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My Last Days in Vietnam
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Title
My Last Days in Vietnam
Alternative Title
What It's Like to Go to War: My Last Days in Vietnam
Series Title
Collection Guide (External)
Created Date
February 2014
Published Date
February 22nd, 2015
Description
Lieutenant Alfred Serrato recounts his last day in the field and coming home. Recorded for California Reads: War Comes Home, a program of Cal Humanities in partnership with the California Center for the Book.
Transcript
My most trying experience, I supposed that was my last day in the field. Our unit was suddenly close to being overrun by, I think it was a regiment of Viet Cong. It was, like, an hour and a half down the road. It's also my last day and so the helicopter came by to - I'm off, I've got my duffle bag packed. I'm ready to go. And so the helicopter comes down at the landing zone to pick me up and just as it swoops down, I'm running out there with my duffle bag, it starts taking fire. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! and it swoops back up into the air. He says, This is too hot. We'll come back tomorrow. No! No! No! You have one more try, please! One more try! Alright, one more try; but if it's too hot or whatever, we're gonna have to try to come back tomorrow. Okay, okay. So, came back the second, whatever, and before he could touch his - the ground, I throw my duffle bag on the floor of the chopper, I grabbed on to the edge of the helicopter, he pulled me on board, and we take off. I said, Oh, god, you know, I left that god forsaken place. And so maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, you know, we're back at the headquarters. And so I had taken a shower and I'm ready for some lunch and so I walk into the navy officers club and, I'm an army guy, but I look like death warmed over. So everyone's dressed in their formal attire, which is typical for a navy club. I walk in there with a 45 caliber submachine gun, it's known as a grease gun. I've got grenades dangling from my web belt. I've got a machete, you know, for self-defense as well as cutting through the jungle. I looked like maybe somebody that you wouldn't want to have in the navy club but I'm obviously an officer, so what are they gonna do? So they say to me - oh, and I'm wearing the Vietnamese beret and a Vietnamese, almost a Vietnamese uniform rather than an American uniform, which is another story. Anyway, we - the hatcheck guy says, Sir, can I take those weapons off you? They look kind of heavy, which is very diplomatic, how that was stated. And I said, Yeah, sure. So I gave it to him. I come up to the bar, I'm sitting down there, you know. This navy guy next to me says, Oh, so you're Army. I says, Yes. Did you hear what happened at Dien Vong [sp?] just a few minutes ago? Dien Vong [sp?] was where I was at, that little outpost, you know. I said, No. He says, It was overrun by the Viet Cong. Everybody died. And I looked at him speechless, in shock, because I should have died. Except for that helicopter making the second pass, I would have died also and I was absolutely speechless but then, to show you how desensitized I had become, you know, it's like, I had no feeling almost like, well, I'm glad I'm alive. You know, I'm glad I made it out of there, you know. I didn't share the kind of sadness that would have been normal under most circumstances. So that's my last episode that I had. DID YOU HAVE AN EXCITING MOMENT IN VIET NAM? What was my most exhilarating moment in Vietnam? A very interesting question and one, only one, that was absolutely remarkable. In Vietnam, I met a lot of people who were, I thought, far superior to me in their soldiering skills who died within a day, three days, a week, a month; and that kind of baffled me. You would think that they would have, you know, lived forever, been a general or a colonel or whatever. And here they were cut down in the prime of their life. Here, myself, I thought that my soldiering skills were not as good. I somehow survived and so there I was within a few moments gonna be getting on the airplane and actually going home. No wounds. Infantry Officer coming back in one piece. It was a miracle and so we all got into the airplane and the pilot said through the intercom, We'll be leaving in five minutes. And so we all settled down, and as the engines started to roar, and airplane started to take off down the runway, there was a deathly silence. No one said a word. Everyone was extremely quiet and, for me, it's kind of like, I'm being extremely quiet because I don't want to bring any bad luck to this moment of our possibly being able to get out alive. I don't wanna hex what's going on now. I don't want to draw any attention to the Viet Cong or drop salt or have a black cat, you know, walk in front of me. I'm just gonna be under the radar and hope I just get out of this damn country. And so, as the airplane proceeded to go down the runway, suddenly the airplane was airborne. At that moment, everyone in the airplane burst out in applause that we, the lucky ones, had survived. Though we left other people there, on the ground, who would be fighting for their lives every day. But we had survived. We were going home and it was such an exhilarating experience. We were coming back for our families.
Creators and Contributors
Subject Topic
Subject Entity
Genre
Spatial Coverage
Temporal Coverage
1960s to 1975
Language
Media Type
Format
m4v
Extent
1
File
Color or Black and White
Color
Silent or Sound
Sound
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This item may be used for non-commercial and educational purposes.
The opinions expressed in OC Stories do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of OC Public Libraries or its partners and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Images are courtesy of story tellers and affiliate organizations or used in accordance with fair use and Creative Commons.
Music and sound in accordance with fair use and Creative Commons [ http://creativecommons.org ].
Country of Creation
United States
Contributing Organization
Contributing Organization Contact Information
Email: ocstories@occr.ocgov.com
Phone: 714-566-3055
Phone: 714-566-3055
Organization Websites
Link to Internet Archive
Additional Technical Notes for Item
Original file was named My last days in vietnam Alfred Serrato.m4v, which was renamed as corcl_000050_prsv.m4v. Original has a bitrate within the current limits of CAVPP's specs for access, so prsv file was copied for access state and named corcl_000050_access.HD.m4v.