00:05

Matt: Ok, why dont you start off by telling us your name.

00:07

Bill: My name is ugh, William Greely JR.

00:12

Matt: And you were in Vietnam war correct?

00:15

Bill: Yes I was 1968.

00:17

Matt: And when were you born?

00:19

Bill: 1947 September 20th.

00:22

Matt: Okay and um, so where did you live before the war?

00:28

Bill: uhhh, before the war i actually, lets go back a little further than that, I was my father was a lifer in the navy for 20 years, he was an E7 or a chief in the navy, he was a jets, and i grew up in navy bases, I lived in quonset huts, lived in navy housing, uh and uh, so being in the navy all my younger years i was certainly familiar with the service and uhh it was a good upbringing. I lived in Rhode Island, i lived in somerville Mass in the brick jungle for a year. In JR high i lived in watertown Mass, and then in 1961 we moved to weymouth Mass, and i went to school in weymouth i graduated from weymouth high. I was drafted in 1967. Uh so at that time there was alot of conflict about the vietnam war there were demonstrations against the war, a lot of the ideas were america love it or leave it or hell no i won’t go. When i got out of high school i graduated in 1965 i actually worked at MIT for a year, and went to mass bay community college for two years actually, didn't do to well i was distracted by everything that was going on so when i did get drafted in August of 67 i was pretty ok with that, i thought that was the right thing to do not only for my country but i thought i could go over there and win the war.

01:49

Matt: Right, so um what was your mother or father or families reaction to you being drafted, was it positive or was it more of a scared reaction?

02:00

Bill: My father wished he could go in my stead, because he was very successful actually uh on carriers and in the war uh, in the second world war in korea, and i think he might have spent some time in vietnam. Uh he was sad that i had to go but he knew that, that was on me. My mother was uh afraid, my brothers were proud that i did the right thing but they were afraid too. But um when i was drafted it was still uh it wasn't a serious war in that regard that people actually thought that you would go over there and get killed it was more to help the vietnamese, kinda represent the country, be against the communists it was really a cold war time. So all the movies that i watched and stuff like that, i figured i could go over there and i would be fine.

02:51

Matt: So you mentioned you have brothers

02:54

Bill: Yea

02:55

Matt: Um, did your brothers contribute to the war? Did they do anything for the war?

02:59

Bill: My brother was uh my my my brother fran is three years younger than me he actually went into the navy reserve, and uh i think he spent 6 years in the navy reserve, and then my younger brother is 9 years younger than me he never really saw any service or was required to do any service in that time, he never got drafted or anything like that.

03:20

Matt: Um, ok so im gonna move on to more times of when you were in the war, and what it was like to be there, um so my first question is what when you hear the word vietnam what comes to your head?

03:36

Bill: Thats a good question and um trying to go back in my mind to that time, to be honest with you thats critical that i be honest with you, that um i didn't think i was going to make it before you know i broke up with my girlfriend, so i was pretty much willing to take my chances as it went over there, so the first thing that comes to my mind when i was thinking of this was, i jumped on a plane in boston and we flew over, stopped in hawaii and then landed in benwah, jumped out of the plane and there was a bus waiting there for us, and the bus had all kinds of um barbed wire or wire in the windows and i really didn’t know what to expect. So we jumped on the bus and my sergeant got in the front of the bus and he said the first thing he said was “there's two kinds of people in this world the quick and the dead”, and that was kinda shocking to my although it was taken from the bible. It was the first time i had ever heard somthing like that, the reason that they had wires on the windows was it was during the ted offensive or just after the ted offensive, when the vietcong actually started to fight in zigong in the outlying areas that they were serious about winning the war we didn't think they were serious we thought we could just go in there and just by our pure will we would win. So thats when it became clear to me that this was a matter of life and death and this was serious business for me.

05:14

Matt: So um, you said you landed in what?

05:19

Bill: Benwah airport

05:21

Matt: Um what was your what was your like first initial reaction when you arrived there? Were you scared? nervous? were you.....

05:28

Bill: Benwah was actually uh extremely built up, there wa so much machinery and so much, so much there it was like a city it was city life something i didn't expect but i didn't know what to expect but i was amazed by the amount of uh equipment we had sent over there to support the vietnamese and to support the war effort that it was uh incredible to me, and some people just walking around as if being in a city like going to boston. So um that was kind of interesting at first, so um we were all hearded to an area then we found out where we were actually going, and then i believe i was transported to my base, uh which was a little place called doutiang which is near kuchi uh near cambodia, and i was unaware of this it was actually part of the iron triangle which in one of the earlier parts of the war uh the vietcong and the vietnamese were famous for the tunnels they had built in that area. Uh it was a guerrilla war which i really didn't know anything about although they did model it after us George Washington, and in that particular area there was a lot of activity which i was unaware of as well i thought i was just going to be on a fire base you know up near cambodia somewhere, and to me it was uh uh i was as naive and foolish as i could be.

06:59

Matt: So um what was your assigned position persay? What did your commander assign you to do?

07:10

Bill: I had uh originally been drafted and when i went to boot camp before dicks i signed up for an extra year to become a meteorologist with the artillery, um i had taken a test it was either a soil specialist or a meteorologist, so i chose meteorologist and uh, doutiang was actually on the michelin tire plantation so uh there were all kinds of rubber trees that were planted around, heres what it looks like actually i will let you have these, this is what, where i was for a year this is what it looked like. When i first arrived we had a tent that we would do our operations out of, what you would do is you let a balloon go attached with a device that would actually measure wind speed, temperature, direction that kind of stuff, and this little radar thing would follow the balloon where it went and then we would give that information to the various um howarts erwin, tanks and stuff like that so that when they shot projectiles into the air they could be more accurate. So you can see how decilete it is, so on the perimeter the north vietcong or the vietnamese would of course see this action, and they thought it was a radar of them so what they were constantly trying to do was blow this thing up so we wouldn't know what they were doing. So when i was in that tent area what we would often see is 6 packs we call them 6 packs of mortar fire would come in and explode but it would never actually hit the radar piece. Eventually we decided to build this, which is an underground bunker, uh fortified, blast wall, this is all dirt up above all kinds of stuff above it for our own safety. About 6 months into my experience my buddy and I were sitting right...... here at night and uh we heard a rocket come off so we ran inside and the rocket landed right there.

09:26

Matt: Right where you were sitting?

09:28

Bill: Right where I was sitting. It was a grace of God I wasn't killed, so we ran in here, that actually saved me.

09:35

Matt: It exploded too?

09:36

Bill: (nods head) Yea, and um we were use to this kind of action whether it be rocket propelled grenades, rockets, mortars, those kinds of things, took a little pride in that as foolish as we were, but that was certainly part of my experience in country right from the getco.

09:56

Matt: Thats very lucky

09:58

Bill: Extremely!

09:59

Matt: So you mentioned you were sitting out there with a friend.

10:01

Bill: Right

10:02

Matt: So did you have any close people that you had experiences like that with in vietnam?

10:11

Bill: The truth of it is, is uh the whole time i was in country, i would go to the michelin plantation i actually learned how to dive there off of a diving board and thats how i would spend my free time, I would see infantrymen, uh other members, guys who flew helicopters and there teams, medics, so there was an area a a a a a a an air strip where you could land your planes on, the airforce was there. The whole time i was there we were always prepared to be overrun, and trying to be as prepared as we could but it wasn't until after i left that we learned the the vietcong and north vietnamese had been digging under the air strip the whole time that i was in country, and after i left they did overrun the base, um blew up choppers and if you see in platoon when you see one of the, we called em’ zappers, guys who had put explosives to their bodies and ran into the communication center and blew it up in the movie, actually that was something that really happened where i was and people that i knew or people in that firefight or in that base being over run actually died, and uh although i did not know this until a few months after i had gone, god was watching over me and i had managed to miss that one.

12:02

Matt: So there were like legitimate suicide bombers that would try to go in a mess you guys up?

12:09

Bill: Yes, most definitely we always had concerns about the vietcong, they would be firing at night in the uh tracer rounds into the compound and we would be very aware of that, and again as they say there was a lot of action around us that went on i did actually see the jolly green giant lay down tremendous fire and i had seen a B-52 strike not far from where i was blowing up the land, uh right in front of my very eyes uh to we thought well we didn't know but we tryed to dissuade any forces from coming in after us.

12:55

Matt: Right, so going from dark suicide bombings to more of a positive note, what was your if you had any what was your best memory of vietnam? if you had one i know it was a dark time but if you could have seen anything positive about it.

13:12

Bill: The best memory for me that i can think of off the top of my head is when i was actually getting ready to go and i went back to benwah and we jumped on a big airplane and as we were going on the actually as we were at the airport ready to board the plane the new guys were coming in off the plane and then we got on the plane, and i was so nervous because i had heard that there were north vietnamese or VC or just our enemies who would wait at the end of the runway and blow up the planes as they were about to take off. So i think the happiest time was when i was actually 10 minutes into the flight and i was actually able to think that god i made it. So for a whole year i was concerned about people trying to kill me, and doing my job so that i could help people not get killed.

14:10

Matt: So um when you were in vietnam in the war, besides this bunker experience that you talked about was there any other point that you thought that you were gonna die? That you immediately thought to yourself this might be the end for me.

14:25

Bill: Everyday, the funny thing is in country or in the war there were people who were long timers like me when i went over and there were short timers who had survived, they stayed 100 days then you would consider yourself short, because short so that you knew that your time to be in country was over. So the newbies would actually listen to the old timers, i was with a guy from oklahoma who could actually hear uh the rockets being fired or you could actually hear the mortar rounds coming out of there.. uh coming towards us when they were dropped into the shoot, and you would run for a bunker for your own safety. So you never know what's going to happen and you're always on guard and your ear become extremely acute to the sounds around you. So uh living with that fear or living with that death was part of that overall experience for anyone who is in combat and we all live with that.

15:33

Matt: So going back to these bunkers, um did you actually live in these bunkers?

15:40

Bill: Yes

15:41:

Matt: Ok so what was the conditions like what was inside of them?

15:46

Bill: Oh well we made em’ so uh we made em’ as best we could uh it was kinda like the inside of that actually uh except over it was (studders) to prevent any projectiles from actually entering the bunker it was reinforced with sandbags or you know reinforced steel that kind of stuff, although we did end up with a huge snake in our bunker at one point it was pretty scary but it was uh as you can see in some of these actually, theres kuci right there heres kinda the sand bags to reinforce any thing in the area alright, um i have to tell you that in war i'm sure anyone who has been in war would tell you this, you take your chances and you know that going in which is fine. What i came to realize was uh that i made the conscious decision to turn my back on god. With that came all the evil things that you could imagine in the human spirit, it was very stressful um i was like a hottie kid from boston you know wise ass though he knew it all who was gonna be strong and aggressive to get through that i was not i was not a very good person at all and um it wasn't until the end of my tour when it was time to go home when i was called to the betralian house of the 25 infantry of the time and the captain, if you did a good job and you did what you were suppose to do at the end of your tour you would be given a gift from the army it was something that went on your epaulet.

17:59

Matt: Like a badge?

18:00

Bill: A badge! He refused to give me the badge because i was such a disgrace i never told anybody about that and i lived with that all these years, which is kinda great to have the opportunity to put that straight at this point, and that was my shame. So when i left country i had withdrawn from the darkness of my shame of my behavior and of my actions in terms of what i have done. In country it is not glorious at all and i lived with that for a long time and i still live with that actually, and uh it turned out to be everything opposite of what i expected would occur which is the most important part, and so i tried to forget about that for years and years, but it wasn't until movies like full metal jacket, and uh apocalypse now and platoon was pretty good because that movie was shot in all the places i was and he used a lot of the stuff in that movie that occurred, and uh if you really want to get an experience watch platoon thats a pretty good one, but uh at any rate i survived and i still existed for another year and a half in kansas at a fort rally uh no at um fort rally in kansas right next to kansas state for a year and a half kind of got my head together or at least i survived my experience.

19:48

Matt: So um going back to vietnam um you had a commander right?

19:53

Bill: Yea

19:54

Matt: So what was he like? Did you think of him a jerk or a good person?

20:00

Bill: My first uh was a warrant officer and my warrent officer was a pretty good guy, but it was very stressful on him all the guys that were in that squad before me were pretty cool guys they knew what was up and they treated me well, but then it was my turn to carry on and we got another warrant officer from oklahoma and we could call him redneck he was a redneck guy, and we also got a sergeant named sargent dubious who was really a good guy but he was known as a lifer. A lifer was different from a regular guy or a listen man or someone who was just trying to do his duty, there reasons for being over there we totally different than what turned out to be ours, and so there was a lot of tension between.... i was with mormon sargent a was with another sargent who was totally dedicated to what was going on and you know i was not at that mind, um and the people or my friends that i was with at the time we tried to cope as best we could but there was a real split between that area that we operated out of and it was hard. As much as we were worried about getting killed by the vietcong there was at least as much tension on us as we tried to do our jobs.

21:31

Matt: So

21:32

Bill: Probably more

21:33

Matt: So when you were in vietnam what kind of food did you guys eat?

21:37

Bill: We had great food. The good news about being next to the landing place and having the air force there, uh i had thanksgiving there every morning we would go and have great breakfasts, uh i had christmas there. We had plenty access to food, clearly that was one of the benefits of being in one spot uh is uh we actually we were treated well in that regard.

22:08

Matt: Um so how much gear did you have to run around in in vietnam?

22:13

Bill: Um we were given flack jackets and uh we were pretty much in fatigues all the time, we were given a helmet to wear, although a lot of times that stuff was bulky and heavy and um being the idiot rebels that we were or that i am we wouldn't often times wear those helmets or flack jackets because they were too cumbersome and we would laugh at the infantry guys who would come in and dig trenches around there areas, and we were say you know what are you worries about this is just a outline base but certinly those guys were in better state when the place got over run.

22:55

Matt: Um were you injured at all during the war?

22:58

Bill: No, ah mostly in terms of my own rage i would say but uh god did really watch over me the whole time, and uh i was able to survive that in pretty good state.

23:13

Matt: Um did you witness any injury from the people in your squad?

23:20: I did witness a lot of times there would be firefights outside the uh i don't wanna say camps but uh outside the area where there would be firefights by the road, diffrent vehicals would be going from one place to another convoys and all that and they did... (i asked a question) actually further out beyond the perimeter, there would be places where ambushes would occur and i did see a guy jump out of a duce and a half, a truck an APC who was bleeding pretty badly, but that was just about as close as i came to witnessing anything bloody or gory.

24:02

Matt: How many people were in your squad?

24:04

Bill: I suppose we had about 12 guys there.

24:06

Matt: 12?

24:07

Bill: Yea

24:08

Matt: Do you... do you regret doing anything from vietnam?

24:14

Bill: Yea uh (puts on glasses and reads paper) to prepare for this interview i tried to put something in context about what my mind was like during that time 1967 through 1969, and seeing as its christmas let me share a little gift with you that may strengthen you to be a better man, to think about what actually happens in war, um i became quite vein in my thinking and as i told you i turned my back on god not only because i thought i could do it but because that was my choice to exchange that gift to be human for the glory of war for my own power that would make my life better, i was a fool i thought i was wise but in fact my mind became senseless and it was pretty dark, what i participated in things like uh the evilness of the human mind without grace.. the grace of god and the love of god, greedy, malicious, full of envy, murderus think about that, i was at rival with other people in my unit and problems of the world, treturas, spiteful, insulant, and i have no clue about that boastful, hardy and uh disrespectful not only towards authority but towards my family also myself, heartless and ruthless to survive and that was my shame, my truth...

26:40

Matt: What was you're darkest time when you were in the war?

26:48

Bill: uh my darkest time in the war...

26:58

Matt: This question can also be related to what was your darkest time or when did you say to yourself i really don't want to be here right now i would rather be somewhere absolutely totally different.

27:13

Bill: uh actually it wasn't during the war it was after the war in the service, all these experiences im talking to you about experience in the country paled to what happend to me in the next year and a half in kansas reguarding being in america and being spit on treated like a baby killer being treated like a second class person in manhatan kansas that was the worst of all, although i was so thrilled i never thought about running away or anything like that i knew it was my enlistment i knew it was my duty, my happiest time is actually when the madness ended, and i was able to ride my bike and go off on my own.

28:02

Matt: thats thats great, what did you do after the war?

28:04

Bill: After the war it took me about 4 years to really uh pull myself together and i went back to school at UMASS boston, i was a bartender, i rode harley davidsons with my brothers i.... what else did i do? construction, you know just kinda.. happy to be free really and not worrying every day about someone trying to kill me, and so every day was a blessing in that regard and i meet my wife in 74 and went back to school in 47, and my whole life completely changed, so that was good.

28:45

Matt: And what can you take from the war what was the main lesson that the war taught you what can you take away from it?

28:55

Bill: I think its really to give the glory to god, and to serve him and not do what i did because i know what people are capable of given their devices and my own devices actually, and so um to be a discrase and then to know the love of god through my family through my grandchildren though my work actually in DYS for 25 years (inaudible) god forgave me, and allowed me to live a productive life and not to be sad or burdened by my disgrace so thats good.

29:56

Matt: Alright well i think we are just about out of time and thank you for being here and thank you for talking about your experience.

30:00

Bill: Thank You!, (handing me pictures) heres me at 20, and 21. thats me in the bunker and thats me ouside of the bunker, just so you know i was really there im not just telling you these stories and it really did happen. now you may wanna take these with you yes? no?

30:19

Matt: um just these you can keep these

30:23

Bill: thank you

30:25

Matt: thank you for the interview

30:27

Bill: thank you, one more thing, all these things that have happened to me and happened throughout time actually are a warning to you and your brothers and sister at school not to desire evil things, whoever thinks they are secure in there standing with god should take care not to fall and to know that you cant drink from the cup of the lord and the cup of demons uh because you could prevoke the lord like i did seek the good in others noone should seek their own advantage but that but the goodness you can bring to you're neighbor, also why should anyone every give up thier freedom or have it be determined by somone elses conciounce my concience is clear now i made the right choice not everybody does and being free is the most important thing, when you think about that do everything for the glory of god in whatever you do avoid giving offense to anyone try to please everyone not by seeking you're own benefit but that of many and try to help them, be a good person and if you can learn that and i can give you that gift um at this time so that it may help you avoid the pitfalls that i welcomed and though i could handle which i actually couldnt i think you're life could be much forfilled much more so than mine, and you wouldnt be doomed to make the same mistakes that i did. Thank you brother.