1 50 2 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/31cf32a13c8fb7d1f7f2d4e7b2e0a37b.pdf 8a9144eb9272b4176efb321d6c425512 PDF Text Text Name: Branch: Years Served: Conflicts: Date of Interview: Ambrose Brennan, Major (Retired) U.S. Army 1957-1982 Vietnam War October 12, 2012 Christian Quinn: This is Christian Quinn. The date is October 12, 2012, we are in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Today I will be interviewing Ambrose Brennan born on February 5, 1939, I will be conducting this interview as a class project for American military history at Appalachian State University, lets get started. What was your branch of service? Ambrose Brennan: infantry QUINN: what was your rank? BRENNAN: I started off as a second lieutenant and I retired as a major QUINN: Where did you serve? BRENNAN: Ft. Benning, republic of south Korea, Ft Bragg, republic of south Vietnam; Ft. Bragg; Ft. Benning; Stauffenenburg, West Germany; [Interruption by another person] Ft. Lewis; Pleiku, Vietnam; Da Nang Vietnam; Lockheed, Vietnam; Punji, Vietnam; Bandar, Vietnam; A Shau Valley in Vietnam; Dak To, Vietnam; Riverdale, Maryland in a reserve component; Ft. Campbell, Kentucky; Indianapolis, Indiana; Frankfurt, Germany; Ft McPherson, Georgia, and then I retired. QUINN: All right, where you drafted or did you enlist? BRENNAN: I was accepted and sworn in at the United States Military Academy QUINN: Went the ROTC route? Brennan: United States Military Academy, took the oath of office as a cadet, bang your subject to uniform code of military justice. QUINN: where were you living at the time? BRENNAN: Bronx, New York QUINN: what was your reason for joining? BRENNAN: I became aware and an admirer of a Lt Col. In my junior ROTC program who had been to West Point and he had flunked out, he was a paratrooper word war 2 veteran a really sharp guy a great catholic man, great family man, and I thought that if he 1 �flunked out and I could make it through maybe I could you know emulate some of the qualities that he had in the service, and I was not surrounded but there were few others cadets at the school I went to that went to the naval academy and to west point and they were really high quality people so at the age of I guess about sixteen maybe fifteen I decided that I should go to the naval academy and fly jets off carriers and be an aeronautical engineer, but I was colorblind so I had to go to the other school. QUINN: so why did you pick the service branch you joined? BRENNAN: well the service branch that’s another thing really the infantry, you know in the mind of an eighteen year old or nineteen year old young man as I was I was vaguely aware of these other branches but probably influenced by you know what I knew about the army which is mostly from movies I didn’t really recognize those other branches so infantry was really the only choice for me. QUINN: do you recall your first days in service? BRENNAN: yeah of course the first days in service are at Ft. Benning your going through infantry officer basic course which was at the time 8 weeks and you know it’s a course to prepare you to be a second lieutenant of infantry and to be a platoon leader and maybe a little bit about being a company commander. The course was not hard you just have to go through it learning all the weapons, fire all the weapons, land navigation. All the infantry trades and all the other I would call them administrative courses so it wasn’t difficult and there was a good spirit among these lieutenants I was going through the west pointers were blended with rotc cadets and we had a good time going through it and than we went from there right to airborne and right to ranger from there and than my first assignment was in south Korea as a platoon leader so I remember quite a bit from that yeah. QUINN: so what war or wars did you serve in? BRENNAN: well now they have classified the cold war so I guess the cold war started when you might say officially when Winston Churchill made his speech about the descendants of the iron curtain so that would have been 47, 1947, but the only shooting war I was in was the Vietnam war, the war in Vietnam which basically started, we started putting soldier in there in probably 1955 I didn’t get there until 1963 and I went back again in 66 and 67 and than of course the cold war was over when the Berlin wall came down basically in 1989 so the cold war lasted from 47 to 89 and than we had gone on to this other war I retired in 82 now the country is faced with this other war of Muslims who are basically Osama bin laden declared war against the united states in 1998 and so I guess you can say that is the official declaration of the Muslim war against the united states against the west and that is ongoing now and will probably be ongoing for 2 or 3 hundred more years QUINN: do you remember arriving, and what it was like when you got there? 2 �BRENNAN: yeah, and of course as a second lieutenant lets not talk necessary arriving at ft benning for training but arriving in your unit your anxious because you don’t know if you can fulfill the responsibilities that have been given to you or awarded to you as a second lieutenant. You have been trained and you have been commissioned but the real army, you haven’t really been in the real army and your trying to find your footing with your commander, the company commander, the first sergeant the other lieutenants in the unit but more importantly your platoon sergeant and your squad leaders and the men in your platoon so your thrust into a new situation you’ve been prepared very well for it, there is still quite an anxiety I think I felt but that anxiety works its self out over the first few weeks once you get involved in unit training and your responsible to give classes and to lead the platoon in filed training, in everything the platoon is doing but specifically with field training so yes I think the first couple of weeks you’re a little anxious to find your footing and particularly with your platoon sergeant that you have a relationship of trust and mutual respect with him but gradually if you understand that you can just work through it but there is a little bit of anxiety as you go in QUINN: tell me about a couple of your most memorable experiences starting out BRENNAN: starting out… QUINN: or from anywhere BRENNAN: well one of the most important maybe not necessary a memorable experience I was blessed by having two people, two key people around me at the time, the first one was a weapons platoon leader who was an ocs graduate a veteran of the Korean war he was 9 years older than I was he was a first lieutenant he had been a e7 during the war and had come back from the Korean war in which he had won a silver star and he was from east Tennessee and he was a weapons platoon leader and he showed me how to be a lieutenant in every way in how I conducted myself, what we did for pt on revally runs, on how to conduct training, how to organize a lesson plan, how to research classes and conduct classes, and how to organize the company for training which is essential because that is really all a rifle company does is train for combat so all these training sessions had to have some linkage to them they have to be organized over a period sequentially over months and the specific training courses had to be assigned to either lieutenants or sergeants to give and that whole mechanism, the whole process of how to train a rifle company is a really important process well this guy knew it backwards and forwards and taught me how to do it and directed me when I was wrong and I think that was probably the most important things that went on with me during the first six months and the other part of it is the first sergeant if their was an ideal first sergeant this man was ideal his name is James a smith and he was a big tall drink of water from south Carolina very correct in every manner in which he dealt with commissioned officers always stood at attention when you were talking to him but what he was doing really was training lieutenants without them recognizing they were being trained which is one of the primary duties of a non-commissioned officer to train a lieutenant and to be in total cooperation with him but not really letting on that the lieutenant was being trained and not the sergeant so it really is an art form for NCOs’ so I think that was probably the 3 �most important activity that went on really for the first 8months 10 months that I was a platoon leader and that man went on to have quite an interesting career in special forces and I really didn’t keep tabs on him till about a couple of years ago and finally I got to see him before he died, he died last year a hell of a soldier a great guy and I’m so glad I got to see him few times before he died now let me see if there is another…..well I guess another key experience, memorable experience in a 1964 I worked with a guy named Charlie beckworth, Charlie beckworth was a one of kind, kind of guy, we were in the s3 section of the 7th special forces group, Charlie convinced the group commander to let him organize a group training up in the mountains of north Carolina Pisgah national forest and to this day he picked me and a couple of other captains and a captain form the British special air service and his sergeant, sergeant smith, to go up and set up the training which included land navigation, night compass work, rappel, mountain work with ropes , aviation and physical training for the entire special forces group ending up with a six day escape and evasion problem for the group members. Now the terrain in Pisgah national forest is such it was very exhausting, very physically demanding effort and I would say that was probably one of the best training exercises I had ever been part of and in my case I was one of the instructors and as a young captain I think that was very, it set a benchmark in my mind for how training should be conducted at least for special forces and how training should be conducted for infantry and than course Charlie and I parted company he went to one school and I went to another and I think that was another highlight in my career. QUINN: do you recall the day your service ended? BRENNAN: absolutely, now I was on a parade field on McPherson Georgia with my wife in attendance with my second daughter and my son, there was a short I think small parade there were about six retirees a colonel, two or three lieutenant colonels myself, and a sergeant major and we stood there on the field they pinned a medal on each one of us and thanked us for our service and that was it we went home, and that was the end of our active duty QUINN: so you were awarded that medal, what medals were you awarded BRENNAN: oh god QUINN: you don’t have to name them all, just some of the ones that mean a lot BRENNAN: well I was awarded the bronze star with v device, purple heart, about 4 meritorious service medals, two or three army commendation medals, and of course ranger tab, airborne wings, the others were service ribbons which are awarded if you are in particular place at a particular time in my case it was Vietnam there was about 4 or 5 service ribbons that are awarded when you are there you know I think that is it. QUINN: after your service ended what did you do the days and weeks afterword? 4 �BRENNAN: it’s kind of frustrating the days and weeks before several months lets say six months or longer before, you know I had my resume cracked up and handed it in two or three different resumes and I tried to scout out different jobs in the Atlanta area where we were located I don’t think I went on any interviews after I got out of the service of course I didn’t have a job I had to get a job and continued to pursue writing letters with resumes trying to make contact with various people I think during that period of time I probably got one or two interviews but It did not result in employment so I applied for every job I could find at ft McPherson as a department of the army civilian and I went down to ft McPherson about every two weeks and looked on the bulletin board to find jobs that I knew I probably could do and in the mean time my wife was working so we weren’t in the best financial posture so one of the things going on in the family it was kind of frustrating but gradually I finally opened up the newspaper one morning after about eight months and I said no matter what job I find I’m gonna put my finger on a job I’m gonna get that job today and as it turned out it was a job selling knifes and stem work………..door to door, and I got myself outfitted to try and do that and I can tell you I am the most unsuccessful door to door salesman that the world has ever seen and while I was doing that after about a month and a half of doing that I said again I’m gonna put my finger on a job I can do and it was the delivery of the Atlanta journal constitution, I went over and talked to the guy he called me about two or three days latter and gave me a route well the one good thing about delivering newspapers is that there is work to do everyday, Sunday in particular get up about 3 o clock go get your papers organize your papers and than you hop in your car load them up hop in your car and go deliver them and have them all delivered by 615. So I did that for a little while and than I was, one of the guys had seen I had applied for a job in what amounted to d3 to desk ops of ft McPherson and he called me and I don’t think that we had an interview he knew me so a worked it out so that I had got this job I applied for and got it that put me in a whole different level of operation I was a project manager for a national level exercise and so it placed me in a position where me and my team had to go to a nagathios tank in the pentagon or down to mcdill at that time it would be called recon about once a month and in the process of doing that over about a six month period I ran into some connections in Washington and another contractor up there offered me a job to move my family up there to take an analysis job up there in support of an army software project, at any rate I had promised my family I would never move from Atlanta because we had moved around so much I took a blood oath with them in Frankfurt and than id just asked them if they wanted to go and they all said yeah lets go to Washington so we moved the family up there and had this job and several years later my family was complaining to me about the traffic and I said well you guys told me you wanted to move up to Washington I was content to stay in Georgia and they said a well dad we lied always those are some things that happened along the way QUINN: during all that how did your service and you know experience in the military affect your life, how did it help you? I’m sure in many ways BRENNAN: well ill have to say that your fundamental personality, fundamental values are engendered by your family and your family surroundings in my case my father was an atheist and my mother was a catholic so I was raised a catholic and I went to catholic 5 �school and the catholic school and catholic church and than Christian brothers who taught me in elementary school and as well as high school all that forms in the child a basic personality and an environment of outlook so after I had been I went to military school for high school military boarding school, catholic military boarding school and after having being there for awhile I just thought the logical thing for me, now because my parents didn’t have any money for college the logical thing for me was to go to a warrior service academy so I started of with the naval academy than of course WestPoint, went to marine academy, coast guard academy, the air force academy was not in existence at the time and the new York maritime academy, I think had been into college, and in the mix of all those colleges and in moving through that I finally got into west point and of course the high school military environment and than WestPoint the environment there they put the points and they polish up in there own way the value systems that your family your mother and father and your church have started you out on and they Polish those values up and point you in a direction of leadership of soldiers and all of that mixture of events in a persons life that carries totally on through your entire life that forms the basis of who you are, what you do, how you deal with everyone else, and that motivates you in whatever your doing and whatever duties you have you learn as part of that basis that you are going to perform each duty your assigned or each responsibility that you take on in the best way you can and the most perfect way you can and you get into a habit of performing even the littlest task maybe something that doesn't seem on the surface as important maybe as something lofty but if you begin to perform that task as best you can that idea that process within you allows you to be given more responsibility and perform higher and larger tasks should you be allowed, should you even be afforded that opportunity as you go along so I would say my family my schooling my elementary school my church my high school and WestPoint provided a structure of values and exposed me to a value system but I had to apprehend, had to grasp those things and search them out in my own life. 6 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/40704e9086df45dfb738dfdddc5fdee9.mp3 d10fe1e40495f10dc7683499ce5e8a79 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 59.1 KB 26.9 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Officer Rank Officer rank (major, private, etc) Major (retired) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Quinn; Christian Brennan; Ambrose Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Quinn, Christian Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Brennan, Ambrose Interview Date 10/12/2012 Number of pages 6 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:29:13 Date digitized 2/5/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code 264dfb763cd2a14c0e58f5235412c0ca 7d12063eaaa732e607f5293fb58f3165 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Adobe Acrobat XI Pro Resolution 300 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Electronic File Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Brennan_Ambrose_20121012_transcript_M 5018_Brennan_Ambrose_20121012_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ambrose Brennan, Major (Retired) [October 12, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brennan, Ambrose Quinn, Christian Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Description An account of the resource Major Ambrose Brennan, born in 1939, entered the infantry after graduating from the US Military Academy. He didn't really consider any other branch, he just wanted to do what they did in the movies. The majority of his service was during the Cold War and he says the only "shooting war" he served in was Vietnam. He was awarded a myriad of medals, including a purple heart. Subject The topic of the resource Brennan, Ambrose Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975 United States Interviews Personal narratives, American Cold War infantry major purple heart US Military Academy Vietnam War https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/2c6f0108d3a44c41a7f922cba4408970.pdf bb5ab50058ac7a03176c5a311b3e7ea3 PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript Ralph Lerch Boone, North Carolina 15 October 2011 BC: Benjamin Chappell RL: Ralph Lerch BC: My name is Benjamin Chappell, and I'll be conducting this interview for Military History. I am interviewing Mr. Ralph Lerch who is a Vietnam War veteran and pilot for the US Air Force. We're at Boone airport. Today is October 15th at about 3:00 in the afternoon. He understands that we're conducting this interview as part of my Military History class for a project I have to do for that. So, Mr. Lerch, why don't you tell me a little bit about where you were born, how you were raised...things like that. RL: I Was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935. I was raised during World War Two, matter of fact it was...let's see, I was ten years old when it ended and when I was 15 the Korean War started, but I was too young to get in that one. I went to a high school in Brooklyn, New York where I where I studied aviation and aviation design or aircraft design and at some point during that four years in high school, I decided instead I’d rather fly them than work on them. So, at the age of, let's see I was 19...I took the test for the Aviation Cadets, which was a program available in those days for people who did not have college or did not go to an academy. Passed the exams, and in March of 1955 I joined the United States Air Force as an enlisted man because I had been waiting and waiting for a call to get into the program but the Korean War was over and I guess they didn't need people as much as they did a few years prior to that. So I thought by joining up, I could get into the program quicker. So I went through basic training and right after basic training they gave me an assignment to Aviation Cadet Program. I got into the Aviation Cadet Program, went through the preflight. Went to Marietta, Florida to start my flying training, and shortly after I started training I took off one day in a T-6 and the engine quit. My flight career came to a sudden abrupt end around a tree. So and after the next...year and a half...I went back to an enlisted status. Primary reason that I couldn't get back in was that I had a pin in my leg and they wouldn't let me back in the program till the pin was removed. It took a little over a year to get that out. After that they made me take all of the exams again which I did. Passed them again, took a physical again, and passed that again and then eventually got back into the Aviation Cadet Program. This time I finished it and went through it graduated as, oh I forgot exactly what they call it. I was at the top of my class basically and I was offered a regular commission in the United States Air Force, which I took. And the rest of my career from that point on was kind of varied. I flew large transports. I worked on Atlas missiles. I was in the radar business for a while, long-range radar. Ended up flying helicopters and at the end of my career ended up at Andrews Air Force 1 �Base and what was supposedly a weather wing...but I really think it was a branch of the CIA or something cause they did an awful lot of wild stuff. So, that...is the short and dirty version. BC: Okay, so you said that you got into flight school at a early age on, upon completion of high school, you got into aviation. What made you first want to get into aviation? What made you first want to join that with the military? RL: Well, I was always intrigued by aircraft and during the war living on Long Island you would see an awful lot of airplanes all the time, and I knew everyone of them, you would see the P-40s and the P-38s and the P-47s go by and the B-25s and they were all going on their way over to Europe. So I always thought man, it would be really neat to be, be in one of them, but I never had the uh I don’t self confidence I guess you could call it to think that I could end up being a flyer, uh but anyway so I really didn't think about that so much later on and I was about 17 when this aviation cadet program came to light and at that time, that was one of the primary methods of becoming a flyer. Nowadays everything is through the academies or the ROTC programs in college. So... BC: Okay. RL: So in short I was one of the dumber ones cause I never did go to college. BC: Well, you still got a commission, and you came out as a major? RL: That’s correct. I made major. BC: Okay. You said you were in the weather wing, was that during Vietnam? RL: No. BC: What kind of aircraft? RL: In Vietnam I flew the C-124s. BC: Okay. RL: Large four-engine cargo aircraft. BC: Okay. RL: Primarily what we did in country was haul things that the C-130s couldn’t carry. Anything that a C-130 couldn’t take, we would take. BC: Okay. 2 �RL: And it was the first time that we really used the aircraft for what it was designed to do. It was big, big cargo, large pieces of cargo. That the airplane could go on very short fields. We used to haul gun carriages, trucks, buses...all kinds of things that wouldn’t fit into a C-130. BC: Okay, so was the mission set limited to bigger runways than what the C-130 could get into? RL: No, we could go into anything a C-130 could go in to. BC: Oh, okay. RL: That was no problem. BC: So you just had more horsepower? RL: Well, it was just a bigger, a bigger envelope basically. BC: Yes. RL: The, the 130 had a lot more power than we had probably but, but we could carry the larger items than would fit into a 130. BC: Okay. I understand. So in Vietnam how much contact did you have with NVA (North Vietnamese Army) or anything like that? RL: To my knowledge I never saw one. They might have been around, you know. Might have had contact but they, they never effected me any, because if you were to go on crew runs there would be Vietnamese all around you but you didn't know whether they were good guys or bad guys. So, in that respect I never did any actual combat as such. We weren’t gun soldiers you know, we were just hauled the stuff. BC: Right, but did you ever have any like fighter escorts from Phantoms or anything like that? RL: No. BC: Okay. RL: Close as I ever got we were on one mission, which was just prior to the incursion into Cambodia. Now we hauled large gun carriages up to a very small place up in what they called the Parrots Beak, and we were loading these things and the Army guys were going with us. And the Army fella said "You guys got any weapons?" We said, "No, we haven’t got any weapons." So they said, "Man, you're crazy for going into that area that was VC (Viet Cong) controlled." So that was the first and I think only time that the C-124 was armed and what the Army guys did was they took the back doors, laid them sideways and they mounted Browning machine guns up on top of them just in case we had…I don't know what they were thinking...in case somebody was shooting at us...figured they could shoot back at least. 3 �BC: All right. RL: They figured they could shoot back at least. So that was about as close as I ever came to any kind of armed conflict the stuff was all around you all the time and I'm sure they shot at us…but I never got hit some of the guys in our outfit did, but I never did. BC: Right. Okay, so in knowing you, I've heard you talk a little bit about the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Distinguished Flying Cross is a metal for pilots in the Air Force and Army that distinguished themselves; its pretty much like a silver cross for pilots, aviators...you know you uh...distinguish yourself for a courageous act in combat aviation. Can you talk to me a little bit about the difference between getting one then in 1960s-70s era and like getting one like today? RL: Well, in Vietnam, here's a good example…that mission I just told you about where we went up in there into the Parrot's Beak. We went up there and it was myself and that another guy, we had two aircraft. We shuttled back and forth, flew in there a couple of times. We flew bulldozers in and gun carriages in and the bulldozers were to dig the holes, and they'd put the gun carriages in the holes. About a week after that the whole 101st Airborne went up there and some of our headquarters guys went in there and they got the DFC for getting in there. We never got squat. So they had those things out, you know hap hazardless. And its really inflated I’ll give you a good example. The guys that went on the Tokyo Raid in World War Two received it. BC: Yes, that's right, Doolittle’s Raid. RL: The Doolittle Raiders, Jimmy Doodle got the Congressional Medal of Honor and the rest of the crews got the DFC. Now, if you want to compare that those DFC's were for what they did compared to what they were handing them out for in Vietnam, there's no comparison. A lot of guys in Vietnam got them just because they were there so long. Not because of anything they really did. You know you get like 20 missions up north or something you'd get a DFC. Primarily because you survived that long. BC: Right. RL: Look, it was kind of a stupid war, lets face it. BC: Yeah, kind of a stupid war. And that's pretty much the sentiments among all of the guys in your command? RL: Well, I don't know about all of them, but it sure was mine. BC: Okay. RL: So, and I was pretty outspoken about it and its probably why I got passed over the first time. 4 �BC: Right. Yes, it's a big problem. As you were growing up in Brooklyn, you said that you got into a flight school, traversing back into your earlier years, you got into flight school but you said you crashed a T-6 or something like that? RL: That's right. BC: So they kicked you off the flight list for crashing? What was the whole deal with that? RL: They kept me on for three months...after the crash they hold you as a cadet. You know paperwork wise for a period of time, but this injury took too long to heal. I broke my thigh. Which is, you know a big bone so it took a long time to heal. BC: Right. RL: So well as long as that pin was in me, they call that a cruse and a nail, and they put it in threw your hip and shove it down threw the middle of your bone…I think they put it into your hip they shove it down into the middle of the bone. I think as long as that thing was in me they were afraid that if I ever broke it again I would really get. BC: Right. RL: It would really mess the bone up bad so they wouldn’t let me back till that thing was removed. So...that was why it took so long. BC: Okay, and I had another question about your training. You said for the later part of your career you were in what was supposed to be a “weather wing,” but you had a little bit of feeling that it was something else going on…could you tell me anything? RL: Oh yes...they were fooling around with urn. It was the first of the satellites in what we were trying to do. BC: What was that unit? RL: It was the 6th Weather Wing. BC: 6th Weather Wing. BC: Okay. RL: Had something like 28 PHDs in it or something, something really wild outfit. But they were doing things like…primarily a lot of satellite work and what they were working on were…trying to get an area. For example, Vietnam was over but if you wanted to look at a area real time, we were starting to work with satellites...and the camera systems. BC: Okay. 5 �RL: Where they can actually...the field commanders could order up an area? For example, if they wanted to target something the satellites would target a specific area and we would get photographs of that real time. So these guys could actually look at what was there at the time that they were going go prior to takeoff. BC: What year was this? RL: This was in 1974. BC: Wow, I had no idea. Well, as a future Army aviator, on track as it is right now, what is the one piece of advice that you would give me to carry forward in my career? RL: Keep your opinions to yourself. If you don’t follow with the company line...don't shoot your mouth off because it doesn’t pay off in the long run. In Vietnam there was a lot of guys that just got really kind of outspoken against it...and I always thought it was stupid and said so. I thought we would have been much better off if we'd dropped TV sets and bags of rice and Honda motorcycles on them instead of bombs. They probably would have quit a long time ago. And as a result of all that that we did we lost 58,000 guys and the end result was the same. They took over the place though so… BC: Right. Yes. RL: What did we gain? We just spent 10 years over there beating our brains out. We lost anyway, so... BC: We were talking in class a couple a days ago about what keeps soldiers motivated. What do you think was the implications of, you know, what you said was going on what you said the uh the end result being the same. What do you think? How do you think that impacted your squadron’s morale? How do you think that changed their will to fight? Was it more of like a camaraderie? RL: Camaraderie had a lot to do with it, and its mission accomplishment still, and I think that goes true in any military unit. You end up wanting to do the job as best you can, even thought the big overall picture you might not agree with it. If you’re told to…guys in Vietnam, I mean the grunts, I always admired them. I mean they were told to take a stupid hill and they’d go take it. Three days later they were told get off the hill and they’d go back off the hill this kind of thing went on and on but still the morale was pretty high. They always tried their best. I don’t know...from my personal view, I always enjoyed going in where the Marines were. The Marines always seemed to have the highest degree of...oh, I don’t know what you would call it, “gung ho-ness” or whatnot. But, like if you took a load into a Marine base they have you unloaded and turned around in no time. But if you just you’d go in other places like where the Air Force were, ground crews would take forever and they would goof off and there was...it was just…it wasn't the same. BC: Right. 6 �RL: Plus, the whole system was screwy. I give you good example. I was in Saigon one night. There was a C-133 sitting in front of me and they were getting ready to go to Clark Air Base. BC: Which is where? RL: In the Philippines. Four-hundred miles...no 800 miles across the pond. But anyway, the traffic people came and said, "Hey can you take a load back to Clark?" I said "Sure." He said, "Somebody made a mistake and we ended up with 200 and something desks." Somebody put a decimal place in the wrong place I guess or something. So they was this huge pile of military, of GI desks, metal desks in crates. So they started to load all these crates, as many as they could get on me and they were loading the airplane up. And I said, "Hey, how come you don’t put desks on that C-133 in front of me? They're going to the same place, see there going to Clark too." And then they said, "Oh, because they’re industrially funded.” And I said "What?!" He told me, “Well, your aircraft is not industrially funded and they’re industrially funded.” Now, this is one of McNamara's little puppets…was something to do with the way the military was funded and they was supposed to be like we were working on a paying basis. Since that aircraft in front of us would charge the Army or whoever it was that had the desks they couldn’t do that, but since we were kind of an offshoot outfit or something, whatever you want to call it we weren’t funded the same way they were. We could haul the desks back but they couldn't. Now that just shows you the stupidity of the system. Now here we are fighting a war and the fact that it was desks. It could have been anything. It could have been ammunition or whatever but this kind of stuff went on all the time. BC: Yes. RL: Another example of the same stuff went back to Hawaii for what they called “block training.” And every year we would have to go back and you go into the simulator and you go through the simulator program and escape an evasion and all of this kind of thing. Well, it was my time to go home, so I went down to the traffic office, and went to get a seat on a airplane, get back to Japan and they said "Oh well, you'll have to wait for a transient reserve airplane to come through. I said, "Why? "There's all kind of, you know there's Braniff going out of here, there's Pan Aro going out of here...everybody and there, you know there is all kinds of airplanes leaving." "Well, your outfit is not industrially funded, and all these other airplanes are industrially funded so I'll have to put you on an not industrially funded airplane." So I sat around in Hawaii for an extra three days until a Reserve C-124 came through and I got on that and flew. Took another day and a half to get back to where I was going. BC: Right. Well, a lot of corruption in the system. RL: It's just stupid. 7 �BC: Yes. RL: Like you said, you express yourself to somebody. And say you know, "What in the hell are we doing?" Well, then you’re a bad boy. BC: Yes. RL: Your not with the program, you’re a trouble maker. BC: Right. RL: So...anyway. BC: I can, I'm a four year enlisted and I can definitely understand what you're talking about, not to that degree but I'm sure that anybody that’s been involved with the military at all can tell you that there definitely some screwy stuff going on when it comes to money and allocations and things like that. But, is there anything you’d like to add to the interview or anything you'd like to talk about? RL: You're asking the questions. BC: Okay. Well, I think that’s about got it. Again, my name is Benjamin Chappell and this is Ralph Lerch. I'm interviewing, former Major U.S. Air Force pilot. We're at Boone airport on October 15th and this is going conclude my interview for Military History class. The year is 2011. 8 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/fac22515f69b688ff93d9ba56d27515d.mp3 1d103349af81577f5b32d316c1ee244d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Lerch, Ralph A. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Chappell, Benjamin Interview Date 10/15/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 22:59 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Tag Air Force, pilot, Andrews Air Force Base, C-124, cargo plane, 6th Weather Wing, Clark Air Base Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ralph A. Lerch, 15 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Lerch, Ralph A. Veterans United States Interviews Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Ralph A. Lerch talks about his experience as a Vietnam War veteran and pilot for the U.S. Air Force. He served in Vietnam transporting cargo, which he described as "kind of a stupid war." He entered the Aviation Cadet Program, but crashed during training and broke his thigh which took a long time to heal. After a year he was able to re-enter and he was eventually deployed. He never saw combat or came into contact with the NVA, but was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross Award. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lerch, Ralph A. Chappell, Benjamin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 8 pages Language A language of the resource English Aviation Cadet Program C-124 Distinguished Flying Cross major pilot Ralph Lerch US Air Force Vietnam weather wing