Vietnam in The Dominican: an Interview with Bruce Hoben

This interview took place at Bruce Hoben’s office, on Wednesday, May 21, at three o’clock. I was nervous when interviewed Bruce Hoben, because I had never interviewed anyone before. I received this opportunity from being involved in the Veterans’ Voices project.

Question: So, you were a first lieutenant in the Vietnam War?

Bruce: Well, it was the Vietnam period, but I did not go to Vietnam.

Question: O.K. I didn’t know that, O.K. could you explain your rank?

Bruce: You have enlisted men and officers in almost all the branches of the military service. Typically the enlisted men range from when you enlist in the army from a private all the way up to a master sergeant, and the officers, which are called commissioned officers, run from a lieutenant, a second lieutenant, a first lieutenant, a captain, a major, a lieutenant colonel, colonel, and then I think four steps of different generals. So a second lieutenant, or a first lieutenant is a pretty junior officer. You would expect that someone in that rank unless they came up through the enlisted ranks, would have anywhere between eighteen months, to twenty-four months of experience, to be a second lieutenant, first lieutenant.

Question: So, how did you get into the war, were you drafted or did you enlist?

Bruce: Yes, I had gone to college and graduated from college and I got a draft notice, and I’d thought that perhaps rather than be drafted I’d want to see if I could get a commission as an officer. I investigated that and found out that I could, because of my college background, get into the officer candidate school, took various tests and was admitted to that.

Question: So, you took schooling before and then you took schooling in the army?

Bruce: Actually, I didn’t have any military training in college, no

Question: So you took training as of right before the war?

Bruce: Right

Question: So when you found out, when you were drafted did you feel anything or think anything, instantly, what were your reactions as soon as you did?

Bruce: I guess... I was just a little bit surprised that I had been drafted. Only because, it was not an awfully common thing yet. They really had not started ramping up, if you will, for Vietnam, Vietnam had just, just started. It was not even a big deal yet, but I…I guess I said to myself it’s just the luck of the draw, you know, you got drafted, other people didn’t, I wonder what my options are. So that’s when I went to the recruiting station and sat down with an army recruiter and said, you know, what…I… what does this mean what happens to me, and he said, you know, well your drafted, your going to go to, go through basic training and then get assigned to some type of unit and then I said, well what are my options in terms of other things that I could do, and he explained, how I could go to officer candidate school get a commission and do it that way instead, and I just thought that perhaps it would be a better thing to have a commission than just be an enlisted man, so that’s what I did.

Question: Did you find out first or did somebody find out first and tell you?

Bruce: Drafting, you got a letter in the mail.

Question: You got it?

Bruce: I got it, it was addressed to me.

Question: And who did you tell first?

Bruce: You know I think it was probably, one of my brothers or sisters. You know, the mail came in the afternoon opened it up and there it was.

Question: Did you want to get drafted; did you try to get out of it?

Bruce: You could look for deferrals and stuff like that, it never occurred to me to do that, I mean… I… This was, you know, it. As I said Vietnam was not a big deal yet, if anything it was…it would be maybe to strong a word to say it was an age of innocence for me but it kind of was I said well my country needs me…um, they drafted me and what’s the big deal I’ll spend a couple years doing that. So that’s kind of the way I looked at it.

Question: Did you support the reason for the war?

Bruce: You know, that was one of the questions that they asked me in terms of interviewing me for officer candidate school, I’d just read a long article in the New York times I remember about Vietnam and I remember about Vietnam and the various policies that were starting to be shaped so I had some sense about what was going on, but I don’t think it was to comprehensive, you know, I ended up as I said, I ended up in the army before it became a big deal, and being in the army as they asked everybody else to do things like that I thought it was important to support those efforts, so, of course it was different when I got out.

Question: Did you support the reason, like; um… that’s the same question, but?

Bruce: I mean… ah… I’m not; I mean the reason for the war kept changing, the basic reason, at the beginning which was the cold war doctrine, was if we don’t stop them there then the next place the communists are going to be is in Hawaii or Australia, or whatever. So, in a general way, I mean, that was America’s position. You know, when you get to specifics, I think, things are different, I… during the evolution of the war people’s perceptions changed, you know, they started asking questions, so at the beginning I didn’t, pretty much non question, you know this is what the country says we need and I, here I am. This is what we need, you know.

Question: Did you think about your experiences when they started talking about Iraq and going over there, did you think maybe there’d be another draft?

Bruce: I didn’t think about a draft I thought about, because I was in combat, in a different area than Vietnam, and all I thought about was what war is all about, when combat is happening, it’s chaos… it’s just confusion… it is just confusion, it really is, I mean some how or an other people get through it, but when you think about people with guns shooting at each other it’s not, it’s not an orderly process… your adrenaline is going a thousand miles an hour, so I thought about that.

Question: So, you said you were in fighting but not in Vietnam, where?

Bruce: Right, the Dominican Republic, probably never heard of it in terms of the action. Whatever reason the American Intelligence system determined that there was a good chance that Fidel Castro was trying to stir people up in the Dominican Republic, for a communist regime to take over that government, the government was very unstable. So I guess they decided in their wisdom the best thing to do to get down there and send a whole bunch of airborne troops down there and make sure that didn’t happen. So a couple of, I guess it was three battalions from the eighty-second airborne, and I was with them. Got sent down there together with a battalion of marines, went into Santo Domingo and the bad guys whoever they were, were shooting as us and we were shooting back at them. Maybe for a week, or ten days it was pretty heavy fighting.

Question: So you went over by plane, and do you remember the day specifically?

Bruce: It was, June… the early part of June…um… 1960…1960…5, ya June 65, and they put us on alert, we were in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and we had all our equipment we were at the airport, just sitting around, waiting to jump on the planes and I think it probably took 24 or 36 hours before we took off and then we went down there, landed at that airport and deployed into the city.

Question: So what were the conditions like on the plane was it like a normal plane?

Bruce: No these are military planes, and what you have is there are seats all along either sides, but they are webbing seats they aren’t comfortable seats, and the whole center is open, there’s equipment in the middle. It’s loud, very loud; it’s just a very utilitarian vehicle basically.

Question: Was it a long trip?

Bruce: I think that let’s see from Fort Bragg to there, I think it might have been in the order of for hours, wasn’t that long.

Question: Did you meet anybody in the war, like during the plane ride that you still keep in touch with or anybody that you remember?

Bruce: The people I was in the plane with were in my battalion, so we spent eighteen months together down there, and I haven’t been in touch with them in many, many years, so no I didn’t really stay in touch.

Question: Do you remember anyone specifically, that you were really close with?

Bruce: Well, you certainly remember your commander, your battalion commander, like; he was in charge of the whole battalion, and the first guy, his name was Georgy Pickett, and he was the great, great grandson, of the Pickett at Pickett’s charge in the confederate war.

Question: How do you spell that?

Bruce: P-I-C-K-E-T-T, Pickett’s charge and was it at Gettysburg, might have been, it was a definitive battle of the confederate war, civil war, and anyhow I think he was every bit as crazy as his great, great, great grandfather, he had been in Vietnam when the French were fighting there way back in the late Forties, mid-Forties, and he had a character and a half. He moved on after we had been in the country for about six months, and we got a new commander John Costa, John was a west pointer, and he was a very, very good commander, very thoughtful, and bright. So, I remember him very well, and my fellow lieutenants I guess I could name all of them, if I tried, without any problem, because we spent a lot of time together. So it was a very interesting time in my life.

Question: Do you remember anything specifically about your commander that sticks out?

Bruce: Well Pickett, Georgy Picket, Colonel Pickett, used to brag about the fact that when he was in Vietnam in the late Forties he parachuted into a position and got hung up in a tree, and he was shot and unfortunately one of his testicles was removed by the shot, and he used to brag about that, so it didn’t kill him and he had a family so I guess it didn’t disable him, but it was something else.

Question: He told you that?

Bruce: I think every new officer who came in heard the stories.

Question: Everybody?

Bruce: Ya, you had to hear that story. Boy, he loved to play Monopoly I don’t know why, but he used to play monopoly a lot, so he was a great character.