[Interview begins]

JONES: Today is Thursday, February 15th, 2024. This is an interview conducted in person with Vietnam Navy veteran Robert Endres. The interviewer is Raleigh Jones, and this interview is being recorded for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Project. Mr. Endres, during the interview, can I call you by your first name? 

ENDRES: Sure. Bob is fine. 

JONES: Let's start with you telling us about your very early years. 

ENDRES: Well, my mom and dad bought this farm in March of 1948, and I was born that year. I spent most of my life here on this farm, just growing up. I was a farm kid, milking cows, doing chores, and baling hay in the summer when you got older. I went to Saint Michael's School in Dane for eight years of grade school and then to Lodi High School for four years. 

JONES: Any siblings? 

ENDRES: There was eight of us. 

JONES: So you had seven siblings? 

ENDRES: Seven siblings. 

JONES: Wow. And where were you in that? 

ENDRES: The third. 

JONES: Third from the oldest. 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: What was the total count of how many of each? 

ENDRES: You mean sex? There was three boys and five girls. The oldest one was born when Dad was in Europe. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: They got married before he went over, and he didn't see her until she was 13 months old.

JONES: So, that was the youngest child. 

ENDRES: No, the oldest. 

JONES: The oldest. Let's talk a little bit about your dad because he was just mentioned. Was your dad drafted or did he enlist? 

ENDRES: He had two brothers and himself, and the draft board came to Grandpa. The oldest one was married, maybe had one or maybe two kids. But it was between Dad and his brother Ed.  They told Grandpa, "We don't care which one, but one has to go."  And Grandpa said, "Well, I can't make a choice like that."  Dad said, "I don't want to see Eddie go. I'll go."  Dad would have liked to get out of it. He didn't want to deal with it.  

JONES: What was the time frame? Was this relatively early in World War II, or are we talking approximately 1942 here? 

ENDRES: 1942 is kind of right. 

JONES: Was your dad farming at that point? 

ENDRES: Yeah, and he was in milk delivery, when you go door to door in Madison. 

JONES: And he was married and had a kid at that point. 

ENDRES: No, there is no kid. I think their anniversary is August 14th, 1943. He was in the service, and he came home on leave for two weeks and got married. And then Mom went with him to California and Oregon and different states for training. They ended up on the East Coast, and Mom came home. 

JONES: And your dad ultimately went to Europe? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: And ultimately ended up in France and Germany. 

ENDRES: Yeah. In D-Day+1 is what we figured. He talked about "Bed-Check Charlie."  German planes would fly over, and if they'd see a group of Americans, they'd come back and machine gun the whole area. He tried to hide or jump in a foxhole. Two guys were on top of him, and they might have saved his life. I don't know if they got hurt or not, but he hurt his knee. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: That must have happened most nights, and then whoever was in charge said, "You're endangering yourself and the whole company," because Dad couldn't run because of his knee, so they put him on funeral detail. I don't know how long that was, but he kind of felt that might have saved him. 

JONES: We'll pivot away from him soon, but to get a couple more details about him, I understand that he was in the Army through the end of the war in Europe. And so, as we've talked, among other things, he was there for the liberating of concentration camps. 

ENDRES: He told me that one night and never other than that one time.  He said that when he went into Germany, he had to go with a lieutenant, and they would kick people out of their houses.  The Americans would take over the house. He could speak German. He was brought up speaking German. My mom did too, but not as quite as much. That was his full heritage.  German. 

JONES: Now we're going to pivot back to you. It's probably 1965, and you make the decision that you're going to enlist. 

ENDRES: When I was in high school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I wasn't going to go on to school. I didn't have a job, and at that time, you kind of figured you'd probably graduate high school, get a job, get a car, get established, and then here comes a draft notice. I didn't even know where Vietnam was. I couldn't have found it on a map. But I thought I'd go into the Navy, and then I'd be in the boat. So I and three other guys signed up. I think it was March or April of 66. I was 17, and they called it a "kiddie cruise." If you signed up before 18, you'd get out a day before you turned 21. There was four of us, but there was a guy they wouldn't take because of his glasses.  Larry Dolphin was not out of high school.  He really wanted to go, but they wouldn't take him or Dave, but Charlie Radl and I went in, supposedly on the buddy system. That really didn't amount to much. We almost got split up right away. 

JONES: You went in with a friend, but very soon you and the friend were split up. 

ENDRES: When we reported, one was going to San Diego and the other one, Great Lakes. Well, we're supposed to be together. The buddy system. They did switch both of us to Great Lakes. And then you get your ID card and look at it.  It's for a four-year contract. Our parents went to Robert Kastenmeier and Proxmire. By the first duty station, they changed the contract to a straight three years.  

JONES: Were you the first member of your family to go into the military from your generation? 

ENDRES: I believe so. I think my brother, two years older, got in the reserves. It was it was hard to get into reserves, and there was a lot of people that wanted to do that. 

JONES: When you went into the Navy, I know you got your draft notice, but were you actually drafted or did you decide to enlist? 

ENDRES: We enlisted. I was still in high school. I wouldn't have got a draft notice, probably for a year after I got out. 

JONES: When you enlisted, what was the reaction of your parents at that point? 

ENDRES: I don't remember any strong reaction one way or the other. We were always kind of encouraged to do whatever we wanted to do. And Dad did say, "Try to be good at it." 

JONES: Yeah. 

ENDRES: That was it.  It didn't make any difference what you wanted to do. 

JONES: So you've enlisted, and you were still 17 when you enlisted? 

ENDRES: That was the "Kiddie Cruise." I'm just guessing March or April because my birthday is May 20th.  

JONES: Tell us about basic training. 

ENDRES: It was getting a haircut, shaving your head. When we first got off the busses--- 

JONES: This is at Great Lakes. 

ENDRES: Yeah. You get in this big gym, and a guy gives you a little talk and says, "Do you know what nothing is?"  You didn't say it loud enough, so you had to repeat it louder. And then he'd say, "Well, you're less than nothing!" I thought that was kind of rude. I thought you get out of high school, you're something special. It wasn't real hard, but that was probably the most physically fit I've ever been. They get you up early and march. You had fire watches. I always needed sleep. I remember sitting to learn how to tie knots. I sat there, but I couldn't stay awake, so they had me stand up. I almost slept that way. 

JONES: Any other stories about basic training that you want to tell us? 

ENDRES: We had one black guy. Everybody liked him. He is in the picture, but I thought he hit somebody, and he was discharged. I remember one guy got a Dear John letter. I didn't see it, but he cut his wrist, and I never seen him again, but I don't think he died. We'd wash our own clothes and that white sailor hat. You'd brush that hat, and in the toilet, there's a little tab.  You'd tie the hat to the tab, stick it in the toilet, and flush the toilet. That is how we rinsed it off. But the toilet was clean. We cleaned everything.  Everything was so clean.  I think we even cleaned the tile with a mirror on our hands and knees. I didn't do that much of that, but hospital corners on the bed---

JONES: Let's talk about training after basic training. Where did you get your next set of training? 

ENDRES: From there, I think it was two weeks leave at home. I had orders for Sanford, Florida. It was a U.S. Naval Air Station. It was just a small air base compared to a lot of them.  When I was in high school, I took personal use typing, and that was on my papers. It was about 20 words a minute, and that was enough. They needed somebody in the legal office, and I was kind of a go-for.  You know, take these over to that place, and I typed some stuff and made coffee. 

JONES: And this was still at Sanford. 

ENDRES: Yeah, I was there maybe a month or two. And then they put me in personnel. When people were transferred to the air base, I'd have to report their arrival. 

JONES: The paperwork was associated with people coming and going. 

ENDRES: For me, it was almost all coming. 

JONES: That would make sense that there would be people coming into---

ENDRES: Yeah. And there are people leaving. The tour of duty was for a year. It was called shore duty. 

JONES: Okay, so how long do you think you were in Florida at that camp? 

ENDRES: It was probably September til September, a year. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: And I kind of really liked it there. 

JONES: So from 66 to 67. 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: I think it's kind of interesting that I looked up a little bit about that camp in Florida. It closed in '68.  Just one year after you were there, they closed it.  

ENDRES: Really?  We were by Orlando, and when my nephew went down to Disney World, I asked him, "Did you ever see Sanford?"  He said, "I think we landed at Sanford-Orlando Airport." 

JONES: Yeah. That's especially what happens to Air Force bases when the military ceases using them. They're turned over, and they become civilian. 

ENDRES: I'm sure that was it. Navy squadrons would come in there, and they'd train taking off.  They'd circle and then land like they're trying to get the feel for landing on an aircraft carrier. I'd watch them. They's sit there, and they'd rev the engines, and I'm thinking, hold the brakes.  And then it was just like...whew!  Gone!  It gives you a chill.  

JONES: I would think so. So, did you have any idea when you went to Sanford that you were going to be there for a year? 

ENDRES: Yeah, I think the orders said a year. 

JONES: When you were in Sanford, you were basically assigned to the personnel department, doing the work that was done in that department.  

ENDRES: At first, I was at that legal office, but I was just kind of go-for. And I did a little typing.  The other people I was with, when they first reported, they'd be on KP.  I never did KP, so Mr. Leschensky's personal use typing paid off. If it hadn't done that, I don't know what I would have been doing.  

JONES: Ultimately, did you become a good typist? 

ENDRES: I could do 32 words a minute. No mistakes. I always tell people I could do a lot more, but you wouldn't be able to read it. 

JONES: A year goes by, it's now 1967, and you got orders to go where? 

ENDRES: There was one group of us that were getting orders, but everyone is going to ships, and I got US Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 8. I said to a guy, "What's this?" He said, "You're going to be a Seabee." 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: I never heard of a Seabee. I looked at my enlistment papers. On the bottom, there was "volunteer for construction battalion duty," and I can see it's my initials.  When we signed up, they just said, "Sign here.  Sign there.  Initial this."  I'm pretty sure it was blank. 

JONES: Yeah. 

ENDRES: That's why I was looking for this. I know we signed up when we were in high school, but there was nothing saying anything on these forms. When we reported to Great Lakes, the enlistment started. 

JONES: What was the wording on the paper for what you were assigned to?  You call it the Seabees, but what did they call it? 

ENDRES: Well, U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 8. 

JONES: Aid. That word. 

ENDRES: Eight, the number. 

JONES: Eight, okay. Naval construction Battalion. After you got that assignment, it didn't say Vietnam, but did you know that's where you were going next? 

ENDRES: I assumed it was. 

JONES: So tell us how you got to Vietnam. 

ENDRES: Well, then let's see. I stayed in Sanford as long as I could.  You had a month.  You could kind of pick the date when you're going to leave. I would have liked to stay the whole time, so I picked the end of September, and then I must have come home. 

JONES: So this would have been in September of '67? 

ENDRES: Yeah, I'm thinking probably two weeks of vacation or leave. 

JONES: And then you were off to Vietnam? 

ENDRES: No, California. 

JONES: Okay, then. 

ENDRES: Port Hueneme. If you want the spelling, it is H-U-E-N-E-M-E. California. And then you did training, and when I reported in, they wanted to know who Endres is, and they said, "You made third class."  They knew.  If I was just a seaman, I probably would have done construction as a Seabee.   

JONES: So this training that you had, this is not at Camp Pendleton yet. 

ENDRES:  No. 

JONES:  So how long were you at this first camp in California? 

ENDRES: We were there for the training and stuff. And how do you know about Camp Pendleton? 

JONES: We'll get to that. I read your paperwork. 

ENDRES: Oh, okay. [Chuckles] From there, we went to Camp Pendleton for two weeks. 

JONES: But before you get to Pendleton, how long were you at the first camp in California? 

ENDRES: Oh, must have been two months. 

JONES: Then from there, where did you go? 

ENDRES: From Port Hueneme, it was just two weeks in Pendleton.  It was supposed to be training, just to be able to defend ourselves, I mean, throw a grenade. Be thankful you didn't enlist in the Marines. God, it got cold. Maybe it was more than two weeks. It was cold, but we had an oil burner and blankets. The Marines had a bonfire almost every night up on a hill. And you can see them running around the bonfire, shouting, "Kill! Kill! Kill 'em!"  Holy crap. And when they were done with that, they weren't given blankets or oil. The Marines believed, "You don't need that."  One day, they were marching, you know, fast, all in-step for the whole company or whatever group it was. And somebody must have did something wrong, and an officer shouted, "What do you think you are? A Seabee?"  We were kind of a joke to them. 

JONES: So after Pendleton, then did you leave the U.S.? 

ENDRES: No. That was just for two weeks. Then we went back. 

JONES: To where? 

ENDRES: To Port Hueneme. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: I got to tell you a story, though, about Camp Pendleton. That must be a big base. 

JONES: Huge. 

ENDRES: We were bivouacked there, and we were supposed to defend this hill from the aggressors. We weren't there very long, and then the guys from headquarters said we are supposed to go down and set up an ambush.  We walked. It wasn't very far from where the hill was. There's a road, and we thought, "Oh, this is a good spot." There were probably nine, ten, eleven of us, half on one side of the road, half on the other side.  We're just waiting and hoping somebody comes.  All of a sudden, two sets of headlights are driving toward us.  It was dark.  I remember Carl Hughes saying, "Hold your fire.  Wait til they get in the kill zone."  And then he said, "Fire!" We just opened up!  Here it was cops, and they were behind their doors, pointing their guns back at us!  Somebody had called in because they heard automatic weapons firing, which is unusual. 

JONES: And you were shooting, but not with live ammunition? 

ENDRES: No. Blanks. I don't know how many shells. Boom. Boom. I seen them open their doors, and everybody had guns pointed back, and I knew they didn't have blanks. 

JONES: And was this a cop car?  

ENDRES: There was two of them. 

JONES: Civilian cops? Or was this military cops? 

ENDRES: Civilian cops. We made L.A. Times with that. That was the end of the ambushing. They called back and said, "You just ambushed some cops." 

JONES: And just for your story, did the cops ever return fire? 

ENDRES: No. I was just behind a little bush when I seen it. I wanted to dig into the ground. But the cops must have been completely startled. 

JONES: You hear the sound of gunfire. As a civilian, who's going to think that it's blanks?  

ENDRES: Yeah.   

JONES: You were lucky. 

ENDRES: I could picture it.  As much shooting, we had them dead too, right?  

JONES: So later, the incident was written up in the L.A. Times. 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: And presumably somebody got in trouble, but you weren't privy to that. 

ENDRES: No, I didn't hear anything. I heard, "We just ambushed some cops." We went back up the hill, and that was the end of ambushing.

JONES: So then where were you after Pendleton? You went back to the other camp? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES:  And you were there for how long? 

ENDRES: Until we left for Vietnam. And that had to be the first part of February. 

JONES: So then you left California in February of 1968? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: For Vietnam. 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: Now, I'm going to interrupt you. Even as a civilian, or excuse me, even in February of 1968, you had to be aware when you were watching the news that the TET Offensive was starting in January. 

ENDRES: That didn't really mean much to me.  

JONES: But it did when you landed in Vietnam? 

ENDRES:  Yeah. 

JONES: The TET Offensive started in January of 68, and you land in Vietnam in February of 68; tell me about this. 

ENDRES: This is the way I remember it. I'm pretty sure we left from Travis Air Force Base.  Propellers. There is no jets.  Then we land in Hawaii.  Never got off the plane. Refueled. I'm almost positive we went to Guam.   Refueled. The Philippines.  We never get off. Then we are going to land in Da Nang, Vietnam, and the pilot came on and said, "We have to drop fast. Chew gum, if you got it. Keep your mouth open. Swallow air."  And I kept thinking, "How do I swallow air?" Oh my God, did my teeth hurt! My eyes just watered. 

JONES: And this was the landing in Vietnam? 

ENDRES: In Da Nang, Vietnam. 

JONES: Did you ever find out why the landing was so hard? 

ENDRES: It wasn't hard. They had to drop out of the sky. They didn't want to be shot out of the sky.  It was during the TET. 

JONES: Right.  

ENDRES: I am thinking that's the reason why. 

JONES: So this was not like landing nowadays at Dane County Airport? 

ENDRES: The pressure! They'd be pressurized, wouldn't they?  They had to have been.  It was a prop job, and he just said, "We have to drop fast."  You know, just the pressure difference!  My teeth!  My eyes watered! Oh yeah, your ears! That that was all plugged up, like when you jump in a swimming pool. 

JONES: Okay, so you land in Da Nang? 

ENDRES: I'm pretty sure it's a C-130. I don't remember going on that way, but the back end opens up.  On the way over. I don't remember it being uncomfortable, but it was just ropes.  You had your back to the side of the plane, and in the middle, there is CONEX boxes, and I'm sure there was guys on ropes with their backs to the side of the plane on the other side of the CONEX boxes.  Rope seats.  But I don't remember it being uncomfortable. I don't know how long that would have took. 

Then when that ramp came down, they might have took off some CONEX boxes first.  I didn't think about this until after I was discharged, but you walked off, and my eyes are just watering.  You're still trying to get your bearings from that pressure change. There's CONEX boxes just to the right, and we went to the left of the boxes. To the right, there were some bags, like three foot apart.  It was neat. Orderly. I'm sure it was body bags. I don't know how they got that close to them. I don't remember that part because I just trying to get my bearings. 

JONES: I take it that was the first time you saw body bags lined up? 

ENDRES: Yeah, but I didn't know what they were. I distinctly remember seeing them, not thinking a whole lot of it. Even at the time I was over there, I never thought about them until I was home, discharged. They were body bags, I'm sure.   They're black, kind of a canvas.  It wasn't metal. 

JONES: So, you land in Da Nang? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: And then what? 

ENDRES: Then we got in the back of open trucks, and they drove us up to Phu Bai. We had an office there, but it was TET yet, and I think we were the only ones there. We had to protect our own perimeter at night. 

JONES: From what I understand, you pronounced it Phu Bai. Is that correct? 

ENDRES: Pardon? 

JONES: The name of the place was Phu Bai. 

ENDRES: Yeah, it was a little village. It was between Phu Bail and Hue, but it was closer to Phu Bail, from what I remember. 

JONES: It was big, basically a camp?

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: Approximately how many U.S. soldiers were at that camp? 

ENDRES: Boy, when we got there, I think we're the only ones there.  I'm thinking there was like 900 guys in a battalion.  We had to go to the perimeter at night, which was trenched out, and you'd watch for two hours.  Then you woke up your partner, and he'd watch. You got to sleep and rotated like that.  It was dark.  You just stare hard in the darkness. You'd see all kinds of animals and everything else, you know, in your mind. I never seen it close, but I heard it. It must have been a mortar like deal. It would pop behind you and go up in the air.  There would be another pop, and a flare came out, and a little parachute would come down.  It would light up the area. If there was anything out, you'd see it. 

JONES: When you got to this base camp, this is just in the aftermath of the TET Offensive. Or was the TET Offensive still going on? 

ENDRES: I never seen any of it, but yeah, supposedly.  We went to Hue; it was the Citadel. They [enemies] were in the Citadel, and the Marines were told not to blow it up.  It was historical. They could have blew it up. 

JONES: When you get to this base camp, you're in the Navy, and at that point, what was your first assignment other than this night guard duty? 

ENDRES: That was just at night.  During the day, we just did whatever. If you were a storekeeper, you did that.  Post office. 

JONES: Which of those duties were yours? 

ENDRES: I went right to the personnel office, and I started doing that same thing, people reporting in.  I got to know the stencil machine, how to make a stencil. 

JONES: Is it fair to call it office work? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: Let's get a little more detail. Did you do any typing? 

ENDRES: There was typing. There was a Xerox machine.  That was almost Star Wars!  With the stencil machine, I'd type forms. Did you ever see one? 

JONES:  Oh yeah, I'm familiar with the old stencils. 

ENDRES: And then you put it on the drum, and it got messy no matter how you did it. 

JONES: But you were doing that type of work, paperwork. 

ENDRES: Just forms. You kept busy.  But then, I don't remember how long the days were.  After a week or two of going out in a trench at night, they had different colors, like if there's no enemy in sight.  One night, after we had been there for 2 or 3 weeks, they would say we had the highest color. It was 100% alert.  No one slept. A box of grenades was passed down the trench.  They said, "Take 5 or 6 and pass them on down." I thought, "Oh, I don't want to be here."

JONES: Is it safe to say that during the day you were doing general office duties, and because it was inside the base camp, you were relatively safe? 

ENDRES: Yeah. We didn't carry guns or anything.  We trained and had M14s. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: When we got over there, they took us out, and we shot M16s, just to get familiar with that. 

JONES: It was at night when you were doing guard duty, and you're obviously holding a weapon in your hand, and you make sure you have grenades. And at that point it was--- 

ENDRES: It was just that one night we had grenades. 

JONES: But when you're doing guard duty, you're saying to yourself rhetorically, "Holy cow, I'm really in a war zone."

ENDRES: I was scared. I thought, "I enlisted. I don't have to be here." That night too, I can remember Jim Barnes from Reno.  He was terrified when we left the U.S, and he was over there before.  They could take you over for two deployments. They made it sound like if you missed troop movement, you could be shot or something. Jim Barnes had toothpaste all over his mouth.  I don't know if he was drunk or what. And he's a good guy, but that night, I didn't see it happen, but I guess he jumped up and was waving his weapon up and down. I never seen him again. 

JONES: Was he hit by friendly fire? 

ENDRES: No, no, he just was just terrified. I didn't see it, but others said what he had done.  In fact, he worked with us. He could play the guitar. 

JONES: So this one guy in your unit basically lost it? 

ENDRES: That's right, and I'm sure he was sent home. 

JONES: How often did you do this guard duty?

ENDRES: That was every night. 

JONES: Literally every night? So your daytime hours were spent in personnel, and you did guard duty every night? 

ENDRES: Yeah. And I don't think there was a chow hall.  I think we'd eat them K rations or C rations. I'm pretty vague on that, but I don't think at that time that there was a chow hall. 

JONES: I'm just surprised you did as much guard duty as you did. 

ENDRES: Yeah, but it was just for that time when it was just Seabees.  Then the 101st came next to us, and they took care of the perimeter. 

JONES: Before that happened, though, you were doing guard duty. How many months do you think that lasted?  Was it a good month?

ENDRES: A good month.  Maybe five weeks, but it was seven days a week. You didn't know what day of the week it was.  They were all the same. 

JONES: During the time that you were doing guard duty, did you ever discharge your weapon? 

ENDRES:  No. 

JONES:  But from your perspective, the possibility existed. 

ENDRES: Yeah, especially that one night in the trenches.  At Camp Pendleton, we threw one grenade, and I kept thinking about it in Vietnam, you pull the pin, and then you do something else, and then you throw it, but it never came to that. They must have thought something was going to happen. There was no rotating that night. It was everybody stays awake.  Nobody sleeps. 

JONES: While you were doing this guard duty, were there ever instances where the base camp was attacked? 

ENDRES: No. 

JONES: The base camp was never attacked while you did guard duty. But what about later? 

ENDRES: I never seen it, but it was pretty close. The camp got to be pretty big with the 101st and the 82nd and the Australians. 

JONES: So, starting in March of 1968, the base camp grew in size?  

ENDRES: Yes, when the 101st was next to us, and there were others.  They call them Rock Marines [Republic of Korea]. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: They said, "Don't mess with them."  They were Republic of Korea Marines. They tortured. They were there, and I think Australians.  They weren't a big group like a 101st.  The 101st was a pretty big group. 

JONES: After the Marines took over the nighttime guard duty, did your workload ease up a little bit? 

ENDRES: I'm trying to think.  We'd work six days and a half day on Sunday.  You'd have Sunday afternoon off.  It continued like that. 

JONES: This was March of 1968. How much longer were you at the base camp? 

ENDRES: That's until we left. There's something else. 

JONES: Go ahead. 

ENDRES: I was in that personnel office, and I got to know guys, but then they needed somebody for security and education. It ended up that I worked for one lieutenant. It was just him and I in that office.  People would come in, maybe wanting to be an officer.  He had to help with filling out paperwork and taking tests, GED and a few others. I kept busy. 

JONES: Who were you reporting to at that point? 

ENDRES: Bobby Clark. Lieutenant Bobby Clark. It was just him and I. 

JONES: It was just basically a two-person operation?

ENDRES: Yeah. Echo Company is what it really was. I don't remember exactly what month, but Martin Luther King was killed. 

JONES: In April of '68. 

ENDRES: And Bobby Kennedy. 

JONES: In the same time frame. 

ENDRES: Shortly after then, I remember we'd go between where I was working to the personnel office to get stuff.  That's when I found out that Bobby was killed, and I told my lieutenant.  I couldn't say he cried, but he just said, "What's this world coming to?" He just about screamed. 

JONES: You and the lieutenant are running this small personnel office at the base camp. And I take it you're staying at the base camp and never leaving? 

ENDRES: Sometimes I'd go with a dentist to Phu Bai, and I think we also went to Hue. 

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: And he'd just try to treat civilians or young kids or whoever wanted their teeth worked on. To be honest, I don't think we had guns.  If we did, it was a pistol.  I am almost positive we didn't carry a rifle.  It was during the day.  

JONES: But from your perspective, you felt relatively safe in the base camp. 

ENDRES: Yeah, but---

JONES: You were there during the day. 

ENDRES: We could get mortared and rocketed.  For some reason, our hut had a water cooler, one of them old ones.  You tip them upside down. It was glass. I walked up to the command post and filled it up.  I was just holding it and talking to a guy, and all of a sudden, there was a big noise.  I kind of looked at the noise.  What the hell's that?  I came back to the guy I was talking to, and he was gone!  I realized it was a mortar or rocket.  That was maybe two huts down from us. It was just blown up.  That was my first attack, and after that, I'd hear the incoming.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night and run to the shelter. I don't know how to describe it, but that sound, you know what it is. 

JONES: At night while you were sleeping, there were times when you were awakened by the rockets? 

ENDRES: And we got hit during the day.  I'm thinking it was maybe 5 or 6 times, and it was never like 5 or 6 mortars.  It was like 1 or 2 at the most.  And it almost seemed like we got hit more often after the 101st came there.  They [enemy] knew who we were.  We weren't hurting anybody, you know.  That was my thought. 

JONES: As a layperson, I could understand why the camp was hit more with rockets and mortars after the 101st came because their guys weren't staying in the base camp. They were going out in the bush every day and stirring things up, and the VC knew that. 

ENDRES: I was talking about the war to a guy [Roy] I worked with, and he showed me a letter.  It was March 4th.  The guys that he had left said they went to Phu Bai.  I asked Roy where he was, and he says most of the time he didn't know. He says, "I'm sure the captain knew. But you'd go out, like for a month and just search and destroy and then come back." 

One night there was a drunk, and to me, he looked like an older guy, maybe 40.  He had been in Korea. He was drunk, and he started crying about all the guys that were killed.  I don't know how he stumbled in our hut. 

Oh, then when I realized that we were being hit, I had that jug of water.  I think that other guy ran into command post because I don't know how he got away so fast, but I went to the shelter.  Supposedly, it could withstand a bomb.  I kept thinking, "I hope I didn't drop that water.  If I broke that, they're going to kill me."  But I got out after the attack was done, and there the jug was sitting on the side hill. 

JONES: Good.  The water jug did not break.

ENDRES: That water was cold!  No one else had cold water, but you'd look at it, and there'd be brown stuff floating in there. You drank it, but I thought a guy should put underwear or something to catch the bigger stuff. But it was cold, and I don't know how we ever got that jug. 

JONES: For purposes of time frame here, March or April was when the 101st came to the base camp, and the camp balloons in size because of the various people coming in, the Koreans, the Australians and the Americans. Were your duties still working in the personnel office that fall? 

ENDRES: I stayed with security with Bobby Clarke, just him and I for the rest of the time.  

JONES: Did the Navy consider you a Seabee? I know that you got a Seabee award one time. Tell me about that. 

ENDRES: It was just that officer I worked for. 

JONES: He put you in for an "attaboy" to give you an award?

ENDRES: Yeah, yeah. 

JONES: And what time frame was that? 

ENDRES: December of '68. 

JONES: Was that CB of the Month or something like that? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: And the irony is that--- 

ENDRES: I wasn't a Seabee. 

JONES: So, for example, on your official paperwork from the military, does the word Seabee ever appear in that document? 

ENDRES: Seabee of the Month, you mean?  I guess we were Seabees.  I had the emblem on my shirt.  

JONES: Okay. 

ENDRES: But I didn't have a rating like construction, equipment operator, or electrician. 

JONES:  Then the calendars turn to 1969. How long did you stay in Vietnam? 

ENDRES: It was from February to September.  I came over on the last flight. In September, I was the advance party going back. 

JONES: So, in September of 1968, you left Vietnam. And did you come back to the U.S.? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: California? 

ENDRES: Yeah. That was that was kind of odd too.  We left Da Nang, and they asked if you want to look at Vietnam one more.  If we did, they would tip the plane. Everybody shouted, "Noooo!"  Then we went to Atsugi, Japan. And that there was kind of a bigger base, and we were there like 4 or 5 days. But they kept telling us, "Don't leave the base; your plane is leaving." You wanted to go home, but I bet they knew from day one, there wouldn't be a plane. If it was 4 or 5 days, a guy could have went into town and seen what Japan was like, but I never did. That was a jet, and I think it might have been commercial.  It left from Tsuiki and went back to Travis. But when we got close to California, the pilot came on and said, "We'd recommend you get in civilian clothes as soon as you can. There could be protesters."  I didn't have civilian clothes. I'm pretty sure I came home on leave from Travis. 

JONES: So, after you landed at Travis, apparently you had leave for a while. 

ENDRES: It was probably two weeks, and I flew home but had to go back to Port Hueneme.  It was in October. November? December?  God, I must have been back at Port Hueneme for five months.  Then I got discharged.  I had less, or just about three months, to go until my enlistment was up.  Bobbie Clark helped or gave me an early out because they didn't think it was worth taking me over there again. 

JONES: Again. 

ENDRES: And then discharge me. 

JONES: You were discharged, I'm going from memory here, in March of 1969.  

ENDRES: Yeah. Something happened in Vietnam, as far as I know, and they never talked about stuff like that.  I think there's only two guys, and maybe 900 is an exaggeration, out of how many guys were there.  One was electrocuted. It was a fuel dump and something with electric drill.  It must have got wet, and he was killed.  Electrocuted.  And there's another guy.  Like I said, it was not much talked about, but he had blown up a tournapull tire, and it blew up and decapitated him. 

JONES: Was it a tire? Is that what you said? 

ENDRES: Yeah. And a big one, a tournapull.  Maybe because it was just myself and this lieutenant, we didn't get to hear a lot of this stuff either.  Something else.  They had little bottles of Coke.  That was cold too. They had that in the personnel office, so I'd go over to get that.  God, I craved it.  They said there was cocaine in it.  I did crave it. 
 
JONES: It was probably just the sugar. 

ENDRES: Yeah, something. They were such little bottles. 

JONES: The eight-ounce bottles. 

ENDRES: It was a dime apiece. Something else-- Later on, there was an EM club, an enlisted men's club.  There was beer, but you had a card for two beers a day.  I never seen anybody get drunk except that one guy from the 101st. 

JONES: So, in March of 69, you're discharged. And where were you actually discharged? California? 

ENDRES: Port Hueneme.  

JONES: Then you made your way back from California to---

ENDRES: Here. 

JONES: To here. Before we move on to the next stage of your life, is there anything else that we have not talked about for your service that you want to cover? 

ENDRES: You know, you kind of wonder about your memory, too, like on that plane. I don't know how long it would've took, but I don't remember ever going to a bathroom. Maybe they brought snacks to eat, but I don't remember that happening. It was seven months in Vietnam, and I can only remember taking a shower once. It must of been more than that, but it was kind of a makeshift deal, and it might have been towards the end. 

JONES: Well, I would think that the lieutenant who worked with you would be aware of that. [Both laugh.]

ENDRES: Yeah, you'd think so. I wasn't the only one, and I'm thinking I would know where there was a shower. I also was thinking who did our laundry, but I think Vietnamese women did your clothes. I'm pretty sure they even put plastic over them. I don't know how they kept it all straight. You had a locker, but I didn't have a whole lot in there. You had a nail, and you hung your helmet on that. 
 
There's double bunk beds, and I was on the bottom with a guy named Leigh Larson on top. He was a full-blooded Eskimo, and I'd like to find out whatever happened to him.  I worked with him in personnel.  He was born in Nome and never knew his dad.  He went to the University of Alaska, maybe in Juneau.  He brought this girl home, and his mom asked where she lived.  Then she said to Leigh, "That's your half-sister."  They must have had the same father. If Leigh got sick or didn't feel good, he wouldn't take an aspirin or anything.  He'd go to the gym and work out and sweat it out.  He got out of the military somehow, and I think they helped him get out because the heat in Vietnam got to him.   

One night it was dark, and there's no electricity in the shelter. We were getting mortared, so we ran in there. There's a Vietnamese woman that I just happened to sit next to.  She said, "Goddam VC!" because she wanted to make sure I knew she was on our side.

JONES: Now that we've finished the Vietnam experience year, you were released from the military. Tell us about the next stage of life. 

ENDRES: To come back, you sign up for unemployment and they did treat you pretty good.  At least they would say, "I got a decent one or something like that."  I was in no hurry, but they let me know that you got to start looking for a job. 

JONES: What was the first job you had after you got out? 

ENDRES: It was Madison Gas Electric.  I could have worked for Madison Silos, and there was a landscaping outfit. Every place you'd go, you could get a job.  It was really easy.  I knew guys that worked at the silo company, but they had kind of steered me towards Madison Gas. 

JONES:  What were you doing with MG&E? 

ENDRES: It was with gas, natural gas, digging in lines. Maybe house piping and a little bit with appliances. 

JONES: Did you dig the gas lines?  

ENDRES: Quite a bit of time I'd run backhoe. And then later on, I was a foreman. 

JONES: So later, you became a foreman? 

ENDRES: Yeah. 

JONES: How long were you with MG&E ultimately? 

ENDRES: From '69.  Actually, I worked there from March or April til school started, and then I went to Whitewater for one semester.  Then I went back to MG&E.  

JONES: You went back to MG&E, and then how long ultimately did you work there? 

ENDRES: Til 2008. I only worked at MG&E. 

JONES:  You've been retired since the '08? 

ENDRES: Yeah. From that time, we had some beef cows and sheep, a small farm.  In 2001, my mom got multiple myeloma, and my dad had a stroke. That ain't got much to do with it, but that's when we started looking into his army stuff. 

JONES: This was the house that your parents lived in, and you were living here when they were living here? 

ENDRES: I stayed here. I was never married and no kids. I didn't plan it that way, but Dad got run over by a cow, and he couldn't do anything for like six months. Somebody had to stay here. It seems like life goes by fast. 

JONES: When did your mom and dad pass? 

ENDRES: Mom died in 2001, and Dad died in 2007. He was in a nursing home for five and a half years in Lodi. 

JONES: Bob, before I get to the next part, is there anything else that we have not covered that you would like to talk about? 

ENDRES: No, I think that covers it.

JONES: I want to do two things.  First, I want to thank you for your service to our country and for serving in the Navy.  I also want to thank you for saying yes to this interview so that we could record your story for posterity. 

[Interview ends]