And it's hard, you know, it's hard to find that same feeling and position of being in charge, in charge of my life and in charge of other people's lives. And it's hard to find that once you leave Vietnam. I've tried to. I'd have to admit that I've tried to replace that, but it's hard, you know? Because you don't find another opportunity like that.
- Tim
So we found an opening that had like three hooches in it. And the pilot says, “okay, I'm gonna make a couple passes on these hooches. And when I tell you to fire, fire, when I tell you to stop, stop.” So we did that and I managed to hit at least one of 'em, cuz I set it on fire with tracer rounds. And, so he said, “you're good to go”. It's kind of on-the-job training, you know? So the rest of the time, I go down to the flight line and, if there's a mission, I go. If there wasn't, it was just another boring day. So that's kind of how my year went.
- John
I think it was just the whole idea that I grew up very poor and was on welfare as a young kid and thought that I owed something to this country and my mother would always remind us of that and never let us forget about it. And I think that's why most of us went into the military, cuz that was a way to pay this country back. That was the thought process during that time. And so I had no problem volunteering.
- Francisco
The C-130 was so powerful. And the spray. The jungle was totally soaked, like somebody took a hose and just wet everything, you know? And we would try to go through a bush area. We didn't cut it. We just walked right through inside. We just opened the branches and we walked. Or jumped over whatever we had to get by. The idea was not to break anything and not leave a track so they can come back and track you. And then the vegetation was so soaked with agent orange that my uniform was totally soaked. So I looked like I just got wet, totally. My legs, my pants, my shirt...
- Miguel