Aaron O’Donovan: Today is September 22, 2010. My name is Aaron O’Donovan. And I will be interviewing Michael Harsh, a veteran of the US army. The interview is being conducted at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, Ohio as part of the oral history project by the Ohio Historical Society to preserve the stories and experiences of servicemen and their family members for future generations. For the record, could you say and spell your full name?
Michael Harsh: Michael Andrew Harsh. M-I-C-H-A-E-L A-N-D-R-E-W H-A-R-S-H
O: Can you tell me a little bit about your background; where you were born and when, where you grew up, what your parents did for a living, and maybe how many siblings you had?
H: I was born in San Diego, California in 1945, August 4. I had two sisters and a brother. One of my sisters has since passed away. My father worked for Ryan Aircraft in San Diego during the war effort. From there we moved to Texas, New Mexico, and eventually to Michigan; where I – basically is where I grew up was in Plainwell, Michigan.
O: Can you tell me what your impression of the military was before you joined up?
H: You know, I'm actually not sure I had an impression of the military before I grew up. My uncle was a lieutenant colonel in the army, and he was Uncle Frank, and he had his uniform, and it was neat and stuff like that, but I don’t think I really had an impression until I joined up.
O: When did you first consider joining the military?
H: When I got a low lottery number. (Laughter). I had applied for the International Guard, and I hadn’t heard back. I got a lottery number that was real low, and so rather than just get drafted, I thought I’d enlist—get something that I wanted to do.
O: What branch did you join, and why did you decide to join that particular branch?
H: I joined the army, probably, that had something to do with my uncle you know because he was in the army so I think that’s where I...
O: What was your family’s reaction to your decision join rather than be drafted?
H: I think they were fine with it. They were fine with it. It was, you know like I said, I had other family members that were in the service, and so there wasn’t a problem at all.
O: You said you had other family members—your uncle namely that served in the military—did anyone else that was in your family that served in the military?
H: My brother-in-law was in the International Guard, and that was why I tried to get into the International Guard at first. They weren’t accepting any more people right then. Shortly thereafter, I got a letter in the mail that said I was accepted, but I’d already enlisted in the army, so…
O: Little bit too late then.
H: Yeah, it was a little late.
O: What was your first experience or memory of the military after you joined up?
H: Oh boy, I think the train ride to Detroit. (Laughs). It wasn’t the most enjoyable.
O: How so?
H: It just – It was…you know I’m country boy, you know, from the sticks, and this was a big city, you know. So it was new, different, and interesting.
O: You took the train from your hometown in Michigan to Detroit?
H: Right. Over to Detroit, yeah.
O: Were you nervous about joining up?
H: I think apprehensive. You know, kind of apprehensive and nervous maybe at the same time, but I don’t think I was terribly nervous.
O: What do you remember about boot camp or basic training? Where was it at, and any memories about boot camp?
H: Boot camp was at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Leonard Wood is out in the middle of nowhere. It’s very hot. It’s very humid. I basically didn’t have a problem with basic training because I played sports in high school, so although I was heavy, I was still in pretty good condition, so. It was a lot of running, a lot of harassment—that wasn’t really needed, but for some people maybe it was, to get them motivated. For me, it was - the physical end of it wasn’t that strenuous. I was happy with it. I wasn’t happy with it, but it was (laughs) it wasn’t terrible.
O: So, how did you get through it, maybe not physically, but mentally—to keep yourself on the right track? Any particular techniques to get through?
H: No, not really, I just— you know when they’d ask you to do something, you’d go do it and do the best job you could and that was – you know I got that from my dad. You know if you take on a job, you do it, and you do your best you can. And with that attitude, you can usually get through about anything.
O: After basic training, obviously you were assigned to a unit. Can you tell us what unit you were a member of?
H: Well, I was – I went to school after basic. I went to school for, I guess, eight months. And I went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for Cryptographic Repair School.
O: Can you explain what that is?
H: Yeah, basically, it’s scrambling of voice and type-communications, so that – to keep it out of the enemy’s hands, so it’s basically a scrambler type thing, encrypting messsages.
O: How many people were in your unit?
H: you know I don’t really remember now. I would say probably twenty-five or thirty.
O: What was your official military occupational specialty? What was your title?
H: General Cryptographic Repair, and I don’t remember the MOS [Military Occupational Specialties] number.
O: What led you down that path?
H: The army. (Laughs).
O: The army. They chose it for you?
H: They pretty much chose it for me, yeah. They went through – I did well in high school, so I had pretty good grade in high school, and the National Honor Society and that, so you know they just kind of took—I think what they did was they looked at education and said, “Okay, well we can put this guy here and this guy there.” Sometimes they put you as a cook when you really wanted to do electronics, but I really didn’t have – I was pretty open. And my uncle did give me some good advice there. He said you know, “Let them put you in a slot; don’t tell them you want to do this or you want to do that. Let them put you in a slot because they actually will get closer to where you’re—“
O: So you got comfortable where they put you at then?
H: Yeah, I did. It was a lot to learn.
O: How long was the training?
H: Eight months.
O: Eight months, wow okay.
H: Yeah, it was pretty intense.
O: And then after that eight months, you went to Vietnam; is that correct?
H: Yeah. I got my orders in, and so I went to Vietnam.
O: What month and year was that?
H: That was in June of ’67.
O: Things were pretty hot then at that time.
H: Yeah, they were. They were. And when I got there, then I went and checked in, and they said, “Well you're going to Phu Bai,” and I said, “Okay, where’s that?” “We don’t know.” I said, “Wait a minute. What do you mean you don’t know?” you know and the guy at the reception center in Saigon they couldn’t find Phu Bai—they didn’t know where it was, you know. And so finally, they found it, and I was going to the 8th Radio Research group at Phu Bai, Vietnam. And when I got there, it was basically a forty acre compound. And we had marines on the south of us, special forces at the north of us, and an airport to the east of us. And so I thought, “Well, this isn’t too bad.” And I worked in the communication center.
O: So you said you got eight months of training before they sent you over?
H: Right.
O: Did they prep you to go over to Vietnam? Did you have any special training about any language training or what you were going to be doing?
H: No. None. None whatsoever. I mean I know some of the infantry guys, you know, went through training for—at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, they had a simulated Vietnam village and area where they would train in, but I never got any of that.
O: You were involved in communication, so you were scrambling basically our communications so the enemy couldn’t hear them. Were there people next to you that were trying to decode their messages, or were they in a separate area?
H: What we did was—and this was you have to remember this was mostly teletype— okay and what it did, was it took the printed word and scrambled it, and sent it to another station where it would go in reverse basically through the equipment and unscramble it. We also did some triangulation to find out where the enemy was at this station also.
O: And you would then radio to the fellow soldiers and make the call in.
H: They would make the call, yeah.
O: How long were you there?
H: I was there for a year.
O: Can you tell me what an everyday life was?
H: Everyday life was, I worked twelve hours on, and I was off twelve hours—seven days a week.
O: And how often was there rounds being fired or rockets or anything like that in the particular area where you were at?
H: When I got there, not too much was going on as far as enemy activity. After the first of the year, and of course after Tet—during the Tet Offensive, we got hit real hard. But fortunately, like I said, we had marines, and we had the Special Forces and the airport right there so that was an area that was very heavily protected, but we’d get rounds in our compound. One night we got hit with one hundred and fifty rounds of mortar and rocket fire on this forty acre compound, and only about ten percent of them went off. They forgot to pull the firing pin, fortunately.
O: Can you maybe describe your living conditions on the compound there?
H: My living conditions most of the time were excellent because I was a maintenance person, and although I was working twelve hours on and twelve hours off, I was still on call for those twelve hours I was off. So I mean if we had a big breakdown or something like that, we had to get it up and get it repaired and get it fixed. And I think that that – We had a swimming pool, but about the third or fourth week I was there, somebody put a rocket in the middle of the pool, and when we ordered a new liner for the pool, it never seemed to arrive, so. (Laughs). But we did have a tennis court, kind of a makeshift tennis court. And I played a lot of tennis. And our rooms were—I’ll say air conditioned. They weren’t always air conditioned, but sometimes they were. It was real nice because it was very hot, and like I said you were working long hours, and without a break basically.
O: You said you did maintenance as well. Explain, what do you mean by maintenance?
H: Maintenance, well, I did repair on the equipment.
O: So not only did you have to run the equipment, you also knew how to—
H: Well you have to – When I say run it, you have to get it up—there’s a new code every day. So you have to get it up, get it running, talk to the people at the other end and make sure they got theirs up and running and everything and of course now, with all the voice communication, this is like really obsolete technology, but at that time, it wasn’t. It was state of the art. And you’d have to get it up and running, but then, when a piece went down, you’d have to fix it.
O: Did you have training for that before you went in?
H: Yeah, that was what the training was for at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey was to being able to fix and repair the cryptographic equipment.
O: Say a part goes down, how long would it take you to get the part back up and running?
H: Well, most of the time, what we did—unless it was a real minor part—we would diagnose the problem and then ship it to depot, and they would actually replace the parts and stuff like that.
O: So what happened in the meantime—
H: We had backups.
O: You had backups, okay.
H: Yeah, we had backups. And every once in a while, we would just have a circuit down, you know, for lack of, you know, use of equipment.
O: So you were there for a year. What was your rank by the time you got out of Vietnam?
H: I was an E5.
O: You were an E5, so that’s a Sergeant, correct?
H: Right, that’s a specialist E5, or a Buck Sergeant.
O: What were some of your leadership roles in Vietnam? Since you were the rank of Sergeant, did you have any people under you—
H: Yeah, I had – we had a crew that would work—basically our crew would work, you know, the twelve hours and then have twelve hours off, so basically I was responsible for my crew members. And you know, basically it’s just like any other management job— you know you’ve got things that need to be done, and you basically allocate how much time you think it’s going to take and the number of people to do it, and you get the work done. It was a hands-on management type of thing because I worked on equipment right alongside everybody else, but supposedly I was in charge, you know. (Laughs).
O: What issues, events, or responsibilities do you think consumed most of your time while you were over there?
H: Actually, just day to day maintenance—keeping the equipment running, checking for frayed wires. I mean, it’s just like little things, but things that if you get a broken wire, you can look all day long to find out where that broken wire is. So you do a lot of preventive maintenance type stuff. Other thing was, that I did a lot of extra work for my OIC [Officer in Charge]; I worked with the Special Forces, and then I worked with, when the 101st airborne came to Vietnam, or came to our area, up to the Phu Bai area, I helped set up their communication center.
O: Is that what you did with the Special Forces too? Set up their equipment?
H: Yeah, Special Forces was a little different, but yeah, basically I helped them with their equipment.
O: How is it different?
H: Special Forces is very, very close knit, very good unit. Not that the 101st wasn’t, don’t get me wrong, but there’s just a different camaraderie; you didn’t solute the officers out of doors because you really didn’t want to know who was an officer. You didn’t want the enemy, if they were watching, to know who was an officer and who wasn’t.
O: I didn’t know that.
H: Yeah, that’s one of the little things that they you know—I had a cousin that was a Special Forces, and he did two terms – two tours in Vietnam, and on his third tour, he got killed. So, but, yeah, it’s a very close knit group.
O: Can you tell me a little bit how you kept in contact with your family when you were over there?
H: Letters primarily, and once in a while, you could call them, but it was the old-fashioned. You know you’d say, “Hello-over.” You know, and then, you know, you’d talk a while, and you’d say, “Over.” And so, it wasn’t like our communications today. I mean things have changed in the last forty years that you wouldn’t even – you know it’s hard to believe. Now that we all have cell phones, we can talk to anybody anywhere in the world at any time; just pick up a cell phone, and make a call. And back then, it wasn’t. But, sent a lot of letters, I did some tapes, and things like that. They’d send them back to me. Packages were neat—my brother-in-law, the one that was in the air force, he always got the job of packaging the packages, you know. And they’d come, and it was like Christmas every time you’d get a package. You know because there’d be things like – I know it’s the little things, it’s like Vienna sausages you know— I mean that’s something that it would pack well and carry well. My wife sent me a big package of cotton candy. And she had gone somewhere and got a big plastic bag and put the cotton candy in a big plastic bag and sealed it up real tight. When I got it, it was probably started out about this big, and when I got it, it about this big and gooey and sticky, but I loved it.
O: So you were married when you were in Vietnam?
H: I was married when I was in Vietnam.
O: How long were you married?
H: We got married in ’66. We got married in December of ’66, and I went to Vietnam in ’67 – in June of ’67, so about six months.
O: Oh, so you were only married for six months. So, you didn’t have any children then?
H: No.
O: How often did you write letters or talk on the phone with your wife or family?
H: Talk on the phone, maybe once every two months. But, write letters almost every day. And a lot of times, you’d write something, and then the next day, you’d write a little more and then mail it. You know you might – it was basically – it was basically writing every day. Of course, being married that short of time, you know it’s a good thing my wife didn’t save those letters. (Laughs).
O: I can imagine. I know we have an archive here—a box full of some of your photographs, and we have a tape of you. I read the description and it said that while you were recording that tape, you actually were fired on with a rocket. Can you tell me a little about that particular time?
H: Yeah, I was sitting at the desk in my room, and recording a message home to my wife. And all of a sudden, the siren went off, which means we were under attack. So I through the window open, threw the microphone out the window, and then got out of the room and went to the bunkers— you know like where we’re supposed to go. And when I got back, I had all this sound on there from the rockets, and you could hear people hollering, “Hey, get over here.” You know and you’d hear the rockets going off, boom boom boom boom.
O: And did you send that tape to her?
H: I didn’t send that tape to her, no. That was a tape that I brought home.
O: Afterwards.
H: Afterwards, yeah.
O: Yeah, seems like something that might panic a wife.
H: Yeah, I didn’t think that would be a real good tape to send home to my wife, so.
O: What kind of tape were you recording on?
H: I was recording on a reel to reel; that’s how long ago it was.
O: I'm not sure if you answered this, but how often did you receive a rocket fire? Was it a daily occurrence?
H: After the Tet Offensive, we got hit frequently. Before that, we’d get hit once a month maybe. Now, you could hear outgoing rounds from the marines and different areas over there—the airport and that—you could hear outgoing rounds, and you could hear them landing. You could hear and actually see when the big guns were shooting from offshore on the ships. You could actually see if the weather conditions were right, you could actually see the rounds going over. It was not the actual round; you were just seeing like something moving through the air. And then pretty soon you’d hear off in the distance, you’d hear this boom, big boom you know. But we ourselves did not get hit because we were in a very secure area. And like I said, the one night we got hit with a hundred and fifty rounds, only about ten percent of them went off because that was how untrained the enemy was.
O: Were you there through the whole Tet Offensive?
F: Yes, well yes – I was in Hawaii when it started on R&R [Rest and recuperation or rest and relaxation], and I had gone on R&R with my OIC, who was a warrant officer. And he and I got back into country, and of course, he immediately got a flight from Da Nang to Phu Bai. And I had to wait around for a day to get a flight out. And when I got back, it was like night and day—the difference between when I left and when I got back. When I left, it was, not much going on. When I got back, it all broke loose.
O: How long was the Tet Offensive? I can’t recall from the history books—
H: I’m going to say probably seven to fourteen days; it depends upon where you were. Sometimes, it was longer; some places, it may have been a little shorter. But it was about seven to fourteen days. And then things kind of started going downhill from then. We got hit more often.
O: After the Tet Offensive?
H: Yeah.
O: I’m going to ask you, what was your proudest achievement as a member of the U.S. army?
H: Actually, believe it or not, it was working with the boy scouts. When I got back from Vietnam, I went to Fort Devens, Massachusetts. And my first Sergeant, I liked him very, very much, and we got along really well. And I worked in a supply room because my MOS was—they didn’t need me there, so they put me in charge of the supply room, for the signal supply room which—all the parts and equipment and stuff like that. And he one day said to me he said “Well, have you ever done any” – oh I know what it was, he came into my office carrying a sleeping bag, and he threw it on my desk, and he said, “Hey, we’re going camping this weekend.” This was in December; I went, “We’re going what?” (Laughs). He said we were going to have a winter campout. I went, “I could freeze to death.” He said, “Go to supply, and check out all the equipment you need,” so I said, “Okay fine.” So we went, and I had a wonderful time. The kids were great. Well, one thing led to another, and I ended up becoming the scout master for the troop on post there. So, I think that was working with all these kids from you know E1s, E2s—well usually E1s didn’t have kids but—E3s, E4s, and all the way up to the General’s son was in our troop, and we just – it was a good feeling. After Vietnam, it just was like, kind of a breath of fresh air.
O: Can you tell me what some of your biggest challenges were being in the military?
H: My biggest challenge. You know actually, when we talk about challenges, I think mentally staying mentally alert, staying mentally prepared, probably one of the biggest challenges—especially in Vietnam. You know staying focused. You know, I actually probably enjoyed my military service a lot more than most people. I didn’t enjoy Vietnam; I mean that’s a given. But as far as the military goes, I have the highest regard for the military. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed some of the other things that it allowed me to do, like work with the scouts and work with—my wife taught at the school in Ayer, Massachusetts, which was a lot of army kids. And so I think that, as far as I'm concerned, the military did me a lot of good—it really did. A lot of maturity. Gave me some of my management skills.
O: You talked about some of the people you respected. You talked about the first sergeant you respected. Can you tell me a little bit about your mentors in your military career and how they influenced you?
H: Probably Sergeant Major Force was my first sergeant. Probably did more to make me see all the different sides of the military. When I went to Germany, my wife couldn’t; she got a case of poison ivy really bad—all over her body. And she called Sergeant Major, and he came over and got her and took her to the hospital. And just it’s part of the family. It’s part of the military family: if you need help, you get the help, you know. If you want it. Now some people didn’t want it; they stayed off to the side. Those were the ones I feel that didn’t have good military experience. But you’ve got to want to learn; you’ve got to want to know things. And it’s a good experience; it’s like starting a new job.
O: You said you went to Massachusetts after you left Vietnam. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience, leaving Vietnam and going back to the states?
H: That was not a pleasant experience. I landed in San Diego. We were spit on. We were told not to wear our uniforms off the base because of protestors. Nobody said, “Welcome home.” And a lot of obscenities hollered and yelled and screamed.
O: Was this in the airport?
H: Yeah.
O: And what were you told, as a soldier, to do? Did they tell you how to handle that when you got off the plane, so you knew it was coming?
H: Well, you kind of knew but you didn’t know.
O: And what did they tell you to do?
H: Just suck it up. Don’t give in to it. Just ignore it, which is a little difficult when people are calling you “baby killers” and spitting on you and stuff like that. Yeah, that was the one part, I think, of my military experience that I really, really disliked. It was not a fun time. When I got back to Massachusetts, I well I’m jumping ahead – Like I said, after we left California, went to Chicago, and then from Chicago, went home. But there wasn’t – It was kind of like, you snuck around; you snuck in the back door. You know you didn’t come in the front door—you kind of snuck in because there were so many protests. And at that point, you know it’s like any war; whether you are for or against the war, you can’t be against the individuals in the military. They're doing a job they signed up to do. They're doing a job, and you have to support your military: support the boys, the men, the ladies—when I was in, there were very few women except in the nursing corp, but you have to respect the military personnel. And when we came back from Vietnam, we didn’t get that respect.
O: You were stateside then, was it constantly like that?
H: No, because from there, I went home, and after leave, then I went to Fort Devens, and I lived on post. So that was your community, and a lot of military. The town basically survived on the military you know. I mean it was a lot of income from the military, so no, we didn’t get that kind of thing there because we were close to the post.
O: In Massachusetts, you worked a supply room there when you first got back? How long were you in Massachusetts for?
H: Yeah, I was there about a year—fourteen-fifteen months I guess.
O: And you were the Scout Master there?
H: Yeah.
O: And then after your time in Massachusetts, you went to Germany? Can you tell me a little bit about your time in Germany?
H: Yeah, my time in Germany was very limited. I got there; my OIC had moved on. They said, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “I have no idea.” And I actually—one day, the First Sergeant got mad at the company clerk, and he threw him out of his office, and he said, “Harsh.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Can you type?” I said, “Kinda.” (Laughs). Well, I became the new company clerk.
O: And where you stationed at in Germany?
H: I was stationed at Herzl Gennara. And don’t ask me to spell it— anyway spelling’s not my strong suit. But I became the company clerk. I had some physical problems also. I got tied up with the Agent Orange thing because although I wasn’t out in the field as much as a lot of guys were, when I was out in the field—like when the 101st came in—they denuded the whole hilltop and used Agent Orange basically. And they killed everything, and of course, I’m walking around in freshly dumped Agent Orange.
O: Was this just outside the perimeter of the compound?
H: No, this was the entire compound.
O: Oh, the entire compound was Agent Orange to clear the area?
H: Yeah, to clear the area. So I would get into places like that right after they dumped the Agent Orange in it. So I’ve got you know some problems with my skin and at that time, I was having some problems with my feet also. So that was one reason I became company clerk. My room was just kitty-corner from where the office was, so.
O: How widespread was the Agent Orange damage to other soldiers? Did pretty much everyone have it, or just people walking around?
H: Some people did; some people didn’t. Best place to find that out is right over there at the VA clinic you know and look at some of the DVA magazines: Disabled American Veterans. And it pretty well lays it out, how many people were exposed and how many people actually got something that they carry with them today.
O: Do you get disability for that?
H: Yes I do. I'm diabetic; I've had a heart attack. I've got this on my body, which I've carried with me for the thirty-four years I've worked at the Ohio Historical Society.
O: Before we jump to that, can you tell me a little about Germany—did you get out with the locals?
H: Yeah, I had a lot of contact with the locals, and a lot of it was in taverns. And I met this lady that worked on the post—she was where I took my dry-cleaning, but her father had a bar downtown, and we got to be very good friends with the folks down there at the bar. And we used to go down there practically every night and have a couple of drinks and a sandwich or something like that. And I had Christmas dinner with them, and when my wife came to Germany to visit, we spent a lot of time with them. You know it was good to see how other you know how other people lived. My wife is a language professor, and so she’s always kind of instilled that in me you know with the foreign languages and people of different origins and things like that. So we have quite a few friends that are non-native speaking Americans.
O: How long were you in Germany for?
H: About eight months.
O: Eight months.
H: About eight-nine months, yeah.
O: Do you remember thinking about whether you were going to stay in the military or not at that point when you were coming to the end of the road there?
H: Not really. I had health issues. And I wasn’t – I had kind of bounced around, and from the time I left Vietnam until I got out of the service, I never worked my MOS again. Now, I worked in conjunction with my MOS when worked – when I was in charge of Signal Supply because parts for their equipment and that were the same kind of parts I knew about because I worked on that equipment. So I would order parts and things like that for them. But I just kind of felt that, if I had stayed in, I would have probably gone to OCS—Officer’s Candidate School. But like I said, we were married and we’d been apart—I think we were apart for two and a half years.
O: So it was time to go back? Time to go home?
H: So it was time to go home, and the first four years we were married, we were apart for two and a half years. So it was time to (laughs) become a family.
O: We have a box of your stuff from Vietnam, but have you preserved any of your experiences for your descendants like your journals or photos or letters, or did you just give it all to the Historical Society?
H: I pretty much gave all the photographs to the Historical Society. I will look around and see because I'm going through some of my papers and stuff now—getting rid of some of the stuff.
O: But you made a conscious effort to kind of keep track of your experiences there?
H: Yeah. No I really didn’t, not Vietnam-wise. Some of the other things that I did, yes. But Vietnam was just kind of one of those things that, it’s kind of like a bad day. You know just, okay, I had a bad day or a bad week. And then life goes on, you know. And so I really didn’t –There were some things that went on, but some of those are related to alcohol. And they really don’t play a part in you know—we’d go over at the bar and drink, and maybe drink a little too much. So, anyway, that was one way you got through the year also.
O: I’ve heard that from other Vietnam Vets that there was probably more drinking than there should have been and they said if you look at soldiers today, they don’t have such a long leash. Do you get that feeling from current soldiers now—that maybe they're a little bit more controlled?
H: I don’t know. I think there’s still probably, when they get a chance to let their hair down, they do. Over there, it was a way to just kind of escape you know what was going on and that.
O: Did you get any medals or special service awards as a result of serving?
H: I got an Army Commendation medal. And then of course, we all got Unit Citations and Vietnam Service medals. And I got my Good Conduct medal; that means I kept my nose clean for four years. But that was about it. Yeah. And that was for some of the work that I had done for the Special Forces and the 101st airborne when they came over and things like that. It wasn’t anything great; it was just doing a good job. I think that’s why I got that.
O: Can you tell me about any friendships you formed as a result of your experiences in the army? And if you maintain contact with any fellow members?
H: The only fellow that I really made contact with and has passed away—he died very young; he died at forty-five. And here again, it was – that was definitely an Agent Orange thing. I mean he had cancer all over his body. And Ron and I went—after I got out of the service, he and I both went back to school and got our degrees. And then he stayed in Massachusetts, and I moved to Ohio. But we kept in touch, and we’d go on vacations; we’d stop and see he and his wife. And one day, I didn’t realize he was that sick evidently, and one day, Cindy called me and said, “Ron’s gone.” And I said, “What do you mean gone?” She said, “He died yesterday.” And it was like, wow, you know. And I think that was the first person that I had ever been very close to that had died. We had been very, very good friends. Now, when I was in Vietnam, I lost a couple of guys that I knew but not good, close friends.
O: Can you tell me what Ron’s full name was?
H: Ron Deering. D-E-E-R-I-N-G.
O: And you served with him in Vietnam?
H: No, actually, I didn’t. He was in Vietnam, but I didn’t serve with him. I met him at Fort Devens, and then I met his family because they were from that area, and so I became good friends with his family. And Maryanne and Ron and Cindy and I would do things together. That was Ron’s wife. In fact, we went to his wedding and things like that. And we worked on some projects in school together—things like that. But that was tough.
O: And so you guys went to school together right after serving there?
H: Yeah.
O: What school did you attend?
H: Fitchburg State Teachers College. And there were some times that he and I had to look at each other and go, “Don’t say it,” when there were some of the protesters and things like that. We just we kind of supported each other in that way because he had a temper, and I had kind of a temper. And so we just, we’d hear these comments coming, and we’d just say to each other, “Don’t do it.”
O: Did you use the GI Bill to go to school?
H: Yeah, we both of us did, yes.
O: And it was a teacher’s school, so obviously, was your major education or was it more specialized than that?
H: History education.
O: So after going to school, did you teach or…?
H: I taught for about six months because they needed a teacher at this one school, and then I had a job offer at that school, and I had a job offer to the Ohio Historical Society. Ohio was closer to my family in Michigan. And I didn’t know about the Buckeyes at that time, but I found out later. The minute I got here actually, and I told somebody I was from Michigan, you know. Then I found out about the rivalry. And so I took the job out here.
O: What did you do when you first came into the Historical Society here?
H: I was the tinsmith at the Ohio Village. I helped set up the tin shop, and we hired an apprentice. And I helped my apprentice learn tinsmithing.
O: Was that a hobby of yours before you came here?
H: Well, I worked at Sturbridge Village as a tinsmith.
O: Where’s that at?
H: In Massachusetts.
O: How long did it take you to learn how to do that?
H: Oh, I was still learning. I mean, seriously, it’s like anything: you get good at certain parts of it, but there’s still more you can learn and do. But I worked at Sturbridge for about a year and a half. And then I came down here, and evidently, I was good enough to get the job, so I got the job.
O: How long did you do the tinsmithing here?
H: About two years.
O: Two years, and then what did you do after that?
H: I managed a village.
O: How long did you do that for?
H: I did that for like eight years, and then I managed a restaurant, and then I managed the village and the restaurant at the same time.
O: Then after that, you moved to—
H: The collection storage facility.
O: How long did you do that for?
H: I did that for about four years, I guess. Four or five years. And then I went down to the statehouse and took over the statehouse education visitor’s center when they were starting that up—I got that running.
O: So, was this your kind of culminating experiences in education that led you to these jobs?
H: Yeah, right. Yeah, and then I came back up here and went back to the collections facility and was still working at the collections facility, and then – and I don’t know how long each one of these took. When my boss left to go to historic preservation, then we got had an interim division chief, then when she left, then I took over as division chief for the education division, which was archaeology, natural history, and history.
O: Then, all total, how long did you work at OHS?
H: About thirty-four years. Yeah, I retired and then I came back and worked four more years after I retired. We were having budget problems; and we’re still having budget problems, but we had a lot of budget problems, and I said, “Look, I’ll come back. I’ll retire. I’ll come back. I’ll take twenty-five percent less pay, and I’ll come back and work for a few more years.” And that way, it will save at least one position. And so, they accepted that.
O: When did you retire from OHS officially after the four years?
H: I officially retired five years ago this August.
O: Okay, I guess, I’m going to ask you a little bit about your military experiences. Do you think they affected your personal life or where your life went?
H: Oh, I think so. When we had gone through the village, we had gone through three managers in like four years, three years. Three managers in three years. And when my boss asked me to become the manager of the village, I went, “You know, this isn’t a very – you know I don’t see much longevity in this position.” (Laughs). And he said, “Ah, you’ve been in the military; you know how to run things.” So, I said, “Okay,” so I took over, and I guess things went fine. I had rough points and good points and bad points, but I was a craftsperson, so I knew about working with craftspeople, and they can be a little temperamental at times, myself included.
O: So what do you think the most important thing you did, either in the military or in the public service?
H: I enjoy talking to people, and I enjoy teaching. Not the same thing over and over and over, but I like to show people how to do things. Part of that’s the military and the management end of it, and part of it’s the fact that growing up, I made a lot of things out of not much. You know you put this together and that together, and make a wagon or something like that, or something that looked like a wagon, you know. And I think that’s the whole thing. And we bought an old house and restored it, and the first one, I did a horrible job of it. You know, I did things that historic preservation would shutter. But the last house that we did, I did things pretty right because I had had some of the training from OHS, I had worked with historic preservation, I did some of the old house Building Doctor programs. I actually worked with historic preservation and went out and did some of the Building Doctor programs; that was fun. I’ve done a lot of things—the street car downstairs, in fact. I did that. I restored that street car.
O: Where’d you learn to restore street cars though?
H: Here.
O: Did you?
H: Yeah.
O: You did some more restoring here, too?
H: Yeah, but that was my biggest project.
O: So you’re a jack of all trades then?
H: Yeah, but you know what they say about a jack of all trades, he’s a master of none. Oh well.
O: Is there anything about yourself that other people might not know that you’d like to share?
H: Some of the people here some of the people I still have contact with know me quite well you know and know that I like to talk, and I like to teach and that. And I think that some of the people that I didn’t know well, probably never knew that about me, but that’s the thing I like. You know people ask me about what I used to do, and I tell them, and it just starts in from there. I just keep talking and talking.
O: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you’d like to talk about? Or anything you’d like to add?
H: No, no. I'm busier now than when I worked, being retired. I have friends that I go to coffee with almost every morning. And one fellow can’t get out, so we go get him, bring him to coffee. Those are the kinds of things that, when I say I'm busy— you know I’m building a pond on our property, and I like to cook. So I now have time to cook and smoke or make my own bacon. Do all kinds of things. I have some chickens.
O: Sounds good.
H: Yeah, retirement’s wonderful. And if you’ve got your health, it’s pretty good, and my health is good. I take care of myself, and VA [Veterans Affairs] helps me out.
O: Alright, well I’d like to thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, and I appreciate you sharing your stories with us and helping us to preserve them for future generations. Thank you.
H: Thank you very much.
