Interview with Veteran Jim Swensen

Veteran: Jim Swensen

Interviewed by Rachel Swensen 11/9/2015

RS: Why did you join the military?

JS: I got drafted. I got drafted into the Army. It was either get drafted into the Army or join the Navy which was four years and the Army was two. So they chose it for me.

RS: Where did you serve?

JS: I had Basic Training in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, then I had AIT Training in Fort Bliss Texas and then I came back for the duration in Fort Riley Kansas but I went to Germany for one month on a treaty agreement the United States made with Germany during WW2 called Reforger. 

RS: Did you face combat? 

JS: No, I did not face combat. 

RS: What was your job assignment?

JS: My rank was Specialist 4. I was a Vulcan Crewman. There was four guys on an APC that shot or you were in charge of a 22 Millimeter gun, it was a gallon gun mounted on an APC. I had that job plus I was the company armor in Fort Riley.

RS: What did you do to keep in contact with your loved ones?

JS: The first part I made phone calls to Janet but then once we got the bill we stopped that. And her Dad made us pay it, it was $75 bucks and back in 1971 that was quite a bit of money. So then we quit and we started writing letters. So we just wrote letters then and I also came home to see her whenever I could. 

RS: What did you think of your fellow soldiers and officers? 

JS: The soldiers were fine they were just like me. They were kids who were trying to get along in a Dictatorship cause that’s what the Army is, it’s not a Democracy. So you are ordered and you do orders and the orders don’t have to make sense you just have to do them.  As far as the Officers go I learned to respect authority by respecting the uniform without respecting the person because a lot of times the person was not respectable but the uniform was so that’s how I separated the two. 

 RS: What did you do when you were on leave? 

JS: I mostly came home to see my girlfriend and spent time with her until I had to go back. 

RS: How did your military experience effect what you think of the military? 

JS:  My experience was that in 1971 there were no woman allowed. Especially in combat and none of the homosexual stuff that’s going on now. So I thought the Military back then was a lot better than it is now. 

RS: What was the hardest part of it all?

JS: The Vietnam War was a Political War so it was hard to figure out Patriotism and what you were fighting against.  So I was more than willing to fight for my country but the mission was never clear on what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to keep North Vietnam out of the South Vietnam but the politics and the politicians got so involved in it that they wouldn’t let you win so there was too much of that gone on. The American Military could have just stomped that whole country but we had to go by the Geneva Convention and they had to go by a whole bunch of things. Basically War is to break things and kill people and whoever breaks the most things and kills the most people wins. War is not a Political thing it’s a very ugly thing to decide an outcome. And so if you’re going to defend your country Communism or something like that then you have to be prepared to participate in a very ugly thing. I think it’s honorable to serve your country.

RS: What was the response when you came back?

JS: You kind of felt like you had to sneak back into society because you were NOT a hero. The News Media and the Liberals and the Hippies had protested against the War so much that if you were a participant in it they stuck you with it so if you were a Military person at all they figured you were involved in the Government and they would protest against you too. It was a very poor time where the Country you were willing to go and die but yet when you came home they didn’t want you here either so it was a lot different than it is nowadays.