Glyn Haynie - When I Turned Nineteen: A Vietnam War Memoir

WHEN
I TURNED
NINETEEN

A V I E T N A M W A R M E M O I R

G L Y N H A Y N I E

Copyrighted Material

When I Turned Nineteen: A Vietnam War Memoir

Copyright 2017 by Glyn Haynie. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

For information about this title or to order other books and/or electronic media, contact the publisher:

Glyn Haynie
www.glynhaynie.net

Library of Congress Control Number:

ISBNs:
Hardback 978-0-9982095-0-0
Paperback 978-0-9982095-1-7
eBook 978-0-9982095-2-4

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design, Interior design, and Editing: 1106 Design, Phoenix AZ
Cover Photograph: Don Ayres
Author Photograph: Shannon Prothro Photography

I dedicate When I Turned Nineteen:A Vietnam War Memoir to the First Platoon and the platoon members who did not come home during our 12-month tour.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T he First Platoon and their sacrifices made this book possible. Many platoon members contributed to my story.

Thank you, Mike Dankert, for keeping me straight on most of the events, the Tribute to Peter Zink, and photographs. I would have never finished this book without you. You are my brother.

Thank you to the First Platoon members who contributed:

• John Baxter for sharing letters home, photographs, and contributing to the event Lieutenant Baxter Gets a Rear Job
• Chuck Pops Council for sharing letters home and photographs
• Charlie Deppen for sharing letters home, photographs, and writing Your Recovery of August 15
• Maurice Harrington for contributing to the event The Beach
• Dennis Stout for sharing photographs and contributing to the event Working the Red Ball
• Dusty Rhoades for sharing photographs and contributing to the event Sappers in the Perimeter and writing Your Recovery of July 14
• Ryan Okino for contributing to the event Sappers in the Perimeter
• John Mississippi DeLoach for sharing photographs and for contributing to the event Ambush
• Cliff Sivadge for sharing photographs and writing of the events of Learning of January 14
• Tommy Thompson for sharing photographs and writing Your Recovery of August 15
• Don Ayres for sharing photographs
• Barry Suda for sharing photographs
• Leslie Pressley for sharing photographs

Thank you to the individuals outside the platoon who contributed:

• Larry Solie for sharing photographs
• Louis Bohn for sharing photographs
• Brenda Jones for sharing photographs
• Bruce Nugget for sharing photographs
• Clint Whitmer for sharing photographs
• Tom Powell for sharing photographs
• Carl Bjelland for sharing photographs
• Steve Tippon, Southern Cross Newspaper, for sharing photographs and article

A special thanks to Manny Robinson, John Felchak, Suzanne Potts, Kevin and Jenni Dane, and my wife, Sherrie, for helping me to get the book ready for publication.

INTRODUCTION

I was 18 years old when I graduated from high school in Columbus, Georgia, in July 1968. I had brown hair and a small framefive feet, seven inches and only 135 pounds. After graduation, I enlisted in the Army Infantry/Airborne for three years. I felt called to serve, and I understood my obligation. I knew Vietnam would be my destination, my first time away from home.

My father was an Army Captain, and my mother a homemaker. My father served with the infantry during World War II. He saw combat in Europe at the Battle of Anzio and served as an Adjutant with the 199th Infantry Brigade in Vietnam in 1967. He retired while I was in Vietnam. I have an older brother, Wayne (his first name is John), who went with me to Vietnam, and a younger sister, Charlene.

I turned 19 on April 15, 1969. I experienced the hardships of a Vietnam tour and the horrors of combat after my 19th birthday. I shared these experiences with the men of my infantry platoon, First Platoon. My brothers.

My story comes from my memories of events that happened 47 years ago. Through its telling, I honor the men of First Platoon and share the experiences we had together. I remember with great sadness the men who never made it home.

While writing this memoir, the events came to me distorted by the stress of war and years gone byquite possibly not in chronological order. The year 1969 does not play as a continuous slide show of memories in my mind but as a slide show from a jumbled tray of dropped slides. My slides appear out of sequence, with some missing altogether. It was both frustrating and humorous how my memory stored the events and how difficult it was to recall specific instances.

I used Battalion daily journals, maps, military websites, casualty reports, letters home, and platoon member stories to help build a complete account as accurately as possible. I have done my best to describe in detail my year with First Platoon as it happened.

The letters in this book are transcribed from the originals written home and to friends. The platoon members who authored the letters have asked that they remain as written, with no editing, revising, or correcting.

BECOMING SOLDIERS

G ROWING UP AS ARMY BRATS, we moved many times and had to start over, meeting new people and going to new schools. We lived in Heidelberg, Germany (my birthplace), North Augusta, South Carolina, Fort Monroe, Virginia, Orlans, France, and Columbus, Georgia. My brother Wayne, 16 months older than me, and I were best friends and close during these years. We had our arguments and fights, but we looked out for each other. He was more serious than I and had a temper. I was always joking around, trying to make family and friends laugh, and was more easy going. My mother called me Jerry Lewis because of my constant antics.

Wayne repeated third grade, so we were in the same grade and sometimes the same classroom through our school years. He was always bigger than me, and in high school our friends called him Big Haynie and me Little Haynie. Wayne entered the Army at six feet tall, 160 pounds.

I had a normal childhood. I played basketball, baseball, and football after school based on the sports season and was a good athlete playing sandlot sports. I was never big or fast enough to make most high school teams but made the wrestling team my junior year; I didnt try out my senior year. I played tuba in the high school band, though I balked at marching band due to my size versus the tubas size. Reading was a passion, and I read two books at a time, with a book hidden in the school library and a book at home. There were times I would skip a class and go to the library to read. I was a C student in high school, only because I didnt apply myself. Heck, I had to go to summer school to graduate! Learning that I wouldnt graduate with my class, I decided not to attend the prom or senior class outing. I showed the teacher who failed me!

During my junior high school years and freshman year of high school, bigger kids picked on me because of my size. They walked along the hall between classes and hit me in the stomach, slapped the back of my head, or frogged my arm. A lot of times Wayne stepped in to save me. I was tired of being picked on and Wayne stepping in, so during my sophomore year, I picked a fight with one of the biggest kids in school, one of my tormentors. At the beginning of the school year, I walked up to him in the hall and shoved him. Surprised, he asked what I thought I was doing. With my meanest look, I said, Meet me after school behind the gym. He smiled and said, You be there. We met, and many of our classmates circled us; I tried not to let my fear show. I tried to give a good fight, landing one lucky punch just under his left eye. I dont think he even noticed. He whipped my ass. No one picked on me after the fight. That one ass whipping was worth it!