He was awarded three silver stars for his actions in vietnam. At westrview was held point center for oral history and is about 70 minutes. Good morning. The west point center for oral history, today is the 20th of june 2017. I am here with richard b cole. Class of 1963. What are you in town for . For a funeral of a classmate. Him, interviewed fortunately. That you areo see in town. Tommy about your childhood. I was born in 1939. And grew up in the mountains of north georgia. Right where georgia, tennessee, and carolina come together. Is that close to chattanooga . It is west of chattanooga. What do your parents do . They built dams. My mother was a schoolteacher. I have an older brother. Two years older than me. An older sister, three years older than me. Ops. S an o to me what it was like growing up. A little seven acre farm in the mountains. Rural, very poor, but a big bootlegging county. My best friend had a lot more money than we did. Thand they have more money we do, why dont you get a still . He said i would but your mother wont let me. When i was in high school i rode the school bus for 25 miles 20. Ay twice a day it was pretty remote. That mustve taken nearly an hour to get to school. Yep. Was at the same school your mom taught at . Know she taught at the local grammar school. She taught me for the first through third grades. Then i moved on. To the next school. Then she quit teaching. Her health was very poor. When i was born she was told that she would never get out of bed again. The beauty of it is when she died at the age of 92, she was walking half a mile two days a week. Ok. And your dad was an engineer . Yes he was from georgia tech. Was there any military tradition in your family . No, not at all. What were your interests as a young boy . Fish or did i took a seriously because i knew it was important. I enjoyed farming. I had a pet cow. Did you have a lot of animals . Cows had, i think, a dozen. A couple of picks. And a Chicken House. A big Chicken House, that really helped for our income. Did you sell the eggs . Yes. We had roosters so we sold fertilized eggs which brings a better price than regular eggs. In the Chicken House, you dont want all this but this is interesting, this is american history. The Chicken House had along the side, they built a little trolley where you put the chicken and basket in and you just get the eggs. Every once in a while you would think what is that . And there would be a little king snake eating the eggs. You had to get them out and haul them away so they cant kill the king snake. They are good snakes. Because the firm in . Vermin . Kill other they will snakes. They will kill a rattlesnake. Your member the first time he reached in and grabbed a snake . I dont remember the first time. Thats nice that you had all sorts of animals on the farm. I imagine that tight you responsibility at a young age. Yes. I had to milk a cow every morning before going to school. What time did you have to leave for school . I do remember. I dont remember. I probably left the house around 7 00. And then walk half a mile to catch the school bus. Sports . Ou play any as a senior in high school, those the first time our Little High School got football. I played football as a senior. What position did you play . I was in a blood i was in blocking back. It was fun. How did you hear about west point . Lawnguess i saw it on the long gray line on television. Im pretty sure that was my first introduction. I was impressed. Brother, ifand my either one of us were interested in going to west point he thought he could get us an appointment. My brother was not interested at all. Dad did not have enough money to send me to a regular college, so i thought i will go to west point. It would be free. Where did your brother and going . He flunked out of georgia tech. Deltae flew airplanes for until he turned 60. During that time he went to and got aate bachelors in Business Administration or Something Like that. How about your sister . She got her masters in fine arts from the university of georgia. She loved to do it but never really made didnt really do make any moneyt with it. She got married i think three times. Young boys. You showed up to west point, you must have showed up in 1959. What is your most vivid memory of your first day at the academy . It is also of hazy. They were screaming. I didnt expect that. How was your training . It was very, very good. And very demanding. I was not expecting it either. But i appreciated it. What was your favorite part of the training . Not the running. I guess the shooting, i grew up. Unting i enjoyed the rifle and pistol. M14 you shoot and 14s m1s . S. I think the m1 till me about what it was like, what the Academic Year when the Academic Year started. It was demanding but it was enjoyable. I went to college before i went to west point. Where did you go . Young Harris College for a year. A little methodist college. And North Georgia College for a year. North Georgia College is a fine college. It really is. Becauseo young harris daddy told us kids we can go anywhere he wanted to as long as we went to young harris. Then i told him i want to go to west point and he said well we should send you to north georgia entities squared away. What did north georgia healthy with . Help you with . All the military discipline. North georgia is one of the five military colleges. It was the only one with coed . It yes. How was that . That was good. It was nice to have girls on campus. You were prepared for the marching and some of the military study. You felt pretty good paired academically . Pretty prepared academically . What were some of your favorite classes . Chemistry, and mechanics. My worst class was spanish. I have no neck for foreign for foreignnack language. Physically how was it for you . It was fine. I was in good shape. Militarily, your summer training how was it what sort of training did you do . Cap buckner was the best. That was Field Training as well as physical training. I learned a lot at camp buckner. This is what a patrol is. This is how you do stuff. Do you feel that west point prepared you adequately for when you got into the army and went to the basic course . Absolutely. As you went through west point and became temperatures of. What were you interested in and why . Armor for the first couple of years. That is the combat arm, looked pretty exciting to me. There is no place for armor and. So im going to go infantry. Getas vietnam starting to ramped up . Mhmm. What were you hearing about vietnam as a cadet . Not much other than the communists were invading the place and we were trying to protect them and save them and stuff. We were there for the noble cause. Ok. How was graduation for you . It was wonderful. Were your folks able to come up . My dad was. That was neat. What did he think about it, when was the first time your dad came up to west point . Graduation. What did he think of the place . He was impressed. He doesnt say a lot about being impressed, but he was. , tell megraduation about some of the courses you had before you got out to your unit. Basic force, jump school, ranger. I guess that was it. 82nd which washe great. Who are you with . 325 alpha company. In time for the Dominican Republic. Tell me about that . That was excellent. I had my Second Company commander then. My first one was west point graduate. This guy was a north georgia graduate. Had you known him a north georgia . 59. Eah, he was class of a neat guy. Town, unopposed landing. When in by airplane. Take your platoon and go down these two blocks. And set up a blocking position. I said ok. Ice i put half the platoon on the side and the other half of the platoon on the side. I just go down the middle. And i did. First time i got shot at. No damage done. Incomingprised at what rifle fire sounded like. There is sharp crack. It was, everybody shot a little bit worried shot a little bit. Settled down without incident. I went up on the second floor and i hope youre going to edit this stuff. Room of thiss little hotel, immediately it was obvious that it was a brothel. That is the only time i spent the night and or house. Whore house. Was it a good Vantage Point . Yes and all the girls were gone. What were you doing in the Dominican Republic . Somebody was trying to overthrow the government as i understand it. I dont remember the names. Somebody that we thought was communist was trying to turn it into another we went down to stop it. And i think we did. You must have been rigged to jump, or did you know that youre going to do an air lending . We knew that we were going to do an air lending. Sporadic fire,e was there any other firing at you . No. How long were you there . Two months. During that time i was able to. O to a beautiful beach i didnt know it had such beautiful beach. But it did. From there i went to vietnam. What did you do for the two months they were in the Dominican Republic . Patrols or just security . I guess it was all just security. It was all in town. Did you draw any lessons from your time in the Dominican Republic that helped you in vietnam . Just, just what incoming rifle fire sounds like. Thats something good to know. So when you hear it again your more confident, youre not a surprise. Right. So your first time in vietnam was from 1965 to 1967. Who did you serve with . The first year i was with the vietnamese airborne and we were eighth battalion based in saigon. We traveled all over the country. The eighth vietnamese battalion was the finest troops ive ever served with. They really were. Operation,icular they got the american president ial unit citation. What made them the finest troops you ever served with . Example, ouru an battalion only had about 350 men. We were always a little standby. Regiment tried to attack supported with tanks and armored personnel cap carriers. Ran. Ed, turned, and have you ever seen a whole division run, it is just awesome. Our little Battalion Commander said we go, we go. And we did. Through where those guys assaultednd ran and and it was good. Commander was a super guy. Theame back to go to infantry advanced course when my parents lived in georgia. He spent the weekend with them. Nice. They thought he was great, he he thought they were great. So he got the georgia home cooking . Yeah, he really enjoyed that. We were really bogged down. Littlee pulled out his derringer pistol and i thought he is going to start shooting his troops. So i jumped up and ran over here and said i will go over here on this side and as i was going up a molotov cocktail at the mud and went sideways. It went off. I remember sailing through the ar through the air. When i woke up they were next to me. Trotted over to him and he looked up and, oh, i thought you were dead. That was good. What sort of training did you do with the vietnamese soldiers . Actually, i did not do any training with them. I just worked with them on operations. My biggest job was to coordinate air support. We never had artillery. Always out of artillery range. Ok. How responsive was the air support . Very, very, very good. It was excellent. What would you usually call for . Just whatever was available. Nothing bigger than a 250 pound bomb. That is uncomfortable. The strafing. Sometimes rockets. Sort of a neat thing. We have a place down on the beach in eastern North Carolina. There is a little golf course ande that i got to know play there some in the wintertime. We get to telling lies and war story sunday. I knew that he was in the navy. We started telling tales and identified three different times when i was stomping through the jungle and he was helping out in. Is basics in his a6 so you call him in and they would come in and help you out . Yeah. Thats wonderful. Was it mostly jets or did you have helicopters coming as well . I had helicopters some, what i really liked was the big old a1e. That thing would come in real slow and real accurate. Did you ever have the opportunity to jump with the vietnamese . Yes i did. That was excellent. Country andt in the a week later we had our little combat jump. Unopposed, which was good. Trees on the lz. A couple of vietnamese got caught in the trees. They slid down as far as they could and then turned loose. They broke a leg or broker back. Or broke a act. It is high, tall trees. Any other operations while you are working with the battalion . We used to go to a lot, it was a special forces camp. We always ran into stuff there. One night we all as head of vietnamese doctor with us. He went to my boss and said that we have the medevac. We have to do it tonight. I had malaria. I did not realize how bad it was. A helicopter came in in the middle of the night, took me out , took me to the hospital in my fever was a hundred four and half. They immediately stripped me off and into a bath full of ice water. This is real icewater because a bunch of ice cubes are floating around in it. And a nurse came in and said the fever was broke. I said ok, good. I got up and looked down at myself and you are going to have to edit this, there was nothing there. I said you have turned me into a woman. She said dont learn it will come back when you warm up. Things like that you remember. Did you get back to the vietnamese . When did you switch to a different unit . I was in the hospital about four or five days. Ouple of captains there one was who has written a book and i think he is 61 or Something Like that. He and another guy brought me a bottle of rose. They did not bring the bottle opener. At the hospital. You cant pull a cork out, maybe can push it in. We found a jack handle and started pushing the bottle exploded. Wine and broken glass and a female nurse comes around the corner. Those two captains just disappeared. She said lieutenant, you get back to your bed and so i ran back to bed and started snoring a little bit. A couple minutes later i heard the door open and close. Nothing more was ever said. Week andre for about a went back to the battalion. And stayed till the end of the year. How Many American officers were with you in the battalion . Let me see. In the battalion there was only two officers and and an seo and usually a sergeant first class. And did you have an interpreter . Did they speak in of english . I could speak a little bit of vietnamese. We had a course before going over. I could speak a little bit. Some of the officers could speak good english. The one i told you about who went to the advanced course spoke excellent english. I could speak no french. French could speak no and our Battalion Commander spoke good french because he was with the french before North Vietnam fell. He refused to speak english, so i am not sure how they communicated. You mentioned the 86th pilot. Tell me one of the times that he was the one who came to your aid. His is when we were in jungles. We were near a. Own, a coastal town we saw them come in and zoom and said hey that was great. Come alone closer. It was just super. What was your favorite areas operate and . To operate in . I guess my favorite was first core. Corps. T the terrain was good, the weather was good. It was exciting being near the border. Did down in, further south, near the cambodian border, i did not like that. Because we kept having to go back over and over and over again. Ok. That mustve have been the year of 65. Yes 65, 66. Then from 66 to 67, you are in an american unit. The first wolfhounds. First of the 27th alpha company. By this time you were a Company Commander . Yes. One of the senior advisers in the battalion in the vietnamese airborne was selected to command the battalion as a major and i said hey, sir if you give me a company i will extend. He said ok. He gave me a company and i extended. Two of us did, actually. The other one did not extend, the other was a Company Commander. A neat guy. He got killed. He got killed in the operation where cut his medal of honor. Got his medal of honor. He must have been the charlie Company Commander than . Then . Right. Arrived, as a new coming commander, you already had a year of experience in vietnam. What did your soldiers think about that . I think they thought it was a good idea. I am still in contact with a and that squad Leaders Company had experienced a very bad experience in july, before i got there in september or august. They took very heavy casualties. The company cant company oneer was believed was you are always with the company. If the company was on the ground you are on the ground. You dont fly around in the nurse in the helicopters. That was recognized and appreciated. That became a realtime company. It really was. Where were you stationed . Just out of saigon. Where the tunnels were. The Iron Triangle. No, the Iron Triangle is a little north. Sure. Ht be near, im not what sort of operations did you air assault. Ult after you make the air assault you try to go in deeper and to which you can find. And you ran into a lot of contact . Yeah, we did. Did you receive all three silver stars with this unit . No. I had a silver star with the vietnamese. And to as a Company Commander and two as a Company Commander. Do you want to tell me about the one with the vietnamese . That was the operation where we saw the whole division turn and run. We basically went in and did good. Is that the one where you got blown up . Yet. Yeah. There, wethe were high on the inside of my left side my left thigh. After things settle down, i looked and sure enough there was a little hole in my pants. A little bloody hole. We had an american doctor then. I got him to check. The doctor said oh yeah, we can fix that. I hand grenade fragment. We can fix that with a bandaid and iodine and a purple heart. I said, come on. It is just a scratch, not a purple heart. If that fragment had been a quarter of an inch to the right youd be singing soprano instead of base in the church choir. I said ok. I guess i will take a purple heart for that. Ok. That was the first experience. Tell me about your next silver star. That was in