SPRAGUE: Today is July 9th, 2024. This is an interview with Michael P. Berzinsky, who served in the United States Army from February 1st, 1968 to December 6th, 1970. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Veteran's home in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. Greg Krueger, Wisconsin Veterans Museum Curator of Exhibits, is also present in the interview room and may participate in the interview today. When I say earlier interview, I'm referring to an interview that was conducted earlier with Wisconsin Public Television and Mike Dirks conducted on April 7th, 2009. Okay, Mike, tell me, where did you grow up? 

BERZINSKY: I was born and raised in Manitowoc. I've lived here my entire life and, graduated in 1967 from Lincoln High School. And when I graduated high school, I had two choices. Either work in a factory the rest of my life or join the military. College was really not an option. So I enlisted in the army. Right out of high school. 

SPRAGUE: And I was curious in doing my research on you. Was that a voluntary decision or. That was just what you, you know, was that how can you say it was. 

BERZINSKY: It was just it was just something I did. There was really nothing that forced me to do it. I just it was just my options at that time. And, I wanted the adventure. I wanted the experience. And, plus, I always watched Sea Hunt when I was growing up. I loved that show. I was a scuba diver in my early teens, and, so I thought, well, I'm going to be an underwater demolition guy. So that's what I enlisted for. And unfortunately, my eyes were not very good. I wore glasses, and, when I went to Milwaukee for my physical, they said, well, you can't be this. You cannot be a underwater demolition because of your eyes. So the next the next step was the next logical choice was combat engineer. I would still be able to work with explosives. So that's what I did. I enlisted as a combat engineer. 

SPRAGUE: What did your family say about joining the military? 

BERZINSKY: They really had no opinion. They encouraged it. No. They tried to talk me out of it because back then, that was just normal. You either got drafted or you got or you enlisted. So I would have been drafted if I didn't enlist. There was no question about it. So this way I had a choice of what I wanted to do. 

SPRAGUE: Did you have any, family members who served? 

BERZINSKY: No. I was the only person in my family that ever served. Nobody. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Tell me a little bit about going to Fort Campbell for basic training. 

BERZINSKY: That was an eye opener. I mean, I had never been away from home before. I never experienced colored people at all. I didn't know what they looked like, what it was like, and and basically everybody was black. They were all colored drill sergeants, and and there were a lot of lot of colored folks in my, in my unit. So that was kind of a shock, that culture shock, but just the discipline and the physical training. I wasn't in great shape. I was skinny, I was tall and skinny. I wasn't very athletic. So it was very hard. It was very hard on me physically. I struggled, but they put enough weight on you and they put muscle on you, so I made it through it. 

SPRAGUE: Did they prepare you for your experiences later in the Army? 

BERZINSKY: I don't think so. I mean, they thought they taught. They taught you discipline. You know, they taught you that you're going to follow orders without question. And I guess. Yeah, that's that's something preparing for the future. But at the time, I didn't really see it that way. You know, I didn't know what the future was. But in the military, they take you and they completely break you down to nothing and build you back up again in their image, which is to follow orders blindly. So, yeah, in a way, that's they did prepare me for the future. I just didn't know it. 

SPRAGUE: Did you train with, other sexes or genders there? 

BERZINSKY: No, I never saw a woman all the while I was in service. Never. No, they kept us separate. If there were women. Training there. I had no idea. Nope. I never saw a woman the whole time I was in service. A service person, you know, a female, Army soldier? Yeah. Never saw one. 

SPRAGUE: Did your family come down for graduation? 

BERZINSKY: No. No no, no. Okay. Oh, I graduated, and I went right to Fort Leonard Wood for a IT advanced training. 

SPRAGUE: Any, do you have any particular memories that stick out from you? From basic. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, boy. Just that the drill sergeants were so mean, and they were so tough. And I hated it. But now I understand why. After a while, I understood why they were the way they were. That was that was part of the training. So I don't hold that against them. But just, just the I mean, I watched one drill sergeant break a leg because he couldn't run fast enough. And it's just it's just the brutality of it. It's not like that today. But it was back then they could hit you. 

SPRAGUE: Do you think, with the Vietnam War underway, that that maybe change the tone at all or. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, I'm sure it was, because all of my drill instructors were Vietnam veterans. Every one of them was a combat veteran. So I'm sure that's what they were doing is preparing us for it. But again, we didn't know that at the time. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. How did you get to Fort Leonard Wood by bus. 

BERZINSKY: We graduated, and I think that same day we were on busses going to our next duty station, a lot of us went to Fort Leonard Wood and other guys went in different places. But yeah, it was it was all the same day we graduated and we left that same day. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: And by bus. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. And, what was, tell me a little bit more about your training as a combat engineer. 

BERZINSKY: I was taught by being a combat engineer. I was taught how to operate virtually every every every piece of heavy equipment the army had, from bulldozers to graders to scrapers, you name it, whatever they had, I was taught how to use it. I was taught how to maintain it. And when I got out of that, when I got out of it, I was license to operate any piece of heavy equipment they had, except for a crane. That was a specialized training. But that's that's what happened when I got out there. And they taught you how everything about those pieces of machinery. 

SPRAGUE: And, and help me out here. What do you happen to remember what that was or what that what skill set was called. 

BERZINSKY: The MOS I think was 62 B 20 or 62 B ten I think. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: I believe that's the most that I graduated with. 

SPRAGUE: And what, what's that called the, that position or that. 

BERZINSKY: Right. I believe it was heavy equipment operator and maintenance slash combat engineer. Everything fell under the heading of combat engineer. Okay. 

SPRAGUE: And, how did you find that that training helped you later in Vietnam or. 

BERZINSKY: Or what's. Absolutely not. Because I never operated any equipment in Vietnam. Okay? I was assigned to the motor pool, but then I ended up doing minesweepers, did guard duty and things like that. I never I wasn't in what they called heavy junk. Heavy junk was the guys that operated the equipment. I wasn't assigned to that. 

SPRAGUE: Did you want to be assigned to them? 

BERZINSKY: I don't think I really cared, okay. I didn't really matter because working in the motor pool, I got to work on the equipment, and. So it didn't really matter. 

SPRAGUE: What? In advanced training, today, we call it it. Yeah. Was, what was the discipline like there versus the discipline at basic training? 

BERZINSKY: Very lax compared to basic. I mean, there was no yelling at you and physical abuse or anything like that you were focused on. I was focused on training, I mean, classroom work and and out in the out in the yard, operating the equipment. It was a lot different than basic training. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Any oh go ahead. We still had we had still had formations and and you have to do physical training. But, I don't think we ever handled the weapon in it. It was all mainly school. 

SPRAGUE: And, did you get your orders for your first duty station while you were at it or. 

BERZINSKY: At the end? At the end? At the end of the training session, everybody would get orders to where they were going. Okay. And there's only three places. You either went to Vietnam, you went to Korea, or you went to Germany. And I lucked out, and I got Germany. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. So, you go to Germany. What unit were you in? In Germany? 

BERZINSKY: I was in, and I could not tell you. I think it was called the second Maintenance Battalion in, Karlsruhe, Germany. Okay. And I loved it there. It was just beautiful. I love the country and the people, and just everything about Germany was wonderful. 

SPRAGUE: A second maintenance battalion. Karlsruhe, Germany? Yes. Do you happen to remember what division or corps? I have. 

BERZINSKY: No clue. Okay. I don't know. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. And I have you roughly based on your timing with basic arriving in Germany, did you take leave in route? 

BERZINSKY: I believe after I, I had a 30 day leave. Yeah, I believe so. I was able to go home from Fort Leonard Wood for 30 days. Then I had to go to Fort Dix, new Jersey to ship out to Germany. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. And when you left Fort Dix, did you fly? 

BERZINSKY: We flew. Okay. I think we flew from Fort Dix to Greenland and then Greenland to Frankfurt. I remember flying into Frankfurt. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. And was that a mac flight or. 

BERZINSKY: I have no idea. I don't remember. Okay. I don't know if this commercial or if it was military. Okay. I don't remember. 

SPRAGUE: No worries. So I have you roughly based on your 30 day leave, roughly, and your your basic and I it roughly early July 68th, maybe arriving in. 

BERZINSKY: Germany just fine. You would have. 

SPRAGUE: Probably been a little warm at that point in Germany. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, the weather was beautiful here. Yeah, yeah. 

SPRAGUE: What, what were you doing there at the second Maintenance Battalion? 

BERZINSKY: I was doing what the what? I said I was doing maintenance on vehicles. Everything from a jeep up to construction equipment. I remember working on front end loaders and, bulldozers. Where they came from and what they were doing there, I have no idea. I was just in the shop working. I was basically maintenance. 

SPRAGUE: And, hydraulics, diesel engines. Any particular? 

BERZINSKY: Yes. 

SPRAGUE: Everything okay? 

BERZINSKY: I don't I don't remember a whole lot about that time. Okay. It's kind of blocked out, but I just remember working on equipment. I had to work in a shop. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. At some. And this was in Karlsruhe, Germany, mid 68. And and a few more months. At some point, you decide in the early interview, you decide you want to go to Vietnam. Help me out. 

BERZINSKY: With I being young and foolish, I decided I wanted more, I wanted I wanted to know what war was like. And so I just to me, it was just I didn't give it a whole lot of thought. One day I just decided I want to go to Vietnam. So I went and I filed for a transfer called a 1049, and I filled out that paperwork against the advice of the clerk that was taking it. And within 30 days, my orders came in to ship out to Vietnam. Okay. And I was and that's what I wanted for what I wanted. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay. So tell me about your arrival in Vietnam. 

BERZINSKY: Oh. It's horrible. When the plane touched down, I flew into Cameron Bay, and they opened it. I flew a commercial airliner. I don't remember what it was, if it was United or Continental, but it had stewardess stewardesses. And, when you walked off the plane, you were hit immediately by the heat and the smell and the sounds. And it was total chaos at this airport. Just total chaos. Everything was happening at once. And the one thing that struck me the most was, watching the the silver caskets being loaded onto a cargo plane, and that that kind of made me realize that I made a big mistake. 

SPRAGUE: And that would have been it in January of. 

BERZINSKY: I believe I got there in January of 69. Okay. 

SPRAGUE: Did you ever think, hey, I want to get back on the plane, and I. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah, I think that thought probably crossed my mind. I mean, this that initial, that initial impression of Vietnam was nothing that I expected. No, I was never definitely not prepared for it because I remember going back a little bit. We had we had what they call jungle training in Washington state before I flew to Vietnam. And it was ridiculous because it was cold. There was snow on the ground and it just it was a joke. I didn't think it was a joke at the time, but once I got to Vietnam, I realized that that training was absolutely nothing like what I was in for for a year. 

SPRAGUE: Okay, so my bad. I missed a piece here. So you went from Germany to Washington state in route to Vietnam? 

BERZINSKY: Yes. 

SPRAGUE: And you went to Fort Lewis, Washington. 

BERZINSKY: I believe that's where it was. Yeah, yeah. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. And do you remember anything about training at Fort Lewis? 

BERZINSKY: Just a jungle training. They they showed us what it was like in the jungle. They would show camouflage and booby traps and things like that. But again, it was cold and it was. There was snow on the ground, and and it's, you know, at the time it didn't mean anything, but it was just ridiculous training because it was nothing like Vietnam. 

SPRAGUE: Now having myself been stationed in Washington state, you could have been in western Washington, which is wet and rainy but cold during winter in eastern Washington, which is snow and cold like Wisconsin. 

BERZINSKY: Probably where I was. I just remember snow. 

SPRAGUE: Maybe Yakima firing. 

BERZINSKY: Range. It could be it could be okay. 

SPRAGUE: You could have snow in the sound two and Puget Sound and the South end, but it'd be very it'd be unusual, but it's possible. Interesting. And about how long were you there for? 

BERZINSKY: One week. One week. That was a one week, one week training. It was there just for training. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: And then they put us on planes. 

SPRAGUE: Did you fly out of, like another a mac or. You said it was commercial. 

BERZINSKY: It was a commercial airline. I don't remember the name of the airport we flew out of. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: I really couldn't remember. I don't remember the name of it, but. But it was a commercial airliner. Okay. There's a that stewardesses. 

SPRAGUE: And did you do a layover in Hawaii or. Yes. 

BERZINSKY: Yes, we laid over in Hawaii. We were allowed to get off the plane and just wander around the terminal a little bit. I have a few pictures of Hawaii. But, yeah, it was also very shortly over a couple hours. Okay. 

SPRAGUE: So now hopping back to Vietnam. 

BERZINSKY: Off the plane in Vietnam, and that just hit you? 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. What was the what were, you would have came in in January. So what was the weather like? 

BERZINSKY: Hot. It was hot. I remember I remember the heat and humidity more than I remember the the rainy season. It's just you sweat all the time. Just all the time. But when I got there, it was extremely hot. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. When you came into Vietnam, you came into Cameron Bay. Where did you go? And in route? Did you go directly to or. No. No, what. 

BERZINSKY: The procedure was. I spent a couple of days in Cameron Bay, basically just spinning our wheels, waiting to be assigned because that was the process. It took a couple of days to get an assignment, and every morning or every day, a couple of times a day, they would have a formation and they would read out the names of people that had been assigned. And you just waited for your assignment. So I was there for a couple days, and I was assigned to the 18th Engineer Brigade, I believe it was 18th Engineer Brigade, and they were stationed at play. Cool. So I got on a plane, a military plane this time, and flew to play crew and did the same thing there. You waited in a replacement depot every day. They would call names until you got your orders where you were assigned. So I know I spent a couple of days in play crew, and then they read my name and said, you're going to the to 99th Combat Engineer Battalion at doctor. 

SPRAGUE: Did they have a name for the replacement tipos? 

BERZINSKY: I don't remember. It was just. It was just in play call. Okay. It was just a place in play. Cool. Yep. And your replacement went through. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. So that would have been probably mid to late January of 69. 

BERZINSKY: It was still January I believe so. And it was hot and dry. Hot and wet. I mean, hot and dry. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. When they, you went to the 299. 

BERZINSKY: Yep. They took us there and doesn't have truck in the back of a truck. There was probably a dozen of us in the back of a truck. The truck was open and we had no weapons. We were still. I don't know if we were addressed in. I don't remember when I got my jungle fatigues, I don't remember. We might have been still dressed in our khakis from traveling. But we were in the back of this truck, driving out in the middle of nowhere down the dirt roads. And the driver and the guy next to the driver had weapons, but we had no weapons. And we were just. We were alone. There was not a convoy. It wasn't a group of trucks. It was just us. And I was scared out of my mind because I kept on thinking that if something happens, I have no weapon. I can't defend myself. So I was happy to get to dock, to get to our destination. 

SPRAGUE: When you got to Doc Toe. So you went by deuce and half from Plainview to Dakota. 

BERZINSKY: Doctor, it was about a four hour drive. Maybe something like that. Something like that. It was scary. It was a scary drive. Very scary. 

SPRAGUE: And it might have been a rough ride for you. 

BERZINSKY: It was very rough. Yeah. It was not a pleasant ride over dusty and dirty. And it was not pleasant. And I remember going through my brain. I'm going to have this for 365 days, you know. But that's I was happy to get the doc though. Because that I'm finally home. 

SPRAGUE: when you got to doc toe, what were you assigned to a particular company? 

BERZINSKY: I think I was there for a couple of days before I even got assigned there. Every place I went, it seemed like you had to wait to be assigned somewhere. And I was assigned to Headquarters company, the motor pool. And that was. That was my final, final destination. 

SPRAGUE: Got it. Okay. At the time when you arrived in January of 69, where was the headquarters company or the area that you worked at? 

BERZINSKY: Located right in the center of the camp. Okay. And the motor pool was across the airstrip. Okay. I have pic I have a picture of the base if we want to do. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Why don't we do that? Greg, if you can help us out and. 

BERZINSKY: We'll take a picture. This is. How do you want me to do this? 

SPRAGUE: If you could hold it up and show us. 

BERZINSKY: Okay. This is what doctor looked like in 1969. Up here. 

SPRAGUE: There you go. 

BERZINSKY: Right here. Yep. This is doctor in 1969. oh. Yeah. Okay. Headquarters company is right here, and the motor pool is right here. Oh, and there's an airstrip separating the two. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Motor pools in the lower right or left as you're looking at it. Okay. 

BERZINSKY: And then the other companies are scattered around the headquarters. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. That's good. Thank you. Sure. Appreciate it. That helps us set the tone. So what did you think in terms of, in looking at the map? Looking at the map and the terrain. It looked like it. Doctor wasn't on high ground. 

BERZINSKY: We were in a in a valley with mountains all around us. And right out from our perimeter was Cambodia and Laos. And now you have to remember, I didn't really know much about Vietnam. I didn't know what the Ho Chi Minh trail was. I didn't know any of that. But right out from our perimeter, where I actually had the full guard duty was Cambodia and Laos. And that was one of the main points where the Ho Chi Minh Trail came into South Vietnam. So we were in a really bad place. There was a lot of enemy activity there, and they didn't want us there. So. 

SPRAGUE: Did, the headquarters company have a, a position or sector in the perimeter? Yes. 

BERZINSKY: Everybody everybody had their every company or in every, every job had their own little area. My my my bunker. Where is it? I had a little bunker is right here. Mike left. Oh. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 

SPRAGUE: Go ahead again. 

BERZINSKY: I gotta find it. Don't worry. Yeah. My guard bunker is right here. Right overlooking. Looking out into Cambodia and Laos. All this green out here is foreign country and that close? Yeah. Is that close? And we had a little gully that ran right up into the camp. It was like a little finger that stuck into the. That stuck into the camp. And my bunker was overlooking that gully. And that's one of the places where they would try to get in. So we had it heavily mined, and we had a lot of barbed wire down there. And, we watched that gully quite a bit because there's quite a few times where we were attacked from that particular gully. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. So early 69, before things really started warming up, before things started heating up and getting into the siege. What was a typical day like? 

BERZINSKY: It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. You got up, you went to work. One thing I don't remember is eating. I do not remember eating in a mess hall at all, but obviously I did. So you get up and have breakfast. We walk across the airstrip to the motor pool, and we would maintain the vehicles. Anything from a jeep up to, a bulldozer. Doesn't matter what it was. If something was broke, we fixed it. And actually, life was pretty good. We didn't have much activity. And enemy wise, there were no attacks, no rockets, no mortars. The minesweeper teams would go out, clear the road to been hit. And, it was very calm. So it was actually a good duty. It was very, very good duty. It was safe. That we thought it was safe. 

SPRAGUE: So, and at that time, before things started happening, what did you do in your downtime? 

BERZINSKY: Oh, you still have to clean your weapon because of the dust and the dirt. I mean, it was it was dust everywhere. You're clean. Your weapons are. You write letters. We had a little little club there where you could buy beer, soda, hard liquor. Maybe if somebody would bring it in. It wasn't a whole lot of entertainment. I mean, because we were out in the middle of nowhere. We weren't by any city or town or village or anything. There was nothing around us. So you couldn't go anywhere? It was just. It was just peaceful. It was nice. We just sat around and drank beer and. That was it. Okay. That was a it was very, very routine. 

SPRAGUE: And were you able to receive, supplies at that time? 

BERZINSKY: Oh, yeah. We got everything. Yeah, we had everything we wanted. You know, we could get we could get food and we would get we would get packs from the Red cross once in a while that had candy and soap and toothpaste and stuff. And if you wanted something, they were always running convoys to play cool. And they had a bit out of that play call post exchange where you could, you could buy things. So you just whoever was going there, you tell them what you want, you gave them some money and they would bring things back. So we had a, a good supply of we didn't want for anything that I remember. 

SPRAGUE: Tell me a little bit about, when things started to change. 

BERZINSKY: We started getting mortars and rockets, sporadically. We get 1 or 2 during the day. At night, they would probe the perimeter a little bit. They would attack a spot just briefly and, you know, fire a couple rounds at one of the guard towers or, or try to get through the wire, and they'd set off the trip wires and things. But it was just very, very seldom it would happen and would happen in different parts of the base. And the rockets, they said 1 or 2 a day maybe. You never know. So it became routine. We didn't really worry about it that much, but we never knew that we were being surrounded by the NBA, by the North Vietnamese that were coming in off the Ho Chi Minh trail. We didn't know that. So it was they were basically just trying to test our strengths and see where where the weak points were. And we had a lot of weak points because we were we were relatively safe there. We thought. 

SPRAGUE: Was there a clear moment in time when things started to shift and change? 

BERZINSKY: At that time, it was gradual. It gradually built up, I think in April maybe it started to build up and by May it was a full fledged siege. They started rocketing a mortar, and every day we would get dozens, sometimes 100 a day. And, at night they would attack every night. They would probe different areas. Sometimes they attacked their terror base. You know, you just never know. We were on alert constantly. 

SPRAGUE: Was there ever a moment where, your battalion commander said. Or someone in the chain of command said we're pulling Alpha Company or Bravo Company off this hill, and we're collapsing the perimeter. 

BERZINSKY: He had done that. He had done that. Our battalion commander. That was our Colonel Neumann Howard. He. He did that. He brought all he had. He had units scattered around the area. He had some engineers have been hit. He had some engineers at Khartoum. When we started getting attacked regular, he pulled everybody back to Doc Toe. He shrunk the perimeter down a little bit. We built more guard bunkers along the perimeter, strung more wire. So, yeah, he he reacted exactly the way he should have, and he made us a lot more easily defendable. But we still were in trouble because we didn't know what was out there. 

SPRAGUE: Had you, heard at that point anything, anything about the Vietnam ization and trying to. 

BERZINSKY: I didn't learn about Vietnamization until probably 40 years later. Okay. At one of our reunion, when I first started going to our reunions, they had organized reunions of the survivors, and I started going, I don't know, 15 or 20 years ago. But anyway, that's when I learned about the proposed Vietnamization. That a supposedly an urban unit was supposed to come. The South Vietnamese Army unit was supposed to come in and relieve us, take over dock toll, take over the defense of dock toll. We never knew that at the time. Colonel Howard knew it and all the officers know it. But us lowly soldiers, we didn't know what was happening. They never told us that that that we were supposed to be replaced. But instead of being replaced, we were basically there as bait. We were abandoned there to defend that base, and the province never showed up. A few a little group would come once in a while, but we never had the unit that was supposed to be there. It was left up to us to defend the base. 

SPRAGUE: And while you were under siege there. May, April. May June. 

BERZINSKY: May and June were the two. 

SPRAGUE: Big. 

BERZINSKY: Ones. The two big months. 

SPRAGUE: You interestingly enough in your earlier interview you can you point back to April things starting earlier than what the classic model is. Can you expand on that at all. 

BERZINSKY: Well like I said. 

SPRAGUE: That was your. 

BERZINSKY: Experience. Everything. Everything was. We had no fear. I wasn't afraid. I mean, I was afraid at the beginning, just like being in Vietnam. But I wasn't afraid. I figured we were safe. We had we had good defenses. We had we had helicopter gunships there. We had artillery there, so we were safe. But as the attacks started getting worse and worse and we really couldn't, there was no way of stopping them. Then I started getting scared, and it just got to the point where you never knew when that rocket or that mortar was going to land next to you. So you just started going about your daily routine, not caring. And that's kind of what I became. I just didn't care anymore. And that's when I started taking pictures and doing very dangerous things. Foolish things. 

SPRAGUE: Were you able to receive, people in replacement or harassment or not? 

BERZINSKY: They were, they would come in once in a while by convoy. A lot of times they came in by helicopter. Our airstrip was big enough to handle a C-130, which is a rather large plane. So we had replacements that would come in that way. I don't believe there was ever a time when we couldn't get things brought in, but it was more difficult. You know, the convoys were dangerous. Flying in was dangerous. But I don't believe it ever stopped. We could still get supplies. We could still get things. 

SPRAGUE: Maybe, you could talk a little bit about, with the RPG there. Okay. And, you got it. Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah. When the siege started. Yeah, yeah. When the siege started, we were basically living in the guard bunkers. We didn't we didn't sleep in our houses anymore. We were living in the guard bunkers, and I have a picture of the guard bunker in there. Anyway, so we were living there. We would. Maybe work during the day a little bit, but we spent most of our time on guard duty because they were attacking us day and night now. So one day I was on guard duty and it was getting dark. It was probably just just just dark. And they attacked the base in a number of places, but they attacked my bunker specifically trying to get up that gully that I told you about. And whether with an RPG or this is a B40 rocket, we don't we didn't call them RPGs. It's a B40 rocket. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: My bad. Yeah, well, they call them RPGs, but it was a B40 rocket. This one is a Russian made. It's got the Russian markings on it. And when these things are fired, you can see them coming at you because they leave a trail. What happens is these fins open. I think I got two friends that were left. These fins open and out the back is just, this right here is sparks fly. And that's what's propelling this thing. There's a propellant inside here that comes out here, and it forces us through the air. And you can see them when they're fired at you. So I saw this one coming at me, coming right at my bunker at the time. I'm at the top of the bunker with the M60 machine gun, and I'm returning fire to this force that's attacking us. And this thing is coming pretty much right at me. And I'm sitting there with my finger on the trigger of this machine gun, and I figured I was dead, I was done, there was two other guys up there with me, and we all saw it coming. I figured I was dead, so I just kept on shooting and nothing happened. It just disappeared. I didn't know what happened to it and what happened to it. The next morning we went out to inspect the bunker, just just to see if everything was okay, because we were getting a lot of rounds at that time, and this was sticking out of the sandbags about three feet below the top of the bunker where I was sitting. So if this would have gone off, it would have taken off the top of the bunker, killed all three of us. But this was embedded in the sand just like this. And, being the young, foolish American soldier, I wanted this as a souvenir. So I gently pulled it out of the sandbags and took it, took it on the ground, and I disassembled that. This is full of plastic explosive. I took the explosive out, and here it is. I brought it home as a souvenir. But this could have killed me. And it should have killed me. A lot of the weap, a lot of the things that the enemy had were not high quality. A lot of things were duds. Didn't go off. Unfortunately, this was one of them. But, it was very scary. Very scary. 

SPRAGUE: When you said the top of the bunker, you meant there were layers of sandbags above you. Yeah. 

BERZINSKY: Okay, I can get. I can get it. I got I got a picture of the bunker. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah, I remember you showing me that. 

BERZINSKY: Or I probably sent you a picture of the. 

SPRAGUE: Bunker, and I looked for it the other day, and I couldn't find it, but. Yeah. 

BERZINSKY: Here it is. Right here. 

SPRAGUE: That would have been off the going. 

BERZINSKY: This is the bunker right here. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Got you. 

BERZINSKY: You got it? 

SPRAGUE: Yep. Yep. 

BERZINSKY: Okay. 

SPRAGUE: By your right hand there. Yep. Okay. And so this picture got away from us. 

BERZINSKY: Okay. That's right. And this is me sitting on the top of the bunker with the M60 machine gun. And the rocket hit. The rocket hit about three feet below the top. Close enough that it would have taken off the whole top of the bunker. Oh. I'm sorry. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. No. You're good. Okay. 

BERZINSKY: But that was my home. That bunker was my home for. Oh, boy. I don't know, we stayed there for quite a while after the siege. I probably lived in that bunker for three months or more. That's where I lived. 

SPRAGUE: And did you have shifts or how did. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah. We all. We all took shifts. You had you had, I don't remember a 6 or 8 hour shift. And every couple hours you'd be on duty, the other ones were off duty. 

SPRAGUE: And that's where that bunker was. Would have been off of that gully or above. 

BERZINSKY: Right next to the gully. Okay. When we look down from the side of the bunker, you could look down into that gully. And across the gully was another guard bunker. Guard tower. The same way watching that gully, because that was a weak point getting into the camp because that actually came into the camp. Okay. They never they never got through. Excuse me. They never got through that gully. But they did break through quite a few places in the, in the camp. Because they broke into our perimeter probably a dozen times and got in. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any, experience about knowing about, Creighton Abrams visiting general? 

BERZINSKY: Curiously, I was at the I was at the command post, the CP, for some reason, I don't know why I was there, but I had to go there for something. The day that they came that all these generals came in. There was several generals that came with some other high ranking officers, and they were there to see Colonel Howard, the commanding the battalion commander. I was there, and I remember seeing all this brass we called it, and all this entourage of people around there. And I made myself as small as possible, and I got out of there as quick as I could. But years later, you know, at our reunions, I saw pictures of of all these generals talking to the colonel at that command post, and I said, shit, I was there. I remember that day, and I got out of there as quick as I could. I didn't want to be anywhere near all that brass, but I was there the day they came there. Yeah, I was right when they came. I don't know what they were there for. I had no clue. And again, I didn't learn that until 40 years later. 

SPRAGUE: About the same time, the Stars and Stripes comes out with an article. Did you receive Stars and Stripes while you were at dawn? Yes. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, and I got the article that said, the Ravens were going to take over. Doctor. Yeah. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. And what was your experience after that? 

BERZINSKY: We just kind of looked at it like this. Doesn't know it's not happening. It's not real. But again, we weren't privy to to the facts. I mean, we we probably knew something was going on. Something wasn't right, but we didn't know all the politics that was involved. We didn't know. 

SPRAGUE: Did you ever run into anybody I talked to who was from Wisconsin? 

BERZINSKY: No. The only person I ran into a doctor that I knew from before was a guy I went through basic training with. He was with the fourth Infantry Division, and they just happened to be coming through, doctor going out on an operation. They would use our airstrip to to go out on operations. And I spotted him at a distance and I remembered his name was I don't remember his name anymore, but I remember him from basic training. And we visited for a few hours, but then he had to ship out. 

SPRAGUE: He was, fourth ID. 

BERZINSKY: Fourth Infantry Division. Yeah, they operated out of doctor. They use doctor as a base of operations. 

SPRAGUE: And, do you know if he survived? 

BERZINSKY: Yes. Well, he wasn't. His name was not on the wall. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Because many years later, when I had the chance to go to DC the first time, I went there with a list of people just to find out if anybody was on the wall. And nobody from my list other than the one person was on the wall. So I'm assuming he survived. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you want to come back to that, or do you want to talk about that person you found at all? 

BERZINSKY: Well, okay. His name was George Weatherly, and we were in basic training together. He was the platoon sergeant, or he was the platoon leader. And I was a squad leader. We were both. We were both in charge of the the training unit, which was backing up a little bit. A friend of mine that I used to work with before I went in the service told me that, one little hint. When you get the basic training, they're going to ask anybody if they have prior military experience. And he says, you lie through your teeth. You tell them you were in the reserves and what they will do. They don't know anything. What they will do is they will make those people the leaders of the of the platoon. They'll either be the platoon leader or the squad leaders. What that will do is they'll get you out of guard duty. It'll get you out of KP, it'll get you in the front of line of everything. And I didn't know anything of anything. So I did that. And I told them I was in the reserves. I lied through my teeth and they made me a squad leader. I had my own bunk. I didn't have to sleep in bunk beds. I had my own bed. You had a lot of privileges. If you were a squad leader. You still had to do all the training, but you got your problems. But anyway, George had a college degree. He was. He was from ROTC. He never finished, so they made him platoon leader. I was squad leader and we became good friends. He was my buddy through through basic training and through I t we went to Fort Leonard Wood together also. And then I shipped off to Germany and he shipped off to Germany. But we went different, different units. We didn't see each other anymore after that. And then when. Fast forwarding. When I got to the wall. George's name was on the wall. So I did some research and found out that he went to Germany the same time I did. He volunteered for Vietnam about the same time, but we got shipped a different unit. He was shipped to a combat engineer unit that had cranes because he was trained as operating a crane. And he was killed in an ambush. About a month before I got to Vietnam, he went there before me. So that hit me pretty hard. But he was the only name on the wall that I found that that I knew. 

SPRAGUE: George. Heather. Lee. 

BERZINSKY: George. How the Lee. 

SPRAGUE: And can you spell a surname? 

BERZINSKY: H e a t h e r l e y. He was from Arkansas, I believe, because I tracked down his widow. His wife, because I had met. I had met his wife when we graduated from basically her family. The family came by for George, and she was there with him. And I met her. So I tracked her down 50 years later, and, we spoke on the phone a little bit, and then she kind of filled me in on some of the details, but, now that hit me pretty hard. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. How are you doing? Are you okay? 

BERZINSKY: I'm okay. Okay. Yeah, we can go. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about, who was out. Had been hurt while you were a doctor. 

BERZINSKY: Bean had was a Special Forces camp. That was, they had they had mountain yards up there. They had, I don't remember. There's some different names there, different ethnic groups that the Special Forces worked with. And special Ben Hecht was a special forces camp. I think Sid G or something. I don't remember what it is, but, they operated across the border. They did special operations and stuff, and it was a small base right on the border. We were a little ways away from the border. They were right there. And, it was very primitive camp. And the 299, one of their jobs was to keep the road between Doctor and Ben head open, because it was they would run supplies and convoys and stuff. And, if I could, I want to see a seven mile stretch. I'm not sure exactly how much, but it was that was that was the main job, keeping that road open. We also kept the road open to the other direction, to Khartoum. But our main job was to Ben Head. Now that's where all the that's where all the fighting was anyway. So that was our job. 

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember which Special Forces group was that Ben had? 

BERZINSKY: Fifth. Fifth Special forces Group is as far down as I know. I don't know the names of the actual units. I don't remember. Okay. If I ever did know, because we really had no contact with them. We would, we would, we would clear the road ahead of the convoy when we got to Ben that they would unload the trucks and we would head back. We really didn't spend a whole lot of time at Ben Head. I never really got to know anybody there. 

SPRAGUE: So after you came up to Ben had and done mine sweeping and brought the supplies up. Yep. You then once you got to Ben and unloaded, came back down. But you rode you we. 

BERZINSKY: Rode back down. Yep. Because we were we would believe that they didn't have enough time to mine the roads. Real stupid belief. Because they did. They did mine the roads occasionally. Not that often, but they did. But no, we never slept on the way back. If it. I remember a few times, if it looked suspicious, we might have got out and swept a little bit, or if there would have been a mine in that road that we took care of, we might stop and check the area again if we saw something suspicious, if there was some tracks or marks or something. But as a rule, we rode back. 

SPRAGUE: And did the Companies Act toll. Was there a rotation of companies that went through that Ben hat operation or how did that. 

BERZINSKY: I believe d company and I know G company for sure did the mine sweep and I don't know if it was B or C. Or a I'm not honestly I don't remember how they rotated it, but how I got involved in is that they were always short somebody somebody would be on leave or somebody was on R&R or somebody was sick and quite regular. They would reach out to other unit, other units for volunteers, and whenever they would come to the motor pool to ask for volunteers, I would volunteer. So I got on quite a few minesweepers with a whole bunch of different teams. It wasn't the same all the time. So that's how I got involved in minesweeper. Headquarters company did not do mine sweeping, but they furnished a lot of the men that did it. 

SPRAGUE: So, to the degree that you want to and you're able to, could you relate your experience? I have it is June 7th, 1969. Okay. Being part of the quick reaction force. What what you're. 

BERZINSKY: Able to that specific day. Yeah. Okay. What happened was the company's minesweeper team did their job like they're supposed to do that particular day. They had a small group of armbands with them that were supposed to provide security. I don't know what transpired to do that, but. But there were there were South Vietnamese soldiers with them. I don't know if there's a dozen or more. I don't remember the number. But anyway, they were on a minesweeper team and they were about half way to to been hit and they got ambushed. And what happened at that particular ambush was the ravens immediately dropped their weapons. They had m-16s, we had M14, they dropped their weapons and they ran. They ran back. So they basically abandoned the minesweeper team to themself. The initial attack killed two and wounded several other of the Americans. And when that was all happening, within a matter of a few minutes, they radioed back to doc, told that they were ambushed and their security left. So they immediately got together. A rescue team, a reaction team, they called it. And I was part of that team. So we all piled on trucks. I piled on the record. We we took whatever vehicles we had, and we got up there as soon as we could. And within, within a half hour we were there. And when we were driving up there about a mile before the ambush site here, the ravens were huddled in the ditch. They were scared. We didn't know what was happening. We didn't know what they did. So we kept on going. We got to where the ambush was and our guys were pinned down. I believe the truck they had was destroyed and the bodies were laying on the road. So we got off our vehicles, jumped in the ditch because they built roads. They built roads like this. There were high and then there was a deep ditch. And they did that for protection. If you ever got attacked, you could jump in the ditch and you'd have some shelter. You'd have protection. So I remember being in the ditch and I was firing my weapon at nothing because they couldn't see they were shooting at us, but you couldn't see where it was coming from. So we were just returning fire, and all of a sudden, right in front of me, about ten feet away, probably even closer, an enemy soldier popped up out of the ground and he had an AK 47, which was this AK 47 aimed at me. And I had my M14 aimed at him, and I was scared out of my mind. I didn't know what to do. So I pulled the trigger and at the time, he just disappeared. I didn't know what happened. We ended up we ended up, beating back the attack. We got back in the trucks. Well, we started walking back and then got back in the trucks to get back to base camp. Get to back to dock Tow. Before that, when we were on the trucks, the our company commander, his name was, Captain Franklin. He stopped the car. He stopped the truck, says, hey, we left the bodies up there. Two bodies were still laying in the middle of the road. We didn't know because we were getting out of there as fast as we could. So Captain Franklin pointed to myself. And the guy next to me was name was Danny Sheets. And he says, come on, we got to go back and get those bodies. And I remember telling captain Frank, I said, why don't we just turn the truck around? And he says, no, we have to. We have to run up there. He didn't want to take the truck. He said, we have to go back and get the bodies. So the three of us, Captain Franklin, myself and Danny Sheets, started running back to the ambush site. And while we're running back, they started shooting at us again. We were getting shot at from the from the woods. And we got to them. We got to the ambush because several times we had to jump in the ditch because they were shooting at us. But captain said we got to get those bodies. We can't leave them there. So we finally made it back to the body. It was about a mile. We made it back to the bodies and says, okay, now we got to carry him back to where the truck was a mile away. And I said. I can't carry him. I had my right M14. I had a flak jacket on. I had a helmet, but I lost the helmet while I was running, so I didn't have that anymore. So Franklin said, okay, give me a rifles. Just drop your flak jacket and pick up these guys. So I picked up one soldier, and Danny picked up the other guy, put them over our shoulder, and we started running back. And Captain Franklin is running behind us carrying three weapons because he had an M14 and an hour, two weapons. And we got it maybe halfway back. And then all of a sudden the truck appeared. The truck driver said, screw this, I'm going to go back. So he drove up to pick us up, but we still have to run about a half a mile carrying these bodies. So fast forward, we get back to the base camp and. 

SPRAGUE: Take a look at the. Yeah, photograph here. 

BERZINSKY: Then we get back to the base camp, and at that point, I'm covered in blood when we get back. So I jump off the truck and I run to my hooch and drop the rest of my equipment and kind of wash my hands a little bit. And at that, in the meantime, the truck had taken the two bodies to our our medic bunker to the first aid bunker. And that's where this picture was taken. By a photographer that I had no idea with, with us. He took this picture. Open it up a little. Hey. Oh, sorry. Yep. He took this picture right here of the truck before they unloaded the bodies into the, you know, the medical bunker. And I'm the soldier standing there without a flak jacket or helmet. 

SPRAGUE: And we're all at the base there at the bottom. 

BERZINSKY: This guy, this. 

SPRAGUE: Dark haired guy. 

BERZINSKY: My fingers on him. 

SPRAGUE: Yep. 

BERZINSKY: I'm the only one there without a helmet or flak jacket. Got it. Because I jumped off the truck and put all that stuff in my hooch and washed my hands because I was covered in blood. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Thank you. Okay. What? What? Wish you a life. Is that. 

BERZINSKY: A chance? This particular one is. October 13th, 1969. Okay, but this is the Armed Forces Vietnam issue. The issue that made it to the United States was actually a September issue. I don't know the actual month because I, I understand now that during this time period, life magazine was published in 50 countries, and every country got a different issue that same month because it is on the cover here. It's got all these different countries where the magazine was issued that particular month. So this was the Vietnam issue. If you try to fight you won't find that copy. But there's another September issue that's got the same article in it. Different cover picture too. So it's kind of confusing but, but so the next day we had to go back up there because unknown to us, that wasn't just a little hole. There was a tunnel complex that ran alongside the road in that area, and I don't know who discovered it, but we had to go up the next day and destroy it. So we went up there the next day. We set charges and we set C-4 in that cord, and we blew up the tunnel complex. But when I got back up there that next day, I went to where I was in that ditch and where that soldier popped up because I wanted to see if I, if I, if I killed him. So I found a hole. And in the bottom of the hole. 

SPRAGUE: We want to bring you some of the images of the side of the road there, if possible. The magazine to the right, Greg, to kind of. Yeah. That one there and that side of the that was on the side of the road or not. 

BERZINSKY: This would have been the side of the road. Probably the life magazine article. Let me see the life like the the big picture would be better. 

SPRAGUE: Here, Greg. We've got some black and whites here too, because there was a life magazine reporter along. Yeah. That day. 

BERZINSKY: Right. Burroughs, I think his name was. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. And we've got some black and black and whites. Here are those pages. Yeah. Might be enough to get you. Just kind of. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, that's the. That's the same picture. Yeah. The same pictures here. Okay. Yep. Yeah. That's the same picture. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Yeah. If there's anything you can add to in addition to the photograph with the two soldiers and the deuce and a half. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah. This this is this is kind of like what the ditch look like. Oh, yeah. This is what the ditch looked like. And this soldier laying down there, that's kind of like what I looked like laying in the ditch. And you would just kind of peek if you'd pick up over the edge and shoot into the woods. 

SPRAGUE: Now it looks like there's a tank or two. 

BERZINSKY: And, you know, I don't remember that. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: No problem. In my memory, I've discussed this with guys at our reunions who were there also, and none of us remember that armor there, but it was there because we had the pictures. I don't know. Okay. My brain is blank on on how that armor got there, and I even read one article, I believe, in one of those magazines that said there was an armored personnel carrier that came up there too during this attack. 

SPRAGUE: If you look at the back of some of the images on the other ones, it looks like there's an APC there. 

BERZINSKY: And we cannot remember how that got there. I don't remember unless I blanked it out. 

SPRAGUE: How would it have gotten there? 

BERZINSKY: Well, it would have came up. It would have come up there with us when we were the reaction force. It would have been in that small convoy, because it was there might have been half a dozen vehicles anyway. 

SPRAGUE: APCs or tanks. 

BERZINSKY: There was an APC that was up there. 

SPRAGUE: Maybe a dozen. Yeah. 

BERZINSKY: Because yeah, here's an APC in the in the distance. Okay. I cannot answer that. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: It puzzles me to this day. But that's that's what that's kind of like what the situation was when the ditch. Anyway, I found that hole. And in the bottom of the hole. Well, actually at the top of the hole, there was blood in the bottom of the hole, there was blood. And this AK 47 was laying in the bottom of the hole and the AK 47, when I found it, it was it was just the receiver, this part, part of the stock, this was gone. And what I the only thing I could figure out happened. What what did happen. My bullet when I fired my weapon, my bullet went alongside the rifle. It took out the magazine. It made this groove along here by the trigger guard. It broke the trigger. The pistol grip was shattered, the pistol grip was shattered, and the stock was shattered. And that's how I found it. And again, being the American souvenir hunter that I was, I wanted this weapon because then I put together what happened. I fired my weapon a split second before him, and I shot him in the face because he had his weapon up. He had his weapon up like this the same way I had my weapon. So I'm assuming I hit him in the face whether I killed him or not. I don't know, because all there was was blood. But, that's how I came to acquire this weapon. 

SPRAGUE: You said you were about 5 to 10ft apart. 

BERZINSKY: From me to you. Away, whatever that is. Five feet. 

SPRAGUE: Almost. I could see the muzzle flash. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah, I could see him today. I can still see his face. But he was a scared young kid, just like me. You know, I can still picture him. You scared? And if he would have fired a split second sooner, that might have been me instead of him. 

SPRAGUE: So tell me, again, on the the side where the bullet went down there. Okay. Action there. Yes. If you could. To the to the viewer. Show us. Okay. Where you hypothesize the round went. 

BERZINSKY: So if you can see this the groove. That's right. 

SPRAGUE: Yep. 

BERZINSKY: There's a groove right here. 

SPRAGUE: Gotcha. 

BERZINSKY: This is shattered. This little piece of shattered. And the. And the pistol and the. And the guard. The trigger guard is broke. You can see where it was impacted somehow. That's where my my bullet must have traveled, right parallel to this weapon here. Like I said, the magazine was gone. This was shattered, and this was shattered. There was just splinters of wood fastened on to the the main weapon. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Craig, do you have any questions? No. Okay. Do you ever, you know, think about that, soldier. 

BERZINSKY: I think about it a lot. Yes. Like I said, if I close my eyes, I can see the man's face or the boy's face. It haunts me because I. I don't know. That was. That was the first time I ever killed someone that I actually saw that I actually saw it happen. After that, I just got numb. I just didn't care. But yeah, I think about it a lot. I'll probably think about it tonight. 

SPRAGUE: You talked about it in the other interview, the earlier interview about how that was a turning point for you. 

BERZINSKY: It was when, when I got back. Well actually before I found this weapon when I got back to camp because again carrying that dead soldier was the first time I actually came in contact with someone who's killed. I mean, I've seen bodies. I knew what the dead body looked like, but that was up close and personal. When I got back after after they unloaded the bodies and stuff. I was sick. I physically got sick. That night, I found a bottle. I got a bottle of. I don't know what it was. Vodka, gin, something. And I drank the whole bottle, and I passed out. It changed me. From that point on, I didn't really care anymore. You know, I had that thousand mile, thousand yard stare. You know, I just didn't, I didn't care. 

SPRAGUE: You happened to remember those two soldiers names? 

BERZINSKY: No, I have no idea who they were. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: I'm sure it could be found fairly easy, but. No, I don't know who they were. So that's the thing that the stories that I've read about that day, supposedly three men were killed. Okay. But I only remember two. There were only two bodies on that truck because I put them there. But there's supposedly a third one that I don't know. 

SPRAGUE: And. Yeah. How did, how did that change your outlook serving in Vietnam going forward from there? 

BERZINSKY: How did it. I became more careless. I started doing foolish things, like standing up and taking pictures of a rocket attack to see where they hit. I. I don't know, it's hard to describe. I just felt I felt like my time will be anytime. It can be. I could be killed in the next five minutes. So I just didn't, because there's nothing you could do to prevent it. So I just didn't care anymore. I stopped caring. I think I stopped being afraid. I don't know. I walked like I said, I walked around when rockets were falling and mortars were falling. I got to the point where I could actually sleep if I wasn't on guard duty. If I was, if I wasn't on duty. On duty or my. My two hours were up and I was I had four hours off. I was still in the guard bunker, but I could actually sleep when they were attacking. It just didn't bother me anymore. I figured if my time was my time, it was going to happen. 

SPRAGUE: So what, amongst your peers, what was the attitude as things moved on from May to June at Doc Toe, in addition to yourself, what did you have any outward signs of what your how your peace was? 

BERZINSKY: We were in survival mode because at that, when the siege started, we realized that we did not have enough weapons. We didn't have enough ammunition. Our supplies were running low on things. We were in survival mode. Everything we did, we did to survive. Like I said, I carried an M14. We didn't have M16s. We had M14, heavier weapon, but it was a lot better weapon. So the M60 machine gun also fired the same bullet that the M14 fired. 

SPRAGUE: Oh, yeah. Take a look. Oh, sure. 

BERZINSKY: Okay. Yeah, please. All of this stuff was picked up off the ground in and around. Doctor. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay. Tell us about it. Okay. 

BERZINSKY: This is an M60 machine gun. A couple links in the bullets that it fired. What do we got here? This is. This is the. Where is it? Okay. Yeah. This is the M60 machine gun. And the same bullet was fired out of the M14. That's where I was going with this. We had a lot of M60 machine gun ammunition. We had. We had cases of it. We didn't have a problem with that, but we were running out of ammunition for the M14. So we would take these belts of M60 machine gun bullets and we would strip the bullets out of that. Those belts, we basically take it apart. So we have ammunition for M14 because we went through a lot of ammunition. So that's what we were just survival. If I can just go with this real quick. Absolutely. Okay. We'd love. 

SPRAGUE: To hear about. 

BERZINSKY: What we had a heavy machine gun called the from the 50 caliber. It was, a truck mounted. The ones we had were truck mounted 50 caliber machine gun. 

SPRAGUE: The Norris called the duster. 

BERZINSKY: The dusters had 50 caliber of that 450 caliber machine guns. Okay, well, the duster, the North Vietnamese. Well, actually, it was probably Russian. They came up with a 51 caliber weapon, and they did that for one reason. They could fire our ammunition. If they captured our ammunition, they could fire our ammunition in their weapon. It would fit there. Their ammunition wouldn't fit in our weapon. So they created that weapon specifically to use our ammunition. Just beyond reason. This is an M16 bullet, and you can see how that compares to the M14 or the machine gun world of difference. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about I want your opinion on, M14 versus the. 

BERZINSKY: Okay. The M14 was indestructible. You could drop it in the mud. You could get it dirty, wet. It didn't matter. It would fire because it was a very, very loose mechanism. The M16 was very precise, very precision machined, very tight tolerances. And it was a piece of crap. It didn't tolerate the Vietnamese climate. So we're we were glad that we didn't have the M-16s. The Irvine's had them and the infantry had them. But I'm glad we had the M14 because it was a piece of crap. It really was. And this is the bullet from an AK 47, still a lot bigger than the M16. And the AK 47 is the same way. It is very loosely engineered. It will withstand anything. You can drop it in the mud, pick it up and fire it. M16 if it gets slightly dirty or dusty or heaven forbid, muddy, you have to completely disassemble it and use it. So yeah, it's a piece of crap. And just real quick over here, this is some of the shrapnel from rockets and mortars. This one I believe, is from a 122 rocket 122mm, about six inch diameter rocket. They dropped these on us every day. And this is shrapnel from mortars. It was smaller. This over here is called a beehive round. This was dropped from a plane and the bomb would explode. These were packed inside of a bomb, tens of thousands of them. And the bomb would be set to explode so many feet above ground. So they would drop those bombs and they would explode, say, 100ft in the air, and it would send tens of thousands of these little arrows, little flash, they call them. And I guess one bomb supposedly would cover the size of a football field, and it would kill anything that was in that football field. So very nasty, very nasty bomb. 

SPRAGUE: What? Tell me a little bit about, the casualty rate at Octo. 

BERZINSKY: For the third of the for the 60 day siege. May. June of 1969 are unit 209th engineers suffered 45% casualties, killed or wounded. Some of the wounds were minor. But it was still it was. It was actually a little more than 45% killed or wounded in that two month period. That didn't take in consideration before or after, just during the siege. 

SPRAGUE: Tell me about how that, brought you together as a group. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, a major. It made you realize your mortality. Everybody looked out for each other. Everybody was friends. There was no racial issues there. Doesn't matter what color you were, what nationality we had. We didn't have that problem at doctor. Everybody just survived. You know, we we had lost our our mess hall had gotten destroyed very early on within the first week of the siege. We lost our mess hall, got hit by a rocket and completely destroyed it. So we ended up eating sea rations the entire time. That's all we had. And those were just wonderful things. Ours were dated 1945 44. They were World War Two surplus sea rations. That's what we had. And, some of it was really horrible. Some of it was good. I liked some of it, but everybody had their own favorites. So we would trade. I mean, we made it. We made a game out of trading sea rations for what people liked. Some stuff was desirable. Some stuff was horrible. 

SPRAGUE: Did you have anybody who was local, local nationals that came through the wire, or was that pretty much a no go in terms of people coming in and out of the perimeter? 

BERZINSKY: Anybody? Well, okay. The people that we had in our camp that would do the laundry. That would do the the mess hall cape before we lost the mess hall. We had a couple people that worked in the motor pool. They were young kids. They were all nerds. They were not Vietnamese. We didn't have any Vietnamese in our camp at all. We had we had the local tribe folks that did that. But we didn't have many that had the motor pool had two young kids. There might have been a half a dozen other ones that were in the camp for whatever reason. I know at one point we had somebody that cut hair. We had a tailor that would do sewing. Maybe a dozen altogether. But none of them were Vietnamese because there were no Vietnamese living there. 

SPRAGUE: Right. 

BERZINSKY: They were all mountaineers. 

SPRAGUE: Do you remember any of the mountain yards names like. 

BERZINSKY: Jet and O, J, E, T, and O. Those were the two young boys that worked in the motor pool. Those are the only two I remember. I've got pictures of. I've got pictures of somebody here. One of them. Don't remember till I see it. Here we go. That is either jet or. Oh. I'm not sure which. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: But I couldn't tell you which one. But that's one of the two boys that worked in the motor pool with us. And I can bring this up. We had. Everybody had dogs. There were dogs everywhere. We had several, I had one. His name was Silas. In fact, I have a picture of Silas. Beautiful dog. Whereas. Silas. Maybe I don't have a picture of Silas. No, I don't have a picture of Silas. Sorry. But anyway, we had several dogs. We had Silas. We had a female called bitch who was constantly pregnant, constantly having litter of puppies. And, but we would feed them and take care of them and stuff. What became of them? Obviously. They were probably killed at some point. Because the Vietnamese and the mountain guards, they would eat dog. But, yeah, we had pets. 

SPRAGUE: When did the monsoon begin there? 

BERZINSKY: You know, I don't remember. It was. It was probably. It wasn't during the siege. It was after the siege. I want to say maybe July. August. I honestly don't remember when it started. I just remember when it did start. Everything was mud. I mean, it mud was six inches deep. It was just everywhere. 

SPRAGUE: At some point, it's based on the accounts that I've read, the siege started to wind down at one point or. Well. 

BERZINSKY: The main the main 60 Days siege, official siege is May and June. Toward the end of June, it started winding down. And by July and August, we were back to normal again, like it was before. Because again, unknown to us, this large NVA force withdrew back into Cambodia and Laos. They realized that they weren't going to be able to take the October because we had a lot of air power. We had a lot of air power at our disposal. So when they would attack at night, we had everything at our disposal. We had we had Puff the Magic Dragon with the mini guns. We had helicopter gunships, we had napalm. So we would call all that. They would call that in whenever we were attacked. So they really. 

SPRAGUE: Up to gunships within your camp? You had helicopter gunships? 

BERZINSKY: Yes. There was a there was a helicopter unit stationed at doctor. They were further out of there at the very end of the airstrip. But yeah, we had, we had a lot of, a lot of power there. 

SPRAGUE: You also had an artillery battery that there. 

BERZINSKY: Were three, three, one, 55 howitzers, right in the middle of the camp. And they would fire around the clock. Yeah. They were never silent, but they were firing in support of the infantry on its way away from us. 

SPRAGUE: And then wasn't there a counter battery somewhere that could fire on your perimeter if necessary? 

BERZINSKY: I possibly. Yeah, I'm not aware of that, but I'm sure there was. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Because there were artillery. There was. There were fire bases surrounding dock. Tall, small fire bases up on top of hills. I never saw any of them, but I know they were there. 

SPRAGUE: How do you think, you had mentioned during the other interview having dark humor. Oh, about what happened. 

BERZINSKY: We started just joking around. We just had we just started joking. I don't remember I can't give you specific. Specific examples. But like I said, everybody's attitude changed. We didn't care any more. So where before we were scared. Now we just don't mean nothing. We would just laugh at things that weren't really funny. 011 time the the shower got hit and we laughed at it. It was it was funny. You know, I don't remember that. I can't give you examples of the dark humor, but it was it was dark humor. We laughed at things that we really shouldn't laugh at. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. You had mentioned also about your experience at Octo at Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving or any of the holidays. 

BERZINSKY: Can you see by the time Christmas rolled around, we had already gone back to Kenyon. Yep. We were moved to Kenyon. That was Christmas. Any other holidays that would have happened? There was just another day. We never had anything special at doctor that I remember. I just remember Kenyon Christmas time. And I think maybe even Thanksgiving. They might have a special meeting, a meal. But, doctor, every day was the same. I turned I turned 20 years old, that doctor, in March. And I don't remember it being any special day. Just another day. 

SPRAGUE: How do you think that affected you? 

BERZINSKY: I don't know. I know it. It changed the way I am now because days like that don't mean anything to me. They never have. Since then. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. You had mentioned, Kwinana. Tell me about. I'll let you have a break. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, no. That's all from. 

SPRAGUE: What was your what was going through your head when you started that road march? 

BERZINSKY: Well, when we found out we were leaving doctor, they finally pulled us out of doctor the two, and and I finally left. We were happy. We were happy. By then, the siege had been over for months. I think this was, I want to say, maybe September. October, something like that. I don't remember exactly when we left, but, we were happy. We just loaded everything up on trucks. And then we have to make the drive to to Kwinana on the coast. And the only thing bad about that drive is you have to go through the on K pass. It's a big, dangerous pass in the mountains. We have to cross a mountain range. And that was dangerous because they ambushed convoys. So we were kind of scared with that. But once we got to Kwinana it was like Paradise. It was a very secure area. There's a huge base there. We were right on the river. Right on the on the water. Right on the South China Sea. We could go swimming. It was. It was like Paradise compared to doctor. We didn't even carry our weapons half the time. We didn't need to. So it was just, like, night and day. It was so nice. Queanbeyan was was a really nice place. And it was a big city. We weren't able to go in the city because it was off limits to soldiers at that time, but it was a big city. I don't know how big it is, but it had a big port and it was it was big. 

SPRAGUE: Greg, did you have any questions for doctor? No. Okay. Could not. Is it pronounced. 

BERZINSKY: Queanbeyan? 

SPRAGUE: Queanbeyan? Do you? 

BERZINSKY: I know in Quenya. And I've seen it spelled and pronounced many different ways. Yeah. There's Queanbeyan. 

SPRAGUE: So, and you had mentioned this during your pre-interview. What happens, as you're leaving Vietnam? What is that experience like? 

BERZINSKY: Okay. Leaving Vietnam? {Phone rings] Sorry. Well, by the time we were in Kwinana, I was getting short. I would be a short timer, meaning I was counting down. You know, I, I didn't have a calendar, but I knew every day I was one day shorter. And you look forward to that day, and, you process all. It takes a couple of days to process out. You have to fly to play call. I think I flew to play school and then from play Quebec to Cameron Bay, because every place you have to go, you have to process out of your unit. And, they have this this commercial plane came in just like we got there. And, you can see we. Because I remember seeing the soldiers getting off brand new soldiers. 365 days to go and we're going home. I remember watching them get off the plane, and then hour or two later, we could get on the plane, and it was dead quiet. Nobody said a word. Plane takes off, and, everybody's looking out the window on that one side of the plane. And as soon as you could see Vietnam in the distance and you're flying over water, then everybody cheered. And then it was a party. Then it was a wild party because they were serving alcohol on the plane. And yeah, it was a wild party. Everybody was happy. But then after a while, just a long flight. I don't remember where I flew going home. I know we have to stop somewhere. I don't remember where. I don't have a clue where we stopped. But then it got quiet. I think everybody kind of turned into their own world. And. Then you got home. Landed at whatever airbase that was in Washington state again. And, and it was a commercial airfield. 

SPRAGUE: So it would have been Sea-Tac, maybe. 

BERZINSKY: I don't know if it was a commercial. It was a it was a it was a commercial airfield. It wasn't a military place. Okay. So we had to take a bus from that air airport to the military base to finish processing out. 

SPRAGUE: There would have been Sea-Tac. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah. And they put us on busses with with screen across the windows or across all the windows. And I remember asking somebody, ask the driver or whatever, what's that screen for? Because I had never seen that before. And he said, well, that's for the protesters, you'll see. So we're on the air base. We're on the, on the, on the airport yet. And we had to get to the gate to get out of the airport. And here on both sides of. The road, more protesters and they'd be throwing stuff at the busses. And those green was to keep all that crap from hitting us in the bus. It was like garbage and eggs and rotten fruit and stuff and yelling at us and calling us names and stuff. That was my welcome home. And then we got to whatever military base it was, and that would have processed out. 

SPRAGUE: That would have been in Seattle. 

BERZINSKY: We were in Washington State. That's all I remember. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Our Washington state. 

BERZINSKY: Travis Air Force base, is that out there? California. California? No, we didn't do that. 

SPRAGUE: That's Oakland. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah. I don't know the names of the places we were at. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. But that would have been. 

BERZINSKY: Wherever they flew into. 

SPRAGUE: Yeah, that would have been late 69. Early 70. 

BERZINSKY: It would have been, January of of. 

SPRAGUE: 72. 

BERZINSKY: December of 69. 

SPRAGUE: December. 

BERZINSKY: January of 70. Because I was I got in Vietnam in January. Yeah. It would have been beginning of beginning of January of 1970. But I came home. 

SPRAGUE: And then when you're in Washington State, where did you all process when they took the bus. 

BERZINSKY: You know I couldn't tell you where they took us. Some military. 

SPRAGUE: Base. Okay. 

BERZINSKY: And you go through a dozen different stations of getting your papers stamped and, you know, they have to do the they have to do the, the payroll and, and update your medals and update your, D.D. 214 and all the things that the military requires you to do. If you have a sheet of paper and it's got all these lines on it that has to get stamped by that particular department. I did that every place I ever went coming in and going out. Okay. So that that took a day, I think a good day, maybe longer. 

SPRAGUE: And what happened after that. 

BERZINSKY: That I was I was let go. 

SPRAGUE: You were out of the military? 

BERZINSKY: No, no, I still had time to serve. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: I made sure I was home for a leave. I had the 30 day leave. Okay. But once that processing was done, they just opened the door, and there you go. But don't wear your don't wear your military uniform while you travel. And obviously that because of the protesters, they they target you. But I always traveled military standby. Whenever I flew somewhere, I flew military standby because I had to pay for that. You didn't get free transportation, so I paid for that. In order to fly military standby, you have to wear your uniform. So I wore my uniform, and I. I regretted it because I was I was accosted at the airport. I remember I took a train someplace one time, and I was accosted at the train station. Yeah. Any place you went, if you were in uniform, you were a target. And they. And they targeted you. They'd call you names, they throw, they'd spit on you. That was welcome home. And it created an anger in me that I can't describe. So angry, so angry. We were warned about this in Vietnam. No guys coming in would tell us what's happening, and we didn't believe it. We wouldn't believe it. You know, I can't how can't happen. But it was all true. Everything you hear about that welcome home was true. Well, that was my welcome home. Then I got back home to Manitowoc, and, I was I really, I don't know, I didn't fit in. I felt out of place. I actually wanted to get back on duty. That's a long 30 days. I mean, if I was getting out for good, probably was different, but. But I still had time to serve, so I just felt out of place. I just kind of. I was listless, I just I drank a lot. I went out to the bars and drank, got in fights because somebody would mouth off and I would get in a fight because by then I was a pretty big guy. I wasn't the skinny guy that went into the army. I was I was fairly big. So I got in a number of fights, got in trouble. But, I was different. I wasn't the same kid from a couple of years before, so it was difficult. 

SPRAGUE: Where did you stay while you're on leave? 

BERZINSKY: I stay at home. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, yeah. I stayed my bedroom, stayed at home just like nothing happened. And it was like. It was like nothing. Like I was never gone. Nothing. Nothing special was ever done. No. No parties, no welcome home. There was no such thing as welcome home. You know, my family just kind of ignored where I was, which I was probably better. I was I probably appreciated that because I didn't want to talk about it then. Talking about everything was the last thing I wanted to do. Then it would have been a mistake anyway, because nobody wanted to hear because they could watch Vietnam on the news every single night. It was on the news every night, and I'm sure my parents watched it every night. But again, society didn't want to say. They didn't want me to talk about it. That's the last thing they wanted to hear. So that was my. That was my, welcome home from Vietnam. 

SPRAGUE: Were you able? Did you try to watch TV or not? I. 

BERZINSKY: I probably did, but I don't remember it. I do not remember watching TV, watching Vietnam on the news at night, but I probably did. I don't remember, there's a lot. There's a lot from back then I blocked out that I've just erased or buried it so deep. So there's a lot of things that I should remember, but I don't. And that frustrates the heck out of me. There are things I should remember, but I don't. And it's a common thing because when I talk to other guys, my peers, the guys who went through the same thing I did. They're all the same. They're all exactly the same. They blocked out big chunks of their life. So I'm not alone. But as frustrating as all heck. 

SPRAGUE: So at this point, were you looking to continue to get back to the Army? 

BERZINSKY: Well, yeah, because I knew. See, I had nine months to serve yet, give or take a little bit. And when I was in Washington state processing out of Vietnam at some station, they asked me where I want to serve the rest of my time, because obviously they looked at my records and I knew I had time to serve. 99% of the guys came back from Vietnam, stayed in the States. They would pick a place close to their home, you know, to serve out the rest of their time. And they asked me, where do you want to go? I said, can I go anywhere? Just. Yeah. And I said, would you send me back to Germany? And they said, sure, sign the paper. I was going back to Germany. I was so happy. I was looking forward because I was looking forward to that, because I love Germany. It was beautiful. Our dollar was strong there. You could. You were American soldiers lived like kings in Germany back then. So I was going back to Germany. I was looking forward to it. I was excited, even though I was still in the Army, I had rank. I was a while, I was only four at the time, but I had I had Vietnam experience behind me, so I figured I had I had something going for me going back to Germany and yeah, I was happy to do that. I was looking forward to it. 

SPRAGUE: What, where did you go? 

BERZINSKY: I went to Fort Dix and they sent me to Frankfurt again. And then I was assigned to Wurzburg, where the third Infantry Division was, and I there I was assigned to Headquarters Company of this unit in the motor pool. And after I got to back back to Germany for just a short while, I was promoted to E5, and I became the motor sergeant. So I was in charge of the motor pool in Germany and it was great. It was just great. I had freedom, I had rank, it was nice. 

SPRAGUE: Was that, headquarters and headquarters company of the third ID? 

BERZINSKY: Maybe it was third Infantry Division, but I don't remember the specific company. I was in it. It was the third Infantry Division was the top and then it was something else and something else and something else. I couldn't tell you what the breakdown was. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Like the October 18th Engineer Brigade, then the two 99th Combat Engineers. And then you had the company that's that was the the pecking order. But in Germany, with that division, I don't know how it broke down. I just know the patch I wore was the third Infantry Division patch. 

SPRAGUE: Right. 

BERZINSKY: And I was in the motor pool. Okay. At that particular base in Wurzburg. 

SPRAGUE: Was that at Leighton Barracks? 

BERZINSKY: Latent barracks was in Karlsruhe. 

SPRAGUE: Oh, Karlsruhe. Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah, that was latent Barracks in Karlsruhe. That was an old German. That was an old Nazi base that we took over in Wurzburg. It was just Wurzburg. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. 

BERZINSKY: I don't think it had a name of a base like the one in Karlsruhe. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. And, why, while you were at Wirtz Burg with the third ID? Yeah. What was it like in terms of how that went and what it was like serving in that unit? 

BERZINSKY: Oh, it was it was a great unit. I mean, they had a good history in World War two and World War One. My little part of the world was I was in charge of the motor pool. That was my world. I didn't really get involved in anything else with that unit, but it was a good unit. We had good officers, good NCOs. We had real good duty. The word iceberg base was a nice base, that movie theater and PBX and restaurant. And it was it was nice duty. It was really nice, especially after Vietnam. I was I was very happy there. 

SPRAGUE: Was there any, consideration that you might. It might be positive enough that you'd want to stay in or. 

BERZINSKY: Well, you know, I thought about that at the beginning when I got back there. But after Vietnam, having all the spit and polish and the inspections and the formations and the saluting people, I couldn't handle that anymore. I just could not handle the military discipline. So when they came along and tried to get me to re-enlist, I says, not a chance. No way. If it weren't, if I had never been to Vietnam. It's possible. It's possible. But after Vietnam, I couldn't handle the military discipline. I was I was not happy with that at all. So, so I there's no way I would have re-enlisted. But they tried. They offered me promotion, and they offered me money and, you know. But no way. That was not an option. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. So you got out. Tell me a little bit about the circumstances of leaving. 

BERZINSKY: Well, it was it was very just basic. You go through the same process again, got to get all your little stamps on their piece of paper and get to the airport, and they fly you home. And again, they tell you don't don't travel in military. By then I knew to change into civilian clothes. You know, I knew better then, because I think I took the train home from new Jersey. At that time, I didn't fly, but, I came home, I went back to the old job that I had when I enlisted and never spoke of Vietnam again for 40 plus years. Never thought. Well, I thought about it all the time, but I never spoke of it. I worked, I worked for 30 years at a company, and the only people that knew I was a Vietnam veteran were a few of the other Vietnam veterans that worked there, but we never talked about it in public. We never talked about it with our coworkers. Most of the people never knew I was a veteran because I kept I didn't talk about I kept quiet, and there was probably a maybe a dozen of us that worked. I worked at Budweiser, and, there were probably a dozen of us there that were Vietnam veterans. And we talked among ourself if we were in private someplace a little bit, but even even with each other, we wouldn't share that much just because society dictated that. You don't talk about it with my family. I never talked about it, ever. We never had a conversation about Vietnam. We talked about Germany, but never Vietnam. They never asked and I never volunteered. And I regret that. I regret that that I never was able to share with them. But I don't know how that would have worked. The society was against us, as it still is. But. 

SPRAGUE: Do you think that's primarily, because of the Vietnam service versus, not pick on Vietnam, but versus a World War Two service? 

BERZINSKY: Oh, absolutely. Because Vietnam was not a popular war. Vietnam was not supported by this country, by this government. My government didn't support Vietnam. It didn't support the veterans. You know, they had abandoned the veterans for a long time. Yeah. It just was not good. And with all the protesting, we just didn't talk about it. 

SPRAGUE: You had mentioned not talking about it for 40. 

BERZINSKY: 40 plus years. 

SPRAGUE: When did you start thinking about yourself and being more open about, well, being a veteran? 

BERZINSKY: A couple of local, local Vietnam veterans decided to form an organization to join the Vietnam Veterans of America because they were they were in existence from the in the 80s, and they decided to form a chapter in Manitowoc. So they had, they had a big meeting at a restaurant, and, oh, there was a couple hundred guys that showed up, guys just like me who never talked about Vietnam, who never let anybody know. And they organized this group. And we're one of the biggest chapters in Wisconsin now. And, when that when that started, when that organization started, that's when I started opening up about Vietnam. That's when I started talking about it and sharing with other veterans. I still couldn't share with a non veteran. That was just not an option. But that's when I started acknowledging it. And then we started going to the high school and and teaching a Vietnam War class in the high schools. We did that for probably 20 years. There'd be 20 or 30 of us that would go to the high school, and we'd take over the whole school for the day. And, that was that was good therapy, being able to talk about it. And, so it all kind of progressed from there. 

SPRAGUE: And that started with the Vietnam Veterans of America. Correct? Yeah. Out of Manitowoc. 

BERZINSKY: Yes. When we started chapter 731, I don't remember exactly when it was formed, but that's when I kind of came out of my shell and started becoming more vocal about Vietnam. I still have a hard time. Well, I still can't actually talk to someone who is not a veteran. That's still difficult because it's like night and day. You know, I, I grew up people into two groups, people like me and then everybody else. That's how I view. That's how I view life. If you're not a Vietnam veteran or even a veteran for that matter, then you're not part of my world. There's exceptions of course there's always exceptions. But but that's how my brain has processed people. Because of those experiences. Because the way I looked at it, in the way I perceived it and what really happened was the entire country was against me and my brothers, the entire country. The World War two veterans hated us. They rejected us. Rejected us. Unbelievable. They would not allow us in their organizations. They called us names. They treated us terribly. So, yeah, it's, it was a difficult time. 

SPRAGUE: Can you help us understand the, the brotherhood of, of Dock Tow and that organization. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, boy. Well, because of what we went through, because that stage was really bad and the number of people that were killed and wounded. There's not many survivors left. And they started this organization before I ever knew it existed. A few a few guys from a company I believe, started forming what they called the Brotherhood of Doctor Defenders, and they did some research and they were able to track down a couple hundred of, of the survivors. And it turned out that there was maybe 50 guys that were still left that would gather every year someplace in the country every year, and we would just sit down and just just reminisce and have a couple of nice meals and a banquet and share pictures. Everybody bring their their pictures and stuff, and we would just get together every year and just reminisce because we were a unique group. You know, we were we were abandoned there. And doctor, potentially we could have all been killed. So the people that survive, we have a special bond. And I know it's like that with other other units also that have gone through stuff like that. There's a lot of there's a lot of organized a lot of groups of veterans that do this have reunions of the survivors of their unit. And it's just. It's how can I describe the first time I went to a reunion? I was scared, I didn't know what to expect. And when I got there, I sat down and I started listening to the guys talking, and I suddenly realized that I wasn't alone, that my experiences were shared by other people. And it makes a difference in how you deal with them, because for the longest time, I was isolated. I. I isolated myself from the world. I isolated myself from everything. Not knowing that there's a bunch of guys out there exactly like me that did exactly the same thing. You know it. It's hard to describe. 

SPRAGUE: Could you tell us a little bit about, the patch? Okay. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah. After the siege. After the siege. Somebody. Somebody in the unit. I have no idea who did it. Somebody in the unit decided. I think it might have been the battalion commander. Might have been Colonel Howard. We need something to commemorate what these guys have been through to commemorate that battle. And he met, I don't know. He met with some local tailor, or he drew up, drew up a an idea. I never knew about it. I never knew about it. And had that patch made. And then one day at, at, I don't know what it was. It was a formation or something. He said, hey, we had these patches made for everybody who served during the siege. So the only people that can gather that got this patch were were soldiers that were actually there May and June of 1969. So it's a very finite number of soldiers that have that patch. But it was an unauthorized patch. So when we got to Quinlan, we could still wear it only on on base and on our place. I could wear it in the motor pool and I could wear it at that camp. But out in public, the umpires would tell you, because that's. That patch was originally hung from our pocket. It had a little hang tag on it and it was hung from our pocket. It wasn't sewn on the uniform. And the MPs would say, you can't wear that. It's not an official patch, which it wasn't. It wasn't sanctioned by anybody. It was just made. So we had to take it off. Now I when I went, when I went to Germany, I had that patch sewn on my dress uniform. I had it on my shoulder. Oh, I got in all sorts of trouble for that. And I thought I did not give up very easily, but I again, I had to take it off because it was not an authorized patch. So that patch was very significant. 

SPRAGUE: So that would have been your your class A's or your black. 

BERZINSKY: My green, my green class A uniform. Wow. Yeah. 

SPRAGUE: That would have been that would have you would have been located underneath your unit patch or your combat patch. 

BERZINSKY: Yeah, I would have had the 18th Engineer Brigade patch and then that dark toe patch. That's what we did in this one. I my my dress uniform would be it would be this on the top. No, this on the top and this on the bottom. And I had to take that off. I could keep this because that's an off. That's a unit patch. But the doctor defender patch was a no no. And they didn't make that many of them. They didn't make many at all. So I was fortunate to get one. 

SPRAGUE: And you were talking about off camera how the one that you have here today you think is that is original. 

BERZINSKY: I know this one. This is the original one. Because if you look at the way it's stitched, it's crude. It's very crude the way the letters are, they're not it's not straight. It's just it's very crude. This was this was made by some tailor in Vietnam in doctor, because we had a tailor and doctor. I'm sure he made that. 

SPRAGUE: What, you talk about this in the other interview, but I'd like you to kind of answer this question. What do you think about in terms of soldiers, people making those sacrifices that they made in Vietnam? 

BERZINSKY: That's a multi, multi answer question. Yeah. The way I look at it, I was a soldier. They, they, they built me in basic training. They took my brain and they programed it to be a soldier to follow orders and not to question authority, not to question the reason why you just did it. And that's the way I look at that question. I don't have an opinion on that. At the time, I didn't have an opinion on it. Now it was a waste. It was a huge waste. I read a lot. I read a lot of books on Vietnam, and I'm learning so much about how horribly run it was by the politicians and by the higher ranking officers, and those are things that we never saw. But it was being done. It was run politically. There was money involved. Our government was so corrupt and it was just it was just wrong on so many levels. But as a soldier. I'm not allowed to have that. I'm not allowed to have those feelings. They did a good job of programing me. But now that I look back and I see all this stuff that makes me angry. You know that wall shouldn't exist with all those names on it. We could have. We could have won that war so easily with so much less loss of life, very easily. But it was political, just like today. 

SPRAGUE: What do you think? Your life would have been like if you hadn't served. 

BERZINSKY: Oh, man. I think of that a lot. I have no idea where I would be, what I'd be doing. I don't know. It would be different because I realize now Vietnam changed me. Vietnam made me who I am. I mean, over the years I've been a very angry person. I've been an alcoholic for a long time. I've had failed marriages, I don't know, and it's all because of Vietnam. I know that. I don't know where I would be or what I'd be doing. I honestly don't. But I think about it. You know, where my life would have taken me. Don't know. Okay. If I had a little crystal ball, maybe. But. No, I think about those things. As you get older, you think about those things. You know, if I would have done something different. Going back, there was one thing. I would probably be dead now if I would have made this decision, at doctor. And this would be for the siege before the battle. They were looking for helicopter door gunners that's strictly volunteer. And they came to us and asked if anybody wanted to be a helicopter door gunner. And I remember at the time we were pretty safe up there. So I volunteered for a helicopter to be a helicopter door gunner, and it takes a while for that to go through the channels. And when they came back and said, okay, here are where you sign on the dotted line and we're going to transfer you to the helicopters. I decided not to sign. I don't know. I don't know what prompted me not to do it, but I probably thought about it and I thought, that's really dumb idea. But I think back and I thought if I would have accepted that transfer to be a helicopter door gunner, chances are I'd be dead. So I don't know. Life is about choices. Some good and some bad. 

SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview? 

BERZINSKY: I want to preserve. Well, the big motivation was. 

SPRAGUE: Go ahead, George. 

BERZINSKY: Well, that's a big motivation. Was this right here? Because when I'm gone, somebody else is going to have to be responsible for this weapon. And we all know this weapon carries with it a lot of rules and regulations and bad things from the government. And I didn't want to I didn't want to put that on someone. And that's been years. I've been thinking about this for years. What to do with this weapon and the history of how I got this weapon. So I wanted to preserve I wanted to preserve the legacy of this weapon and how I got it. And that's that's what prompted me to do this interview is basically this weapon, because now I can sleep at night knowing that my survivors will not have to deal with this, because it would have been a nightmare. Now I know it's going to someplace where it can be appreciated, maybe shared with the world, with the public, you know, or whatever, because it's been bothering me for many, many, many years because the only option that I had for keeping this legally was to physically cut this in three pieces with a cutting torch. It has to be burned with a cutting torch to what do they call that? Demilitarize it to make it unable to be fired. That's the only option to own this weapon legally. And I couldn't bear to do that. That would be a crime. So this way at least it's going to be preserved. And the story is being told. And I can sleep at night now, knowing that little piece on my shoulders is gone. That's why I'm doing this interview. It's all about that weapon. 

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did we miss anything you'd like to cover? 

BERZINSKY: I am, Probably five minutes after you leave here, I'll come up with 100 things I wanted to say. But, to be honest with you, right now, I think I've shared. I've shared more with you than I've shared with a lot of people. Not too many people. Nobody knows the story of that gun other than a few close family. So that was the important thing. 

SPRAGUE: Okay, then that concludes the interview. 

BERZINSKY: Okay.