Charles Stroud – U.S. Army 1968-69 (Infantry, Vietnam) D

[STIRRING MUSIC] USA Warrior Stories is a not-for-profit organization designed to record, archive, and share videos of veterans stories to help veterans make a connection with one another and to help us all better understand their sacrifices for our freedoms. As I tell my kids, it takes a special kind of dumbass to flunk out of college when you’re looking at Vietnam.

So I was going to LSU and totally dissatisfied. And one day I read in the– I was in the cafeteria. And I read in the paper about this guy who got a Congressional Medal of Honor. And they were talking about, yeah, he was awarded the Medal of Honor and he stayed behind and fought the guys off where his buddies could get away and he died in the process.

That’s what we call a coffin with metal handles. But anyway, and I got to thinking, I’m sitting there on my butt here in the lounge at LSU and they got this guy off in the jungle fighting. And I said, we have a warrior class or something that goes to do that or what? And so I just got my– and I just wondered if I was made of that, what I was made of.

I was 21-year-old or 20-year-old. And then I went and started exploring around, I found out that the Army had a thing where you could actually join the army and not be an officer and fly helicopters. And so I said, OK, that sounds like my plan. I’d like to do that. The Army did what they said. They gave me a chance to fly helicopters.

It was like six weeks of testing. I did that. And then it came time to fly the helicopter. And you had to solo in 13 hours. Well, I wasn’t ready to do it right then. And so they said, well, we’ve got another place for you. And so January 1 of 1969, I wound up at Fort Ord, California, at the Advanced Infantry Training.

Finished that in about the first week in March and went home for a week. And then Republic of Vietnam, here I come. So caught a plane in Oakland, went to Alaska. And I’ll never forget, they opened the doors in Alaska, said, you guys get to walk around because it’s going to be a– next flight is going to be a long one into Vietnam.

It was like 28 degrees. [LAUGHS] Holy mackerel. So anyway, we went and got back in the plane and flew in and we got into Vietnam. I think it’s like Bin Wa, Long Bin one of those places where they come in. And it’s like 6 o’clock in the evening, I tell this story. I thought about the pilot opened the fresh air vents and we were looking down at and you could see the smoke was burning and what they were– it was crap burning.

You could smell. And it really stunk. And it was really hot. And so when you opened those vents, went, oh, my god. And realization about Vietnam, it stinks and it’s hot. So anyway, we got off the plane. We was in a little holding area. And we had two plane fulls that went in. And I said, OK. When we got off and they had one plane full going back.

And I went, hmm, I wonder what happened to the other plane full? We were making swaps here. So anyway, that’s how I wound up in Vietnam. And at 6 o’clock in the afternoon and hot. It was all an adventure. You was all sitting there like a herd of cattle. They were moving you around. And they knew where they wanted you to go and do this.

And you were just, OK, whatever. When I was in the back, I was trying– man, I was pumping everybody for trying to find out, what about this, what about that. And old boy told me, he said, you’re a big guy. I said, what you need to do is get the machine gun when you get out there in the field, Volunteer to take that gun.

That way you walk in the middle and you won’t be walking point and you stand a lot better chance of getting out of there. I said, sounds like a plan. Here’s me and my buddy Mingo. That’s the first day I got to Vietnam in the field. It’s my boy Harold Mingo out of New Orleans. He caught four claymore BB’s in his ankle.

But now, our focus is, you see my eyes are kind of bright, and shiny, and all that stuff? Yeah. I’ve got a picture later on. There, that’s the one I want to show you. Look at the difference in the eyes on this guy and the eyes when he first got there. And what, this is about five months in? Yeah, probably four or five months in.

Yeah, something like that. And you see, I’ve got the canteen. There’s the 100 rounds there, 100 rounds there, 100 rounds on there. I’m carrying 300 rounds, plus a gun, plus a towel, T-shirt. Well, in the edit room, we can put the two photos side by side. Yeah, that’s what you’ll see the difference in, what five and a half, six months will do for you.

I’ve been there probably in the field probably three or four weeks, I’m guessing. And there hadn’t been a shot fired. And I’m like, they’re going to have a war here or what? I mean, you know, I don’t– And then we had a couple of little things where we had spottings and ran into them but nobody was shot and killed or anything like that.

And so a guy with them, he said, don’t worry, when you go into Dragon Valley, you’ll see. And Dragon Valley was the hellhole of our area. And I don’t know how many other people wound up there. But anyhow, so we went into Dragon Valley and they hadn’t got off the helicopter good and [CHUCKLES] people started shooting.

And we were on the edge of the rice paddies, looking up in the jungle and got some fire out of the jungle. We went there. We were at the edge of the jungle and somebody, shoot, shoot. And I didn’t see them. I shot them. [VOCALIZING GUNFIRE] And I said, what am I shooting at? I didn’t see anything. And I didn’t know but that was pretty much the way most of our deal was.

You’re in the jungle and it’s close quarters. And it’s thick and you can’t see. And I think three times during my time in Vietnam, we wound up in Dragon Valley. And we’d go for a week at a time. This was when we was in a decent place and the boom-boom girls would come out and all that. And the Coke girls, boom-boom girls.

All right, you read that. Dufus Dick, a.k.a. Killer McKeller. There’s a story behind him. Dufus Dick is what we called him because his equipment was rattling around and he could never get his stuff organized. But anyway, he was walking point and I was walking second. And we walked into some crap up there. And the first thing you do is hit the ground.

None of this jack around and go shoot somebody. No, you get on the ground. When we was on the ground, I looked, old Killer McKeller, he was shooting. And dodge, run to another tree shooting. And I said, man, this guy looked like John Wayne. And we started calling him Killer McKeller because he had actually gotten shot.

A bullet had grazed his wrist. And after it was all over, he said, look, I’m hit. That ain’t bad enough for a Purple Heart. Don’t worry about it. He’s bleeding. So this is when we stopped. We were being some lurps. That’s the only time we ever had any lurps. I want you to see the sweat. I mean, everything was wet with sweat and unkept.

I mean, just– holy, we did our best to [INAUDIBLE]. That’s the flag at Iwo Jima. Oh, yeah. I love it. Worst day in Vietnam, we had been in Dragon Valley about four days and five, whatever it was. And it rained. You’re in water at waist deep everywhere. And we were in Dragon Valley. And the whole day had just been getting shot at, getting shot at.

We never were in a named battle. It was always three or four. Platoon would be like, let’s say, 18 to 22 people, 23 people. And the first three or four guys in the line, they’d get in there and mix it up. And the guys back in the back like, [HUMS MELODY] Then it’d go away. And they were just a kind of harassing.

But anyway, we had been going through that all day. And at night, just about dark we came to a little higher ground. Was wading in the rice paddy and we came to a little higher ground. And Paul Espinoza was the point man. He had been an RTO but he wanted to be– he wanted to walk point because he was tired of being RTO.

So he was walking point. And we were up in this thing. And I don’t know how big it was or whatever. But he said, everybody freeze, there’s a mine! So we stopped. And he said– and he had his foot on it. But the mud is soft and he hadn’t put enough pressure to make it blow. And so I didn’t say it. It was the platoon sergeant who said, put your helmet on it, and get down on your knees, and see if you can find any more.

So we all crawled around on the hands and knees and we found three or four of these things placed big as this room here. And you take it off, put your hat over it. That way somebody else wouldn’t get on it. And it got dark. So now the platoon sergeant said, look, let’s anchor in here tonight, you know, da, da, da.

So we’re going to have a peaceful night. We were in a minefield. But as long as nobody moved around, we were going to be OK. [LAUGHTER] And so we were there. And I’ll never forget, my buddy Jenkins, Lavar Jenkins, put a poncho so we could keep the rain off of us. And we would put that poncho. And so I take my boots, I pull my boots off, half my sock came off with the boot and half of it stayed on my foot.

And there was something in the rice paddy, it just rotted or whatever. I don’t know. But anyway, he gave me– he had a spare pair of socks and he gave them to me. I went, oh, my god. Think about just how good a spare pair of socks is. And so anyway, we were doing that. And I was listening to platoon sergeant.

He owned the radio. And the company commander called him and said, look– first of all, we could hear it. It’s about maybe a quarter or a half a mile from us, we could hear all hell break loose. Somebody was in a hell of a damn scrap. And the company commander called us and said, you need to– our battalion commander said you need to take your people, and go down, and help Delta company.

He said, man, we are sitting in a minefield. And they went back and forth, back and forth. He said, that’s a direct order. Get up and leave. Go help Delta company. So then sergeant said, OK, let’s everybody saddle up, we’ve got to go. And then he turned and started to crawl over to where I was. And he says, Charlie, I want your squad to lead us out of here.

I went, oh, thanks. And so I went and had my two point man as Joe Brown out of Las Vegas, Nevada, and Fat Matt Carrasco. And I want those as my two point men. I want– some guy, somebody. Somebody’s got to lead us out of here tonight. And I said, I’ll be honest with you, I ain’t got the nerve and we’re going to draw straws.

If you don’t want to do it, I ain’t going to think no less of you. I’ll give you an Article 15 but– so anyway, straw. And old Mount drew it. And he said, I’ll do it. So he walked point out of that mine. I walked second. It was Fat Matt. But anyway, so I’m holding on to his pack. Somebody is holding on to mine.

We got up and left. As a whole, by then the company had joined us. And we told them, watch out for the helmets and all that stuff. And so we come out of that minefield and it’s at night. And it was so dark that– it had been raining so hard they had a little river running along where we were. And my job was holding Matt.

He was walking point but I had him by the pack. He’d be walking along and step off in that river because you were just– you couldn’t believe how thick it was– excuse me. How thick it was. But he’d slip off of and I had him by the pack and I drag him back out. And he said, let’s go this way. And so we tried.

We took off. But anyway, we stayed awake all night long trying to get to them and we never got to them. And you could hear, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, shooting back and forth. And about daylight, it broke off. They quit. And the company commander said, y’all can rest right there. So hell, I laid down in about 6 inches of water.

I was done. I had done 24 hours and very stressful. When we left the base camp, we didn’t have a cot or bed or anything for 90 days. We slept on the ground for 90 days. The rain, we got our ass wet. Sleeping, got wet. It was dry, we were thirsty. Hot we were hot. But for 90 days, we were out in the field. And some of that time we’re like– one time I was telling, we were guarding Tam Ky bridge.

And that was our crip duty. We could go out there and– we didn’t have to go anywhere. So we’ve got six days of guarding Tam Ky bridge. And all it was about an R&R. On that 90-day cycle, you’d have three days it’d take you back to Chu Lai beach and had 24-hour porn videos, bands, and drunk. You had steaks on the grill all the time.

And we got to get treated like kings for three days. So that guy right there was the best platoon sergeant ever. He was named Russell Fairchild. But he was our platoon sergeant and platoon leader for most of the time because we had four different lieutenants while I was there. They all got capped. And he would take over for them soon enough.

But anyway. Right there, that old boy’s name, that’s me with the gun. And that guy right there is Lurch, old boy from California, about 6 foot 5. What you can’t see is we’re sitting on top of about 100-foot waterfall and that’s people down below. And we wound up spending about a day getting down those ropes.

We had everybody had to climb down the rope to get to the waterfall. That’s me on what they call– we call that no names. Hut, old boy, he had a well. And we’d go take a bath in his well in the daytime. That’s the top of this mountain 1362. But my only experience of climbing up in a tunnel. But that’s on top of 1362, an old Green Beret base.

And they’d land us in there. And our deal was to walk down South of that mountain and flush out anything for people waiting down below. So we were going down and of course, it was all clear. And looked and there was a hole in the ground going back on the side of the mountain, going back in there. So OK, now what we’re going to do? So everybody standing around, looking at everybody with a finger in their ear, like somebody’s got to go in there and look.

And I was carrying the 60, the gun. I said, give me a rifle and a flashlight, I’ll go. So I crawled down in this thing. And it went about 20 feet back in there. You could see– I couldn’t get up on my hands and knees. But I had plenty of room to squirm. I got back in there and I got to the corner. There was a corner.

And if anybody’s going to be there, that’s where they’d be. So I crawled down there. And first thing I did, I shined a light around the corner. Nobody shot the light out of my hand. I put my rifle around behind the light and nobody shot my rifle. So I eased up and looked in. Wasn’t anybody in there. OK, good.

I’m glad. [CHUCKLES] And so what it was, it wasn’t a place where the bad guys were storing. Some farmer or person had hidden their stuff there when they moved out of the mountains and went to the coast. But one of the things in there was a big old vase. It was about 13 inches tall and about 10 inches in diameter or something.

Beautiful vase. And I know boo diddly about it. But I said, I know this is a pretty thing. So I came crawling– I wrapped it in my arm and I came crawling back out of the hole. And when I did, I saw where I tripped a booby trap going in and it hadn’t gone off. And somebody had put a wire across. And I could see it in the sun, with the sun.

But I couldn’t see it coming in. So I just eased, slipped on by that thing. And I hope it stays dormant while I’m here because that would kill me deader than hell. But anyhow. So I came out and had this vase. And I wrapped it in my poncho. We were working light that day. So I humped it back up the mountain. And the only time when I was in Vietnam actually threw up from exhaustion.

And I had been there a long time. And I was just totally– I started to throw that vase away a half dozen times. By the time we came in, the guy in the helicopter came in, of course, like a UPS man, you get to– I said, hey, send this home to my mama. And he said, OK, I’ll do it. About a month later, my mama said, we got this vase, came in the mail.

I said, I’ll explain it when we get home. So anyway, set on my dresser drawer for 10 years and through a couple of wives. And just the last one, when we got married, she said, what is that? And I told her the story. And she said, that thing’s got to be worth something. I said, no, nah. But anyway, we searched around, scratching around.

We couldn’t find anybody. But come to find out, we found an antique Chinese art dealer in New Orleans. And it’s a Ming dynasty. This thing was made before Columbus was going out– It wasn’t assigned. It was like an everyday kind of jug. So I don’t know what it’s worth. But it’s worth more than the world to me.

After five and a half months, they promoted me up to E-5 to a squad leader. And of course, I didn’t get E-5, that’s the way you do it, you be a squad leader. And then I don’t even know exactly the date but somewhere like June or July or something like that, they came out and they were looking for some snipers, sniper teams go out at night with a starlight scope.

So I said, OK. So I volunteered for that. Went back to the rear and trained as a sniper for about three days. It was really intense training. So I had a 105 canister out there and shoot at it from about 150 yards. And like, oh, yeah, you hit it. You’ll be good. Go ahead. That’s me with my sniper rifle. You see I’ve got my damn Ho Chi Minh rifle.

I’m drying out, got my boots off, and my pot. And anyway, it started raining. raining season came. Of course, that starlight, it wasn’t good on rainy nights. Cloudy and dark. So gave the starlight back up and returned to squad leader duty. And I was always squad leader. But just on a clear night, the sniper team would go out, a little three-man team.

First night in three weeks it hadn’t been rainy and cloudy. And I could actually lay on my rack. The way you do it, you lay back. And I looked up and you the stars and the moon. It was partly cloudy and just beautiful. And all of a sudden, I got this premonition like, you’re going to get hit. You’re going to get shot.

And I couldn’t figure it out what it was. At first, it was like this– And I know it sounded BS. But the aura coming in. I went, holy mackerel. But I stayed awake all night and I watched everybody change and rotate the guards and all that stuff. And I just sit there at peace. I suppose it’s this great peace came over me for whatever reason.

So at daylight, everybody, we packed up. We knew where we had to go. And I described it like mules going back to the barn. Everybody just got out. The trip players, and claymores in, and all that stuff. And first sergeant was there. Stroud how’s it going, you know, da, da, da. Going all right. I said, look, hey, Top, I’m supposed to go into R&R tomorrow.

You need to get me out of the field today. He said why? I said, because I’m getting ready to get shot. He said, oh, boy. And he went by laughing. I said, no, I’m serious. We’re going to get shot. And just about the time that conversation was happening, I heard an explosion 400-500 yards off in a hurry. And I said, that’s Horton.

That’s Horton’s group coming in. They hit something. So I told Top, I said, I’m going to get my guys and go. Now, this whole thing took one minute from me telling him that I was going to get shot a minute left, I’m headed out there to help these guys. So we took off jogging out across this flat rice bed and got 300 or 400 yards, something like that, a little grassy, a little brushy knoll right there.

And that’s where these boys were. And I knew where they were from the path they were supposed to come in. And I had been jogging the whole time out there. About that time, the dog handler caught up with me. He had been out with us the night before. He said, hey, let me put this dog on point. That’s not a good idea.

So anyway, for the last 50 yards or something like that, the dog walked point, the handler, then me behind him. And we walked right up to where the lieutenant was and his group. And I walked up to him. You could smell gunpowder. And I looked over to the right, my buddy Jenkins had a point man that had a lower leg, foot blown off and Jenkins was working on him.

And then behind the lieutenant had another guy, had him propped up. Had a hole almost as big as a quarter and you stick your finger in it through his neck. And he had him propped up. And this sound weird, I had a Donald Trump moment. The point man was standing there. Of course, I didn’t want to move my feet.

So I did like this around him. I asked, I said, where do you want my people? And he was turning around , I was watching him. About that time, I think the dog stepped on it or something or stepped forward or whatever. Anyway, it went off. A piece of shrapnel cut all the hair off my head and burnt a whip. I had a blue whip on that thing from just that.

If I had my head up, caught me between the eyes. But anyway, that and had a piece went through the crotch of my pants and did no damage. And [CHUCKLES] two greatest blessings I think I could have. And I tell all my grandkids, had that thing been that much higher, none of you wouldn’t be here. [LAUGHTER] So anyway, it blew up.

And I’m flying back through the air and hit the ground. And the main thing I had my hand on my head and my crotch. It was really burning and everything else. And I looked and no blood anywhere. I said, OK, I guess I’m good and about that. And I heard this guy screaming and hollering over on the other side.

I said, I’ve got to help him. I tried to get up and I felt my leg. I went ain’t no way I’m going to get up on this leg. And of course, I still had my pants on and all that kind of stuff. And Fat Matt came and ran up behind me. And he said, where are you hit? I said in the leg. And he started cutting the clothes off of me and all that stuff.

And I asked him, hey, man, how bad is it? Because I didn’t want to look. How bad? It’s all right. I said, mm-hmm, OK. You told me all I need to know. [CHUCKLES] So I heard a helicopter came in and Matt said, let me go get somebody to help load you up on the helicopter. Said all right. So he took off. And I tell the story, I was laying there.

And there’s still stuff happening all around, people carrying people to the helicopter. And I had this thing just creep, they’re going to leave me. And I’m like, oh, my god. But there wasn’t nothing I could do. So Matt came back and he said, ain’t nobody help me– wait a minute. He said, if ain’t nobody to help me, I’m going to carry you by myself.

I said to him– I said, Matt, it ain’t no way. He said, I’ll get you. A little guy, I outweighed him 30 pounds and at least 4 or 6 inches taller. He got me up off the ground by himself. And he took me to the helicopter. I never have cried about that. But I was just– but anyway. So Matt, he took me to the helicopter.

And when he shoved me up on that helicopter, they propped me up against somebody. I don’t know who it was. And about halfway, Matt had me in this thing where my legs were flopped over to the back and I was holding on to his shoulder. I could see my old right leg was flopping like a fishtail. And it was hurting.

And Jenkins came and Lavar came running. He had already loaded his man. He came up and was holding my leg. And they went and put me on the helicopter. And like I said, I was propped up against somebody. I don’t even know who it was. And old boy had a piece of him, holding his throat. He had him propped up over there on the other side.

I asked him, I said, are you going to make it, man? Yeah, I’m going to make it. And he did. But anyway, the helicopter took off and got us back– went to the– I think it was 93rd evac in Chu Lai. I’m trying to remember now. But anyway, I was the last one on the helicopter because I guess I was at least hit.

And so they were taking people off them. When they dragged me off the helicopter, I looked and they had checkered plate all on the bottom of [INAUDIBLE]. Vietnam vet, whole bottom of the thing was check– It was completely covered with blood. You could see the little piece of it sticking up. But anyway, they dragged me off, put me on a stretcher, and hauled me in.

And then we went through these rubber things where they keep the air out. And walked in there on that thing. Hell, I guess it was probably about 90 degrees outside and it was about 12 degrees inside. No, it was cold. I don’t know, about probably 68 degrees. And it was like, holy mackerel. And pulled me in there.

And the nurses, they had three nurses jumped on me with big old scissors. They were just cutting everything off of me and cutting all my clothes. And they were rolling me around looking for a place to where it came out and stuff like that. So anyway, they checked me out. It wasn’t their first rodeo. You could tell they knew exactly what they were doing.

And I looked over and old boy had his foot blown off. He had a leg off on the side of the bed and had a bucket under it. So I’m like, OK, that’ll work. [CHUCKLES] I was thinking to myself, that’s very efficient. [CHUCKLES] There’s Fat Matt, my hero. There you got. He was a hero. I stayed in Vietnam five days at Chu Lai.

And then about four or five days later, they load me on a plane and sent me down to Cam Ranh Bay. That’s what it was. But then from Cam Ranh Bay to Japan, stayed in Japan for a month, five weeks. And this is all right around Christmas. On Christmas Day, I’ll never forget, on Christmas Day I woke up where my shin bone had been shattered, they had stitched it up and it’s tight.

But then Christmas Day, it was all swollen and it looked like an old football somebody had put too much air in. And all the threads were stretched across the hole and a piece of bone was sticking out of the bloody hole. Still a piece of bone was sticking out of it. And I called a corpsman. Hey, man, look at this.

He went and got his forceps and just grabbed them, blink. That’s it. [CHUCKLES] Yeah, that’s it. So I guess I don’t need that anymore. [LAUGHTER] But anyway, I had been in the middle of January or late January or something like that, they shipped me to Fort Polk, Louisiana. While I was in the ward there at the hospital at Fort Polk, I was having all kind of I guess, PTSD issues.

I was like weird– I said, I need to talk to some shrink somewhere. I need it. My mind’s going. I’m going crazy with this stuff. And so they said OK. About four days later, had this little guy showed up. Had two stripes on his coat there. And pulled the curtain down, said, Mr. Stroud, I’m here to check on you for PTSD, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, you’re not a doctor? He said, no. I said, you ever been in combat, you ever been shot, anything? No, sir. Get your ass out of here. I ain’t got nothing to say to you. Because he didn’t know. And it pissed me off. And I just said, I’ll just do this on my own. And that’s basically what my whole rehab was like, do it on my own.

So they sent me to Brooks Army Hospital. And they made me this splint. And now it’d be called an exoskeleton. When I got back, the army basically turned me over to the VA. And I talked to the doctor and I said, look, when can I get this brace off? He said, son, that’s as good as it’s going to get. That’s it.

You’re done. And I’m like, holy mackerel. I mean, it’s like I never envisioned myself being crippled like that. Well, I decided I did need to do something. So I went out and me a bicycle, an old used bicycle. I think it was $9 I paid for it. And I put it on. We were staying in a mobile home at that point. Had a big old wooden porch.

And I just propped up on the edge of the porch. I’d sit on the porch, take the brace off, get on the bicycle, and ride the bicycle. And I did that. Then I got to where– and then I got to where I could hold on to the bicycle and walk. And then I got to where I could turn the bicycle loose. And it took about I want to say a year and a half or two years but I was mobile.

And I’ll never forget, I was digging through my closet a year or so later and saw that brace. And I took it and threw it out in the garbage. I wish I had held on to it. But took and threw it out in the closet– I mean, out in the garbage. From then forward, I have just been doing what I can. On a personal basis, I absolutely proved to myself who I was, which has been a great confidence builder or whatever for the last 55 years, knowing who you are and knowing what your limits are and what you can do if you have to. So yeah, I’m very proud. I wear my hat, that Purple Heart hat. And I got wounded. And I spent like seven months in hospital. But I’m alive. They got 58,000 young men died in Vietnam. And I guarantee you, you go ask half the people in the United States about Vietnam, oh, it’d probably be a war somewhere. They don’t know. But like I said, a huge amount of young men died for nothing because of politics.

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