Oral History Interview with Steve House

[Interview Begins]

KURTZ: March 14, 2006, my name is Jim Kurtz, and I'm interviewing Steve House at the King Veterans Home in King, Wisconsin. Steve, where and when were you born?

HOUSE: I was born on an Indian reservation. My father worked for an Indian reservation. I'm white.

KURTZ: Ok. And where did you grow up?

HOUSE: Mostly in Billings, Montana.

KURTZ: So, is that where you went to high school?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah.

KURTZ: And what year did you graduate from high school?

HOUSE: '68.

KURTZ: 1968. And what did you do after high school?

HOUSE: Went right in the service.

KURTZ: Were you drafted or did you--

HOUSE: Joined.

KURTZ: Joined. And why did you join?

HOUSE: Well, I don't know. I guess--my brother was in. My father was in and I didn't--I had no plans for college or, you know, like a career or anything. So I just joined the Army.

KURTZ: So was the Army--you picked that ahead of the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force. Is there any reason why you did that?

HOUSE: Probably because my father and brother were in the Army.

KURTZ: And was your father in World War II or Korea?

HOUSE: He was in World War II. And he didn't--he never left the States. He was involved in an accident. He was with the 82nd Airborne and he was an instructor, parachute infantry with the 507th Parachute Infantry. And he had an accident, broke both of his ankles and one of his knees. And that that was actually a disability that he had the rest of his life.

KURTZ: Where did your brother serve?

HOUSE: Germany.

KURTZ: OK.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Where did you take your basic training?

HOUSE: Fort Lewis, Washington.

KURTZ: And when did that start? The summer of '68?

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Is there anything that stands out about that experience like people, events or anything like that?

HOUSE: You know, I got the dates wrong. It was, it was '67 and then it was '67--high school graduation--and basic training was January of 68.

KURTZ: OK, OK. That's not a problem. When you got to basic training what was the talk about Vietnam?

HOUSE: You know, I don't really remember too much talk about Vietnam and the war. I think basic training was kind of grueling and we were all just trying to get through it. You know, I think like any other basic training, there was a few 00:03:00guys that were really struggling and we and we kind of wonder if they were going to make it or not. And some of them didn't and had to be recycled. But and then the weather was was kind of hard to put up with cold and rainy weather there. And well, just the whole eight weeks was just kind of grueling. And I don't know that we had a whole lot of time to think about Vietnam

KURTZ: Because you were in basic training during Tet '68. So that that really made not much of an impact at that time.

HOUSE: No, no. I--actually it wasn't until I got into AIT that I started to hear a little bit more.

KURTZ: OK. Where did you have AIT?

HOUSE: At Fort Ord, California.

KURTZ: And that would have been like March of '68.

HOUSE: Yeah. Well, yeah, January, February, March.

KURTZ: What, what transpired there? I mean, did you have any things that stood 00:04:00out in your mind in that experience?

HOUSE: No. I went to supply school, and it was the first time that I had ever been in California. I grew up in Montana. And so on weekends or sometimes we could get some leaves and you know, the first time I ever saw the ocean, that kind of stuff. So it was, oh, that was different. But there was talk about Vietnam and I remember we had, in our barracks, he was the NCO [non-commissioned officer] in our barracks was was a returnee from Vietnam, and he never really talked to us about Vietnam very much. We did a little bit and--

KURTZ: Was this fellow an infantry type?

HOUSE: You know, he was, if I remember, right, I think he had a 1st Cav patch. And he I don't, and I never really understood what his job was too much because we were pretty much on our own. When you're in, when you're in AIT, you know, you're just going to your classes and doing what you're supposed to. He just stayed at the barracks. But but, you know, you could tell he was just waiting to 00:05:00get out and kind of minding his own business. But I mean, like I said, he didn't talk about Vietnam much at all.

KURTZ: After you got out of AIT what happened?

HOUSE: Just went straight to Vietnam.

KURTZ: Did you get a leave before that?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah.

KURTZ: What was your reaction in your family when they found that you were going to Vietnam?

HOUSE: Well, they were--my mom was kind of disturbed. She didn't want me to go, and my dad didn't really say too much. He didn't talk too much about it, but um yeah, I remember my mom didn't want me to go, but she didn't really say too much.

KURTZ: What about people that you grew up with? You know, high school classmates and stuff like that? Did they have--

HOUSE: Some did, some, you know, were anti-war and they didn't want, they didn't think it was right to go to war and they were going to school and trying to get deferments. And then there was others that were joining and there was others 00:06:00that were drafted. And I guess it was pretty typical of, you know, the way things were going.

KURTZ: What was your feeling about going to Vietnam?

HOUSE: Well, it's hard to remember way back then. I guess I was a little bit nervous, but not not really too much. I mean, I didn't know really what to expect, and I really didn't know that much about what was going on in the war and stuff. And and I don't think it was on the news that much. I mean, it was on the news, but I just wasn't watching and I didn't really I didn't really have a lot of expectations around that. I was more curious thing else. I kind of wondered what what it was going to be like and thought about it a lot. But I just I didn't really have any good information.

KURTZ: How did you get to Vietnam?

HOUSE: Flying Tiger Airlines was the was the airlines. I remember that was the 00:07:00first one. I made three trips over there and that was the first one was Flying Tiger. I think I had a United, and I think my last one was Flying Tiger, too. But it is a big, big airplane. It was all GIs, you know, we left out of Travis Air Force Base, California.

KURTZ: And where did you land?

HOUSE: Cam Ranh Bay. No, no, no, no. Tan Son Nhut. First time was Tan Son Nhut. And then we went into the transit barracks where you just stay, they hold you there for a few days and you do your assignments. So we had formations a couple of times a day, I guess, and they just read off lists of names and what units you're going to do. And I think I was there for a couple of days and I got my assignment and then I went straight to Cam Ranh Bay with the 18th MP Brigade and I was put in S4, the supply--battalion supply. And I was there for a short 00:08:00period of time, not too long, and I think I was there for like three or four months.

KURTZ: S4. OK, so that's how you got into the MPs because of your supply training.

HOUSE: Yeah. Yeah, actually, I didn't have an MP MOS. I got cross-trained. Once I left Cam Ranh Bay and I went up to Nha Trang and was put in the MP office. They were always short of people that, for the 218th and help them with certain duties and stuff like that. Plus I had to go to Tuy Hoa, and to Buôn Mê Thu?t, to their MP stations there and just get them ready for IGs and stuff like that. I'd go through the files, just make sure everything was in order.

KURTZ: When you got to Cam Ranh Bay, did you receive any particular training that was applicable only to Vietnam?

HOUSE: No, no.

KURTZ: OK. What were your duties when you were at Cam Ranh Bay for the three or four months?

HOUSE: That was supply. Working in the S4 shop itself, and then that was just 00:09:00maintaining the battalion prescribed list of supplies.

KURTZ: So you didn't really do any traveling or anything like you did later.

HOUSE: No.

KURTZ: OK, so after the three or four months, you said you were sent to where?

HOUSE: Nha Trang.

KURTZ: Nha Trang.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: And what was your job in Nha Trang?

HOUSE: Worked in the provost marshal's office and I had various duties registering nationals to work on base and and processing MP, motor vehicle traffic violations, stuff like that. And then there was, you know, some extra duties like traffic control and the convoys and special assignments. Sometimes if there was some kind of entertainment or something like that, they needed MPs to just stand guard for--

KURTZ: What kind of screening did you do of the Vietnamese nationals?

HOUSE: Pretty much just check their their IDs and their information sheets. We had an interpreter that worked with us too, that worked with a civilian office in the train in the city, and he'd verify the documentation and make sure that everything was accurate. And I can remember going downtown to the Vietnamese civilian. It would be like the hiring agency, and I always I always thought it was like an old movie, a member of the office, and someone was in an old French-type building and you walk in and there's the main floor and then there's a there's an upstairs, it's open and there's a little railing up there. But there was a big wooden desk up there. There was a guy sitting up there and he's like the Lord over the whole office, and he was the guy that was getting 00:11:00Vietnamese jobs on base. And I'm sure that there was corruption involved. I mean, there were just, you know, we when we see corruption in America, we think of it as a bad thing. I think in those countries, they think of corruption just as a way of life. I mean, it's just kind of normal. You got to pay for certain services.

KURTZ: Did you feel that any of these Vietnamese nationals were VC?

HOUSE: No, I never, I never did.

KURTZ: OK. I forgot to ask you earlier, what were your impressions of Vietnam both in, you know, at Tan Son Nhut and then when you got to Cam Ranh Bay and then at Nha Trang?

HOUSE: Oh, it was just a complete wake up. I mean, for a kid growing up in Montana, I mean, I this was just a different world. It was just. Strange, everything was different. I mean, you know, the smells, the sights, the people, everything was different.

KURTZ: What about heat?

HOUSE: Well, yeah, that was one, too. That's what you. That's the first thing you notice, that first breath of humid air. You get off the plane, you know, you breathe in the humid air and it's like all of a sudden you realize that this is the tropics.

KURTZ: Yeah. At Tan Son Nhut, when you landed were there active air operations like fighters taking off and stuff like that.

HOUSE: Sure.

KURTZ: Did that give you--

HOUSE: Yeah, that gives you the rush, that gives you--you know you start realizing where you're really at, that this isn't just maybe, this isn't a John Wayne movie. You know, this is the real thing because, yeah, they have the phantom fighter jets in there and they're taxiing down the runway and and the helicopters flying around. I mean, it was all of a sudden you're just in another world and that world, that environment, all the sounds and sights and everything just stayed with you for the whole time you're there. And then when you left, it was all gone.

KURTZ: OK, so you said you also got cross training as an MP. What did that concern you?

HOUSE: Well, it pretty much, you know, it just pretty much the the provost 00:13:00marshal just stamped the orders. I mean, he just said, we want you to help out with this and that and with the MP work. And I started doing it and and it it's kind of excess in the office. And actually, I had--I was I was sent up to Nha Trang from Cam Ranh Bay because because I was in an off-limits area and my my sergeant wanted to get me out of the office and another guy, so he transferred, transferred us up there.

KURTZ: And what do you mean by you were in an off limits area?

HOUSE: Well, the city at night.

KURTZ: Oh, OK.

HOUSE: It was off-limits and we decided we were just going to go down anyway. What we did was is we went in around the fence and when the tide was out, but the tide came in halfway around, you know, getting getting around the fence. And 00:14:00so we had to stop and we said, Well, we're going to come back and and when we started to come back then there were some towers and they saw us moving in the water were actually probably pretty likely to be shot because um--

KURTZ: So, in other words, you were sent to Nha Trang kind of as a punishment.

HOUSE: It was definitely a punishment. Yeah. And I mean, I lost a stripe and got an Article 15.

KURTZ: So was it worth going into the city for that?

HOUSE: Well, no, we never made it into the city [laughter]. So no. But, you know, and in those days when you're young it just didn't mean anything and and I just actually ended up in a better deal, really?

KURTZ: So would it be fair to say that your MP training was on-the-job training then?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

KURTZ: So can you describe then what--so you were in Nha Trang from let's see, you said you were three or four months, here I got to look at my--so about July 00:15:00or so of '68, you were sent to the Nha Trang.

HOUSE: Yeah, I guess so.

KURTZ: Yeah, yeah. But it isn't that isn't that important. So what were your duties, typical duties, there?

HOUSE: Well, it was, actually when we got there, there were still some effects from the second phase of the Tet Offensive, and there was a lot of convoys running seven days a week and our office was operational seven days a week. We didn't have any time off. We weren't that way for, I'll betcha about six months and then they they said, OK, you guys can take turns and you can have a half a day off a week and some people took Saturdays, some people took Sundays off and we just kind of traded it off and on, but otherwise we worked six and a half days a week and and then the the the various things that I've already mentioned. But what we do in our time off is we usually go to the beach and I mean they had 00:16:00a nice, nice beach.

KURTZ: What kind of facilities did they have at the beach?

HOUSE: There was, there was some street vendors, you know, that would sell beer or soda pop and black-market stuff, you know? And then there were some restaurants, too. There were some French restaurants that were really, you know, picturesque. I mean, it was palm trees and white sand and coral ocean, you know, and

KURTZ: Well, you said that you went on a lot of convoys. Could you describe what a typical convoy was? You know, how many trucks? You know how you left?

HOUSE: Well, the convoys always traveled in three segments. There was always a lead, a middle, and a rear section. And then we had V-100 is--it looks like a 00:17:00tank, but it's got pneumatic tires there, rubber tires, and it has dual .50 machine guns mounted on top and--

KURTZ: Is that what would, lead the convoy?

HOUSE: Well, actually, a lot of the times the lead was a jeep with an M-60 mounted on it, and then the M--V-100s would be, two of them would in the end and in the middle would follow it up. And then sometimes we'd also have a jeep with the V-100s. So there was and then the the trucks most of the time were deuce and a half, two and a half dozen trucks and they'd have, they'd bring them up themselves. They put armor plating around the sides and then they'd get M-60 machine guns mounted on them and they always had a driver and a shotgun riding with them. And then they had a lot of times they'd have somebody in the back, you know, with the--

KURTZ: With the M-60.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Do you have any thoughts about what's going on in Iraq right now, given 00:18:00the fact that you were driving on roads not unlike Iraq?

HOUSE: Yeah, I got I kind of wonder about that too, you know, on that, at least on Highway 1 along the coast where a lot of our trip was was pretty safe and we had the the Whitehorse division of the Republic of Korea Army, the ROK soldiers. They cleared the highways for us in the morning. Then they had the minesweepers out there and and and they kept them pretty safe. There was the roads off Highway 1 that when we go into Buôn Mê Thu?t and there was some mountain passes and stuff that sometimes there was, there were mines. And once in a while, sniper fire, never had a full attack. But it just seems like it's more intense in Iraq. The convoys, I think they probably are running into more 00:19:00trouble then we did.

KURTZ: Okay. So how how fast would you be going on these convoys?

HOUSE: Well, on Highway 1, on the highway we didn't travel very fast. You know, twenty-five, thirty miles an hour is as fast as we went going through the mountain passes. We tried to go as fast as we can, especially, you know, where we--depending on the safety of the road, a lot of times those roads weren't very good and if it was in the rainy season, you know, he had to be pretty careful. They were always leery about the mountain passes because of the cloud cover when our air support couldn't fly with us. And then, you know, they fly above the clouds and then we'd get through the mountain pass and they cut, get back with this. But that was always there was always a time when, you know, if we ever sat out on top of the V-100s and we got inside when we were going through the mountain passes because we were kind of vulnerable.

KURTZ: So that's what--you went as an MP. You weren't typically in the V-100s then. Is that correct?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah.

KURTZ: Did you ever have any breakdowns and have to stay? Did they hold the whole convoy when you had a breakdown or what happened?

HOUSE: Well, what you know, you break it up. Let's say if if it was to happen in the middle section the back section went back up and the front section would go forward and then you'd try to fix it. If you couldn't, if you couldn't, you just you just asked for some support to come in and help with it. And you know, if you just ran it off the side of the road and did what you could, you waited until you could get it fixed, either if you couldn't wait, you know, and especially if it was like on a mountain pass or something like that, you had a problem, then you just left it behind.

KURTZ: Did you have to off-load the stuff that was on it?

HOUSE: Yeah. If we could, if we could. Yeah.

KURTZ: So you didn't leave, you just left the vehicle there; you didn't leave people or anything with the vehicle.

HOUSE: Oh no. Yeah.

KURTZ: OK. So you said you went to Buôn Mê--? Where was your first thing when 00:21:00you were coming out of Nha Trang?

HOUSE: Yeah, it was. Well, actually, there was another stop before Tuy Hoa.

KURTZ: So you went up 1 to Tuy Hoa? Well, that's okay, then from Tuy Hoa where did you go?

HOUSE: Over to Buôn Mê Thu?t. We'd come back down Highway 1 for a little ways and then cut across to Buôn Mê Thu?t.

KURTZ: And what were you carrying or just a lot of different stuff

HOUSE: You know, a lot of times I didn't even know. I mean, yeah, we just picked up the convoy at Cam Ranh Bay. But most of the time it was just, it was all kinds of stuff. I know when we first got there in that second phase, that that was still going on, it was just strictly ammunition. We don't have any, we didn't carry of any other kinds of like food or other supplies.

KURTZ: OK. And then did civilians hook on to these convoys at all too?

HOUSE: No.

KURTZ: How long did it take you for one of these convoy runs?

HOUSE: That was a three day.

KURTZ: OK, so that would be Nha Trang, Tuy Hoa, Buon Me Thuot, Da Lat, and back to--

HOUSE: No, we didn't, wwe stayed at to Tuy Hoa overnight and then we stayed overnight in Buon Me Thuot. Then we went all the way back. When we went, we'd go. We, we stay, sometimes we'd stop around a lot for lunch or sometimes around Phan Rang. And at Phan Rang we did usually have some supplies there for them, but not that too often. We were pretty much downloaded by the time we were done with Buon Me Thuot.

KURTZ: Where did you stay overnight at these two places you stayed overnight?

HOUSE: It was an MP company.

KURTZ: So they had accounts for you there?

HOUSE: There were. They were the little wood village, you know, they had the wood floor and then wood halfway up and they had the tent over the top. Yeah.

KURTZ: Was there any entertainment ever available at any of these things or--

HOUSE: Not too much at Tuy Hoa. You know, they had a service club there. We didn't really get into the clubs at Buon Me Thuot or Tuy Hoa. Nha Trang had a little more nightlife and Cam Ranh Bay. But Cam Ranh Bay had a big air force base that had a pretty good size service club. And they had entertainment there sometimes.

KURTZ: Did you ever get to see a Bob Hope show or--

HOUSE:No, I had a chance one time. We were, we flipped coins to see who can go, and there was some of the guys--Anyway, I didn't win. I had to stay. And then when those guys came back, they said, it really, you know, I was in Cam Ranh Bay, and they said, it really wasn't that that good of a show because they couldn't get up very close. And there was a lot of people and they had a lot of the wounded hospitalized soldiers up front. And then a lot of, there was a lot 00:24:00of scaffolding they set around too, you know, for the cameras and stuff to to take the movie or pictures of the show. And they just they said the experience wasn't that good, really.

KURTZ: What was the difference between taking a convoy in the dry season and the monsoon season?

HOUSE: Well, you know, you were going slower. It was a little heav--you know, it was more miserable because it was, you know, you're putting up with weather conditions and, you know, air support and stuff like that. And sometimes we wouldn't even go, you know, I mean, we'd get road reports and, you know, if it was just something we didn't, you know, if there was flooding going on or something like that, you know, we just didn't go.

KURTZ: Did you typically have helicopters over your head when you're on these convoys?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah.

KURTZ: What was the dry season like?

HOUSE: Hot, dusty.

KURTZ: So would you spread the vehicles out more when it was dusty?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah. And I noticed too, you know, Highway 1, it was, it was like 00:25:00crushed gravel, and it looked like some, maybe some civilian corporations were trying to pave it. And it just wasn't a very good job. And that was, that was like the best highway. And then when you get off there, you go on those other roads in country. There was a lot of times that certain areas where we'd run into this real hard kind of red clay and then sort of a red dirt, and that red dirt would always get all over everything, you know, and get on your--It was called laterite.

KURTZ: Yeah. What was the difference in the countryside once you got away from the ocean, the South China Sea?

HOUSE: Well, it was hilly and more jungle.

KURTZ: What was the most dangerous part of these trips?

HOUSE: The mountain passes.

KURTZ: The mountain passes.

HOUSE: Right, and I don't mean a mountain like, you know, in the United States, just high hills, probably hills like around Kentucky or something like that. I guess you could compare it to.

KURTZ: But what was your feeling when you were out on these convoys? Did you have any real--did you have any fears or not?

HOUSE: No, not really. I mean, it was most of the time it was pretty boring and it was just, you know, kind of hot and tiring and and but there was camaraderie, you know, we would always talk with each other and--

KURTZ: And when you had the lunches out, there would be C rations when you--

HOUSE: Yeah, and you know, sometime--we never, we worked with the Koreans on joint patrols like on the MP work in the cities and stuff. We didn't we didn't do convoys with them, but it seemed like at Cam Ranh Bay whenever we'd get ready, we'd stage it and get ready to take off we were always nearby a Korean unit that was doing the same thing. Sometimes we'd go over and swap out our rations for theirs and we'd get stuff like kimchi and stuff like that, and it 00:27:00was just something different. You know, they they kind of liked it too.

KURTZ: Sure, sure. Did you ever have to do perimeter duty at night or go on any patrols?

HOUSE: No.

KURTZ: OK, what kind of a weapon did you carry in the convoys?

HOUSE: M-16

KURTZ: M-16

HOUSE: Yeah. We, and then, you know, depending on what the guys wanted to get, those guys were .45s or M79s, and and M-16s. A lot of the guys had their own weapons like the M1 carbines, you know, they raised the lighter, lighter rifle. People like them.

KURTZ: So you could pretty much carry what you wanted to carry.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: How much ammunition did you carry?

HOUSE: Oh, we, you know, we take a couple of those boxes of their own, you know, in the in the jeeps. And now I don't really know what the V-100, you know, I never I never loaded them. I don't know how much ammunition they carried.

KURTZ: Did you--what else did you carry as far as personal gear? Or did you have a rucksack or what?

HOUSE: No. No.

KURTZ: You just took your weapon.

HOUSE: We usually change of clothes, a couple of changes of clothes.

KURTZ: What was your attitude towards the Vietnamese people?

HOUSE: Well, I probably wasn't a very good diplomat or a representative. You know, I mean from America. I was just too young. You know, I am probably treated them with a lot of disrespect and contempt. But, you know, I know that was wrong and I shouldn't have done that. But I mean, I just didn't know any different and I was young.

KURTZ: Did you receive any training on how you're supposed to deal with--

HOUSE: No. We did get some training--a while ago you asked me about if I got any training when I was in there, like in Long Binh or wherever that was that receptions at. I didn't get any there, but I did get--I think we got three or 00:29:00four days at Travis Air Force Base.

KURTZ: OK.

HOUSE: They did some marching maneuvers, tactical stuff, you know, and then there was some orientation to the people and culture and stuff like that.

KURTZ: OK, I'm going to-- You were talking about orientations, do you feel that the Vietnamese people were worth fighting for, or at that time, did you have any feeling that this war was worthwhile?

HOUSE: Well, yeah, I did. I and I don't know where that came from, but I always I always felt like, I don't know. I, you know, even though I didn't treat them with a lot of respect. It's kind of a strange thing. I I we had we did have some 00:30:00people that worked at the Provost Marshal's Office Office, some nationals. And, you know, we were all friends with them and we liked them and we did things together, like at barbecues and stuff like that. So there was some I did, and some I didn't, and I suppose I was referring when I said I didn't treat them with respect. I'm probably referring to the kids that were, you know, there we used to call them cowboys and, you know, they tried to steal your billboard or something like that. Of course, the prostitutes, you know, we always thought that they were just out to get your money and in that kind of thing. So. As far as the people were concerned, you know, some of the people that worked for us, I just, you know, I thought there would be, you know, there was value in their lives and there was work. They they had something. They believed in family and they would talk, they would bring their kids in sometimes and, you know, and and you could see that they have family values and you know, so I thought, well, you know, I thought, and this these were the South Vietnamese people. So I thought, 00:31:00Well, then these are the only people that I met. So I thought, Well, you know, these are good people, so I think we should be here.

KURTZ: So you thought we were helping them at that time?

HOUSE: Yeah. You know, and I remember one time somebody told me they said, Well, this or it would be like it would be like if if in your neighborhood, everybody on one side of the street moved away and everybody like Wilt Chamberlain moved in. And that size, you know, moved in the neighborhood. You know, what would you think of that? And I remember the guy saying that to me. I remember thinking, Well, that wouldn't, it would affect me, you know?

KURTZ: Did you have any contact with the Viet Cong?

HOUSE: You know, there was a few times. I remember one time we had actually a couple of times we had VC that would stay in our jail. And normally, when a VC 00:32:00gets captured, you know, they're they're interrogated out in the field, but then they're sent someplace in Saigon or I don't know where they are. I think most of them went to there was a prison camp south of the Delta way, way, way down south. But I mean, you know, the orders were that you get them there pretty fast. But sometimes if a C-130 was carrying them down and they had problems and they had to stop in Nha Trang, and this happened a few times, we'd put them in jail overnight and then they'd leave the next day.

KURTZ: Did you have any--

HOUSE: But I was going to tell you that experience. We had two VC in jail one day. And one of them had to go to the bathroom. So he he went to the bathroom. We had a little outhouse. And then when he came back out, he came out of the bathroom and he had a pistol belt with a 45 in it and he was holding it up in the air. And he said, he didn't say anything, but we were standing. We had M16s. And when he walked out, everybody just pointed the M-16s at him right away. Nobody shot him. But I mean, it was kind of scary. Well, what happened was a South Vietnamese MP or policeman, a canh sat had used the bathroom, left his 00:33:00pistol belt in there. Nobody was in there. [laughs] He was pretty lucky, I think, because he didn't get shot. But in another experience, I remember too, we had some VC in our jail and a rocket round hit a JP-4 tank on the Air Force base. It was like a 100,000-gallon tank and it was huge. And the it was a direct hit and it was like a mushroom cloud of smoke only it was white smoke. Because it was it was. It was. I mean, it was black smoke. Yeah, it was the petroleum burn. It is in the middle of the day. So. So all of a sudden, here's this mushroom cloud going out and it gets dark. And the lieutenant in charge said to take the prisoners down into the bunker and go down there with them. And we had 00:34:00them in handcuffs and he said to me, Take the handcuffs off and I said, you know, he didn't. He didn't want to hear. He just said, that's that's the rules. You stay there, goes out. So I says, ok. We'll take the handcuffs off. We go down into the bunker and we're sitting down and there's cobwebs in there and everything. And it's it's it's dank and it's pitch black. And I'm sitting there with these two guys and I got I got a .45 and I'm thinking, you know, I can't even see the .45 I'm holding in my hand and I can't see these two guys. And they, all of a sudden they were sitting there and [laughs] and I was sweating from the heat down there. And I'm thinking, I wonder how long this is going to last. And then finally, it got over. You know, we came out and nothing happened, but I got nervous. I got nervous sitting there with those two guys and I couldn't, I couldn't see the hand in front of me. And then there's I remember one time, too, there was some VC in a building downtown and it was a joint, it 00:35:00was Vietnamese canh sats and American MPs. And we went into the building and we went upstairs and I was told to stay down in the basement at the at the bottom of the stairwell and just stay on guard right there. And then they went upstairs and there was there was some yelling and hollering and I could hear a couple shots were fired and all there is of this stairway, is a thin little stairway going up. And at the top of the stairway, there was a little light bulb hanging from a wire off the ceiling. And I'm looking around here and I'm wondering, you know, is somebody going to come around the corner, come running down or what was going to happen, nothing happened, everybody. But I remember that was a few moments there when I was kind of nervous.

KURTZ: Did you think the VC were good soldiers, dangerous, did you have any feelings having seen a few of them?

HOUSE: I was, I was. I was kind of I was amazed, you know, I was curious. I'd look at them and I think, you know, and they just looked so small. You know, 00:36:00they're wary and they're, they're strong. I mean, they weren't weak, but I just thought, you know, I remember thinking, you know, that we were so powerful. You know, we were we were bigger than they were and we had so much armament. I mean, we had, you know, weapons that they didn't have. I just thought, you know, why is this work like like it is, you know, and this is our enemy, you know. I don't know. It just seems strange to me that they were giving us such a good fight.

KURTZ: Did you spend the entire first tour at the Nha Trang?

HOUSE: Yeah, I spent my whole time there.

KURTZ: OK.

HOUSE: Except for that little brief period.

KURTZ: OK, so did you get an R & R during your first tour?

HOUSE: Yeah. I got two. And the first one, I went to Bangkok and the second one 00:37:00I went to Australia. Bangkok was fun--I don't even know, was it five days, I can't even remember. And you know, I had a lot of money. And so I spent it all.

KURTZ: That's what it's for. [House laughs] And so you had two R & Rs on your first tour. Is that correct?

HOUSE: No, no. I had one. A total of two.

KURTZ: Okay, total of two. What kind of contact did you have with your folks at home?

HOUSE: Letters

KURTZ: Is there anything that stands out about the letters that you can say?

HOUSE: Well, you know, there is. There was an incident I had, you know, when I told you my mom was kind of upset about me getting orders to go to Vietnam. Well, when I left, she didn't want to go to the airport. My dad took me to the airport and she said that, you know, she just didn't want to go because, you know, her brothers had been in World War II. And it was just some sad times, you 00:38:00know, and so she didn't want to go. So she said my goodbyes at home, went to the airport, got to Vietnam. And this we're talking about R and R, I'm getting ready to go on R & R, and my duffel bag was under my bunk and I hadn't seen it for, you know, seven months or so, however long it was [before??] I went on R & R. As I pulled the duffel bag. I'm rolling it down, getting ready to put some stuff in it. Here's a letter sitting in the bottom of the duffel bag, and it's a letter from my mom. And that was her letter to me. She didn't tell me that it was in there. I'm sure she just thought I'd see it, but I never did, I never noticed it. So I sit down and I read the letter and she's telling me about her brother in World War II and how he was supposed to come home one Christmas and he didn't. He was. He didn't get home. It was getting late and her mom wouldn't let any of the kids open the Christmas presents until he got home because he was supposed to be there. Well, he got wounded. He never made it and the information 00:39:00didn't get back to the family. So they waited a few days and then they got information that he'd been wounded. But it wasn't serious and you know, he'd be coming home soon. So it was, that letter was like that, she was telling me, but never told me about this before, and she was I was telling me to be be careful and be safe. And I remember I got a couple of tears in my eyes and as I read that--

KURTZ: Sure.

HOUSE: --and I thought, well--

KURTZ: Is there any experience in the first tour that really stands out in your mind?

HOUSE: Yeah. Yeah, there was a couple of incidents that were--

KURTZ: Can you describe those please.

HOUSE: Well, there was a jet. I don't know what what it was. It was probably an F-104 or something like that. I don't know what kind of was, but it was flying 00:40:00into into the air base at Cam Ranh Bay and it was an emergency landing because it had run. It was on a bombing mission and then had run run short of fuel. And typically it was going to go back to Cam Ranh Bay and and it couldn't make it. So he's flying in and he's flying in from land over the airstrip. And typically they would come in over the sea and land. Well, he was coming in the wrong way. And it all had to do with his fuel because he must have been empty or totally empty, because Cam Ranh Bay was just a little ways south of Nha Trang, so, or, yeah. So he got permission. He landed at Nha Trang, and when he landed, he hit the brakes and they burned out right away. And he didn't have the fuel for the reverse thrust and and his chute didn't open to slow him down. So he had nothing when he hit the with the with the brakes to any way to stop him at all. So he 00:41:00got to the end of the runway and he hit the sand and the highway. There was a highway that was running along the beach and the ocean there, and when he went across the, went off the airstrip and just slid right into the sand and just slid to a stop. But while he was going across the highway, he hit a three-quarter ton truck that was taking civilians off the base and killed everybody. And, I mean, he just, the top popped up and he just hopped out and he wasn't hurt or anything. That's a good thing. But all those--a couple of GIs got killed, but there was I don't know how many. There must have been ten people in the back of that three-quarter ton truck. And they were just like, I mean, there was--you could even tell they were bodies. I mean, everything was just, you couldn't even tell it was a vehicle, I mean, everything was just tore up. And 00:42:00that had an effect on me. And I remember that. That deal I told you about, the, that rocket round that hit that JP-4 tank was something that I always remember. There was a there was a Air America plane that crashed into the a little schoolhouse. It took off at the air base, went up and went right back down and it killed everybody in the--And I had to help with the clean up on that.

KURTZ: Did your base get rocketed or mortared frequently?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah. But the mortar rounds were much more frequent than rocket rounds. Every once in a while rocket rounds would come in, but mortar rounds were probably a couple of times a week we'd get.

KURTZ: What was SOP when you got mortared?

HOUSE: We we there would be an alert whistle that would sound and we'd go out to our bunkers or perimeter bunkers and, you know, take our position until the all clear was given.

KURTZ: So you would go out to the perimeter with your weapons in case there might be some kind of an attack or--

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Okay. When you got to the end of your tour, you said you extended. Why 00:43:00did you extend?

HOUSE: Well, I didn't want to go back to the States. I knew, you know, and it sounds ironic or it sounds odd because you're in a war, you know, I thought, I didn't think I could do the spit and polish.

KURTZ: OK, so you extended for six months the first time because you didn't want to go back to the States.

[Break]

KURTZ: Sort of stuck her tongue out at me, we were talking about your extension, what was the reaction to your family?

HOUSE:I don't even remember really. I don't know. I. I don't know. To teIl you the truth I can't remember. You know, when I came home, I wasn't home very much. I was pretty much out partying with my friends.

KURTZ: And so you had a thirty-day leave?

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah.

KURTZ: What did your friends say?

HOUSE: They, you know, I had a small group of friends and they were glad to see me and you know, they wanted to go out and party with me.

KURTZ: Did they think you were nuts?

HOUSE: No, no, no, they didn't. I mean, I don't know that we really--I don't remember really talking about it too much.

KURTZ: OK. So then when you went back, you went back to the same unit?

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: And were you encouraged, were you encouraged to extend in that unit? Or, you know, how did you come to that decision other than not wanting spit and polish?

HOUSE: Well, the one or the other motivating factors I probably should have said was you got an early out. So I was looking at a five month. I think you could. I think you could. I don't remember how many months you could receive for extending your tour in Vietnam. What I got--five months.

KURTZ: OK.

HOUSE: And it was worth it to me.

KURTZ: OK. So is there anything that was different about the second time you were in Vietnam?

HOUSE: Well, you know, when everybody pulls a twelve-month tour and when you get there and some people are already into their tour, you know, I mean the turnaround. So you always got new people coming in. And that was about it, I mean.

KURTZ: So how did the people that were coming after you, how did they look at you? I mean, how are you treated?

HOUSE: Everybody was pretty much assimilated into the routines, of what we had to do pretty quickly. I don't remember. Okay, please, I don't remember any difficulties. And I don't remember any stigmas or anything like that.

KURTZ: OK. So you were there for six months, pretty much the same type of 00:46:00duties, taking the convoys around and doing the regular MP stuff.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Was there any difference?

HOUSE: I spent a lot of time in the provost marshal's office, too. I mean, I don't want to give you the impression that's all I did was convoys. I spent a lot of time in the provost marshal's office.

KURTZ: Did you spend more time there than you did on your first tour?

HOUSE: No, my second, my second and third I spent more time in there.

KURTZ: OK. Because you knew more I would assume that you'd be more valuable in the office.

HOUSE: Yeah. And i--it was kind of nice to get out and see things and stuff like that, but then after a while, you know how things just sort of turns into a routine, and the dust and the heat and the rain and all that stuff just isn't that much fun. So I know when you have the chance to turn it down. I did and took it.

KURTZ: How about, were the conditions, the living conditions, any different in 00:47:00the second and third tour?

HOUSE: No, no, they were pretty much the same. I got there--they called it Tent City. When I first got there, but the tents were pretty much gone. Gone. So but that was the same guys still that were there. You know, the beginning of their tour, they were living in tents. I didn't live in the tents and they had like those barracks was like I was saying, you know, those came in and that's that's the way it was the whole time I was there.

KURTZ: OK. So did you get any more time off on the second or third tours?

HOUSE: You know, I think we did get a full day off after a while. I think we were getting a full day off.

KURTZ: Would that be rotate through your unit so like I might get Monday off, I might get Tuesday off? Is that the way it works?

HOUSE: It's always Saturdays and Sundays.

KURTZ: OK.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: So everybody, so you kind of stood down as a unit, or down to half strength?

HOUSE: Yeah. And on, you know, like, half-strength not all of us would be off at once. Yeah.

KURTZ: OK. Is there anything that stands out about those two tours that we should talk about?

HOUSE: Oh, I don't know. No, not too much. There was there was some race problems that were that occurred in Nha Trang, stuff that we'd hear about. I don't know that. It was a strange thing too because I grew up in Montana and I was never around any minority groups. I mean, there was Native Americans, but but I lived in Billings. And yeah, so I wasn't around reservations too much. I 00:49:00mean, when I was a young kid, I lived on reservations, but when I got older, I didn't--well, what my point is, is, is the minorities and especially Blacks, when sometimes when you go into a bar at night, you know, it would be almost like there was a line on the floor. You know, blacks would be over here, whites would be over here. I mean, it was segregated. It was segregated because that's what everybody wanted. As you know, that's receiving preference, you know, I mean, nobody said you had to sit anywhere particularly, but that's the way it was. It didn't seem to me like if there was ever a fight and there often was, oh, you know, it'd be those guys who were sitting right on the line and they knew they--if you sit back aways, you know, you'd stay out of that.

KURTZ: So was your involvement in that as MVP's controlling that or did--

HOUSE: sometimes, yeah.

KURTZ: Did did you have racial troubles in your unit?

HOUSE: Not in our unit, no.

KURTZ: Were there drug problems?

HOUSE: There was. I don't. I don't know of it. We didn't run into a lot of it, but there was some. There was some. I remember some overdoses where people, GIs died. And that was disturbing. There was marijuana use. There was, you know, a lot of GIs used it. But I mean, it wasn't that big a deal, really. I don't I don't think I think, well, I know what was going on. I don't, at least from where I was at my my point of view. I don't think it was as bad as as this like, say, the civilian population thought it was, but it was like at the end of the war during the end, towards the end, you know, I think Vietnam veterans got a bad rap that they're crazy drug addicts and stuff like that. I don't I think that was just the. misconception, I don't think there was as much drug use as 00:51:00some people thought.

KURTZ: What was the attitude of the Vietnamese people towards the end of your tour that changed any?

HOUSE: I left in September '70. And, you know, the Vietnamese people's attitudes pretty much, I think, were the same. I don't think they changed too much that I can remember. I think if I would have stayed there another year, like '71 or even for sure, '72 when people were leaving, you probably could have seen some changes. But I didn't really change any, I didn't notice changing.

KURTZ: What about the change in American soldiers in the two years or two you were there?

HOUSE: I couldn't tell.

KURTZ: Why did you extend the second time?

HOUSE: Pretty early out.

KURTZ: Pretty early.

HOUSE: And it was for the same reason too. I used to--I couldn't handle spit. You know, the formations and starched fatigues and polishing boots and all that stuff.

KURTZ: What was your attitude towards the war change over the tour that you had in the two years that you were there?

HOUSE: I guess I did begin, you know, start to wonder if we're going to win the war. I maybe was starting to question that.

KURTZ: So how did you feel when you got to September of 70 and you knew you were going home and getting out of the service?

HOUSE: Well, I was just glad, glad to get out. I was ready for starting over and 00:53:00doing something different.

KURTZ: When you got home, how were you received first as--where did you get out of the Army?

HOUSE: Fort Lewis.

KURTZ: How were you received at Fort Lewis?

HOUSE: Well, it was, you know, I don't know what it took. Twenty-four hours or whatever, you know, the flight from Cam Ranh Bay to Fort Lewis--Seattle-Tacoma Airport. And then we went to Fort Lewis and we're still in our jungle fatigues, they put us in a transit barracks and well, we went through supply and we got uniforms and just uniforms, just uniform, just greens. And then we went to change, shower and change. And then I think we had to clear medical and we had to clear finance. Then we were done, and I remember the mess hall had a steak dinner and you could get to take it the mess hall and get you a steak dinner. But it was four or five of us that wanted to go up to the airport, just get a 00:54:00taxi cab and go start booking our flights. And that's what we did. So we didn't stick around for the steak dinner. It was the last haircut too, but in one instance that--

KURTZ: Was that mandatory?

HOUSE: Well, yeah, they had us in formation and he opened ranks and walked behind us, inspected us. I got tapped on the shoulder. And that was the signal, you know, you've got to [??] for a haircut.

KURTZ: So, so so did you go back to Montana then from there?

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Did you fly back in uniform?

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Was there any reaction to you at the airport with flying back in uniform?

HOUSE: Yeah, well, it was kind of a strange reaction, I don't--there was--I guess it was a Hare Krishna and he wanted to give me a book and I thought it was the strangest thing. And I didn't want to take it. And he kept pushing it at me. And so I grabbed it and I just threw it on the floor and he didn't do anything. 00:55:00He just kind of stood there and I walked away, and that was it. I remember I remember mini skirts. I hadn't seen them. You know that fashion came in while I was gone. And I remember there I was in the airport and I remember there was a girl and she looked pretty young to me and she was pregnant. She had a mini skirt on and I thought, Man things have changed since I've been gone. And that was strange.

KURTZ: And so nobody harassed you or anything like that?

HOUSE: No, no.

KURTZ: So when you got home, what were your feelings about your military experience?

HOUSE: Well, it was. It was. It was pretty crummy. I was young and I was confused. I really didn't know what to think. I went to school. I went to a little junior college in Wyoming and it, there was anti-war activists. And and I 00:56:00can remember, you know, the, you know, aside from going to school, I wanted to date, I wanted to go out with girls and I remember that. I, remember I had to say to myself, You know, either either you know, you just you're just going to have to hold your tongue when people are talking about things about the war and that it's wrong because, you know, if I'm too vocal or something, you know, I'm not going to I'm not going to be accepted in this small community. A little junior college, you know and it seemed like more people were--it was fashionable to be against the war, you know. And there was a small group of Vietnam veterans going there too. We we hung around. You know, we do. We'd go to the beer hall and then we could talk and and but but we we all I think we all understood that 00:57:00it would, even though that they were our age, or pretty close to our age, we were different than they were. You know what we've gone through, they hadn't gone through. There's no way that we could tell them what it was like and and we all knew that. So we, if we talked about it, we just talked about good experience or whatever, you know.

KURTZ: OK, is there anything that happened before you ended up in Wisconsin that we should talk about?

HOUSE: But I remember I tried to get a few times, I tried to get a hold of some of the guys I served with, and I didn't have much luck with that. For some reason I just wasn't connecting. I did--there was a guy named Jim Sables from Dearborn, Michigan. I did get a hold of him. We had a few phone conversations and I was always going to go out and visit him and I never did. And. And that 00:58:00was it. You know, that was the really one of the only contacts that I had, I had kind of a strange coincidence. It must have been about five years ago, a guy from Iowa and Nebraska or Nebraska state veterans home, and he was in charge of security there. I served with that guy and he he called up here and wanted to learn some information, and it was just a coincidence that I was talking to this guy that he said, that he knew a guy named House in Vietnam. And here it is. We served together. A real coincidence. And we we said we were going to hook up with each other in a couple of times too because he had a daughter that was going to school in Madison, but we we never have.

KURTZ: So how did you end up in Wisconsin?

HOUSE: My wife, Liv, grew up and lived in Wisconsin, Got married here and I just stayed here.

KURTZ: Okay, so did you meet her in Wyoming or--

HOUSE: In Montana.

KURTZ: Oh, okay.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: And where from Wisconsin was your wife?

HOUSE: Beaver Dam.

KURTZ: OK. And what was your career like in Wisconsin, what did you do?

HOUSE: I started out in corrections and I worked as a correctional counselor at a couple of different facilities at at Winnebago.

KURTZ: OK. When we turned the tape over, you were talking about corrections, so how long did you work in corrections?

HOUSE: Oh, I think I worked in corrections for five years. Then I worked for the Department of Health and Social Services then, in the Division of Community Services, and I worked with correctional clients there. And that was a couple more years. Then that's when I came to the Veterans Home.

KURTZ: OK. What did you do at the Veterans Home?

HOUSE: I worked at social services department and coordinated with a couple of programs in the department for--

KURTZ: When did you start there?

HOUSE: I think it was 1981.

KURTZ: OK., that's close enough. So is there anything in your experience working with the Veterans Home--you said you retired like in 2005 that related to your Vietnam experience?

HOUSE: Some of the people I've met, you know that live here are Vietnam veterans and, you know, eligibility requirements. You have to be sixty-four years of age or younger with a disability that prevents employment. So many Vietnam veterans that I met was a disabled veteran, and some of those guys, you know, had conditions from the war. Some of them were from other causes. But you know, I 01:01:00like I like to my time to visit with those guys and talk to them, and, you know, the other vets, too, you know, Korean War and World War II vets. There was World War I vets here when I first started working here. There was wives of Spanish-American War veterans that were still alive living here when I first started.

KURTZ: Did you see any difference in the veterans from the different wars and your war?

HOUSE: Yeah, I think there was some differences. I mean, I think I think World War II veterans may have been a little bit older than Vietnam veterans, and I don't know what the average ages were. There just seemed like it to me that they were always maybe three or four or more years older. And we were going in at, you know, eighteen and nineteen. I think maybe they were going in in their early 20s and I could be wrong about that. But the Korean War veteran is a curious 01:02:00veteran. I mean, they never really were recognized very much so that you really knew much about it. I never really--I mean, Vietnam veterans are pretty much, our society knows about the Vietnam War and what we did, pretty much because we we've spoken out.

KURTZ: Mm-hm.

HOUSE: I don't think the Korean War veterans have really done that, and I don't think we know much about about their experiences.

KURTZ: Did you join any organizations like the VFW, American Legion or anything like that?

HOUSE: Yeah, I did. But I'll be--I'll be honest, I didn't want to at first, and I did have some bad experiences. But later on I got involved with some of the service organizations and I'm involved with Vietnam Veterans of America, and I'm real active with them now. But I'm I'm also a life member of VFW and DAV.

KURTZ: And what are your activities with the Vietnam Veterans of America?

HOUSE: I'm a region director which covers eight states here in the Midwest. I've just ending my my term as State Council president for Wisconsin. But I've had I've held a lot of positions, you know, on, region director here in the state and chapter level offices and and served on committees. And I started doing, I started getting involved with DVA in the mid- '80s something.

KURTZ: OK. How would you assess your Vietnam experience and how it affected your life?

HOUSE: Well, I can't say that it's really guided me in in the way I make life 01:04:00choices. I don't think it's had that kind of influence, but it certainly had an influence. It's influenced, you know, you know, you're in your solitude and especially when you're with other Vietnam veterans and you're talking and reminiscing. And in that kind of camaraderie, I mean, that's I think that's why I got involved with DVA. I didn't really know that that that kind of camaraderie existed until I met some of the guys, you know, and a good group of guys. So I think it's affected my life, but I don't know that it's really guided me any. And I am a firm believer in the military and how it can shape a person's life and that whole thing about discipline.

KURTZ: So it was a positive experience on the whole.

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Now, is there anything about that? I want to then talk about the library thing, but is there anything about DVA or this experience that we haven't covered that you'd like to cover?

HOUSE: I think I think veterans in our society have earned a place of respect and honor, and I think I think maybe we go through periods in our culture where, you know, that that is that is valued and certainly in the '60s, I don't think it did hold much value. But veterans, you know, they do things that no other job requires. And and and I think that duty and honor and freedom is so ingrained in our society that, you know, I think it's just an important thing. We have 01:06:00Veterans Day and we have Memorial Day and our society holds a special place of respect for veterans and and I'm proud to be a veteran.

KURTZ: Can you tell us about this library project, please?

HOUSE: Well, that started in 2005 when I made my first trip back to Vietnam. And there's a, you know, Vietnam veteran. Well, actually, the county veterans service officer from Milwaukee County, Ted Finney, was a friend of mine, and I called him up and I said, Do you know of an Vietnam veterans that have been back to Vietnam because I want to go, and I'm not going to go on a group tour and I want to answer some questions on what to expect and what it' s going to be like. So he said, We'll call this guy. His name is Chuck Theusch. He lives down in Milwaukee, and he just got back a little while ago from a trip over there, and 01:07:00he was there six, '67, '68 and he served with Americal [23rd Infantry Division]. He's a mortar man with a medical condition. And anyway, so I called him up and we got together and we talked for a few hours and he told me, gave me a lot of good tips on what to expect when I go back and how to, you know, travel. And he asked me if I would deliver a couple of photographs. He had some pictures that he had blown up from his trip before, and he wanted me to give them to some people that he met. And I said, Well, I don't care. I'll do that. I don't have an agenda. My whole agenda was that I was going to fly into Saigon and then just get on Highway 1 and go up to Hanoi and back down again. And and so he asked me. Well, actually there was two sets of photographs he wanted me to drop off. One was to a Vietnamese lady that worked at a museum at My Lai, and there was a park and a museum where the massacre had occurred. And she was a tour guide and some of her family was killed there in the massacre, and she didn't really like Americans too much. Chuck didn't tell me that either, by the way, so when I was 01:08:00going there I didn't know that she didn't like Americans. But anyway, so he's got this, some pictures of her. And I dropped them off. And but it turned out to be a pretty interesting visit. And, over time, by the way, she has gotten to like Americans and and and whenever we make our trips back, we try to visit her. She now lives in Hanoi, is in the army and she's like a tour guide at a military museum. But anyway that was a--and then there was a man in Hanoi that he wanted me to drop some photographs off to, and I did. And those two, those two experiences, especially the My Lai one because the first library was built in 01:09:00Duc Pho. Chuck had served in the Americal division, and that's the that's the group that the those were the soldiers from the Americal that committed the massacre at My Lai and the first library which is at Duc Pho which is in the same area, it's in the same province and it's not too far away. So there's a kind of a connection there. And and I it was just so interesting to talk to this lady and and although she was polite, she was pretty reserved and I could tell that she was she was. There may have been some resentment against Americans; but 01:10:00after I got back, you know, I hooked up with Chuck again and we talked about the library project and I actually went to that first library. It hadn't been completed yet. It was still under construction, but it was neat to see the project and I just got hooked in there, you know, and so I've been working with him and since than he's formed a nonprofit foundation and I'm on the board and I serve with that. And right now we have I think it's fourteen libraries in Vietnam and we have three in Laos and one in Cambodia and we have plans for more libraries. And in fact, we're going to build one in Afghanistan too, in Kabul. One of the other board members is a retired sergeant major served his whole military career with Special Forces, and he got he started his own construction business when he got out of the service, and he was real successful with that business and he does military contracts. So he ended up in Iraq building some buildings, and he went to Afghanistan to do the same thing, and he talked to 01:11:00some civilians that were in government there. And they asked if he would build a library in Afghanistan. So he said he would. And that's part of our library project.

KURTZ: How are these libraries funded? Where does the money come from?

HOUSE: The money comes from private donations and our big donors are the Eisenhower Foundation, Mary Eisenhower, People to People International and East meets West have contributed money and built libraries. There's a physician in Hawaii that has built libraries, the retired special forces guy with a construction company I told you about. He's donated money and has built libraries. Chuck Themsch himself was a successful lawyer and started his own mortgage title business. And he's built some. The VFW, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation. FedEx, you know, we'lll take donations from anybody. 01:12:00Corporate private sponsorship from anybody, we do, we do some fundraising efforts, but mostly, you know, it's just word of mouth and it's a small group of Vietnam veterans that got together and wanted to do it. It is just--

KURTZ: Where do the books come from, that go in the library?

HOUSE: There's really two sources there. We ask for donations for from libraries, from some universities. And we asked for particular types of books because Vietnamese--the young are taught English in the schools, so they can read English. So we get certain types of children's books. We like books that like fix-it books, you know how to fix a toaster or how to fix something that's 01:13:00broken down because their society is, they're still fixing things. Ours is pretty much of a kind of an electronic circuit board sort of appliances that we have. So when they're broken, you just throw them away, but they still fix things. So any kinds of books like mechanical books and stuff like that, any kind of agricultural books that talks about farming and those kinds of things, and then we give each library start-up funds too. We give them three hundred dollars. And in their economy, three hundred dollars goes a long ways. They can buy a lot of books and one of the things that we do with our contracts too is that we write in there, in the memorandum of understanding that we'll be back and we want to inspect the libraries and take a look at them and make sure it's being used for its intended purpose. And that's really helped with our relationships with the People's Party in those provinces where we built the libraries because they they grow to know us and they trust us now. And that's one of the, I think, one of our big assets in our foundation is is that we 01:14:00actually, we come back and we're small enough where we can do that kind of thing. And we have the personal touch that we give to the--

KURTZ: For the libraries in the South--are there any ex-urban soldiers or ex-government people involved in 'em?

HOUSE: Yeah, there is. There is a few. Actually our in-country coordinator and translator, Tran din Song, was in the ARVN Air Force and after the war he was in a reeducation camp for a relatively short period of time. I think it was about two and a half years that he was in and his brother was in for like ten years, but Sohn was pretty. He he knew how to play the system. I mean, when you know, 01:15:00at the end of the workday, you had to write papers on communism and Marxism and communist theory. And he did it. He was intelligent enough to know that he could write and see what they wanted to hear. And his his stay in the camps was real short, but it's still been a long, hard haul for him after the war. And you know, there is no land ownership. They didn't get good jobs. You know, it's it's been--anybody that was with us, affiliated with the Americans during the war, it's been a hard life for 'em.

KURTZ: How did the Vietnamese people feel about Americans?

HOUSE: Well, 85 percent of the people in Vietnam today really don't even remember the war. I mean, they're too young. The 15 percent control the country, and they're the ones in charge. But when you're traveling from day-to-day the they're just more concerned about their future. There's some prosperity going on in the country right now, and they're--for the first time in a long, long time 01:16:00they've got some money in their pockets, and they know American dollars through trade and tourism. Some of that--you know, we're one of the countries that's in there and spending money, and they see, they don't see Americans as a threat and all those years of trying to keep out foreign domination, they just finally gave into it and said, Let's do this the right way. And that's why their form of communism is is a pretty liberal. It's not like Chinese communism.

KURTZ: Have you noticed the difference between the North and in, say, Saigon?

HOUSE: Yeah, there's, you know, I, you know, I'd say that there's probably a bigger diff you ask me how do the Vietnamese people view Americans. There's probably a bigger difference between the North Vietnamese and the South 01:17:00Vietnamese people in the way they. North Vietnamese, they see South Vietnamese as second-class citizens.

KURTZ: How many times have you been back to Vietnam? You know, after your tours, I mean, you said you went in 2005.

HOUSE: Yeah, every year I went twice last year, so seven times.

KURTZ: OK, we got bad math problems here because you said you started, you went back seven times. I'm not arguing about that. But when did you start going back Vietnam?

HOUSE: 2000.

KURTZ: 2000. OK, that that, OK. How has the country changed since when you were there as a soldier?

HOUSE: Well, I know I went back to try to find my base at Nha Trang and I couldn't find it. I think the city had sprawled out. And I thought I could 01:18:00recognize some old military buildings or something but I couldn't, I couldn't, and I couldn't find where the camp was. And it was a pretty big camp

KURTZ: Did you go, did you take that route that you took on the convoys? Did you get any of those places?

HOUSE: No. No. Actually, around Buon Ma Thuot there wer--a couple of times I've been there they weren't letting Americans go back in there because there were some problems with, they called it religious problems. And that's actually it's the Montagnards that were giving, still giving the government and the army some problems. And so the government has moved their army into some areas. Around Khe Sanh too, in the hill tribes the--

KURTZ: So in other words, you probably couldn't build a library in the tribe country.

HOUSE: Well, we actually have one in Khe Sanh, so there's there's, you know, we have been able to do it. It just depends on what's going on at the time. When I say those areas are off-limits, they're off limits for a period of time, like they'll be off limits for three or four months and then they'll move in some army divisions, they'll do some operations and then they move out and then they open it back up again.

KURTZ: Are there still some kind of guerrilla warfare going on?

HOUSE: Yeah. Yeah, there is. There's some armed resistance there.

KURTZ: And in these tribal areas, are they pro-American or just anti-Vietnamese?

HOUSE: I don't really know why, but I would say they were just anti anti-Vietnamese, because again, you know, they've never been considered. They've kind of looked like, you know, like natives or something, and they're not really, they're heathens or something. And the Vietnamese people don't accept those people.

KURTZ: We've covered a lot of ground. Have we covered all the ground we should cover?

HOUSE: Yeah.

KURTZ: Well then we'll.