00:00:00MILLER: This interview is being conducted at the Wisconsin Veterans Home in Chippewa Falls. I am the interviewer. My name is Nicole Miller. And, um, we're ready to start the interview, then. So, Vernon was born in Mondovi, and he was raised on a cattle farm. Can you, do you want to tell us a little bit about before you were enlisted.
00:00:35BERG: I use to work for Bush Brothers for a while. Worked for Bush Beans
00:00:43MILLER: Worked for Bush Beans
00:00:45BERG: Then me and my cousin enlisted in the Marine Corp.
00:00:49MILLER: Okay, describe your entry into the military service.
00:00:59BERG: Just went in and then once I got in I thought, what did I do wrong? Ya know?
00:01:06SPEAKER 3: What led you to enlist?
00:01:11BERG: Or I figured, my dad did it, it was my turn. My uncle did it. My turn. You're the family thing going.
00:01:22MILLER: And how old were you?
00:01:24BERG: 17
00:01:25MILLER: Did you quit high school? And tell us about where you entered and... About what your interview and your aptitude tests were.
00:01:49BERG: I enlisted in Eau Claire. And I flew, took a bus to MCID out in California. It was basic. I came home on leave, went to... Japan and then Japan went to Vietnam. Camp Butler Okinawa in Japan.
00:02:23UNIDENTIFIED: How long were you in basic training?
00:02:25BERG: About 12 weeks.
00:02:29UNIDENTIFIED: Tell us about that.
00:02:31BERG: Our training was all cut in half because the president ordered our outfit to go to Vietnam.
00:02:39UNIDENTIFIED: Was that Johnson? Right. And what did you what did your basic training consist of? What did you do?
00:02:47BERG: Well, we had a small fire, arms fire, mortar shell training, all sorts of name trainings over that.
00:03:01UNIDENTIFIED: A lot of running.
00:03:02BERG: Lots of running.
00:03:04UNIDENTIFIED: With a pack.
00:03:05BERG: Full field packs.
00:03:07UNIDENTIFIED: How much did the field pack weigh.
00:03:09BERG: Oh, probably seventy or eighty pounds.
00:03:12UNIDENTIFIED: How far did you run?
00:03:14BERG: Two or three miles.
00:03:17MILLER: Do you remember your instructors?
00:03:21BERG: Only Sergeant Hill and Corporal Roy.
00:03:26MILLER: How did you get through it?
00:03:28BERG: Day by day. You know, you didn't want to drop out and be the wimp of the family. You had to keep fighting and keep going with the rest of them. You know. You didn't want to be the, well, I couldn't handle it type person, so there's blood and guts that get me to keep going.
00:03:55MILLER: So you, I didn't ask you this before, but were you drafted or did you enlist?
00:04:01BERG: I enlisted.
00:04:03MILLER: Okay. Um. What did it feel like? To go from being a civilian to...
00:04:21BERG: It was scary to begin with, but as the days went by it got a little easier. You know, farm boys take out and bang, they're gone. A lot of change from milking cows to dodging bullets.
00:04:39UNIDENTIFIED: And shooting bullets.
00:04:41BERG: That too.
00:04:45MILLER: Do you remember arriving in Vietnam?
00:04:51BERG: Yes, I do. I landed at Da Nang air force base.
00:04:59UNIDENTIFIED: Da Nang? Is that what you said? Da Nang? okay.
00:05:03BERG: Air Force base in Da Nang.
00:05:06MILLER: How many other men were in your unit?
00:05:12BERG: I have no idea.
00:05:15MILLER: Was it like, how many people did you train with? And were they the same people that you...
00:05:24BERG: We were different. We didn't all go at the same time. We trained here. We all didn't go over there. Quite a few of us did, but in some went this part of it, and the other parts of it all. In Vietnam, we were in different outfits. I was probably more in mechanics when I enlisted. And I got put into demolition. So you never knew what you were going to be when you got there. Whatever they wanted ya, they put you in there.
00:05:56MILLER: So what was your assignment?
00:06:00BERG: But my job was to disarm booby traps. Mines that the V.C. made, those tunnels they made down holes. We were going to blow them up, they were called tunnel rats. They called us tunnel rats, we went in the tunnels and blew up their little cities down there. They had little towns down there under the holes. And then we could blow it up. Caved the whole thing and covered it up down there. Other than that, it was a lot of walking. Ho Chi Minh trail every day. That's how it goes I guess.
00:07:04MILLER: Did you see combat?
00:07:07BERG: Oh yes?
00:07:12MILLER: Were there many casualties in your unit?
00:07:16BERG: Quite a few. I can't quote you any number or nothing, but... Quite a few less of us anyway.
00:07:30MILLER: What are some of the more memorable experiences when you were walking on the trail?
00:07:43BERG: My heel shot out my boot, one time.
00:07:45MILLER: Do you got your heel shot off your boot?
00:07:47BERG: Ah huh, a brand new pair of boots.
00:07:50MILLER: And how, brand new pair, how long had you been there when that happened?
00:07:55BERG: Oh about two weeks.
00:08:00MILLER: Wow. So, where did that, how did you, I guess, chain, or did you... Adapt to a situation. How do you change? How does that change you?
00:08:22BERG: You grew up fast. You better pay attention or something worse that your boot is gonna happen to you.
00:08:30MILLER: Do you think that that prepared you, made you more alert?
00:08:36BERG: It's have you watching more, and be prepared for what could happen. What could happen, what's gonna happen?
00:08:44MILLER: Was that a turning point for you? Was that like a page turner where you...
00:08:47BERG: Very much so. A rude, we call that a rude awakening. This is real world, I'm not playing games anymore.
00:09:03MILLER: Did you... Do you know who shot at you?
00:09:11BERG: VC, the Viet Cong
00:09:16MILLER: Do you know from where they were shooting at you?
00:09:21BERG: Left hand side in the bushes someplace.
00:09:25MILLER: Did anyone with you get shot? Were you alone?
00:09:31BERG: No we were on patrol.
00:09:34MILLER: How many people patroled?
00:09:38BERG: So 25, I think, probably 15, 20.
00:09:42MILLER: And were you guys just like walking like...
00:09:44BERG: We're just walking on a trail. Unless he showed up and then we took off after him and he didn't ..... I don't know if we got him or not, but he beat feet.
00:09:59UNIDENTIFIED: What were you doing when you were walking down the trail, what were you looking for?
00:10:03BERG: Any troop movements or anything that shouldn't be there.
00:10:10UNIDENTIFIED: Is that different than when you found the tunnels or when you're looking for tunnels too?
00:10:15BERG: Well, look at the, tunnel they were looking for. You could tell when they jumped down into them and then they went on and took care of it.
00:10:29MILLER: So was the VC kind of guarding the tunnels then?
00:10:37BERG: No, they had probably a booby trap inside. If they didn't get ya on the outside, they'd get ya on the inside. They'd have snakes in there, and they'd bite you to kill you, or anything to stop you, or they'd have explosives go off to get you or anything, you know. That's why I didn't like going down in those things.
00:11:08MILLER: So was it just, was it, it was like a hole, and was it like covered with brush or something, and you had to like find these?
00:11:17BERG: There was a tunnel way down in the ground. They'd have hospitals down there, and they'd have everything down below there. They had regular towns.
00:11:30MILLER: And this was along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
00:11:34BERG: Well, they had them all over, not only that part. They'd run and dive, jump, and they'd get a hold of them. They'd jump down the hole. That way they'd got rid of you. You know, they'd lose you. And then they'd go up someplace else, behind you. You know where they go this pop out like a little rats that pop out here and where all the dirt is.
00:12:05UNIDENTIFIED: Did they kind of know which trails you frequented?
00:12:10BERG: Oh yeah, they were.
00:12:11UNIDENTIFIED: And that's where they build the tunnels, right, so they can pop up and shoot you whenever they want.
00:12:15BERG: These tunnels were built way way before we even got there. You know, we wanted to build our trails over old trails that they used before, we didn't make new ones. Anyway, they could pop in and out any way they wanted to.
00:12:39UNIDENTIFIED: I think tunnels was a new face of conflict for the American troops. I don't think, in all our previous conflicts, I don' think we ever experienced an enemy that dug tunnels like the Viet Cong did. They were master tunnel builders.
00:13:02MILLER: You ever were you guys briefed about these tunnels before you went or any kind of training?
00:13:07BERG: Nope, Learn as you go. Like on the job training.
00:13:15MILLER: On the job training, training as you go.
00:13:18BERG: Pretty much. You can't write in a book what's going to happen. You've got to go where the things come. You can't see what the guy's going to do in the book until you got the guy there. Then you know what a guys going to do when you see him do it. You know, I don't know what you're gonna do this afternoon. How am I gonna tell you what your gonna do this afternoon> I don't until I see you do it. I can't put it in a book.
00:13:53MILLER: Did they ever take any captives?
00:13:59BERG: Some, not too many, they want to stay under all this very much, they die to the end to enforce that, protect that tunnel.
00:14:20MILLER: Did you guys ever take over a tunnel and use it for your own shelter?
00:14:31BERG: Probably, but I couldn't say. I couldn' say, yes or no?
00:14:39UNIDENTIFIED: I think probably the answer would be no, the Viet Cong were very small people. And most American military are pretty stout people. And they probably wouldn't fit in a hole. They might get down, like he said earlier, they might get down far enough to put some charges in there that'll blow the tunnel. But to crawl through that hole tunnel, I don't think the American fighting man was small enough to do that.
00:15:12BERG: It's a pretty tight fit.
00:15:16MILLER: Does he got a lot of traps?
00:15:18UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah.
00:15:19MILLER: How would they get, like, supplies for hospitals and stuff?
00:15:23UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, let's walk through the jungle.
00:15:26MILLER: Down in the tunnels.
00:15:27UNIDENTIFIED: No, just take them down, one box at a time.
00:15:33BERG: Or piece by piece.
00:15:34UNIDENTIFIED: Piece by piece, taken apart, screwed back together. You know, if you needed a bed, they probably used folding cots. For beds, they might have used nothing but leaves, you know, branches. You now, all he's saying is there was medical attention for them down there. In terms of, quote, a hospital, probably not what you're thinking. You gotta think jungle.
00:16:06BERG: It ain't like your hometown corner hospital.
00:16:17MILLER: Did you, what kind of injuries did you see the soldiers around you getting?
00:16:26BERG: I've seen them with the insides blown out of them. I've see them arms taken off of them, legs gone and all that. Some with bullet holes in them.
00:16:54MILLER: Remember when you told me about the pineapple bombs? Grenades, grenades? Yeah, the pineapple grenades. Can you tell that story?
00:17:02BERG: Well, the VC, they had the pineapple grenades, we had the smooth ones, and the VC wanted our grenades, so we'd trade them, our grenades were the pineapple ones, but before we did that, we'd turn the cap off them, dump all the powder out, so when they threw it, they'll give you the shot of your firecracker. Now it exploded.
00:17:32MILLER: I find it just...
00:17:34UNIDENTIFIED: You gotta fool them somehow.
00:17:36MILLER: But that they like traded with each other, but they were, that you guys were any means, but yet you like traded each other.
00:17:44UNIDENTIFIED: I think he's talking about the friendlies.
00:17:46MILLER: The friendlies?
00:17:48BERG: Then I got one of the grenades back one day.
00:17:51UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, did ya?
00:17:52BERG: I'm by a patrol one day and there was a firefight and we jumped back and ran through a hedge and I hit it and like a big firecracker went off. For sure it was one of those grenades that we traded to them. But they didn't know it was not quite so.....
00:18:16UNIDENTIFIED: When we were here before, you told us about the damage to your head, can you tell that story again?
00:18:23BERG: I got three bullets through the head, two went through, one stayed in.
00:18:34UNIDENTIFIED: Still there.
00:18:35BERG: Its still there.
00:18:37UNIDENTIFIED: And what the doctors tell you about taking it out.
00:18:40BERG: If I took it out I either be dead or vegetable, so I said fine to be where she's at then.
00:18:46UNIDENTIFIED: And you have a plate up there.
00:18:48BERG: Here's all plate.
00:18:50UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, because part of your skull was gone, right? Do you have any headaches ever?
00:18:57BERG: Well, once in a while, it slides around too much and I get one. That's right, that's pretty lucky.
00:19:08UNIDENTIFIED: Can you tell us about the medical care over there? Yeah, did you have hospitals nearby every place you were stationed?
00:19:16BERG: Well, we all went to... First I went to Charlie Med. That's right in Vietnam. Then we went over to the Philippines.
00:19:26UNIDENTIFIED: Okay, so that was the progression.
00:19:29BERG: Philippines and they went to there. I went back to California again.
00:19:34UNIDENTIFIED: So let's go back to Vietnam. So out in the field you had small medical units that did what they could at the time and then they transported you further back.
00:19:46BERG: To a major hospital.
00:19:47UNIDENTIFIED: To a major hospital.
00:19:56BERG: They were great, good, but what they had was good. The equipment that they had, the place they were at, they had good doctors and good people, what more can you say, I'm alive.
00:20:15UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, but there's only so much they can do out there in the jungle, right?
00:20:19BERG: Get you stabilized, get you a place to out of it, get your... Like I was the first Vietnam vet to come to Tomah. And from there I went to Milwaukee to have my plate put in. And they're good down there. Well Tomah scared the heck out of me when I got there, but they had bars in the windows and guards walking down hallways, a fist fight every day, you know. Guys grabbing nurses by all over the places. That was a whole different place. But I grew up in there, I survived. A good flow. I'll go back and do it all over again.
00:21:22UNIDENTIFIED: How long were you in total?
00:21:24BERG: In the Marine Corp?
00:21:25UNIDENTIFIED: In the Marine Crop, reserves, everything.
00:21:27BERG: In the Marine Corp, five years.
00:21:30UNIDENTIFIED: Reserves? Any?
00:21:31BERG: No, it's 64 to 65 and I got automatically discharged. They booted me out.
00:21:42MILLER: We should, let's go back to when you were dropped off at Da Nang. You stayed there for a month, right? In Da Nang. And then you went to Hill 56. And after that, you stood guard over hills at observation point.
00:22:08BERG: Mountain.
00:22:10MILLER: Catfish Mountain.
00:22:11BERG: Mountain all of them. We were, we were, was... Troops to replace other companies that needed or were getting low on men so it's like we're like a grocery shop and they pick both things we did you know we need three guys to take ship three guys head off there, two guys head off, so that's the way it went around there.
00:22:40UNIDENTIFIED: Did you have a particular specialty? I don't know what it's called in the Marines, but in the Air Force, it's call the AFSC. It's a code that tells you what you're primarily trained to do.
00:22:52BERG: 0311.
00:22:55UNIDENTIFIED: 0311. And what is that? Is that just general infantry?
00:22:59BERG: M.O.S.
00:23:00UNIDENTIFIED: MOS, yeah. And what does that tell a sergeant or an officer? What is that?
00:23:10BERG: Well, if he's an officer with you, he pretty much knows you're a foot soldier.
00:23:16UNIDENTIFIED: Okay, so no special training for making bombs, no special training for defusing them.
00:23:24BERG: Oh, I went to Cameron Bay and had my, taught me how to, you know, disarm VC landmine School.
00:23:33UNIDENTIFIED: Okay.
00:23:35BERG: better than throwing bombs in the ocean.
00:23:38UNIDENTIFIED: That was after you were in country. And when she was asking you about Hill 56 at Catfish Mountain, is that over along the Cambodian border? It is.
00:23:54BERG: Because I got shot in Quan Tre, that's five miles south of the Cambodian border.
00:24:01MILLER: And that's what you received a purple heart for. Do you want to tell that story?
00:24:10BERG: There aint much to tell, you get shot up and they give you a purple heart for it.
00:24:14UNIDENTIFIED: What were you doing when you got shot?
00:24:18BERG: Well, we ran into a, I forget how many V.C. We were trying to get them out of there, and they sort of shot back at us.
00:24:27UNIDENTIFIED: Were you out on patrol again? Is that what happened?
00:24:31BERG: It was an operation, and we went and tried to get them out.
00:24:38MILLER: Did you have any kind of good luck prayer, or any kind thing that you carried on you that...
00:24:50BERG: You know, to tell you the truth, I never thought about getting shot when I was over there. I never thought about that acrossed my mind. I knew it was a probability, but I never... never crossed my mind about it, but if I would have I would have been a nervous wreck. Right. You've got to think about it.
00:25:11MILLER: Did you have a girlfriend at home? Did you keep in contact with the people, your family at home?
00:25:24BERG: Oh yeah my parents.
00:25:29MILLER: How did they get letters to you guys and how did you get letters back home?
00:25:36BERG: We drop them off in a van. And that's the Air Force flew them, somewheres. They get it back in the American ship somewhow, or whatever.
00:25:49MILLER: How long did it take, like, when you wrote a letter, how long would it take for you to get a response?
00:25:57BERG: Well, that's hard to say, because it would depend on how long they took to get a response back to you. You know, right when I went back. I think one day or so to get a letter back if they send it right away.
00:26:12MILLER: It would take. A day to get a letter back to you.
00:26:21BERG: If they wrote it right away it probably be a day or two.
00:26:26MILLER: A couple days.
00:26:33UNIDENTIFIED: The military did a lot of things for the guys over there because it was such a tough situation.
00:26:43BERG: We had free postage.
00:26:47UNIDENTIFIED: So they couldn't... Special favors? The Air Force, I would think it would take almost 24 hours to get from Vietnam to say Ha Nguu. I don't know. I just don't know
00:27:01MILLER: And you, speaking of Honolulu, you, before you arrived in Da Nang, you made a pit stop at Honolulu and the Philippines, right? Right. What were you, what were those pit stops for?
00:27:15BERG: This is more of a checkup, I'm at my medical, you know, check up, see what how I'm doing.
00:27:19MILLER: They medically tested you and...
00:27:22BERG: This is a stop at a hospital to see, you know, check your blood pressure here. Make sure you're doing all right, something happening to you.
00:27:32UNIDENTIFIED: That's coming back, right? What about going out?
00:27:36BERG: The same thing going out both directions.
00:27:38UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, was that right? They took your blood pressure and all that and took you out?
00:27:42BERG: They landed in these bases and these are the base hospitals.
00:27:49MILLER: So they were kind of like health checkpoints that you, like that health checkpoint in the Philippines and the Honolulu before you started your big assignment.
00:28:02BERG: Alright, then I go.
00:28:02MILLER: After training.
00:28:06BERG: After I got shot you mean?
00:28:12UNIDENTIFIED: Say it again. She didn't catch it.
00:28:13BERG: So before I got shot, or after I got shot.
00:28:15MILLER: Before before you arrived there
00:28:20BERG: Before I left, those were just more or less fuel ups.
00:28:23MILLER: Oh fuel up.
00:28:25BERG: For the planes.
00:28:26MILLER: Oh, okay. But then on the way back, they were health. They were checking your health and...
00:28:32BERG: After I got shot, yeah, they would land and do the fuel-ups and I would go to the hospital and the doctor would check me out, see how I was doing, and then go back on the plane again, so I was doin' all right.
00:28:51MILLER: I think it's important too that we get that we talk about now we go back to your basic training you train for 12 weeks But most people were supposed to train for 16 weeks, right? but they sent you early Tell us about that. Why did they send you early?
00:29:08BERG: With President Johnson had troops that were needed, and over and over. If we were trained good enough, or we could handle ourselves, the way we knew once we got trained, they took us. Which is okay.
00:29:30MILLER: So the war had escalated to a point that they had to cut down the duration of training so that they could get guys on the ground.
00:29:39BERG: Keep putting in replacements on the ground. Yeah. Need more ground troops.
00:29:46MILLER: Did you meet anybody in training that became like your best friend or you guys supported each other?
00:29:54BERG: One, one that saved my life. Pull me out of water when I got shot. Jesus Daniel.
00:30:07MILLER: What was his name?
00:30:09BERG: Jesus Daniel.
00:30:15MILLER: Can you, can you say that one more time? Just maybe, can spell us first and last name?
00:30:22BERG: Jesus
00:30:23MILLER: Jesus
00:30:24BERG: Jesus
00:30:25MILLER: Jesus
00:30:26UNIDENTIFIED: J-E-S-U-S.
00:30:28BERG: Like Jesus.
00:30:30UNIDENTIFIED: Jesus. What's the last name.
00:30:32BERG: Daniel.
00:30:33UNIDENTIFIED: Daniels.
00:30:36MILLER: And you guys were in training together.
00:30:40BERG: No, Just met him over there. And I got shot up, he pulled me out of the water.
00:30:48MILLER: Did you, when you were shot, did you, what was your situation, how did you end up in the water?
00:30:57BERG: They were walking in the water, rice paddy water, going after them. Then I got shot, I fell in the water and Jesus went and grabbed and pulled me out.
00:31:13MILLER: Do you still talk to him?
00:31:15BERG: Oh yeah, there's a long story between [?] and him. When he got out, he was living in Arizona. He was going to a shrink up there. He kept saying, this guy, this guy. Turns out I want to know his name, we'll get in contact with him. He said, no I couldn't handle it if he died. I said, if he died I couldn' handle it, so he wouldn't tell that shrink his name. One day she demanded it, and I got it. I went out to see him, and I talked to him, got with him, if you want. And his wife said, that was the first time she'd seen him laugh in 20 years, and that was the whole night through. No, that was too live. Okay, yeah
00:32:11MILLER: Wow.
00:32:20BERG: You could have bonded through it for a while, you know. I mean, I depend on you, and you depend on me. We're all one, we're all, we got one, uh... Collectively one. One oil, like oil, you take like one good oil machine, we're altogether. And you work together.
00:32:47MILLER: Was there, um, I guess... Um, how did you defend yourselves against the VCs together collectively? Like, did you come up with intelligent ways to throw them off by, by becoming bonded like this? Like, your strategy, did that affect your strategy?
00:33:21BERG: Well, we'd get together and know where everybody was at so that we could, in certain areas we could dig in, avoid getting shot or whatever, ya wanna, and protect ourselves.
00:33:36MILLER: Have each other's back.
00:33:40BERG: Couldn't have said it better. If you can't trust a guy behind your back, you're in definitely trouble.
00:33:54SPEAKER 4: Wow.
00:34:05MILLER: Can you describe a typical day like when you woke up from how much sleep were you able to get?
00:34:15BERG: I'll probably get about an hour or two over the night, on a hill, in a foxhole.
00:34:21MILLER: You slept on the hills.
00:34:24BERG: Slept in fox holes.
00:34:28MILLER: Someone I had to probably assume be awake at all times and you took turns sleeping.
00:34:34BERG: Some got to lay in the ground and sleep, some stayed in the foxhole guarding. Fight off the snakes.
00:34:51MILLER: The VC?
00:34:54BERG: No snakes.
00:34:55MILLER: Real, like, snakes.
00:34:57BERG: The wiggly things
00:34:58MILLER: Oh, I thought you meant the VCs. So not only are you...
00:35:04UNIDENTIFIED: How many snakes were poisonous? Do you know?
00:35:07BERG: Bunch of them. I couldn't give you a direct count number, but I know don't want to step on a step and a half.
00:35:16UNIDENTIFIED: So we're not talking about a bowl constrictor or anything like that. We're talking about something with fangs and venom.
00:35:25BERG: There's the step and a half, you don't want to mess around with him. He bites you a step and half and you're dead.
00:35:34UNIDENTIFIED: You guys didn't carry a little syringe with anti-venom?
00:35:38BERG: Oh, you never have a chance to do anything anyway?
00:35:43MILLER: Did anybody, did any soldiers fall from the snake? Do we have any fallen soldiers that we lost because of the snake.
00:35:51BERG: Well, I would imagine, but I couldn't tell you a number either, but I'd imagine there were some of that didn't make it, unfortunately.
00:36:03MILLER: What kind of food did you eat out there?
00:36:07BERG: It's called C-ration.
00:36:09MILLER: C rations.
00:36:12BERG: A little can of food to heat up and eat em'.
00:36:17MILLER: Heat up on a fireplace.
00:36:18BERG: No a little heat pack they'd give you. Little silver things you light up and you heat up underneath your C rations. I don't recall those little heat cubes. Whatever you'd call them. You'd light them up and then the fire would heat it up.
00:36:46MILLER: Was it satisfying?
00:36:49BERG: Some were some weren't
00:36:52MILLER: Do they nourish you and keep you strong?
00:36:57BERG: Pretty much, kept us going. They were all filled up with all the calories you needed and all the bio you needed.
00:37:06UNIDENTIFIED: Did you eat off the land?
00:37:08BERG: We'd eat some of the VC food once in a while, build their food once-in-a-while. Like their barbecue chicken, they got a little cooked chicken, they make these little wooden, little brick ovens, which was good. Rice, yes. I haven't eaten rices since Viet.
00:37:34MILLER: Did you ever get to do any recreational things, like maybe throw a ball around with each other or?
00:37:42BERG: Depends on where you are stationed at. And if you're on a hill, you can throw a ball once in a while. Not too often
00:37:58MILLER: Um... Now, I remember you telling me about how the VCs couldn't- they- there were restrictions about when you could- fire at them.
00:38:16BERG: Well, it also had to come with the rules that we couldn't shoot before six in the morning and we couldn' shoot at 6 at night. Well, my watch suddenly got lost at times. I'm not going to see what time it is when they're shooting at me.
00:38:34MILLER: You broke the rules once, didn't you?
00:38:37BERG: Not only once, I probably wouldn't say it, but...
00:38:39MILLER: More than once.
00:38:41BERG: I thought I would go on that. Yeah, you can't go to play a game. I didn't go to play a game, you know?
00:38:53UNIDENTIFIED: Does the Viet Cong have the same rules?
00:38:55BERG: No, they do what they want to do.
00:39:01UNIDENTIFIED: Call it a play, if you're correct.
00:39:03BERG: Although I didn't really follow my rule, I know they wouldn't follow them anyway.
00:39:11MILLER: Tell us about the story when you had to take the VC, he was trying to deliver supplies and you caught him.
00:39:26BERG: We had orders one day, anybody who came walking on to a light and a buggy, not to interfer with them, let them go. And when I stopped and unloaded his buggy, he had ammunition and grenades and they were really supplying the VC someplace else. So you knew he wasn't on our side, so we just took him and hauled him from the old man. Other than that I don't know..
00:40:04MILLER: Did you take his supplies and the ammunition for yourself?
00:40:08BERG: Yep, we just took it and destroyed it, what we couldn't use it.
00:40:14MILLER: Got rid of it.
00:40:16BERG: And I still caught him, got in trouble for doing that, because I didn't follow orders by the light.
00:40:23MILLER: You got in trouble for that. What kind of punishment?
00:40:30BERG: Well, I don't know. There's a thing called a water buffalo. It's a great big thing on tank untied that's filled with water. Had to carry all that water down the hill in big five gallon pails and dump them in some other thing. My punishment. But the whole trouble is, as I walked down the spigot was open so a lot of it ran down the hill. Couldn't help it. As far as that went. With me in Vietnam, I wouldn't created by goofy rules do, but in Vietnam you play more games than the rest of us. We had equipment we couldn't use. We had birds making nests in our big cannons in our tanks. They weren't being used. They're building nests in them. If we use anything, we get in trouble. Well, why were we there? Just to give somebody a target practice or what. Remember, I was donig a job. Not to play a game. I could say, I won't play a games. There are a lot safer ones.
00:42:13MILLER: What are your viewpoints about the war?
00:42:17BERG: Of how my viewpoint is. If they let us go, and oh, they quit stopping us. We could have went from one end in Vietnam to the other, walked over to the whole country in less than two months, and we'd have lost less half the guys. They kept stopping us. We'd get them beaten, they'd stop us. And they'd build back up again. We'd go back in, do it all over again. Same old thing back and forth, back and forward. We'd get them down to where they wanted to talk terms. Then they'd ask for a ceasefire, so we'd do it. And then build back again. Then we wouldn't shoot back at them while they were doing it. That's my thought anyway.
00:43:12MILLER: How did that affect morale within your troop, when you kind of disagree with...
00:43:18BERG: Well, it lowered it down, but with the Code you kept on going anyway, you know. We were doing for our country.
00:43:31MILLER: I know you told me before you went to Vietnam you were just a young 17-year-old. You didn't even know what Vietnam was.
00:43:40BERG: Never heard of it. Till I got over to boot camp, then I heard about it quite a bit
00:43:54MILLER: Serving was something that your dad did and you wanted to be like your dad, right? You're telling me about how You were treated when you came home from Vietnam
00:44:08BERG: When I came home, I thought I was in the wrong country. I got spit on, rotten tomatoes throw it at me, rock throw at you, people screaming at you. Like I got off in the wrong place, someplace along the line.
00:44:26MILLER: And this was after you went through all of your medical treatments to get yourself healthy. What was it like even, I'm sure there were days when you didn't know if you were gonna make it to the next day, if you were gonna survive. What was that like? To have gone to give, to say I will give my life for this.
00:44:58BERG: There's something you don't think lightly about, but you've got to go with the whole thing, not just part of it. You can't say, you know what I'm going to say, I will do it and not do it. But the uniform doesn't say, I'll go ahead and go halfway.
00:45:23MILLER: You told me that you, what did you end up doing with your uniform and your purple heart and your medals?
00:45:31BERG: Through them all in the garbage. Everybody kept picking at them all the time. Where'd you buy your medals at? Where'd buy these at? It's so funny. I just got rid of it. I think I had to fight for them twice. Or three times, or whatever. Just give it to them.
00:45:56MILLER: When you did come back, did you, what kind of, um, was it hard for you to assimilate with coming back into college? Obviously it was hard for to assimulate coming back in, because you told me that they wouldn't let you join the VFW, and can you talk about that?
00:46:18BERG: So when we came back, we went to VFW and they wouldn't let us do it because the VFW said it was Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Vietnam wasn't a war, it was a campaign. That's why there's two VFWs in Eau Claire. I guess they put up another one so that the Viet Nam vets could join that one.
00:46:42UNIDENTIFIED: Do they let Vietnam veterans join now?
00:46:46BERG: I am a life member. I am life member of the VFW. Post 305.
00:46:55MILLER: I remember you telling me you said why, why isn't my bullet worth the same as someone else's that, like, uh, remember you're telling me that?
00:47:16BERG: I can't place it right now.
00:47:20MILLER: You said that it made you feel degraded and worthless that you weren't allowed to join the VFW and Do you still feel that way?
00:47:37BERG: No, not as much. We're starting to get recognition now more. We're getting more proud of what we did. Not degraded or ashamed. And slowly, I don't want to say I want to be like no darn hero. We reckon, hey, I did something. Not a dirty rat or what do you want to, you know, so much to be ashamed of, I'm not, I am not ashamed of it. The day I die, I'll be proud of it. I'll go back and do it again. Even though it wouldn't happen, I came back in.
00:48:29MILLER: Wow.
00:48:31BERG: Me and my brother were at the same time, and my first cousin.
00:48:42MILLER: Now, when you came back, were you able to start a career and start a family and live a normal life?
00:48:55BERG: Well, started a family. I more or less just didn't start a career or nothing. Just work around the house and stuff around there. Keep myself occupied by antiques and stuff let that.
00:49:12MILLER: And did you, are you able to get veterans benefits and are you?
00:49:18BERG: I've never applied for any.
00:49:20MILLER: You've never applied.
00:49:24BERG: Don't need them yet, maybe one day I'll need them.
00:49:29MILLER: And you said you still have close friendships from then that you keep in touch with. Besides Jesus. Who else do you have besides Jesus?
00:49:53BERG: I went out with them, but I knew them from Jesus, Fred and Bob, out in Arizona. I don't remember the last name, but we contacted right back and forth and called . The both viet nam vets so....
00:50:15UNIDENTIFIED: Can you expand on your family? Would you like to or would you prefer not to?
00:50:22BERG: What do you mean family?
00:50:23UNIDENTIFIED: You said when you came back you started a family? Yeah. You have any children, for example?
00:50:32BERG: One, and four all together. First marriage and second marriage. And ah, second marriage, I had trouble with birth defects, Im not saying what it is, but it could be Agent Orange. Took my wife over a day to have the baby, and when she got born in La Crosse, because she'd almost died, she's got pumps in her head to pump the water over her head. Anyway, but it was just hydrocephalus glycozyne.
00:51:24UNIDENTIFIED: Do you know for sure were you sprayed with Agent Orange or just in the area and gotten affected by it maybe by touching leaves with trees and vegetation and things like that?
00:51:38BERG: As soon as I got COVID, I got touched by people whod been sprayed.
00:51:41UNIDENTIFIED: OK.
00:51:46MILLER: Just expanding on his family a little bit before he went, you told me that you had, you were 17 when you enlisted. You had five brothers, right, and one sister.
00:52:07BERG: I guess I'd be right. There's seven kids, six boys, and then a mistake.
00:52:13MILLER: Ha ha ha ha! So mean!
00:52:25MILLER: You told me you were up by 3 a.m. Every day to milk 48 cows, get it done by 7 a. M. And go to high school then.
00:52:34BERG: To catch the bus.
00:52:38MILLER: Okay, and you liked to hunt and fish before you went out there. You were raised on this cattle farm. Can you, um, tell us a funny story? Your time.
00:52:59BERG: Aint got any of those. None that sticks out anyway.
00:53:09MILLER: Can you, did you attend any reunions maybe? No. No reunions?
00:53:17BERG: Because I wanted to forget Vietnam. I didn't want to bring it up all the time. Because I drank for many years, I thought I got it out of my system, I don't want to bring it back again. It started all over again.
00:53:31MILLER: Do you think you have PTSD?
00:53:36BERG: Could possible have it.
00:53:37MILLER: Have you ever gotten a diagnosis of it? What was it like when you came home to your family?
00:53:50BERG: They were all supportive. And my hometown Legion, threw a welcome home party for me. They opened doors up, put an ad in the paper. All the booze and beer and food was free for my homecoming. For anybody that wanted to come. You know, and then give me five hundred dollar welcome home gift. And my family was in there, they didn't give me money but they were there to help me out if I needed it. The legion threw me the same sort of doing the same kind of party. And they didn't, uh... separate you from Vietnam to Korea to whatever, you know, you were just a vet to them.
00:54:47MILLER: To the American Legion. So you found acceptance there despite the culture that was happening in this country. Your hometown still embraced you.
00:55:06BERG: It has supported me real good.
00:55:09MILLER: Did your cousin, was your cousin did he come home at the same time as you two?
00:55:15BERG: Then he came in after I did. Then I got shot up and I went home first.
00:55:22MILLER: Were you guys serving together day to day? Like did you see him? No. Okay. He had a different assignment.
00:55:29BERG: He was in Ahn Ton.
00:55:36MILLER: Do you know what his assignment was?
00:55:39BERG: Driving some general around.
00:55:41MILLER: Driving a general around. Oh my goodness. How did he get, how did they choose him for that, for the aptitude test?
00:55:51BERG: No, it's gonna grab one of these, you're driving. You know what's going on and what you're going to do one day and the next.
00:56:02UNIDENTIFIED: The military is not a democracy.
00:56:09MILLER: Ah, what's the opposite of that A?
00:56:14UNIDENTIFIED: It's a dictatorial life.
00:56:17MILLER: You take orders and you be obedient.
00:56:20UNIDENTIFIED: If you do your job, you'll get along fine.
00:56:25BERG: So don't rock the boat.
00:56:29MILLER: Um... What would you want people who are watching and going to listen to this, what do you want them to know? About war, or...
00:56:46UNIDENTIFIED: Can you give us the stuff you've covered? Yes. Because I think your family is going to get a copy of this. You're survivors, whoever they are.
00:56:58BERG: Oh, what was the question again?
00:56:59MILLER: What would you want to say to people watching this about, well, first of all, how about combat in general and about war, like your thoughts on it? What would you want.
00:57:19BERG: That's a hard question to ask.
00:57:20MILLER: And especially given the circumstances that we're seeing with Paris attacks and just we're almost, it's a very time right now.
00:57:34BERG: It's a waste of life those guys are doing. You know, out there in combat, you are trying to protect something, not to destroy life. And when you're out there to protect my family, your family, his, whoever's, not others to make a glory name for myself. I want to do a job, like a plumber who's out doing his job.
00:58:07UNIDENTIFIED: You only want to do it once.
00:58:12BERG: I don't want it to become habit forming. Like I said, I'd do it again, and I'm not ashamed of it. There's a little bit of pride in there, too. Actually there's a lot of pride in there. Saying, hey, I fought for this. This is part of me. I was there. A lot of my friends were there. So could it give you a swelled head, like, good stuff, a good show. We were there, and we'll protect your back again if need to be. That we have a country that's going to help us out, but not be wasteful with our troops.
00:59:10MILLER: So it's personally, it's a sacrifice that you gave, you would give the ultimate sacrifice of giving your life. Your family, and that that should not be taken lightly. And you do it again.
00:59:34BERG: That's right, in an heartbeat.
00:59:42MILLER: How are you different? I know that you were 17 and now you've gone through all of this and you're in this reflective state now, reflecting back on that you're not there anymore. How did it change you? How did it change your life? What do you think? You...
01:00:06BERG: Probably could have had a different kind of job and I'd have a good job, you know. I'd had my legs back and stuff, you now, but that's the price you gotta pay. You don't know what's going to happen when you get in there, do you?
01:00:20MILLER: So physically, obviously, it affected you because you're disabled now and you've lived your life since then in a state that you feel like your dignity has been compromised because of your disability from that sacrifice that you gave.
01:00:40BERG: I live by my philosophy. Nothing isn't so bad where it couldn't be worse. I could be dead and not have no legs or whatever. Look, I got legs and I can, I got a guy that ain't got no legs, so he's worse than me. So why should I cry. I can get around in a wheelchair, and this or that. A lot of guys can't do that.
01:01:12UNIDENTIFIED: And even with a bullet in your head, you should still think.
01:01:17BERG: That doesn't stop me from thinking or whatever you try to do. I've seen it in the x-ray of that bullet in my head. Oh, that metal part when it comes out the casing, it's perfect in there. You can't, it ain't got dentin on it.
01:01:43UNIDENTIFIED: I think I'd be having a lot of headaches.
01:01:47MILLER: What would you tell somebody who was enlisting now, what would you say to them?
01:02:02BERG: Well then do the best job you can. You know. Before you do something think it through. You know. There's a lot of things that could just change, you don't know. There were circumstances, not when I went in, but still we were the same age about the same thing, probably. You know, because they got this ISIS junk going around. Who knows where that's going to end up at. See, we are on pins and needles there, too. You could be here today and gone tomorrow. So if you enlist, prepare for the worst part, don't think about the good times. Think, hey, you're gonna have a lot of bad times too. If it's worth a living, it's a worth doing. It's your country, help protect it.
01:03:31UNIDENTIFIED: You regard life overall as short.
01:03:38BERG: In combat.
01:03:39UNIDENTIFIED: No, just lying in general. You made the comment, you could be here today and gone tomorrow, so life in general. Do you consider life short?
01:03:53BERG: Well, that's part of it, part of what you never know about. Other kind of you can drop a bomb on you and kill you too. You don't know what's going on. You don't what's gonna happen tomorrow. You could die of a heart attack tomorrow, or you could die of something else.
01:04:10UNIDENTIFIED: Do you have a bucket list? Things you want to do before your time is up? No more. You don't, huh?
01:04:20BERG: Play it by the day. When you're done, you're done.
01:04:24MILLER: What, going back to when you were in Vietnam, what surprised you? What did you not expect? It could even be like the weather or...
01:04:40BERG: The weather was hot and I didn't like that and I didn't care much care for the snakes.
01:04:45MILLER: The snake surprised you.
01:04:48BERG: Now, the weather would fry ya. I wake up in the morning and have snakes all over the top of you. We had snakes on the farm we didn't have big boys like that we didn't have. And that many of them. You have to grow up and grow up fast, is what you got to do. You can't be no momma's boy anymore. You gotta get going and fast.
01:05:23MILLER: What happened to the weaker links in the group? How were they treated, the ones that were pansies, as you called them?
01:05:33BERG: They were razzed real bad. Picked on. Take him to the side and more training done to him and put him in an outfit someplace.
01:05:48MILLER: Are these the ones that it was hard for, because you said you had to feel like that person had your back. Right. And if you couldn't feel that way about somebody, and the collective majority felt that way, that person was...
01:06:05BERG: Well lost half of these, Uh, how do you say that word again, that word? Your… you can't trust… you lose your sense of…
01:06:21MILLER: security.
01:06:22BERG: There it is
01:06:27MILLER: Were they removed then?
01:06:30BERG: They were probably sent back for more training or stuck in an office building or something. They couldn't be, you know, trained that well. They'll find a place for them. There is always a typewriter.
01:06:59MILLER: Why was it important for you to do this oral history interview today?
01:07:06BERG: To let the people know, you know, how some vets feel, how the vets feel about this and that. That's about it, I guess. I'm proud to be American, what I want to say.
01:07:41MILLER: Oh. Did you ever, you know, there were a lot of times I would, you see that entertainers would come out and entertain the troops. Did you get to see anything? Did you see anybody?
01:08:04BERG: Off in the jungle.
01:08:05MILLER: In the jungle. How many years were you there specifically on assignment?
01:08:14BERG: In Vietnam. I didn't get my full tour done because I got wounded first. So I'm out in about three months.
01:08:26UNIDENTIFIED: Is a normal tour a year.
01:08:29BERG: There are 18 months I think it is.
01:08:31UNIDENTIFIED: 18.
01:08:35MILLER: So you were there for three months when you were wounded, then...
01:08:44BERG: Medevac'd home.
01:08:45MILLER: Medevac'd home. I really want to hear his Purple Heart story more. I feel like we didn't really get a good...
01:08:57UNIDENTIFIED: Well, what he's saying is correct, he wasn't looking for the Purple Heart, but he got shot. And he got shoot doing his job, so, because of the nature of his wound, did you save anybody, or you weren't capable of saving anybody, were you? So, it's because of his valor that he was awarded the Purple Hearts. You got seriously wounded, you always got a purple heart, at least. If you save somebody, if you save the whole squadron. Then you might get something else you might
01:09:38BERG: Bronze or silver.
01:09:40UNIDENTIFIED: Bronze, silver stars, and depending on what, depending exactly what you did, like recently there was a Marine who threw himself on a grenade and he survived and he was just awarded the Medal of Honor.
01:09:55MILLER: And they don't give out the medal of honor really anymore. To people that are alive so it's very rare
01:10:02UNIDENTIFIED: Very rare. Most metal water recipients are long gone. Tell us about the ring on your right hand.
01:10:18BERG: That's my Marine Corps ring. My Marine Corps Ring.
01:10:22UNIDENTIFIED: Did you get that when you enlisted or did you get that when went to Vietnam or when you came home?
01:10:26BERG: I bought that at Tomah VA.
01:10:29UNIDENTIFIED: Oh in Viet Nam?.
01:10:30BERG: No the Tomah VA.
01:10:31UNIDENTIFIED: Oh the Tomah VA, oh okay. Tell me about being a Marine. Hurrah! Semper Fi!
01:10:44BERG: All that good stuff.
01:10:47UNIDENTIFIED: Are you ever not a Marine once you are a Marine?
01:10:50BERG: Oh not really, that'll bring a little pride to you when you hear it.
01:10:58UNIDENTIFIED: I know the Marines have a very special society, it's like, the Air Force doesn't have anything like it. I don't know about the Army. I would assume the Green Berets, the Seals would have a, but the Marines Corps in general always has had a very specialized society, I think. Am I right?
01:11:16BERG: What ever it is they do they hang together?
01:11:20MILLER: Don't they say once marine, always marine?
01:11:24UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, pretty much.
01:11:27MILLER: And just to be a Marine, don't have to be like the top of the line, too.
01:11:32UNIDENTIFIED: I don't know what that means.
01:11:34MILLER: Like, as far as strength and agility and...
01:11:38UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, that comes from basic training. You either manage to carry that 80 pound pack three miles while you're running or you don't.
01:11:50BERG: Or you go to the fat farm.
01:11:55UNIDENTIFIED: You're either able to climb over that 12 foot wall with that pack on your back or you're not. You're either be able to do 100 push-ups or not?
01:12:10BERG: And that better not be the not part.
01:12:18MILLER: Um. I guess, did you have any more questions?
01:12:38UNIDENTIFIED: You can wrap it up any time you want.
01:12:40MILLER: Is there any other things that you want to add that you can...
01:12:44BERG: No, not really.
01:12:52MILLER: Um, okay, well, um... I guess we've covered quite a bit. I just want to quick one-time go go back over. I want to have you say who you served, because you you served in the echo 24
01:13:24UNIDENTIFIED: Echo 2-4.
01:13:25MILLER: Echo 2-4.
01:13:26UNIDENTIFIED: Very specific.
01:13:30MILLER: And in the third division, right?
01:13:32BERG: Third Marine Division. FMF.
01:13:36MILLER: FMF?
01:13:38BERG: Fleet Marine Force.
01:13:39MILLER: Okay, Fleet Marine Force.
01:13:49UNIDENTIFIED: Can you break Echo 2-4 down further? You were part of that whole company, but when you went to Vietnam, you were put in this pool, but there must have been a platoon size organization that you were part or something like that?
01:14:10BERG: We just got stuck in a hill and gone. I don't know.
01:14:15UNIDENTIFIED: Did you not have a lieutenant or a captain overseeing you?
01:14:22BERG: Oh, we had two but I hardly ever seen him.
01:14:24UNIDENTIFIED: I'm sorry?
01:14:25BERG: We did but I hardly ever seen him.
01:14:27UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, OK.
01:14:30MILLER: And you, we didn't specify this either, but you trained at Camp Pendleton. And was that just a base in San Diego?
01:14:43BERG: Yeah, MCRD, Marine Corps Recruit Depot.
01:14:48MILLER: And didn't you have you told me a story about sergeant hill your drill instructor do you remember that you had a story
01:14:59BERG: There was, in boot you got two quonset huts, there was two company areas, you know, training forces and then Sergeant Hill, he'd bet a 12-Pack of beer on his guy's saying we're gonna win a marching program, a match me march. Flag for your pole, you know, come on, I got a 12-pack of it on you, you know what you better do it. And we'd win it for him. We'd sit on the bunk smoking cigarettes, sitting there, getting work done. Then the next day you come up, I got 12 pack bet on you guys on your academics. You know what you better do? We call it honor platoon, we had every ribbon. That ole' Hill, he didn't care. He didn't help us out. We'd fight for him. That a guy he'd sit down and take one arm, do over 100 pushups, pull them right off. He had legs about as big as your legs. Now Corporal Roy on the other hand, little skinny poodle.
01:16:44MILLER: Alright, well... I guess we've covered a lot, but on this sheet do you think we covered enough? Do you think we need to get more about when he came home? Can you... Can you, um... Tell us, was there any kind of handshake you guys had between you or any kind of thing like that that you guys did if you didn't know if you guys were going to see each other again or?
01:17:29BERG: No more or less it's, if you grab the thumb and do like this.
01:17:36MILLER: You grab their thumb. Well... Anything else you want to tell us. Did you get the name Butch? Is that how you got that nickname there?
01:17:57BERG: No, it my dad's name was the same as mine, so I got called Butch.
01:18:05MILLER: Is that what they called you there too?
01:18:07BERG: In the service? It was Berg.
01:18:10MILLER: Berg.
01:18:14BERG: V-Berg
01:18:16MILLER: V-Berg?
01:18:18BERG: Because we had six different types of Bergs.
01:18:22MILLER: I, I got a question for you. I always, you know, you see on, about the soldiers and how they have to have everything perfect. Is it really like that? Like when you're, if you have, your backpack has to be perfectly set up and they check you and...
01:18:41BERG: If you do it, if you don't, you're gonna get a sore back bone. You get your mess kit in the wrong place. You're walking it's rubbing with your back. One sore back. You've got to make sure that everything is in there, so when you're walking, the jiggler's not wearing a big sore in your backbone. That I know, I feel it from experience.
01:19:07UNIDENTIFIED: And not making noise also, right?
01:19:09BERG: Right.
01:19:11UNIDENTIFIED: You don't want to get yourself away.
01:19:13BERG: But I had to make it fast, but I didn't have it packed right. After about half a day of walking, my back bone got so sore I could hardly move. That mess kit was rubbing my back bones. That was pretty much taken care of where it was supposed to be
01:19:37MILLER: I don't think I have any more questions than you guys do. You want to add anything else?
01:19:46BERG: No, I think this is pretty much all I know.
