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Welcome to Tactically Acquired
Our goal is to document military connected living history in a fun and easy environment. We will capture the stories of our active duty, guard, reservists, veterans, ROTC and their families. Sharing their stories, adventures, and journeys across the military life cycle.
The podcast is for anyone interested in joining the military, has been a part of the military, or who wishes to learn more about military life. In addition, we want to bridge the growing military-civilian divide through education.
This is “unfiltered” meaning we will go over the good, the bad, and yes, maybe even the ugly of being a military connected individual.
This is from Northern Kentucky University’s Veterans Resource Station in partnership with the Department of History. Produced by Professor Kevin Eagles.
Show Notes:
Learn More from this episode by visiting:
Army: https://www.army.mil/
Army Reserves: https://www.usar.army.mil/
Veterans Resource Station: https://inside.nku.edu/veterans.html
Department of History: https://inside.nku.edu/artsci/departments/history.html
Music by Scott Buckley – www.scottbuckley.com.au
Welcome to Tactically Acquired. Our goal is to document military connected living history in a fun and easy environment. We will capture the stories of our active duty, guard, reservists, veterans, ROTC, and their families, sharing their stories, adventures, and journeys across the military life cycle. The podcast is for anyone interested in joining the military, has been part of the military, or wishes to learn more about military life. In addition, we want to bridge the growing military civilian divide through education.
Rusty Mardis:This is unfiltered, meaning we'll go over the good, the bad, and yes, maybe even the ugly of being a military connected individual. I'm your host, Rusty Martis, a retired Air Force Mustang and OEF veteran, I run the Veterans Resource Station at North Kentucky University. Welcome to another special edition of Tackle Acquired on this segment number two, the oral history of Navy corpsman Tom Eagles. We are fortunate again to have our producer and current professor here at NKU, Kevin Eagles, join us to give us some comments going into this show. Professor Eagles, please give the audience a review of what we talked about on this awesome and very special episode.
Kevin Eagles:Last episode, we left with my father speaking about his special relationship with the Vietnamese people, including a Montagnard medic that he was working with at the time who had helped him with an injury. That will continue in this episode where he speaks more about the Vietnamese people. And I wanted to add just a point of recollection for myself. You you know, again, when when we were looking through his photographs after he had passed, one of the things, that he would always point out, and this is a a story that he had spoke about repeatedly while he was alive, was how as part of a village assistance team through the Navy, He was working with a village in the the Rungsat Special Zone, I believe. And the villagers, were so happy to have him as a medic that they procured for him a riverboat and painted it up in navy colors unofficially, that he could use as a river ambulance.
Rusty Mardis:That's awesome.
Kevin Eagles:And there was an award ceremony, where he got and was handed the the boat, the captainship of the boat. And I'm probably gonna I'm I'm gonna find that that picture and use it for a thumbnail for this episode. And it just speaks to his special relationship. Right? One of the things in the previous episodes that my father did mention as well is that, you know, how he was angry about the fact that the American media only wanted to talk about the negative side of the Vietnamese people.
Kevin Eagles:Right? It's that positive stories about the Vietnamese people Mhmm. You know, didn't sell papers.
Rusty Mardis:Right.
Kevin Eagles:So, that was something that he always did wanna talk about, was those positive relationships that he had with people, who throughout the war, including my family on my mother's side, who was a Vietnamese national, how they worked tirelessly and throughout the entirety of the war and even after, right, trying to, save South Vietnam, trying to save Saigon. So I'm really glad that that was captured in the oral history where my dad can can talk about how not only were American soldiers there in Vietnam trying to do the right thing, such as my father, but there were Vietnamese nationals trying to do the right thing as well, who did not want Vietnam to be a communist country and were willing and ready to work with American soldiers, such as my father, Tom Eagles, and, his friends, such as Aubrey Knapp and and and others.
Rusty Mardis:So What was really cool about the first episode is kind of the breakdown of the history and where it came from and everything, but I think you nailed it where it it's the positive reflection that he brings to everything that they were accomplishing in Vietnam. The first first episode was amazing, and I'm excited to get into the second one. Thank you, professor Eagles. Oh, thank you.
Katie Womble:Did you ever come into contact with Eastern medicine practices? Like, you know, like Chinese medicine or Yeah.
Tom Eagles:I broke my toe in this Vietnamese mountain yard. I mean, it hurt. Mean, we're we're we're out we're out in the we're out there, and there's no helicopter. So he said, you gotta walk out. So he took some he took his helmet, found some roots, and I wish I would've known where it was.
Tom Eagles:He put it on my toe and it just numbed the hell out of it. You know? And I walked out on it, you know? But I forgot, I wish I would've had it, because I probably would've had it. I saw these things, acupuncture, and then there's other sides of oral medicine where they would take tobacco and put it in wounds.
Tom Eagles:But these are primitive. I mean, Karen's Vietnamese, and educated. But, I mean, these are poor Vietnamese and and native people. A little bit I mean, to them, it was the things they do, you know, the way they lived and what they did. But you had to learn that, you know, what their thoughts were.
Katie Womble:So did you ever have problems? You were talking about the boy not being able to keep his foot dry, but did you have problems with people not understanding, like, how they needed to maintain their
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Womble:Wounds and they they sort of thought you could just make it all better. Yeah.
Tom Eagles:The magic potion and then, you know, they you'd give them medicine, they'd sell it. Or you give medicine, they and and local VC would take it. That's So you couldn't give them too much, and you hope they came back tomorrow. They're like, here you get a 100 pills, you know, you just couldn't do that there. Because sometimes they sold it because they needed the money.
Tom Eagles:You know, you think, well, you stupid idiot. I gave you the medicine, you know? They have I you know, they need the medicine, but they need the it's just a whole different way of thinking with them. For instance, when we when we rebuilt the village later on, the Viet Cong or the NVA had bombed the house and burned the whole village down. So we were sent in to rebuild the village.
Tom Eagles:So we had all kinds of families, you know, some wounded, some dead, probably about well, it's a 120 families of different sizes. So what we do is we divide them up. How many A families, you know, mom and maybe two kids, B family, mom, dad, five kids, C family is mom, dad, and 10 kids, you know? And we figure that out and then we reapportion. You know, if you're A, you got this little land.
Tom Eagles:If you're B, you got this bigger land. And I said, okay now. And then we made a they had to make their own cement. We got a bottle of cement and molds and they made their own cement blocks.
Katie Womble:And they built homes out
Tom Eagles:of them? Yeah. But the thing was, we told them, I said, look, here's your material. You get it one time, you know. You gotta build it right.
Tom Eagles:You can't build it, know, in other words, there's some zoning or how would you say a building inspector, didn't do it right. You just can't do it with rickety ticky, you know? And and I feel sorry for you. You lost your homes, you if you rebuild it, gotta build it right. So the first guy tried it and he sold all his stuff.
Tom Eagles:I said, well, what do you say? I mean, the guy has lost his home and you sold his stuff. You know, we were feeding him and it was more of this cement. We gave him tin for the roof and wood to make furniture and and blinds and shutters and all that. The guy sold it and (I) said, you're out of here.
Tom Eagles:That's hard to do, you know, you say. You know, I say, hit the bricks, dude. You let one do it, they'd all do it, you know. Another one kinda, yeah, he was drinking a lot and then he bent me into a horrible thing, but he wasn't doing it to standards, you know. I'm out of here.
Tom Eagles:So I had to throw two people out. That's kinda hard to do, but if you you let two do it, they all do it.
Katie Womble:Did folks move to cities when this kinda thing happened?
Tom Eagles:Well, no no.
Katie Womble:Okay. Okay. Did folks move to cities when things like that happened or did They were Where did people run away to?
Tom Eagles:They what? Don't know. Yeah. After we callous. I mean, he'll say don't know you don't care because you can't let the whole project go because two people sure.
Tom Eagles:I mean, it's hard.
Katie Womble:Did other people realize they needed to build it? Oh,
Tom Eagles:yeah. Yeah. It was it was a, you know, they did it right. They did it the standards and they they got to it as a village but to a mana you just couldn't say no. Another story for that village.
Tom Eagles:We they wanted a school. So okay, they wanted a school. So they asked me for some help. They we got some wood. It was called dunnage.
Tom Eagles:The Americans bring all our supplies in and they uncrated and they have all this wood. So we got them some wood and they made desks. They took nip upon them and made the school and the roof and they put a sign on it. The Vietnamese American friendship school And they I had some AIDs, international development, sent out some sewing machines. So I got them a sewing machine and they made little outfits for all the kids, you know.
Tom Eagles:So I was pretty proud of this, I brought the American State Department guys down to see it, they went right to the old right, you can't do this. I said, why? This is I mean, it was their school, they built it, their pride, they could fix it. You know, if something broke down, they go out in the woods and get, or jungle, nippapalm and thatch it. No, they said, gotta tear it down where to go to cement and all this stuff.
Tom Eagles:And I said, well, what happens when it breaks down? You know, put glass in and somebody breaks the glass. Oh, no. You can't put the American name on this. They made me take the name, American French name off of it.
Katie Womble:How did the villagers feel about it?
Tom Eagles:They didn't like it. You know, it was they're proud of what they did. But sometimes the Americans, you got it's, you know, we do it better and our way is better than you gotta do it our way. And they didn't want our names the American name on stuff that wasn't
Katie Womble:Up to skip up to grade. Yeah. Just enough. So you became a medical adviser? Yeah.
Tom Eagles:Alright. Was that? On my second tour, I went back to The States. Well, anyway, I'm in the village in Hanoi. Hannah was a woman on comments woman on Northern Radio.
Tom Eagles:And she gave greetings to Boxy Tom and the team and Nanook and she said, you won't live to see Christmas. So the name out of there, you know. In a couple days I was gone. We were working in that village. We're right off the Nang Airbase.
Tom Eagles:The OSI, the Air Force and so I was asked to keep an eye out. We're doing things for them. And you know, I ran sick out. We rebuilt the village. Four of us guys live there and we would go on patrol with them and try to keep the village security.
Tom Eagles:We're right off to Danang Air Base. The the Air Force looked at it as their first trip wire, you know, so they weren't happy with us. I mean, I just say that guy walked right to the film that day. They knew who we were. They knew we were there.
Tom Eagles:We had a lot of good successes because we were taking care of the kids people living babies minor surgery pulling teeth all that and they weren't happy to see me. So they kind of read us the, you know, greetings to the team at Nanook.
Katie Womble:Were women comfortable being seen by a male doctor?
Tom Eagles:Oh, yeah. There's no problem. Okay. No problem. You have to be very, you know, careful what you do respectful.
Tom Eagles:Yeah. I mean you could be a dirty old American, but you know, don't dead there, you know, I mean in these are as Karen can tell you know how the people looked upon you. So anyway, they said, you know, you're not gonna make it to Christmas. So the Navy pulled me out. I me back to The States.
Tom Eagles:So I went to an I and I, which is the Spectrum instructor Marine Corps Reserve in Auburn, New York and it was great. The marines were nice, but you couldn't you're doing physicals and minor minor circle, you know, you're in Auburn, New York. Nice. It was just it wasn't not that I like to see people hurt, if they're hurt, I wanna be there. So I spent a year there and I called my detailer and says, you know, whatever it takes, send me back.
Tom Eagles:So they thought about what I said, oh, I got orders. You can go back to Vietnam, but you can't go to I Corps. Three three or four of us. So they got took me to somebody to Saigon and I got there and I said, four
Katie Womble:core. Right?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. All three and four. Saigon was a three and yet just beyond Saigon in the three cores four core. So they said, okay. So they sent me to a place called in in three core, the Rungsat Special Zone.
Tom Eagles:It's a it was a conglomeration of area between Saigon in the South China Sea and it's where the long tail shipping channel, all the shipping came from the ocean up into Saigon. So our job was security of both sides of that channel with the Vietnamese. So just a few of us Americans, Vietnamese Marines Regional Forces Popular Forces and few Americans.
Katie Womble:Can you tell me about the popular forces?
Tom Eagles:They're the it's like the if the regular army is our army, regional forces would be like the National Guard and the popular forces would be like the Home Guard. So we had regional forces, popular forces in the all these villages. They were
Katie Womble:Was that the People's Self Defense Force?
Tom Eagles:No. That's even less. That's p s s nyan nyan duvet. That's even less. That's the less and they're the local I mean, we all live in a bunch of houses, you know, I don't care who you were.
Tom Eagles:You you were in the PSDF. You, Don, you know, whatever. You know, you you guard the village, you had patrols and you camp out looking for the bad guys. These are armored villages. They're they were clearly in fenced by wire and there was so you control the populations.
Tom Eagles:The bad guys are out there. Good people living here. So the whole area we had to keep out because the battalion called dawn ten their job, they were communist. They were North Vietnamese and Vietnamese and their job, if you need was to, you know, attack the channel and the shipping going up if they could sink a ship in the channel. They, you know, they'd really screwed up saga because that was all all our p o l, petroleum oil and lubricants came up there.
Tom Eagles:We all our supplies, food. So I spent three years in the swamp there. And then when I say swamp, if you got in the morning, the beatings and throw ankles, eyes up to my knees automatically. Either up to knees, eyes up to my butt, you know. It was a horrible place to work.
Tom Eagles:There's no roads, was either helicopter, boat, or you walk. I mean, even get to your boats in the morning, had a 16 foot tides. So if your boat was down there, you had a swamp to the mud to get to your boat. If you're high tide, you had to get your boat from up here, because it's now up here and you gotta slide it down in mud into the water. So I spent three years in there.
Katie Womble:What kind of medical work was different in a swamp area? Like what things
Tom Eagles:happened in sores. I mean, guys, mean, we used to I wouldn't let them wear underwear because they're called crotch rod. Sorry to say that, but, yes.
Katie Womble:No, I know it better.
Tom Eagles:You know, so, yeah, that was a big problem. And then when we came after a couple weeks out there, we came back out back on our team house. We had a covered area with hammocks and fans and laid out there and just dried out. Because your skin was like a big wrinkle, you know, and you had sores.
Katie Womble:So you pruned up? Yeah. What about infectious diseases?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. That was easy. I mean, if you got I mean, it was so human and dirty. I mean, the wounds just fester, you know, it was a bad problem for the Americans and for the Vietnamese.
Katie Womble:So did you have to get people out of there to somewhere else ever for more intense treatment or?
Tom Eagles:Yeah, if I couldn't take care of my you had to but then if I couldn't take care of some of my people were nongs and Montneyards. If we didn't take care of the Vietnamese wouldn't Karen came down to work as a nurse and she helped with everything. But she can probably explain better, there's I'm here, you're there and you're dirty and I'm better. They wouldn't take them. The
Katie Womble:who wouldn't take it
Tom Eagles:the Vietnamese hostels wouldn't take them. So there's so much there's good Vietnamese and there's bad Vietnamese and there's corruption. We had corruption too. But I mean they you know, give me a little money. We'll take care of the medical care was just horrible out there.
Tom Eagles:It it improved some, but it it was really a work to get them good good health care and take care of in long range. I mean, there's no CVS. There's no no emergency clinics, you know, so they came to you. And then they would drop we had a pier, and it was known as the American Pier, and they would drop kids on the pier and leave them there. You know?
Katie Womble:How old were you during this time?
Tom Eagles:25. How old was that? We were
Katie Womble:Yeah. So a lot of responsibility.
Tom Eagles:Yeah. One woman, I just got a reminder that she had long hair. She was working on her fishing boat and got her hair caught in the shaft and took her scalp off. So, you know, they brought her to me. We sent her up.
Tom Eagles:The Viennese wouldn't take they just left her. So the next time the helipilot went in there, American helipilot saw her sitting there and he brought her back. So luckily, I'd taken her scalp and put it in a bottle or basin of sterile water, keep it moist. So they brought her back to me and I managed her up and then I cut the hair and cut all the hair off the top, gently cleaned up what I cut underneath, and then there's a Penrose drain. It's a flat piece of rubber that folds over.
Tom Eagles:It's very flat. So I took like a teepee from here, here, put, I put penrose chains all over her head, and the tipi like sticks, and put bastration and sulfa powder all over her head.
Katie Womble:For antibiotics?
Tom Eagles:Yeah, and started her IV in that. But then I soldered up loosely, not all the way around tight, with these pieces of rubber out and over a couple weeks I'd pull the rubber down a little bit, and then after that she cut it off, so I wanted to deal from the top down instead of healing up and then getting a pus pocket. Yeah. So it held by So
Katie Womble:it was draining
Tom Eagles:one time. Yeah. And it took a lot of prayers. I mean, it was a miracle and she'll never be a chorus girl that scar left on her, but she's okay.
Katie Womble:It's incredible that you were able to do that without her infection.
Tom Eagles:Well, she sloughed a couple of times where I had infection. I had her, you know, I had an IV with a couple antibiotics, you know, portion of the IV. Fingers and toes amputated a few of those bullet wounds. There were some babies. One woman did a c section on her.
Tom Eagles:Evan Hunter was a special forces doctor on the radio, had a Grey's Anatomy and he said, here's how you do it doc. We walked me through it. Now she'll never be a chorus girl then, but she lived. I was a hell of a scotter.
Katie Womble:Were you ever did you ever hear about women who were like, going to who were pregnant and, I mean, having back alley abortions, that kind of thing during that time?
Tom Eagles:Not not really. No. Okay. I'm sure there's abortions going on in Saigon, but neither are people see that either had the baby or not. And actually don't forget, I mean, kids is better.
Tom Eagles:Here you buy life insurance, here you have there you have 10 kids, you know, so kids are one of that. I've never seen anybody that didn't want the kid. But the area I was in in the room side was through this poor statistics in the whole country. Very very poor. Per cap was very very low.
Tom Eagles:So they're all farmers woodcutters fishermen, but more kids are better and you know, that was your life insurance. Well, the kids were wanted.
Katie Womble:What do you remember about the nineteen seventy one incursion of the NBA and just out Vietnam?
Tom Eagles:I was on the Delta. Our team was, you know, American Marine team were all advisors. We were closely aligned with the Vietnamese Marine advisors. So Colonel Raymond Jerry Turley, he said I need more help. So we got to be Kelly girls, you know.
Tom Eagles:You know, doc get out of the village go up north. So off I went up north and worked with the Vietnamese. My my job was loading airplanes. See when turkey birds. Yeah.
Katie Womble:What were Herky Birds?
Tom Eagles:C one thirty Hercules. It was it was the it was a her c one thirty Hercules was the name. We call her Herky Birds. So the the first thing it is is the doc you speak Vietnamese, go to the go to the airport and load the Vietnamese Marine transfer battalion transport battalion trucks and all their supplies on these c one thirties. So they go into way foo by and you know support their the division that was up there.
Tom Eagles:So I spent about four days at Tantanu loading aircraft.
Katie Womble:So you're working with Vietnamese
Tom Eagles:Oh, yeah.
Katie Womble:People and so surely when you were stationed in Vietnam the first time or when you were here for the when you were there for the mission, your Vietnamese was, like, sort of rudimentary at best.
Tom Eagles:It's got better and better because, you know, I mean, I'm not she speaks to you. I you know? But I can hold sick call. I can, you know, figure out where I was and give orders. You know, it just got better, but you know, either you're lonely or you know, you figured out what's going on.
Tom Eagles:And the Vietnamese taught me and they listen, know, say you do this. Mean, I we got when we got up to Huefuba and the old man says, okay, you can sit at the airport and backload aircraft. So refugees and all these people getting on the aircraft, you know, get on the aircraft do this. So I can't take that. I remember I had some Vietnamese officer got on there and all these Russians, he's sitting on the floor of this Herky Bird and he wouldn't let anybody near him, know, he's saying I'm space like this and and, you know, go away.
Tom Eagles:So I just found about 10 feet and put me in and I said, no. No. No. You know? I said, you you you gonna get off.
Tom Eagles:I mean, I pulled my gun up and said, you're gonna get off there. You know? You don't play that crap. I need every bit of this bird to get people out of here. Well, I'm a I think he was a lieutenant colonel.
Tom Eagles:I said, I don't care what the hell you are. I said bad words. He says, no. They're all getting out here and, know, to you know, and I told the crew chief when they take off, said, he gives me problems. You know?
Tom Eagles:I said, shoot him. Throw him out. He he can't play games.
Katie Womble:You wrote and this is a bit of a jump. You wrote about so you did three deployments. Right? At one point, did thirty six months straight?
Tom Eagles:Yeah.
Katie Womble:So can you just tell me, like, your your chronology when you sorry. How how long were you stationed the first time? How long were you stationed the second time?
Tom Eagles:Well, the first time was thirty six months. I I went to recon battalion, four months. Max, I've seen for about a year and five months and the rest of the village team. Mhmm. I went back to The States.
Tom Eagles:Like I said, I wasn't happy. I'm back. Spent three years in the Delta. Three years in the room, you said special love.
Katie Womble:So was it in between those two sets of three years that you were in that bar that I read about in that that narrative you were
Tom Eagles:The bar was on the first time we love, you know, everybody had a drink and then, you know, in Camp and didn't get drunk, but I had a few few pops.
Katie Womble:And this was I'm just saying this for the camera. Yeah. This was back in America. You just
Tom Eagles:Yeah. In Camp Helen, California, Oceanside. The second time when I came back oh, the the okay. When on the first time I came back, I went out with this guy, you know, we went out drinking, it was great to be back, you know. I mean, I didn't wanna come back, but I got back.
Tom Eagles:Have some good food, and let's have some fun, and but America changed. I mean, I'm sitting and this guy says, you know, some money. Hey. I was happy to be here. You know, we're we got a few pops.
Tom Eagles:And this guy always said, want some money. Oh, yeah. What's it for? And he says, he's talking about this guy that arrested, you know. And I realized he was one of these hippies that I heard about, you know.
Tom Eagles:I wanna start a fight. And he said, no, doc. You can't do that here. That guy, know, this guy, yeah. They told us to get out of here and there were baby killers and all that.
Tom Eagles:And I was battered now.
Katie Womble:So what year was that?
Tom Eagles:That'll be '68. Yeah. About '68, late sixty eight. Oceanside, it was again, it was a no. We left in Oceanside and that was he lived in LA and I think it was somewhere between LA and Long Beach where it was down by the beach and all these guys are there and we, you know, this was he wouldn't even I really I just wanna rest and get a good meal.
Tom Eagles:He only go out drinking. Okay. You know, let's go drinking. Okay. And then we met these guys and that was that.
Tom Eagles:And I just came back from Vietnam and these guys, you know, were baby killers. What do you know? You know? It was the beginning of the anti war movement. I guess that we saw it.
Tom Eagles:It's first time I saw it. You know, I saw it. I didn't like it.
Katie Womble:So did how did that change how you felt when you went back to Vietnam? Did you feel
Tom Eagles:When I went back?
Katie Womble:Like, who am I fighting for? Or anything like that?
Tom Eagles:I was I was unhappy in The States. In Almighty Ark, that was just about the time of what was that big? All he wasn't far from the very famous hippie festival. Woodstock? Yeah.
Tom Eagles:So I was around that area that time and I didn't like it. I'm going back to, you know, Vietnam. I knew I knew the Marines. I didn't know all of them. Yeah.
Tom Eagles:I knew the Marines were Marines and sailors, but they weren't that. So I decided I just couldn't put up with that. So I went back and then the third time I got is when you know, Caroline, you know, with our son.
Katie Womble:So you met Karen. When did you meet Karen? Yeah.
Tom Eagles:I remember your birthday, I remember when got married. She came to work for me and I, you know
Katie Womble:She was a nurse?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Well, we paid more than the Vietnamese, and she worked for us. And when they lived there and I told her I liked her, she'd always go to hell and then so I said, okay, I'll prove myself a straight arrow. And we got married married forty three years now.
Katie Womble:Did were there other soldiers who married Vietnamese women?
Tom Eagles:That was a problem. I mean, I understood the Vietnamese. I understood her. I loved her. It was very difficult to get married.
Tom Eagles:Probably rightfully so to a point they were trying to stop Americans from marrying Orioles.
Katie Womble:Who who was trying to stop?
Tom Eagles:The government. So I, you know, I said I want to marry Karen and they said all this paper. And it was a system who was probably designed alright, but it was in the end it was really bad. I mean, you got all this paperwork together. That's okay.
Tom Eagles:Kate, I got all this paperwork together. Okay. I got 10 of this five of this eight. Oh, you need five more this is more than eight more, you know, so he went through about three of those. He got all this paperwork together, and then you had to take it to a Vietnamese interpreter on base and he was sitting in a room probably on the sides and have paper all over on the walls and he was working his way through this one guy, you know, so I said, oh, hell with this crap.
Tom Eagles:So I I gave a bottle of the shelly's booze, a case of beer and a little transistor radio and said, show me your format and we came back and we tightened it up and he stamped it off and we got right through that. Well, then I went to the chaplains and Karen was not an American citizen and weren't she weren't married. Well, you can't get her on base unless she's an American citizen. But you can't get married unless she goes to this chaplain and see you can't get on base to see the chaplain. You know, it was catch 22.
Tom Eagles:So when he turned his back, I stole his paperwork and his and I forged it all and got through it. So we got married. When we got married, they said, well, you can't get married till the day you leave. Well, if I got married the day I leave, she couldn't get the paperwork. You know?
Tom Eagles:So I knew ambassador Ellsworth Bunker. He used to come to our team house for briefings because, you know, I saw with the American, the the Marine team. If he wanted to talk about something, if he wanted to talk to Katie, he talked to Katie about what she was doing and and she wanted to talk to me about what I was doing, but what the army was famous for is, you know, they wanted to talk to Katie, but 20 people would be the colonel, the general, and all that. So the general talked to this, I thought, you know, kitties were, you know, kaka boo boo, you know.
Katie Womble:So he became telephone.
Tom Eagles:Yeah. In other words. So he said, you know, you always like to come down to us. And I just cook some horrendously good roast beef or beef stew and and this crappy team house and he sent brought some home and his wife lived in Bangkok, Thailand, his family. And so he would take some home.
Tom Eagles:So one day he sent a word down, doc, what do you need? I need a big bucket of your beef stew. I said, okay. So I told him what to do and they sent it in an America chopper. I cooked it up and they took it to him, you know, and that was our bond.
Tom Eagles:So when they're trying to give her a hard time because I had a son, you know, we're married Vietnamese. We're married, you know, but we're not married American. So he gave us a word, get married now. No crapola. And I got through it, but so many guys and I'm glad I did.
Tom Eagles:I mean, tell her that she's a blessing. Yeah. Really good. I mean, so many guys love their woman whether they were understood or would have been a good marriage who's to say, but they're making arbitrary decisions on these guys are going over to beat me sweating services and costing a fortune of money and a lot of games and the Americans played into it. I think we, you know, we would have more counseling and real thought about it.
Tom Eagles:There's difficult. I mean, she'll tell you it was difficult to come to The States, you know, the cross culture, But I mean, so many guys really love their women for better or worse and they just made it impossible for these guys to marry. Does that answer me?
Katie Womble:Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Can you tell me how you earned you earned three Purple Hearts? Yeah. Can you tell me about those?
Tom Eagles:Just got shot. Yeah. Yeah. When we get you know, you know who I'm looking for when this happens. So
Katie Womble:it was the first time you got shot in the arm and then
Tom Eagles:First time in the stomach and then butt and then the
Katie Womble:What was the last one?
Tom Eagles:Stomach.
Katie Womble:In the stomach? Okay. How did that one happen?
Tom Eagles:You saw through somebody it was in a way city during Teton and NBA was hiding in a mail their mailbox the French mailboxes were concrete and they're pretty good affairs. And I was with the our village got overrun. So we got out of that village and we came into Da Nang City and they said, Doc, we need, I ended up with the Vietnamese police battalion, the Kansai Chin, the field police. Mhmm. And he said, you're an advisor with them and riddlemen.
Tom Eagles:So off I went to from Da Nang up to Hue City, and we were augmenting the the American Marines, And we were clearing a street, and we're going down the street, and this guy was in the mailbox and shot me. So, after I got shot at the Vietnamese, Hollywood, and the litter, and they said they they took an AK 47, poof, fired it all. So not nice, but I have a question. You wear jump wings. Yes.
Tom Eagles:Tell us about that. What do you the the expansion to earn the jump wings. Yeah. To go to a jump school. Yeah.
Tom Eagles:I had a jump school. That was that sucked. I'm sorry. But, know, you're in a navy you're in a navy, you're in a marine uniform, and you go to an army jump school. You stand like a sore thumb.
Tom Eagles:I got down to Fort Penning and the guys the marines, the marine detachment there. They said, okay. And I came from the marines, so I was their kind of responsibility. They said, doc, you're get Iron Mike. And I said, what's Iron Mike?
Tom Eagles:Well, you'll the number one graduate. I told him I'm upset. I said, gonna get through this thing. Well, I got there and these army guys tell me, I here I am with a Marine uniform on Navy stripes. I was I was on the skyline.
Tom Eagles:I got a lot of extra push ups and special attention, but I got through it. Was Iron Mike? No. I got through it. Does that answer
Katie Womble:that? I think so. So you were part of a special task force with RSSV. What did RSSV stand for?
Tom Eagles:RSSV.
Katie Womble:RSSV.
Tom Eagles:Special Zone.
Katie Womble:Okay.
Tom Eagles:The the commander zone said doc. He the Rand Corporation.
Katie Womble:Okay.
Tom Eagles:It's coming through and they want to test they're looking for agent orange. So I said we go out to the Vietnamese villages and these Americans are coming through there and look at their crops. Look at people. We know we brought a Genesis botanist animal husbandry, veterinary, I mean, that all kinds of there's about 20 different specialties. And my job was to put them on boats and take them into these areas along Long Tau Shimmy Channel, and they would go in and take soil samples, tree samples, wood.
Tom Eagles:Took Yeah. Yeah. And you know and and the people and we had a lot of in that area we had an inordinate amount of cleft palates and congenital enamilies so they tested and my job was to get in and out of there So they they spent about three months there going through the whole area.
Katie Womble:When was that? What year? You're an estimate.
Tom Eagles:7172. They came through there and they I guess you know, the thing is they never said anything to me. I questioned why we had a lot of palettes, you know, we had a tightly controlled population. It wasn't a lot of people moving through. Mean the bad guys, but I mean as far as cultural shifts ethnic is they're all they're pretty much it was very poor pair and not a lot of people came in there that so these people had they think it was because of the agent orange that now and they know it was and we never but I never saw too much problems.
Tom Eagles:The Vietnamese we all thought it was a great idea because it took away the cover and defoliated the areas. The problem was