An Interview with Dave Watling, A Vietnam Veteran
By Eric Ebensperger
Q: Dave can you give us a little background information on yourself?
A: I was born in Provo, Utah outside Salt Lake City. Parents were divorced when I was six years old. I moved with my mom to Kansas City, Missouri, were I lived until I was 18. Then I enlisted in the Army in 1967 and was sent to basic training at Ft. Leonardwood (named for a WWII general) in Missouri. We renamed it "Ft. Lost in the Woods" because it was out in the middle of nowhere. From there, I was transferred to Ft. Rucker in Alabama. Here I was to be trained and become an aviation mechanic.
Q: Why did you enlist?
A: At the time, it was considered one's patriotic duty to serve your country. This was part of the reason. Also a lot of the guys I knew were being drafted and ended up in the infantry. That wasn't where I wanted to end up. So, I decided to go enlist and take the test to see what I was qualified to do. They said I could be an Aviation Mechanic so that is what I ended up doing.
Q: What rank where you when you went into Vietnam? And, what rank did you attain while there?
A: I was considered a specialist in aviation. Speck 4 was the title. While in Vietnam I attained the rank of Platoon Sergeant when I was 20. I was in charge of 7 men and 14 aircraft (of which one had to be in the air at all times). Many times I was sent out in the field to make sure the planes in the air were good to fly. Also, any major mechanical questions came to me and I had to be sure the planes were fixed right.
Q: What were some of the times you remember in Vietnam?
A: There are a few interesting ones. I had a good relationship with one of the Vietnamese Mama Suns, ladies who might prepare food or do laundry for you during the day, but by night they might be V.C. (Vietcong) who tried to kill you. One night I asked her to pick up some sugar cane for me and gave her 50 cents to do it she brought me back some sugar cane. As you know, in order to eat sugar cane you have to cut off the bark Well, I had had a little bit to drink and was cutting with my knife towards me and sliced open my hand. At the time, I thought that it was a little funny and started trying to shoot whoever was around with the blood that kept shooting out of my hand.
Another time I was pulling guard duty with a friend; it was about 2:00-3:00 A.M. and we were both a little tired. Well, it was raining outside, as it usually did, and we had our parkas. My friend had an M-79 Grenade launcher under his parka with his finger on the trigger. Unfortunately, we both must have dozed off because the next thing you here is this k-thunk. We both looked up and I saw there was a big whole in his parka! He had shot a grenade out of his parka and it was about to come right down in the bunker (which it did). Flares went up and people started to call us to see if we were being attacked, but it was just the grenade. Things were a little hectic for awhile after that.
And still another time, a buddy of mine had had a little to drink. It was 9:00 P.M. and he suggested that we go into town and get some girls. Well, you weren't supposed to leave the base after 6:00 P.M. The guy said he'd take care of it. So, he proceeded to get papers saying that his father had died and that he had to take a jeep and go into town to catch a plane. So, we left (there were 3 of us). The two other guys found some girls and I watched the jeep. When they got back we headed back to base and got there around 1:00 A.M. and were surrounded by Marine Guards. Unfortunately for us, the guy had taken the commander's jeep. The commander called us. A lot of people wanted us to get in trouble, but we were some of the commanders best mechanics, so he ordered us out into the field for 45 days separated from each other.
I was sent to Plagerang, a spot on top of a hill pretty much unprotected. In a foxhole fire-fight, being overrun by Charlie (the Viet-Cong), I got to celebrate my 21st birthday. We had to shoot our way out while the V.C. tried to drop grenades in our foxholes (similar to the image of Charlie Sheen in Platoon.) It was here that I shot my first woman.
Q: What was one of the worst experiences you had in Vietnam?
A: There are a couple. One was having to go pick up a friend lieutenant who had been in a plane crash. He had just dropped bombs on an enemy position and was looking back to see that the bombs had been dropped when he ran his plane into an unseen cliff. When we went out to pick him up, he was still alive, but his body was like a bowl of Jell-O. The plane crash crushed his body. On the way back to base, his head was in my lap. He said he was getting cold and tired and asked if he could take a nap. I told him it was okay and he died right there in my arms. This was the worst experience I ever had.
On the way home, I had another bad experience. We were flying home and on our way to Alaska; a lot of guys were pretty beat up. One guy was plugged into a bunch of machines and obviously paralyzed. He kept asking the nurse and I to turn off the machines, because he didn't want to live like this. The nurse and I kept telling him no, but finally the nurse had enough of the guy. She said she wouldn't help him, but would tell him what button shut the machine off As she left the guy must have found some way to move his body; a little while later he was dead. The machine was off. Until this day, death doesn't scare me, but being a paraplegic or quadriplegic terrifies me.
Q: Tell me about the drug use in Vietnam?
A: A lot of people used drugs. It wasn't frowned upon as long as you were off duty. The drug of choice was alcohol (your ration card entitled you to a case every two weeks and a pack of cigarettes too). The other drug readily available was marijuana. Not the kind of marijuana that you get in the States; this stuff was much more potent. You could go out in the field and cut your own, or you could go downtown and buy a huge grocery bag of it for $5.00. I think that the government figured as long as we were drugged we were happy and just didn't think about what was going on. I remember my first experience with marijuana. A Vietnamese guy building a fence with us pulled out a joint and offered it to us. I said I didn't smoke but he said this wasn't just any cigarette. He proceeded to show 25 other guys and me how to smoke a joint. The joint was the size of your pinkie, yet it got 25 of us stoned for the rest of the day, which was 4-6 hours. Pot was also used as a psychological weapon during the war. The V.C. would go upwind from your camp and smoke to make the guys in your camp irritated. I was hooked on alcohol and marijuana until the early '90s when I accepted Christ into my life.
Q: Did you here about what people had to say back home?
A: I got some letters from my mom and we heard what the government wanted us to hear over the Armed Forces Radio. I do remember waking up to that guy saying Good Morning Vietnam for a long time. I think they tried to keep us from knowing all of it because it would have been demoralizing. I also remember how we disliked Jane Fonda; we thought she should be tried as a traitor for saying "We should surrender and drop our weapons the next time we saw the V.C." This would probably have gotten us killed.
After I was released, I was waiting in a St. Louis Airport to go back to Missouri. People were calling me all kinds of names, like "Baby-Killer" and others that I would rather not say. While I tried to take a nap, people came and kicked me and treated me like dirt. I found this confusing. I thought I had been doing my patriotic duty and fighting against the evil Communists. I had been fighting for my country and for what I believed.
Q: What happened when you got home?
A: (Refer partly to last question). When I got home it was difficult. For the first six months, any time I went to a job interview people asked me were I had been for the last couple of years. When I told them Vietnam, the interview was automatically over. I was suffering from a lot of trauma. One day I was in the Jungle and the next I was walking the streets of the United States with no help coping. When I came back, I started out living with my mom. I bought myself a rifle and slept underneath my bed. At night I would pull guard duty walking around the neighborhood and my house with my rifle. Rarely did I get more then two hours of sleep per night.
Small aircraft and helicopters that flew over really bothered me (and still do). One day, while I was walking around the mall, someone started a jackhammer. I hit the ground and rolled to the nearest building. When I stood up, people looked at me funny.
My mom asked me to leave because of my erratic behavior. So I moved to the mountains in Boulder, Colorado. Here I lived off the land during the spring, summer and fall. I slept in a tent I had bought and had my rifle. When winter came it was just too cold, so I went into Boulder and found myself a part-time job were I made enough to afford a little apartment. But the next spring I was back up on the mountain.
Eventually, I realized that I needed to get back into society. I entered the University of Colorado in Boulder and tried to become a member of society. I tried to adjust for years but my life was just a roller-coaster ride. In the late 1980's I was facing three years in prison. The Judge knew I was a Vietnam Vet and apparently took pity on me. He said either I spend three years in prison or I go enroll myself in the V. A. (Veterans Hospital) where I get myself some help. I enrolled that same day and spent three years with a psychologist and a psychiatrist. They wanted me to stay at the V. A., but I had a part time job and didn't want to stay at the V. A. all the time. The doctors prescribed a number of drugs for me to use, which affected me and did not allow me to think for myself. I, of course, did not like what these drugs did to me, so I went to my friend to exchange the drugs for some marijuana. I thought I had better control over what marijuana did to my body than what the prescribed drugs did to my body.
Q: Have you watched any Vietnam Movies?
A: Yes.
Q: Which one do you think best portrays Vietnam?
A: Platoon gives a very good account of Vietnam, especially the firefights.
Q: What is your life like today, and what is your philosophy towards life?
A: Well, I don't drink alcohol nor do marijuana anymore. I still have anniversaries where I remember Vietnam, my last drink, my last joint, and buddies that I lost. I lost my mother, a big part of my life, in 1996. I got married in 1994. I would say the biggest change in my life is that I do not fear death anymore and that I have a closer walk with God now than I ever did before.
I would like to thank Mr. Watling for taking the time to do this interview and for letting me share it with others. I hope we all learn something from the experiences and trials of those who were a part of Vietnam.
For pictures and more about Vietnam and this interview refer to the Vietnam Power Point Presentation attached to this page.