00:00:00DERKS: TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN
00:00:00DERKS: Okay so, you said you were in for a while before you went over there. So why don't you tell us--go all the way back to when you first got into the military.
00:00:12WILLIAMS: Okay, I joined the military immediately after graduating from high school in 1962. Did my boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Went from there to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, signal school; from there to Fort Dix and from Fort Dix to Germany where I spent the remainder of my three-year enlistment. And then I re-enlisted for six years because of the bonus and the duty station that I wanted; I wanted to go to Hawaii, so that was no problem. They guaranteed everything, so I got to Hawaii, I think in umm June or July of 1965. My wife got there in like August, and I departed for Vietnam on January 3, 1966.
00:01:13DERKS: What were you doing in Germany?
00:01:14WILLIAMS: I was with the 54th Infantry in Germany and with a missile unit in Germany. I trained for missiles so that was my tour--first tour of duty for the military overseas, was in Germany.
00:01:33DERKS: And when you first entered and were in Germany, was Vietnam even on the map? Were you hearing anything about it?
00:01:39WILLIAMS: No, I had no thoughts about Vietnam. No one clued me in that a war was brewing. I think if they had done so I probably wouldn't have re-enlisted. So I was ignorant to the facts of what was going on.
00:01:58DERKS: So you got to Hawaii what was your duty in Hawaii?
00:02:02WILLIAMS: Well we immediately started training; jungle warfare training. I was a E-4 at the time. I was promoted to E-5 in Hawaii. And we just trained for Vietnam during the short period I was in Hawaii. And on January 3rd we boarded ship and left for Vietnam.
00:02:24DERKS: What was the jungle training like?
00:02:26WILLIAMS: It was rough; it was survival. We learned about the booby-traps, various traps that we might encounter in Vietnam, which included the Malaysian gate, the Punji pits, the Punji stakes--various traps that, you know, we might encounter we trained for it. Trained for survival in Vietnam.
00:02:53DERKS: And when you got to Hawaii, is that when you got into the 25th Division?
00:02:57WILLIAMS: Yes, that was my first meeting with the 25th Tropical Lightning. I was a Wolfhound, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry. We were the dogs of the unit.
00:03:12DERKS: What--where did that name come from? The wolf hounds?
00:03:14WILLIAMS: It came from one of the battles they had during World War II. Russia gave 'em, as I understand the history of Russia they gave them the dog of Russian wolf hound was their mascot. So they adopted that name.
00:03:31DERKS: So a badge of honor, the dogs.
00:03:34WILLIAMS: Yes, [laughs] it's still true today.
00:03:39DERKS: So then you got orders?
00:03:41WILLIAMS: Yeah, for Vietnam ah--.
00:03:43DERKS: Did you say the whole division went?
00:03:46WILLIAMS: Yes. We went by ship. I can't remember the name of the ship that we boarded but I remember it. I remember the families that were standing on the dock when we loaded and pushed off. And the sorrow, I think, in everyone's heart that we were leaving and both the military personnel and the dependents that we were leaving behind.
00:04:13DERKS: Including your wife?
00:04:15WILLIAMS: Yes, my wife and my daughter. Yeah, we talk about it. She talks about it now, how it hurt her to see the ship pull away from the docks so. I think about eighteen days later we docked at Vung Tàu. We sat I think overnight in the harbor, disembarked the next day and convoyed to Vung Tàu. From Vung Tàu to Bien Hoa, where we had a staging area to get orientated to the country. We were in Bien Hoa, I think, a couple of weeks and from there we convoyed to Cu Chi, which would be my duty station the remainder of my tour in Vietnam. And that's where the rubber hit the road. We hadn't had any battles. Prior to that, we were inside another unit's perimeter at Bien Hoa. And in Cu Chi we were out to do the fighting and that's what we did. We built our base camp right above the tunnels. I don't know why the military didn't know they were there. They had intelligence people and those tunnels were old, so I hear. But we built our camp right above 'em. And we started taking casualties as soon as we got in Cu Chi really from the VC coming outta the tunnels inside our perimeter, snipping on people. It took a while before we realized that the tunnels were there. So it was pretty hectic.
00:06:15DERKS: So you had been in four years?
00:06:19WILLIAMS: Yeah, by then, yeah, because I joined in 1962. July of '62 and its now probably March of, February or March of '66. So I was a old-timer, you might as well say, compared to the rest of the people in the unit.
00:06:40DERKS: Do you think you were more prepared than the ones that are just thrown in there?
00:06:47WILLIAMS: In one sense I do. I think coming out of Mississippi I was prepared anyway for survival. Ya know during the time I grew up there, in Jim Crow, you had to know how to survive. So my preparation started as a kid really. And I think I was more prepared than the ones who had never learned the tougher things in life. That one experiences either in childhood or when they get older.
00:07:22DERKS: So these attacks, the snipping that was coming out of the tunnels--umm--was just all of a sudden somebody'd be shooting and then they'd be gone?
00:07:33WILLIAMS: Yeah, we couldn't understand it. People within the perimeter was getting wounded or killed and the perimeter hadn't been breached. No one had gotten in. And we couldn't understand it, it was hectic. After we did discover tunnels, then we went on special missions to locate 'em and try to blow 'em, which we couldn't because of the way they were constructed. You could do damage to it, but I don't think we'd destroyed 'em. Even the bombs didn't destroy 'em. So we took a lot of casualties from the people in the tunnels. You could see the so called enemy in the rice patties one moment and the next moment they're gone. And they had hit the tunnel entrance. At that time they didn't have the dogs that'd do the sniffing or search the tunnels. We had what we called tunnel rats. They used the smallest people in the outfit were the ones that would go into the tunnels and search.
00:08:45DERKS: That's something dirty, huh?
00:08:46WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yep. It was tough.
00:08:51DERKS: What, what, when these guys would go in and come back out again, what was that doing to them psychologically?
00:09:03WILLIAMS: I don't know. I think some enjoyed it. The young man in my outfit, Johnny, I think his name is Johnny H. Johnson, was our tunnel rat. And he loved the adventure of it. He was wounded and I went in to get him and even though I was bigger in stature, it was something I liked going in it myself, ya know just to see how, how they were built, how they were constructed and the different levels they had within the tunnels themselves. You know, the different rooms, it was amazing. So, it aroused my curiosity. Like I think when I would go in, it was more or less for curiosity than finding information that might be helpful to the intelligence people.
00:10:00DERKS: So when somebody's in trouble, they'd call Will. "Go in there and get him."
00:10:05WILLIAMS: No.
00:10:06DERKS: No?
00:10:07WILLIAMS: Johnny was the one that was, it was his duty to go and search the tunnels. I went because I had a thing in my squad, I wouldn't ask people to do nothing I wouldn't do. And I asked for a volunteer, Johnny got hit in the tunnel, and I asked for somebody to go and get 'em and no one moved and I went and brought him out. He got shot while he was in the tunnel.
00:10:34DERKS: Umm, describe them, those tunnels.
00:10:38WILLIAMS: They were different levels. Like, it wasn't like going in a cave, where you're on one level. You would go and it was winding. They were built in a way where, I think grenades, they knew, ya know we had grenades, but even the French had them. And they were built in a way where, when you first go in you would go around the corner or down and up again. And it kind of protected them from explosives and from bombs itself. They had kitchens there where they cooked, hospitals were in the tunnels--you name it. It was there. And, you know, they lived as basically where they lived and fought, right beneath us. That was their staging area.
00:11:37DERKS: Could you ever hear them?
00:11:39WILLIAMS: Nope, I never heard them, like talking, or anything at night. We never even detected the smoke when they would be cooking. I think they called them Hanoi kitchens that they used, and the way they were constructed, I don't know where the smoke went or the smell, but--but we never even--I didn't smell anything unusual, you know, even though we were right above 'em.
00:12:07DERKS: You hate that, when you built your camp right on top of the tunnels.
00:12:11WILLIAMS: Yeah, and you wonder why, how could it have happened, you know, since they were there when the French were fighting, probably prior to that.
00:12:22DERKS: Where--where was this area where--where your camp was?
00:12:25WILLIAMS: In Cu Chi, it was, I guess about 30 clicks from Saigon. And it was, I think, the heart of the rubber plantations, because we say the Firestone, Michelin, Goodyear plantations around the area. The rubber trees, ya know, that we were fighting. Fighting for I think later, that's part of why I was there was protecting that corporate interest.
00:13:03DERKS: [Laughs].
00:13:04WILLIAMS: [Laughs].
00:13:05DERKS: Rubber, oil, whatever [inaudible].
00:13:08WILLIAMS: Yeah.
00:13:09DERKS: What a--what time of year did you get there? What was the weather like?
00:13:14WILLIAMS: I got there in. It must have been early [probably??], late January or early February. And it was the beginning of the monsoon season I think, because I remember when we were building the base camp in Cu Chi that before we got a watering point we used to stand out and take showers in the rain. It rained almost every day for quite--quite a period of time. So it was rainy for a while, and then after the monsoon it--the heat. Which it seemed like it was in the hundreds every day. I don't know what the temp was but it was almost unbearable. But you got used to it to where you could function in it.
00:14:10DERKS: So did you say you were from Mississippi?
00:14:14WILLIAMS: Yeah.
00:14:15DERKS: They have heat and humidity down there don't they?
00:14:18WILLIAMS: Right, but it was nothing like Vietnam. I think Vietnam was the hottest place I've been in my life, both from the heat and from the war itself, what was happening.
00:14:34DERKS: What a--describe the camp, when you build a camp--how a--.
00:14:40WILLIAMS: Well we did. Initially we dug fox holes that we stayed in and we had our pup tents. And later we built bunkers, which the first set we built we had to re-build 'em because they were built more for beautification than they were to protect us. And I think it was a commanding general Weyand that came in and we had to redo the bunkers that would be the permanent bunkers for the perimeter. Then later we began to get the material in to build the regular hooches or the tents that we lived in. Then come the PX and later on the hospital was built. So it was quite a period of time that passed before we got things to normal. Even water during the first few days--we didn't have water. People were drinking beer or soda, ya know because we didn't have water. But it took months before we really got the camp laid out.
00:16:02DERKS: And--and what was the purpose of the camp? Was it just a staging area for sending out patrols?
00:16:09WILLIAMS: Yeah, it was a staging area. It is what we call a base camp, where we operated from. We did all of our missions there. Like I said, we had a hospital there--they. I think the 125th Medevac, med battalion was there. And it was our base of operations.
00:16:34DERKS: And then what were your missions like?
00:16:37WILLIAMS: [Laughs]. They were tough. It depended on what we were doing. Many times we went on patrols, for intelligence purposes only, where we didn't engage. Then again, we would go on a patrol where we would engage combat patrols; most of the time it was search-and-destroy missions where we would go into a village and search it for--to see if any young men were there. These were the reasons I think that were given as to whether the village were Viet Cong supporters or not, if there was quite a few young men there it was assumed that they were Viet Cong. If a lot of rice was there they assumed it was--they were supporting the Viet Cong; so we searched 'em and we found any of this we destroyed the villages; most of the time by burned 'em.
00:17:47DERKS: When umm--when you were going in on these search-and-destroy, did--did you run into enemy forces?
00:18:05WILLIAMS: No.
00:18:06DERKS: Did they stay away from you?
00:18:07WILLIAMS: Not that--not that often. Many times we would get snipped on. But most of the fighting that I was involved in I think was at nighttime. Like, it was after we had gone, say if we had gone and searched a village and if we were staying out for a while and we'd set up a perimeter, temporary perimeter--to continue the mission then we'd get hit at night rather than during the day when we were out actually searching and destroying. But, at times we did get hit pretty hard. I know right outside of base camp, at Hobowoods, was one of the places where we always had contact anytime we, we went there, whether it was day or night. We always got hit in that area; it's right in, I think, the Filhol plantation.
00:19:06DERKS: Why was it called Ho Bo woods?
00:19:08WILLIAMS: We stayed out there so much. We were like hobos. It was Ho Bo Woods, Boi Loi Woods. It was always an area that was crazy, like I couldn't understand why we kept going in there. We never kept security anything; we would go this week, lose a lot of people, a week or two later we would go right back and the same thing happened. I didn't see where we were making any progress at all in that area. It was that way even when I left. I don't think we really had control of that area.
00:19:52DERKS: So, what's that like when you find out you're going somewhere where you know what's going to happen [laughs].
00:20:00WILLIAMS: You just get in your survival modes, to react to whatever happen in a way that you think would, you know, let you survive. You go in a survival mode because you can't go in with a fear. I think if you did that you would be prone to make mistakes. But you have to also be wise enough to know that, you know there's a chance that something will happen. So you just hope that your reactions are the right ones. Because I don't think you can prepare for it. You act according to the situation, not something you learn in a book.
00:20:49DERKS: Well you were watching out for yourself and a--.
00:20:51WILLIAMS: A squad.
00:20:52DERKS: [Inaudible]. You said you were a squad leader.
00:20:54WILLIAMS: Yes squad and team leader, yes.
00:20:55DERKS: So what--what did that add to what you were looking out for?
00:20:59WILLIAMS: It wasn't really hard for me because the people I had, I had trained with 'em in Hawaii. We basically were a team that knew each other and how each other would react under certain conditions that made it easy. We were like family. And I didn't worry a lot about it and I only lost one person during my entire tour that was in my squad.
00:21:36DERKS: That's pretty amazing isn't it?
00:21:39WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah.
00:21:40DERKS: Why do you think that was? Luck? Or were you just really prepared?
00:21:44WILLIAMS: I think it was probably preparation and the grace of God, ya know. I don't think it was luck. I don't think luck has too much to do with it. I think someone was looking out for us; some power greater than you and I. But it was amazing that De Marchi was the only one that during my time, that from the squad, that was killed. And that was on a patrol where we got hit pretty hard. We couldn't come back into the perimeter because the company was getting over run. So we had to spend the night out and that's when he took it. So, we just disengaged and sat in a bomb crater until the next day when 5th med came in brought us out.
00:22:49DERKS: When you talk about getting hit or that kind of thing happening, how do you describe that to somebody who's never experienced it?
00:23:01WILLIAMS: I don't know--I don't know how you can make one understand it; what--what it means to lose someone. If it's not you getting hit but someone you've known. To see them die. Its--there's no way you can explain it where they ever accept 'em you--I think you'd be shock initially but you are able to function. You'd still be in that survival mode so you do what you have to do to, you know to save your life and the life of the rest of the squad. So you are able to function. I think it hit you more when you are out of that situation, like when you come back to the base and you have the time to reflect. Then--then it hits you hard. And grieving starts at that time I think. But actually during the event, it's no grieving. You don't have time for it. Your survival don't allow you to do it. So you just, I think you move by instincts, you know, when one gets hit like that that you know and especially if they die, if right away. It's--it's really something I can't explain. I don't think anybody can explain, you know, what it really, really feels like. At times I feel like it's no feeling, like you're just hollow for a moment. That's the way it was the complete night with De Marchi was hit. We sat in the hole with him and we couldn't fight because we had a team, a small patrol out, and we had hundreds of people that were coming through, going to the perimeter. So we were just trying to stay down and make it 'til day, when the fighting would stop, you know. That's what happened, we did make it. But it was really painful to be in a close proximity that a friend of yours is with you no more. And you're seeing him there when in reality he's not. It's--it has an effect on you that you'd never--you'd never forget it. I still think about it often. I still think about De Marchi, yeah. I think--we were close too. We had a little singing group and he was one of the battalion guys from New York that we used to call a guy from the Four Seasons that used to sing with the--.
00:26:25DERKS: Valli.
00:26:28WILLIAMS: Yeah, Frankie Valli. De Marchi was something like that. He could carry the high notes. And when we had a chance in base camp we used to sit around and do doo-wops, harmonize. So he was more than just one in the squad. He was a close friend--.
00:26:51DERKS: You probably had a few long nights didn't you?
00:26:56WILLIAMS: Yeah, yep. It was many. I did a lot of patrols, quite a few. But none where we got hit the way we did that night. I think it was estimated that we were hit by three hundred, by approximately three hundred Viet Cong and we had a thirteen-man patrol. But we only lost Franco [Frank De Marchi, Jr.].
00:27:28DERKS: How about wounds. Did you get wounded?
00:27:33WILLIAMS: Yeah. I got hit.
00:27:36DERKS: [Inaudible].
00:27:37WILLIAMS: Yeah, I got hit. I think in August of '66. I took grenade frags to the head. I had other people in my squad that was wounded. [Lemwood Peryear??], [Earnest Dawson??]. Looking at that book earlier, it brought back the names and I still wonder what happened to some. Like Dawson was medevaced to Japan and I never heard from him. Never knew what happened, you know. And it still bothers me. I'd like to contact some of these people if they are still alive. Lemwood Peryear was wounded and I contacted his parents last fall. He had just passed away, but I had been trying for years to get in touch with anyone from the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry during '65 and '66. And Peryear was the only one but he was injured there, wasn't serious. Wilson, another guy was, lost his arm. But you know, life go on, you know. For some of us, we handle it the best way we can.
00:29:09DERKS: Was--was the biggest problem the grenades, mortars or--?
00:29:15WILLIAMS: Mortars, booby traps; your own artillery [Laughs]. 'Cause we got, had casualties from our own artillery units or mortars. And on April 5th of 1966, again I was in Ho Bo Woods. We took casualties from our own artillery because we had to put a line between the Viet Cong and our people because they were overrunning the company. So, so it was both ways. We got hit from our own and from the Viet Cong. I think it was a little bit different fighting from the people fighting. Part of my unit was in Pleiku which was further north. And they were fighting more of the regular North Vietnamese Army people, which was different. A different type fighting than what we were doing in Cu Chi fighting the so called Viet Cong.
00:30:35DERKS: You could see the enemy.
00:30:37CAMERA: Gotta change the tapes man [End of segment one].
00:30:39WILLIAMS: Was Viet Cong that was in Cu Chi, yeah.
00:30:45DERKS: Really, here in Madison?
00:30:46WILLIAMS: In Madison, yeah. And we talked, yeah.
00:30:50DERKS: What'd you talk about? I mean.
00:30:52WILLIAMS: About Vietnam. It was weird. I had a problem with a car and I stopped by a shop. This was a few years ago. We just started talking about Vietnam. He knew I was a Vietnam vet from the license plates. And he said "Yeah" he was at Cu Chi and I asked which side was he on? He say he was an orphan, you know so, that let me know he was Viet Cong [laughs]. But he ah, to listen to them too, you have to understand their side. That's what troubled me a lot about being involved in that war and killing people. Is that he was saying the United States is the reason Vietnam went communist, which, if you read history you can understand where he's coming from. When Truman refused to support 'em during that short period in history when they weren't under occupation and asked this country to help 'em and only after that did they, you know, go communist, so. You know, there's enough blame to go all the way around so I can understand why they fought so hard. They wanted their right for self-determination you know. Which I think everyone in the world deserves an so. I wasn't bitter at him for being a Viet Cong and I think he felt the same way about me, he felt that I thought I was doing the right thing, to help the people when in reality I wasn't. So it's just something that I think both sides are coming to grips with; now both the Vietnamese people, Viet Cong, and the American troops. I think that's why you see some of the Americans going back to Vietnam to--many tried to shake, I guess, the ghosts of the past. They figure it's a healing process. And it works both ways, you know.
00:33:22DERKS: It's such a vivid part of your life, wherever you are, and you add to that the war.
00:33:32WILLIAMS: Yeah, it's something that it will be with you; you'll never forget it--you a--. And I often tell people with, when I speak to young people now about war and peace it's a--it's not to try and justify what I did or to make up for what I did in Vietnam, because it took me a long time to really learn the history of what we've done as a people from this country to others throughout the world--in the name of honor and nobility, when in reality it's not. And that's the part that's hard to deal with; realizing that you were duped or a sucker--and you know coming to grips with it and you know doing the right thing, having the courage to stand up and do what you feel you have to do now you know. And it's all going against the grain, against the yard. You know because most of the time, the normal media don't cover what you're doing. It seems as if though they pick up the negative things about something that's good. Want to sensationalize it rather than look at the real stories, and it's hard. It even, I think, put wedges between vets themselves. You got some vets that feel that when you work for peace that you're unpatriotic and I feel just the opposite. I feel that's when you are patriotic when you are trying to save your country you know in another way then--different from fighting like--.
00:35:52DERKS: There aren't any sharp edges are there? When you talk about honor and nobility, there are levels at which that's the last thing that is going on and yet there are levels down in the squad where it is honor and nobility. It's very strong.
00:36:08WILLIAMS: Yeah it is. It's strong because--it's one thing about vets; I think a bond is built between vets that can never be broken, regardless of their philosophies its. They'll always be vets and I think they'll always respect each other to that extent. But I think where the problem comes in is that many don't know the history, don't know why we have gone into war after war and it's hard for 'em to accept it. They look at patriotism as being support my country, my commander-in-chief, right or wrong. And I don't believe that way. I--I believe that if someone is taking you down a wrong path the thing for you to do is to speak about it. That's patriotic. That then since September 11, patriotism has been something that has been used, so has religion, to divide people. And like, I've been called unpatriotic, but it doesn't bother me because I--it took me a long time to find myself, to know who I really was and what I stand for and that's something that no one can take. But, I see patriotism as being a lover of the land, the country. You know, you don't have to love the policies [there??] and the support the troop thing, it's a joke the way people say if you speak out against the policy, you're not supporting the troop. And it's not real, but people fall into that to where it stopped them from doing what they should do. And that's you know coming out to do things that will help bring change that will really support the troops, that will bring them home. Not to have them going in harms way for some ulterior motives or some allegoric philosophy that certain people bring to put 'em in harms way.
00:38:46DERKS: Is--Is that a departure from how you felt on that first tour?
00:38:49WILLIAMS: In Vietnam?
00:38:50DERKS: Yeah, is it a growth from them?
00:38:53WILLIAMS: I think on my first tour in Vietnam, I think I carried a lot of hate with me to Vietnam. Hate from what was happening in Mississippi to my people and it was a way of venting it, even though I was in Germany for three years, I still saw prejudices there and racism. Not from the German people, but from many of the--my fellow soldiers from the south, who had the separate places where they went and treated us different. So I had that hate in me when I went to Vietnam. And it was easy for me to be destructive, because I grew up with that instilled. I guess I'll back up and go back to childhood. My grandmother was Seminole and she had told me much of what had happened to her people and when I started getting higher in school and learning about the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, I couldn't square it, I couldn't understand how this could be true. We're created equal, and I'm seeing people being lynched; a beating for nothing other than being themselves, of a different color. So right away I had problems with--with government, with those documents and the hate for what the people were doing. And my grandmother recognized that it and it was she who told me that if I didn't learn how to harness the anger and hate that I had, that it would destroy me from within and I didn't know what she meant until I was perhaps almost sixty years old before I understood what she meant you know by saying that. But it was easy for me to fight, to kill. And it was part of that hate that I had harbored for--for years, from childhood. And it was only after my second tour that I began to turn it around, to think about what I had done and why and that you know this wasn't me. And you know even though my wife and daughter often told me I had changed since I come from Vietnam, I didn't understand it what they had meant but. It's like I carried a chip for--for a long time. In the early '70s, I began to question why was I really in Vietnam you know. What was the purpose for this? And the more I read, the more it ticked me off. And I think when Daniel Ellsburg released the Pentagon Papers it was the last straw, when I saw where we were lied to, you know the American people were lied to by Lynden Johnson, McNamara, you know in order to get support to escalate the war. So you know that's when I started you know trying to come back.
00:42:45DERKS: So do you feel like if you were asked to do what you did, it ought to be for an honest reason?
00:42:52WILLIAMS: Yes, I think--I think if our leaders told the truth about why we went to Vietnam, had they told it then, I don't think the majority of troops would have gone the same way now. I think if they had told the truth about why we were invading Iraq, they wouldn't have gotten the support from the American people. They can't afford to tell the truth. It's kind of like that movie, you know--they can't handle the truth. They can't tell it because people would not support their motives for going throughout the world and exploiting and killing people.
00:43:38DERKS: How long was that first tour?
00:43:41WILLIAMS: I got there in I think in late January or early February of '66 and left in December of '66. I got home just before Christmas of '66.
00:43:56DERKS: How--how did it feel to get out of there?
00:43:58WILLIAMS: Out of Vietnam?
00:43:59DERKS: Yeah.
00:44:00WILLIAMS: I don't know. I couldn't adapt when I came back. It was different. I was still violent, still fighting a lot. Then in '67, I think it was, my wife and I went to California to visit her uncle and aunt, and I wandered down in Haight-Ashbury in uniform, which was the wrong thing to do. And it was during a protest and even though the people weren't directing their words or anger at me, I felt they were, so I put in a 1049, a request to go back to Vietnam. 'Cause I felt I would've easily hurt somebody, killed somebody, or gotten in trouble had I stayed in the states. And I didn't go right back to Vietnam, I went to Panama first and from there to Vietnam. But you know, I wanted to get out of the country because of, you know, what people were saying back here. Even though I had all this anger and I think in some sense, at one time, I probably enjoyed what I was doing. You know in Vietnam I had that license to be violent to--.
00:45:26DERKS: What was it about the protest that angered you?
00:45:32WILLIAMS: That--they were saying we were murders, killers--we shouldn't be there. Yeah, given the reasons that I found later to be real, you know, the reasons for our being in Vietnam, was not these noble reasons that were given and--you know, I didn't want to hear it. I don't know why, it wasn't that I went to Vietnam because I was so patriotic or felt that I got to go stop this communism. I never believed that, I never questioned it--I. And when I was fighting, I said I was fighting for survival too. You know, I wasn't fighting to preserve communism or our way of life, I was fighting to survive; for me and my men to survive and--. I never got caught up in that other part of it. We gotta to stop it here or it will be the Domino Theory, I didn't get caught up in that. But at the same time I couldn't handle the people. And I don't know, I was mixed up when I came back my first tour. 'Cause it's like--one week you're out fighting. You come in a few days and clear post and you're right back in the states, no debriefing or nothing. So, you still got that--you're in that survival mode, the killer mode. And I hadn't adjusted--readjusted and you know, just the situation I was in in Haight-Ashbury I think felt threatening, maybe you know that's why it would have been so easy for me to hurt someone. Not just because of their words, but their reaction to me being in uniform. And me not understanding what they were saying, what they were talking about, being completely ignorant to the information they were given, which later turned out to be true.
00:48:11DERKS: Partly.
00:48:13WILLIAMS: Yeah--quite a bit of it.
00:48:14DERKS: Well quite a bit of the reasons for being in there maybe, but on the other hand, calling you a killer is sort of a job description. I mean that's what you're trained to do when you're out there and you got to get through the day.
00:48:31WILLIAMS: Right. And I'm saying they just told the truth, you know. That's the military, you're trained to kill. That is your job, you know so, you know and, at that time, I didn't not understand, you know. When I joined the military I looked at it as a way to, number one get out of Mississippi, because of what was happening. I remember my mother and grandmother used to tell me that I wouldn't live to be twenty-one if I didn't change my attitude. I was always compared to Emmett Till. I was told, you know, the same thing will happen to you that happened to Emmett. When Emmett was killed, I was twelve years old, and, you know, for that, you know label people would tell me, you know, that I'd end up like that, you know, I needed to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. And the military was that chance and it also helped economically. I could send a few dollars back to my mother. So.
00:49:45DERKS: After being through that first tour, what was the second one like?
00:49:50WILLIAMS: Great. I was at Cameron Bay. We didn't fight. The Korean, the ROK Marines they called them, had the perimeter. They did the guarding of the perimeter. We had no contact. It was like being in another world. I was with a MP outfit, we just did security so; totally different. Conditions were better, we stayed in buildings, had air conditioning, ate decent food so. Everything was totally different. But the second tour after I come back to the states is what started me going in a different direction, as far as the military, because I think I possibly would have made a career had it not been for Vietnam. It changed all of it. It made me, I think, wiser. It made me study more, read more, because, you know, like I say, I was oblivious to the reality of what was happening when I was in Germany. I didn't keep up with nothing, you know so. That's my ignorance got me that situation. So, you know, 1970 when I came back, I said "Nope, this won't happen again." I want to know why, why was I there. I would start listening to the protestors, what they were saying and you know, reading. It made me totally different from what I was in '66. And it took a lot of year to get to that point, 'cause many years I didn't do nothing, didn't want to think about Vietnam, didn't want to speak about any issues. My only concern was my family, my wife and daughter, and, later, the grandkids. About five years ago everything changed. I hadn't [inaudible].
00:52:29DERKS: Long process isn't it?
00:52:31WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yep, it's ironic too 'cause this weekend we were out with Clarence Kailin, who was in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and I thought about how as a young man he understood what was happening in the world and took a position at--at a very young age and it took me 50 years almost, to get to that point to where I could take a position for--for the right reasons.
00:53:09DERKS: Do you think that second tour, um, you know--people now talk a lot more about PTSD and, you know, and the stress of combat and that kind of thing--do you think the second tour sort of helped you get through that by being with--around people?
00:53:30WILLIAMS: No, the second tour to Vietnam--I don't think so. I went through a program for PTSD and--and I didn't realize I had it for--for many years. That's what I was saying earlier. My wife used to tell me I had changed and my daughter tell me. I didn't understand what they meant, so I actually went through a program for PTSD. But, I don't know, it's something that I learned that I can't change, you know. Those thoughts will come and they'll go and they'll come and it's just the way you deal with 'em now to make it different. That's why I laugh when I hear people now that say they this new way of treating PTSD and one lady even said they were curing PTSD. And I think it's a joke. 'Cause I think to cure it you'll be able to take away those memories, those nightmares, the flashbacks. And I don't think one will ever be able to do that unless it's someway you can alter the brain, but I think you can get to a level to where you can deal with whatever happens, you know, that carries you back to that time and you, the ghost of war visit you. I think you learn how to cope with it.
00:55:20DERKS: The ghosts of war.
00:55:21WILLIAMS: The ghost of war, yeah, that's what I call it.
00:55:26DERKS: When do they put the word 'disorder' on there? I mean, it's basically a natural response
00:55:35DERKS: It is. DERKS: It's post-traumatic stress--it's not a disorder.
00:55:39WILLIAMS: Well, the same reason they do it with this new term. Well, it's not a new term. Its PDD, personality disorder discharge. That's one where they are not given the troops coming from Iraq the benefits they need because they say it is a disorder they had before they went in the service. So, you know, it's just words, people play on words. It's crazy. It's almost like with a plane--when they come in a certain--they call it a near--near miss. I call it a near hit, you know. It's just the way people use words. And I think a lot of people get caught up--caught up in that stuff with the euphemisms that--that are put out there, they don't look at the real in-depth at what this means. Or they accept these pretty words without trying to find out what--what these pretty words are causing or what they do. Yeah.
00:56:54DERKS: Yeah, probably people who weren't there anyway. What--What was it like looking at the--that book when you came in here and seeing those photos and seeing the names? Is that still pretty powerful?
00:57:07WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is. I was glad to see it 'cause many of the people I've sat home with my wife and I have both tried to write down and think of the name of the people that were in my company and we can come up with a few, but in the book it--it had the whole list; the whole company is there. And it is the first time I have seen that list since 1966. Well, from the time from when I got my orders to go to Vietnam, we were all on the manifest. But I haven't see it since then. And it was a good thing to see it, 'cause I've got pictures of some people but I couldn't remember--remember their names and then with the book I could visualize 'em and then the name would pop and I could hook it up.
00:58:01DERKS: How about the photos?
00:58:03WILLIAMS: Yep, photos I recognized some. Like the one, I'm pretty sure that's J.J. that's in the tunnel, the tunnel rat that I went in to pull out when he got hit.
00:58:17DERKS: What--what do you remember about that? About going in there and pulling him out?
00:58:22WILLIAMS: I remember he hadn't got into the main room in the tunnel. He had gotten hit he had gone one level and, like 'round a bend alright? And he had gotten shot there. And I went in and brought him out then my curiosity made me go back in to see what's beyond where he was hit. And I think I did it on the guys, I wanted to avenge, or get the person that had shot him, you know. I think curiosity played a big part of it and that's when I really understood how big those rooms were, that were underground.
00:59:18DERKS: But in that photograph, they had obviously brought in some light; were you--with a flashlight when you went in there?
00:59:26WILLIAMS: Yep, when we go--went in the tunnels, we had flashlights yeah. That's all we had was flashlights, but once you get in the rooms, if no one was there, if you got a room that was not occupied, then they had torches and light or lamps that they would use, yeah, that would be in there. But just for the G.I., we only had the flashlights.
00:59:54DERKS: So apparently you didn't find whoever shot--.
00:59:58WILLIAMS: No, no but we very seldom did. Even if we saw one go in a tunnel and went in after them, you didn't see 'em. Sometimes you would get lucky if you dropped a grenade right after one had gone in it before they could go around the turns and bends, the concussion would get 'em, but most of the time, no. If they hit that entrance, that was it.
01:00:31DERKS: How were those entrances disguised?
01:00:34WILLIAMS: With covers, like the terrain that were around. They had covers with grass on it, whatever was, the area was in, if it was leaves or near a rice paddy. it would just have, what'd they call it? The grass on top of a board or somethin' that they would pull right over the top of it and it just blends right in, the camouflage. Just out and not looking for it, you'd never notice it.
01:01:09DERKS: What about--you mentioned training for the booby traps
01:01:13WILLIAMS: Yeah.
01:01:14DERKS: Tell me more about those.
01:01:16WILLIAMS: Okay, they--we trained for what was called a Malaysian gate. And it was a structure that was built; rectangle and probably 3 feet tall and about 8 feet long, built out of bamboo. It had stakes in it that were sharpened and burned and most of the time it would be hoisted up in the vegetated area in the trees and have a trip wire on the ground and it had stakes pointed out on it, and if you hit the trip wire it would swing down and whatever was in the path would be taken out by it. Or they had the punji pits, where they were pits that were dug in the ground and stakes stuck in the ground. The same thing; burned the tips. With a lot of times they put dung on it, dung to give you bacteria. The top of it was camouflaged like the tunnels, so if you stepped on it, you'd fall in and you would be pierced by these stakes sticking up. Another one they used to use were the stakes they would put in the ground just to do an injury to you. Where it'd be sharpened bamboo and if you step on it, it would pierce your foot. Or they'd take a regular bullet, a cartridge, and a board and a nail and put a nail through the board, set the cartridge on it and bury it just beneath the surface where if you step on it, you'll push the cartridge down on the nail, hit the primer and just injure your foot. But it's part of guerilla warfare. If you injure a person, in a sense it's better than--than killing 'em, 'cause it'll take a couple of people to get 'em back. You usually take three people out of commission with an injury like that. Where if you kill a person you just leave them there and later you--you bring 'em out, you know, when you pull out you bring 'em out. But if you injured you gotta [End of segment two].
01:03:47CAMERA: [pixelation and loss of audio]. We're going again.
01:03:48DERKS: So you were talking about those--the booby traps, and did you run into those often?
01:03:55WILLIAMS: Yeah, they were used quite a bit in Cu Chi. 'Cause like I said earlier, it was two types fightings in Vietnam. South in the Mekong, where I was, we were fighting guerilla warfare. The people up from Pleiku and north were fighting more or less the North Vietnamese Army, you know, with the uniforms. People we were fighting we couldn't distinguish from regular people. No uniforms or nothing. So, and they used whatever they could that would inflict injuries, create casualties on us. So the booby traps played a big part of it. And we often ran into, not the Malaysian gate so much--that might have been because of the vegetation and the way they could camouflage it in the Mekong, but the others, the punji pits and the stakes, the little bullets that they'd use, was--were the ones that were more common.
01:05:07DERKS: Did they have mines or anything like that?
01:05:10WILLIAMS: No, they would use ours. Whatever we had.
01:05:15DERKS: They'd dig 'em up and put them somewhere.
01:05:16WILLIAMS: Somewhere even around the perimeter we used to have to check to make sure that they didn't turn the Claymore mines toward us. Claymore was anti-personnel mine, it's I guess about 15 inches or long, probably 8 inches wide and it was in kind of a curved shape and you would face it out around the perimeter. The Cong have been know to come up and they would turn them around to where you'd fire 'em you would be firing right back at yourself. They had satchel charges that they used to use. They would throw a [platter??] charge we'd call 'em, or they would come and they would throw them, but they didn't have a lot of explosives like they do in Iraq now. Which I'm glad, I'm thankful they didn't. They had enough to mess us up with as it was, they didn't need more.
01:06:25DERKS: Tell me about, obviously it's a pretty big relief when you come in from a patrol--.
01:06:33WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
01:06:35DERKS: Or from a mission--what--what is it like when you're gearing up to go out again? And you talked about you going to survival mode--.
01:06:42WILLIAMS: Yeah well, me I probably was, I don't know different from a lot of the other NCOs 'cause, for one thing, I didn't allow my squad to smoke if we were going out on a patrol, a night patrol, it'd be out. No cigarettes, I made them carry more ammunition. Like, I think we were hyped up, it was like a rush to come when we would get the orders that we were going out because we were--I had this SOP that I had for our procedure when we were going on patrols, you know, what we have to do. We have to leave the cigarettes, the lighters. We have to carry more ammo, and you know just preparation, both mentally and with material. 'Cause I think a lot of people, I think, felt that I made my guys hump too much ammo, but they didn't feel that way because of the one time that we really needed it, we had it. I think they realized that I was doing it as a means of being able to survive in just about any situation you know we would not run short. Ya know.
01:08:14DERKS: What--what was that time you needed it?
01:08:16WILLIAMS: When the time when the De Marchi was killed. That--we were out on a reinforced patrol and got hit by a large number of Viet Cong. And we had to break contact and we did it by firing, where we had to pull back and try and find the position where we could stay overnight because we could not get back in our perimeter. We'd been told that our company was getting overrun. So we had to find a place that we felt was safe and at the same time break contact and have enough ammo. I think if we had been discovered in that crater that we could have fought for a while. But really all it would have taken 'em was one satchel of charge dropped in the crater and they would have gotten all of us. And that's why once we got in the crater we didn't fire anymore. We lobbed grenades but we did nothing that would give the position away.
01:09:28DERKS: That's right there's no muzzle flash with a grenade is there?
01:09:31WILLIAMS: No there isn't.
01:09:34DERKS: What--what was communication like? When you went on patrol you had a radio?
01:09:38WILLIAMS: Yeah, what they call a "Prick 10" [laughs]. Our PRC-6, yeah we had radios. We kept contact with the FDC shack, which was a fire direction center where you would call in for indirect fire if you needed it. And with the company--that's one of the things I used to do was sit in the FDC shack when some of my buddies would go on patrol, 'cause it was four of us that was real close during the time we met in Hawaii. And all of us where NCOs, and when one would go on patrol the others would sit and monitor what was happening. The night Sergeant Womack was captured I was in the FDC shack listening. And he had called in for, that they were being followed by a large number of Viet Cong and they refused to give 'em indirect fire to try to separate 'em. And a little later was a firefight and we could actually see the tracers [itself??] from our perimeter--the battle. Then it was silence, we lost contact. So, we went out early that morning to start tracking, trying to find what happened. We found 10 of the guys had been killed and mutilated and couldn't find Sergeant Womack. So we--we tracked him, close to a month we were out tracking him and we never--never found him. And then later on, I'm thinking Christmas of '67, it was during the Christmas season we were watching TV and I recognized Womack. He had--he had gotten away somehow but he had been a POW. So, and this was on national TV, yeah, on the news I was watching it and it was him. They called his name. I think he was given a Congressional Medal of Honor. He's one of the people that I know in my outfit that--that was a [warrior??] that they got it, yeah. But uh.
01:12:37DERKS: That's got to be something sitting in that?
01:12:42WILLIAMS: Yeah, was.
01:12:44DERKS: What did he say?
01:12:46WILLIAMS: Yeah we were sitting in Colorado Springs and my wife and I were watching TV. And, I used to always watch the news, 'cause during that time you could--you could keep up with what was going on as far as the war was concerned you know. You would see the coffins coming to Dover and even the names. I would listen for names of, you know, people that I knew. And when they were talking about one, a POW Womack and it rung the bell and I just waited and I saw him and it meant a lot to--to know that he made it. He made us work a lot, because we tracked him for days but never could catch him. He had been moved north. But you know, it also rang in on what I felt was one of the perils that we had, one of the things that created problems for us, was that he couldn't get indirect fire because of a friendly village. We--he lost his whole squad, you know, because of it. Bu yet, on the other side, we would go into a village and destroy it if had young men and if it had large amounts of rice, we'd destroy it. When someone's life was at stake and they needed this in order to survive, they could get it, you know so. It made me think of how silly many things were that transpired in Vietnam; the cause of life of people and I think that was one of them; that friendly village thing.
01:15:00DERKS: That's got to be pretty nerve-racking to sit in the FDC and just hear the radio communications with people you know [inaudible].
01:15:09WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah. It was, prior to that it was--it wasn't becaus--you felt good. You know, you could chat with while they were, you know, moving. And when it really felt bad, when it hit this one, and that was the first time it had happened where, you know, we lost radio contact. And you know once that happened you--you began to wonder, and right away you know that something's happening. You could--We could actually see the firefight, not see the people, but we could see the tracers and you know, hear the shots fired and we knew that it was something bad. And you know you just hope for the best. But when we went out that morning, I never had a feeling that we would find any of the people alive. You know I had a gut feeling that we'd find 'em they'll be gone, you know.
01:16:19DERKS: Was he the only one taken prisoner?
01:16:21WILLIAMS: Yes. And they saw he was taken probably because he was the largest guy and they used him for like a pack horse. 'Cause from the intelligence that we were getting from the different villages is that they were taking him north and that he was packing a lot of their equipment and stuff.
01:16:47DERKS: So it was a conscious decision for him to survive.
01:16:51WILLIAMS: Yeah. No the others they were killed and mutilated, yeah. They think that was the only reason that they took him, 'cause he was this big muscular guy and you know they could use him. Or who knows, they might have wanted to set an example or use him for propaganda.
01:17:14DERKS: Do you remember the first time you took fire?
01:17:19WILLIAMS: Yeah, the first day that we got to Cu Chi.
01:17:26DERKS: Really?
01:17:27WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah, our convoy got hit, took, was taken fire on when we were going to Cu Chi.
01:17:37DERKS: So you knew you were in for it?
01:17:39WILLIAMS: Right, right, we knew that we were in an area that wasn't too safe yeah.
01:17:48DERKS: Now, when you had the--that, that camp set up, where there helicopters flying out of there or would they fly in?
01:17:56WILLIAMS: Both. We had a--we had a small aviation unit, the 25th Aviation. But most of the large helicopter units that would come in, like the Vikings, or people from first-Cav, would fly in and transport us out to areas--distant areas where we were fighting rather than us doing a march. A lot of times we just load up the choppers and they would drop us in the various LZs.
01:18:36DERKS: Now Butch tells me that sound is always with him.
01:18:39WILLIAMS: Oh the helicopters?
01:18:41DERKS: Yeah.
01:18:42WILLIAMS: Oh yeah, yep you'll never forget it, it's distinct, you know. Like at my wife'll laugh, 'cause sometime I be in bed and even when that medevac chopper comes over our--we're kind of in the path for the airport and a lot of time the military choppers are coming over and it kind of startles me. It's a distinct sound. Same way with AK-47, you can tell that sound from a M-16 or anything else. [Pause]. Its--yep its those things, that's why I was saying that PTSD you're never--you're never cured from it, you know. Certain things will forever be--be there, you just cope with it and it gets easier in time to deal with or to even talk about. Years ago I couldn't have done this interview.
01:19:48DERKS: Is that right? You wouldn't have allowed yourself?
01:19:53WILLIAMS: [Sighs]. No, I think it's part of both. I was--I didn't want to remember and it was too upsetting really to recall certain things. Like I just wanted to keep it buried, you know, in the back of my head and. It got to a point to where it would bother me so much that I went through a PTSD program at the VA to help me cope with it, I'll say where I can talk about it. But for--I guess until in the nineteen-eighty, 1988, or '87 it was things I had never talked to my wife about, no one about until in the early '90s probably, you know. Certain things I didn't want to remember, I blocked.
01:20:53DERKS: They were just too painful?
01:20:56WILLIAMS: Yeah, that painful and I would get angry too when I would think about it then. That anger would come in that I had not yet learned to control or use the right way, would come in. You know, I was afraid of that. But [inaudible] I too, I didn't even watch movies, during Desert Storm I tried to watch TV, watch some of the stuff and it really set me off. To a point to where my counselor and doctor at the VA told me don't watch the news, don't read the papers, because I couldn't deal with it. Even the wall, the names on the wall, I know so many people on there that the first time I saw it was last year when it was out at the VFW here in Madison. Even though I had been to D.C. six or seven times, I'd never had the courage to go up and read the panels. And when it came here, I thought I could do it by myself, go early in the morning and I did. I went about 3 o'clock in the morning and read a few names and then went home. And couple of hours later I went back, I think I went about five or six times and my wife went with me a couple of times. 'Cause she knew many of the people that were on that wall too, that I knew--so yep just dealing with it, dealing with the memory of it, trying to forget it. I think trying to drop that stigma that many people have, the part 'bout we were nuts and all of that play a big part in it. I think that's why a lot of vets don't go for help, for PTSD, because they're afraid of being labeled as being a psycho or being crazy when in reality they're just dealing with something that happened that was beyond your control then and is beyond it now. You got to live with it, accept it and go on.
01:23:36DERKS: Was your wife in Hawaii that whole year?
01:23:39WILLIAMS: No, I got there, I think got there in July of '65 and she got there around the end of August of '65. I left in January of '66 for Vietnam and she stayed until around June of '66. While I was in Vietnam she was still there, 'cause she had the goiter removed she had medical problems and she was going to the doctor at Tripler, the hospital in Hawaii. So she stayed there for the treatment and later moved to New Orleans near my sister and near the base in Algiers where she could get medical treatment there. But she was there for almost a year and I was there a few months.
01:24:43DERKS: What ah--that must have been difficult being with all the people who had people in Vietnam and word coming back about casualties.
01:24:57WILLIAMS: Yeah, it was. What was, to me, seems silly about it that I later learned, was that when I came back she told me that they used have--show film, actual footage of the battles to the dependents at Schofield. So you could go to the--I don't know if they did it in the chapel or where they did it, but she said they would assemble and they would have the big 35mm film they were running at the time. They could see the actual footage of the battle that they were having because many of the people that she knew and I knew, she knew even though I didn't write her and tell her they were--had been killed, she knew it, you know, from watching it. You know, right--right on post they would do it.
01:26:03DERKS: That doesn't sound like a very good idea does it?
01:26:06WILLIAMS: No, it doesn't. To me it didn't make sense. You know, I could see not censoring it to the public in general, but to have the dependents of the people that are there, you know, be able to see it to me was pretty--pretty stupid you know to do.
01:26:30DERKS: Was that Signal Corps that shot that stuff, were there a lot of photographers and cinematographers around? Were you aware of their presence?
01:26:40WILLIAMS: Eeeehh--yeah, they'll be there. They would be doing interviews and I ducked them. I never wanted an interview. Matter of fact, when we landed in Vung Tàu, when the ships landed, they had a band there and was asking questions. You know, "Why are you in Vietnam?"
01:27:09DERKS: Because I was ordered.
01:27:10WILLIAMS: [Shaking head] That was funny. Didn't have no choice [laughs]. But no, they were there. They would be there. And they weren't--they weren't imbedded by choice, you know. It wasn't something that an administration said, but we had our own combat photographers or journalists; that was their job specialty, so. So they were giving the news as it happened, it wasn't no spin to it, you know. They just gave the real deal.
01:27:49DERKS: Are there--are there smells that remind you of Vietnam?
01:27:53WILLIAMS: Yeah, fish markets for one. We used to go down to Chicago, when I was driving Greyhound my garage was right up the streets from one of the markets and that smell it, it reminds me of Vietnam. In the--if it rains a lot and I'm in the woods it's a smell there that--that bring back those memories. At certain times a year I concentrate more on Vietnam and my doctor tells me that's normal; that, you know certain events, certain things that happen at certain times of year will bring back memories.
01:28:51DERKS: Snow's probably pretty safe.
01:28:55WILLIAMS: Yes, it doesn't bother me. But the heat and the rain, it does. Like I say, if I'm in the woods and it's wet, I think about it. Or if it's extremely hot.
01:29:14DERKS: Your clothes are wet and never dry.
01:29:16WILLIAMS: I think on it, right, I think of it. But, you know, I deal with it better now. I used to think, during that time when I was happening, I think I was pretty violent back in the 70s, you know mid-70s. [Sigh].
01:29:34DERKS: Another thing Butch tells me is always ask about the fun things, the funny things, the hi-jinx in camp [laughs].
01:29:45WILLIAMS: Oh, I think the funniest one was, involved one of the men in my squad, Lemwood Peryear. He was this, he was a black guy from Durham, North Carolina. And he bugged the devil out of you, he always felt that he was going to get killed. Like when we would get ready to go out everyday, "Sarge, do I have to go? I had a dream last night." This kind of stuff and I remember stuff used to happen to him that seemed unreal. Like one day we were out and he walked under a bush with a nest of ants, just covered him, he shook it. You know stuff like that happened to him. I think the funniest thing--it wasn't funny at the time, but later it was. We were out and he got shot. He took a small projectile and it hit in the brass ring of his pistol belt, his weld gear. And it didn't penetrate [inaudible], but it was like burning him. And he was screaming, "You know sarge, I told you. I knew I was going to die, I knew I was going to die." And you know, that's the fun part about Peryear, 'cause I used to always tell him you know. And you didn't want to hear that stuff but he would always do it, "I know today is the day, I had a dream." The part that I tried to block that was a lot of fun was where we used to sing. Where we used to sit around at do doo-wops, beat on ammo cans make music; that was good early on and after the De Marchi was killed, it, we--the group stopped. But we had--we did a song that I sent home that the wife thought it was a professional group that was singing that we did. And it was called "For you girl I'd cross the desert sands on my knees and hands for you." Yeah and she thought it was a pro-group that did it, and we were sitting around in the base camp and did it one night, but. The fun part of that left when De Marchi was killed. Yep, I blocked that out we did that because you know when he was no longer a part of it, I didn't want to remember it.
01:32:38DERKS: He was just too much a part of it--.
01:32:40WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah, he was. Like I say he was--.
01:32:44DERKS: You thought [inaudible]. You thought about him.
01:32:45WILLIAMS: Right and he was the Frankie Valli of the group, he was good. That was the best parts of it. That was during the time that Cu Chi, the second to it Cam Rahn Bay. I think most of it was good there because we weren't fighting. We used to, since we were pulling security [laughs], the MP unit, we used to go over to the supply depot and get the steaks that was marked for the officers club [laughs]. We would go and get cases of steaks and every Friday we would barbecue [laughs], yeah we'd grill steaks that you know. The special cuts. We were getting the round steaks, the EM, enlisted men. And the officers are getting filet mignon, New York strips and all that. We used to take it--and look forward to that on Fridays. It's the club, every Friday we would cook a couple of cases of steak and just sit. I didn't drink alcohol during that time nor smoke, but the other guys would have beers and smoke and eat steak.
01:34:13DERKS: What--when you would go down in the villages, did you have interpreters? Did you pick up any of the language?
01:34:22WILLIAMS: Mmmm--Just a few words. Like "Lai Day" which means come here. "Dinky Dow" you're crazy. But we had interpreters, people that spoke most of the time when we had one of the ARVN soldiers that went with us and interpreted.
01:34:49DERKS: Were people pretty frightened when you came into the village or?
01:34:58WILLIAMS: I think they were torn, mixed. I think they would catch it from both sides if Viet Cong come in the village and they knew that they had been friendly to us they would get it. They were afraid of us because we went in and burned the villages. But I think as a, as a rule I think people, not only in Vietnam, but all the people that we have fought with were friendly people you know. I think everybody they have good in them. I didn't have any ill feeling toward them as a people; especially now you know. I think I realize what they were fighting, why they fought so hard you know. And I do believe they fought harder than us because they had purpose was greater than ours you know.
01:36:07DERKS: So, were you torn when you would have to burn a village.
01:36:11WILLIAMS: Eeeh, no, not at '66, at that time no. It was only after my second tour when I reflected and looked back. And when--when I began to read and find out you know the reasons that this country has gone to war you know at various times. Is when I start getting angrier about it and regret it; wish I had known at the time the real reason that--.
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