[Interview Begins]

LUKE SPRAGUE: Today is June 25th, 2024. This is an interview with William R Sprague, who served in the United States Army from March 18th, 1971, to March. I'm sorry, March 18th, 1971 to March 17th, 1973. This interview is being conducted by Luc D Sprague at the Veterans Home in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. No one else is present in the interview room. It should be noted that I, the interviewer and the son of William Sprague. Okay, dad. Yes, William. Tell me a little bit about where you grew up. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I grew up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which is in central Wisconsin. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, just for the public record, what did your family do there? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: My dad worked on the line railroad as a switch man and a, foreman. And, he worked there for 30 some years, and he was also in the Air Force Reserve for 32 years. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Were there, any other family members that you're readily aware of that served as well? Maybe in your grandfather's generation or uncles or. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Cousins. 1 or 2 uncles. Many of those were not many. 3 or 4 of those, uncles worked in the CCRC in the 1930s. And that's about it. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, what schools did you go to in Stevens Point? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I graduated from P.J. Jacobs High School in 1964, and I attended, what is now Wisconsin State University, Stevens Point, for two years. Then I went to Chicago, to the Illinois College of Optometry for three years. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And what, sparked your interest in optometry? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: When I was in junior high and, that general age category, I was thinking about occupations, and there was an optometrist that went to our church and was also our family optometrist. And that was what were the initial idea of becoming an optometrist started? 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And just, what church was that by chance? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: So it was the first Baptist church in Stevens Point. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And so you started attending the Illinois College of Optometry. And what year. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Would have been. 66, I believe. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. And during this time, the Vietnam War is underway. Tell me about the state of the country as you're coming into ICL and and that. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, Vietnam had been going on through the 60s. And so it was going on when I graduated from high school. And then, the, my task actually was to stay focused on what I wanted to do, which was to, become an optometrist. Frankly, when, my classmates in high school went to the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, the, many of them were attending with the sole purpose of avoiding the draft. And by the time two years had passed at that school, there were probably only 2 or 3 left attending school. Whereas in fact, two years prior to that, there were probably 30 from my high school class started there. So there was quite a dropout rate. And many of those guys went to. No. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What what was the mindset. What was the the thought at that point, when you were, you know, getting out of high school and going to ICL, what were, what were you thinking about with regards to Vietnam? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I was just trying to ignore it. Frankly, there was a lot of social unrest. I was in the Young Republicans in Stevens Point, so I knew some of the political things that were going on. Mel Laird was our, congressman at the time, and, he, gave speeches and was, active with the young Republicans in those years. And he became so subsequently, he became the secretary of defense. Just a few years later. So, I was aware of what he was doing, and, the, years at ISO Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago were, occupied with protesters in Chicago, the year the summer of the Democratic convention in Chicago, when the riots ensued was while I was attending school down there. 

And, our apartment where we lived was actually just seven blocks south on Michigan Avenue of where the marches were taking place. So I was aware of what was going on. In the early part of that summer, the convention, I remember, going to the beach, Chicago Avenue beach north, north of the, loop. And the week before the Democratic convention, the United States Air Force was flying jets up and down, the streets of Chicago, taking pictures for reconnaissance for use in the following week when the convention was going on. And that was really obvious. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Do you remember what kind of planes they were? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Jets? I don't know. The model of the plane. I really don't. There was at least two of them that were flying all day long. One day. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And were they trying to take pictures of individuals or of the site or. No. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No, I don't think they were doing individuals because it was a week before the convention, but they were getting new, updates on the status of the streets and the buildings and things in Chicago in case they had to have, up to date information. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And that's sort of been, April 68th or a little prior March 68th. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: It would have been actually in, June of 68. Because we were on a beach, it was warm enough to be on the beach, and it was immediately prior, a week before the convention in Chicago, which happened, I believe was the first week in August. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Anything else in terms of, ICAO and your experience there that you want to talk about? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: There weren't too many people that there weren't there were, about 300 students there, probably 40 of them were somewhat interested in the military. And, when we graduated in our class in 69, which had 100 people in it, there were about, ten that joined the military immediately on graduation. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Were they, drafted or what? What was the situation for their entry? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Those are great. Those that join you right after school. Voluntarily signed up. There was recruiting. Nationally for optometrists as they graduated. My situation worked out a little bit differently, though, because, I went into private practice on September 15th of 1969, and Thorpe, Wisconsin, and I practiced for a year and a half before I was drafted. I believe I received my draft notice. In the first part of January of 69, the, the draft notice that I received also included, military orders to, report to, Fort Sam Houston for officers basic. 

I received those notices on a Thursday, and they wanted me to start the officers class in San Antonio the following Tuesday. And I had prior to that had no experience with the military, no reserve status, no National Guard, time. I had just been a civilian, and, they wanted me down there and five days. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And, a couple things I'd like to explore there. You, I happen to personally know you had mentioned that they had attempted to draft you as an E7, and then do you want to talk about that at all or. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The first few days of the situation and after I received, my, being drafted, the notice for being drafted, they wanted to draft me as a enlisted man. And I had, been in meetings in Chicago when I was going to school, where we were told to definitely resist, making any move into the military unless we were, drafted with officer status. So the first few days, it was kind of an enigma to me because I had not received a commission yet. And they, nevertheless were, ordering me to officer's basic. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Kind of confusing. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: There it was. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: So did you have an active response to them saying, no, I'm not coming until I get my my commission? Or did you just wait them out or how did that work? If you remember. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: When when that occurred, I, hired an attorney, and, he basically, communicated with the Army saying that I was not going to show up for that first officer's, Base Corps basic course, and they, allow that to happen and then instructed me to show up, a couple of months later for the next course, which is what happened. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And, do you happen to remember that attorney's name? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yes. Charles San. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Tell me a little bit about, your decision to move to Thorp or set up practice in Thorp. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The. Practice in Thorp. Sort of the small town, you know, of 1300 population or 1600 population now. And the, at the time we graduated from school, everybody that was taking the Wisconsin, optometry boards. One day we met after lunch on the steps of the, motel in Madison. And for about an hour, we discussed amongst the 20 some of us that were taking a test. We discussed the different, practices that we're looking for optometrist to employ in Wisconsin. 

And of those people that were sitting there, there was at least one person that had visited every one of the, practices. So that we did get a, review, firsthand review, more or less of all those. Practices that were available, but no one had been to Thorpe, Wisconsin. So the next week I went to Wisconsin and met with doctor Mike Melcher. And eventually in September, on September 15th of that year, I started working with him and saw him. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Who'd you met? When did you meet my mother? Yeah. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: That would have been in 68. Probably the first part of October in Chicago. She. She was attending Rosary College, and I met her at a dance at Rosary College. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: In May of October of 68. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yes. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. What did she think about you moving to Thorp? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: At the time, I didn't know what she thought about it. She. I think she just. She thought it was okay. But of course, she was still going to school in Chicago, so it didn't really affect her at first. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. So let's, you're in practice in Thorp, starting September 15th, 1969. And about one and a half years in you get your draft notice. Who are some of those, while you were living in Thorp before you reported, who are some of the people who are significant and Tharp, you remember tell your story. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, Thorp is a small town, as I said. So basically, I knew probably half the people in town. So, picking out people that are more significant than others, would be hard to do. I worked with, Doctor Melcher, and of course, he was significant. The women that worked in our office, they were significant. I lived with, a dentist for about a year, and he was in the same situation I was in. He, had graduated from Marquette, and then, he ended up in the military for a couple of years, and then in practice in Milwaukee. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And what was his name? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: His name was Jerry. As acerbic. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. How do you spell aspic? Just got. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: As Beck. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Got it. And other people. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Other people? Another dentist, doctor, slaughter. His first name? I can't remember at the moment, though. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: I made it start with a B burn. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah, burn slow to senior. And. I knew his family and his wife and. That's about all the people that were more significant than any other, I guess. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Yeah. And what did you think about living and working in Thorp that first year and a half? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, I thought it was really nice because it was a personal kind of a relationship town, you know? 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. What, was there any sense in Thorp about the Vietnam War or not? Or was it the people? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: And so I generally didn't even know there was a war going on. They, they were just, Midwest hard working people that were not really interested in the, politics of the nation to any great extent. There was no protests of any kind. Actually, there was no, speech of any kind against the war, as a matter of fact, the people. And so I would probably support the federal effort to conduct the war in Vietnam. And as it turned out, that was one of the failures of the federal government was to, inform the population in the United States of the true, facts of what was going on there. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. When you got drafted, which which draft board drafted you? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Clark County, Wisconsin draft board. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. What? I've got to ask, what did your mom and dad say about you being drafted? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: They didn't really have an opinion about it. Never said anything. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Hmhm even, with your father, Clifford Sprague, a World War Two veteran. Didn't. Didn't say anything. Didn't know. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: He didn't say anything one way or the other. I think he had mixed, emotions about it, like. Like I did, you know, he was, proud that I was going to go in the military. But on the other hand, he was, probably upset that, you know, I was starting out a life in a town, and then it was going to be interrupted. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any cousins or uncles or aunts in your generation that served in the Vietnam War that you're aware of? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: One cousin that I know of. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And what's his or her name? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: His name? Richard. Malik. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, when you entered the service, did they was there an induction ceremony? Where did where you pinned? Did you how did you get your commission? How did that action happen? And was it in Wisconsin or was it in, Fort Sam Houston? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The physical where I actually got the the actual paper commission was just in the mail. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: And, the action of, being inducted into the Army did not involve any ceremony at all. We just showed up, one Monday morning on the quadrangle at Fort Sam Houston. And they, had us, lined up alphabetically. There were 240 guys there that, were split up into six platoons of 40 apiece, alphabetically. And that was the beginning. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And did you how did you get from fort to Fort Sam Houston. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I drove. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. What kind of car did you drive. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: A car at that time was, Ford. Torino. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And tell me a little bit about, that paper that you received, what you were commissioned as. And into what branch? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, I was commissioned as a captain into the army. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And you were in the Medical Service Corps? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yes. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. But, and one of the things that at the time, didn't. Your, branch symbol, your caduceus, have an O on it, or was it something else? Do you remember? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No, there was no letters on it. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Oh, okay. Okay, good to know. Okay, so we get you down to Fort Sam Houston. What do you remember about standing on that field? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, it was like going on. Like a, not a fairy tale, but kind of a fantasy. Of, you know, I had been in saw. Thursday or Friday and Monday morning. And in San Antonio, it was, a tremendous difference in temperature. And incidentally, when I left off, it was zero. And when I got into San Antonio on a 75 degrees, and, it was like an entirely different world, really, because I had been doing eye exams in a small town, and all of a sudden here I am standing in a company, a guy, army guys, and, on the quadrangle at Fort San. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And what was that like, meeting people from around the country? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Interesting. Because I had gone to school in Chicago, I was used to being around, people from different places. It was interesting talking to them. Most of the people in their company were, sanitary engineers. They were reservists that, from all parts of the United States that were, involved with water supply, sewage plants, civil engineering type things. I'd say out of the 240 that were in that company, I would say 200 of them were civil engineers of one sort or another. And the other 40 were optometrists. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: I've got to ask, did were there requirements that you showed up with your hair cut short or you had to be in a certain physical shape or. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No, there was no physical prior physical requirement at all. And then as the first few days went by, they wanted us to cut our hair shorter. Mine was the way it is now, actually, and I sort of fit the bill right off the bat anyway. And so that was no big deal. However, there was, an aside at that time, there was a lot of, protesting about, hair lengths and being in the military, and it hasn't happened since that I know of. But, at the time, the, general, in charge of the Army, issued a order. I guess you'd say that you could have longer hair that went down or over your ears, and they showed pictures of, acceptable hair lengths in army times in the newspaper. 

Well, it turned out that he was the only one, apparently, in the military that thought that was okay, because the rest of the army generals and officers in charge wanted you to have the standard short army haircut. So when people started having longer hair, there was a lot of, what would you say grinding of teeth in the military about what's the appropriate hair length? Because the the commanding officer said you could have a long hair. So for 2 or 3 months, right around that time, nobody knew for sure what was going on. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Wow. Was that the commanding general at Fort Sam or a different commanding general? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No, the commanding general, the, he's on the president's, council. The top general. I forget his name. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. What were, some of the other experiences you remember from Officers Basic? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, just that it was. No, it was a different language. Different, customs, than I was used to. So it was learning something new. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: I remember you telling me about chasing cows around the countryside at some point for training. Do you remember that. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: There was one, night info night, reconnaissance course where, they put us on busses in San Antonio, drove out to Camp Bullis, and, I think it was camp also, it was on a ranch somewhere, in Texas. And, it was a, moonless night. And you don't have any compass. And they took the whole company out there and a bunch of school busses and let us out into a, into a. Field with, cattle in it. And you were supposed to find, a it was a supposed. Command post. It actually was just 2 or 3, officers standing off one side of the sit by the fence. And you were supposed to find these people at night without any directions at all. And, of course, the field that we were in was probably a mile on the side, you know. And so after about two hours of milling around and bumping into cows, they turned the lights on and we got back on the busses and went back to San Antonio. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Any other stories about Officers Basic that you'd like to share? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Not a whole lot. They just were doing the minimum to, get us acclimated to the military, and that's about it. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Did you, train with, other sexes or so that all men. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: At the time, it was all men. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Did your family come down for graduation or not? If there was a graduation ceremony for officers, basically. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: There was no ceremony. My parents never did come down to San Antonio. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, do you happen to remember the the, the optometrist orientation, which was for one week at the end of the officers basic, I don't remember number. Okay. I don't. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Think I had. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: That. Okay. No problem. Okay. So let's move on. You get orders to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah. So I spent the rest of my time in the Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, where was that at? At Fort Sill that you were posted. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Reynolds Army hospital. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, so that would have been about, let's see, that would have been about when May. Yes. May of 7171. Okay. And tell me about, what were your impressions of Fort Sill? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, Fort Sill, was an old, artillery base, quite large. And the purpose of Fort Sill was to, basically to train artillery, skills. Although at the time Fort Sill was also an advanced infantry training base, and it was also a small helicopter, squadron training there. It also was, was a hospital, a rehab facility for medical, disabilities that were, initially treated in San Antonio, were sent up to Fort Sill to spend time in rehab. The only connection that, physical, connection I had was, Vietnam veterans was through the rehab people that were stationed at Fort Sill while they were rehabbing because they were part of the hospital, population, I guess you'd say. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And, what were some common injuries or rehabs that you saw coming back from Vietnam? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Anything you could think of? Orthopedics, burns, amputations. A lot of. People, with, bullet wounds show wounds of different kinds, and they would typically, stay in the what was called hospital antics for weeks or months, and then they would be discharged from the Army. That was a typical thing. The, hospital annex, the dealings that I had with that was usually when we were an officer of the day. We had to make rounds of the hospital annex, and those buildings were very old. They were built between World War One and World War Two. They were a barracks, buildings that, more just used as, sleeping and some living facilities for these people on rehab. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What was it like treating those soldiers? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I don't know how they were treated because they were treated, on the medical side, you know, with physicians and things, they would, typically show up, for appointments in the hospital once a week and then go back to the annex for the rest of the week, and that's what they did. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Were there any I know you had mentioned this earlier, but were there any particular patterns in terms of injuries that you saw or, or was it all over. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: There were no injuries of veterans that had been denied. There were eye injuries of just, that we would see in the clinic because of, you know, regular eye exams. The, usually the eye injuries were treated by ophthalmologists at that time. Subsequent and now, injuries of all kinds are treated by optometrists. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And what was the what were the differences between being an Army optometrist and being a civilian optometrist? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: As a civilian optometrist, we saw all kinds of injuries and diseases, in practice in Wisconsin, in the military, most of the diseases and injuries were treated by ophthalmologists. Another difference was the dispensed dispensing of eyeglasses in SA was done by Doctor Melcher and myself. The dispensing of eyeglasses in the army was done by opticians. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And what did you think of that system? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, the army's the military system of dispensing by opticians was a system that had, existed was ophthalmologist for many years, where they have some biologist would do an eye exam and the opticians would dispense glasses. As optometrist, we would do both. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. How was, the drawdown of the Vietnam War affecting what you were doing there? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: That was why I was in the Army. Well, in 19, 69, it's in 70. The United States was trying to make up their mind whether they were going to stay in Vietnam or not. And when I was drafted, the US had been speaking to the Vietcong in Paris for a few months. They were, talking about, withdrawing from Nam or not. And there was the reason that I was drafted, I believe, was that the United States had the option of, going into a bigger war with Vietnam. Besides myself being drafted as an optometrist, there were other draft, situations going on of people that normally wouldn't be, drafted. 

And so. It gave the US military the option of a build up starting that would have started about 1971, if they, if they wanted to do that. However. When I was in Officer's Basic in San Antonio, Richard Nixon decided that there would be no new troops going to Vietnam. They were just going to withdraw the old ones and not replace them. So one Friday in class, in our in our class in San Antonio, the officer in charge told us to bring back all of the jungle warfare material, books and things, notebooks that we had been given originally and trade them in for European warfare. And that was the week that Richard Nixon decided that we were pulling, I don't know. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Did you have any peers amongst you that once you went through training with them and you were sent to Fort Sam, who were sent over to Vietnam that you happened to remember? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any desire to go over to Vietnam? No. Right. Based on your experience in the army, did you have any desire to stay in the army? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, no, obviously, I got out after two years. My friend Dave Everhart had, who was the other optometrist from Wisconsin that went to the same class that I did. He also was a classmate, from the school in Chicago, so I knew him quite well. He stayed in for five years. He stayed in for three, three extra years beyond the two at Fort Carson, Colorado. And then he got out. And I know of no one, no optometrist that stayed in for 20 years, of any of the young men at the time I was there. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Everhart. Like it sounds. EV. Ehrhardt. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No. EB. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Oh, sorry. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Eberhard. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Everhart. Got it. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: E b e r r d t I think. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Oh. Ever heard? Heard. Okay. When you first moved to Fort Sill, backing up a little bit, where did you live? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: We lived on northwest 31st Street in Lawton, Oklahoma. 2107. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And then, were you there the whole time or did you move somewhere else? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: We more, after a year, we moved to a house in 412 Bell in Lawton. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What was it like living in Lawton? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Lawton was a dump. Yeah. Yeah. It, was, strictly an army town of people passing through, and that's the way it was. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Some of the. Well, who are some of your, coworkers that you worked with that you remember at, at Reynolds? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Sure. We had. An optometry, commanding officer, usually whoever was the senior officer at the time was running the optometry clinic, and there were three of those. During the two years I was there. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Was he a colonel? Or not? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah. Well, one of them was a light colonel. Lieutenant colonel. One of them was a major and one at, one point. One of them was a captain. And it changed a little as personnel rotated. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Did you, were some of the people you knew by the name of Don? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Help me out with that. How many times do I have to. Okay. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Don Risca was in our. I think he was in the class behind us in San Antonio. But he came from Indiana, and he lives currently lives in, Wisconsin Rapids. There was another don that was there at Fort Sill when I arrived. He was my sponsor at Fort Sill, and he now lives in, South Carolina. And I can't think of his last name right at the moment. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: It starts with a k. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah. And puts k or it's k k. Harry Kretser was in our class at, San Antonio. He came from Kansas, and I think he years back in Kansas. Not as a practicing optometrist. I believe he is a, minister. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Any other people that you work with? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The enlisted people. The opticians in the clinic, usually were sergeants. Some of them had been to Nam. Two of them had families, in Oklahoma, the, where was one optician from? Wisconsin. I can't remember his name. And, then there were, lower ranking enlisted personnel that rotated in and out, frequently. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Was there a particular division within the hospital that you worked for? What was that called? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No, the hospital company probably had a number. And I don't know what the, what the number of that unit was, was just Reynolds Army Hospital. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Yeah. I'm showing headquarters, United States Army. Reynolds army hospital. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: I don't have a particular company listed. Did you, know anything about a Colonel Hudgins? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Sure. Colonel Hudgins was the lieutenant colonel that commanded the. The have to have a tree section there, for probably a year. And then he retired and moved to South Carolina. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: While you were there, did you go to any particular, post shows like an artillery show or anything like that? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: It was the end of the Vietnam War. There was a lot of munitions left over and in the raid, the artillery ranges at Fort Sill were ideal for exploding munitions. So, as time went on, they had more and more firepower demonstrations where they, when I was getting out, leaving Fort Sill, they were having firepower demonstrations about once every two months. Because there were Air Force bases close by, relatively close by within 100 miles, there were 3 or 4 Air Force bases. The Air Force would also contribute to these, firepower demonstrations with helicopters or fighter jets and make a lot of noise and smoke out in the hills. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: I remember you mentioning something about, walking onto the tarmac with, B-52s parked there, or mom did. Can you tell me anything about that? It would have been one of those Air Force bases, I'm guessing, nearby. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I think probably what we're referring to was barracks to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. We were on a trip and stayed in the officers quarters there. Which were right on the runway. We're very close to it. And, you could walk out to your car, or you could walk out to a B-52. Hey, we're about equally distant. I think they were parked there because they were ready. A ready place for officers to take off quickly. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. As the optometry officer you mentioned just a little bit, doing the rounds. What was that like? Or how did that. What was a typical day like in brief? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: We were on the, officers. What do you call it? Where you serve on the weekends and at night? 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Staff duty. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah, duty. And, so with the hospital. So, the, duty would come up, maybe once a month, and then you're. Because you were on a weekend rotation. Plus the the days rotate and the daily rotation. Sometimes they would coincide. And, I remember one time the, you know, I worked all day Friday checking guys when on duty, you know, 4:00 or 5:00 and worked all night and then went on duty again on the other rotation. And finally, after working from Friday morning to Sunday evening, I got to go home. 

So that was a little bit stressful. Basically, when we were on duty, we were running the hospital, were responsible for making decisions about things in the hospital when the normal officer corps was not there, you know, because it was nighttime or it was a weekend. And, we were tasked with the responsibility of, forwarding other messages, calling. Notifying the, Fort Sill command structure of, natural disasters, unnatural disasters. Anything that we knew that was affecting the status of the base, we were to, relay things up and down the chain of command. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What did you do in your spare time at Fort Sill? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Squirrel d Don risco I mentioned before, and I, squirrel hunted a number of times, in Fort Sill. We played cards with other, optometrists in the unit. Bridge. Bridge, for instance, was, an officer pastime of a few people? Traveled? We traveled. Officer. Standby status to Puerto Rico. Up to Kansas City, to a contact lens conference to San Antonio. For a, another conference to, Los Angeles, I believe it was for a American Optometric Association convention. So we did get to travel some. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Risca r I s k. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I think it's r y s Zika. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. I'm bad. Okay. What was the wildlife? You talked about squirrel hunting. What other wildlife did you find interesting in Oklahoma? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The other interesting thing were the armadillos. Because we didn't have armadillos in Wisconsin, that was, a different. They are unusual creatures in the soft bottom. It's full of bugs. And then they have the armor on the top of their body, and they sound like squirrels walking through the woods. So you can easily mistake them for squirrels as they're walking along. We used to hunt in the creek bottoms in, forts at Fort Sill. That was the only place there was any water was in the crick bottoms. 

So because it was the only place there was water, it was the only place there were big enough trees for squirrels to be in. So, much of the range, the artillery ranges in Fort Sill were, capable of you could go hunting there. You had you had permission to go hunting in those crick crick bottoms, according to the maps that were about 20 years old. However, the, it was a little bit risky walking on these ranges, especially on the weekends because, National Guard units would show up and they would want to clean out their 100 fives or their one five fives or their machine guns or whatever. And so you had to be really aware of where you were and how to get out of there. Wow. But it was fun. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Any other people that you remember at Fort Sill that you hung out with? No. Okay. And, tell me about, my arrival on the scene. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, you were born on the fourth floor of Reynolds Army Hospital. And. If that's when you arrive. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Any particular memories or experiences when that happened? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No. Just that I was there when you were born, and, then you came into the world like every other person. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Tell me about you. When did you find out that you'd be, you'd be getting out of the army. Leaving the army? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I don't know exactly, but I would say it was probably about two months before I finally did get out of the Army. And that, again, was just orders from the, hospital, command structure saying, you know, unless you're going to sign up or unless you're going to re-up for a year or whatever, your time will be up on such and such a date, you know. And there was no there was no partying or social structure about it. It was just basically a business transaction. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: At that point did you think or did you know that you'd be coming back to Thorp or what were your thoughts on that. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: My plan was always to come back to. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Are you okay. and what was that like? Did you have any feelings or thoughts as you were checking out of Fort Sill? What were your thoughts at the time? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, I knew what would happen. On the last day or, of being there about, checking out and getting paid. So it wasn't a surprise, but it was kind of crude. When you go to the, quartermasters building and they hand you 2 or $3000 in cash and say sayonara, you're done. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: So they they paid you up and then you're gone. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: You get in a car and drive off. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And at that point, you had been married to my mother two years roughly, or a year and a half. Would have been 73. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: We had been married two years. While it would have been two years, because we've been married on January 2nd of 71. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. And, did you drive back up to Wisconsin or. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Not directly. We went out, drove out to California and then went to. And then to Wisconsin. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. What what were your once you were out the gate at at Fort Sill? What were your what were your thoughts at that point? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, yeah. And you get a great sense of freedom because you can go where you want to. You can live where you want to. You can say what you want. You can grow your hair any length you want. All that. Although that wasn't an issue. So you just, you know, you get your freedoms back as a United States citizen rather than the living under the military law. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: So, did you come directly back to Thorpe then? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Like I said, we went to California and then we came directly back as. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: okay. And what was your, your first address back in Thorpe in 73. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: My first address. The first place we lived was above a hardware store in downtown Thorpe. I don't remember the address. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: But then later, when you came back with me from Fort Sill, where you had a different location, or you at the same location. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Maybe different location. I'd have to think. Oh, the, the first place we lived, after the Army was. I don't know the street address, but it's on the street where the third is. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: 208 West Hill. Yeah, right. Okay, cool. So I have to ask, what, after you'd gotten out, and you returned home. At some point, I assume you you run into your father. What was what was his reaction to you getting out of the army? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I don't know. I don't think he had any particular reaction one way or the other. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: He even, being with the World War Two vet and seeing that he came home safely, it was just. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The, most involvement that he had with me in the military was when my mother and him traveled to, Lawton, Oklahoma to visit us. You know, in the military. And he was interested in, the layout of Fort Sill, what they were doing there, why I was there and, where we lived, and he he was really interested in that sort of thing, but, he wasn't involved in, the political part of the Vietnam War or the politics of the war or anything like that. When he was served in the Air Force Reserve, he was just he was involved with what was going on locally in Stevens Point and Warsaw. And his duties was that, you know. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Yeah. Because in 71 he was probably still in the Air Force Reserve. At that point. I would be my guess. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: I believe so. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Yeah. Okay. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Yeah. He would have had to have been. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What, did you end up using, any of your veterans benefits when you came back to Wisconsin? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: The only veteran's benefit that I used was for, vocational. Training. I took a course from RCA, television repair. And other than that, there was also a small housing loan from the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: For a few years. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Interesting. Okay. Did you end up, continuing your relationships with any of those people you served with as a civilian? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Don cuts in South Carolina. We still send Christmas cards to and letters once in a while. Don Risca in Wisconsin Rapids. I see him about once a year. We go fishing or I see him at a meeting. Our calling on the phone. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: And that's Don Rich is known affectionately as little Don. Yes. And Don. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Don Coats is big dog. Big Don. Okay. And the reason we call him that was in the hospital and, Fort Sill in the optometry clinic when they were both there. To differentiate between the two. Don's, we call him big Don, a little Don, and everybody did that. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Any other people that you remember, down into the civilian side after being in. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Not at. No. Not afterwards. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any involvement later in life after getting out of the Army, with veterans organizations? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. When. What, do you think of yourself? When did you start to. Did you always. When did you start thinking about yourself as a veteran? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, I would say there was no particular time that was, more obvious than any other. You know, from the moment I got out, it was, always the same thought, more or less. And of course, the, I've talked to other veterans that are friends of mine since then who have the same, feeling that I do, that when people got out of the service in those years, there was absolutely no recognition on the part of the American public of people having served, you know, there was no, great, push to honor veterans or, thank them or relate to them whatsoever. 

The veterans that served that in that particular era were thought of as, perpetrators or, enablers of the Vietnam War, whereas in fact, particularly in a place where they're drafted, they were not instigators of the war or enablers of the war at all. They were just serving their country personally. So, I know there's a lot of, animus amongst those veterans of that era, that, the federal government kind of let them down. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What, did your service change your perspective at all on your father's service? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: No. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. What do you think about your son being a veteran? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Well, I think it's great. There is something to be, said for military service in developing a person's personality during that time and then the rest of your life. That is a positive, I believe. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What do you think your life would have been like if you hadn't been drafted? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Actually quite similar. The two years that I spent in the military were like a, a time span that just is kind of set aside in my life as having done something else and then continuing on with what I had started in or, you know, from before. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: What motivated you to do this interview? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: you did. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. That's a fair answer. Okay. Did we miss anything that you'd like to cover? 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: Not really. The only thing I can say is that, you know, time has passed by. It's been a long time. We had gone down to Fort Sill. Two years ago. And it's hard to fathom that it's been 50 years since we were there. And the place has changed. There's the, purpose of, why Fort Sill is there has changed. The military styles have changed. And, the, the, I think the most evident thing is the passage of time and how it affects people and places, you know. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. Then unless you have anything else. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: That's it. 

LUKE SPRAGUE: Okay. This concludes the interview. Okay. Thank you for your service. 

WILLIAM SPRAGUE: You bet. 

[Interview Ends]