Carpenter, Richard Anthony

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Richard Anthony Carpenter – Life
During the Vietnam War
By Richard Anthony Carpenter
October 24, 2005
Box 9 Folder 1
Oral Interview conducted by Rachel Michelle Carpenter
Transcript copied by Michelle Carpenter October 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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RMC: Alright, can you please state your name?
RAC: My name is Richard Anthony Carpenter?
RMC: When and where were you born?
RAC: I was born in Huntington Park, California, in 1947.
RMC: Who were your parents?
RAC: Richard Edward Carpenter, from Illinois and Jane Marie Freiss from Los Angeles,
California.
RMC: Where did you grow up?
RAC: I grew up, well, I was born in Huntington. Well, I grew up in several towns. I
grew up in, Maywood CA, then moved to Southgate CA when I was about four and
moved to Anaheim CA when I was about 6 years, 1953.
RMC: How old were you when the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was put before Congress?
RAC: Let me think about that for a second… I think it was around 1964. I think I was
about 16 or 17.
RMC: So you were in highschool still?
RAC: Yeah, I think I was a sophomore or junior.
RMC: Okay… What was the general opinion of the people where you grew up about the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the war?
RAC: I don’t know for sure. I think that when it started people didn’t think too much
about it. They were kind of for it. But as time went on and people had to go, I think
people turned against it. You know, no one saw an immediate threat. What are they
going to do, come across the Pacific Ocean with sand pans to the United States, you
know? So I think-- probably after 1967 or so-- people were mostly against it.
RMC: Did you have any family that had any experience with war?
RAC: Yes my first… my Grandfather Carpenter was in the navy. He was in WWI. He
was also after WWI in Russia along with the White Russians. The Americans were
supporting against the Red Russians or the Bolsheviks and he once said looking at the
Bolshevik people, the Russian people in their bare feet in the snow and ice and if he were
one of them he would probably become a Communist too. I had an uncle also that was in
the navy in WWII and my Dad was in the Marines in WWII.
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RMC: How did your own family feel toward the war and the drafting process?
RAC: I’m not sure. My Dad I don’t think was against it. He was for the war and always
kind of… I guess kind of pro- military. He was in the marines. He fought in Iwo Jima.
Guadalcanal. But I think of the whole family, he didn’t want me to go to Vietnam. He
kind of discouraged me from joining the army.
RMC: Do you remember how your Grandfather felt?
RAC: I think that my Grandfather was very liberal. He was against it and thought it was
a bad idea. I think that he didn’t see any reason for us to be there.
RMC: Was this Grandfather that helped with the unions getting started?
RAC: Yeah, my Grandfather Carpenter in Oregon.
RMC: What were your plans before the drafting process first began?
RAC: My plans were to stay out of it. By going to college, and so I did that and I got in
college and I really liked it so I stayed for 4 ½ years and was able to stay out of the draft.
I didn’t want to go to Vietnam, so I was just delaying the fact that I might have to be
drafted and I was gonna get draft right out of college. I was able to get into the National
Guard and stay out of the draft cause my only hope was the lottery when it started in
197… well I think that it was 1970 but my number came up 39, so I never had a chance
after that. I had to find a way go ahead; should I get drafted or join something? And I got
my draft notice, but I already joined the National Guard so they waived it so I didn’t have
to go.
RMC: So you volunteered for the army?
RAC: Well, for the National Guard. I joined it in 1970.
RMC: Now, did your family encourage or discourage you from volunteering?
RAC: Again, I don’t remember too much about that I think. I don’t know… I think that
they were kind of glad that I wasn’t just going in as a draftee. But then again, I think that
they maybe thought that I should have joined the army or navy or airforce instead of
going into the National Guard. I think that they maybe thought that that was a chicken
way out or something, which it might have been.
RMC: What did your mother think about it? Was she scared for you or anything?
RAC: I don’t think that she wanted anyone to go to Vietnam. Like a mother, you know,
she didn’t want anyone going over there. I don’t think she understood what was going on
there. She wasn’t that on top of political stuff or current affairs.
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RMC: So you volunteered to get out of the drafting process basically right? So you
wouldn’t be drafted?
RAC: I volunteered to get out of the draft, yeah.
RMC: So you attended college instead, to avoid going after you volunteered, right?
RAC: Right.
RMC: So where did you go to college?
RAC: At Cal State Fullerton and I majored in history and I got a degree in history and I
graduated in January 1971.
RMC: Did you have a minor or anything?
RAC: Yeah, my minor was in American Literature.
RMC: Really? I didn’t know that you liked books.
RAC: Yeah, I read lots of them. Novels. Kind of went along with history. I used to
watch a lot of cultural histories of the United States. We studied about the rioters and the
artists of the US along with history.
RMC: Did I ask you what college you went to?
RAC: Yeah.
RMC: So to Cal State Fullerton, right?
RAC: Right or Fullerton State or whatever they call it today. Or Orange State
University.
RMC: Did this campus stage a lot of protests against Vietnam?
RAC: Yeah they did. In fact when… I used to kind of watch from the outside. You
know, I wouldn’t join them, but I kind of sympathized with them. And I remember one
time when there was, there was a…. Well what happened was when the governor of
California spoke, who was Ronald Reagan, and some people were heckling him loudly in
the gymnasium, so they arrested these students. So about a week later, they had hearings
for these students and that day in the… they had a big riot outside the campus and they
overturned trash cans that were on fire and I came out of my classroom, not knowing
what was going on outside and it was a couple hundred Fullerton police department and
people circling the quad area and people were screaming and yelling and the police were
chasing after kids. It was kind of interesting.
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RMC: It sounds like fun to me.
RAC: Well, the rest of the year it was kind of interesting because all the real hippie
types, they took over the art buildings and music buildings and the only people that were
let in there that last two months of school year were the teachers and stuff. Everybody
else had to stay out. They like barred the doors and everything. So anyway, they burned
down one like Kwanzaa hut, which is like a treasure, and they burned that down in the
parking lot. There were some fires.
RMC: I can’t see that ever happening at BYU- Idaho.
RAC: No, I’m sure it wouldn’t.
RMC: It sounds interesting.. Very interesting though.
RAC: Well yeah, it all kind of cooled off though because then the summer started in
June and everybody went home and it got back to normal the next year. It was kind of
crazy though.
RMC: What were your feelings about draft dodgers?
RAC: [ Laughing] I don’t know. I mean if you do it legally and you do what I did, then
you avoided it. Not really dodging it. I played by their rules.
RMC: I was about to ask you if you consider yourself a draft dodger then?
RAC: Kind of. Sometimes I think those guys that went to Canada were braver than I
was. They had the courage to go to Canada. I mean, they were really, leave everything
behind and go and never come back. In fact they were probably braver than I was while I
was just, not standing up to my principles and avoiding the draft and joining the reserves
instead of going into the regular army and stuff. At least they had the conviction and
stuff to flee the country. They really meant it. Maybe I just… I wasn’t as strong as they
were. But I really wasn’t that strong about it, but I felt bad. I had three friends that were
hurt over there. One was killed, one was blinded and one got caught in a booby trap lost
both of his legs.
RMC: When did you first recognize the growing anti- war sentiment?
RAC: I don’t know. I think somewhere around the time I got to college in 1966 or 67.
You could just see. When you go in to the college, it was just all over the college.
Because it affected the college kids. Those were the ones that were being drafted.
Just think of that time if you were married you wouldn’t be drafted. I’m not sure if that
changed later on around 1970 or 71. At first if you were married, they wouldn’t draft
you. Really the only way out was getting married or going to school. So, I decided to go
to school instead of getting married.
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RMC: Did the anti- war sentiment affect your feelings of serving in anyway? Like
joining the National Guard?
RAC: I kind of felt hypocritical in a way because I wasn’t for the war, but I kind of like I
was forced to do something so you were kind of forced to do something you didn’t want
to do, but it was better than going to Vietnam and that’s what a lot of people did.
RMC: Do you know what Mom thought about the war?
RAC: I’m not sure because I didn’t know Mom until around 1970. And she was born in
the church and I wasn’t. I didn’t even join the church until 1970. You know, I had
longer hair and I was wild, a little wild anyway until I met your Mom. So, if I had grown
up in the church, I would have been more conservative I think. But, I was a little bit
more on the radical side. I mean, I wasn’t very radical but I stayed a little more open to
it. I mean, I believed in it. But I didn’t believe in it hard enough to go out there and go
and be hit in the club, burn a flag or my draft card or something like that. I wouldn’t do
that, but I was for what was going on. I supported the movements in the Vietnam War.
RMC: What did you feel was the purpose of the war, as proposed by the government?
RAC: Today, I think the kids were right. I don’t think that there was any purpose to that
war. I think we were supporting a [ unintelligible] dictator and oppressor and we had a
chance after WWII when Ho Chi Minh came to the United States, I mean during WWII
when he asked for help fighting the Japanese and we helped him a little bit, then he
wanted us to help him get the French out of Indochina then we didn’t help him or
anything. So he turned to the Chinese for support. And you know they drove out the
French, then we were there, supporting some treaty ( I forgot what it was now), but this
treaty stopped trading of some kind. Then they went “ nutty buddy” and attacked
Vietnam. I don’t think it was… Look how it turned out. It was different from their
policy and we got to play. It was just a waste of a bunch of people’s lives. I probably
feel stronger about it now than I did then.
RMC: Really?
RAC: Yeah, I think that it was a big waste. We didn’t do a thing by it. People there
today seem to be better off than with their government than they had before with all the
Communists there.
RMC: How do you feel about the war in Iraq now, because a lot of people think that…?
RAC: I think we should get out. It’s a losing cause and there’s no way that you’ll ever
win it.
RMC: Just like Vietnam?
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RAC: Yeah, well maybe more so. The people there live a totally different way than
ours. Life means nothing to them. I just don’t see them fighting for thousands of years
over there. I think that the only type of person that can control that country is a dictator.
Like Saddam Hussein. I don’t think anybody can control those people who ever has
democracy because they’re crazy religious cults. They don’t care if they die or if they
kill people. The only way that you can control that is through oppression and a brutal
dictator and I think they had one and they will have another one again if we leave.
Someone else will rise up and I think that this will all be for nothing, with two thousand
people killed. I just don’t think democracy would work there.
RMC: I think that there’s too much tradition.
RAC: I hate tradition because it’s killing them. And that religion…
RMC: Yeah the Islamic religion…
RAC: It’s.. in itself it’s not bad, but it can promote fanatic and suicidal people and
everybody loves their own version of the religion. I don’t know. I think we need to get
out. If it wasn’t for the oil, we would be out.
RMC: What did you feel about the presidents during that were in office during the war?
LBJ, Nixon…
RAC: I don’t think LBJ had a clue. I think he was listening to the military, whatever
they told him that was the truth and I don’t think they always told him the truth. It kept
escalating and escalating and nothing would work. Nixon… I think Nixon… well he did
get us out. I don’t know if he got us out the right way just by signing the treaty and
leaving and letting the other country take over.
RMC: At least he did something? By getting the soldiers out…
RAC: Eventually. He increased the fighting for awhile. He invaded Cambodia and
bombing. In a way he escalated the war for awhile I mean he said he would get us out,
but you can’t bother with people’s traditions. I remember I had an Asian teacher I tell me
in Asian History that we would never win the war. That was in 1967, and in Vietnam,
one thing that they have is patience. We want to win and get out right away. They can
wait. They’ll just wait you out. And they did.
RMC: So you like Nixon because he got you out of Vietnam, right?
RAC: I like him better than LBJ, but I wouldn’t say that I really like him.
RMC: So, what were your feelings about Nixon and Watergate?
RAC: Really, you want to know what I felt about Watergate?
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RMC: What?
RAC: He got caught. I think that it was probably the thing that happened all the time
and he got caught. And it was blown out of proportion by the democrats, and you know,
that probably happens all the time. But he got caught.
RMC: That’s what I think too. What year did you go to training camp?
RAC: Got to where? Basic training?
RMC: Yeah.
RAC: 1971. I was 23. I was one of the oldest ones there.
RMC: So you were with a whole bunch of 18 and 19 year olds?
RAC: A lot of them were 17 and 18.
RMC: They’re so young.
RAC: Yeah. A lot of them were 18 and 19. It was probably the best thing that they ever
did to get out because it wasn’t very smart. I mean, they would get paid on Friday go
drinking and buying all this stuff. And mean while they would try selling their clothes
for money because they didn’t have any money. They just weren’t, a lot of them weren’t
very smart or dedicated. A lot of the kids were from places that I’ve never been before
and they were just different.
RMC: How many years passed between you volunteering and you actually going to
training camp?
RAC: Oh, well it wasn’t years, it was more like 8 months. It would have been sooner
but I broke my ankle playing basketball. So I had to wait until my ankle healed.
RMC: That was lucky.
RAC: Yeah, they were mad at me. They thought that I did it on purpose.
RMC: So you didn’t do it on purpose?
RAC: No. I got my notice to report to Fort Jackson, South Carolina on a Friday. The
next day I went down to play basketball and broke my ankle. I had to wait. So I went to
Fort Poke Louisiana in July. And I had joined in November 1970 and I went into training
in July 1971.
RMC: So that’s where you went for your training camp?
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RAC: Yeah.
RMC: Was it a lot different from Southern California?
RAC: Oh yeah.
RMC: In what ways?
RAC: The first day, when you got off the plane, and in that humidity and heat, it was like
the whole world closes in on you. It takes you about two weeks to get used to that heat
down there. It’s really intense.
RMC: Did you ever go to Vietnam?
RAC: No. I was in the Reserves National Guard. I wouldn’t have to go.
RMC: That’s good. Did you have any friends that went to Vietnam?
RAC: Some friends. I told you that they were hurt. One of the best men at my wedding
went to Vietnam. Yeah that was Tanner. He went to Cambodia actually. I remember
he didn’t get hurt or anything. And another friend, Brian Green went. He never got a
scratch either. He did get a silver star or something for getting a piece of wood into his
leg while diving under a bunk or something when a bomb went off. My real close friends
I remember didn’t get hurt. Like I told you friends and people that I knew from high
school were injured or killed. I think that in total there were about 35 or 40 from
Anaheim high school that were killed in Vietnam.
RMC: Did you see any drug or substance abuse in the camp that you were in?
RAC: No, I didn’t see any of that. I saw a lot of alcohol abuse but no drugs.
RMC: Did you make any close friends at your military training camp?
RAC: There were one or two persons from my own unit, Fullerton, so there were some
that went to basic training with me. We were kind of close in basic training, but they
were in different companies that I was in. And that time, after we got back from basic
training and advanced training, we didn’t see much of each other anymore. The guys that
go out and drinking and partying, and I didn’t do any of that stuff. The only problem
with that is if you stayed around the barracks, over the weekend and you didn’t do any of
that stuff, they’d come around and if they needed someone to work in the kitchen or do
details, then they would grab you. So I learned after 5 or 6 weeks you go to a hotel and
just spend the weekend at a hotel room. Anything was better than staying in the barracks
and getting called to [ unintelligible] or something.
RMC: What did you do to entertain yourself?
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RAC: I played a lot of basketball. In fact, I was the only white guy that played. There
were all these black guys that played and not playing basketball with black guys before, I
realized that they were much better than I was. In fact I remember a guy, this short little
fat guy and he must have been 5’ 7”, pretty short and I was trying to guard him and he
made one move and he went by me like… I never saw him again. I didn’t know that
someone that chubby could move that fast. So, I was out of my league, those guys were
good.
RMC: So you never really played with black players before?
RAC: No. I pretty much grew up in an all white neighborhood in Anaheim. And I think
that there was only one black person in the whole high school. In my graduating class,
one girl who went all through school with me. No boys. And Orange County was pretty
white in the sixties. I never played against them or anything really. I never really had a
chance.
RMC: What kind of food did they have at these camps? Was it like cafeteria food?
RAC: Yeah. It was like cafeteria food. It wasn’t that bad if you had time to eat it.
Sometimes you would go in there and they would say, ‘ you have two minutes to eat’.
And when I was in basic training, you couldn’t talk, the whole time. No one could talk.
You had to eat at the table, not say a word and go out. If you asked for seconds or if you
didn’t eat enough you had to do push- ups or something like that. You had to eat though.
RMC: Were you a member of the church by the time that you were in training?
RAC: Yeah. I was.
RMC: For how long?
RAC: I had been a member for about a year and a half.
RMC: Can you recall what the general opinion of the church about the war was at that
time?
RAC: They were probably supportive, knowing the church. You they are very, what’s
the word? Patriotic. They may not have tried to sway people to be for or against it but
they probably were patriotic and said that we should do what we could to help out. I
really don’t remember that much. I don’t think that they’d tell you to vote one way or the
other.
RMC: How did your family or friends contribute to the community in this war effort?
Did they… contribute as showing support toward the president or…
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RAC: Well, my family was all supportive of the politics of the country. I was kind of a
rebel because I wasn’t really for it. I don’t really think they did fundraisers or
humanitarian packages or kits to send to Vietnam.
RMC: Did you feel that the military was engaging in the best possible strategy to bring
the war to an end?
RAC: Absolutely not. You can’t fight a war by being on the defensive. You either go in
there and win it or you get out. You know, what we were doing was we were just trying
to hold it. We could have gone in there harder and with a lot more, but we didn’t because
we didn’t want to look cruel or like an aggressor. All we did was try to keep them out of
South Vietnam for the most part. I mean, we weren’t fighting to win; we were trying to
fight to hold on. For one, they didn’t have the incentive. I don’t think the troops had the
incentive; I don’t think anybody had the incentive.
RMC: What did you feel about the final ‘ peace settlement’?
RAC: I was glad it happened, but then looking back you know after we signed the truce
and started reducing our troops and getting out then there was nobody there, the North
Vietnamese broke the truce and crossed it and attacked. And of course we weren’t going
to go in there again and fight. So we just gave the country to the North Vietnamese. If
that was going to happen, I wish that it would have happened 4 or 5 years earlier. All
those people wouldn’t have died for nothing.
RMC: If that’s what was just going to happen, then it should have happened earlier.
RAC: Yeah. I’m afraid that something like that’s going to happen with Iraq. Off subject
again; as soon as we leave, and we will leave, I think the void will be filled with more
radicals and it will be filled with chaos there.
RMC: How were returning veterans treated after the war?
RAC: That’s an interesting comment, Rachel. Everybody says that a lot of them were
treated badly and stuff, but I didn’t see anything. I thought they were treated pretty fair
and good for the most part. At least in my little part of the world. People didn’t look at
them and spit at them and say ‘ baby killer’ or anything like that. They were usually glad
to see them home and safe. And you know, they may not have liked the war, a lot of
them, most of them I don’t think thought much of them being there.
RMC: Did you see a large influx of South Vietnamese immigrants to the US after the
war?
RAC: Did I see any? No. But I know that in Orange County especially in Garden Grove
and Westminster they came from Saigon and if you drive down toward the beach, you
can see that area now in Orange County. Starting in the 70’ s, you could see Thai and
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Vietnamese and Chinese coming, and today there’s probably 20,000, or 30,000 that are
Vietnamese. But immediately, like a year or so afterwards, I don’t remember that.
RMC: No. I was wondering in general after the war. A few movies have been made
about the Vietnamese war. What are your feelings about those?
RAC: I’m laughing because I don’t think any of them are very good.
RMC: Not even….
RAC: I wasn’t there so I can’t say what happened for sure. But it seems like they all
exaggerate the drug use and senseless killing. I don’t know if that was true or not.
RMC: What about The Green Berets with John Wayne?
RAC: That may have been over the top the other way a little bit. Too backwaving. It
might have been closer to the truth than things like Platoon. But I don’t know for sure.
RMC: Or Good Morning Vietnam. Did you like that movie?
RAC: I didn’t watch it. Or Platoon really. I’ve never watched it.
RMC: What did you do when you got back from your military training?
RAC: I was just happy to get away and you know I just went about life in general except
one weekend a month I had to deal with training. In the summer I hated it because I was
very grouchy and grumpy before I had to go for two weeks in summer. I thought it was a
joke. Training was stupid. Nobody wanted to be there so they didn’t care. I spent more
time playing basketball. The only thing that was fun was riot training, which you know
we were training for riots for people protesting against the war. So we got to go down to
MGM studios in LA on the sets and streets and we would be soldiers marching down like
clearing the protestors and its fun to be a protestor. I would like to do that because you
could throw water balloons at the other guys and stuff. It would probably make them
mad so they could lose their cool.
RMC: Did your experience as a reserve help you in your life?
RAC: The only thing that I really gained was patience. You know that hurry up and wait
thing. You know, you just got to hurry up and get ready to do something and you wait
for a day or two or half a day. And you spend all your time waiting and never get
anything done. No, I think it was really kind of worthless. You know, it was just boring,
worthless, didn’t learn anything except how to put a machine gun together or an M16.
RMC: How would you feel if the drafting process was to come back?
RAC: I wouldn’t want it to come back. I am against it totally. Especially I wouldn’t
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want girls to get drafted. Absolutely against any kind of drafting of females or young
men. I don’t think it’s right. I think they should make the military good enough that pay
can make enough people join or have enough people joining. Be a professional military
like they’re trying to do now. I’m just against the draft. If we were attacked by
somebody and national security was at risk, our country, our soil, our land, and our cities,
but not to go over there in Iraq or Taiwan or somewhere.
RMC: Would you still support the draft dodgers? Like, if the drafting process returned
and there were draft dodgers again?
RAC: I think my attitude may have changed on that one. Probably not now if it came
back, since I did have to serve. It might be contradictory, but I don’t know.