Catalog Number: VIS 201.0582
In part two of this three-part interview, Al Boemker shares his experiences in a tank battalion during the Vietnam War. He describes conditions there, including being wounded in the neck. He recalls being in the head wound unit and describes a baby abandoned by its Viet Cong mother who had been a prisoner. He remembers a double amputee there who refused to wake up. He recounts hearing on Armed Forces Radio Network that Lyndon B. Johnson would not run for re-election and that he and his friends were all elated because they thought that would mean the end of the war. He recounts finding a diary of a Vietnamese soldier and the trouble he got in because he kept it instead of turning it in. He recalls a new soldier who was convinced he was going to die in Vietnam and made a lot of mistakes. He tells of having his eardrums blown out and how their unit killed a farmer carrying a hoe that they mistook for a rocket launcher.