Trujillo, Charley. Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam. San Jose, CA: Chusma House Publications, June 1993.
One of the reasons that went through my mind for joining the service was that I was once an illegal alien. I was brought over from Mexico at the age of one. Being a permanent resident, I felt that it was a good trade for being allowed to live here (U.S.) and go to school. By serving this country, I felt it was a way of paying off. It still goes, regardless of what has happened in between, whether I'd disagree with the politics of being in the service or not. I'm still sincere about this.
When I was about to finish boot camp, they told me that the school for which I had signed up, storekeeper school, was full. They told me there were a few other things I could do. I could go on sea duty and eventually I could apply for a school, or I could choose another school that was open. I wanted to go to storekeeper's school because my friend was going. I'm an impatient person. There was no way I was going on a ship. I hoped that eventually I was going to get into school. I wanted to get my training then. So I signed up for electricians' mate school. I didn't know the slightest thing about being an electrician.
I went to electrician school, and I couldn't handle it. I could do the manual part, but I couldn't handle the theory stuff. Some real nice people tried to help me pass the test, but I couldn't do it... From there I was sent to Coronado, California, where they put me in the worst job possible, which was doing mess hall work. I was there for three months. It was hard work because we'd get up at four in the morning and work until seven or eight at night. After those three months, I was sent to a maintenance unit. That was a lot better because it was an eight to five job. That's when I got in the Seabees. Most of the sailors that were in maintenance were Seabees, and that's how I ended up in Vietnam.
Joining Up
Manuel "Peanuts" Marin
Seeabees - Navy
Tour of Duty: August 1966 to April 1967
The reason I joined the navy was very simple, I was naïve. I saw Pete Garcia with his navy uniform on. I thought he looked sharp. I wanted to wear one. When I was being processed in San Diego, they asked me why I joined the navy. I told them that I had gotten mad at my girlfriend. I'm not sure why I said that. It was partially true, but I guess I wanted to have a manly excuse. I didn't think of myself as a person who planned for the future. I couldn't actually come out and say that once I got out of high school, I planned to be a communications technician for four years. Then I planned to get out and go to college. That was not on my mind, so I had to come out with something; and that was the best answer at the time.
One of the reasons that went through my mind for joining the service was that I was once an illegal alien. I was brought over from Mexico at the age of one. Being a permanent resident, I felt that it was a good trade for being allowed to live here (U.S.) and go to school. By serving this country, I felt it was a way of paying off. It still goes, regardless of what has happened in between, whether I'd disagree with the politics of being in the service or not. I'm still sincere about this.
When I was about to finish boot camp, they told me that the school for which I had signed up, storekeeper school, was full. They told me there were a few other things I could do. I could go on sea duty and eventually I could apply for a school, or I could choose another school that was open. I wanted to go to storekeeper's school because my friend was going. I'm an impatient person. There was no way I was going on a ship. I hoped that eventually I was going to get into school. I wanted to get my training then. So I signed up for electricians' mate school. I didn't know the slightest thing about being an electrician.
I went to electrician school, and I couldn't handle it. I could do the manual part, but I couldn't handle the theory stuff. Some real nice people tried to help me pass the test, but I couldn't do it... From there I was sent to Coronado, California, where they put me in the worst job possible, which was doing mess hall work. I was there for three months. It was hard work because we'd get up at four in the morning and work until seven or eight at night. After those three months, I was sent to a maintenance unit. That was a lot better because it was an eight to five job. That's when I got in the Seabees. Most of the sailors that were in maintenance were Seabees, and that's how I ended up in Vietnam.
Next: Basic Training
"Fort Polk was real good training. They literally brainwashed you." | Go »
Basic Training
Frank "Yogi" Delgado, Infantryman
25th Division -- Army
Tour of Duty: August 1966 to February 1967
I was real green back then. My orders said that I was supposed to be in Fort Polk on such and such-a-date, but I didn't realize that you had a twenty-four-hour grace period. If your orders say to be there the 15th, you really don't have to be there until the 16th. Well, I got there the day they said. Me and this other menso (dummy) Mexican were the only ones who were there on time.
Fort Ord was just like what they call it, "basic training." But Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in Fort Polk was entirely different. There was no time to mess around. The nickname that Fort Polk had, "Tiger-Land," was synonymous with a tiger which is real strong and nothing can beat it. Fort Polk was real good training. They literally brainwashed you.
When I first got to Fort Polk, this Chicano Sergeant Carmona, who had been with the First Cav in Nam and had a scar across his forehead as a reminder, told me, "Well, I want you to know right now that in nine weeks you're going to go to Nam." I knew it already because Fort Polk meant Nam. All of the cadre were Vietnam veterans.
The town closest to Fort Polk was Leesville. It was about the size of Corcoran. We used to call it Fleasville or Diseaseville. Louisiana is as bad as Alabama when it comes to segregation. We went to Leesville one time. It was me, a gabacho (white man) Jimmy Smith, and this mayate (black man) who went to this restaurant to eat. We were in our khaki uniforms, and we were waiting to be served. We waited for a while, and then we noticed other people were being served and waited on. Finally I asked this fat, redneck waitress, "Hey! When are you going to take my order?" She looked at us and said, "Hey! We don't serve niggers here." I have never been a person to go around fighting. I think I have only been in a couple of fights in my whole life. But I got mad in this situation and so did the gabacho. I felt that I had to do something. That's when the mayate said, "Naw, man, just look around you." We looked at the bar, and there were about ten rednecks looking at us -- just staring at us. The best thing to do in that situation, which we did, was get up and leave. What are you going to do?
I'll never forget that incident. The war had been going on for two years already, and we were in our army uniforms trying to get a meal. And they pull that s--- on us?
All this time I still had the attitude, I'll take one day at a time. Somehow I knew I would make it. But I wasn't going to [sic] go ask for it. I wasn't going to join airborne. I wasn't going to volunteer for the infantry. I had a lot of camaradas (comrades) that did. That's fine, but that wasn't for me. I didn't volunteer for infantry, but that's what I got.
Slowly and slowly they started pumping you full of s---; that's what it really amounts to. They were building you up and telling you how good you're doing. Then they started giving you passes and telling us, "You're a big man now. You can go out on your own. You can drink beer and go out."
When you're already a soldier in Tiger-Land, you get to go to what they called Piece-On-Ridge. Piece-On-Ridge is where you get one week of bivouac. After about the third or fourth day of eating C-rations and living out in the mountains, you feel like "Hey, man I can do it." A day before we were going to go back to Fort Polk, the sergeant told us that so many units had already gone through there and that we were the best ones, and everybody believed him. His thing was that, "Yeah, I know I can send you to Nam and that a year from now you will still be doing your s--- out in the street." We were so worked up that we were literally looking forward to going to Nam. We wanted to go to Nam.
When I got my orders for Nam, I knew that I was going to be in the 25th Infantry Division. As soon as I found out what unit I was being assigned to, I went out and bought some 25th Division patches. Other guys bought the patches for the other divisions that they were being assigned to. At this time they gave us two weeks leave.
When I went into the army, I weighed 191 pounds. When I came out of Tiger-Land, I weighed 160 pounds. I was lean and ready to go to Nam. I was psyched up and thought that nothing could hurt us. We were the best. We were infantry, and we had all that training. I have to admit that the training we got in Fort Polk was damned good. We were ready, both physically and mentally, about as fit as you can be at nineteen years old. I didn't know what to expect.
Next: In Country
"You get so scared that you got to hang onto something." | Go »
In Country
Larry Holguin, Infantryman
Third Marine Division
Tour of Duty: June 1968 to September 1969
At first you're scared, but after awhile the susto (fear) seems to go away. You will find that your fright will make you do things that you don't think you can do. Once you get past that, everything else just becomes a reflex. It's more of not thinking and just doing it. The longer you go into your tour, the sharper you get.
There were a few times we had to make our trail backwards. One morning I woke up, and the guy we had on watch wasn't really looking out. He didn't see all these heads popping up all of a sudden. All we did was grab what we could and try to fight. There were too many heads (NVA) on one side, so we started backing up. As the unit started running back, my M-60 happened to be among the last people on the line. I fired a few rounds to slow the NVA down. I remember feeling a concussion, and I didn't really feel anything hit; but I kept running. I jumped over a log and caught up with some of my guys. The first thing I did was reach for my ass because I thought that's where it hit me. What happened was that the concussion blew a hole through my pants, and I got hit with small shrapnel. I didn't want to look at first because I thought my cheeks were gone. There was a little blood there but nothing to keep me from doing what I had to do.
I know it had to be one of our guy's grenades that hit me, but that's the way things happen out there. When I came home, I put on my civilian briefs and a little piece of shrapnel came off. I never reported it because I didn't want my mom to get a telegram from the Marines. That would have scared and worried her too much. So I never reported the wound.
I talked to the Man (God) a lot. My belief at that time was very strong. A lot of it was because of the situation. I had this thing about never feeling alone. You may think you're a million miles away, you're all by yourself, and nobody knows you're there. For some reason there's always a man there who knows what you're doing. You get so scared, and you have no place to turn. So you always think about the Man as your last hope. You've got prayers going out, "Oh please, I want to go home; please get me by this." But you're always thinking about it. I think everybody did. You get so scared that you got to hang onto something.
I thought about my mom a lot -- my parents, which helped me out a lot. I didn't want my mom to suffer as far as my not coming back. The way I thought about it was, if I was going to come back, I would come back whole. If I wasn't, I wouldn't come home. When I first went overseas, the only thing I wanted to do was make my mom and dad proud of me. But as things went along, it seemed to fade away. It didn't become as important. What became more important was being able to get home safely.
When you're over there (Vietnam), it's a high in itself. You figure that nobody can touch you and that nobody could even hurt you. It's just a phase of emotions that you go through, everybody goes through; and you can't change them because they're there. The only thing is to forget about them and hope the ideas don't ever come back because you're surprised at what a human body can do to another without even thinking about it. But only with the right reasons or the right surroundings can you do this. You just can't do it because you want to do it. You'd be a basket case. You'd be in trouble. Civilization and culture are made so you aren't supposed to go around blowing people up. It's like getting mad and wanting to kill the person right away. And that's what we did in Vietnam.
Next: Coming Home
"You are here now, you are not there anymore." | Go »
Coming Home
Freddie Delgado, Infantry
9th Mechanized Unit, 101st Airborne
Tour of Duty: April 1970 to March 1971
I felt good, and I felt sad when I was leaving for home because I was leaving a lot of good buddies. I felt bad leaving them behind. The night before I left we threw a big party. I looked back to the first month I was there. You see all of the guys who are going home, and you think to yourself, "I wish it was me." Then it was my turn to get out, and I thought I had done my time. It felt good to be out.
I remember before I left the Oakland army depot that there were vatos (dudes) who were just back from Nam. The guys who came back from Vietnam are served a steak dinner. I got picked for KP even though I was going to Vietnam. I was there doing KP in the dining hall when someone told me, "You going to Vietnam?" I said, "Yep." He said, "Well, good luck, take care of yourself." Then he left.
When I was coming back from Vietnam, I was eating a steak. This new guy at the door told me, "You going to Vietnam?" I said, "No, are you going over there, ese (you)?" Then I told the vato, "Take care." I tripped out because I was in the same position a year ago. I extended a couple weeks in Nam in order to get an early out from the army.
They discharged me from Fort Lewis, Washington. The gave me my papers saying, "You, as of now, are a free man." We got there about midnight, and they paid us about three in the morning. When I left Fort Lewis, I had $600 in my pocket.
The first thing I experienced when I got back to the world was that people looked more healthy, more gordos (fat). They weren't as small. I said to myself, "Boy, are they feeding you people right over here."
There was an incident that happened at my sister's house. We were watching TV when I got up to change the station. At the same time a jet plane was flying over and made a sonic boom. It rattled the window and s---. I hit the ground automatically. When I got up, I felt embarrassed. My sister and my little brother didn't think it was funny. They realized what was happening to me. After a little bit we started to laugh it off.
One time I was asleep and my dad was sleeping there in the same room when all of a sudden, I gave a big, old grunt. My father told me, "Estas aquí. Ya no estas allá" ("you are here now, you are not there anymore.") That happened the first night I was there. I woke up relieved. I got used to it fast. There was a time people were really talking about the Vietnam War, but I didn't talk about it. Even if I would have told them what happened, they wouldn't have believed me. So I decided not to say anything about it when people would ask me questions about Vietnam.
When I came home, I saw some guys with long hair. I was pissed off at them because they didn't go where I went. I guess most of the guys were caught in the middle of the war because we were drafted. After I was home for a few months, I let my hair grow long.