Vietnam Veterans Remember the War

Mike Tharp, 75, of Plano, Texas

Tharp served in the Army from 1969 to 1970 and was a correspondent for an Army magazine called the Hurricane.

Mike Tharp (middle) at the 16th Public Information Detachment.

Photo Courtesy of Mike Tharp

Most vivid memory: being shot at for the first time

Photo Courtesy of Mike Tharp

“I was on guard in a wooden tower on the front perimeter which faced Highway 1, which ran into Saigon about 30 miles south. There was fire coming from the Vietnamese village across Highway 1. I was in the bunker, the elevated bunker, and every eighth or ninth round was a tracer round — red or green. So you know when you saw tracers, there were a lot of bullets you didn’t see. The tracers started coming over the guard shack where I was standing, 20 feet above the ground or so. And I bent down below the sandbags with just my head and my helmet peering over, and I peed my pants.”

What Americans should know: Too many lives, both American and Vietnamese, were lost.

“We should have never gone into that war. We went in there in Vietnam and wasted 58,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. And when I speak of Agent Orange, about 4 million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, and several hundred thousand of them died, and many of their children and grandchildren are messed up because of it. I think the bottom-line lesson is that we should not go to war unless it is clearly in our national interest, and there are very few places that would qualify for that in the world.”

John Rivers, 75, of Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Rivers served from 1969 to 1971, as an Army infantry officer advising a Vietnamese military infantry unit.

John Rivers (second from right) after his final combat operation.

Photo Courtesy of John Rivers

Most vivid memory: personal relationships with Vietnamese soldiers and families

Photo Courtesy of John Rivers

“We pretty much lived and worked with the Vietnamese. And that gave us, in most cases, a significantly different view of the war than people who were in your typical American units, who simply viewed the Vietnamese as ‘the other guys,’ so to speak. I developed great respect and affection for the Vietnamese when I was there. Primarily because I had so much exposure to them and their families.”

What Americans should know: Vietnam veterans served with as much sacrifice as any in American history.

“The men and women who served in Vietnam were as important to our country as veterans who have ever served since the time of the American Revolution. Those who did not come back alive made as great a sacrifice as any solider who died at Iwo Jima or Omaha Beach or any of the other major battles of World War II. The grief and the sorrow of their families was as profound as the grief of any family who lost a family member at Guadalcanal or the Battle of the Bulge or any of the other battlefields of our wars. For those of us who served, our experiences as soldiers was very similar in many respects to the soldiers who fought in other wars.”

Bob Wallace, 72, of Arlington, Va.

Wallace served in the Marine Corps as an infantryman. He was the executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars office in Washington, D.C., until July 2019.

Most vivid memory: fighting in the Battle of Huê´ during the 1968 Tet Offensive

“Many casualties on both sides, but exceptional esprit de corps by my fellow Marines.”

What Americans should know: Most who served volunteered for duty.

“Americans should know that those of us who fought in Vietnam answered our nation’s call, and most of us were volunteers. We served with honor and distinction.”

Jim Doyle, 72, of Fresno, Calif.

Doyle served from 1969 to 1970, as an Army infantry soldier, to “seek out, close with and destroy the enemy.”

Jim Doyle in Di An, South Vietnam, 1st Infantry Division base camp, 1969 (left); Doyle today.

Photos Courtesy of Jim Doyle

Most vivid memory: being wounded in a blast on patrol, along with a wartime buddy, Willie Henry, and not knowing what happened to his friend until 26 years later

“After two to three weeks of recovery, I was back out in the field and never did find out what happened to Willie. For years and years I didn’t know how to get ahold of him. I didn’t know anything. And so when the [Vietnam] memorial was built, I looked for his name, didn’t find his name, which was a good clue that he was still alive. And for some reason, I thought he was from Chicago. So every time I traveled through O’Hare, I would grab the phone book, back in the days when they still had phone books and pay phones, and I called every Henry in the Chicago phone book and relay the story: ‘So, do you know this guy, I’m trying to find him.’ ‘No, never heard of him.’

“So in ’96, a friend of mine was appointed to a job at the Department of Veterans Affairs as a deputy or assistant secretary for something or other. And I relayed the story to him, and he says, ‘Well, look, I can’t give you any information. But if you send me a letter addressed to Willie, I will forward it to him. And if he wants to contact you, he can do that.’ So I did that, and about a month later, I was in D.C. I was on the board of Vietnam Veterans of America at that time. And I was in my hotel room, and the phone rang, and it was my wife.

“She says, ‘You got a message on your machine that I think you’re gonna want to hear.’ So she held the phone over the machine, and it was Willie, who called and said, ‘I got your letter.’ I called him and left a message on his machine. About an hour later, he called me back at the hotel, and that was when we connected, 26 years later.” [Willie, it turns out, was in Chattanooga, Tennessee.]

What Americans should know: The men who fought didn’t create the war.

“All the people who fought the war weren’t responsible for making the war. If there is anything we’ve learned from the Vietnam War, it is that we haven’t learned anything from the Vietnam War.”