Veterans share memories of Vietnam War

Chuck Cannon

Command Information officer

3-28-2022

FORT POLK, La. — Next to the American Civil War, the Vietnam War was arguably the most divisive military conflict in U.S. history.
From 1954-1975, the war pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
A ceremony to honor those who served in Vietnam during the war is held March 29 at 10:30 a.m. at the Folk Polk Main Post Exchange.
Vietnam veterans can visit the PX between 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and receive a lapel pin signifying their service.
Two of those Soldiers who served during the Vietnam War are retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Julius Gates and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Jose Blanco. Both men continued their post military careers at the Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk and shared their memories and stories of the war.
Blanco was fresh out of high school in Brownsville, Texas, when he enlisted, because, as he related, “All of my friends were getting drafted, so I decided to enlist.”
After basic training and Advanced Individual Training, in July 1969, Blanco was shipped out to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, as a supply clerk.
“I was immediately sent to Saigon MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) to attend a one-week radiotelephone operator course,” Blanco said. “Once I finished the course, I was assigned to MACV Team 84 located in Cao Lah, King Phong Province, which borders Cambodia.”
MACV was created in 1962 in response to the increase in United States military assistance to South Vietnam.
It consisted of 155 Advisory Teams broken down into 361 Mobil Air Teams (MATs), which served in 44 provinces and more than 200 districts.
“MAT Teams were out there alone — not on base camps,” Blanco said. “These teams of American Soldiers were often imbedded with Vietnamese forces in remote areas. MAT Teams served as advisors to the Vietnamese forces, Forward Air Controllers, Communication Relaying Teams and liaisons to Vietnamese village chiefs and province chiefs.”
Blanco said he was the only private first class on his team — all others were noncommissioned officers or officers.
“I served as the mail clerk, supply clerk and radiotelephone operator,” he said. “I carried a field backpack radio known as the PRC-10 and, appropriately enough, my call sign was ‘Gofer.’”
Blanco said he also served as a communications specialist in the tactical operations center receiving, and forwarding communications between the command group and MAT Teams in the field.  
“When not performing RTO duties I served as a 24-hour gofer, hence my call sign,” he said. “I was always sent to get something or do something, such as re-stocking ammunition, distributing C-rations, filling water tanks and sandbags, picking up and distributing mail, burning human waste, checking claymore mines, fuel runs, pulling perimeter guard, receiving 55-gallon drums of fuel from our dirt airstrip that were dropped by C-124 and C-130 aircraft, and driver on re-supply convoys to our re-supply point at Can Tho.”  
While in the field, Blanco said his team was often surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers, mosquitos, leeches, rice paddies, jungles and bamboo fields.
“But I’d rather be imbedded with a MAT Team, which conducted search and destroy, forward observer, and listening post missions, where my only mission was being an RTO relaying messages, requesting fire missions, and medevacs, or emergency evacuations, than to be stuck in the rear.”
During his year-long tour in Vietnam, Blanco served in three campaigns: TET-69/Counter Offensive 1969, Vietnam Summer-Fall 1969, and Vietnam Winter-Spring 1970.
Like most Soldiers in Vietnam, Blanco said he enjoyed listening to American pop music on Armed Forces Radio. He said his favorite tunes were: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by the Animals; “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by Peter, Paul, and Mary; and “Green Grass of Home” by Tom Jones.
After completing his Vietnam tour, Blanco said he flew the, “Freedom Bird back to Travis Air Force Base, where I was released from active duty,”
Before he left Travis AFB and headed to San Francisco International Airport,  Blanco said he was directed to change from his military uniform to civilian attire.
“We learned that was for our own safety,” he said. “There were a lot of protesters, yelling terrible things and spitting at us. Fortunately, no one spit on me, but several in our group did get spit on.”
Blanco said he’s happy that Vietnam veterans are finally receiving their due.
 “We followed our orders and did what was expected of us,” he said. “We lost a lot of good, young men over there, and for those who survived to be ostracized, was wrong. Thankfully, that’s changing.”
At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China.
The South Vietnamese government fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. U.S. military advisors, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. 
Staff Sgt. Julius Gates arrived in Vietnam as a rifle platoon squad leader in 1966, and would eventually rise to the rank of Sgt. Maj. of the Army.
“We were never really prepared to go — not like today,” he said. “And even after we got in country, there still was not a lot of training to prepare you to go out and do what you were expected to do.”
Gates said that even though a tour in Vietnam was difficult, his Soldiers were great.
“We had very fine Soldiers who would do what you asked,” he said. “We did some operations that were pretty nasty, but we got them done.”
Gates said one of his Soldiers was a Native American.
“He seemed to have a sixth sense about things,” Gates said. “Once, we were on patrol and he slid up beside me and said, ‘Sergeant, I can feel there’s something in that big tree up ahead.’ Sure enough, there was a sniper and we were able to take him out before he hit any of us.”
Gates related another experience that showed the character of the Soldiers he served with.
“We had a mission to secure a village that was supposedly empty,” he said. “When we got off the helicopter, we started to receive fire from a bunker in the village.”
Gates said he prepared to send a squad to flank the bunker when one of his Soldiers took matters into his own hands.
“He grabbed his rifle, ran up to the bunker and started shooting, taking out all of the enemy,” Gates said. “When I asked him why, he said, ‘I thought they were going to kill my buddies.’
“You hear bad things about the Soldiers, but you don’t usually hear the good.”
Gate’s second tour in Vietnam was from 1969-1970 as a platoon sergeant and first sergeant. Both times Gates returned to the U.S. following his Vietnam tours, he said the welcome home was disappointing.
“When I got home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, there were a bunch of people talking bad about the Soldiers,” he said. “I almost got in trouble, but a friend who I had grown up with and was then a police officer, led me away and convinced me to let it go.”
The second time, the verbal abuse began as three busloads of Soldiers headed to the airport outside of Fort Lewis, Washington, to fly home.
“There were about 100 people who started cussing at us and calling us baby killers as we got off the buses,” he said. “Several wanted to fight. They were throwing eggs and other things at us.”
Gates helped to diffuse the situation and the Soldiers eventually were allowed to fly to their respective homes.
“It helps knowing Vietnam veterans are now getting recognition they deserve,” he said. “It’s time for it to happen. Most Soldiers were draftees and just did what they were told. It wasn’t their fault they were sent over there —they were just following orders.”
The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: As many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war.
In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200.
Gates said he thought the world of his Soldiers, so much so that when the Vietnam Memorial Wall was dedicated, he couldn’t go look, because the name of one his Soldiers was there.
“It took me a while before I could go look at the wall,” he said. “The Soldiers tried to do the best they could; they took care of each other and completed their missions.”