VOHP Podcast Episode 2 Transcript
For today’s podcast, we’re going to go a bit lighter and talk about some of these veterans’ interesting and happier memories from their time in service. These lighthearted memories are a common thread woven through many of our veterans’ oral histories, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to highlight them today.
Many veterans have mentioned their initial service memories as extremely vivid. When you first enter, it must be disorienting to not only be in a war zone, but so far away from home. Here, Rocco Muffi shares a lighter memory of arriving in Vietnam.
Muffi: Yeah, so it wasn’t bad because when I reported Travis Air Force Base, there were people that I knew there already. So I felt comfortable. And as soon as we landed in Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in South Vietnam, outside of Saigon actually, I saw a sign that said—with an arrow pointing east—and it said, “Pittsburgh 12,500 Miles.” Of course, I took a picture of it.
Of course, interactions with civilians were a common occurrence, and many veterans speak to how these relationships impacted their service. Rocco shares some of his memories of the local Vietnamese.
Muffi: Well, they were—they were very nice. We had some females that took care of the latrines, kept everything clean. Some even did some cooking. In the mess halls, we ate; they took care of the soldiers there. Yeah, we had a lot of Vietnamese civilians. And we got along pretty well. In fact, the Montagnards [also known as the Degar, the indigenous peoples of the Central Highlands of Vietnam] were very tough soldiers, but they were Vietnamese. Of course, they were on our side, thank goodness, and we got to know a couple of them very well. One of them was a sergeant, he invited us to his village, not far away from our headquarter. And we’re sitting in this village and he has this little—this little hutch, little house on pillars, to avoid the rains when it came. And we were over there drinkingrice wine and the rice wine, the way they serve it there is [a] big pot in the middle of the floor, with a six foot—a six foot straw. And you’re supposed to suck this out. Now, you got drunk not because of the wine, but because all the air you had to— (laughs) so I got sick, excuse myself, went out, threw up, that was it. (both laugh) I didn’t drink any more of it. So—but yeah, they were very nice. They were hospitable. I got to learn a few words of Vietnamese, but I tried not to get too close to them. You know, they were still civilians, so you left civilians alone. As long as you did that, you were fine.
Relationships with other service members can be a highlight of service. Rocco shares some of those memories here.
Muffi: I treated them like brothers. I said—because I said to myself—I said, If I respect them, they will respect me. If you don’t have their respect, you could get killed—easily. Some of them by your own troops. You know, we heard stories, documented stories that some officers were actually fragged. Fragging means when, if you’re sleeping, they take a hand grenade, throw it in where you’re sleeping, and you’re gone. But that’s because that particular officer or maybe an NCO officer, non-commissioned officer, did something nasty to one of the troops. And that was real, it did happen. Thank God not with us. I was lucky enough not only to come home alive, but between the two companies, Charlie Company and Headquarter Company, was a total of 330 guys, 165 or so in each one of them. Thank God we all made it home alive.
So I’d say overall my relationship was excellent, especially in Nha Trang, I had an NCO, a non-commissioned officer, there was a mess hall—he was in charge of mess hall, but he had served in ‘Nam for eight straight years. So his last name was Morales. His mess hall was known as Morales’ Palace. I mean, this place was unbelievable. Huge place, banana trees all around the place, the food was absolutely excellent. He spoke Spanish more than he did English. So luckily for me, I spoke Spanish, so I got along very well with him. On Sunday afternoons, we’d have a little bit of extra time; we’d meet in the mess hall. I said, “Sarjento, ven aqui,” [Sergeant, come here] we spoke a little Spanish. I said, “I want to make you spaghetti sauce today, my way.” So I make the spaghetti sauce, we cook some pasta, and somehow, somewhere, he came up with the strangest things to eat, like a lobster or a steak. So I said, “Sergeant, I don’t want to know where you got it or how you got it, but thank you.” He had ways.
Duquesne oral historian Megan DeFries has asked nearly all of the veterans about their sensory memories of service. Many of them, as you can imagine, are fairly traumatic, but several vets, like Rocco Muffi, remember the food with clarity. Combat veteran Thomas Meade also has an interesting memory that stands out, reminiscient of some of his more lighthearted moments in service.
DeFries: What are some of the—what are some of the sensory memories, maybe, that you remember? Like the sights, the sounds, the smells in Vietnam that you remember that stand out.
Meade: Well, did you ever have kimchi?
DeFries: I have not.
Meade: Have not, okay. That’s a Korean delicacy. What they do is they put all this cabbage and all this stuff in a—like a twenty gallon can and then they bury it in the ground for two months or a month. Then they bring it up and they eat it. When they take it out of the thing, it smells like S-H-I-T. Really bad. But it doesn’t taste too bad, put it that way. But I—that was one of the smells that—because we were working with them all the time and they—that’s what they’d eat, you know. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And my girlfriend—when I had her—she would take me into the village sometimes, and we would have rice. And that’s where I got to like rice because I never liked rice before. I’d have a different kind of rice every day. Not—well, whenever I went there with her. And I went to a wedding there one time, her sister or brother was getting married. Me and another guy, we went to the wedding and—we were invited—an sat down and they gave you little pieces of chicken and stuff like this, I thought—and I said, “Oh, this is pretty good, what is this?” She said, “You don’t want to know.” And I said, “Why?” She said, “Well, it’s either dog or cat.” And I got up and I walked out and I threw up and I walked back to camp.
Ray Amelio, a Navy Corpsman, was aboard the ship that rescued the Gemini 12 astronauts upon their return from space in 1967.
Amelio: Yeah, that was—that was exciting. We had been out in the ocean and I think that was probably the longest we were deployed. Because we had been out—because we were doing some maneuvers, knowing full well that they would be coming in and I remember when they finally started to—we were following their tracking, their progress, then they said they had come into orbit and they were going to be coming in to the—come landing into the Atlantic and we were nearby. They had the trajectory figured out. And we actually could see it, when it came down, we were able to see it come down and splash into the water. And the one—the two astronauts was—the one I can remember was Buzz Aldrin [Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.]. The other fellow I always forget [James A. Lovell, Jr.]. I can get you that information because I have a—I should’ve brought my stuff; I forgot to do that this morning, because I have a little package of information. But we picked them up, brought them on board and brought the capsule on and you could see where it was burned as it came in because it had, you know, the shield on it and put that in the hangar deck. And if you know anything about an aircraft carrier, they keep the planes in the hangar deck and then bring them up to the flight deck on an elevator. So they brought the capsule in and it was in the hangar bay and you could go see it. And then they had a big celebration for them, not that day, the following day because they had to check them out and make sure they were okay. And it was very exciting.
During the Vietnam War, service members were eligible for one R&R, or Rest and Recuperation period, during each 12-13 month tour. R&Rs lasted 5-7 days and many service members chose to visit nearby cities like Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, or the further destinations of Hawaii or Sydney. Ray describes one of his R&R breaks here.
Amelio: And so, during that time in November of ‘68, would’ve been, I went on an R&R to Australia. Which was kind of cool. I got a little bit of a break for a week and that was an experience. Flew down to Australia, and had a very good time.
DeFries: What did you get to do while you were there?
Amelio: Decompress and drink, and meet, meet girls, go to the beach, drink. It was—and it was a fascinating country and the Aussies really were very, very nice to us. I had met some really nice people and just had a great time. And I took it later because I knew that—didn’t want to have a whole lot of time when I came back before I got discharged. Because that would’ve been November of ‘68, and I was getting out around the spring of ‘69. So I had a couple more months. I do remember Christmas that year was kind of crazy because everybody who went on R&R and came back to Da Nang, one of the orders was you had to pick up a bottle of booze to bring up for the Christmas party. And so the Christmas party that we had was pretty wild. I don’t think that anybody didn’t have a good time at that party. One interesting story about that, after I had had a few drinks that afternoon, and we started to party pretty early, there was—they had fluorescent lights that lit the office and that’s where it was, in the S-1 office. And there was a black thing under one of the lights, on top of one of the—and I said, “What the heck is that black thing?” So I went and pushed the plastic and it opened up and it was a rat.
DeFries: Oh.
Amelio: And the rat flew down and hit me in the chest and ran out the door. So that really freaked me out. I always remember—and they were laughing.
After three years in Vietnam, Ray was elgibile for discharge. Here, he recalls his considerations as he approached his discharge date.
Amelio: We got through the New Year and I remember New Year’s Eve was another party night. And I was thinking to myself, New Year’s Eve of ‘69, can I survive? My short time calendar was really—every day, you had a short timer’s calendar that you started when you got there and every day you scratched out another day. And I was getting closer and closer. And I said, I hope this, you know—I can see the rest of my tour and everything’s okay. So slowly but surely, got to the end of the tour and I finally got my orders to get home. And when I was on my way to get home, not only was I going to be going back home, I was getting discharged because that was the end of my tour. So I finally got to the day where I was leaving, and a couple days before that, the—Lieutenant Hickey, who was the—in charge of S-1 and—he said, “Amelio,” he says, “Stop by the office after work, I need to talk to you a little bit.” So I got to—this must’ve been—let me think about this—this must’ve been three weeks or maybe a little more before I was going to be leaving. So we went in and I sat down; it was quiet, everybody else had gone. He says, “You know, Amelio,” he says, “You’ve really done a nice job here and, you know, we think that, you know, you could really be successful in this Navy and we would think that you could go to medical service corps school office and become a medical service corps officer.” And medical service corps officers really were the ones that went around to make sure that the hospitals were clean, the chow halls were clean, you know. It was—it wasn’t going to be, so I stopped him and I said, “Is this a reenlistment discussion?” and he looked at Chief Brown, and laughed, and he says, “Why, I guess it is.” And I said—well I can’t tell you exactly what I said, but I said, “With all due respect,” and I told him. And he said, he looked at Chief Brown and he laughed, he says, “I told you that’s what he was going to say.” So I said, “No, I think I’ll pass,” I said, “I don’t think that I’d ever want to spend another year like this.” And he just laughed, he said, “We kind of thought that would be the case, but we had to ask.”
We really appreciate the time and vulnerability that these veterans have contributed to the Duquesne Veterans Oral History Project. Their stories open our eyes to new perspectives on a difficult war and a traumatic time in American history. If you’re a veteran who is also a Duquesne student or graduate and would like to participate in this project, please reach out to oral historian Megan DeFries in the university archives at 412.396.4870.
And finally, if you are a veteran and are in need of support, please call the non-profit Veterans Crisis Line at 800.273.8255.
Thanks for listening.
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