My Time in the Vietnam War ~ Documentary D

When I first got to the rear company area, just before I went to the field, I met a guy and we introduced ourselves and he said, “My name is Mike Harbottle.” M. He said, “H bottle.” So I said, “My name’s Mike Leforce.” Mike LA Force and he said, “Call me Red.” So I said, “Call me blue.” You know, so it for some reason we when we got to the company, we were introducing ourselves and he jumps off.

He tells everybody, “I’m red, he’s blue.” So I was blue from then on. That was my nickname. Nobody even knew my real name half the time. I think every Vietnam veteran, most any veteran has got a story and I’m going to try to tell some of [Music] mine. Okay. Started, let’s go back 1966, my senior year.

Had to make decisions what I’m going to do with my life. The war was going on. I decided I would hold off college and get my service out of the way. The time I was going to a Jesuit high school, McUade in Rochester. It was a prep school and they were very proud of the fact that all their graduates went to college.

When I told my counselor I wasn’t going to college, he got pretty pretty upset and uh actually asked me if I would talk to some one of the alumni that comes in, a psychiatrist. So I said I would and met with him and he says, “Is there anything you want to tell me?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “Well, Father Baldwin said you don’t want to go to college.

” I said, “No, I’m going to go in the service.” And he says, “Well, you get drafted.” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Well, you know, if you get drafted, you probably end up in the infantry.” I says, “I know. I understand.” He says, “You got all that, you won’t stand.” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Well, good luck.

” He says, “I don’t think at least you know what you’re doing.” Yeah, that picture my brother Joe painted it for the VFW years ago and he did it from a picture that I had and it’s me carrying an M60 machine gun which I carried for a couple months in Vietnam. That’s taken up somewhere around K I think and uh June of ‘ 68 maybe around sometime around that time.

I was walking point and uh it was pretty thick. It’s pretty thick. And it was in a heavily booby trapped area. So I’m looking right in front of me, right in front of me. And off all of a sudden, Lonnie fires twice. Bang bang. So of course you you naturally hit the ground. But I’m looking up and as I’m going down, I see a body flop way ahead of me.

You know, we took some fire and then nothing. Whoever was shooting it ran away. But this guy had me zeroed in. Lonnie says he was this guy was heavily camouflaged and Lonnie said the guy had was aiming right at me. Yeah. And the guy didn’t think we that we could see him, but Lonnie picked him up.

I don’t know how some movement. And I was right in front of Lonnie and the guy had me right in his sights, you know, and Lonnie’s dusted him, you know, and then we knew they ran and they had a um an ambush set up. We could tell afterwards, but they they all they call D Mau means run away, you know.

So Lonnie spotted them before they had a chance to open up on us, you know. So that’s what they would do. And they wouldn’t stay and fight. They just take a shot at you, you know, and take off, you know. So, he saved your life. Yeah, I I think he did cuz he said the guy had me right in, you know, open.

It was sight, you know, he the guy was right on me, you know. It wasn’t very far away either. I took quite a few pictures when I was in Vietnam and a lot of them were helicopters and uh usually what we were in helicopters almost every day, sometimes twice a day, a few times at night and uh so it was a big part of my experience.

Usually what the routine was, they would come in, pick up our company, take us to an area we didn’t necessarily want to go to, but that was our job. The big thing was to get off the helicopter fast. The pilots and door gunners did not want us hanging around a certain area. So they would hover and we would get off, find some cover and go on from there.

In the first cab, we had the best pilots and door gunners. Usually second tour guys that were the best because the first cab always had the best chopper pilots and they’re very brave. to take us in in hot areas, especially our medevac choppers, the guys that came and got us if somebody got wounded. They would come in under fire. They were kind of crazy.

And I I got to know a few of the door gunners and the pilots were all kind of crazy, so they had to be, but they stayed there. They were second, third tour guys, and loved them. We had these burnt pebbles that we used to uh to cook our food with and or we’d take C4, which is explosive, out of our claymore mines, and that stuff you could just light it on fire and burn.

So, we would get a can full of leeches and put some C4 in there and watch them die. A little sick, but that was our entertainment, you know. We didn’t have anything else to do, but we hated leech. Oh my god. Ringo was terrified of him. He was just ter He hate him. He just tear his clothes off every once in a while.

He was I don’t know how to put this, but he was so afraid that one of them was going to crawl up his ass. And I I don’t know why, but he would literally blue check. I said, “I’m not g. No, they don’t do that.” He says, “I know. They’re they’re trying to.” But he just freaked out. He just hated him. He just hated him.

So, but my leeches story. I hated him, too. I hated him, too. There’s a lot of dark side to war. I remember I got a little shamed of myself one time. We were like I’ve tried to write us about this one time and it was uh we were going through a village. We had a new guy in named Richie. There was a big heavy kid and he wanted to walk point.

So we’re going through a village and and a Vieton. We didn’t see a lot of Vicon, but runs out of a little straw hut and shoots and runs away, you know, and and nobody got a shot off or anything. Shot Richie in the belly. Okay. So he’s hit, but he’s he’s conscious. He’s talking. Doc gives him morphine.

We’re calling a helicopter, right? And he’s laughing and joking. You know the morphine make like you crazy stuff. So they Richie, they take Richie away, you know, they medevac Richie. So then the medevac the later on the guy comes back supplying the helicopter and said Richie didn’t make it. He died on a helicopter.

And [ __ ] And it shocked me, you know, and I remember that night on guard do, you know, at night you dig a hole and you take turns, you know, pulling guard. I thought I should just be miserable and I kind of wasn’t. You know, this was I’ve been in country a long time. Usually I felt bad, you know, you you know, if you lose somebody, you know, you really feel bad and you know, there some some of us cry or whatever, you know, and uh and I just couldn’t get that emotion going for some reason. And I love the kid, you know, and I don’t understand that. But do you know what? Does that make sense? Yeah. I don’t Yeah. It’s almost like you became numb to it or something. I think I did. Goomer’s on watch and I hear blue. I woke up and Goomer’s right here

in the machine gun. He’s got a hand on machine gun and there’s a [ __ ] NBA soldier about from here to that wall like this, you know. [ __ ] Gomer can’t go could not shoot. He locked up and That’s when I first started watching them after that. So I slid. Oh, I just fired, you know, machine gun and fired off four or five rounds and uh the gun jam, but guy end up dying.

slow slow down should be saying but I don’t I think I just right away put it on the back burner like it didn’t happen you know I didn’t justify it you know um and it was you know just bang bang you instinct. I didn’t say, “Well, I saved Goomemer’s life,” or blah blah blah. I just I just like and like and I wouldn’t go near him, you know, they they you know, they have to take all the papers and whatever and find, you know, blah blah and I I just and uh it’s like an then it’s like I never happened.

I don’t think I ever really, you know, there was similar thing, couple similar things, but I mean that guy died slow too, you know. But but it’s war, you know. Maybe maybe I got an answer for that someday, you know. Want to show me your trophy? Oh, yeah. Here’s my trophy. Um, it reads Vietnam War second place.

I had this this awarded to myself. I took it over the VFW and thought it’d be funny. Some of the boys didn’t think it was that funny, but that’s my trophy. So, stuck with it. The day I got my order, they send it out to the field and the first sergeant says, “Okay, the morning chopper comes out. It’s called a trans.

They bring out supplies or whatever. And then he says, “When it comes comes out this morning, you’re going back.” This like a week before your year’s up. So you have to process out. So you’re going out today. So good. So we send a platoon out. My platoon leaves. I shake hands with everybody.

I That’s I got 10 cuz they’re going out on a patrol. My squad, my platoon. So bye guys, you know. So I go out and bang bang, they get hit. So and they’re not far. They just left. So I grabbed extra ammo and stuff and and where you going? And I I just and and I’m in the jungle alone on my last freaking day in the field and I’m thinking, “What the fuck?” you know, but it was nothing, you know, and I took the stuff up to them and it was all over and they looked at me like I was stupid, you know, get the [ __ ] out of here, you know. But anyway, so came back, they came back with me. chopper comes in and I remember so the chopper I’m sitting in the on the with my feet on the skid and

he he freaking makes a circle around the company you know bye you know and they had a place to stay USO had a place you know so I sleeping off a little little jag and then at night I call mom I was going to wait and surprise them just get a cab home cuz I was like a day or early but I couldn’t wait.

So I called him I said can you come up somebody come up the airport and get me and uh like midnight. So dad borrowed a station way and woke the kids up and they came up to Rochester to get me you know and it was so weird. They’re all there and I don’t the kids are and so I get in the plane. Hey my best feeling ever, you know.

And uh so then come home and like drop me off. They had a place upstairs for me. So and I there you go. Everybody goes to sleep and like I’m laying there. I’m home, you know. And I was I couldn’t sleep for like two days, right? just dr just a natural high. Yeah. I could not I was just wired, you know.

I wasn’t drinking or anything. I just wired up. I just like I remember just like trying to get comfortable in a bed. I couldn’t sleep really. And I actually think I slept on the floor the first night, you know, and but then it was like, “Okay, here you’re home.” And then nobody talked about it. It’s like and uh I know my mom and dad didn’t you know it’s like okay and it wasn’t nothing said but you just got the impression nobody wanted to talk about it and nobody did back here and if you were here and you you didn’t tell any you didn’t talk about it right even with vets other vets right this my daily therapy any day I can get out walk calms me down this where I do my thinking this I I also call it my church cuz it really is my church in a way. This is the only place I pray. It’s very

peaceful out here. I like to come at night or in the afternoon. So this time of year there’s nobody else on the golf course. It’s like my own private golf course. I really enjoy it. I don’t know what I’d do without it. All right, this piece of paper when my daughter was in high school, their I believe their senior trip, they were in Washington DC and they went to the wall, the Vietnam wall, and she called me up and said, asked me if there was any names on the wall that I knew.

So, of course, the three friends that I lost there, James King, Larry Fox, Doug Han, it’s such a waste. It’s so bad, you know, but I’ve never forgotten him. Every every Veterans Day and every Memorial Day I go to the bar, I I bought four beers. You know, most of the guys like couple of bartenders over here when I walk in and they’ll set four beers up.

I drink them all. And but I’ll tell you what though, thinking of those guys, it’s it’s it’s been good for me because if I have a bad day or whatever, you know, and I I get ashamed myself, you know, these guys, they were kid, you know, 20s, maybe 19, 20, 21, and that’s all they had, you know, so how can I be, you know, I try to remember that, you know, and that’s really lifted nice spears cuz you know I just kick myself in the ass.

Hey, these guys, they would kick me in the ass, you know. What do you, you know, go have a beer, you know, don’t worry about, you know, we would, you know, so that I use that, I use that, you know, that has given me a zest of life. That has given me appreciation of life. I’ve kept it with me all and I I carry their name.

That piece of paper I carry, I’ve changed it like three or four times. When it gets, you know, whatever’s nearby, I’ll write their names and stick it back in there. The soldier stood and faced God, which must always come to pass. He hoped his shoes were shining just as brightly as his brass.

Step forward now, you soldier. How shall I deal with you? Have you always turned the other cheek to my church? Have you been true? The soldier squared his shoulders and said, “No, Lord, I guess I ain’t cuz those of us who carry guns can’t always be a saint.” [Music] had to work most Sundays and at times my talk was tough and sometimes I’ve been violent cuz the world is awful rough.

But I never took a penny that wasn’t mine to keep. Though I worked a lot of overtime when the bills got just too steep and I were passed a cry for help, though at times I shook with fear. Sometimes God forgive me, I’ve wept unmanly tears. I know I don’t deserve a place among the people here. They never wanted me around except to calm their fears.

If you have a place for me, Lord, Lord, it needn’t be so grand. I never expected or had too much, but if you don’t, I’ll understand. There was a silent all around the throne where the saints had often tried as a soldier waited quietly for the judgment of his God. Step forward now, you soldier. You’ve borne your burdens well. Walk peace on heaven streets.

You’ve done your time in hell. I often claimed I lost my faith in Vietnam. Yeah. You know, but you I don’t know how was that strong anyway, you know, and uh there might be some stuff I got to answer for, you know. Look, you know, my vision of God is he’s a father. He’s my father.

And fathers forgive a lot of stuff. You know, I’m hoping he’s my father.