Interview Transcript - David Lai

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Okay for the record please state your name and town of residence.

Okay, David Lai currently living in Orleans.

What made you want to join the war effort?

Okay, I was already in the military when the war started I joined the military in ’55 before the war had really gotten full blow and the French were still over there and by the time my first tour came up in 1968 I was in the military for thirteen years and I was considered it was my calling at my profession so to speak. And they told me “Go” so I packed my bags and went.

Nice, nice; did you feel prepared for uh war after the training and all what you’d been though?

Yeah defiantly yeah at the time um I had been the instructor at my crew position for quite a few years and I figured I knew everything that could come up but I found out later that I didn’t really know everything I thought I did.

What are some examples of things you didn’t, you weren’t prepared for?

I was prepared for the greater majority of things; I just wasn’t prepared for being shot at ill put it that way, that’s something you never had experience before.

When you first entered actual combat, what did you experience what did you think it would be like?

Well I thought it would be like you know and adrenalin rush or something but it really wasn’t. It was um we got the majority of our bombing missions were what we called milk runs, we didn’t even get shot at you just go over, you drop your bomb and you come back again so you really didn’t experience anything. Sorta detached you didn’t feel like you were accomplishing much of anything.

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Describe your experience with basic training leading up to the war.

Basic training that was in upstate New York Geneva New York, that was in January of 1955 and it was so cold in the barracks that we slept in that the butt cans use to freeze over at night.

(Laughs) Nice nice, uhh what, whats, whats the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Vietnam.

Um (pause) some good memories and and a lot of bad memories.

Can you describe some of those memories for us?

Uh the bad ones were seein’ friends of yours um, we had a couple crashes and um a couple airplanes got shot down and seeing your friends go down and not come back. And the good things with the camaraderie and you know getting together with the crews afterward.

How old were you first saw combat?

Uhh let’s see, I’ll have to think about that one – It was ’68, I was 31.

What was your darkest moment in your time of service?

Darkest moment? Wasn’t related to combat that was probably, by darkest do you mean the hardest decision I ever had to make?

Yeah.

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Well probably when I was appointed instigating officer in a drug bust that happened on a military base the last base I was assigned to. This uh E6 it had almost a 20 year service, 6 months shy of having his 20 years in. He got caught smoking marijuana in the store room in the Mess Hall; and just prior to that we had run a big article in the base paper stating that if you are an NCO and you are caught using drugs or doing anything like that, that would be the end of your career. And so the manager appointed me “Impartial investigator” to go down and talk to him and find exactly what transpired, and I talked to the guy, I knew him quite well, he’d been a mess sergeant on alert and he also worked part time at the NCO as a (pause) night manager and I got inside and went down to talk to him and I said “David, you read the paper a couple weeks ago?” and he said “Yes” I said “Well what made you do something this stupid?” and I just couldn’t get over it, he said “Well I’ve only got 6 months to go I’m in E6 they’re not gonna mess with me” and I said, “are you sure that’s what you want? Really think…” and he said “Yup” and I said “Okay.” And I went back to the ol’ man at the station and told him exactly what the conversation, what happened and everything and then he said “What do you recommend?” I said “I'll tell yeah all I can tell ya is one thing, I said I'm not going to make any recommendations but if you don’t do something and something strong your drug programs going down the tubes because no one, you’ll lose your credibility after that just being in the paper several weeks ago. That was probably one of the hardest things because I knew that this guys career was gone and here he was with an NCO and you know 6 months to go and I think he had 4 or 5 children you really, it was hard, but you know you have to stand up to what you believe in.

Sooo, what was it, was was going though your mind when you first heard the gunfire and all the shots.

Well you really don’t hear any gunfire we were up, our normal bombing missions we ran around 30, 32 thousand feet which is 6 miles up and occasionally you know if you go into a high threat area we'd have a lot of fighter cover and um the only thing I really saw was um the SAM's commin' up. And the first time you see one of those telephone poles, it just scares the hell out of ya. Cause that’s the one thing you're never prepared for is you know seeing someone you know getting shot at like that. And they use to tape our bombing missions from um a certain what we called initial point till when we

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actually released the weaponry they taped the whole crews and interphone chatter and everything like that and we got back on the ground after that mission and um we started to play the tape back and I couldn’t believe it was me on the interphone cause I think I swore I was a super soprano (laughs) my voice was so high I couldn’t believe it but the best thing was of anything was the fact that I reacted the way I had been trained to react in terms of telling them what types of evasive actions to get away from the SAM the training took over in that respect.

Can you describe what a SAM is?

Surface to Air Missiles, about the size of a telephone pole probably about twice as big around, and we had certain maneuvers we had to to get out the way because the way they blast. They blast, it’s a cone shape explosion so you don’t want to be anywhere near the where you think it’s going to blast ill put it that way you try to get away from it.

So what was your role during the war was it...

I was a B52 gunner I rode in the tail end of the uh B52s.

Do you want to describe what your planes looked like?

Ehh it was the first jet bomber, 8 engines, umm about 200 and some odd wingspan. Stood about 150 feet of the ground uh you know at the top of the tail and you rode back there all by your lonesome. (Chuckles) And the rest of the crew the other 5 member’s road up front unless we had an instructor on board and in that case it'd be augmented.

Uhh did you have any injuries during the war?