[Interview Begins]

BLUMENBERG: Okay. Good morning. My name is Tom Bloomberg and it is November 24th, 2018. And it's my pleasure to be here with Dave van Lance shoot today. And we are in Hayward, Wisconsin. I will mention that I'm doing this Veterans History Project interview, but I am not also associated excuse me, with any organization. So with that, we will get started. And good morning, Dave.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Morning, Tom. Good to see you.

BLUMENBERG: Good. So here we go with the easy questions that we talked about a little bit before, biographic detail. So they tell me where you were born?

VAN LANDSCHOOT [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX].

BLUMENBERG: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]. I see that on your.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes, We're just 25 years in school.

BLUMENBERG: Oh, nice. Okay, so you were in Superior. And tell me a little bit about your parents.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Well, my father worked for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. He was a yard master and train master. My mother was a schoolteacher, grade school teacher.

BLUMENBERG: Okay. And what were their names?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: My father was Tony, and my mother was Thelma.

BLUMENBERG: All right. And you? We talked a little bit just as a sideline before about where your ancestors came from in Belgium.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That's my grandfather and his wife both came from Canada, Belgium. My other grandfather came from Sweden. So I'm. I'm half of each. Well, good for you.

BLUMENBERG: Did you have any siblings? Yes.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Brothers and sister. Brothers. Two sisters. Older brother. Younger brother. Older sister. Younger sister. So I was the middle child. Okay. And all that story is true that you.

BLUMENBERG: Were right in the middle. In the middle. And had any of those of your siblings served in the military? No.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I was the first person in my family to be drafted since World War Two.

BLUMENBERG: Whew. Okay, so.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: A couple of my cousins enlisted, but I was the first one to go also involuntarily.

BLUMENBERG: Oh, okay. So you were you were it for a while there? Yes. Well, you said you were drafted, but before that, what what what was your schooling up in Superior?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Well, I went to Superior East High School, graduated in 1964. And then you WAC for four years taking my to s deferred student, which was deferred every six months through the registrar's office. I was a full time student passing all my classes just had to be verified every six months and at the end of four years it expired. With a few exceptions, you were not going to get an extension. Some people get an extension. I didn't. So my two was burned out in the end of May 1968, and I had my pre induction notice in June and my second oldest in August, and I was drafted by September of 1968. Well, because it was truly a deferment, the idea was you could finish a four year school, right. Rather than have it interrupted some way because there was no you could be two weeks from an end of a semester and you were told to go, You better, you better leave, right? Otherwise you're gone. So.

BLUMENBERG: Well, they didn't waste any time when you go in, you know. Now you graduated then. Yes.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And I was I was short one required. Course I was. I had enough credits on one class, so I was technically not a graduate at the time.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Okay. Well, so we're going to get back to that. And you could. Or should we do it now? Okay.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It just went on that I came back from Vietnam when I finished a summer school. I came home in April, and right by August I was a graduate.

BLUMENBERG: Okay, so you took that one class and immediately. Yes. And what was your background?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I was a biology major. Biology history minor.

BLUMENBERG: Okay. And then you said at one point you were trying to get into grad school.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I talked to the local draft board because I knew my deferment was over. And I said, What are the chances of me doing drafted? And he said, No, you'll be fine. So I did everything that I was enrolled in a graduate school. I had been accepted, took all the tests ready to go in September, and I got these other notices and yeah, so that was, well, I still have that letter and that.

BLUMENBERG: The President.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Well, absolutely, yeah. There was no way I couldn't I couldn't apply for another deferment at that point. I was already in the system. I don't.

BLUMENBERG: Know. I'm just thinking back. Did you have a draft number? No, no. That came afterwards.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And it was a general draft. All eligible males between 18 and 26. Yeah. Were in the draft. That was before the lottery system. Yeah. I did not have a number.

BLUMENBERG: Okay, So you didn't have a number. Well, then we're going to back up a little bit. So when you. You got your letter and said you were drafted. You're going to be in the Army now? Yes. What reaction did your siblings have or your parents with that?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: My mother was kind of turned white because I did see the letter was for Selective Service and I opened it and I said it said, Greetings. You are hereby ordered for induction in the United States Army. And I said, Well, that settles that. That's where I'm going to go. And she just she was not. She was terrified. She there was.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, there's a lot of bad news going on at that point.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. September 68 was not good for her. Things were cranking up in Vietnam, right? A lot. So. But being law abiding citizens, not the loss that we went with. No question. I wasn't I wasn't going to Canada. Wasn't going to Sweden. I wasn't going for anything else. It's okay.

BLUMENBERG: You're in the army now. And in the.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Army? Yes. And my father, who had been in the Civilian Conservation Corps, because in that was born in 1860, he was said to be a good soldier. Do your best there to look. So that was the advice I got.

BLUMENBERG: And this year, I guess your thought process is that this is your duty.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yeah, it was my duty. Nothing wrong with that, though. I'll do it. I did resist. I really didn't want to be there. They looked at my education background and I scored on their induction test. They said you should be an officer and you can do this. And that is fine. You see the paper across it said I was reading it as well. That's. That's a three year commitment. And I said, I'm drafted for two. I'm not giving you three when you can't be. I'm thinking by the time I get through all my training and officer training, I'm not gonna have very much time in Vietnam. Well, that's not true. They are going to extend me for a year if I'm not doing.

BLUMENBERG: The right thing.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That was the end of any chance of being an officer. I wasn't going to do that. And the other story near the end of basic training, I did well. Basic training was fun. I enjoyed it. A small percentage, I think it was 10% or thereabouts. The top ten received an accelerated promotion to Private E-2 at the end of Basic, and I was one of the bunch. They were all called in one at a time to talk to our commanding officer to go to NCO school. And I really had no sense. Your school is a guarantee to go to Vietnam when you got. So I said I was still dreaming. They asked me for my duties. They said, I want to go to Iceland. They looked at the map and Iceland was far away from the other. Could get the other people in this class or this room. They were asking for Germany, Japan, Hawaii and all this stuff. And he says, Who in the hell is going to Iceland? I said, That would be me. He said, The only Marines, probably embassy guards, were in Iceland at that time, but that wasn't going to happen. They didn't go to Iceland either. But he, captain, really wanted me to go into law school, and I told him that I will do whatever I'm asked. To the best of my ability, but I won't volunteer for anything extra. And I don't know exactly how I said it, but he was looking at my little file because I was doing well. That was an outstanding trainee. And I said something that really turned purple. I thought, he's going to have a stroke. Oh, he was so mad. He just I've seen people turn red, but he turned purple.

BLUMENBERG: His intention was for you to go further.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes, I volunteered to volunteer to go to the Centennial School and I said no. And he said, You're dismissed. And I left. That was the last one for that evening, probably seven, 730 in the evening. The next morning, a drill instructor called me out and said, What in the hell did you say to the captain? He's so pissed off, no one can talk to him. And I told him what had happened. He said, okay, Ringo, Not a big deal to him, right? But so I said, okay, That was not a was.

BLUMENBERG: That's going to be a feather in his hat to get you. Probably because you were such a good guy.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: With a good candidate, you thought, That's where I belong. And I said, Well, that didn't that didn't go well. So.

BLUMENBERG: No, I guess not.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: So that was one of my early mean, I enjoyed it. It was we marched and we trained and we shot.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Well, let me let me just back you up a step. So you you got here. You were at UW Superior. Yes. University of Wisconsin. Superior in Superior, Wisconsin. And you in 1968, was that April that you got your notice? June or June. Then when? When you got inducted, where did you actually go physically?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: We went to Minneapolis. We started off at Superior Courthouse. Okay. I went to Minneapolis. I was inducted in Minneapolis.

BLUMENBERG: Okay.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: The next day, we flew to Saint Louis. The flight was overbooked. That was going to Kentucky. So I had three or four of us stayed in Saint Louis one night. The rest of went to Paducah the next day. Kansas, Paducah, Kentucky. I mean, you can get that Kentucky on to Fort Campbell, right?

BLUMENBERG: Well.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That was beginning of basic training there. Another story a lot of people were joining the National Guard to avoid the draft. And you had an issue of your initial was either Energy National Guard or a regular army. You had enlisted or U.S. Army. You were drafted and you had your number. I was standing in line. They were checking this all in. And I was they were all engaged in are a ahead of me. And I got up, we said to us and they told us to say that. And the guy looked up to at least one guy around your has some brains. So I had no idea what was going on here. But they too were not impressed with the National Guard and the regular people that were enlisting at the time.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, that's interesting. Yeah, Well, you ended up in Kentucky, then. Yes. And tell me a little bit about what your basic training was like.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Basic infantry training. You learn how to march military courtesy, learn how to shoot. Oh, it was I cannot remember. There were five aspects to physical training. I know it was a mile run, the low crawl, a run dodge and jump and overhead bars and one other deal and I. And the maximum score was 500. And at the time, the if you scored 400 on your P.T. test with a minimum of 80 on each of these five sequences, you could get a 48 hour pass to Nashville. Oh, well. So I worked hard enough to get my 48 hour pass. Well, I thought it was something spectacular. Just just well enough scored for ten for 16 on these things. So I got 48 hours in Nashville. It's kind of nice. I did it twice. That's why I was at the top of my class and I thought I was a go over in the door and I was just looking for time off.

BLUMENBERG: Well, did you enjoy Nashville?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Nashville's a beautiful city. Yeah, it was. I enjoyed for Fort Campbell was the first time I'd ever been trained on this. I lived in Superior all my life, where the rain was warm and I could see the rain coming. This was September, October, early Movember, and I thought I'd see the rain come. It's going to be nasty. Yeah, well, it was warm. It was just a well, you just wet. It's not, it's not a big deal. So yeah, I enjoyed Fort Campbell, Harry.

BLUMENBERG: And was there anything, any of your instructors that stuck in your mind that won?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Sergeant Fritz? I think his first name was Sergeant. He was. He was at E7 in the. The worst insult he could hurl at you was, what are you, some kind of an individual? Because you were making part of a team, part of an army at the time. You you are not an individual. You are all the same and you better remember that.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. So that was Sergeant Fritz.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Sergeant Fritz.

BLUMENBERG: What was would you categorize as the best part of your your training if there was such a thing?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It was not coddled. It was regimented. It was easy. The fact that you were told exactly what to do. Now I can do what I'm told if I want to. Yeah. Just do what you're told. Stay in line. Keep your head down your mouth shut, and you'll be fine. I didn't find it was difficult at all. I was young, in good shape. I knew how to shoot, so I didn't make waves. And I did very well in basic training.

BLUMENBERG: And so your transition from civilian to the army?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: No, it wasn't difficult. Needless to say, I understood exactly how to do it. So you just did it? I just did it.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Good for you. Was there any instructor other than Sergeant Fritz that still is still in your mind?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: No, no, They were just.

BLUMENBERG: Everybody was doing their thing to.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: They were asses, all of them. And they were breaking us down and making us, you know, basic training soldiers.

BLUMENBERG: So that was basic infantry training. Yes. And then you mentioned earlier something about you went from there, but you had your advanced individual training at.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Fort Sill.

BLUMENBERG: Oklahoma, in Fort Sill.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: For artillery.

BLUMENBERG: Okay.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Those eight weeks in those days, eight weeks of each.

BLUMENBERG: So you had eight weeks basic?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes.

BLUMENBERG: And then to Fort Sill.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: In Fort Sill was learning how to shoot a howitzer in the picture. That 110100.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. You should talk about those. I won't show those because then on mock up the camera book, you had the.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: You know, the 1181 split trail, 105 millimeter Howitzer. That's the that's that one. You know, we learned how to shoot that, how to maintain it. We never marched anymore. We quit marching and artillery People drove in gun trucks. They taught the cannon behind the to an Afghan using that truck and an open field. And we had classroom work and we had field work. And that's the marching. We never had to work. So that part, it was easy. Yeah, well, you know, I enjoyed shooting again. It was kind of fun.

BLUMENBERG: Well, I guess you learned how to do it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes, we did. Everyone learned how to do what they were. The training was excellent. I can I can tell you, they knew exactly what they were doing to make us all cannon years. And basically, in the same way, we're not prepared to go to Vietnam, but we certainly were part of an army at that time, you know.

BLUMENBERG: Okay. So you had this one? Yes. And then the other.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That's a one or two call it the wishbone trail. Had the old gun had a 45 degree angle, it could shoot 22 degrees one way, 23 to the other because of the gravity mechanism. And it was a directional gun for what we call standard traditional warfare, where the enemy was over there. You could shoot that way. Vietnam, we were an animal unit and we would drop in and we were surrounded all the time, surrounded and turned. That other gun was it could be moved really quickly, but this one would deuce was made to shoot 360 degrees or artillery trucks, 6400 mils, because you had 6400 mils without any problem at all. One person could turn that gun, go in a matter of seconds, you know, to any azimuth.

BLUMENBERG: We wanted, and you learn how to operate that weapon also at 40.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: So we learned that in Vietnam, it brought us in. And the end of May 1969, after I'd been in country since February and in May of 1969, end of May. And they brought us back to one when we got the new guns and we had a couple of days familiarizing ourself with all the new gun work and and then and back out again.

BLUMENBERG: Well, when you say back, oh where where it was back out that go.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I was a field soldier and most of them had no idea where I was.

BLUMENBERG: They just dropped in some.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: We were tiny, a tiny, tiny group, six guns, six, one or five, and maybe a platoon of Katrina around us if they were there. And that's that's all we were. There were six guns sometimes a couple of times. The old gun we moved into the only took two guns and went someplace. For whatever reason, we went into a place called Camp Frenzel Jones. It was a heavy artillery battery that was getting mortared. And they had they couldn't shoot back with an eight inch howitzers and 175 guns had a protective fence around them, but they would move up the enemy in the air or B.C. would move up so close and shoot mortars they couldn't be pressed close enough to that to fire back. So they brought in to one or five to shoot counter mortar for them, which they laughed at us and came in with the word You get the toy guns because the heavy artillery was like a tank. They were self-propelled in direct things. But when the mortars came in, we shot back too soon. These guys were all.

BLUMENBERG: Then they were happy to have you.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. Mm hmm. And one table next to Vietnamese village, two guns. For whatever reason, we were brought. I was just a door canner at the time. Why? We got chosen. I don't know why, but we were out in the middle of next to a cornfield, so looked like cornfield to me. I was sitting there shooting for defending this village for three or four days.

BLUMENBERG: And you never found out why?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Never felt. Oh, I never knew. As I said earlier, keep your head down your mouth shut. You do what you're told. And it worked fine. But later on, when we got the new gun, it is so much faster, so much more effective. It didn't take long. We went to one place called Libby and they split us. They had three guns. And from that point on, somewhere around the end of June, early July, our battery was split 2 to 3 gun batteries. And I never saw the other half again. So we were three guns out in the middle of nowhere. And that's that's all. We were tiny. We called the fire base was really a fire support base. FSB, three guns with a little bit of intrigue around us. And so I said I could throw a rock. I know it's politically incorrect. I can throw a rock in any direction without a good arm. You need to look it. Yeah, And not a friendly one. Yeah. Just get out. And that's that's the way it was. And that's just accepted. I wasn't the only wonder of old people. There's a lot of us doing things like that.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. So what were your emotions when you're, you know, you're surrounded.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It's you're on alert. You pay attention how you find your fun, where you get it. And I can don't disparaging officers. We have a tremendous officer as a commanding officer as a general we didn't we had a tenant in charge of us at the time. But the general flew out to visit William Ross Bond and he was killed and killed by a sniper, the only general that was killed on that that way. But he flew out to visit us and he came off his entourage, which were like colonels and colonels and the general. And he was fine, but his entourage did not like it looked at us because we weren't neat parade ground soldiers. We were one of the 10% of people in Vietnam were combatants. And we were not neat. And we're all we're just a little bit different, though. We weren't we weren't parade ground, correct? No. And they were looking, looking, looking at us. And suddenly the one looked over the top of the gun and realized the jungle is right there. You look behind them in the jungle is war even closer? And they moved. They move like chickens, huddled together, fed up, putting up against this helicopter. And I said, you know, can I say bad things on this table?

BLUMENBERG: Sure, You can say whatever you.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Want, you chickenshit enough people. You have no idea what's going on. You want to jump on us because we don't look pretty. But you wouldn't last a day out here. Yeah. Go back to your air conditioned bunker with your whiskey and cigars, which I really noticed you have.

BLUMENBERG: Mostly because you.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Didn't. Because you. We didn't. So.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, you're. You mentioned before when you were at Fort Sill. What rank did you have?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I was a private U-2 at Fort Sill, but again, I did very well at Fort Sill and again, top of my class. And I received another accelerated promotion, Private First Class PFC three at the end of advanced training. So I was moving your rent along.

BLUMENBERG: You were moving up the ladder and you didn't want to be.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And that's right. And it just it was fun. I enjoyed the the discipline, how you did things. It was it was not a hard thing to do. I wasn't going to fight them. That's that's the wrong answer. That's the wrong answer.

BLUMENBERG: All right.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Well, just just do that. So and that time everybody went to Vietnam in our unit at least was promoted to PFC upon arrival. So and that way I had to step up. I had two or three days time in grade over Those are the Yeah. Brand new arrived and again at Fort Sill you look at things like stripes and they have a graduation ceremony. We did not have a graduation ceremony at the end of our advanced training. We came in on a training one afternoon. The last day they put us in in our ranks and read off. Those were going to officer training school report over here. Those are going to enter your school. You were over there. We had one kid who was a graduate of Juilliard School of Music. He played French horn. He said, You are going to the Army, been to Washington, D.C. The rest of you guys are going to Vietnam. Yeah. Pack up your gear and go over there. You're you're on your way. So there was no no ceremony of any kind. Your leave. There was and you.

BLUMENBERG: Just stacked.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Up and packed up in was a couple days later I was in Bennelong.

BLUMENBERG: And so they put you on transport?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yeah, we went to Oklahoma City. The draft got the closest big airport, Oklahoma City, to Ford, California, and then I took the northern route over.

BLUMENBERG: And or or the Plains one C130 there.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: We had seven or so. This was mac v02 or they were modified for army. We had 200 and some people on. We went from Fort Ord to Anchorage in Alaska in early February. Ninth floor was the other 5:00 and we're the only ones there wander around the airport. That was that was fine. We got back on for stuff that you call the Air Force Base in Japan and they said, exit the rear door, only go to the Quonset hut where we refuel. And here the those Air Force base, air police, big yellow lines are all armed with M-16s to stay between the yellow lines and go in that building and sit down. And there was no windows, no door, just a big opening in the front. This was a nice, nice place that and then we were under guard. We hadn't done anything. So what's going on here? Yeah, we're on the way to Vietnam. And figuring a runway or.

BLUMENBERG: Whatever kept in line.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Guys kept us in line. We got back on the plane, landed at Constant Air Force base or been one to a not quite sure. And my first impression of the country and I got to the door a 22 hour flight was it's really hot and it really stinks.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. So what a change.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yeah, that was. And there we had a week of the call orientation and acclimation. They issued M-16s and our gear started into weapons during the what to some basic infantry information out across the river, out across the pond what to look for, for booby traps and things like that. Well and then to a to a battery, to a Delta battery. And one rainy night that I was in.

BLUMENBERG: Now, you say you were in those batteries, but did you actually get flown in from a base or.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. I mean, there's a Long Men. Okay. I mean, it was that long bed and I was there just a few times. And from there we would move. And as a PFC, I just did what I was told. Right. And told us when they said March already put everything together, and then we would get the gun ready for mobile and we would go. Sometimes we went on a truck. Convoy trucks were scary. I would much rather fly.

BLUMENBERG: Really hard.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Displaying. I thought, You're only too vulnerable when you're taking off and landing a truck. You're vulnerable all the time.

BLUMENBERG: The entire.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Trip. So I can see where the people in Afghan Afghanistan people. Wow. And yet imagine running up and down a road all day, every day that's just asking to get shot at. Oh, so I let respectable people know.

BLUMENBERG: When you were flown in, were you you were taking mortar rounds.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: You know, there were hot Not really.

BLUMENBERG: But, you know, the enemy was out there.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Enemy was out there. And we always thought we're so tiny. Is it worth the effort to to overrun us? Yes. We got shot at. We got water from down there. We got shot at. And, uh, we could defend ourselves. We we knew what we were doing. We, we had no what we call them cheat sheets of deflection and quadrant. We had rounds already set charge one minimum charge of power at a time for use of either 0.9 seconds or 1.0 seconds. We draw map where we are. We pay our fellow our fire direction Center says, Here's the distance. What do we need to hit the lowest points? So when we could hear a mortar or a sniper fire, they could say, okay, shoot this one, and we know there's nothing else there to bother you. If the mortar shells was coming from right over there, the been the gun around that it was right there. And we shoot that and it worked itself because to me, with it, they're shooting us with a little gun. We got a big gun and we were we were outstanding cannon years, whatever else. We weren't. We were outstanding cannon ears.

BLUMENBERG: Okay so you're a good cannon near. But who who is with you when you're in that position? There was infantry.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Three guns had three, three cannons and infantry. Someone the bunker, sometimes in heavily infantry. That was scary. We were on perimeter at times and we didn't have anybody else there. Really. When we put one guy in a four points the quadrant north, south, east and west, yeah, they listen. And one occasion we were at a place we had tanks. Tanks were supposed to come in and be our defense. Well, they were late. They didn't come in. It was dark. By the time they got there, these three tanks came in. One of them could not transfer. Traverse can only copy. One of them could not elevate. And one was completely dead and being told by take me treatment that was their defensive people that night. The tank retriever had a light on it which does big weight on the boom. They're working on this thing all night long. We were 100% late, disciplined always, and just sit there with a light on. So what are they doing? They're crazy, but. So nobody slept at night. We were, you know, full of earth and nothing bad happened. So I said, okay.

BLUMENBERG: It's all right. So you then got flown from one spot to another, and what would you estimate? How many of those excursions did you have?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: A lot of mistake. Three or four days, maybe a couple of weeks. I had a book. I had a ledger that I kept track of that was destroyed about two weeks before I came home. We got hit hard and a bunker blew up and it blew my book apart. And it was like and I can't remember all the places that I went, but you were the picture. Some of my pictures have a place on a place name on the back, but I didn't date them all.

BLUMENBERG: You were on the move, though.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: We were on the move. We stayed a long time at a place called Gladys. It was on the Long Nile River and the Ring Ring Road when they crossed the French and in a position there before us. And they were on the other side of the river because it was it was a nice walk up there.

BLUMENBERG: On the back of this picture. It says finally made five five. I was in the 55. Oh.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Okay. So I was celebrating.

BLUMENBERG: You know.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And that's my standard uniform. As you can see, no shirt, pants rolled up. Boots are not polished. We never, ever polished anything. That's a that's not a correct hat. I know where I got the Nazi hat and passport, but nobody cared as long as he shot that gun. That was her. We had one function to shoot that gun when called on. And you did it. And as a as a crew chief, I kept track of how many rounds were fired because one of I was good for 5000 rounds max charge anything less than max is a quarter of a charge. So if you shot charge one through six, if you actually get 20 your 4000 rounds, it made a difference on the where on the barrel of the gun would shoot. Yeah. And we were averaging 200 rounds a day that we would shoot one gun that was the most we ever shot was by chance just over 601 night we moved into a new place and we were pretty much directional. You'd said there were. We're here, so we're going to be firing in a certain direction most of the time. So we put our ammo bunkers behind. So you could always work on him as your firing. Well, as it was, we're shooting a different direction and we're shooting over our ammo, which we didn't like. So we built another bunker. So rather than have 400 rounds on the gun, which was our normal, we built another bunker. We had 600. And that night we shot and every single one of them were.

BLUMENBERG: How how was your hearing protection at the time? Just like this hardcore or.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: We had some if you look at that one picture there, you see I have a with it with a helmet on. I have a, you know, a little character, I think hanging the far right one. I've got a little there was a hearing protection hanging from the ears.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: But you don't have time to put those in when when you get murdered we turn it turn and fire right away. So after the initial burst, then you might put something in your ears. People use cigaret filters, anything, anything you could. Yeah, but we didn't. But my hearing's fine.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. And good for you. Yes. 600 rounds in one night.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That was a busy night out.

BLUMENBERG: I guess so. Well, how long were you in country then?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: 437 days. Well.

BLUMENBERG: And how many hours day? 437 days in country.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: There was a deal going on at that time is if you left country with 150 days or less left active in your tour, your commitment, you would be discharged because they really didn't want the Vietnam veteran back in with the regular people at that time. But they also gave us an option of extending because my tour should have ended in February of 70 and I would have been about six months through September of 70 somewhere, but I could extend it till I only had 150 days. So I did extend 70 days. They called it in the calendar. So that's the way. And I got stuck to this in town, so I couldn't get out in April. So and of course, my mother was just horrified. What is wrong with you? You couldn't have been home in a year and you're going to take an extra 70 days there. And I said, well, I, I don't belong in the army. I'm a wonderful field soldier. Let me shoot again in this leave. Me alone. That works really well. But I don't do well what I call Garrison. And I saw them at the end of my tour of advanced training at Fort Sill. I saw Specialist fourth Class E Force and Sergeants. Their hair was long, The uniforms were barely passable, and they just kind of shuffled along. These were Vietnam vets who had about six months left to do it. And then where are you going to put these people and get better with and train these because you're going to corrupt them? Right. They didn't care. You're going to get you're going to break them down to anyone. They don't care. They just they've done their thing and they don't care who said that? That would be me. I don't make any information generation from someone willing to. That gig line is crooked. Yeah. Yeah. So? So I will stay here. I will get out.

BLUMENBERG: So you stayed in for an extra 70, 70 days, and then how did you get out of there?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I was just discharged.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, but I mean, physically, how.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Do you know we went out? No resupply helicopter from where I was. Brought me back to Long. Ben and I went through a processing system for a day there to think I'm different as a combatant. We never shined our shoes and people avoided us. I mean, I was. I was shocked. The first time I went to a mess hall walked into a mess hall. I sat down on a table and people could see out of my boots which way I did, not polished my uniform, was not clean, and they wouldn't sit with me. They just avoided me.

BLUMENBERG: And that was that long back that that.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Was a long bin just from me. I knew what I had done wrong here. But the the real NCO, which you had to go through the process. You looked at my file and you said you have no intention of re-upping. Do you know? He said, Good, have a good life, enjoy it.

BLUMENBERG: And that was it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That was it. I know we did. I waited the time to do it for two days to the they were busy. April 1970. A lot of people were going home. This made every manifest formation they called them to to get on the plane and call your name and where you're going to be. So in the meantime, I had lost £25. Yeah. If. So that's on my way home.

BLUMENBERG: When you went.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Home, my first. My first impression. We went from. We took the southern road and stopped at Guam. Stopped at Hawaii. Hawaii was the first place we could do anything because there was a there's a saloon there. There's a whatever airport lounge. We can find alcohol here and all weekend. And we walked in, sat down, ordered a drink. There was a family there, which I will never forget. It was parents and a child, either the brother or sister or a sister and or the daughter and the spouse or whatever. And the guy looked up, said, What the hell is this? And I'm trying to look through what are we looking at here? And he's looking and they got up and left because we were all in jungle fatigues, you know, And they said, Oh, that's not so. We didn't do anything wrong. We weren't noisy, we were just quiet. We just came in and sat down to have a drink. And they were not happy with having soldiers in that in that lounge. Really? Yeah. So what if we don't do anything? I didn't say anything.

BLUMENBERG: Welcome back to.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Welcome Back then. And that continued. I came home to Superior, went back to a local watering hole and there were three or four girls and a table there that I had known. It's only been a year and a half really. And they said, Yeah, the senior for a while. Where you been? Someone who got drafted and went to Vietnam and two of them looked at me the same. What you would have if you stepped in a field of dog shit. Well, that's the wrong thing to say. So that's where the Vietnam veteran pretty much closed off. They didn't.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, it was an open arms.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: No, it was not welcome warm or anything like that for a long time. And I didn't do anything wrong.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. What about your family? How did they receive you?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Happy. Happy? Yeah. Well.

BLUMENBERG: What a relief.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I. Well, I disappointed my mother because I came home on Saturday night. We went to church on Sunday, said wear a uniform. They said, No.

BLUMENBERG: No, all right, I've had enough of that.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I've had enough. And it's going well. We'll we'll back up. We're back. After seven months. I was promoted to spec for any for special, the same as same pay grade as a corporal at the time they were making specialist ranks and I was because we were short of people, I'd been the first replacement in about five or six months in our battery in February. So by the time seven months had passed, what these guys, the older guys already put in their year were gone home. So I had moved up from cutting powder to setting fuze to loading to assistant gunner. I was not a spec for gunner, which is supposed to be a sergeant slots one step ahead of myself, which was fine. Enjoyed doing that and the guns were split to three guns in one location, three guns somewhere else. And I got called in by the battery commander and said, How would you like to be a chief? And I said, No one. I'm quite content for being a gunner here. It's a nice it's a nice job, good crew, nice gun. And my pappy here, he says, That's unfortunate you feel that way. MILLER Sergeant Miller got hit last night. We need a crew chief. You are it. Okay. You're going to get a next. Next? Supply chopper was coming here at 730. Get yourself together. You'll be on it like that. And we're going to make you an acting jack and that thing. Jack is an acting sergeant. And I don't know what kind of a smartass, I guess I said, you can force me to be a chief. I'll do that. But you can't force me to be an acting jack on the spec for and proud of it. And that's what I'm going to be. And he said, okay. So away I went and he said, No, we can't have a spec for a crew chief. It just isn't done. Well, there's a promotion board coming up within within a month. I was flown back to long, been clean me up, took a shower, gave me clean floors, went before a board, and I took for a new fire board, which they passed clean wine, all my stuff. I was taught well and I was taught well with the people I was with. And I saw then within the time it takes to process orders, I'm a sergeant now. You said you're you really should be any six, the captain six as well. So 60 days later and before any six war same process. Fly me back, lead me up to ask me know. So I'm making a lot of rank in a hurry. I really in the same thing I stood before the board move passed it just fine. So now I'm in. I'm in. He's six with less than a year and a half in the army being drafted without any special schooling or training. I was a staff sergeant is why I made so much rank in a hurry.

BLUMENBERG: Because you did your job.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I did my job well, and I was trained. The two people, the first gun crew chief I had was Sergeant Rose, Arthur Glenn Rose, I think was Texas a. Big, vulgar Texan, but he knew his stuff and I did what he was told. And he said to me, You like the way I work? He said, You must have paid attention that Fort Sill, if you know your way around the gun. Forget what they teach it. We don't do it that way here. Just do what I tell you. It's okay. And I did. And it worked really well. And the next one, the Sergeant Potts, the same thing, says, Just do your thing. So I was trained on the job training in-country as to how to be a chief, how they ran their guns, and they I did the same thing they did with my own twist to it.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Now, you mentioned something earlier, but you were. You were E-6. Yes. But you were supposed to be 87.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: No, no, no, no. Never.

BLUMENBERG: Okay.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: But I was a I was a spec for I should have been in six.

BLUMENBERG: Okay.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And but for diamond grade, I was just looking this up on the on a website the other day. Right now you're supposed to have seven years in the army before you can be in six.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, I didn't.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: So Vietnam was a place to make a lot of rank in a hurry or get killed.

BLUMENBERG: Right. Nice. Nice option.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: So I took the better option. Right. Okay. Okay. The other thing was, though, Sergeant. Sergeant Rose had seven guns, seven members of his crew. There are seven people in that gun for those people. Got to be crew chief as they went around that boundaries. He was doing something right. Yeah. And I did the same thing for kids that were on my going. Got to be crew chief eventually. We're doing something right. We're training them how to how to run a gun, how to operate this thing. Do it the right way. Was recognized by the officers. And we had good officers. Very tough.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, that's good.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That was. That was nice. So I thought I did well.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. But you were happy to be home. Yeah, absolutely. And then Vietnam's in a rearview mirror.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And watching it back harder and harder.

BLUMENBERG: And what did you do after you got back?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I went to Greg. Well, first I took that one class to get my degree and started to graduate school. I got married, which I'm still married. Have been married for 48 years. I got married quickly. I probably shouldn't have done that, but I phoned. But there was something wrong. I think there's PTSD. I didn't realize what the deal was, but for 40 years you just buried it. I worked on the railroad as a locomotive engineer, as a fireman first, and then as an engineer prior to going. And I still had that job and I was working and going to school and I had 27 graduate. Quest was my master's in one work life. I just I said, I can't I had a teacher who I thought was going to choke him, but I didn't. I just walked away. And I it was a huge mistake. I should've finished. I didn't. So I spent 40 years driving a locomotive. Wow. Chicago, Northwestern Union Pacific.

BLUMENBERG: When you had good educational background. Wonderful background. And I bet I bet you drove a good locomotive.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I was. I know what the rules were, and I could follow them. And that's there was another saying. It's a game. The Union Pacific, I think, was the worst as far as following rules. They tried to discipline everybody they thought you were. If you were on the discipline system, you'd be a better employee. I would rather educate someone than discipline them. There's a financial truth. Two ways of thought there. And I had a train master follow me for weeks. He says, I can't catch you. This is a course you can't catch me. I know you're out there watching. You think I'm going to screw up on purpose? Then he said, I'm going to have to do his bonus, his promotion, His evaluation was based on finding of getting everybody a gig. By the time I'm was 58 years old, I've been here a long time and you are never You want to play this game? We can screw this operation to a standstill. That's what you want. But I'm not going to violate a rule you never been. Not that I don't. I violate lots of them, but I'm not going to do anything. You're going to catch me out. So he. He finally got me on a radio communications rule. He said you really didn't do it. I'm going to write this down. It doesn't bother me. It just I said, This is so ridiculous. This is nuts.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, you mentioned PTSD. So how did that manifest itself.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Of the hyper alertness, you know, of quick to anger.

BLUMENBERG: Right when you got back or did it?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It was there. The regimentation. I mean, you screw up and people die. You don't like surprises. You don't like to if you have a schedule plan from here to here to deviate from that, because that's the unknown is unsafe. And that's that's the thing that bothered us a lot. You know, you don't like to go into the unknown. Enormous, dangerous. Yeah, but supposedly and you couldn't talk to anybody about it because it was not. There was no there was no help until the last really, ten years. Then it came out after 40 years. After it was over, roughly.

BLUMENBERG: You know, you think about all the people that were in World War Two and Korea and Vietnam, and you came back and.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It look at all the different things that they called it. They called it shell shock. And also think of civil war as old soldiers, disease, resurgence, disease. And were some of the other things bug or fever or something something bothered them and it's they weren't sure what it was this is being in combat is not normal but it's not and it's we had, uh, what's it called? Sleep deprivation and never realized it. We were 24 seven. We were 24th.

BLUMENBERG: Whenever we were on duty, we were.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: On duty 24 seven and mostly at night. Then, though, the people that came from the reserves couldn't understand it. And we slept during the day. So what? We're awake most of the night. We're we're firing. We're on doing guard duty. Whatever you're doing at night as we sleep whenever we can.

BLUMENBERG: Right.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Some days you go for a couple of days without sleep. And I, we were on one one more. We just moved from one place to another place. And we had shot all night the night before. So we were tired. And and then late in the afternoon, I went to our buddy Commander, I says, and we're just beat. So these guys, they won't quit, but they're going to drop. I can see they're in once they drop. I can't you you can't kick a dead horse. They're going to go down. I would like to get a little bit of rest. The gun is dug in, the most dug in. We have enough holes to hide in, but I want to get a couple hours sleep and Mother would finish up later, which is unheard of. We usually finish work to have done it just we just can't finish. And he says, go ahead. And if we're feeling so exhausted, finish that break and go get some sleep. Oh, really? Yeah.

BLUMENBERG: Couldn't believe it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Couldn't believe it. And we slept for about 2 hours and we were fine. And where we went again kept kept on digging. So that's. Yeah, you know, your people, you know, what they're capable of doing. And they were good guys. Every single one were good guys that worked hard. Yeah. And that's where you learned multi-culturalism. I had an Indian from Oklahoma a Hispanic would call for, of course, were politically incorrect 1969 and called him wetback. We had an Asian with Mendiola was from Guam. A black was Chicago, a black from Dallas. Guy from Michigan, a white guy, A white guy from West Virginia. I mean, they're all family is important. Every single one of them. They're they're all the same. We're all going through crew together and we're doing, you know, different times. They're just a good mix and no problems. We just do it right. Didn't matter who they were, where they're from. So that part was fun. Wow.

BLUMENBERG: Well, yeah. So you saw a lot of things, obviously. And and so how are things going now?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Things are going real well. Ah. When I retired to Hayward in 2007, retired from work in 2006 and 16 and 27, I came here and through church I met Paul Pederson. He was intended in the infantry who was hit by a South Vietnamese Air Force bomb in 1966, and he found out who I was as a veteran took me under his wing. And because I was reluctant to go anywhere, don't want to talk about it, didn't want to do anything about it. But he's a brewmaster you prove proved he proved his own theories. Do you like to have a beer? I said, Yeah, I like to have a beer. It's like, this is that's a really good that's.

BLUMENBERG: A nice.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Opening. Yes. Yeah. So slowly and surely he finally got me to talk to him a little bit and then go over here to the Veterans Service office in Hayward with Ray. And then just to talk, just to sit. Just come and sit. You don't have to say anything. Don't do anything. Just listen to. Because I thought I was the only one who was crazy and says they all have cause.

BLUMENBERG: And it's not crazy.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That's not crazy, but it's true. It's strange, right? But trying to figure out, you know, being a biologist and have a look at the taxonomic keys and you can figure it out. You look at this, you look at that, and you can figure if it's a bug or whatever it is. And you figure out you look at what I'm doing, I'm doing it, I'm crazy. There's no other way. I'm crazy. There's no way you're not. You've had an experience that you've been driven behind down a long, long time trying to get it out. And over time, I've been going to these sessions now for eight years, I will say.

BLUMENBERG: In a group session.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Or a session at one on one. Yeah, depending on what how things are going and. It's easy. No, it's okay. I'm not the only one. And we've all had different experiences. But we all have a common thread that kind of being able to talk about it helps a lot. Yeah, that's good. And of course, the population is accepting of us. No, he was very accepting. I think of the, you know, of the veterans.

BLUMENBERG: The strong veteran president said yes.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And the the reservation the was is the first time I had a really wonderful experience with with the natives here. All right.

BLUMENBERG: So just for the purpose of this that could they try this located just ten miles from Hayward.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Two miles from my house.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, right. Two miles from his house. Yeah.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And the first time I went there, I didn't. I didn't have a button to buy a button. This is what was sold out in the galleries, if you take my. And I know they said, Oh, yeah, it's a gift shop.

BLUMENBERG: There you go.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It's the first gift I've ever had for Welcome Home. So it was.

BLUMENBERG: Nice.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It was really, really nice. Yeah. And to come out and say they want the the circle of honor, the dance to come around and promote and honor the honor of veterans. Because if the Tribal Day event, they honor their veterans tremendously. They always have. I mean, I was never aware of this till I got here. This is neat It's.

BLUMENBERG: They they have a different mindset.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. And and they they do honor it. But that's that's for sure. Well, so here you are. And all these years later, you're able to talk about it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. Oh, I get emotional from time to time. Yeah, I. I don't blame you. I was fortunate. I they made a trip to Washington, D.C., and I saw the Vietnam Memorial. There are a lot of gets a tremendous memorial, by the way, you know, and I managed to take the rubbings off people I knew who were there. And I have those. And to see the the three soldiers, you know, and the nurses, they were tremendous job. But to whoever put I know I don't even know who who made these sculptures, but they were they're so accurate. And the detail is right on. I have to really commend what they did, the nurses.

BLUMENBERG: It's almost frightening. Ah, here. Hair raising when you see it like this.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I have a picture of them right in this hand your back again.

BLUMENBERG: We'll take a look at that and.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: To see that and then see them there again. They did a really, really neat job.

BLUMENBERG: Well, here's Dave Van Lance Shoots and he's he was drafted. Yes, I was. But I'm still going to ask you this question and I'm so happy you came to do this interview. But what words of wisdom do you have for other people about going into the military here? You mentioned that there were some you really didn't want to be there, but that there were some good aspects to.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It means the military training isn't going to hurt you. It teaches you discipline, responsibility. Oh, work with others. My brother was drafted shortly after I came home. My younger brother two years younger and he got drafted. And the advice I give him was if you don't go to Vietnam, care where you end up. I don't care if you have trouble, if you don't like the people you're with, you don't like your officers, you don't like the duty. All kinds of problems and conflicts don't go to Vietnam because you're going to have those there too. But someone's trying to kill you. So. And you went to Germany, had a wonderful experience. He traveled all over Europe. He was with the of Germany was armor a lot. He was a he worked on servicing some kind of armor on the electronics on a tank.

BLUMENBERG: So why he used it? He stayed out of Vietnam.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: He stayed out of Vietnam. And you you get what's the spec for in this draft in two years? And he asked me, he said, how how did you get to be a staff sergeant? So let's say that was a bass. So that was in those days, didn't say a whole lot. I just didn't want to talk about it. So yeah, I can still feel the bullets impacting around us. Yeah. You know, it's when you're spread eagle on the ground trying to flatten yourself. I think of myself as a the stingray up the Florida Keys that you're watching what they wiggle and they been buried in the sand. I can do that too. Thank you. Have you done this?

BLUMENBERG: And apparently you did.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I did. And you could, but you could feel if it hit the bullets getting left or right or all of the top of you, that's. That stays. You remember those things. They pose when they go by in a mortar round, when by close and down. And that shrapnel went right north of here. That loud voice, you know, in a line. And I mean, that's that's really close.

BLUMENBERG: It's too close.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: As it's really close, you know. So, God damn, you get on the gun and shoot back. And that's the other thing is all the training. Now we have this illness training on what to do for terrorist attack. We almost the same answer attack. Shoot back if you don't shoot back there doesn't keep shooting at you. Right? So you figure the only chance you have of surviving. Sort of like on the longest day when the colonel said there's two kinds of people here. The dead ones are going to die. Move, move, move, move. Keep going, Keep moving. Do something. Even if it's wrong, It's like, Yeah, do something. We just lay there. You got to move right back. And that gun to new gun. The one of those was so quick, so quick to shoot back. And so we've done.

BLUMENBERG: Well with all of your experiences and what you're having to deal with, you have any words of wisdom for our future generations that don't know about it? The number of people that are serving and the fact that there is no draft.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I would like to see compulsory service. Mm It won't. It doesn't hurt you. It just, it doesn't. It's something the discipline is important to learn to work together with others, to have your differences. You can have all the differences you want, you're still going to do your job and that's still Congress. You have all the difference. Do your job.

BLUMENBERG: We could. We could all use a.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes and a reminder, I have tremendous respect for people in the military right now. I really don't know how they do it to go back again and again and again. It's I never considered re-upping. I was amazed. I saw a couple of people come back for a second tour and I said, why would you do that? This.

BLUMENBERG: You know.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: You're just asking for it. And I wondered myself, why didn't I extend it?

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, your mother was one neither.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Either was one that. Yeah, but so anyway, I've really distanced myself a lot from the military's do to advise them. That's not my job. Yeah, I can just watch you again. Yeah, I'm glad I couldn't.

BLUMENBERG: So. All right, well, is there anything that we didn't discuss that you would like to bring up?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It was your. It was. It was hard in a lot of ways. It was hard. It obviously didn't hurt me a whole lot that way. I think I got a tremendous education on how to work with others, different people from different backgrounds, different races, different educations. That was an asset in my life. I think to not I don't don't judge people. I think we too quickly judged your total, your short, you're whatever color you are, you're educated, you're not you're a person and you have a lot to offer and use them. Use it. Just make use of the talents that used to make use of their talents.

BLUMENBERG: Right. So and everybody has some things.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Everybody has something to give you and then were willing to give you worked hard. Yeah. Most people will work hard.

BLUMENBERG: Well, thank you for spending some time with me today. Is there anything else, Dave?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I have a11 funny story. Okay. Yeah, let's. And we we moved on to a hillside and we hadn't we usually covered. We dug in and had a cover over it. Well, we quit for the night before the overhead cover and it was raining the wet season and I, I tipped over in the hole and big enough and my, the guy I was with, Julio from Arizona. Carry on. Wake up, wake up. You're going to drown because the hole was built in cover of water. So? So I ended up sitting in the hole, my head on my knees as if there's a hole filled up with water.

BLUMENBERG: And wow.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That was I mean, the rainy season was miserable. It really was the holidays with that. But in early on, you know, the thing, we were shooting World War two surplus ammunition because our shell casings were stamped 1943 and 1940. Oh, wow. So and in my tour there, we shot up all in 1943, you know, the 1944 ammunition that was available to us. And then we got the new stuff was a solid steel canister. And then they read them raw like a paper towel holder the way the cardboard is rolled. And they were soft and they had to be handled a little more gently. They would not load. Yeah, you could you can make a mistake and they would hang up. They would peel that. PIN back and the folder with fallout folders and bags and the shell would go in projectile, but the canister would load and the folder would fall out. And I watched Rose do it. It happened one time. It picked up the components on a string. In a bag. In a bag. In a bag. He grabbed it and he threw it. So I knew when the loader went to load and it didn't load and the folder failed and the breach in the breech is hot and firing is starting to smoke, so. So I grabbed it and I threw it. And that was pretty neat. What I do is I someone taught me that it didn't do that.

BLUMENBERG: And, you know, it's a good lesson.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: So the second time it happened, some time later when I grabbed them, I didn't get all of them. One bag fell loose, but they're on a nylon string and a string tangled around my finger. It was spinning and I started smoking. I'm thinking this is really going to hurt when it burns. I get and go again, and I. I threw it, and the thing slowly unrolls and in the pocket just dropped.

BLUMENBERG: And you have all your fingers on.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: All my fingers. I didn't get burned more than I did get hurt here.

BLUMENBERG: I bet you have a lot of stories like.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Well, how do things like that happen? But it's it was just fun. It was when the guys looked at me because I was all the time I got there. I was 22. What time I left. I was 24 when my birthday fell and they started to bring in the lottery, had kicked in for the replacements for 17 and 18 years old.

BLUMENBERG: And so you are in the.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Old, old me party pops. And I said, Yeah, yeah, Pops. And it was slowing down. In April of 72, getting ready to go into Cambodia in May. So things were kind of quiet and they said, It's boring. Yes, it's wonderful. Yeah, boring is good. We have two things here. Bawdy is one of them. You won't like the other one. So.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, well, you are.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: What they call a boring.

BLUMENBERG: You get to see both sides of it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. Yeah. And to go to all that rank. And I guess my biggest achievement was the people that got to be crew chief that went through my gun and I showed them what to do, how to do it, and they learned from me and did their own thing anyway. So that was an achievement that way.

BLUMENBERG: Now, you you obviously ran into a lot of people in your time in service and you maintain contact with any of those folks.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: None. And we came in one at a time. We went out one at a time, and I've tried to contact a couple and never found them again. Yeah. So they're just I don't know where they went. So there was a, a closeness, but a separation. We didn't want to get too close because you may not be here tomorrow night. There's a yeah, there's a strange.

BLUMENBERG: Little thought process that you.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Do to go through that.

BLUMENBERG: So you worked well together?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. And then went our separate ways. Yeah.

BLUMENBERG: Now, Do you belong to any veterans organizations here?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes. I've just joined the Vietnam Veterans of America. Chapter 1132 just been reactivated about a year and a half ago in.

BLUMENBERG: Here in Hayward.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Wisconsin. Wisconsin. You know, and I'm a life member of the VA, and that's that's a good group. It's small. We're just getting started. We're having growing pains. But I've got a good core group and they work hard and do well.

BLUMENBERG: I know one other thing that happened to you recently, and I'll just mention it because you received a quote of valor at the Haven High School Veteran's Concert in 2008, just a couple of weeks ago. So congratulations on that.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Thank you. That is a tremendous honor. Yes, I'm a little uncomfortable with the valor part. If you look up quotes of valor, it came out quilts for soldiers, mostly for Afghan and right rock veterans. It has evolved into something else. It is an awarded honor. So it's just very nice to me. You got it. I got I have one. I don't join other organizations. I was told when I first came home, I worked with a lot of World War Two veterans. We would be honored to join. The VFW can drink on Sundays. The club is open. Yeah, and I was told so. I feel a lot of paperwork. I was told by the local VFW you weren't going to come back and you were not in war. You cannot join the VFW. And that that hurt me. Different people have different experiences. But my experience was I said, oh, Vietnam is not a war. So I was welcomed by the VFW. The VA did not treat they would not give me a home loan I had. I was trying to get a VA home loan. My wife and I were both working and duty. We were doing due diligence and they said, You don't need it. And I said it needs nothing to do with it. Currently, the loan at that time, the loans were 99% and the V.A. left on for four and a half. You don't need one. And I said, I've earned one. I have one. I'm entitled to one.

BLUMENBERG: You pay that forward.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yeah. And he said, well, that's that's the way it's written, but you're wasting your time because this office will never give you one. So the VA, not here in Hayward, but the one in Superior at the time did not not do anything for the for the veterans. The man there was in a wheelchair. And I could tell by the body language you could walk in there and do this. There was nothing wrong with you and you weren't going to get any help. That's that's the message that we received in the early seventies, you know, And that's that weighs on me a little bit.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. That's not an easy way to come home and.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Say thanks a lot.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Yeah. You know, you were having bullets lost by you and mortar shells, and you're right.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: But, you know, so and losing people, losing a friend, people I knew killed and wounded, that's not. But but things have come a long way, as you know, for us.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. And they should.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yeah.

BLUMENBERG: When you put people in harm's way.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: And this is what the VA is, never will one generation ignore another generation of soldiers, too. We're trying to get Afghan and Iraq veterans to get help. Don't go. What we did, we went for 40 years without trying to keep it in. Right. And that's not that's not the way to go. We thought we were we thought we were right in the wrong on that. To come out and talk about it to somebody, find someone, find a mentor, assigned a friend, knew someone. But don't don't just keep it in. Because we drank too much. And I was fortunate. I my wife stayed with me. A lot of them got divorced two or three or four times, went through a job every year or something like that. Went through alcohol and drug abuse problems. I was I had a classmate who was in the infantry in Vietnam shortly after I was. And that was that was my way out. That was my counseling session. We would now get together, live in the Twin Cities. We would get together once a year, twice a year, drink whiskey, play cribbage until always. That was you know, that was a way to vent, to get out and get it out that way. Well, it's a good thing that you found it. Yes.

BLUMENBERG: I guess it is a little easier now because there is out and there is options available.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes, there are a lot of options. And, you.

BLUMENBERG: Know, a lot of people use them or not. You know.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: All we can do is like Paul Patterson did encourage me. I didn't push too hard to say is here, you know, you can lead the horse to water, but you and someone's got to take that first step. I really do want it. Can you admit it takes a big man to say I have a problem, but I can't fix it because we are female? Oh, yeah. And we can fix anything. We can. We can overcome anything. And some of this is hard to say. I need help.

BLUMENBERG: It's hard to do it on your own. No.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes, it is. And you can't do it on your own. You are not going to do it. I'm sorry. I don't think anybody will do it on their you know, they exist. But you look at how many of us live out in the woods. Where's your neighbor? I know he's down the road there, a quarter mile, half a mile. Time to see anybody. You interact with anybody. Right. So but get out there and try to socialize predefined. And we have a group that I see. We meet the first Thursday of every month at the wheel flips and there's no there's not an organization. It's just a bunch of Vietnam veterans and anyone, veterans that we have lunch just to talk and see what's going on.

BLUMENBERG: Well, it's a good way to get to.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Yes, it is.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Well, it's a good story.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Take a breath.

BLUMENBERG: Take a breath. I was worried that we weren't going to get 30 minutes of the threat of terrorism.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I don't.

BLUMENBERG: I'm not telling you what time it is.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: My. I'm not hungry, so I.

BLUMENBERG: Know you're good. We've been doing this for a little over an hour. Yeah, Yeah.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: It was a quick hour.

BLUMENBERG: It was a quick hour.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Know there's lots and lots of stories and.

BLUMENBERG: Well, I'm, you know, this is your history, and I'm going to give you this DVD now. Do you have children?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I have two children, both in the Twin Cities.

BLUMENBERG: And then they ever hear your story?

VAN LANDSCHOOT: A little bit. My grandson had an interview for he's 14 right now. I think he was probably in the sixth grade. You? Yeah. They did an interview and some of the stuff I couldn't talk to them about, but my daughter said, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Well, no one had ever asked and I wasn't freed. And I told him some of this stuff. His name is Harry is not appropriate. This says you're too young to talk about some of these things, but so my daughter is aware of some of it.

BLUMENBERG: Well, you know, I'm just going to tell you this, Dave, I one of the first gentlemen that I interviewed was post World War Two, and we got started. And I have a little over 8 hours of interview time with that man, and he wanted to talk about it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Okay.

BLUMENBERG: So, you know, if we don't finish up today or in spring, you can just keep on going if you want. I mean, it's up to you and I will share the DVD goes to you, to your family, and they can share it any way they wish.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: I think I've hit the highlights. I have. I mean, I told you I lost my little notebook where I had then I also lost most of my pictures. I may have taken off. I said all my pictures are fun times. I'm not a combat photographer. There was no time to be taking pictures are too exhausted to write. They are. I lost some because the camera rusted out the quit because of the weather, so I couldn't take pictures for a while. I lost some because the guy who went to pick them up for me went to a host of ill repute and had the pictures stolen a couple of months worse. And and then a lot of them were burned. They were just I had a with me and they were destroyed. The only ones that have left, I had been sending them home piecemeal here and there, and that's there. So there are certainly gaps in the photo record of where I was and what we did. But I don't know of a particularly interesting to someone who might write my day to day, hour by hour diaries.

BLUMENBERG: You know.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: A lot of people went through the same thing.

BLUMENBERG: Maybe a lot of people wouldn't have a chance to tell.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: The ideologic or to.

BLUMENBERG: Catalog it or even tell that their story was.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: No different. We were in the play to read from the Cambodian border, trying to make sandbags. It reminded me of the history of the settlers heading west when they're trying to decide busters. We were making sandbags. All it was is roots and grass. They were beautiful. I said this Things will stop at B.B. Gun because there's nothing in dress in the roots. But it looks really nice and messy.

BLUMENBERG: But you did it.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Well, we did it because it told us. Okay. Digging and digging and digging in this grass. And there's no idea how deep the roots were, but we just made big, fat sandbags.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah. Well, if there is nothing else.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: That's probably enough.

BLUMENBERG: That's enough.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Enough.

BLUMENBERG: Well, we can get back together sometime like that. Other gentlemen will. You still got 7 hours worth of talking to.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Get the tape over. If I think of something really extraordinary, I'll get back to you, Tom.

BLUMENBERG: Okay. With that, then we will end this interview. And I will reiterate, it is November 24th, 2018, just after Thanksgiving here in Hayward, Wisconsin. And I am with Dave van Lance. Shoot. And it has been my honor to interview you. And I thank you for spending time and thank you for your service.

VAN LANDSCHOOT: Thank you, Tom. It's my privilege to add to the archives.

BLUMENBERG: Yeah, will do. Thanks.

[Interview Ends]