[Interview Begins]

JONES: today is September 20th, 2023. And, this is an interview conducted in person, with, Army veteran Daniel Southworth. The interviewer is Raleigh Jones. And this interview is being recorded for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum oral history program. Then let's, talk about, tell us about the early your early years.

SOUTHWORTH: I was born in 1949. [XXXXXXXX]. I am a twin. My twin brother, Dennis, is 15 minutes older. And then I've always been very close. Well, being twins, we are the eighth and the ninth children of Clare and Agnes Southworth of Rural on Wisconsin, which is about- about 75 miles west of here, right on highway 29. Brother Donald, the oldest one, was 19 years older. George was 11 months younger than Don. My mother and dad, I should say, or my mother. Dad were married in November of 29. Don was born in. I think October of 30. George was born in 31. Charlotte was born in 32. Berniece was born in 33. John, I believe, was born. I'm 30. 37. Brother Jim was born in 43. And Dennis and I were both born in 49. But we were. We were the only two that were born at in the hospital, and all the other kids were born at home. On a dairy farm at a 200 acre dairy farm north of on. Nice. Nice plot of land. Never picked a rock. If I want to pick rock, we'd go up to Taylor County and pick Rock on my brother in law's farm. My dad would farm us out from there. And graduated from horn with the high school in 1967. Went to eight years of Holy Rosary Catholic School. My mother drove us every day. And high school we went to the public school. Brother oldest brothers talked dad and letting us into going out for two sports football and one wrestling. And I went out for tennis, not for wrestling. I went out for track. But if we weren't home to do chores or didn't get up the morning, do chores in the morning, we missed practice. That was dad's stipulation. And he when he said something, he meant it. And that was just it. Period. You weren't going to violate the rules. So but we had a lot of fun growing up on the farm. A couple of neighbors had kids close by. We could play with back and forth, and that's not all. Farming was a joy. And, graduating high school in 67. And then I was going to join the military. Dennis went on to tech. I was going to join a service, but I come down with a severe appendicitis. So I didn't join the Army until 68. Went up to Minneapolis on a bus.

JONES: Okay, let me stop you right there. Yeah. Had any of your siblings going into the military?

SOUTHWORTH: Yes.

JONES: Okay. And how many of their six boys.

SOUTHWORTH: All six of us were in the military. We have a stone over at the high ground. John. Don, brother Don is the only one. He went in the Air Force.

JONES: So, he left. I went into the army.

SOUTHWORTH: Five went in Army.

JONES: And one into Air Force.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: Okay. And, what about your dad? And he served in the military.

SOUTHWORTH: No, my dad did not. He was too young for World War One. And he was too old and married for and for World War that kids at home and farmed for World War two. He always kind of regretted it, but he would. That's what that's what the circumstances let it tell. But also, all six boys went in the service. John made a 20 year career. A 21 year career. My brother John had a 21 year career.

JONES: Okay. So it's in that context where you've had six brothers serve in the military before you, and you're the youngest, that you make the decision that you're going to serve as well.

SOUTHWORTH: I did. I enlisted. Dennis was going to tech, so he enlisted a year after me.

JONES: Okay. And before we talk about that part. Why did you decide on the army?

SOUTHWORTH: I don't know. I really don't know why I thought about that. Why? I just. Brother Jim did it. Brother George did it, and Brother John loved it. And.

JONES: Essentially, because that's what your brothers had done.

SOUTHWORTH: Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. That's it, pal. And I just just wanted to join the joint service, cause they did well and.

JONES: Came.

SOUTHWORTH: Following along.

JONES: And so this was 19.

SOUTHWORTH: I joined 68.

JONES: Now. You and I have lived through the same time periods. A lot happening in 1968. When you enlisted in the Army, were you realistic about where you were going to end up?

SOUTHWORTH: Never thought about it.

JONES: Did not.

SOUTHWORTH: Never thought about it? Yeah. Never thought about where I would end up. I would probably assume I was there at that time. I was extremely naive. What was going on in the world? Growing up in a small, small town in northern Clark County. We got one TV channel, maybe two. We got channel seven. Sometimes most slack. We got channel 13. Audible. Claire. My dad got the Eau Claire leader paper. He was a religious reader, but those kids didn't read it. As far as following the news, there was nothing broadcast around that time about it and grew up growing it in northern Clark County. There's more calls in Clark County yet today, ten times than there are people. Clark County is an extremely rural agriculture county, and southern Taylor County is. More woods. So it's a really rural part of the state. At that time, and, never thought about what was going on, what was going to happen, where we're going. Anything. So. The only thing I remember about the map center there was the E7 Sergeant first class setting up there. I didn't know what rank it was then, but now after being in there, I realized I'll never forget this statement. He says. Soldiers do the best you can on this test. Because we don't. We are going to lower our standards and take you anyway. Never, never forget that statement. Yeah. And it was a perfect statement then. Yeah.

JONES: Okay. So. One year after high school. Essentially you enlist. Were you, still 18 at the time?

SOUTHWORTH: No, I was 19. I was 19. What I enlisted.

JONES: Okay. And where did you enlist?

SOUTHWORTH: I enlisted out of, out of. Well, basically out of, Minneapolis.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: I don't even remember how I got Ahold of a recruiter or anything. Have not a clue.

JONES: Okay, I don't remember. And then any event, you end up in the military or in the army and. 1968. And. Where did you have to tell us about basic training?

SOUTHWORTH: Basic training? I enlisted in early July. I got an enlist. My papers were 14th July of 68. Got on an airplane in Minneapolis. Flew to basically, I don't know, or Nashville, I assume Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: And it was hot where you got the heat the farm boy had, but it was hot. And I had all my calluses from farming and doing the parallel bars later on. They were ripped off in a real big hurry and but, made it through. Actually, it was it was tough, but it was not tough at all, because you're just a year out of school and, farming and, the TW 21 a year.

JONES: Basic was at Fort Campbell. Yeah, I, I thought it was at Fort Leonard Wood.

SOUTHWORTH: No, I it was at Fort Leonard Wood. Okay.

JONES: Well, we'll get to that. Yeah. Okay. So.

SOUTHWORTH: It was a good it was a good experience. And did I see I had a chair for running? We we were up at 3:00 in the morning doing peat. It was hard to have time or get early. Running around under the lights. I had three people cut their wrist. And through base it just beyond my capability or fathom why. And we had one guy on the rifle range turn the M14 on himself and shot himself.

JONES: Did he die?

SOUTHWORTH: No. None of them died. But the guy who shot himself was a physical mess after that. Two guys, two guys. I just have to be there. I hope I carry them in through. And Lauren, get them in through. The first aid station, on, our company, company commander's office. And we're driving back to duty.

JONES: Where the people who attempted to harm themselves. I take it they were not, in. I take it they were draftees.

SOUTHWORTH: They were drafted. I would assume they were all draftees. They wanted to get out. They wanted to medically get out. The only one who got out was the one who shot himself. The other two had to redo after hospitalization and redo basic training again. Which I thought was part time at the time, was kind of silly, but now I think about it. Good thing they did. So. But. Yeah.

JONES: It's. It's a shocking story.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: When you think about it.

SOUTHWORTH: And it is and but it yeah, it it's a shocking story too. It was amazing to me being from what I came for and the. Other people. It was a really awakening of what? Other people's attitudes. Speech. Talk. What they were kind of where they came from versus me, from a small town anywhere from Minneapolis to New York to all over the central and eastern United States. My right went for Portland, Or. Campbell. I don't know where these young men were from and basic that did this, that harm their bodies. I don't know where they don't remember. Don't remember the names. Don't remember. But yeah. Who's in? Who's. But, it.

JONES: So after basic training, then you went where.

SOUTHWORTH: I was a hold over for two weeks. The basic. My my, I was not ready at Fort Leonard Wood, so I was on hold over for two weeks and help train new basic trainees. And I remember that very distinctly. I asked the drill sergeant, were we all this dumb? Didn't know how to follow orders and train. He looked me squarely. He says, you betcha. And he said to Frank, we all were. And it takes a few weeks to learn the lefts, the rights and all this other stuff to get it to, to listen, to listen what your sergeant is commanding you to do. And you don't think about it now. He's right. You know, you just it just when he says left, he's you're turning right or you're going forward or whatever else you're doing until you listen to what the. And that's what basic training is for as really you start thinking about it now. And that's what the basic training or any training is for, to get you acclimated into following instructions or following orders. And that's what the basic training is for. And and we went to a sit at a Fort Leonard Wood and I was a 62 m20. It was a heavy equipment forklift front loader operator. That lasted for another 6 or 7 weeks. Actually, I'll tell you.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Now let me, let me, let me go back again in my seventh week and the end of the seventh week. 1 in 8 week. I form a huge blister on the back of my left or right heel. Went to the. Platoon office. They sent me to Fort Bragg at Fort Campbell Hospital. I spent five days in the hospital. I got four shots a day. Penicillin in my butt four times a day. Drill sergeant, come and visit me, he says. And regrettably, do I have to retake basic training again? He says, no, you are far enough along. You passed all your test. I passed at I just out of 500. I had a score of 470. I passed everything 100%, but I could not pass the parallel bars. That was the hardest thing for me. So is not. You do not have to take basic. Wow, that was a relief.

JONES: So.

SOUTHWORTH: But, and I went to heavy equipment. And from hot Fort Campbell to coolness, we graduated down there and December to cool and wet Fort Leonard Wood.

JONES: Okay. Now, how was it that you were picked? For training as an equipment operator.

SOUTHWORTH: I basically enlisted for the equipment operator.

JONES: So that goes back, for instance, when like when you talk to the, recruiter. Yeah. You knew at that point I wanted to be trained as equipment upgrade. Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. Yes.

JONES: Okie doke. So, you're in Fort Leonard. Would you do the advanced training to be the heavy equipment operator?

SOUTHWORTH: Yep.

JONES: And, how long was the advanced training?

SOUTHWORTH: 7 or 8 weeks. I can't remember exactly what it was. It had to be somewhere not made up. I was home by the 1st of December. Somewhere in the 1st or 2nd of December, I enlisted. Yeah. July 14th. Because I had 30 days leave the car. Before I went back to. Before I went to Vietnam.

JONES: Okay? Okay. And, so you get your assignment, and you're, you know, you're going to Vietnam. You go home for your 30 day leave? Had any of, your other brothers, been to Vietnam?

SOUTHWORTH: At that time. Yes, brother John had been there for one tour.

JONES: And.

SOUTHWORTH: He was Special Forces all the way. He was Special forces from probably one of the beginning special forces. He was. He loved that kind of. Rough and tough combat.

JONES: So he essentially was, infantry. And you knew from the get go that you wanted to essentially be in the engineers. Yes. You know, how did you know that? Okay. I mean, you're 18 years old.

SOUTHWORTH: Being a farm boy, I love running machinery. And I thought that'd be a good, good intro into it, to it, into heavy equipment and learning what to do with heavy equipment. And, yes. And it was, I enjoyed it. But that was it was a good training. We got a lot of training. A lot of specialized training, to do, to work with, with all of what they have with the end loaders. They were all Alice Chalmers trained on all the Alice Chalmers and loaders. They had to form one clam buckets on the front of it, which were very remote with the military head, and they should all the clan buckets for grabbing and hauling things.

JONES: So after your, 30 day leave is over, then, you ship out to Vietnam. What's the time frame at this point?

SOUTHWORTH: I had to be in Oakland by. Like January 2nd, January 3rd. Somewhere in that period of time, I'd be there.

JONES: And this would be 1968.

SOUTHWORTH: There'd be 69, 69, 69th January, first or second of 69. There would be summer early that like we landed in Vietnam January 3rd.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Don't remember. Don't quote me on it. Somewhere in the paperwork. It tells you that I believe. Other than that, I don't remember.

JONES: Okay, so, where'd you land in Vietnam? Was it the big Air force base? Cameron Bay.

SOUTHWORTH: Cameron Bay? I believe we were landed in chairman of. Don't even remember. Don't even remember.

JONES: Okay, but after you land, then where? Where? Where are you assigned?

SOUTHWORTH: Where assigned as to the 70th Combat Engineers. And I had just had a look at my records. Today I remember my second tour, but the first, I could not remember what my battalion went to.

JONES: Right. Well.

SOUTHWORTH: The 778, that is. Who's the seventh Combat Engineers.

JONES: Okay. And.

SOUTHWORTH: Battalion. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're in there.

JONES: Okay. And, essentially you got there and. Are you, a PFC by this point?

SOUTHWORTH: Nope. I'm just an E-2.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Just two history, And I got assigned to big company, and big company was way out in the boonies. 70 Conventioneers was located in Bambi. Tore it up in the north central Highlands. And from there I got trucked out to our company was big company. We were about 10 to 15 miles from the Cambodian border. We lived in huts buried under dirt. We had about 10 to 12ft of dirt on top of us. It was a slot where we could see out. There about a foot, eight, ten, ten inches by about three feet. Each barracks made the dirt bunkers of. Cots of two or bunk beds. And that's where we could see out other than walk down a doorway, hallway. Or we could walk out. But otherwise, to see out to there, I would say the first. Well, every other night we we had guard duty. Everybody pulled guard duty for. At least every other night for throughout the year. And there was a, there was a construction company of National Guardsmen in that same. This is what we were. And. But yeah, over there.

JONES: Was this, so this base you were at. Do you remember the name of it?

SOUTHWORTH: No. Just big a big company were out there.

JONES: Okay. And, so you get there. And what are you assigned to do other than guard duty?

SOUTHWORTH: There was a common engineering. We do basic we we helped the agricultural production engineer company fix roads, do things for the rest of the military out there. Didn't hardly do nothing. Never. I would never operated in loader the whole year. They didn't have any. They had jeeps, three quarter tons, five ton dumps. And at the end of the last six months, I end up driving a five ton dump truck hauling gravel, dirt back and forth. Around. I.

JONES: Okay. So. Okay, so although you're trained on a loader, you get there and initially you do not drive a loader.

SOUTHWORTH: Nope. Not one. They had none.

JONES: And was that the case for that entire tour duty?

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. Yeah. You betcha. We got a I'm doing. Flight presentation of colors for the honor flight out of Wisconsin Sunday night. So the guys answer me there. Sorry.

JONES: So. Instead of driving a loader, you you drove a dump truck? Yup. So it was that pretty much for the entire year?

SOUTHWORTH: Pretty much pretty much the most, most the most of the year. That's what I was going. Did, you know, doing road construction? Yeah. Help. Help in road construction with the engineer company that was. We were on base with.

JONES: And when you say road construction was this new roads or was this maintaining existing roads.

SOUTHWORTH: Maintaining and widening existing roads? Pretty much. Yeah. In the Central Highlands we were about 20 miles out of battery to it, 20, 25 miles. I think I got it back into battery to it twice that whole year. That was it.

JONES: Okay. Now. Your. During your tour of duty, you essentially were in one place for that entire year. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. So in that respect, while infantry was constantly moving from point A to point B, you stayed in one place the entire time.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. Stayed there one completely stayed there completely all the time. Yeah. I couldn't even tell you who where we got our supplies from. As far as, you know, eating and food supplies. We always had a big. And we had a nice mess hall there, but that was. That was intense. Yeah.

JONES: So did you have a, routine where essentially, I assume this road construction only occurred in daytime hours.

SOUTHWORTH: Daytime hours.

JONES: So, essentially, is it safe to to say that you had a job that was similar to, like, working first shift?

SOUTHWORTH: I would think we're able to basically work at first shift, hauling work for. Yeah, chow time, breakfast time and back up, back out hauling, doing whatever, fixing the truck, repairing trucks. Whatever. First line basic. First line tire tires, fixing a trucks, changing oil, checking oils, stuff like that. We did all that ourselves. We had no motor pool as far as mechanics and stuff like that. Well, I did volunteer. They talked about burn pits. A couple times I volunteered to stay back and burn. Burn our. Pit feces, whatever you want to call it. I was kind of a little extra duty to stay back in here. I had hot chocolate. Remember it? Now? 3 to 3 meals a day. That was kind of different. Something else.

JONES: Do you know, it's only been relatively recently that we've come to learn how dangerous that work was?

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: Because of all the chemicals that were released into the air.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. And at that time, we just there was this was just human feces and diesel fuel. That's all we burnt. That's all I burned, okay? No other chemicals, no other product, nothing else.

JONES: So, essentially, did you have usually your evenings free?

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. Evenings for free. But what do we do? I can't even tell you what we did. That's where I started smoking my first cigaret. Because in the estimate, they'd go to the SB packs with, with the rations. He had so many cigarets left over, they talked me into their have a cigaret. Half a second. All of a sudden I'm smoking cigarets. Yeah.

JONES: Everybody out did at that point.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. And, I smoked till 1988.

JONES: So, what about, when we say you worked first shift? Did you also essentially work Saturdays and Sundays?

SOUTHWORTH: Pretty much. Sundays. Probably not for Saturdays. Yeah. We were out doing something at least, at least half a day. You know, if I'm fortunate or not. Those days of Vietnam, 90% of it, I don't I all this stuff here has been put away in boxes. It's been forgotten. I. I've heard of it. I consider myself fortunate because I see people go go to Milwaukee, the veteran V.A. hospital down there, and I just feel sad. I just I just got to get out of there. Some of these people. My brother and I went to Lambeau Field. Welcome home. We spent an hour there. My twin brother and I, we we walked out and then we had come back because my two sons are career military. It's time they they would come up to visit us and yeah, it just I can't harbor on that kind of passed and some of the things. So I've forgotten and lost and I don't remember half what I did.

JONES: Well is that.

SOUTHWORTH: I consider myself that fortunate.

JONES: Okay. I. But the country itself was, you know, obviously a hotspot and things could be very different, in different locales. Was your, little section of the universe, so to speak, where you were at that point? Relatively. Safe.

SOUTHWORTH: I would say three times a week. We got mortared or rocketed. We lived on the earth in bunkers. We've got rockets at least 3 to 4 times a week. Guard duty was like every other night, pretty much for 2 or 3 or two hours at least every other night. We had these. As guard dogs. Our whole company, we add surrounding geese as guard dogs. Sergeant, the guard officer of the day could not come up anywhere we were. The geese were just just raised, totally keen. Geese is an outstanding guard dog. We had this surrounding a certain. We had concertina wire. We had. Oh. What do they call those? Those? Little packs of. Grenades that go.

JONES: Off. Claymores.

SOUTHWORTH: Claymores. We had other setup. We had three different 3 to 4 different bunker areas and different different areas. And in one area up to closest to us, we had, geese walking surrounding of dirt. We had a fenced off and they all go to certain areas. And those guys were the best guard dogs. Several times they tried to overrun us at nighttime, but the geese would just let us know, and we could we could let loose with the machine guns. And we had M14, all of us. We had M14 Zilla at that time and 69. Yeah. But.

JONES: Did you use it?

SOUTHWORTH: Oh, yeah.

JONES: Just mainly at night.

SOUTHWORTH: It was very much always at night. Always at night. Anywhere from 2 to 3:00 in the morning. It's pretty much always. Always late. Late night. Early morning. So, yeah.

JONES: Any, anybody, suffer casualties?

SOUTHWORTH: Not that I recall.

JONES: Okay. At any point, did you. During that year, did you, have any answer?

SOUTHWORTH: Yes. I had an out country and, I went to Hong Kong.

JONES: And what time frame was this?

SOUTHWORTH: Couldn't remember. Couldn't tell you?

JONES: It was sometime in sometime.

SOUTHWORTH: Sometime in 69. Sometime, I would say in mid 69.

JONES: What did you think of Hong Kong while tone?

SOUTHWORTH: It was totally, totally different than anything I've ever been used to. And and remember, I was totally never in it. It never stopped. It was never. The town was like. Like New York City or Vegas. Never. They never stopped going down. Never closed? No.

JONES: So after the answer, you went back to the same place.

SOUTHWORTH: And back to the same company, same job, same people.

JONES: Tell me about the people. Where, in. Do you have any enemies, so to speak?

SOUTHWORTH: No. Nope. Everybody from Georgia, Alabama, New Mexico. All over. Just extremely friendly people. I thought everybody was extremely friendly. Friendly? Nice people. Well, everybody that I know, we really got along good.

JONES: Okay, I assume this is a pretty cosmopolitan group. Meaning whites, blacks.

SOUTHWORTH: White, white, white, black, Hispanic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JONES: Yeah. Any.

SOUTHWORTH: Native American, any.

JONES: Racial fights that, you know.

SOUTHWORTH: Nope. None. None. None whatsoever. None at all.

JONES: What about, drug usage during that?

SOUTHWORTH: None. None 69. There was none. I didn't see any. I might have been blind. I didn't notice any. None. Not a one.

JONES: Okay, so. Then, essentially. Your time. It's getting, say, to November of 1969. Your one year commitment, one year two of duty is coming to an end. Before we talk about what happens next, is there anything else you want to tell me about that tour of duty that we have not covered?

SOUTHWORTH: There is. But I like you. I would shut that off and then I'll talk to you. Then you tell me if I can say it or not.

JONES: Then is there anything else you want to tell me about that? About your first tour of duty?

SOUTHWORTH: Sadly, yes. I was in cut in in my company. Probably two days, maybe three. There was this. Several explosions. Come to find out. We're all waiting, looking out our little peepholes to see what that was coming at us. It was not, never found out who, what, where, but a soldier. Urinated hand grenade at the NCO tent and, officers tent.

JONES: And so both the NCO and officer.

SOUTHWORTH: NCO and officers tent. They were next to each other. And and did kill a few of them.

JONES: So, if you don't, you.

SOUTHWORTH: Don't know what happened. Who? What? Where they did. Major. Investigating. Why? Who never found out anything about it that I know of.

JONES: So. The clear inference is that this bombing, was an American. Yeah. Who who did this? Yeah. And again, this is happening in the context of. Engineers. Yeah, it's not infantryman, per se.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: I knew, that there were many instances of. Fragging, so to speak, in her. With infantry men. I've never heard of it. Yeah, with the engineers.

SOUTHWORTH: With the engineer? Yeah, it did happen.

JONES: So essentially that was your introduction to Vietnam?

SOUTHWORTH: Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. It's it's that, introduction to Vietnam, the introduction to. What can happen to people. How do you put it out of the report of the cat? That's sad. It's sad. Yeah. I never seen anything. And what? Anyway, what happened to the 10th or the 10th where you could see they were all apart, blown apart. But.

JONES: So. And in terms of a time frame, this was, in January.

SOUTHWORTH: Early, early, early, early January of 69.

JONES: 1969.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah, I would say it, maybe the fifth, sixth half that somewhere in there.

JONES: Earlier you were I asked you about, essentially the. The relationship of the soldiers in the unit. And you painted essentially a picture for me that made it sound like. Things were going along pretty well, which is surprising given that story.

SOUTHWORTH: From my perspective. After that, the people I worked with worked for the sergeants lieutenants. Accompanied soldiers were some of the nicest soldiers you could ever want to meet. What happened to that? I have not a clue of why. What? Yeah, I, I yeah, I don't understand either, but. Yeah.

JONES: But insofar as, you know, the perpetrator, meaning whoever did this, was not found.

SOUTHWORTH: Was not found.

JONES: Well. That's okay. That's quite a.

SOUTHWORTH: Story. Yeah. That, that, that I. No, was not found.

JONES: Okay. Anything else about that first tour of duty that, we have not covered that you want to talk about?

SOUTHWORTH: Our whole battalion was deactivated, so we all come home at once. And this is where I got my first. Inkling or I on sight of drugs.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: And why I wasn't there. It just happened to be. It was my three quarter time, but I was not in that truck and I was in a dose and half. We're heading back to Bambi, to it. And this one soldier was extremely high on dope. He pulled out his pistol and the what they were. It's a. May, we were one day from going home on the way home, and he says, you think I'll shoot you? He was higher and a kite. And the guy said, no. Blow them away. Totally. I on drugs.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: He.

JONES: Did you see this? No. You heard.

SOUTHWORTH: About. I heard about. He was in my three quarter time. We had three quarter inch plate steel all the way around the back of a three quarter ton with the M60 on it. And I was driving to do snap.

JONES: So the soldier who shot the other soldier was the person who was shot, an NCO, not officer, just another.

SOUTHWORTH: Fellow fellow soldier.

JONES: Was there bad blood between them?

SOUTHWORTH: I have no clue. Nope. Not that I know of. He was just totally doped up. And he spent the rest of his life in some prison.

JONES: Yeah. Didn't, race ever figure into that? Not at all. Nope.

SOUTHWORTH: Drugs. The only thing we could figure out. That was it, you know.

JONES: Either of the two guys know. Now you know that that story in conjunction with the first story. Make it sound like a dysfunctional unit.

SOUTHWORTH: Other than those two stories. It was a very functional unit. Yeah, but other than that, and that's when was my first inkling of hearing and seeing drugs. I never seen anybody on drugs while I was there. And that was the last two days we were there. Okay, well, he was not part of this. Neither one of those two guys were part of my squadron or wherever else. They were part of somebody else's.

JONES: But were they still in? Were they engineers?

SOUTHWORTH: Yes. Well, they were combat engineers. Yeah.

JONES: Look it. Okay, so, at this point, your first tour, ends in a in about November of 69, but.

SOUTHWORTH: The end of November of 69 somewhere in there.

JONES: And, did you get to leave the country at that point?

SOUTHWORTH: Yep, yep. We all flew out of I couldn't remember what war, what air base we flew out of. We flew on back on, whole comp. Battalion flight on an Air Force transport plane. Everybody sat backwards.

JONES: Okay. And did you fly back to the US?

SOUTHWORTH: Flew back to rest.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Very quickly. It was. No, it was a really quick direct flight. No was no layovers and stopovers.

JONES: Okay. So you get back to the US then. Do you have some leave time?

SOUTHWORTH: I had another 30 day leave.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Then after that was January or December. December. I'm sorry. Go back to December. And it was hot in Vietnam. Go back. And my mother dad picked me up at Central Wisconsin airport was just being built. And I remember it's about a 45, 50 mile ride home. It was colder than all. Get out and the car could not get warm enough. I remember that so bad. I was.

JONES: Struck by the mental image of going from extreme heat to what you and I can call a typical Wisconsin.

SOUTHWORTH: Winter. And, it.

JONES: Might have been 20 below.

SOUTHWORTH: It was just so cold. I don't remember how cold it was. This probably wasn't all that cold because usually early December, it's cold, but ain't real cold. But yet again, you go out deer hunting in late November and early December. It can be it can be mighty cold. And it was. And I can't remember what kind of the car they had was a 63 Ford Fairlane 500, and that just you couldn't get that heat enough and just, that ride home.

JONES: Okay. So, after your leave, then you report back. Where where did you go at that point?

SOUTHWORTH: Reported to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 612.

JONES: Quartermaster second. So. Fort Bragg.

SOUTHWORTH: 6/12. Quartermaster.

JONES: Quartermaster Corps. Okay, so what did you do there?

SOUTHWORTH: I was in the motor pool doing. Second echelon repairs on 612 quartermaster vehicles. No more construction equipment. Okay. All they had was jeeps, clips and door snaps. I've got an accommodation in there somewhere saying how good of a job I did by the copy, commander. That was 600. Some guys in our quartermaster. What the could you.

JONES: Describe for the. For the record? What you mean by do some half.

SOUTHWORTH: Dozen and a half is like they call a deuce out, because I consider it's a it's a big light duty, two and a half ton truck. Most of their bar, basically for carrying supplies. Or they can fold down benches where they can carry troops along alongside in the back.

JONES: So how long were you at Fort Bragg?

SOUTHWORTH: Total of six months. Six months at Fort Bragg.

JONES: Okay. Then what?

SOUTHWORTH: There was no heavy equipment. There was just dudes now. 612 Quartermaster. Their main duty was rigging parachutes for the 82nd airborne. That's all the quartermaster company did is rig parachutes. Okay. Every day for the 82nd airborne. Factor. I talked about going airborne, but I talked to a couple of commanders. You can't jump school. You'll never leave here. I know that's out of the question. So. Worked in the motor pool. I came home when I bought my brother in law, 65 and a SuperSport Chevy, and drove that back to Fort Bragg. Right. I've run there a couple ice storms and nope, that got parked. Nope. No driving around Fort Bragg and all that ice storm. Know how it is. Cars all over. But, yeah. So after. I do not like Fort Pride. I did not like Fort Bragg on Airborne. There are all these guys are airborne. So we had spit shined and really starched fatigues every morning at 6:00. Formation and being just being used in Vietnam, in Vietnam, where you had no spit shine, you had no starch, you had nothing else, no rank, everybody, no saluting and an airborne. Just tight, tight fatigues, tight salute and tight. This and you don't spit shine. Greased and oiled boots. Very well. And. But I had a very nice company, commander. So I had quite a few talk talks with them and finally says, I can't I can't leave here. They won't accept me. I want to go back to Vietnam. That was in April. I looked through the records in April. I talked to him. He took me home that night. Did you call your mother? And you tell her what your intentions are and then you go out. He took me home that night on his home town, on his time. Call my mother. Listen to my mother sob and cry and tell her what I wanted to do. And might. How can you hear my dad in the background? Holy damn fool. But I had my mind made up and I wanted to go back to Vietnam. Company commander. Battalion commander. Brigade commander. Everybody disapproved of it. But the Department of Army approved. So by the 1st of June. I was on my way home on a 30 day leave. With orders that were canceled because they give me initially, they give me no, no, leave time. I talk to Battalion, but I said, well, we'll arrange it. You can have do you take 30 day leave? They kind of sent me some orders at home. Temporary orders. So when I reported to Fort Lewis, Washington. I was semiannual and they looked up and they got they do that. They gave me they got me orders that out. I was there on time. So what? Vietnam landed in Benoit. That Benoit and I volunteered to go back to Vietnam as a construction engineer. Operator and I got stopped, put, put into a 3036 tension engineer construction engineer battalion unit. I went in long, then Vietnam. Lo and behold, at that time my twin brother and my brother John were both in Vietnam at that time.

JONES: Okay, just say it. So at that time, your parents have three sons in Vietnam? Yes. And you, of course, are in the engineers, but of the other two in the infantry?

SOUTHWORTH: No. Your brother John was his career was in special force. He was in the fifth Group, Special Forces. Brother Dennis, I call him. He was a whip and chair. Shake and bake. He went to six weeks of eye training. He came always E-4. He was a fourth and fifth echelon mechanic. Okay. That was his tech training and tactics when he went to tech on high school. As. Equipped as a mechanic, or either farm machinery or a backhoe. He would work for Galvin truck heavy trucks out of Abbotsford. And so that's where that's where he got the schooling. And he got sent to that training when he came out of base to come out of it. He was an E4 okay. And that's.

JONES: Was it any solace to your parents that, the three of you, meaning the three sons who were over in Vietnam, were not in the infantry?

SOUTHWORTH: John while John bro. John was in the afternoon with the Special forces. He was he spent all his time with though with the mountain arts and in among. Small special forces doing all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but, no, no, my dad was always proud of us for what we did. My mother was sad. But my dad was very proud of us. Her doing what we did. And. I had a very nice company, commander. But two months, three months into my duty, he says. Come to find out. John and I were communicating. John was only ten miles away from me, and John was down at Cantor, basically a rock below right across the Mekong River a couple of miles south. And, we John John was, major. And he tried. He stopped in a few times. And, then Ben long to see me, and I was gone. And I'd stop by, count towards his getting his fifth drop and try visit him. He was gone. We could never communicate. So, my commanding officers, why don't you go visit your twin brother? So he gave me orders to fly all the jumper flights from there long. Where? It was an air base right there. Then long all the way up to. He was in up on a train in a fourth echelon shop. Okay. So I went up there for a week, visit him. Which was nice.

JONES: Type of reunion.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah, and there was.

JONES: 6000 miles from where you grew up.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah, and I started there running equipment. We had land clearing dozers. We had scrapers. We had dozers, regular dozers. We had craters. We had heavy duty hauling trucks to haul the dozers.

JONES: So road graders, scrapers. What else did you operate?

SOUTHWORTH: We had, dozers. We had land clearing dozers, which they had roan plows on it with a big stinger on it where you could just rip down trees. They were all DSM and cat dozers. The only place you can see one now is in a in a museum, part of the museum at Fort Leonard Wood.

JONES: I saw a video, relatively recently, of those things.

SOUTHWORTH: Every night, every night, the operator nights. We'd have to show you. Sharpen the blade, grind the blade down, or put a new point on. And they would just just stab trees and just sharpen like a razor blade. Cut trees down, go through. Just go through the jungle.

JONES: So basically, you cleared the jungle.

SOUTHWORTH: Cleared jungle. Cleared the jungle. From the view for the VC, from the VC.

JONES: From what I've read, that was a big overall task for the engineers.

SOUTHWORTH: Pretty much the board, pretty much. That was half of our task was rote, was land clearing, and the other half was, road construction. We did a lot of road construction. We had, we had we had pavers. We had pretty much everything. What road construction has around here? The graders, the compactors, the, the dozers, the excavators, the scrapers. We had all that stuff the first six months, I pretty much I did construction. Then I got into driving a ten ton lowboy running back up into a bend wall for supplies. I'll run the last six months over there. I, I backup from that long term, basically in Saigon to run for supplies.

JONES: Let's talk about the two halves of your job. When. When you were clearing the jungle. Obviously you didn't know what was out there. It's there. So it sounds dangerous to me. Was it?

SOUTHWORTH: Oh, yes. It never happened to me. I already had hit a small, small bomb, and it won't affect the dozer much, but I've seen other other guys hit 500 palm bombs, 250 pound bombs and just blow them right out. All the dozers were completely encased in Bengay with three quarter inch plate steel around, with small viewers out the sides, the back and the front. But yeah, some dozers really got blown up out.

JONES: Did you see any dozers? Get oil.

SOUTHWORTH: On it. Yeah. Nobody got hired.

JONES: And do the operators.

SOUTHWORTH: They'd got hurt but they never got nine. And no none got killed. They were not really. There was so much steel on their plate. Belly steel, so much belly plate, extra steel on these dozers that the tracks would gone on part, part of the engine be gone. But the operator was pretty much protected.

JONES: So the equipment was damaged because soldiers were intact? Yeah.

SOUTHWORTH: Pretty much. Yeah, they'd be harmed, but they were still pretty much intact. Yes. Yeah.

JONES: So because of that dangerous work I take, is it fair to say that when you learned your daily assignment was going to be road construction, that you might have read the sigh of relief, so to speak? Did you look on road construction as an easier, safer job?

SOUTHWORTH: And yes and no. Not really. Because you're still out there in wide open every day. And and this is where the second tour, this is more time. There's only six months separating from the first time being out of the second month. But there was many, many miles from north central Highland to the south. The whole attitude of the Vietnamese people, the whole attitude of the American soldier, was completely different. We had a separate. Hut of druggies, and those boys didn't have to wake up and go out till eight, nine, 10:00 in the morning and we were up, no matter what morality we had to be to work by 6:00, 7:00 every morning. And that's what turned me off from not. And Harry, enlisting in the army is the way the new modern army was treating two separate soldiers, those that did drugs and those that didn't. That turned me off big time. But as far as being any that I consider anyone more dangerous than the other. No.

JONES: Okay. In the second tour of duty. What part of the country, geographically, are we talking about? We? You. The south.

SOUTHWORTH: Way down south in the Delta. Nothing to get 130, 140 degrees. And when the monsoons came along, we put our field jackets on, and we'll give you 75, 80 degrees. We were cold. Yeah, it's totally, totally different. Nice night, beautiful country. There are certain parts of Vietnam or when doing these. Supply runs and even downtown Saigon. There's parts of it to remind you of pictures of, like of France, because the French were in Vietnam for so many years before us. Right. It was very picturesque parts of the country, some of these towns and some of these downtown Saigon were just extremely gorgeous.

JONES: How much time did you get to spend in Saigon?

SOUTHWORTH: Not much. Hardly much. Just trying to survive. Just driving through.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Just driving through. Because we get supplies, go up there and turn around. Head right back.

JONES: Okay. So. Comparing second tour of duty to the first tour of duty. First tour of duty, you really didn't see much drug usage. Second tour you're seeing. It's a different story. Different.

SOUTHWORTH: Totally different story. Yeah. It was it wasn't rapid, but it was rapid for a few few soldiers. And I would say maybe 5% or less. Did the drugs, marijuana, it was all marijuana. Nothing harder that I know of. But the rest of us just do. Yeah we did. We were beer was everywhere. And, yeah, beer was everywhere. Water was hard to get. It was harder to get the second time because we were running out. And it was twice during that tour we had dysentery. Terribly bad.

JONES: Yeah. So in this second tour of duty, where were you? Just with fellow engineers.

SOUTHWORTH: Yes.

JONES: Okay. So even even the engineers were having drug issues just like the broader infantry.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

JONES: Yeah. Pivoting back to, road construction work. Any stories you want to tell us about that part of your work? Why you while you were there?

SOUTHWORTH: It was a fascinating job. It really was. Because we did. We don't. And, to build roads just like what you do here. But, one day we hauled big culverts. These are four, five foot culverts out. We're going to put new culverts in the next day, hauled them out and dumped them off the little boys right before we went out the next day they were gone. He's big near a 30 foot. Culverts gone. So where were they gone.

JONES: And you're just laughing because it just it takes big equipment to steal something like that.

SOUTHWORTH: We found them five and six miles away. They were. Somehow they carried him out or garam masala went somewhere. The Vietnamese were very, very ingenuity of people. They they they found any I don't know what they were going to use them for, but they were 4 or 5 miles away. Yeah.

JONES: So I'm trying to get a picture of, for the audience, so to speak, that we're talking about, these culverts. That would be the size of what we in the U.S. you would see for standard road construction.

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. Yeah. They galvanized, galvanized four foot.

JONES: Something with a, like, a six foot diameter, perhaps.

SOUTHWORTH: A four and a five foot diameter. You betcha. You know, you could never. You could. You don't have to bend over far to get through a neighbor down the road. How they got him there. Who would do do we just we just can't do any. We're talking about just to to to just to them. But still tour them all how they're in that far away. Yeah. And we just start driving around the country and heroin and we.

JONES: And you were using heavy equipment? Yep. Of course, to.

SOUTHWORTH: Load them and unloaded.

JONES: Think that the, Vietcong didn't have many.

SOUTHWORTH: The standards that the standard. Vietnam, Vietnamese. They wasn't Vietcong. It was the Vietnam Vietnamese civilian people. Okay. Yeah. It is just amazing.

JONES: Wow.

SOUTHWORTH: Just amazing. And at that time, 2 in 71, we were starting to turn things over to the the South Vietnamese army. Arvin Army. And a lot of equipment had to be turned over at either be had to be new or went through and made light new through the third and fourth line shops to totally rebuild, to turn them over to the Vietnamese army, the Arvin army. Barracks, equipment, planes, dozers, whatever we had APCs. Everything had to be. We were turning over to the Arvin Army and, they had to be like new.

JONES: Second tour of duty. Any, conflicts you remember with fellow soldiers?

SOUTHWORTH: No. Not really. Not. Not really at all. That was a sad. I left. I cried. You get so close to these guys. Living with them. Being with them. I thought I was closer to them guys than even the first two are so close to these guys and made such good friendships that I was. I cried when I left. Yeah. I spent a lot of time with these guys day and night. Even though the first tour we live well, we still lived with each other over here. We lived in tents only once. I don't recall that at the base camp at Van Long, or we got mortar rocketed only once. I think a land clearing we never got. We'd get rocketed once in a while, but most time it was just. They'd bury bombs here. In here for land clearing. The roads were always, never. Always taken care of because they wanted to transport roads overnight. Time to.

JONES: So since the base camp was not bombed, is it safe? Did you feel, in essence, safer in the second tour of duty than you did the first.

SOUTHWORTH: At the base camp? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Even though at the Tet Offensive of 68, Bennelong Airbase was completely overrun. By the NBA, completely overrun. And, the commander's head was put up on a flagpole. But this here again. Now we're talking a year and a half later. That was a different time for a of 68 than to him.

JONES: Well here we're talking.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. No.

JONES: Was 1970. Yeah.

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. 1970. Total. Different time period. Total different frame. The whole American time frame. The video of head. You could tell it was long. Now think it back. You can now you can tell where. Our government is running the army, and the army was not running the military like it should. It was our politicians running. The the army. And it was said, oh, something else I forgot in there. Okay. While I was over there, my dad got a letter from the department.

JONES: In his first tour or second to.

SOUTHWORTH: On a second tour.

JONES: Okay. Go ahead.

SOUTHWORTH: Going on a second tour. My dad got. I started to see that my dad got a letter home saying I was able. Because I didn't have the orders. Well, he got Ahold of Senator Proxmire at the time. Senator Proxmire. And Frank Nikolai were born and raised in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Marshfield. Not too far from Owen. And my dad was heavy into the farmers union, and he was well, well acquainted with both Senator Proxmire and Frank, not Frank Nicolay. Wherever the other center at the time said congressman. And so he got Ahold of them right away, and he got I got a letter somewhere that he's talking about that they cleared my name quickly for not being able for not reporting for duty up for Louis Washington to go to Vietnam. I was already in Vietnam for two and a half months, and he got a letter saying I was a wall.

JONES: Okay. And so at the time you were in and in fact, in Vietnam. Yep. Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. I got a letter in Vietnam and my dad got a letter. Yeah. So.

JONES: Yeah, I have to chuckle. Yeah. Fact one hand doesn't know with the other hand.

SOUTHWORTH: And you you could see it back then, you know. Now now that everything is on a computer, it's speed. It's shifted. It's sent right away. Now, back then, you would physically carried all your orders and all your payroll records and every darn thing with you, and you turned them in. And it wasn't someone who didn't have a record what you were doing. Yeah. But.

JONES: Anything else about the second tour of duty that we have not covered that you want to talk about?

SOUTHWORTH: The only thing that disgusted me is at the end of the second tour, when we were out land clearing the army, an army was supposed to be protecting us because the dozers only go back. They go faster, backward they go about seven and a half miles an hour back, packed backwards, where they do about six and a half miles forward on full speed. They were supposed to be protecting us, and we, if we would get a bomb, would ever go back, they would beat us back to our bunkers. They have an army to protect us. That's what disappointed me with among soldiers. The first time they would they would stick with you 100% all the time. But yeah, never forget that. Because they were EPCs supposed to be protecting you and they'd beat you back to. Where you have some berms. But not the second time. It was. There again? It was a construction job. Even, if you want to spend more time in the road. If you were under supplies. But if you're out doing construction work, it was basically seven in the morning till 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and you're done. No. Go back to the airbase. Yeah.

JONES: And, the airbase, as you've indicated during your second term, second tour of duty was a relatively safe place.

SOUTHWORTH: Yes, it was down a bit long. Airbase was very nice. Airbase, very nice. Safe air base. Nothing major going on as far as being mortared or shot with artillery. Nothing. Just at one one time. But the second, third day I was there and I was only on 2 or 3 rockets, so it was very quiet. We'd wait on a delta.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: So. Check made. Notes here about the date. So. Come. It's now basically July of 1971. Absolutely. Your tour of duty has come to an end.

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. Tour of duty is coming to an end. A guy came over. This is probably about halfway through. A guy came over, and all of sudden he needed some money. And he bought with him. Brought with him a nine millimeter Walton P-38 pistol. He needed money. So I gave him $125 for this pistol. And I immediately went and got it registered. With the United States government so I could legally bring it back because I mentioned it. Seal and he says, you got to get that registered. Okay. So he let me go get it registered and I put it in the armory. Never carried it. I don't have it tomorrow. Give it to my older son.

JONES: Okay. So what you're saying is, though, when you're in a war zone like that, you have to jump through certain hoops to bring a weapon home. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. Now they want to know they didn't want anything like to do something like that.

JONES: At the time they did that.

SOUTHWORTH: So at the time they did.

JONES: Bring a handgun back. Yeah. And what you're saying is that handgun was in your family.

SOUTHWORTH: It was it was his personal handgun. And he brought it over there, and I bought it from him, and, I brought it back home. Yeah I know. And I got out of the Army because I was ready to ets out. I can't even remember what ET's means. I mean, it's not a service. I enlisted on July 14th of 68. They had because I was in a combat zone. They had to get me back to the States seven days early.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: So I started this service. July 7th of 1971. I was back in the States, got a service seven days early.

JONES: Okay. And of course, by this time, you're about, with a 22 year old.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. The 68 here in 71? Yeah. 22. 23? Yeah. Well, I was born in 49, so. Yeah. 22.

JONES: Okay. So anything else about the second tour that you wanted to tell us?

SOUTHWORTH: No, not that I can think of.

JONES: Okay. Before I move on to the last part of the interview. Anything else that we have not covered that you would like to talk about in terms of your, two tours of duty in Vietnam and, just basically your, two and a half years in the military.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. Not really. Not really. Yeah. Three, three full years. I spent three full years. Three, four years. Minus seven days. Seven days early. No.

JONES: It.

SOUTHWORTH: There's a good, good learning experience.

JONES: Okay. After you're now out of the military. Tell us about, what happened next in your life.

SOUTHWORTH: Next in my life. At home. Then I didn't hear another window in the world. I didn't hear about all the influx, what was going on in Madison, and all the other world power things that are. But I don't even remember if I flew home in the kind of a semi army uniform. We didn't have enough money to buy other clothes or come from Vietnam. So I flew home, got home in time to bail here to help my dad bail him. So that was always kind of nice help my dad built over that. By this time, my dad was. 70. Oh. Almost 70. And, I helped him, Bill Bailey, and got going and drew on a playmate for a while. Did not join the reserves. I felt if they want me, they can come and get me. I did not join the reserves, I guess, to talk to other people. Yeah. You know, you had a six year commitment. No.

JONES: So.

SOUTHWORTH: I felt my three years was enough, and what I did, that was enough. So I did that. And.

JONES: Is it safe to say you wanted to get on with your life?

SOUTHWORTH: I want that's exactly very much. I want to get on with my life. And. I had a quite a drinking, drinking problem there for a while. But, then I got a job, driving dozer for an ad for a small excavated company at home, and, er, did the work for them for a while. Wanted to, wanted to raise. He's not. You don't deserve one yet. I need a raise. No, don't get one. So I quit. I went to work for Liberty Homes out of Dorchester. Well, at this time, my twin brother was. He got an early, early out. And I'm upstairs sleeping. I'm going to drop for Liberty Homes working there. And he's outside the bedroom window up there shooting starlings. And it just just blew me apart. And he didn't know nothing about it. Dennis Dennis was never heard anything of being shot at or mortared or rocketed like that. And here there's on my bedroom window, he's shooting starlings with a shotgun and all kinds of three rows, four rows of pine trees in the north side of the house. I come storming down there and he's laughing at me. Well, an upset me. So we got into a little fist fight there and I didn't know it. When I come home, I took that nine millimeter pistol, and I hung it with the holster on the side of the mirror bracket on the side of the bed. And hole. And behold, a couple months later, I don't remember who even a who told me Dennis did my twin brother or somebody else. You know, your mom and dad will not go upstairs while you're sleeping. Why did she have that pistol hanging in there? Why in the world didn't they tell me about this? So me telling me about this sooner. But I quickly ran upstairs and grabbed that pistol and brought it back downstairs and took it apart and put it up above the sink cupboard. I saw their mom, their dad totally out of because they didn't. They didn't know what I was going to do with it. And so I said that somebody should tell me about this sooner. And, they were worried about they didn't know what was going to happen. If you go walking up, if I go walk it up. So I solved the problem. I took it apart, put in pieces, put it in a box, put it up on the cupboard and all the other weapons that were around, they were always downstairs. And my mother always had a shotgun and deer rifles downstairs behind kind of a whole closet and just just sitting there and all closet. Everybody knew. We all knew there. Growing there, growing up. That's where the algebra. Don't touch.

JONES: Well, okay. I want to return to the the story of, the brother shooting the, the shotgun. I'm going to use a term that is very common now in our society, but wasn't common 50 years ago when you went through this. But looking back on that incident with your brother. Do you think that was a type of, PTSD response? That you had.

SOUTHWORTH: More likely, yes, I would say it very, very much so. It just just totally just scared the living daylights out of me. And usually when you go and you hear a rifle or a or shotgun or whatever, you're going to run a duck and hide and looking for a place to go and grab it. And grabbing your weapon, you want to have some response and. Yeah. Oh, yeah, very much so. I would have to say that's one of the only responses I've had of that back in the States side until a few years ago. I went to an MRI. An MRI sounds just like a 50 caliber to me. And I screamed at that girl, get me the hell out of here!

JONES: You're talking about the pinging, pinging, noise.

SOUTHWORTH: Of the pinging and the pinging noise of MRI that don't don't, don't, don't just sounds like the repetition of a 50 caliber. And it just it just. Immediately right back to the first tour. First tour with a 50 caliber shoot and 50 caliber, maybe. I just did probably back those two times. That's the only time I could say that of any. Any. Flashback of the Vietnam. And the second and third time of the MRI. I said, give me a little drugs to relax me a little bit and it'll definitely help. It's a light medication I can give you that just makes you relax a little more. But yeah, that's.

JONES: Any. You mean? And some people have been. Some veterans have spent quite a bit of time with the VA getting treatment for PTSD. Is it, did you ever get any sort of formal.

SOUTHWORTH: I've never I. Other than those two occasions, I've never felt I needed it. I went to after that construction working at Liberty Homes. I went I quit there and went driving semi for.

JONES: No. What did you do for Liberty Homes?

SOUTHWORTH: Just build, build, build manufactured homes. Worked on the centerline. Build and manufacturing work there. About six months, six months. And then I got to drive. Drive. And my older brother George got me a job driving semi for those that aren't alive. Van lines, a friend of his, were on the first few Allied Bentley trucks and I got a job driving semi for him. Drove semi for a few months. Then it got a drop. It dropped. Dropped manufacturing. Lost. Building. Yeah. There was a heavy construction.

JONES: Okay, I missed that. What did you do after, you were driving semi.

SOUTHWORTH: After driving semi. Then I got a job for drop manufacturing.

JONES: Drought.

SOUTHWORTH: Drought, drought.

JONES: And what did you do for drought? Manufacturing?

SOUTHWORTH: I was a forklift operator. Forklift operator? Then I went to a yard. Crane operator. Made some of the best money I could ever make in my life. Medical benefits 100% covered.

JONES: How long do you work for? Drive?

SOUTHWORTH: I had a total of 19 years. About 14 years. Seniority. A lot of layoffs. Every time the economy would slump back and, and. I started there in 72. Every time the economy would slump down, it would lay off every time. It would take years before it built back up. So really, I had only 14 years of retirement money there, but I had 19 years retirement as of that was in 92.

JONES: So there were a lot of layoffs.

SOUTHWORTH: A lot of layoffs. In between the layoffs. I drove truck for university stores out of Madison for eight months.

JONES: So he drove a truck on the side.

SOUTHWORTH: Nope. That was a full time job, but it couldn't get full time because the guy who was full time, the doctor, would not release him for a medical condition.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Otherwise I'd be. I would have been working on a from air.

JONES: Okay. So, so you drove truck for. I didn't catch the name of that employer.

SOUTHWORTH: University stores. Okay. For the University of Wisconsin. And my wife was pregnant with the fourth child then. And finally I got a job back. And also at Colby. Colby? No work. Well, the windows actually wasn't on this forklift operator. Colby Colby was the first forklift operator they hired.

JONES: Okay. So how long do you work for Colby and Colby?

SOUTHWORTH: Total of three years. But in between there, I quit once and went to driving over the road semi for a company of B, G and B trucking.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: And I was never home. I had four kids. March took care of all four kids. I was never home. I come home Labor Day in September. The boss says, great job. You won't have to leave again till Tuesday morning. Dispatcher calls me Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. You got to be in Boston at 7:00 Tuesday morning. I said, we're just a minute here. I got to talk to March about this. I've had gone for a long time, so when I hung up the phone, I called Steve, my supervisor at Colby. Colby. I left there with a good rapport, and he says, you got a job. Show up Monday morning. So calls called GMB back up. I says done driving truck. I ain't, I ain't, I ain't driving from my truck. You'll never have another trucking job but I'll make sure that I don't care.

JONES: Okay. So you went back to Colby and Colby again?

SOUTHWORTH: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I'm there. I built, I built special windows. I built all the ellipticals, the full, full circles, half circles, all the specials. I had to make them from scratch. All the. And that's where I learned all. What pylon 3.14 is for mathematics. I learned about what that is and learn how to figure that out. And you still told them about for about three years. And then one day, the human resources from at that time and now it was case manufacturing case bought out drought case, base case agriculture case equipment out of Racine, bought out dropped manufacturing. And, they give me a call where Mars was pregnant with the fifth child. And this time, and it would be automatically about almost a $4 an hour raise. Plus the day when I punch in all, medical insurance would be automatically covered for the family. And I said, I'll take the job. So I want my back to case. Okay. August. September. October. So. Yeah. And. Five kids by the time and work.

JONES: And what do you do for case?

SOUTHWORTH: Then I worked on the assembly line on assembly line and sub assembly line assembly working on dozers. We built the four, 55, 56, 5850s and 1150 dozers on our line. And so I did that from that was in 87.

JONES: I mean.

SOUTHWORTH: 80, 87. I fall of 87 and 92. They were closing the plant down and marginalia, like.

JONES: Where was the plant.

SOUTHWORTH: Lost in school actually Scofield, Weston. Okay. Caulfield, Weston. And we bought this home property where I now hearing from her mother in 1978. And in May of 78 we bought it. In May early May of 78. Ken and Tamara was born on May 29th of 79. So.

JONES: So how long did you work for case.

SOUTHWORTH: Total of that work there. Like I said, we had 14 years total seniority time, but it was a total I had I had 14, you know, whatever 19 years seniority time, but 14 years of retirement time.

JONES: What I'm talking about, when you were talking about both drought and.

SOUTHWORTH: Okay, as all this is all that drought in case was all it did the same thing, but it was just turned over. It was back in this in 72. And one of them layoffs times the long layoff times they converted over from drought manufacturing to case case equipment. But case actually bought them out in 68 okay.

JONES: So so was that the last job you had?

SOUTHWORTH: Nope. I took the I took the I took the I didn't want to. I took the buyout from case since 1992. And six months later I got a job. I was going to start a construction effort. And I've got a case, five, eight little backhoe sitting outside. And I bought that, and I bought a dump truck and paid cash for everything. And then I was going to start a construction equipment. Then for the winter I needed a job. So I post office, you know. Need a job in the post office for winter. Christmas. Christmas. Casual. So I did it. They liked me there, so I stayed on a little longer. The longer I stayed on as a casual for a while, then I seen. Throughout, if not what I was about. 3 or 4 years. I seen a job. As a custodian for posted military only military. Prior military play game for custodian. So I played for it, took the test, passed it, and my first day of employment was May, was Memorial Day.

JONES: And who's the custodial job with.

SOUTHWORTH: The United States? The United States Post Office, USPS. And my first day was Memorial Day. I got double time on the first day of employment.

JONES: And how long did you do the custodial job?

SOUTHWORTH: I ended up spending the last 19 years at the post office.

JONES: In.

SOUTHWORTH: X mail. Yeah.

JONES: And was this in Wausau?

SOUTHWORTH: I stayed in Wausau, and then they went to the new plant in Corona weather. And in 98 I transferred to animal.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Which animal was about 12 miles closer, a little more pay.

JONES: And so you worked in a variety of locations.

SOUTHWORTH: Different hours a day, more more daytime hours. 6230.

JONES: Right.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah. Okay. At the plant, I work second shift.

JONES: So that's the job you retired from?

SOUTHWORTH: That's the job I retired from as a as a building maintenance custodian out Antigo, Wisconsin.

JONES: And when did you retire?

SOUTHWORTH: June and of June. June 30th, 2011. And then. By that time. Philip, my eldest son. He ready to enlisted in the army? I can. What year? He enlisted in the Army? In 98 as a combat engineer. I was telling a recruiter, call me and he's willing to come and visit you on tour. Come on out. I'll fill up on you. Great. You know you ain't got no comprehend. Nope. Nope. Every every young person I believe should join a military man or a woman should join the military. Or spend some time in some kind of service. So he enjoyed it. We went down. It all went down. He was at Fort Leonard Wood. And that place had really changed. And from what I was down there, no. Totally different night and day. Laid down for his graduation. Then Kevin was next. He graduated in. Oh one. He immediately he wanted to join a service. Philip was trying to talk to him and to join the army. Kevin, you've always loved airplanes. You've always loved airplanes. So at that time, I had a nephew just retired out of the Air Force living over at Stratford. He married my brother John's oldest daughter. And. Roy, are you going home tomorrow morning? Yep. So Saturday morning, we went over to visit Roy. He brought his all his Air Force stuff out, and Kevin was just. Just in heaven. So. So, the next Monday morning, if I called school. Kevin's going to be late. Why are you going to be late? He's going to. We're taking him down in the enlisted in the Air Force. So just.

JONES: Okay, so out of the your five children, how many boys? How many girls?

SOUTHWORTH: Three boys. Two girls.

JONES: And, how many of them ended up serving in the military?

SOUTHWORTH: Actually, three. Sarah hurt herself, her back in track in high school. And when she started doing the PTA and the Army, she had to get out.

JONES: Came.

SOUTHWORTH: So. Philip. Right now he's got 25 years. Ami. And Kevin's got 22 years in the Air Force. So. Proud and happy the two boys. I am from a very military family also, which my brother John here has gotten all accommodations. My wife has come from a military family also. So it's no surprise any of our kids want to join the military. I never knew John was a triple triple Bronze Star winner until reading this. But yeah. So from a very military family. Very proud of the boys. And girls too, for that matter. They're they're all very doing. Very successful. Yeah.

JONES: Is there anything else we haven't covered?

SOUTHWORTH: Probably should tell you. I married my lovely wife.

JONES: Yeah, I could kind of infer that.

SOUTHWORTH: I met Marge. I met her actually, prior. I met Marge, through through some friends of ours, and they tried to line us up on a blind date. Neither one of us were satisfied with any kind of blind dates. So we were at good friends. I was best man at a good friend's wedding. And I got a wedding, and, wedding was about done. And another friend of mine says talked Marge into going up to me and talking to me and talk to me and says, oh, I hear you got lots of money and you're looking for a girlfriend. I looked at her. Yes, I am. And from there we went to a disco after the wedding was done and dated. And that was in June. October. I asked her to marry me the following May. We're married.

JONES: Okay, so what year was that?

SOUTHWORTH: That was so seven. 76. When I asked how we did, we started dating in June of 76. October. I asked her to marry me at my twin brother's wedding. In May of 77, we got married. We got 46 years together. She was 22. I was 28. Okay. That five five lovely kids.

JONES: Is there anything else that you want to, address or talk about that we have not covered?

SOUTHWORTH: Not that I can really. Okay. Probably will. Probably better take your phone number later on, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

JONES: Well, then I want to thank you. Not only for your military service, 50 years ago, but, also for agreeing to, to do this interview.

SOUTHWORTH: I turned this interview down quite a few times.

JONES: Really?

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: Because of what I'm going to call baggage.

SOUTHWORTH: Some of that, didn't think I was worthy enough. Didn't think I did enough. Didn't think I did. Earned it. Whatever. I'll be both. And I'll be fine.

JONES: Okay.

SOUTHWORTH: Well, well, I.

JONES: Don't I'm glad you said yes.

SOUTHWORTH: And I.

JONES: Don't. Anyway, I'm glad you said yes. It's. I'm great. Do you think that you were exposed to Agent Orange when you were over there?

SOUTHWORTH: Yes. And I know it was very much so. It was all over, to land, clearing to Rome, plowing through roads, destruction to whatever. Sometime in the middle late 90s, I seen an ad in the Daily Herald, Agent Orange test. So I applied for it and went down to Madison. We asked my Madison for a test. They said no, you have no Agent Orange, but you know you have diabetes. No, don't don't. So I was type two, and then I was been on site and a few years later through testing and testing. As a Turner, diabetic, you know, and I've been getting a disability for that. And my twin brother had two Agent Orange, two other already good Agent Orange. Well, comes in, you know, he was a fourth and fifth after on mechanic and all the dust and dirt were on dozers, heavy equipment and whatever. You also want to talk about falling in his face. So he had prostate cancer well before I did. And my test PSA was quite always quite low. And so the VA would always check it. And I finally one day I said I'll go to urology. And they checked that every six months. They checked every year because it was and all of a sudden because of John. Also brother John had prostate cancer. It removed Dennis that is removed. And so I started going, hey, check it out. And one day the VA found it's, you know, your your PSA is risen for you is risen a lot and is only like 1 or 1 or so points. So I went right up to the hill to urology, especially in Wausau and Roger specialist and they did a biopsy. They did 12 biopsies. This was in. May of 14. And in the meantime we went up to my daughter was up and our youngest daughter was up in Alaska working for the department of Fish and wildlife opened out of Alaska and went up there, visit her, and they called me and said, oh, you. Well, we need to schedule a visit when we back. We'll be back Monday, Monday afternoon at, appointment of urology. Six biopsies were aggressive cancer, four were cancer, and two were nothing. So I took their test and went down to the VA clinic just down the hill from Warsaw. They recorded it right away and they said, well, there's nothing we can do about it. I says they want to do surgery as soon as they can. oh. Yeah. But I know we can do that. So I nearly went around. And when Sean Duffy had an office off of Grand Avenue last night, I went over to Sean Duffy's office. Representative. And he had a very nice young man, not a man out of River falls who did his veteran's appeals. And he had a nice acquaintance in Washington, DC. Less than two weeks later. The VA call me. You have your surgery. The VA's paying for. So. And that I really think is is great because they have no they have no clue with the VA when they were ever going to do everything, anything. And August 1st or August. Yeah. August 1st of 14. I had prostate surgery and aggressive cancer at that. Got said he got most of it but they would no they could not go any more because then he would really do everything. But they said it's going to come back and what it does will zap to the radio, read the last paragraph. And what the doctor written is when you, when irradiated with cancer, comes back, you know, zapped with radiation pretty much exactly three years later. I went through 35 sessions of radiation. And to radiation, diabetes and a few other things. The VA VA's taking care of me. For the most part. The VA has been very good for me. But I recommend to people that if they don't have check with the VA, go see their representative. Go see your senator. Don't be afraid to go to the senator or congressman or anything with the VA. That's what they're for. Yeah. No matter if it's Tammy or Johnson, Tammy or Ron or Kim or Tom. Tiffany. No. Go see him. Talk to them. So yeah, I've got to that and a few other things. Her cancer is gone. Cancer's gone the last several years. That was in 17. Every test, it's less than. So cancer gone. Through all the radiation. It. Give me. I would call right now severe Candice. But I look at it this way. It hasn't stopped me from doing anything or whatever I want to do. Cancer has gone, so I do get disability through the VA for it. But, I, I have had I just had my second heart surgery. The VA has covered all that. So, I consider myself a lucky man. Special woman. Upstairs. Kids. Well, my twin brother is finally going on the honor flight Monday. So, yeah, life is good.

JONES: Have you been on.

SOUTHWORTH: An honor flight? Yeah, I went on 18. Five of us five lost friends to nothing. We have.

JONES: 388.

SOUTHWORTH: Up until last. Oh. There's nothing. I've had the last 30 years of my career. I've had. I've been a town supervisor for the township of Easton. I've done that for 30 years. He liked it. And this finally, this last year, I was on. Enough, enough. And on top of the last year, the last five years, I've been a commander of the post three aviator and myself to VFW post three. So I've been busy.

JONES: What was the number on the post?

SOUTHWORTH: Three. Eight.

JONES: Eight. And that's in.

SOUTHWORTH: Lassa. It used to be. What about the third largest post in the state? And now it's probably about the fifth largest. That's the fifth or sixth largest. We are really declining in membership. We're the we're the third oldest post in the state.

JONES: All right. Thank you for your service also to the VFW post and also for. You know, since your service to, the public at large or the, position that you've had with local government.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: It's greatly appreciated.

SOUTHWORTH: Yeah.

JONES: With that, this interview is concluded.

SOUTHWORTH: Thank you. Thank you very, very much.

[Interview Ends]