New Mexico and the Vietnam War: Portrait of a Generation; Interview with Don Loftis, Disc 2 of 2

picture too. Oh you are you're filming again? Oh I'm sorry I thought you were still waiting. No. No take your drink. No I was. I was. Yeah. So the biggest thing I think every Vietnam that ran into was culture shock and probably in the visor even more because it landed as I mentioned earlier the tons of new air base the airmen were out there playing volleyball and swimming and swimming pools and then the next stop was a French Oscars Club was during the Heights. Next stop was a division headquarters. Yeah it was still pretty nice. Next stop was a brigade headquarters and that was all right and then I mean you know it wasn't luxurious but it was okay. So the next stop they far ferry you out in the helicopter.

You drop down in a little tiny helicopter because the rest of it is covered in water from the delta and this tide was in. So you get off and they come help you with your duffle bag and they go over to this compound and they throw throw your stuff underneath this little fat rough and you look around it and the picture will show you absolute most desolate screwed up looking place you've ever seen. The first thing I looked at down was this ditch that ran inside the circle of the compound. It's about oh no a foot deep eight inches wide and the water and it was black. So what is this? Well anything you don't want goes in there and this is even even you know body fluids. Well we don't try not to do that. So later the next day they showed me where the later that night where the bathroom was and it was a little

piece of wood out across the water from the motor out and you had to do before as you stood on two floors did your thing and then the picture as another picture is these guys out just beyond that taking their baths you know in the water and well you know the tide goes in and comes out. Well this fecal material goes in and out and spreads itself all around. Yet that was that was their social water and that's where they did their showers and I guess they used it for even cooking. I don't know but the first thing we did was built it went out of a 55 gallon drum and built us a damn shower because I'm gonna shower in that water. So then funny after a few days the counterpart says to me says you know a big difference between you and French what's that? Well you were about a shower and says French never shower. So I thought that was a anybody's been on a subway in Paris will appreciate that story. So so the culture shot

going from relative degrees of niceness to a pit you know in the middle of nowhere it was a it was a really a shock. It was in Cambodia. So Cambodia, a significant event. We lost in this one battle because if we went in every place there was an intersection of rice patties. There was a spider hole and a guy with fetched stuff over his head you couldn't see it because it looked like rice. Every one of these and so they let us get in the middle of all these rice patty intersections and then they raised up and started firing. You didn't know where it was coming from. It was coming from here. Left rear, right rear, left front, directly front. It was everywhere. The fires were coming. So we lost about 45 men within seconds or dead killed just like that. The rest of us were just laying flat trying to and so that went over three or four

five hours trying to figure out what was happening. What could we do? Shooting, trying to get control. Then we called in gunships and the second gunship was shot down. The next was a Vietnamese aircraft, Vietnamese Air Force, a Skyrader and it was shot down and then a USF 100 was called in and it was shot down and so you know you can start running, you start thinking I think these guys are pretty significant you know they know what they're doing and then later we brought finding brought in USF4s and they silenced the anti -aircraft guns that were doing the damage but watching those 40 people died just like that in seconds was unbelievable and then we got in the the armored that helped us clear clear the front that I'm interior and that that at least you know got us free but then that night we were sitting there looking the second or third

night because that was about a three -day battle where we see these lights starting to move. These lights were moving and they were moving between our right company and our headquarters and our left company they were moving right between us in a bamboo trail and we got word they were north Vietnamese and this thing moved for like an hour there's that many truths and so when they stopped and what it was is as the US was attacking Cambodia and the South Vietnamese in North Vietnamese were getting completely split up so as they would find some soldiers they would just join they didn't know who they were with they were just moving so they were actually asking our soldiers hey what union are you from and our soldiers make up something well these are private speaking to privates they didn't know what the first to the 77th was you know whatever the line was so then we had to move our people out to keep them having moved them through the lines of

the North Vietnamese to rejoin us and I had one of my advisors was with them so we were we had a pretty scary night but we got everybody back two or three at a time moved through the North Vietnamese to get back and join us and in the next morning we had a good battle and won it and that was that whole thing took about five or six days of almost constant constant contact with the North Vietnamese not DC North Vietnamese so the other thing that's significant you can ask for yeah then you immediately into the next door if you could just save that again and then pause for a little bit that would be wonderful yeah so the most significant thing was with a spider hole defense that the North Vietnamese set up so basically every corner of a rice batty they were set up with machine guns and

automatic rifles hang around eight the whole bit yet when they started firing they were behind us on our left on our right everywhere they were surrounded they were firing plus the front and so immediately we had 35 30 make 40 casualties killed you know they were they were actually after they would shoot someone they would you could see them shooting them three and four time to make sure they were dead so you know and then trying to get control and everybody else was pinned down by the same enemy trying to get through that get away from that and get the back where you could you couldn't hold in we couldn't bring in medivacs couldn't bring any kind of fire because they were all around us and it amongst us so you know you were helpless for I mean I guess we laid there I don't know four or five six hours before we got control of the situation we were able able to silence the ones that were shooting us and then and then the next day we had the event where we had to move

troops back through their lines to rejoin us was pretty significant the one thing you hear about is the hatred between the Cambodian people and the Vietnamese people went on for thousands of years and this happens all over the world you have these sects and you don't realize it they look the same where are they fighting what they hate each other well I won't go into that history but yeah I'm sorry I was at 40 45 soldiers killed in a matter of seconds was one of the hardest things that I've ever witnessed and we'll never forget that's kind of the TV part of this yeah yeah so so the thing was there was a terrible slavery rang in Cambodia and then another little town nearical preso and you know yeah but corner of your mouth is

just a little yeah right up on the upper top right in the corner right I mean I already interrupted it and a lot of a lot of real confusion was going on and we were told don't drink the water well why not well there's the well has been poisoned well you know you stumble around you finally three two hundred and fifty two hundred and fifty Vietnamese and they were North Vietnamese or VC but they were still Vietnamese to the Cambodian didn't matter that all been poured and thrown in this well drowned and thrown in the well and it poisoned the whole water table that whole area and of course we were told then our mission was to pull those bodies out and help identify and bury them appropriately and so we did that so you know took a three or four almost a week pulling those bodies out and burying them

when any identification the armor unit followed us next in the mechanized so we came back through preso later and the armor unit had heard what it happened and went crazy and they shot every building with their tanks they killed every dog kill every pig tore up every magazine tore up every anything that was could you could destroy they destroyed I don't know that my civilians but everything in that town was destroyed just almost in a rage and every building was shot in my tanks and they collapsed and you know because it didn't matter to them that they were North Vietnamese they were Vietnamese and they were it was became a religious thing a nationality thing had nothing to do with a regular war so that's you know that's something you never you never think about also the Vietnamese were pillaging the

Buddhist temples and and shrines in the homes were all gold and they were stealing and stacking those things and the word in fact I reported it the word got back and they were stopping them back at the border and I don't know if they were arresting them or whatever but they were trying to recover some of that gold hopefully they send it back into Cambodia where it came from so a lot a lot of turmoil in those days next you would say yeah the Cambodians say that again just when I have that the Cambodians really hated the stuff well the Vietnamese and Cambodians said for thousands of years been been enemies and there have been clashes there have been but certainly there was never any cooperation and in the North Vietnamese just impose their will on the when they started moving the Ho Chi men trail down and

use their sanctuaries and and the Cambodians finally saw a chance with the invasion to get even with the Vietnamese that had been in their area don't know what they were doing to them but probably anything they wanted so they killed those 200 and retaliation for the way the Vietnamese have been treating them and then the Vietnamese South Vietnamese returned the favor by completely destroying the town down to anything there was nothing that wasn't broken and that down everything I want you to just do a quick Cambodians and the Vietnamese and whatever they hated each other. Cambodians and Vietnamese have been enemies for a thousand years let's just getting on the plane to come home What were your feelings? Well

a little bit a little bit different and I'm going to give you a story before that so once my replacement started coming in now I was a first lieutenant in a major's position as a senior advisor to a infantry so about my 10th month in country 10 and a half months the the major came in and so he came and replaced me I went back and worked at the division headquarters and we moved that division headquarters into replace the 25th infantry division when they went home and then the old division headquarters area was so nice that some Vietnamese agency was going to get it they went so it wasn't secured they you know they couldn't decide who was going to take it so they could tell us down and lost us to go over and gave you some soldiers to go over and secure this base until Vietnamese

could take it over well I got every soldier that no one else wanted you know to go over had no NCOs when I did get a NCO after screening raising hell about it I got a band director that's all it was his career was a band major so he went in help anyway so I went through that I thought well when I got back and I said I'm done with this stuff it's combat stuff and I got a month I'm gonna kick back and cool it no I was there having to do go through that for that whole that whole month and Christmas holidays I never forget and the VC would would mess with us and I had a little bit shooting at us throwing nothing bad and at daytime the South Vietnamese were breaking in stealing all the ceiling fans in the buildings so you had to guard it from everybody all day long so that was

that was my present then I've got the ability to go home when I made it a little bit different is trying to do a job search during a recession and you're in Vietnam and you're trying to find a place to go to work when you get out it's pretty tough in fact it's impossible and I didn't know what I wanted to do or I wanted to go so I decided to go Vaughn and Death where you stand for in a definite period of time and you're not discharged my discharge was supposed to be up immediately when I return so I didn't pick Fort Bliss Texas to come back to and so I kind of had a plan you know so I think coming back you know I was not gonna be leaving the Army I was not gonna so it wasn't it wasn't wasn't difficult wasn't hard until you actually got back you know when you get back then you don't know what to expect you know you'd hear it all been reading all this stuff about the anti -war protest and all this stuff going

and particularly when they land you in in Oakland California and you put you on a bus because Oakland doesn't have any the Travis doesn't have any inter interstate transportation and they send you to San Francisco to get your bus the heart of hippie land and protest land you know going on all the time so there were protesters there only when we got off the bus calling you know all the standard things baby killers and killers and you know all this kind of stuff and I think you'd you'd heard about it and it didn't do it didn't affect you too much you know I mean yeah you know I was like everybody else I didn't like Jane Fonda you know because she'd what she had done and didn't like the people but you know I remember you're okay it was all right even though there was that that protesting going on you were somebody actually calling will be well

they were they were across the street we're getting out at least they're they weren't intermingled with us so they were you know they have their signs up baby killer and you know probably an honor and they were protesting around people you know and it will protest Congress and did you think that they were right or they were wrong or you didn't think about well I think they were right and in the fact that that was that was a right to do that now whether it was correct what they were doing was another thing but you know that this was 1971 now right January 1971 so you know Nixon in fact I remember one time before I left the battalion we got a super secret notice right true battalion whether they can do without advisors or you know or just great them and the question is can they do it on their own like I told you

I said they can do it on their own and assuming somebody gives them air support medevac support and artillery support you know they don't have those and they can't do it on their own nothing I don't think somebody read that piece of paper and everyone that was done across the entire country I think they threw it away because the plan was marching ahead yesterday for coming home visors were left behind and so you know you just spent a year fighting and going through a lot of misery for something that was a dated argument set to win the electricity was gonna come off you know so I think that was a that was a little tough and but I don't think out I was ready to go you know I figured somebody out there had a plan and and when you're a soldier you you learn after a while that you follow orders and you execute and it's up to the civilians to make the decisions and so I don't think there was any I didn't have

a lot of great consternation I did find something interesting I got married within a month of leaving after I got back from getting off so I was at one of my wife's pre parties you know before the wedding and this lady looked up at me and you know small talk so my you you really have a tan you know I've been in Florida I just you know not sure I was oh no I've been on and the look on her face was like you know she didn't know what to do she could tell you know it wasn't like today well thank you for your service you know no it was like oh my god just what is this person you know she immediately scooted out of off got off let me stand in there but I could tell that there was some degree I don't know if it was fear or she didn't know what to say to somebody it was had been in a combat zone you know I just found an awfully strange but very noticeable you know that people didn't you know people

didn't I think the attitude then was the people that were protesting the rest of the people were just sort of well if they ignore it long enough it'll go away so there was certainly no welcoming or tell us about it was it tough or you know it was like let's don't talk about that you know let's leave it alone that's somebody else's problem not ours and then when you go on in life and you start looking around as a veteran you know if that war and you look at the people that you knew in your hometown that that didn't go the most influential guy in my town his dad was influential of course he was a perfect physical assessment and he like George Bush immediately got into the National Guard when nobody else could you know and Newt Gingrich speaks very well about his knowledge of military history he was never a combat that never was in the military little

Clinton was never in the military all those guys my Donald Trump was never in the military how did they get out of the draft that's my question everyone them couldn't have been ill and got a 4F medical discharge how did they get how did they miss the miss the fun that we had all these guys that you're talking about now that our age politicians except a few like John McCain the rest of them never went so how did they do that pretty pretty amazing in it so you know that's what made me a believer in national service if they can't if they can't go to combat no combat zone go join the Peace Corps go join the Job Corps do something for your country not not set home and complain so as I put my pay for the announcement for today I think it's the finish line from your point of view what's important to know about the war

all right you know I think the good news is a if you look at desert storm right or wrong I'm not going to debate but it was right or wrong the generals were listening to in General Schwarzkopf and General Powell who were lieutenant colonels and majors during Vietnam saw the lessons learned and what they wanted to do you notice they were very clear about what is our mission and very clear about what is what is the criteria to what is in game how do we end this don't you know continue your homes forever how do we end it and they absolutely wouldn't attack tell everything built up is the most successful battle we ever had in our country so I think that that's important thing is let's try to learn our lessons now you get worse than that you go to the after we had to go back into Iran and we were searching for for the leaders and we're figuring

this out and we disbanded the military and we did all these things we didn't learn a thing the people that handle that it absolutely didn't didn't look back at history and do a thing that that was correct I had a friend of mine it was a 80 second herb -worn commander that got pushed don't I don't say relieved forced forced to leave my room self because he was the first one to use the correct to G word Garella when he was asked what do you think the next phase of this is a Garella warfare and that's exactly what happened and we and we even left them all this ammo and ammo ducts and stuff to use as IDs and weapons and everything we just banged the army put all this stuff in some storage area the enemy the insurgents that got going and they had this fresh supply and so you know the thing that

you're that you're going to say we were victorious and you didn't control the ground and you didn't control the assets of the of the enemy then you're you're just kidding yourself and we can't continue to do that Afghanistan is another another example so why don't we look back and people have written plenty about the Vietnam War and lessons learned and let's embody those lessons learned and and use them to help shape our national policy and national strategy and don't ignore it and don't forget it because it looks like we're going to have that kind of pattern for a long time in this current current phase of al -Qaeda's and ISIS and in these in these kind of groups but don't don't forget the war I get on learn from it I think that's what we ought to ought to get out of it the other thing is

let's figure out how to treat veterans with a lot of respect and let's let's have that part of the game plan when we in part of the strategy is not just making army to pro together and let's go there and and win but let's figure out how to welcome people back have and we're catching on but God how long has it been since we first got involved in the Middle East and had lots of veterans coming back you know we're just now getting serious about programs and seeing the the results of the of traumatic brain injury and PTSD and all these things and we're just now getting programs going yeah imagine if we had gone into this thing here's the side effects here's the content here's the things are going to happen and here's how we're gonna counter that when this thing's over know we wait ten years and then start wondering about how we're gonna do it and that's a little too long and too many people have already been suffering and we've made too much mistakes and wasted too much money

when we go to plan that from the beginning then we we tend to tend to do that don't we we have a bad a bad page in our history and we try to burn the book rather than reading it and educating ourselves about it so that's my take on what Vietnam ought to mean to us let's move like big picture but something personal for you well you know the back to you know my business since I retired the second time and out of industry first time was out of the military second time out of industry is I've been focused on all veterans in veteran you know and I'm president of the New Mexico veteran memorial and we're working in a long time before I was president so you know the good thing about a veteran is it's not that he was has a comeback record

necessarily it's that you know when I when I graduated from college I had never I never had had a friend who was black yeah new new but I never had a product called a friend I never had a friend I did I had one friend that was Hispanic I had and that was about the only two nationalities I knew so you take a veteran who goes in the military I think the most important thing he learns is he learns about the the the other and other all the other social classes and races he's comfortable with it he's learned that he's worked with him he's trusted him he has no issues you know he can step right in and has a maturity where he is confident in his ability to deal with the entire spectrum of of people

and I think that's a valuable tool that employers ought to look at when they look at a veteran not that he's a combatman he was getting on these hard harder things yeah that showed some dedication and discipline but the fact that he's he's got the background of the human background of dealing with peace people from all social strata and a racial et cetera it's a tremendous tool that that that not many people have like I said earlier yeah you know one of the things that struck me the most is when I came back and I was in a school went to a school army school and we were talked about what we learned in Vietnam and I when my point was and this was 1970 -12

awarded in the combat troops in Gamato three four years later is that if we had left the ability to fight with artillery and air strikes and and all the other combat support things plus the logistics we could have they could have won that war the South Vietnamese they had to they had the talent that the capability but when we decided to move out because of an election and because of the public pressure we we doomed them they were not going to make it I made that estimate in 1971 when I when I left I knew they were I knew they were going to be successful and sure enough they weren't but it's because they had the ability they just didn't have the resources to do it and it's certainly had the heart those soldiers fought as hard as anybody I've ever seen and those commanders were as competent as anyone us or our American I ever I knew

they could have done it you showed us some photos yeah yeah one of things being an advisor is you're at the mercy of the logistics of the South Vietnamese and one of the things that we never had was fresh water we always had to dip it in the stream dip it in we always sound the bomb craters being very nice because they were they were cleared down to the sand and very clear and look that you know we put your tablets in those tablets were for organic a perfectation not metallic so the area we were in had been completely defoliated that area west of west of Saigon on the other side of the river it's called the Plain of Reeds and there was not a

tree standing left it all been defoliated and we were constantly drinking that water and so there's no doubt in my mind that that you know that being diagnosed with Agent Orange later in my life was a surprise it wasn't and I had prostate cancer and it was you know I had to go through the whole the whole regular role of complete radical removal because it was so out of control and not a doubt that that was a cause you know no thing being an advisor you're at a long end you know the Vietnamese didn't have malaria they built up an immunity because they lived their own life but Americans didn't you know to take your your pills we ran out of pills in Cambodia so I contracted malaria not really seriously but you know it yeah malaria like a life it never never leaves your body so there's a couple of medical things that are hanging in there and

that's prostate cancer and then the malaria that I had didn't give blood anymore that's for sure you raise a red flag every time you do your quick check see if you got anything it always comes up so I don't try anymore well let's simplify that a little bit so we're gonna do some editing here yeah okay I'm just getting that looked up you've been doing yeah so you know one of the one of the issues was the lack of fresh water and we drank water that in an area that had been deflated significantly and multiple times and put water tablets in not nothing and no effect because it doesn't affect chemicals and then I had diagnosed with prostate cancer 20 years after

that and there's no doubt that Agent Orange was was a cause I was diagnosed with dirt and there's no doubt that Agent Orange was a cause yeah so I was yeah so I was diagnosed 20 years after Vietnam with prostate cancer and there's no doubt in my mind that Agent Orange was a cause you showed us some photos what did the one of them was the the culture shock of going in village and compound that was oh oh yeah those photos simply show you that the photo of the bomb crater yeah the photo of the bomb crater is you know something that in

that area we operated in it shows you that you know over time there's been a lot of activity a lot a lot and then later there's some pictures I showed you that has an airstrike going in and that same area and lots of secondary explosions so you know there were areas where the VC moved the VC hid the VC loved to just draw you into into there for a trap and time and time again you could see generations of of bomb craters in that area okay but I'd like you to do and it was me editing mm -hmm just tell us just yeah yeah so you know before before the war had gotten heated probably in the in the early 60s that particular area I had several villages several bamboo thickets lots of trees

and and today there's not a tree or then there was not a tree standing there was not a village standing the only thing that grew there was these reads that were 10 or 12 feet tall and they were somehow unaffected by Agent Orange everything else that either been destroyed by bombs or by by Agent Orange and there was nothing left but those those reads and the bomb craters bomb craters were superplates to get water and take a bath because it was so looks so pristine and clean no no none of us realized there was chemicals in that water you know there's no no warning and no idea that that was going to be harmful what was in that water made Agent Orange make that a complete statement Agent Orange was in the water Agent Orange was in the water and start me up by saying I need a little context looking at these photos there's not a tree anywhere yeah you know there's not a there's not

a tree anywhere looking at these photos looking at these photos there's there's not a tree anywhere there's not a village left in fact one of the strange things you you run into and and that's that there's no birds not a bird ever and that whole area you never see a bird because they're dead or there's the noise from the combat whatever it is there's no birds okay so looking at these the photos I showed you all you see now looking at these photos I see you see nothing left you know the vegetation has been killed defoliated villages have been destroyed and bomb craters are they're multiple times of of attacks by our craft thank you

I think I probably said it in my in my political love rampage I kind of went on yeah I guess I guess at the end is is please you know as a as a great nation that we are let's let's think about our veterans and think think about what they've contributed and not just the ones in Vietnam or the ones that are currently coming back from you know Afghanistan you know let's embrace them let's get let's give them all the help we can give them let's understand that they've been through things that the rest of the rest of the country will never will never come up understand and and you won't understand them sometimes when you're when they're when they're crying out for help you won't hear it so you got to have ways and we got to have institutions

that can help us find those people in need help and you know help those folks because they've they've helped us by doing what the nation is asking to do so let's help them when they cry and we don't the majority of us don't hear it let's let's try a little harder a little harder to listen and really understand when they're asking for help and let's give it to them all right that was 30 seconds of room tone thank

you