Robert Gandy III '69

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1 Jan 2024
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Vietnam War

I was in Vietnam from June 1970 to May 1971.   I got there by trying to avoid getting drafted and sent to fight in combat as an enlisted man.   My dad had been shot up pretty badly at Anzio in WWII by a German machine gun and he always advised to go into war as a “behind the lines” officer.    I took his advice.                          

Bob Beach '69

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1 Jan 2024
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Vietnam War

After graduation from Navy OCS in June 1970 I joined the crew of the USS Knox (DE-1052) a small destroyer manned by seventeen officers and 230 enlistees. As a weapons officer I spent two deployments on the Knox in the western Pacific with extended periods in the Tonkin Gulf and along the coast of Vietnam. 

John (Tex) Talmadge '69

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27 Nov 2023
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Vietnam War
I was Army ROTC at The College but opted out when the DOD did the cutbacks. Then I was a conscientious objector and went to Vietnam voluntarily in 1972 as a senior medical student (!) to work with the Quaker Rehabilitation Center in Quang Ngai — no medical license needed to practice there, even though I was not yet an MD.

Rick Detwiler '69

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27 Nov 2023
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Vietnam War
Dear All,
 
Reading Tex's chronicle of his Vietnam experience (and the subsequent journey he took) and reflecting on the stories so poignantly shared on the Casual Conversation, both the exhilarating and the mundane, I thought back to my own experience, a bit different than most.
 

George Cooke '69

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27 Nov 2023
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Vietnam War
Dear All,
 
I also managed to miss the Conversation, to my great regret. I was surprised in these follow-up comments to learn that Tex and Rick were in-country about the same time I was. Like Rick, I was a Naval Advisory Group advisor (NAG 143), working with the VNN as a Coastal Surveillance Center watch officer at Tien Sha, north of Danang.

Randy Wallick '69

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27 Nov 2023
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Vietnam War
Bill and Arthur, thank you for organizing this casual conversation - also, thanks to all participants. After the conversation some thoughts crystallized for me - my reflections on those times we all shared include the following. In response to the possibility of being drafted I applied for Naval OCS and entered OCS in August 1969. I served as a supply officer on a Destroyer Escort out of San Diego through March 1973. If not for the draft I would probably have gone directly to graduate school.

Paul Pillar '69

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27 Nov 2023
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Vietnam War
I tip my hat to those in the combat arms who endured the most severe dangers and miseries of the war.  My own experience in Vietnam was less hazardous.  During the last year of the U.S. involvement in the war (April 1972 to March 1973) I was one of the Army officers running a replacement operation on a compound within Tan Son Nhut airbase outside Saigon.  We were the processing point for almost all U.S.
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