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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, and I run the Veterans Resource Station at North Kentucky University. Well, our special guest today on Tech League Acquired happens to be our producer, professor Kevin Eagles. Welcome, Kevin.
Kevin Eagles:Thank you for finally having me.
Rusty Mardis:It's great to have you in. It's exciting to talk a little bit about this next several episodes that we're gonna be doing. Can you talk a little bit about how we're kind of set up these next three episodes on Tack of the Acquired?
Kevin Eagles:Right. So where to start? These next three episodes are going to be the oral history of my father, Tom Eagles. Shoot. I'm already bad at this for a You're awesome.
Kevin Eagles:Alright. So in October 2015, my father gave an oral history, seven months before he passed. I found, these recordings in his desk and, have been wondering what to do with them, for for the last seven years. And, we've kind of been holding it in our back pocket to to to finally, air an episode about it.
Rusty Mardis:Yeah. What's really cool about it is, I mean, this is the oral history that was done from your father who spent how many years in the Marine Corps?
Kevin Eagles:So he was thirty years in the Navy as a corpsman for the Marines.
Rusty Mardis:Awesome. Awesome. And he, was asked or invited to do this oral broadcast through a museum. Is that correct?
Kevin Eagles:Yes. Yeah. The, Upcountry History Museum in Greenville, South Carolina where they lived.
Rusty Mardis:Oh, awesome. And so he did this, and like you said, unfortunately, he passed not too far after that. And so this is a great opportunity to showcase everything he went through, and he has an incredible history. I mean, imagine thirty years of being in. But what era was he during this his service time?
Kevin Eagles:He was in Vietnam, if I remember correctly, for seven almost eight years. He left in '72. Well, I'm sorry. He left in '73 in January or February '73. So he would have been there from '66 to '73 or '65.
Rusty Mardis:Right. And we don't wanna do any spoilers here because, like I said, the history is just amazing. Everything he went through, everything he helped produce and created as part of being in the Marine Corps. But talk a little bit about just him as a dad from your perspective and kinda growing up in that environment around the Marine Corps.
Kevin Eagles:Well so, yeah, we don't wanna give away spoilers. Right. But my father was a brother of mercy with the Catholic church. Right? So he was a Catholic monk.
Kevin Eagles:And then he went into the service and he became a corpsman. My father always had our spiritual and our physical well-being, laid out for us. Right? He was our medical officer and he was our spiritual adviser as well. You know, growing up, we had both of those aspects of his life would constantly find their way into ours.
Kevin Eagles:And I don't recall the question.
Rusty Mardis:Yeah. No. I think that's I think what's exciting, again, is that we have the opportunity to showcase, again, living history of a thirty year marine.
Tom Eagles:Oh, right.
Kevin Eagles:Yeah. So that was the thing too. That's the importance that why I wanted to air this because one of the things that my father wanted to do, but never got around to doing, was to to write about his own life. Mhmm. And part of that, the reason he didn't was that he was too too humble.
Kevin Eagles:Right? So when my father passed, we had thought that he had passed with a a number of secrets. Mhmm. However, in his desk, we had found these recordings as well as several other tidbits. And if I can, one of the tidbits was my father would always get into an argument with my mother because when I was born so I was born, in August 1972, out just outside of Saigon in Vietnam during the war.
Kevin Eagles:And my father and mother had saved up money. They didn't know the gender that I would be, so they had saved up a bunch of money for when I arrived. And a week before I was born, my father told my mother, like, I lost that he had lost all of the money that they had saved up, gambling. Wow. And that was the argument for forty years of my life.
Kevin Eagles:Right? When I opened up the drawer I'm gonna try not to get choked up when I say this. When I opened up the drawer, among everything else was that, you know, going back to when my father was a monk, he was actually a monk, and a brother of mercy in Vietnam, and he built churches. That was one of his little side things that he would do in the service. And we had found a stack of pictures all dated a week before I was born, and he was there with a group of Vietnamese nationals and a couple of other American soldiers, and they were building a Catholic church.
Kevin Eagles:And my father, the church had run out of money in the community, the village that they were building for had run out of money. So my dad stole all of the money that was saved for me to to make sure that that church got built.
Tom Eagles:Wow.
Kevin Eagles:And so after I passed so that my dad never wanted to to tell, you know, my mom that, you know, what he had done for whatever reason. And he finally let us know what had really happened, you know, after he had after he was gone. Wow. And I've you know, finding all those pictures afterwards was really, you know, heart wrenching.
Rusty Mardis:Absolutely. Yeah. And that's what's so amazing about his story. And like every history story, so one of the reasons we do this podcast is to get those oral histories out. Our primary focus is around military and military connected veterans, but all the story resonates throughout our history as America.
Rusty Mardis:And this is key, what he brought from Vietnam, but what he also I'm trying to give away spoilers, neither.
Tom Eagles:Oh, right right o.
Rusty Mardis:But what he brought to the military that then became commonplace in the civilian world. So it's a must listen podcast. I hope everybody enjoys it. And professor Eagles, I greatly appreciate you sharing this with us.
Kevin Eagles:Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.
Jason Myrtle:Hi. I'm staff sergeant Jason Myrtle. I'm the recruiter for the Kentucky Army National Guard here at NKU and in Northern Kentucky. The Kentucky Army National Guard offers a 100% scholarship to any public university in Kentucky along with a possible $20,000 enlistment bonus, additional income while attending college, and numerous other benefits. If you have any interest or questions, my contact information will be in the show notes.
Jason Myrtle:Go guard.
Katie Womble:Hey. This is Katie Womble. I'm talking with Thomas Eagles for our Vietnam oral history project, and his wife Karen and both Don Kuntz are here. Today is 10/28/2015. So when and where were you born?
Tom Eagles:Buffalo, New York in 1944.
Katie Womble:And how would you describe your childhood?
Tom Eagles:Country boy. Grab a grab a head at sawmill. We had a boat livery. Grew up out in the country, grew up on the Oak Orchard River fishing and getting in trouble.
Katie Womble:So, lot of outdoors Yeah. Stuff growing up. Did you were you a boy scout or anything
Tom Eagles:Boy like Yeah. Boy scout.
Katie Womble:So, what did that teach you?
Tom Eagles:Tell me how to live in it. You know, of course, we always were hunting out in the woods and running around with our BB guns, which are illegal now, but we all have BB guns and shot up every garbage can in town. Grandma used to give me hell because we used to use the garbage cans for Liz. It all had dents in it, you know.
Katie Womble:So she didn't have a single garbage can without a dent?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. I had a few dents in me for that. It was a good childhood. Went to school in Buffalo. We was out in the country actually, but Buffalo was a my aunt was a principal at a Catholic school, so I went there for free.
Tom Eagles:Oh. For grammar school and then high school. My uncle was the principal and that was good and bad. You couldn't get away with anything, you know. Yeah.
Tom Eagles:Got through high school, started thinking about religious life, you know. Grew up as an altar boy and all all the all that it tends to, but I I read an article in the Night Squamous magazine about these brothers and they were pretty cool. That was kinda neat help by people. So I joined the brothers right out of high school. In the day out of high school, I joined the brothers and spent two and a half years there.
Tom Eagles:Once got an LPN license, practical nurse, LPN license. We did geriatric terminal nursing, taking care of old people that were from there, now they call it hospital, then it was called geriatric terminal. Did that, and then in 1962, the Bishop of Saigon visited us and asked to send some of our brothers out to Saigon City to take care of the old Vietnamese and French priests with the ultimate goal of gathering all together in one place or developing a hospital or a hospice. We got there. We we ran around town on the vest of motor scooters and went from rectory to rectory, and I I took care of about four priests.
Tom Eagles:I'd see them three times a day, morning, noon, and night, Wash them, shave them, all that.
Katie Womble:So you would go to them?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. And at that time, it was 1963, there was not a lot of American involvement, there was not a lot of chaplains. We were right downtown, not too far from the Vietnamese Navy Yard and the Vietnamese Marine Advisor Headquarters. So they didn't have a chaplain, and they'd come by and see us. And these guys would come by that I thought I thought they were marines because they had marine uniform on, but with marine stripes on their collars and their medical incision.
Tom Eagles:So I thought those were marines, just really didn't get into it, you know. And they were, it's called comm shop, I don't know that, but they removed medical supplies to help us out, it was grand theft.
Katie Womble:They did what? Sorry.
Tom Eagles:They'd bring us medical supplies that we needed So to help, you they were pretty cool guys, I liked it. And then
Katie Womble:Did they bring them for free to y'all or y'all No. No. They're free.
Tom Eagles:So then we got to the point where they would they would almost come every week. And one of the things they'd ask me for advice, I I mean, I had these robes on, I knew a little bit, but not much. And I didn't, you know, so that and I couldn't help them. You know what mean? They'd say, well, I'm doing this or I'm doing that and, you know, I had no that any any deep theological training or anything.
Tom Eagles:And then
Katie Womble:So they were speaking they were seeking spiritual guidance?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. And I wasn't really trained for that. I mean, I was just a young 20 year old kid.
Katie Womble:Yeah. You were is is that there's such a thing as a novice?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Was a novice. Mhmm. So then probably superior to the world, you're not gonna go back to The States and get an RN. I wanted to go back to The States after a year.
Tom Eagles:Because I wanted to keep you here because you can fix the motor screws, can fix the plumbing, you can cook. You're a jack of all trades. So my Irish pride said, you know, don't like that. So I quit. It wasn't that that's a basically, I quit.
Tom Eagles:You know? Went back to The States, got out. Had a cigar box full of holy cars and a black suit and a white shirt and a tie and no money. So I came home. My folks were glad to have me, but I I I wanna go I tried to join the marines.
Katie Womble:So before we get into that
Tom Eagles:Lane this way.
Katie Womble:This way? What did your parents do for a living?
Tom Eagles:My dad was a flight inspector at Bell Aircraft.
Katie Womble:Okay.
Tom Eagles:Grandpa had the sawmill. Grandma cooked and, you know, took care of the house and my mom. My momma that then my mother and father had divorced at that time. So I really wasn't happy to be home, so I tried to join the marines. Went down to the Marine Corps and says, know, I wanna join oh, yeah.
Tom Eagles:We're glad to have you. Okay. And he said, do wanna do? I said, wanna be a medic. He said, oh, we don't do that.
Tom Eagles:Yes, you do. I mean, I argue with this gunny, you know. Young kid. Oh, yes. I just left Vietnamese guys in marines.
Tom Eagles:Those are not marines. They were. Said, no, they weren't. Those are sailors in Marine Universe. Oh, okay.
Tom Eagles:So instead of saying that he could make me a corps man, which, you know, in the corps, he took me down the hall and put me in the you know, he got me in the Navy in hospital corps. Mhmm. So joined the Navy, went off to boot camp, and went to boot camp. And I drove my company commander wild because boot camp was fun.
Katie Womble:For you? Yeah. Or for everyone?
Tom Eagles:Well, for me. I mean, I could look at women, eat meat, talk to somebody, you know. This is great, you know. The day I graduated, mister Owens got a call in, said, Eagles, he said, you graduated. He says, you know, I can't quote verbatim what he said, but, know, where the hell did you come from?
Tom Eagles:Know, I told him. He said, he's a Baptist, a very good man, but he says, what what were you like? He said, I never want one of you bastards in my company. He said, I couldn't get to you. I I was having fun.
Tom Eagles:You know? And he they'd, you know, breaks you up, send general orders and such up. Oh, you know, that's easy.
Katie Womble:I've been told that basic was a time when people were just pushed beyond their limits and
Tom Eagles:Oh, in those days, yeah. Mean, that wasn't. Not that I could see. You know? I just been through.
Katie Womble:So how long were you in basic, and where were you?
Tom Eagles:Great Lakes, Illinois, and I think it was thirteen weeks back then. And from there, went right to hospital core school, and then I went to let's see. I went to the Naval Hospital of Portsmouth, Virginia, did what they call ward coolly. Worked on the wards, you know, bedpans and all that. Didn't like that too much.
Tom Eagles:So gotten a few since I got in trouble there.
Katie Womble:How did you get in trouble?
Tom Eagles:The there's a very famous marine general by the name of Chesty Puller. He was a patient. And I was on awards, and one of the awards was SOQ, Sick Officers' Quarters. Well, they listen, they used to call it Sick O Queers. So there's a senator named MacLayton Pappell who came to see the general, and I went down to get him and he says, Eagles, what I have my name down.
Tom Eagles:He says, Eagles, what does s o q mean? I said, it's like, oh, where's dumb. And of course, he told the general, the general would call me the next day. He says, Eagles, do you think I know, sir? He said, well, next time, I don't ever do that because you're be in place.
Tom Eagles:If I told the nurse, you'd be in deep trouble. So I wonder so he said, I think you better get out of here. So there's an admiral there by name of Macron, who was the seal of the hotsel. And he had been in in World War two with the marines and he said, he was so admiral Macron. Admiral Macron says, you're leaving tomorrow.
Tom Eagles:He says, we think you better go to the marines. So off I went to Quantico and what they used to call it, draft. So I went to Quantico and got to Quantico. I was beginning of my marine marine navy career.
Katie Womble:So then you were in the marine proper?
Tom Eagles:Well, yes. And I mean, you're in the navy, but assigned to the marines. In those days, when you're assigned to the marines, had to wear their uniform, have their grooming standards, do their their physical fitness stuff, learns amalgamating to them. So I did that for some time, and then they found out that I've been to Vietnam. Mhmm.
Tom Eagles:This one gunny says, you know, you've been to Vietnam. I mean, not much, but I've been there and I spoke a little language. He says, they can probably use you. So off, went to a whole bunch of schools, jump school, school to school, advanced special forces medical training and
Katie Womble:So I wanna talk about that a little bit. You went to something called underwater swimming school. Yeah. You tell me what that entailed? How long were you there?
Tom Eagles:That's all I back then it was about three months in Key West, Florida. You went down there and learn how to run and thump and bump and scuba diving and, you know, underwater swimming.
Katie Womble:Mhmm.
Tom Eagles:Did you
Katie Womble:go down very deep?
Tom Eagles:Oh, about a 100 about about maxing about normal dives are about to a 100 feet, you know. And you learn how to lock in and lock out of a submarine and all that.
Katie Womble:What is locking in and locking out of a submarine?
Tom Eagles:Well, then the only combat submarine they had for troop care was the I can't even name anymore. Grayback. It was an old regular submarine that they used to use fire missiles on. I take the all that missiles out of the can and you got in the can and they submerged and then when you got down there, they equalize the pressure, flooded the can, pop the hatch and off you came. Mhmm.
Katie Womble:Then could they drain the
Tom Eagles:water out of it? Oh, yeah.
Katie Womble:When you
Tom Eagles:well, no. You if you flew if you got back in, so you get picked up by a rubber boat or you'd go ashore. But if you came back and you you know, swim into the can, they drain the water out and equalize pressure, and then they roll up the hatch into the boat and down you went.
Katie Womble:Mhmm. So was all this training, like, really new to you because then Oh,
Tom Eagles:that was. Yeah.
Katie Womble:I mean, you had been in a in living in a monastery. How did that life compare to military life?
Tom Eagles:A little more rugged, you know, I mean, a little more how do you say?
Katie Womble:Which was?
Tom Eagles:The the military. Mean, the monastery, you know, you didn't say, you didn't talk, you know. I mean, the the if it isn't that God can't talk to you if you're talking to somebody else in the military. Life was a little rough. The day I left the monastery, father of the spirit said, Tom, you're leaving.
Tom Eagles:He says, when you leave, you're gone. You're always welcome back. But he says, when you're out of here, you're not a Catholic monk anymore. I mean, you're a Catholic, but you're not a monk. He said to me, in Rome, do as the Roman zoo, but don't roam as much as the Romans, whereas don't go off the deep end.
Tom Eagles:And that kinda stood with me. So then but it was rugged. I mean, there's a lot of foul words and jokes, and I mean, it was just a whole different life. But very good very good camaraderie, very good friendships. I mean, guys messing with them because they like to, you know, see, you know, you play jokes one another because hated one.
Tom Eagles:I just see if you outs you know, out mess one another.
Katie Womble:Mhmm. So a lot of banter
Tom Eagles:Yeah.
Katie Womble:Back and forth. Let's see. So how would you describe, I've read a lot in your in what your narrative that you wrote for that student
Tom Eagles:Yeah.
Katie Womble:About how you felt about national sentiment and how it changed during the war. How would you say we got involved in Vietnam?
Tom Eagles:How do we you know, I I those are the times in John of Kennedy and not, you know, what you can do for your country, what the country you know, you you know, what your what you can do here and what the country can do for you. A lot of patriotism, you know, mean, you're this is what you did, you're you guys did it. So we go there, go there, you know. There was no protest, no thoughts, you know. That was just the way the military was, you know, you go and you do, but you had your friends.
Tom Eagles:I mean, these groups of people you went with, I mean, these are deep friendships. We wish today you still keep in contact with some of us, you know. It was an adventure kinda. It was kinda there's a lot of one upmanship. Just, you know, if you do it, I can do it better, or if you do it worse, I can do it worse, you know, those type of things.
Tom Eagles:So deep bonding. When I went in the country, first time I was with reconnaissance battalion, not force recon battalion. And, you know, you gotta prove yourself. You're the new guy, the greedy. Mhmm.
Tom Eagles:A lot of, you know, see if you can match up, you know, can you do this, can you do that, and if you Was there more
Katie Womble:any hazing?
Tom Eagles:Not really. I mean, it may nowadays, they might call, but those are just part of it. You know? You you did it. So you you got out there and you proved yourself, then I got dinged and shot.
Tom Eagles:Then I went to the hospital, so they patched me up. But because I spoke Vietnamese and had all this training, they said, we're gonna keep you here. You know? So I had a limited profile from the medical people, so they sent me ashore to the Marine Air Wing, a helicopter shot at Marine Air Group sixteen. I got up there and I was supposed to be the civic action corpsman for the wing.
Katie Womble:This was stationed they were stationed at Marble Mountain?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Yeah. They worked out at Marble. So that was my job there, was to take care of the perimeter villages. And there was an intel aspect to that too because as you went to these villages, you kinda see what was going on, you know, that's if you gain the trust of the people, they would tell you, hey.
Tom Eagles:Look at they're here, they're there, they're gonna come over here tonight.
Katie Womble:So you were in the North Of South Vietnam
Tom Eagles:Yeah.
Katie Womble:At this point, and that was Yeah.
Tom Eagles:North Of South. Yeah.
Katie Womble:The
Tom Eagles:first North. Core.
Katie Womble:First Core.
Tom Eagles:Yeah.
Katie Womble:Okay. So I would imagine there would be more action there.
Tom Eagles:Oh, yeah. There was. Yeah.
Katie Womble:Can you tell me what it was like to go off to these villages? Were you with a group of other men?
Tom Eagles:Oh, yeah. Usually a couple, you know, four or five or, you know, we'd go out there. The Vietnamese have in in these villages, they had a what they called CAP platoons, combined action platoons of Americans and Vietnamese. And I go out there and hold sick call and, you know, they'd say, okay, the Americans here, and we we're now it was lumps and bumps, sneezes, wheezes, nothing really major. But if you saw something major, sometimes you could bring it in for the Navy hospital to look at something like a cleft palate or a broken arm, you know, but mostly it was just
Katie Womble:What about delivering babies? Who did that?
Tom Eagles:Not there. I mean, I that that part I didn't. So you did that every day and then I used to fly medevac. You're on a rotating schedule. Or you have to sit on the flight line for a day and fly, you know, whenever the bell went off, you jumped in the helicopter and flew someplace and picked up the wound or whatever you had to do.
Tom Eagles:Sometimes dead bodies, sometimes lie.
Katie Womble:What was that? How did that feel at first? Was it scary to you?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. We had a you know, you had your helmet and your horse, your and I was a lot lighter than it. He had this what they call chicken vest, the big armor plate. And he had a chicken plate, and I could get my little butt over that because, know, it was just metal. I mean, you had a door there.
Tom Eagles:It was made out of magnesium, and, you know, but you hid behind the door, and you got your butt over this little plate, you know, hoping the bullets came this way. If they came that way, well, you you
Katie Womble:You're done.
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Well, that done when you got hit, you know. So, you know, the the the the thing there was you got in the helicopter, and two marine officers got there and drove you out there. And those guys had the real I mean, you got in, you're committed. You know?
Tom Eagles:But when when they took up and they're sitting up way up on on the top of the helicopter, these are 30 fours, And they drove me in there and drove me out of there. You know? I mean, I'm just allowed for the ride. They're the ones that had to really say, oh, we're going in, and and they were up about ten, fifteen feet above the ground, above me. Well, not above me, but they're up there and I'm under here, and they they saw what they get in, they drove us in there, and he got out, ran, got the patients, hauled them in, did what you can, got out of their back, and then he did it again a couple of times.
Katie Womble:So you did you take all the patients to the base? Or
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Generally, there the the the idea was you'd pick them up in the field and bring them back to the battalion aid station. But after a while, they just jumped over the BAS and went back to Navy hub.
Tom Eagles:The the care went from the corpsman without forget the helicopter. The corpsman, the battalion aid station, the battalion aid station, the regiment aid station, and then back to a a fixed hospital, like, in the Naval Support Activity Hospital, Da Nang, our third field House, they were there. Now, then they said, heck with this. Let's pick up in this room right on back. Okay.
Tom Eagles:So you picked him up and took him back to the hospital and went back again.
Katie Womble:So how long did it take for that to change from being like what you were just saying about
Tom Eagles:By the time I got there, they were pretty much doing that. There was none of this echelon. Was just scooping them up and them back. Yeah.
Katie Womble:Take care of them. So did you
Tom Eagles:jump in and ask you a question? Yes. Along that line. Were you doing any crew or pilot recovery? Once in a while, we we picked up well, in that time, a couple of Air America guys, picked up a couple of times.
Tom Eagles:Air America was another airline civilian, well, CIA really, but we picked up. We never got these were 30 fours. They weren't real long range. They're pretty cumbersome and but we did go pick up pilots twice in my well, Air America.
Katie Womble:Can you talk about those times when you picked them up?
Tom Eagles:You had air cover sometimes, f fours or for all you check-in there, there'd an o one bird dog, which is a little spotter plane, he'd be around. And then you see whatever air cover he had to prep the area, you know, see what you're going, and then you had a playmate with you. It always was through helicopter.
Katie Womble:Mhmm.
Tom Eagles:And, you know, you'd go down and get him out of there, and then he'd be covered. He might be swooping over you, firing his machine gun and trying to suppress the fire. We had suppress the fire too. The Marine Corps never got into unarmed helicopters. They always were in our I was in the first Marine helicopter that had red crosses on it with lights, and that was
Katie Womble:How is that different? Well,
Tom Eagles:you go in at night and you're lit up like a I gotta be careful.
Katie Womble:Go for it.
Tom Eagles:No. You're lit up like a tree, you know, Christmas tree, you know, and the bad guy says, oh, okay. You know, Americans really helped me out. I just shoot. I know I don't have to look at maybe he's over here.
Tom Eagles:But we got Swiss cheese, old Colonel Sweetie's, and he called me and says, remember going to Finite with a special chopper. And I'm okay. I'll let Colonel call. So we we did it and swooped in there and we got nailed. Nailed but good.
Tom Eagles:Nobody got hurt, you know, but they shot the the Red Crosses were on the tailbone, the lights of it was a snap on canvas panel, you know, it was pretty tight, you know, it was lit up. So we took most shots back there. So we did that twice, the guy really nailed it. Nobody got hurt when he got shot, no. But Colonel went back and said, you know, hell with this crap.
Tom Eagles:He said, the wing wants to fly this, they can fly it. We're not flying with lights on, red drops, no more. So, it goes to me, it was just that's I mean, they're looking at it, you know, it's war. I mean, there's there's the she didn't even convince them, but they didn't you know, they they it's war. But the old man said, we ain't doing that and stuff no more.
Katie Womble:So you said it was something about the Geneva Convention? Yeah. What about it?
Tom Eagles:Well, Red Cross is the asshole that shoots Red Cross. Medics are supposed to have Red Cross armbands and not get shot at.
Katie Womble:NVA didn't know that?
Tom Eagles:All they knew it well. And and like the big litter, the army litter, you know, if they saw that, shoot the shoot the guy at the litter, you know? That we've I've seen documents in Vietnamese that they wrote about that, you know, their their talent or indoctrination. The NBA indoctrination book says, you know, shoot the shoot the look for the radioman, look for the medic and look for the guy with the litter.
Katie Womble:So So you were in just as much danger.
Tom Eagles:Oh, yeah.
Katie Womble:If not more. Yeah.
Tom Eagles:Oh, a lot more, but
Katie Womble:But you were in plenty of danger. So jumping back, when you first got sent to Vietnam in the military, how did you feel about going back? I mean, you'd already been there. What did you expect?
Tom Eagles:I wanted to go back because I felt like, you know, I quit the monastery. I quit what I want. I wanna help people. I wanna go back. But when I got there, it was all it was much it was much different.
Tom Eagles:You know mean? Yeah. I'm thinking this way, this way now, this way. When I left Camp Pendleton, you know, I was thinking, you know, I'm a there's a lot of, you know, let's kill the bastard, you know. Of course, medics weren't supposed to, but we all said, you know, you know, kill them before they kill us.
Tom Eagles:We kill them as preventive medicine. The joke was if you're a preventive medicine technician, which is, you know, rats and sanitation, now we said, I'm a preventive medicine. I'm gonna kill them before they kill my guys.
Katie Womble:Just to be clear about rats, you mean like men who went into holes and stuff?
Tom Eagles:No, no. A preventive medicine technician in the Navy is a guy who looks for the clinics of the galleys, the ships, burning spaces, where do the guys live. When I say rats, you you were taught how to, you know, treat for rat poison, you know, and take care of that health. So we say, oh, we're all preventive medicine, and we're gonna kill the rats before they kill us. Now, I mean, the Bureau of Medicine and Navy Medicine didn't like that.
Tom Eagles:But that was a general thought, know, I'm get out there and kill the bastards before they kill my guys.
Katie Womble:I mean, that was patriotism at the time. Yeah. What year was it when you first deployed? It was 1966?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Womble:Fall, spring?
Tom Eagles:Spring, spring. So
Katie Womble:can you tell me about when you were wounded the first time? What what day was it? I don't What was the weather like?
Tom Eagles:It was hot. It was just a day, you know, you're out there and you're flying around and you got we're going into a zone and, you know, you're thinking one way and all of a sudden there's a whole sky. I was sitting here and I had moved up forward because it was cold. Cold being around and I So there was a big engine, 16 cylinder right cycle engine. Put off a lot of heat, I went and laid on the bulkhead just to get warm and got shot.
Tom Eagles:So it wasn't real bad, you know, just sort of meat, but
Katie Womble:In the knee?
Tom Eagles:Meat, yeah. In the arm, and just patched it up and, you know, do what I had to do, and we did our medevac, went back, and went to the hospital, and they gave me a tetanus shot and cleaned it out and went back to flying. Scared the hell out me, you you found out that it hurts. You're not visible.
Katie Womble:Was it numb at first? Or
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Womble:And then I
Tom Eagles:didn't realize it was the only guy who said, doc, he got hit. So
Katie Womble:Was that when you were transferred to MAG
Tom Eagles:at No. No. That was back no. When I was in recon, all the fur yeah. Let's go back.
Tom Eagles:Well, that's when I got shot in the shot in the butt. So I went to the hospital ship, passed me out, went back to back to Mag 16 and then the second time.
Katie Womble:And what did you do there?
Tom Eagles:At Mag 16? Mhmm. Well, you know, when you checked in, they said you're gonna be a flight corpsman. But doc, we also want you because you have Vietnamese and understand the people, want you to be the civic action corpsman, which is a bill in the wing at sixteen. They had a area that they were responsible for, so I started holding sick haul in the villages right outside of Marble at Marble itself.
Tom Eagles:Mhmm. And then did that.
Katie Womble:And that was when you would do the trips? Yeah.
Tom Eagles:So by day, you'd be flying or night. Whatever you when you weren't flying, you're out in the village. It kinda flip flopped. You didn't fly every day. I mean, you had a rotation of schedule.
Katie Womble:Did you communicate with your family during this time?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. My I wrote a home letters and my dad. Calling back. There was a real nightmare You went down to the mars station and you sat there over over you know Hey, dad. How are you over?
Katie Womble:So could you you couldn't have much of a conversation?
Tom Eagles:No. Back then, was the big thing was sending tapes. You know, a little you make a tape instead tape all of this. Because the Mars' situation was this it it was was catch as catch can. They did the best, I mean, sometimes you could talk and you always had to, you know, get down and say, over, over, you know.
Tom Eagles:Kate over, you know, Tom over, you know. So that was kinda and then they had bad communication. It was really very hard. We did it because you
Katie Womble:got to hear the voice of somebody at home. But but then we all went
Tom Eagles:to tapes and that was kind of where I went.
Katie Womble:Did who were your friends during this time?
Tom Eagles:The guys I flew with, I'm still friends with them. There's a couple one my one pilot, Roger Herman, he and I were friends of yours. Frenchie LaFontaine. We we still did a salary union down in Florida. Have to send you the tape.
Tom Eagles:Okay. I I couldn't go, but they made a tape and sent it to me. All over the phone. It's a lot of things, which don't really mean. Karen and have been to a couple of unions when I could travel, but we still keep in touch.
Katie Womble:Good. Did you ever get sent back for r and r places?
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Once, Went to Bangkok, Thailand. You know?
Katie Womble:How long?
Tom Eagles:It was five days. Got drunk. There's a guy a green beret buddy of mine. He and I went together. We got drunk.
Tom Eagles:It's long before I knew Karen, you know. We got drunk and he I passed out on the plane. He passed off, get me out of the plane. We woke up in the dang hospital. We just drank too much, you know.
Tom Eagles:That was the the Rome part of the Romans, you know. And the colonel comes off, he says, okay, you two bastards. You got you got r. You got the recreation. Now you're getting the rest.
Tom Eagles:And as long as I'm sealed this outfit, you're never gonna get either again. So he made an example of it. So no more, you know, don't be exuberant. Go and have some fun, but come back ready to go. And I wasn't ready to go.
Tom Eagles:It's been about a week before I was ready to go.
Katie Womble:You probably hadn't partied much cause you were in the monastery. Yeah. So you didn't know your limits.
Tom Eagles:No. Found out my limits. So I I got shot and said, he said, haven't drank.
Katie Womble:I don't drink. You can talk to me. Not that I
Tom Eagles:wanna do it. My skipper reminded me that it was called rest and relaxation. Relaxation is not recreation. Yeah. Well, I got one guy.
Tom Eagles:Yeah. Yeah. I got the other, but never the two again. He said, that's it. That's over you two guys.
Katie Womble:What do you what what most impressed you about the Vietnamese that you took care of?
Tom Eagles:They're grateful. They didn't have they might the people I was dealing with, they're very poor people. Marble, they're they're marble cutters for the most part. They lived right they lived the bad guys were among them, you know, the the NBA, the VC. Marble Mount was a right off the air base.
Tom Eagles:There's a huge about three spires of marble inside. One of them was a they carved a Buddhist statue probably bigger than this building, but it had different levels. The the marines had a a sniper observation post on top, and yet the Viet Cong were underneath them. They they hid in caves in there. I mean, it it was a this a lot, you know, who was a bad guy, who was a good guy.
Tom Eagles:I spent enough time with them that I could recognize who my villagers were. And I started to understand dialects and the and the looking at their skin and the way they because my people were rough marble cutters and rice paddy. We used call them rice paddy daddies, but I mean, these other people say, you know, he don't belong here. He used be looking at his feet and his hands.
Katie Womble:How could you tell?
Tom Eagles:The roughness of their skin, the way they acted. I've got one later on, I was in another village. There's a I think it was CBS reporter named Don Webster. And he's sitting there talking to me and he says, and the Viet Cong don't come here no more. And I I got the thing at home.
Tom Eagles:And right behind him walks this guy and walks out of the film, you know. I didn't know we didn't know who he was. He just walked through, you know. It was a there was a mark and so it could have been anybody. About two weeks later, the village was attacked and he was one of the attackers.
Tom Eagles:You know, so it was right there, right where Don was, you know. He just walked right by, right through the film. He's in the film, You know, we're just saying, the Viet Cong don't come here no more, the guy walked right behind Don Don Webster.
Katie Womble:How did you feel about the did you know much about the way that the was portraying the war while you were in Vietnam?
Tom Eagles:I didn't like them. I mean, sensationalism sells newspapers, you know. The Vietnamese did something good and it wasn't reported. They did something bad or two Americans our Americans had some inner reactions drunk or whatever. You know, it was all the news, it were the good part were the good things, you just never heard about it.
Tom Eagles:It didn't sell.
Katie Womble:Did it sell at first and change over time?
Tom Eagles:Not when I was there, it was always sensation. It was through this and that. And and I learned too, know, you have to learn how to live with them. I had a little boy came in with a dressing. I put his dressing on, he'd cut his foot, and then, okay, go home, take it dry.
Tom Eagles:And every day he came back, was wet, and I got mad at him, you know? And finally, this Vietnamese surgeon said, let's follow him home. Well, he had to walk through the water to get home. You know, he couldn't keep it dry. And he just has to learn, you know, think like them and see the situations they're in.
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. I mean, we're we're we're out we're out in the we're out there and there's no helicopter. Says, you gotta walk out. So he took some he took his helmet, found some roots.