Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Allen G. Taylor was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Allen G. Taylor born March 15th, 1947. His current address is 7734 Singleton St., Indianapolis, IN, 46227
Were you drafted or did you enlist?
I enlisted.
Where were you living at the time?
I was at home with my parents, it was about two weeks after I graduated from high school.
Why did you join?
...My family was too poor to send me to college. The draft was an act then so it was a matter of time until I was drafted.
Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
...Initially the US Air Force.
Do you recall your first days in service?
Oh yeah.
Do you want to like explain what you remember?
...First airplane trip...got off the bus at San Antonio, Texas. It was hot in the summer time. A lot of confusion, people shouting orders at you; sleep deprivation. But other than that, that was about it.
Tell me about your boot camp, training experience.
Over all I thought it was fun - physically good shape. Had a couple of Mexican-American drill instructors both of them named Gomez. I can remember we called them Big Gomez and Little Gomez. Went to great lengths to train us as professionals, but they were complex two characters.
How did you get through it?
... You realize that it is a limited amount of time 12 weeks, 10-12 weeks. I anybody can do about anything in ten or twelve weeks.
Which wars did you serve in?
Vietnam, also I served in the Arab-Israeli Conflict of 1967, and the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Although I was involved in a couple other armed conflicts. I volunteered for aircrews in both of these.
Where exactly did you go?
When?
During your Vietnam War 'experience.
In Vietnam, I was initially assigned to Tan Son Nhut Airbase2. Then I did TDY3 [temporary duty] at an air base called Bein Hoa, which is about 25 - 30 miles away.
Do you remember arriving and what it was it like?
Yeah, it was a civilian charter flight with about 100 other military people and...a stewardess service that kind of thing. You would have thought you were taking a flight to another American city until you walked off the plane and the oppressive heat. The one thing I remember most is the blast of hot air that came on into the plane when they opened the door. Then disembarking, people immediately telling you what to do in case of a bomb or mortar Attack while they were processing you. There were smells that I had never smelled before. There are unique smells to third world countries and Vietnam had its own. Smells, heat, noise, gunfire, artillery fire in the distance. You could hear the war going on. In fact, as we were flying in, I will never forget when we flew in early in the morning... coming down the country, you could see isolated firebases in the jungles. It would be just pitch black and all you would see was a triangle with lights lit up facing away from the triangle. As I found out later it was Special Forces A camps that were actually under attack. You could see helicopters and the American gun ships shooting up the jungle around themselves. Right then and there you knew that there was a war going on.
What was your job assignment?
Initially I was a communications Intelligence Specialist. I worked at the 7th Air Force Command Post4. We developed bomb strikes, rolling thunder and "Arc Light"5. Later, I was involved in one aspect of the Phoenix Program6. We used geo-seismic sensors to detect enemy movement down the Ho Chi Minh Trail7. They would beam up a signal to the satellite that would tell us there was an enemy convoy coming up the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We knew in advance where from reconnaissance, where choke points were at. We would send a bomber to hit the first choke point. A choke point would be like where a road passes through an overhang area or where it narrows. Then you cause a landslide that stops the progress of the convoy through that area. Then you lock them up at the front end then you issue a bomb strike to go to the tail end and you lock them up there. Then you call in an arch like strike which is a B-52 strike and that works the road up and down and a mile and a half on either side of the road. Usually nothing gets out alive. That was basically what I did most of the time while I was there [Vietnam]. Then, I did some volunteer duty at Bein Hoa, at a little tactical communications center there. Because, I wanted to see some action. There was really nothing going on other than an occasional rocket attack [at] Tan Son Nhut.
Were there many casualties in your unit?
No, I don't know anybody personally that ever died in my organization.
Tell me a couple of your most memorable experiences.
In Vietnam?
Yeah.
Oh, I have to think about that for a second. I should have thought about that in advance. There are some but I don't know that they are a suitable for a high school analysis of the war. I used to fake transportation orders in order to travel around the country to places I really wasn't permitted to go. I had a top-secret cryptographic security service clearance. Which was an extremely high security clearance and consequently, I was not supposed to be anywhere where I could get snatched. But then I went to Vietnam to see the war and where I was stationed it was so isolated that there was no way I was going to see it, so every time something came along, I volunteered for the duty. In some cases I actually forged travel orders in C-130's and buses to places I really shouldn't have been.
Were you awarded any medals or citations?
Yeah, I have nine medals and citations, none of them for bravery.
Which ones do you have?
Air Force commendation medal, outstanding unit citation, expert marksman, Air Force longevity, good conduct, two Vietnamese service medals, and there is probably a couple more here, but I cannot remember them off the top of my head.
How did you get them?
By doing my job.
How did you stay in touch with your family?
Letters and had one -1 think I had one regular telephone callback home.
What was the food like?
It was good. Army had better.
Did you have plenty of supplies?
Yes.
Did you feel pressure or stress?
Every moment of my waking life. Even in a so-called secure area you were still subject to getting killed. I was involved in two terrorist attacks. One I was walking in the Cholon section of Saigon with a friend. A little five or six year old kid came out of a door way or an out-way out of now where, stuck a .38 into his stomach and pulled the trigger and the gun did not go off. The second one was -1 was standing on a median waiting for a Korean convoy to go by and out of a the back of a garbage truck I see a Chinese ChiCom hand grenade come flying out of the back of it. It landed directly in back of me, hit the gutter and slid across the street to where some officers were standing - it did not go off. I could not run forward. No, I take that back. They threw the grenade at the officers and it bounced across away from the gutter next to me. I could not go forward and I could not go backwards because of the convoy traffic. I was on this little traffic island. So I had to stand there for about ten seconds - it probably seemed like ten minutes. Well, I ran at that point to a NCO Club 9and got a double shot of something and went to report the grenade. But they were not trying to kill me; they were trying to kill the group of officers that had grouped up, which was a stupid thing to do.
Was there something special you did for "good luck"?
Nothing ... other than maybe drink a lot.
How did people entertain themselves?
In Vietnam?
Yeah.
Um, mostly prostitutes and alcohol.
Were there any entertainers that came from the US?
I saw the Bob Hope Show one time. There were some USO acts that came through the USO Club10, but I did not really see any of them.
Where did you go on leave?
In Vietnam I did not take any leaves.
Was there any other commands that you went to?
Went to England for a couple years and did a lot of travel there, but...as far as Vietnam goes I just wanted to do my time and get the hell out of the country.
Where else did you travel when you were in the service?
...Most of free Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, ...Philippines, Guam, Okinawa, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan... that's really about it, I think about all over the United States.
Do you recall any particularly humorous events?
...Well there are a lot of things, I don't know that one is more special than the other. There were some good times and there were some just unbelievably boring times. That really describes most of my service. It was excruciatingly boring, broken up by occasional moments of either good times or sheer terror.
What were some of the pranks that you or others would pull?
Yeah, I was around a bunch of pranksters. It was not uncommon to come in the evenings to find your bunk completely disassembled and reassembled in the latrine in the men's room. I have pictures of that on my website... That was what that was about, that was somebody's bunk that they reassembled next to the urinals.
What did you think of officers or fellow soldiers?
...Especially in the Special Forces, which I joined in 1979... [they] were the greatest officers that I ever had the pleasure to serve with. The guys in Special Forces were professionals... were from another generation... the rules of war did not really apply to them.... We would be the kind of people that reminds me of a quote or something from a movie, that "You need to be behind a glass box with a sign that says only break glass in case of war." Because we are like dinosaurs, that we're meant to and we had philosophies that basically said kill them all and let God sort them out. Not this nice Geneva Convention rules of war stuff. I didn't believe in it in Vietnam and I don't believe in it now. And I feel sorry for the people that have to obey those rules.
Did you keep a personal diary?
No, I wish I had though. I guess I kept a visual diary in some sense. I mean I took a lot of pictures...In fact some of the guys I worked with would over the years recall that I had two or three cameras around my neck at any given time. You just never knew when something was going to happen. You wanted to capture the moment.
Do you recall the day your service ended?
August the 10th, 1970, Washington D.C.
What did you do in the days and weeks that followed?
I rested for a little bit, went out and found a job. The only job I could get at the time, according to the State of Indiana that I was qualified for, was chipping ice off the inside of a cooler at the Hilton Hotel.
Did you work or ever go back to school?
Yes, I went to IUPUI for a couple years.
Was your education supported by the G.I. Bill?
In part.
Did you make any close friendships while in the service?
Well, I mean you make close friends and amazingly, we lost contact with each other for about thirty-some years and last year I was able to locate two of them on the internet-- guys I had served with in England and Vietnam, and they in turn knew some of the others we had lost contact with. So we are starting to reestablish contact with guys we served with thirty years ago, almost thirty-five years. Friendship's still there even if we have not stayed in contact all these years.
Did you join a veteran's organization?
Joined the American Legion.
What did you do as a career after the war?
Well I had a lot of careers after the war. A short time after the Hilton, I was a purchasing agent. I worked my way out of the cooler at the Hilton and became a purchasing agent at the St. Louis Hilton out at Lambert Airport. Came back with and was Vice President of Mayflower Telecommunications. I left that career and went in to Para medicine and was an EMT and paramedic for General Hospital, which is now Wishard, for about three and a half years. I was an orthopedic physician assistant for a while. Went to school for a couple years. Jumped around a variety of jobs. Trying something that interested me. In 1979,1 joined Army Special Forces and was a medic on A-team, discharged from that in 1983. Had my own vending business in Sikeston, Missouri for a year and a half. Left that and went to work for US Customs. Spent nearly thirteen years Federal Law Enforcement and Voice ... Security. Then worked for a software.com company for a year. Then went to work for Dura Builders, which will be three years in February.
Did your military experiences influence your thinking about war or about the military in general?
It had a dramatic influence on it [and] completely colored my outlook about life in general. I have given two eulogies in probably the last seven years - my father and father-in-law. I had a eulogy before that for a close friend, all three were veterans and in each case as we recalled and remembered their lives, the military was a big, big influence on them and how they looked at things. I guess I never realized how much it impacted my perspective until I analyzed the other people. But, I developed personal habits and I think there was probably a physiological impact of the service. You know what a Bar Mitzvah is?
Yeah.
Among the White Appalachian families at least in our culture, our Bar Mitzvah was doing a time in the service. You weren't really a man in the family until you did your duty. We trace our lineage back to 1690 - to the founding of the Jamestown Colony. We've had people in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It is just been a big tradition, I guess, in our family. That a man is not really a man until he does his duty. And each of our aunts and uncles homes [there] are pictures of those, loved ones that served. Some that survived and some that didn't. The same goes on my mom's side of the family. I had a rather unique experience in that I was in the intelligence part of the service and collected electronic intelligence for the CIA and NSA. I actually got to read things in the clear and there were a couple of instances were I knew the truth of the matter was not the same story that was being told to the American people. To give other historic anomalies, whether it was the reason for the entrance in to WWI and WWII, it's called me to distrust just about anything the government says is an official policy, and particularly now the rational for going to war. In Desert Storm we were fed a bunch of crap about Iraqis bashing babies heads on the floor only to find out after the war, that the lady who said she was a nurse in that nursery was actually the daughter of a Kuwaiti ambassador. That was trying to hype the Americans' interest in the war in support of their country. In Vietnam, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution11 ...which was what triggered the war, which was allegedly the torpedo attack on two American warships is now considered to have been a fictitious event all together, that nobody ever saw those torpedo boats. ... What they were actually talking about were two blips on a radar screen. This led to the mining by Lyndon Johnson of Hiaphong Harbor 12and the escalation of our involvement in Vietnam. Later, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara l3who was the Secretary of Defense at the time especially admitted that Vietnam was a mistake and that it was really meant to show our resolve to stand up to communism anywhere in the world, even if it had such disastrous consequences. So then it leads you to wonder about the most recent Iraqi invasion. Was it for the prolifically stated reasons? Weapons of mass destruction and all this other stuff. It now appears that was not the case and it looked like another series of lies. Even our entry into WWII has been called into question. Franklin Roosevelt had advance knowledge about the impending attack by the Japanese. That he chose to ignore it at the behest of Winston Churchill, so that the American people would be motivated to come to the Europeans aid, because they were basically in an isolationist posture at the time. WWI - it was the Lucitania14. The Lusitania is now acknowledged of carrying illegal munitions and was a lawful subject to attack under international law at the time by the Germans. However, that was used to inflame the Americans' passions to go to Europe's assistance during WWI. Before that it was the Spanish-American War15. "Remember the Maine" now instead of a terrorist attack of killing navy men in their sleep in the harbor. We find out the Maine blew up because of a bad boiler. So a whole series of wars, motivations for which aren't quiet as clear and legitimate as the government make it appear. So, this cause a great distrust from my perspective. There were certain international events that happened that I know were contrary to what intelligence I was reading coming in the clear, passed me and like I said, a great distrust of your government - anything that comes out of people's mouths. The other thing, if you developed certain habits when you are under a constant threat of being killed, you develop certain personal routines, one still stays with me is the state of hyper-vigilance, where you are always on guard. You are sensitive to sounds, to movement, to people encroaching on to your personal space. These are just survivor response things that you develop from a stressful situations. Yeah, I think it greatly impacted my viewpoint.
How do you think certain experiences affect your life?
Well, like many Vietnam veterans, I had significant readjustment issues. When I got out of the service. After Vietnam, I was sent to the Command Post Air Force One16. After Europe and Vietnam I was not ready for a spit, polish outfit like Air Force One. So I ended up getting out of the service. It was just a hard readjustment. It took seventeen years of on- again, off-again counseling. I was directly responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. Sometimes, that is hard to live with, but I eventually worked through it. If nothing else, I think of myself as a patriot first. Even though I am opposed to the war in Iraq, if I had the chance, I would go back again to keep some kid from having to experience all that, because once you cross that line of taking a person's life you are never the same human being. There is no going back or there is no do overs.
I remember you saying something about the Phoenix Program. What was it?
Well the Phoenix Program was an assassination program. The government would couch it in other terms like 'neutralization,' 'incapacitation.' But what would happen is the local regional authorities would identify certain Vietnamese as either North Vietnamese Operatives or Vietcong insurgents. They would be targeted for either for "neutralization." A lot of times they would just send a Special Forces Team to just kill them. Sometimes they would lay ambushes for a tax collector - a Vietcong tax collector. The more isolated, the more well defended the village was, the more difficult it became to deal with the communist sympathizers. So what they would do was they would take geo-seismic sensors, that I talked about earlier, they would plant them around the village and then they would go in and tell the people of the village don't to leave the village after 10:00 at night. If you did, you were subject to being shot. At any rate, they would measure the amount of traffic in and out of the village at night and the sensors were so sensitive that they could distinguish from vehicular traffic, an animal, a person, even a bicycle, and certainly mechanized. So you could tell if there were large numbers of people moving in and out of the village. So what they would do is they would go in and try to relocate the village. Move it to a place where they could better control them. If they resisted it and we did not want to expend a lot of manpower on it, they would simply mark the village for termination. They would be given an opportunity to pack up and move; after that an arch-like strike would be used for that village and it marked as an enemy combatant zone and just wiped off the face of the earth. A lot of people get upset about these massacres like My Lai...this was done on a regular basis on a much larger scale than anybody can imagine. That is a small part of the Phoenix Program that nobody will talk about. One of my jobs was cutting the actual orders for the bomb strikes for those villages. That will cause you a lot of problems in the end; participating so there were innocent women and children in those villages who did not get the chance to "get out of Dodge" before we killed them.
Are there any other questions that I missed that you want to answer?
No, other than I think a veteran, I think--I heard this in T.V. the other night, "I would not give you nickel for my military experience, but you could not give me enough money not to have had it." I am grateful for the experience. I benefited from it. It has given me life and professional tools, personal tools, in which to succeed and survive. I am grateful for that. I feel sorry for our boys and girls over seas under false pretenses, but they are patriots nonetheless. I am proud of all these kids. There is a bond with these young soldier, sailors, and airmen, marines that are over there that will never be broken. It is going to be hard for anybody who has not been through experience to appreciate their sacrifice. You know people get wounded in a lot of ways, and it's not always a big bullet hole. These kids will carry wounds with them for the rest of their lives. Some will never recover. VA hospitals 17are full of people that never ... - their bodies made the trip back on the plane, but their minds didn't and it's a hell sacrifice.
OK, I think that's it.