help save him. He kept him afloat, he

regained consciousness, they were picked up and they were saved right.

The way that story surfaces is kind of interesting. My dad worked in a clothing store in

Montrose, Colorado. Suits, he sold men suits. And he would tell people stories. He was a

real gifted guy. He loved to tell stories. He told these people this story about how he had

gotten blown off a ship and all this. And how a guy jumped in. Gosh, what was that guy's

name? I don't remember his name. But anyway, these people he told the story to were

driving across Nebraska and buying gas from this place. "How was your trip to

Colorado?" "Oh, it was really interesting. We met this guy who got blown off a ship."

And the guys says, "You're kidding. What was his name? Was his name Ray?" They go,

"Yeah."

So next day, fast forward, this guy walks in the family store. And my dad sees him and

they're just walking towards each other. And like they're going like this and going like

that. And before you know it, they embraced and wrestling and then they're on the

ground. They're like rolling on the ground. And the other man in the store was going,

"Whoa, that is... You gotta break this up. Is this a fight? What's going on here right?" And

it turned out to be the guy that saved my dad. The tourists that heard the story and told

him who heard the story in Nebraska. They said, "You want to see Ray? Here's where

he's at."

Q: Yeah. Wow.

JE: That was one of our favorite family stories. In terms of... I'll tell you a story I find so

entertaining. Are you familiar with the Penitents? The Penitents are a Catholic, a Spanish

Mexican men's brotherhood. They could easily have been brothers, but any they were

Penitents and in the western frontier, they would frequently not enough priests to go

around. So people used to have to do a lot of church business on their own. It was the

elders of the community that called themselves Penitents. Penitents. And they, it was kind

of a secret society. They would not share, they would reenact the crucifixion on Easter

and crucify one of the members as part of the reenactment. And not to death but it was an

ordeal. And they would whip each other with these little whips. And it was outlawed and

they had to do it in secret. So there's a lot of mystique around the Penitents right?

And my dad as a little child growing up in the San Luis Valley. One of his abilities, he

had a beautiful voice. He sang well as a child all the way up. And one of the things about

the Penitents ceremonies, they had these songs that you sing; more like chants. But

because he was so good, they had him sing all the songs to sing for their events right? He

never became a Penitent, but he would be invited to those things to sing these songs.

They are called alabados. I don't know what that translates to. But they're prayers. They're

song prayers.

And fast forward to World War II, my dad's on guard duty and on the, and they're

somewhere near the equator and all the troops, sailors are all sleeping on the deck of the

ship because it's too hot downstairs and this black guy's like, "Hey Ray, sing them

Mexican blues." And that's what he would say. He's referring to the alabados which are

very sad, kind of bluesy songs right? And because my dad had a good voice they just

liked to have him sing and they didn't care what and they had no idea what he was

singing. He's singing these Penitent to his troops on the deck of the ship and I just

thought, "How cool is that."

My grandpa ... All I know about my grandpa is he fought in the trenches, probably in

France. I have his helmet and it has a big dent in one side. He said he was knocked

unconscious. He sustained it from an injury.

Q: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

JE: My dad did sustain an injury. About in the mid fifties. He had an aneurism that may or

may not have been caused by the, his experience getting blown off the ship and having a

concussion. Anyway, there's just an unspoken thing in the culture about the men being

warriors and like I said it's unspoken. Nobody said, "Hey Johnny we expect you to go to

war." It's just like oh there's a war coming, I'm going to be gone.

But you know what? I don't want to leave you with the impression of all this terrible

nastiness because about 90% of my time in Vietnam was more like Good Morning

Vietnam. A lot of humor, you know and black humor. I spent most of my professional

career as a journalist, as a police reporter, and they had a lot of black humor on police and

reporting crime. Well in war zones pronounced. Everyone sees the irony of some of the

things that happen to go on. I'll give you an example.

Q: What was that?

JE: I'll give you an example.

Q: Okay.

JE: One time we were on a flight. The wind was really blowing. They were moving mail

from a cargo plane to some trucks to take it over to the Marine side to sort it. The mail

was in these big dumpster sized Styrofoam, we used to call them iggys and they were just

Styrofoam packages that they could put a lot of letters in right? That hold thousands of

letters right? And they were picking them up in a small crane, they were picking them

right out of the back of plane and put them in the back of the truck. Anyway the wind was

really blowing and the wind got caught on one of those things and it came loose and

crashed and broke in to a bunch of pieces. And that mountain of mail just started flying in

every direction. That was pretty funny, downwind. And everybody within, the people that

were working was like "Hey help us, help us, it's mail." The other irony is is mail is such

an important commodity in a war zone right? Everybody imagines a poor guy's letters

going to get lost so we all ran after it. We were all grabbing armfuls of mail and running

back with it and they were stuffing them in to the mail sacks. And we were doing this and

there's a black Marine who was among this group of about 20 or 30 people that reacted to

help collect the mail. And we're all standing there with armfuls of mail and this guy was

like, "Hey this one's for me." And actually in that mountain of mail he had pulled out a

letter that had his name on it.

Q: That's awesome.

JE: So it's just, there's moments that you can't, it's not all terrible. It's not all terrible.

We used to go to an orphanage. And not because I was such a nice guy but because all

the guys who went to the orphanage got to have a steak dinner when they got back. So I

went to the orphanage for the steak dinner.

Q: What did you do there? At the ...

JE: We bounced little girls, little boys on our laps and I remember I used to sing the Beatles

song "Hello hello, I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello" however that song

goes. It was all to hello and goodbye. And that's kind of the words that they knew and so

we'd play with the language. I taught English in town for almost the same reason.

After the Tet Offensive, the city of Da Nang was off limits. We couldn't go to De Nang.

Even though it was right outside the front gate. So the only way we could go downtown

was to volunteer to teach English. So, I'll volunteer to teach English because I get to take

the bus downtown just to look. I've always wanted to see what a Vietnamese city looked

like.

And I had a classroom of probably twenty-five to thirty, mostly women. What they were,

they were Vietnamese that were wanting to work on the Air Force bases or the military

bases, not just the Air Force. And then gave us this book, and [foreign language] "Good

morning, how are you?" [foreign language] "I'm hungry", you know. So they gave us this

phonetic thing that we could speak Vietnamese and then we'd say it in English and then

they, the class would repeat it in English. I think I probably made about 6 trips teaching

English. But, about halfway through the process, one of the better English speakers says,

"Whiskey Sour", "Budweiser". I go, "Oh, I get it. You guys want to work in the service

clubs." So, I taught them how to say "Schlitz, Budweiser, whiskey sour, rum & coke, 7 &

7." I mean, I had a whole list of alcoholic beverages that I incorporated into my lessons.

And you know what? Some of my students ended up working in the clubs. They had the

key to the language.

Q: Great. Is there any other memories you want to share before we end for today?

JE: I learned to sail at China Beach.

Q: During and R & R or what?

JE: Well, we didn't do R & R. We could go there on our day off.

Q: Oh, that's right. You're so close.

JE: When we got back to where we just... having 1 to 2 days off, a week, we'd go to China

Beach and spend the whole time there. Sometimes sleep on the beach. And they had these

little, I think they are called sunfish, I think they were called, sailboats. They're real

small, two people, and they had like a sunken place about the size of an ice chest in the

middle of the boat and we'd fill it up with ice and beer. And we'd sail until you could

barely see the mountains. Then we'd get out probably about fifty miles at sea, in a

sailboat, and pretend that we were going to sail to Hawaii.

Q: That's quite a ways.

JE: Then we'd head back, but anyway, that was-

Q: Who taught you or you taught yourself?

JE: I'm sorry?

Q: Did you teach yourself or did someone teach you?

JE: No, friends. Friends had a little more experience and so I, you had to take a course and

pass the test and they'd give you a card that said that you, with that card then you could

just go check out a sailboat. So, once I knew that you had to do that to get the card to get

the sailboat, I just took whatever class necessary. It was real simple sailing, but it's cool.

Q: Well, thank you so much. [inaudible].

Q: Okay, if you want to do the Vietnam hitchhike and then we can do the-

JE: Uh, I think an unusual experience I had, particularly for being an Air Force guy, we didn't

get around helicopters much. But, like I said earlier, we could buy eight cases of beer.

And we went to the PX and they had these little apartment sized refrigerators. I think they

were maybe a hundred bucks, maybe even less. But I bought a refrigerator and my 8

cases of beer. But I didn't have a way home. So, I'm outside the PX with my refrigerator

and 8 cases of beer and my thumb out. And, these guys come up to me and says, "Where

do you live"? I go, "Camp Da Nang". "You got a helicopter landing pad"? I go, "We do?

And he said, "Well, we'll give you a ride home, [inaudible] cases of beer". So, anyway, I

loaded up my little refrigerator and my 8 cases of beer in their helicopter. We landed at

the little MASH hospital landing pad and went to my barracks and drank a case of beer.

Q: That's quite the hitchhike. I don't think a lot of people have been able to do that.

JE: Just the war zone kind of thing. You couldn't do that [inaudible]. You know, there never

was, in my experience, any kind of organized transition out of the military. Out of the

war zone, it was actually really pretty bad. When we hit California they just basically cut

us loose. We had to make our own way home if that's what we were going to do but as I

told you earlier, I didn't want to go home but I didn't have any place else to be. I don’t

know if they had homeless shelters in those days but that wouldn't even have occurred to

me. When I got discharged from the Air Force, I was so done with the Air Force that on

my way out of town, Tampa Air Force Base, I was on the Causeway, between Tampa and

St. Petersburg, I stopped on the Causeway and I threw my duffle bag with all my Air

Force uniforms into the Tampa Bay. I was so done with the Air Force. I don't have a

picture of me in uniform except [inaudible]. I didn't get a picture with my dress suit.

Q: And with your writing home and receiving letters? Were you writing to your

family?

JE: My poor mom. She's very religious] and she prayed, I understand she prayed every day

while I was in Vietnam. My sisters are still not happy with me for that. My mom she put

these rocks in her shoes and when they told me about it, I'm like oh yeah mom, you had

rocks in your shoes, and she was like I just wanted to do penance and feel pain and offer

that all up as a prayer. She said it and years later, after my mom passed away, my sister

asked, did you ever see the rocks that mom put in her shoes when you were in Vietnam.

And this rock is bigger than a pea, they were pretty good size. Three of them if I

remember right. She prayed to help keep me safe. [inaudible] She was, nobody thinks

they're gonna die. All those planes that didn't come back. You're kidding. How did that

happen. We had air superiority. They can't shoot us down. But [inaudible]. I think I'm

done.