Interview with Jerry Kickish [November 27, 2001]

Ryan Pearson:

This is Ryan Pearson (ph), and it is November 27, 2001, and I'm here with Jerry who served in the Vietnam War, and here we go. Can you state your name and how old you are?

Jerry Kickish:

My name is Jerry Kickish. I'm 54 years old.

Ryan Pearson:

Okay. And where were you born and raised?

Jerry Kickish:

I was born in Germany. I was raised in Chicago.

Ryan Pearson:

And what did your parents do?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, my parents were refugees after -- from eastern Europe during World War II. When we got here to the states my parents just did -- my father was a machinist and my mother was a housewife.

Ryan Pearson:

Did you have any other family members that were in the mill -- military, and if so, did they serve in any war?

Jerry Kickish:

I had two uncles that served in Korea.

Ryan Pearson:

What were your plans and intentions before the war, meaning did you have a set path that you wanted to take in life? What did --

Jerry Kickish:

There was --

Ryan Pearson:

Did you always want to be in the military?

Jerry Kickish:

No. Basically I -- I went in to the military for a variety of reasons. I mean, there were some patriotic reasons there, because of my uncles and so forth. But primarily I went simply because for the sense of the veteran. I was -- I had -- it was more of a right of passage in those days to the military than it was nowadays. I knew I would be drafted eventually, and I'd like to think that I was one of the few people who went to Vietnam to get out of college, instead of the other way around.

Ryan Pearson:

You made the comment that people today feel differently about it. What -- do you think the difference between people today was the duty versus that?

Jerry Kickish:

I think there was -- there was more of -- of a political situation in the states that was sort of a holdover from the Cold War period. When we were going to grammar school it wasn't unusual for us to have drills where we would stick our heads under the desk in case of an atomic bomb. There was a lot of problems happening at the same time in eastern Europe with the Russians who were still our enemies at the time. There was a whole different atmosphere in terms of what the responsibilities of citizens were during the times of national emergencies. I think it was because of the Vietnam War itself that that whole aspect changed. It wasn't because Vietnam would be -- ended the draft. It was because of Vietnam that 18-year olds went and vote instead of -- in my day, when you were 18 you could still be drafted and sent into a war zone before you could legally go and buy a beer. I think that Vietnam changed the way that a great number of people viewed their responsibilities as citizens of their country. You know, in my day it was -- it was an acceptable thing to go in front of your country. And because of the way the war in Vietnam was conducted, that whole concept changed.

Ryan Pearson:

And what branch of the military did you belong to?

Jerry Kickish:

I was in the U.S. Army.

Ryan Pearson:

Now, did you have any expectations or preconceptions of the military prior to joining it, you know, from your own ____ or did you have an idea what it would be like or?

Jerry Kickish:

No one really has an idea of what it's really going to be like. I mean, we have some ideas. You have some preconceived notions from the propaganda at the time or from the state of things at the time. It's -- I'm sorry.

Ryan Pearson:

You say preconceptions or conceptions?

Jerry Kickish:

Yeah. There -- there was -- you know, there was no -- there was some preconceived notions, but, you know, certainly when you're -- when you're a 17 and 18 year-old kid you have, you know, the same visions of -- that you picked up from not -- neither your parents, but, you know, your relatives, from -- from the media at the time, from the popular culture at the time, movies and so forth. They were all patriotic. They were all, you know, let's go and get the bad guys. Let's get the world free for -- for democracy and things like that. So, you know, yeah, there was some -- some of that, but it was hardly anything that we thought it was going to be.

Ryan Pearson:

I don't know if you can speak on this, but what do you think the general consensus before you went to the war, on how do you think the country felt about -- you told me you enlisted, so I don't know how far the war was along.

Jerry Kickish:

Well, I enlisted in 1966. Of course, the first com -- combat troops started invading in there in '64, '65. So it was really -- the build-up was just beginning. But in hindsight, it's obvious to anyone who studies the history of -- of the war at the time knows that even President Johnson at the time it was escalating, thought that it was a futile thing to do, that it wasn't really worth ____+ the mission. And so, you know, they still went ahead and, you know, did what they felt was the thing to do, even though they had the ____.

Ryan Pearson:

Right.

Jerry Kickish:

So, you know, how could that help but affect how things turned out. The -- the state department didn't do -- didn't really have a plan for winning the war. What they had a plan for was trying to stop the aggression from going into South Vietnam. They -- they made it as simple as that. They didn't feel that it was ____ politically the right thing to do to go out and conquer North Vietnam. They said, okay, we're going to stop them from taking over South Vietnam. And from a military point of view, it was -- it wasn't the thing to do. It wasn't something that the military could accomplish. It was -- they made the war a war of attrition. In other words, kill more of them than they kill of us rather than having a strategy for winning the war. And that lack of strategy for winning the war eventually caused the war would cost.

Ryan Pearson:

Once you actually arrived on the base or wherever they sent you to first, what was your first impression? I know for myself it would have been like a realization that I was there, but I can't even imagine going.

Jerry Kickish:

It was just a -- you know, when I got there my first impression was that this is where -- you know, this is it. This is where the action is. This is what I came here for. And it was only through being there slowly day after day realizing the situation that we're in. When you get there you're totally deluged, ignorant about what's going on around you except, you know, what you can see in the jungle. There's not much you can, you know, see. You're -- you're just there and you have this little bit of area that you can contend with. You have your people around you, and that's it. Anything outside that immediate area is -- wasn't even in the ____ of your head. You know, it was -- you were -- from the minute you got there, you had to begin to do the things that were -- you know, assured your survival. That's what you would gain -- what it came down to. It's people trying to survive the situation that they're ____. Rather than -- rather than trying to do anything about that situation -- there was nothing you could do about it. You were there and you had to do whatever it is that you could to survive. That was pretty much how it came down, starting going down in your shoes. Saw different ways that you could easily get killed there. So many different ways that it's almost impossible to count. Like that ____ took a -- they broke down a statistical -- accurate statistical way to say how many different ways there were to die in Vietnam. It was thousands of pages long. There was everything from fevers, diseases, things that you could easily pick up in the field, anything from parasites to ____ dysentery to snake bites to scorpion bites to punji pits, to booby traps to snipers to artillery mistakes to incom strikes that didn't go where they were supposed to. There were so many different ways that you could get hurt or killed that if ____ you stop counting, you just try to not fuck up. And even -- even doing the best that you can, I think what it really came down to, especially for soldiers in the field, was just pure luck. When your time was up, it was up. No matter how good you were, how fast, strong or intelligent you were, none of that mattered. It was just a matter of luck.

Ryan Pearson:

Can you give me a daily -- or an idea of your daily routine, like what you ate, what you guys did in your free time, or training you had to go through?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, it changed, varied from place to place, from situation to situation. For example, when you were out in the field, the only thing that you got to eat were sea rations. Probably had about two, maybe, if you were lucky, three meals a day of sea rations. They were just canned goods. That was ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

Uh-huh.

Jerry Kickish:

-- the sea rations. If you were back in the base camp, and not out on patrol, there was hot food. There was usually -- it depends on whether you were in a base camp, ____+ or whether you were in, say, like in Saigon. If you were in Saigon have whatever you want, steaks, ____+ if you were out in a -- in a farther base, they still had cooks, you would get hot meals, usually powdered eggs and things like that. And that's what you -- that entire bases were out in ____+ sea rations. And every once in a while for special occasions like Thanksgiving, something, they would fly out canisters of hot fruit. It was usually powdered eggs or ham, or turkey. But they were these little sort of, I guess maybe Tupperware containers that they'd bring out for special occasions.

Ryan Pearson:

And then your living spaces versus the camp, like being out on the field?

Jerry Kickish:

If you're out in the fields, all you have is your poncho. There were no tents. Again, if it was raining you would be wet, if it was dry you would be thirsty. Two things that were hardest to get in Vietnam was enough water and dry seasoning. It's -- most ____+ in my initial company had a couple canteens, and if you're -- if it's a hundred degrees out and you're walking in the jungle, those canteens go real quick. And if you were in an area where you could get water from a stream or something like that ____ sometimes that was possibility. So you had to rely on your supply for just water. During the monsoon season, when it would start raining, it would just rain every -- every single day for months, and just get wet. Got up wet and stayed wet. You lived in a hole in the ground, dug it yourself. If it filled up with water, stood next to it in case you had to jump in, stay in there ____. It was -- it was primitive, some places a lot more primitive than others. For example, the Marines in the early part of the war had the highest ____+. They went the longest period of time without getting supply, because the supply runs weren't established then. They didn't have the same kind of -- any place the supply as they did in the latter part of the war. I'd say '67, '68, bases were well established in the country. But if you were in the country before then there was a little highway that might go ____+, you know, take your clothes, where there was -- by the time I got there in '68 they were celebrating more than a two-year period of time ____+ change of clothes.

Ryan Pearson:

This is geared more towards the beginning of when you got there. Were there any difficult changes you had to overcome mentally or physically?

Jerry Kickish:

Physically the hardest part was just -- was just maintaining the -- it was very hot. It was very humid. Every day you would be out on patrol, or almost every day, if you were with a ____+. It's -- you just had -- you know, when you're -- I think that's the biggest reason that most of the people who served in Vietnam were younger. When you're over 30 you can't hump those hills with ____+. So, you know, it was a young man's war, and you literally had to accustom yourself to spending the day with, you know, 60, 70, 80 pounds on your back walking through the jungle looking for a fight. That could get ____ exhausting itself. At night you had to stand guard duty. It didn't matter if you had 30 men in your platoon or ten men in your platoon, if you had a bunch of casualties the day before you still had to stay up at night for guard duty. You'd have to get up at just before dawn for -- every unit that was out in the field just before dawn, everybody got up. You know, sometimes that was the most opportune time for the Vietcong to attack you. So it was like groggy, you know, scratchy ____. So from the time you got up, maybe a couple hours later you'd be out on patrol, spend a day or maybe two days patrolling, come back to your -- your foxhole, waiting for the next time to go out again. Mentally -- mentally it was -- it was -- it wasn't all that hard. There was nothing to prepare yourself. What you had to do was mentally accept what was happening and not let it slow you down and stop you. There were a lot of situations where you didn't have time to think, or you -- was react the way that you were trained in order to come out of this alive. You knew that it -- there was someone who was shooting at you, that, you know, you couldn't just sit around. You had to go and stop them. So it was that sense of mentally prepare yourself, not so much, didn't go out, well, I'm going to go out and -- and I better go out and I got to win this battle. You'd go out to try and help and protect the guy who's with you. It -- it came down to where the guys in the field were fighting for each other, more so than they were fighting for an ideal or a cause or a democracy. They ended up fighting for the guy on their left and the guy on their right, 'cause they knew from that picture or -- or heard one of those guys would have to pull it off ____ and they had to feel that they could trust you and you would do the same thing for them. And so that's how a lot of the -- what you might call veteran cam -- camaraderie came from, once the fact that people had to depend on each other to get through the day alive. And that's how it was. Even though you didn't know the guy, you might have called him by his nickname, but when he was killed or injured, you know, he was your best friend. He may not have been your best friend, but because of the fact that you shared your misery with them, and you shared danger with them, that they were -- protecting them, you were protecting them, that kind of forms that bond, that -- that, you know, people talk about by veterans ____ that kind of thing. So that's what, you know, the -- the mental and physical changes, those were -- it was just sort of being accustomed and acclimated to what they were doing and where you were at. That's what you had to contend with. There wasn't any -- any preplanned, you know, thing that you would get from quarters. Just something that you have ____ to while you were there and has happened to be ____ whatever you had to do.

Ryan Pearson:

What was the one thing you missed the most from your civilian life at the time you were there?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, I guess being able to do what you wanted to do when you wanted to do it, instead of, you know, having to do what you were told whenever you were told, you know, ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

Did you have a job special -- special team or anything you were responsible for?

Jerry Kickish:

My first duty assignment I was a platoon leader with a ____ company, and my job was simple. It was just ____+ it was go out and look for Vietcong, ____+. The second part of my tour I was an advisor to a tribe of Mountain Yards in central highlands. And that was a little different, because we were primarily taking a group of people and training them to be able to defend their own little hamlets and villages from ____. Mountain Yards were -- let's see if I can explain. They were very similar to American Indian tribes. Semi-nomadic. They had their little tribal -- their own -- own tribal language. Tribes might vary from ten to fifteen miles from each other in the mountains, and they affiliated it that way. But, really, the tribes were -- they -- they were really primary independent of -- of everything. They really weren't part of the cultural or any part of the enemy's cultural kind of network, et cetera. They were looked upon like American Indians were looked upon here 40 and 50 years ago. They had their reservations, they had their little areas. The -- they were remote. They were fairly primitive. They had different religious cultural beliefs from the Indians. The Vietcong would occasionally raid the villages for supplies or for ____ supplies. Occasionally the south Vietnamese would come in and, you know, they would say, you know, you guys are collaborating with the enemy. They would have their ____+. So when we were there with them and they began to see that we were really interested in helping them, they accepted that help, ____ the help. They were very independent of the political situation. They didn't care about the south, the communists, you know, democrat, whatever. They didn't -- those things didn't concern them. The only things that really concerned them was raising their families peacefully, and being able to, you know, farm, to live on a subsistence living, and that's what they were all about. And once it became clear that that's what they wanted, it was very easy to understand and help them. Because it's something that anybody anywhere in the world wants, to be able to -- be able to defend themselves and their way of life.

Ryan Pearson:

So would you say they were neutral or were they more so ____?

Jerry Kickish:

They were neutral to the extent that they didn't have any political affiliations anymore. They weren't -- they weren't communists. They weren't -- they didn't care. The only reason that they might have allegiances to one side or the other was due to circumstances. Vietcong came at night. We were in their area and they were around you. You had to do whatever they wanted. The same thing if you were _____+ little hamlet that was controlled by the South Vietnamese, you had to ____. So they -- their allegiances kind of shifted to whoever gave them the things that they were -- that that was to be left alone.

Ryan Pearson:

What weapons or machinery were you responsible for, whether it pertains to your job or whatever ____ you're in?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, my specialty was infantry. So it was all infantry. Weapons. Anything from -- I learned anything from small arms to heavy weapons to tanks and artillery. All those things were part of what we were about, artillery. Military tactics, weapons. You had weapons -- they had specialties, you know, like there were -- a platoon leader was a guy who was in charge of some 25 men. And each -- you know, there was -- which was 25 men in -- divided into specific three or four different squads, depending on how many men they had. Each squad had a squad leader, and there was ____, and there was ____+ observer for each company of men who was responsible for the artillery fires that were fired, calling them in. There were four XOs who ____+ with the airplanes, calling the gun ships, calling helicopters. There were so many different specialties in there. You know, there were _____+, there were the -- everybody had their own branch of service that they had a specialty in. So infantry kind of was ____ to call it the queen of battle. It essentially was the low man on the totem pole. The guy was out there in the field and your responsibility was to accomplish the mission, and whatever it took to accomplish that mission you were called from the special ____+ you were assigned ____+. So it's hard to describe, you know, the machines and things that -- that you were responsible for. You learned about those things, about personnel carriers, about tanks, about -- but it wasn't necessarily something that you were responsible for. It was just things that are associated with -- is what you were to know about that responsibility. So it wasn't unusual for me to coordinate a helicopter attack, artillery, and still, you know, responsible for ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

So basically in your training they taught you everything you needed to know whether you were actually assigned to it or not?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, yes and no. There were a lot of times where people who had no specialty training certainly found themselves in a situation where they had to do things. There were more than enough occasions for a sergeant to yell to the platoon leader if -- that the officers were -- ____+ at times. So there were times when you found yourself in situations where you were outside your normal training, and -- and even people who were -- originally thought they would be clerks or cooks occasionally found themselves on the front lines where the situation called for it. Primarily if you're in the military base... (Intercom sounded. Off the record.)

Ryan Pearson:

____ this question. Well, what would you consider your first taste of war, or whatever your definition of war is, ____+ there or something you saw? If you were to define it, what would you consider your first taste?

Jerry Kickish:

My first taste of war was the first day I got out on to the forward base and the company commander said, "Take a four-man patrol and familiar -- familiarize yourself with the surrounding area." Took the patrol out, walk in a trail along the base of the mountain, ran into somebody else, didn't see who it was, ____ dropped down, threw a hand grenade. The first thing I did was start looking on a map as to coordinates where we were exactly so I could call an order march ____. And I heard somebody else calling in fire on us where we were. And what had happened was we ran into another patrol from another company they sent to the same hillside, and we just couldn't see each other clearly through the jungle and we started shooting at each other. When I heard the mortar fire being called in on -- on my position as I was looking for the coordinates to call it in on their position, I realized that that's what it was, that my first day -- my first day in the country I almost got mortared by my own people. That brought home the fact that this was going to be a dangerous year. I would say my first three months there was six times where I came close to being killed by accidental friendly fire. That was the first taste of the war without getting into a fire fight with the enemy.

Ryan Pearson:

And you were saying that -- how that happened. Did it -- was it ever confusing or just some of the time? What -- who was out there? _____+ in the jungle like you said?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, it -- it's hard to imagine, it's hard to describe. But what ____ about it is miles and miles and miles of real thick heavy foliage and jungle, hills, leeches, ants, mosquitos. It's miserable. You can't see more than ten, fifteen feet ahead of you. So it's very hard to tell what's going on around you. It's literally impossible. It's -- it's hard to see. We do have 150 or so arms, people stumble through the jungle for days at a time. There's an exhaustion factor that -- that comes in. You might go days without sleeping. You're miserable. ____+ you're not sleeping well at night, and all of that adds to a fatigue factor that causes mistakes. Like there's a rock, a snap, you hear a sound, and before you realize what's happening, you can't see, you can't tell anybody, you start shooting. Well, that inevitably causes problems. That, however, is not nearly as confusing as when you're actually in a fire fight. When you're in a fire fight it's just that much more chaotic. It's a lot more -- really don't know what's going on, except for the ____, the trusting the guys, deciding to take care of that area. That's -- you can take care of that area, and that's the only way you function is there's really nothing that you can obtain to control. That's beyond your ____+. So you're there, you're in the middle of the jungle, you deal with it. Sometimes it was harder than other times. It's ____.

Ryan Pearson:

Was it preferred that they want you to be able to ____+? Was that the preferred place ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

That would be great, if you could be out in the middle and see what's going on. That was seldom the case. The Americans had too much higher superiority for the North Vietnamese to want to fight out in the open. They fought when it was to their advantage, or when they were caught unawares. Otherwise, they didn't fight. They, you know, fought to the end. And their way of hurting us to attack them, least expectedly, and run away when, you know, you had them.

Ryan Pearson:

This goes along with the combat experience. When did you first seek that ____+? Like I don't know when your first day was ____+.

Jerry Kickish:

No. I -- what was that question again?

Ryan Pearson:

When did you first see death, and did you lose any of your good friends?

Jerry Kickish:

I didn't lose any good friends. I didn't make any good friends. With -- with the Y company it was hard because there was so many new people coming in all the time. And I only spent three months with ____+. The second part of my tour there were only five Americans in the whole district that I was in, myself and four others. And by then I had spent eight months with those people, but none of them were -- were killed. So, no, I -- when I first saw, you know, people dead was just after a fire fight, and the obsession at the time was coming back and seeing -- they wanted body count, body count, body count. And that was further paperwork for us to scope paperwork to show we killed more of them than they killed of you. So that became -- that was probably the ugliest part of the war was the body count form. And in the latter -- in the latter part of the war, let's see, in '69 and '70, '71, that became one of the reasons where the morale of the people were fighting the war. It became perverted. They started offering three-day passes for anybody who could provide a body count. ____+ pass. Those kinds of things happened towards the latter part of the war in support of ____+. And in 1960 -- late '68, I believe it was '69, they started peace talks in Paris. And when the peace talks started in Paris the initial reaction of the people, I was there at the time, was ____+. A few months and they still hadn't settled on the shape of the table ____+. And a lot of morale problems came out of that. Morale problems were that ____+ take a chance on ____+ when they were talking peace. You know, they talked peace for years, but the morale went down and the emphasis on the body counts went up. So it was -- I'm glad I ____+ at that time. I was out in ____+. And I saw what was happening, and what was happening was ____.

Ryan Pearson:

How did they determine your leave from ____?

Jerry Kickish:

That was determined early on in the war. They decided that it was only going to be a one-year tour. And for the Marines it was 32 months. That was just the policy at the time. We could have spent one stint of service in Vietnam, and a lot of people did it. A lot of people from ____+ tour. So...

Ryan Pearson:

Do you think it was still that same feeling of duty?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, you know, the people who did come back were career military people. They were soldiers ____+ word. They were a soldier for their country and whatever. You know, if you wanted to be a soldier that was the height of what was ____+ war in a combat situation. And, you know, that's okay. You know, that's what they were there for.

Ryan Pearson:

I don't know if you can pinpoint the worst moment of the Vietnam War, but is there anything that sticks out in your mind?

Jerry Kickish:

The worst moment of the Vietnam War or for --

Ryan Pearson:

For yourself.

Jerry Kickish:

For myself. I think the worst moment for me personally was during a convoy, the convoy was running late. We had just come in off an operation. We were loaded onto the back of a cattle car, and we were coming back from Dakto ____+. They were a supply convoy. It was held up for a number of reasons here and there, and it started getting dark. And we started getting sniper fire. Somewhere ahead of us in the convoy somebody had cut loose a tanker truck. Remember the tankers that fill up those gas stations you see. It was full of diesel fuel. Okay? ____+ the cab, which, of course, wasn't interested ____+. We came around the curve, we were in the back of the cattle car, and I had my whole platoon. There were about 25 people there, and plus an attack squad of engineers, and we missed the tanker, the cattle truck got caught into the trailer, tore it open. I don't know how many gallons of fuel got -- came out. It was like a waterfall on us. Just gushing in the back of the truck. And I had fallen off the truck, and I still had a cigarette in my mouth like this, and I was up to my ankles in diesel fuel. My first reaction was to take and flip the cigarette away, and then when I looked ____+ diesel fuel ____+. And after I swallowed it, the next thing I had to do was I went up to the cab of the truck, switched off the -- the cab so that the sparks from the -- the engine wouldn't cause a fire, and started putting -- pulling people off the truck. And that to me was probably the worst night that I had in terms of knowing that ____+ dead. There was just so many things ____+ happening at the same time that it was the most chaotic crazy night that I had ever survived. So, personally, that to me was probably the worst time ____+, six, seven people got ____. Everything from broken arms to swallowing too much diesel fuel, or, you know, cracked ribs and things like that. It was kind of -- this was short week for -- I was transferred to ____+. The day that I lost the most people in one stupid incident, so that was the hardest thing, that day was probably the worst that I had experienced.

Ryan Pearson:

Of the time you spent in the war did you have any worthwhile experience or anything memorable, whether it was the -- the ____+ that you were talking about earlier that you were -- that you got assigned to, or anything like that?

Jerry Kickish:

Say again.

Ryan Pearson:

Any worthwhile experiences, things that -- things that you seen happen then that made you who you are today?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, I think the most memorable things was the fact that people literally risked their lives for each other. That was a big thing, to find out who were the people who were willing to put their life on the line in order to help you. I think that would show that sometimes when Gods are in a situation ____+ when you have people that for common purpose, and that common purpose might be just to survive that particular incident. It's amazing to see just how much courage people do have when the situation calls for it. And it was selfless. It was not -- you know, people didn't do it to get a metal. People would do it to -- for their country. They did it for their friends. That's the way it was inspired. Also I think that the situations that I have been in gave me a sense of empowerment, ____+ military. I felt that there wasn't anyplace that I couldn't go and do whatever I wanted to do. And, in fact, I -- I -- I did a lot of things that I wouldn't have ordinarily done if I hadn't been ____+ that sense of confidence in my own abilities to survive ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

I have here the question, have you visited any of the memorials or participated in any commemorations of the war when you were talking about what you have ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, our biggest memorials are some ____ monument to the people that died in Vietnam. I have not been to the mall. I haven't even been to too many other ____ END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE; BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

Jerry Kickish:

I -- I really felt that the messages were left here by participants from the war, ____+ in the sense ____+ personal level, that this is the best expression of what people go through when they look to the war is ____+ rather than, you know, ____+. I wasn't interested in seeing ____+. But this is -- this is different. This is an expression in its purest form. I've always had a feeling for ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

Looking at Vietnam now, do you think it was right, in your opinion, to -- for America to be in war?

Jerry Kickish:

Yes and no. I think yes in the sense that at the time it made sense, and I think Vietnam was probably part of the reason why the Berlin Wall came down eventually. Vietnam was just another proxy war between, you know, the -- the free world and the communist world. That was just a continuation of the Korean War. It was a continuation of the continent of Guatemala and Nicaragua and Angola. All of those wars were little proxy wars that were fought by essentially Russia and the United States basically on one side, whether it was militarily or with combat troops was incidental. Vietnam was just one of them. The only problems I have with the Vietnam War was the way it was conducted. I don't think that there was -- it was intelligently done. They had no clear mission ____. They had no purpose other than to kill people. I think that was -- that was -- it's not -- if you're a soldier that's not why you're there. You're not there to kill people. You're there to defend your country, to protect your country, or to be a part of your country's policy. You're there to serve your country, and that service is perverted by things such as ____. And it's not been ____.

Ryan Pearson:

With television how do you feel about the way they portrayed it in the news? Was it accurate? ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

Well, it was accurate, but it was only accurate in -- in the microcosm. It was like, you know, they -- they -- they showed -- I'm sorry.

Ryan Pearson:

That's okay. [Interview interrupted by a page.]

Ryan Pearson:

____+ some people -- some of the residents say that they had respect for them because they were in the same situation they were doing, just doing what they were doing told. How did you feel the enemy changed during the course of the war?

Jerry Kickish:

You know, you can't help but have a little bit of respect for someone who's in a situation as you, if you're on the opposite side. We all have the same problems with -- with heat, with the bullets or the bombs. So I can't say that I had any feelings toward the enemy one way or the other while I was there. It was easy for me to understand why they were soldiers. They were doing their job for their country. So there was nothing personal. I didn't -- while I was there I really didn't particularly, you know, have any respect for that ____+ as to how they were treating the Mountain Yards. But, you know, they were fighting a war. You know, they weren't there to treat them nicely. There wasn't any personal animosity, I guess, if that's what you're trying to figure out, if that's the question.

Ryan Pearson:

Did your views at all change over the span of the war from the time you got there even before you went to Vietnam? I don't know -- felt like we needed to be there. I think you were talking about earlier how ____+ you felt it was a duty ____+. You guys were just over there to fight and didn't really have a plan.

Jerry Kickish:

Well -- yeah. It -- it wasn't so much -- it was a matter of feeling badly used in a situation, I guess what it boils down to.

Ryan Pearson:

And I'm not sure about the time frame here, but I guess that you came out at a good time, because I've heard of the stories about soldiers who come back at a time _____+. But tell me about how -- when you came back to America. How was it? Was it a homecoming like the previous wars or?

Jerry Kickish:

No. You know, other than my immediate family and friends who were probably happy to see me, there wasn't anyone else that was interested. I think that they found out that it was not in their best interest to bring ____+. You know ____+. For the longest time I didn't -- you know, I didn't really -- by the time I had gotten out, I didn't really want anybody ____+. But at the same time, I felt that their protests were ____+ towards returning the service men, and that was probably the stupidest thing that the protesters were doing was to target people who were serving their country, whether it was mistaken or not. The people had a problem with that, they -- to direct their protests towards what would do the most good. You know, ____+ who were, you know, setting policies or deciding policies are not the people who were, I think in a lot of cases, forced to carry those policies out. But I don't think forced in the sense that they made you do ugly things. You know, you could -- you know, people go to jail, you know, people went to Canada ____+. I think that I had a lot more respect for people who were truly conscientious objectors and went anyway. They didn't carry a weapon. They -- you know, they could ____+. I would think that the reason that a lot of the problems were coming up there was ____+ the draft was the reason why. There were too many holes. There were -- it was ____+ people who didn't really have the means or the wherewithal to not go. So, you know, in that sense it's good that it was abolished, the draft, I mean, because it wasn't ____. If it wasn't it would still be ____+. It was responsible for -- for having some commitment doing your part for your country. ____ it doesn't necessarily have to be a combat situation, but something. I think this is more about an attitude for people who came from situations where this wasn't ____. People who, like myself, came here for a situation where, you know, your country was occupied by the communists and ____+ being here ____+ do whatever you want to trust that gratitude or show that solidarity. The people who were here who were students who were real privileged who were not, you know, having the -- the -- not wanting to put up with disruption in their lives to serve their country. You know, they -- they just -- they didn't care. They didn't care. So ____+ having a good time and talk war. Well, okay. And in -- in -- in the large -- large extent, certainly by the time I was pretty young, I began to view that situation was ____+ in Vietnam was not ____+. But, you know, so as much as I don't feel any, you know, animosity towards the protesters, I think there were ____+ they were getting -- caused a lot of ____+ who felt they were ____+. And that's what I didn't like about it.

Ryan Pearson:

Overall, what's the most important thing that you -- that you learned from the war itself? Was there anything that ____?

Jerry Kickish:

What was the most important thing? That -- I have to think about that.

Ryan Pearson:

Did you transition well back into the civ -- civilian life? Obviously it's a ____+.

Jerry Kickish:

Fairly well. I mean, I -- I didn't have -- I didn't have some of the problems other veterans did. When I first got out of the service in 1969 in the states was the summer of love. Sex, drugs and rock and roll was the anthem for my generation. And so I spent a couple of years trying to catch up on what I had felt I had missed out on. So most difficult part of that was that in ____+ spend combat situation learned a lot of survival techniques, and they're based on chemical ____ like adrenalin rushes. Adrenalin rushes more related -- responded to these influences, whether there was a sound, or you saw something or thought you saw something. Well, the reaction was predetermined. It was survival instinct kicking in. And that doesn't serve you very well when you come back to the states when there's nobody ____. You might be walking down the street or driving along and suddenly there's that ____+ that kicks in, it's, you know, an energy rush. It was ____+, and they're not always appropriate for noncombat situations, you know what I mean. So that took a lot of, oh, a lot of time to build it. We just had to unlearn things. We had to ____+ accept those kind. You had to learn to control your impulses. If -- if you didn't, you go to jail, whatever, die.

Ryan Pearson:

Do you have or have you had a desire to return to Vietnam?

Jerry Kickish:

I'd like to go back. I don't think that -- the only place that I'd like to go back is to ____. Just that I was ____+. I don't think that it would be a good thing, especially not right at the moment. So, you know, ____+ is still ____+ Vietnam. And I don't think my ____+ could be sent to ____+ causing more trouble. So although when I became ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

Do you have any momentos from Vietnam that you kept during the war you've got, just ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

I have a few things, but mostly what I have is totally ____+. Those are my momentos. I have a few other odds and ends that, you know, ____ nothing ____+, serious momentos, other than photographs I think is what ____+ momentos to have.

Ryan Pearson:

How has the whole experience of Vietnam affected your heart? Obviously you kept ____ pictures downstairs, and there's some that I can -- I can see the -- I can see an influence on there, I can see, and then there's others that I don't. I'm wondering how ____+.

Jerry Kickish:

I -- I -- I -- you know, my artwork is -- is photography. The only thing that I've added to my photography is a little bit of poetry to them. That's sort of there's the spirit of -- of shock. You know, I was thinking my approach to art is simply to try and capture a moment that's ____ and that has some meaning that's got this ____ reserve. You know, that's what I tried to work on. Just ____+ stuff ____+ that same thing after trying to add poetry to ____+ to ____+. I -- I don't think that it's a conscious development of -- of how I approach art. I think just kind of evolved, this passion. There wasn't any conscious effort on my part to say, here's what I won't say just kind of here on when I was presented -- when I -- when I faced the images that I had to try and explain a little bit. That's the sort of thing I try to not feel with the issues of either place, date, time and ____. It was one of, you know, essence of holding kind of thing. You know, one of the things that -- that was kind of transitional sort of thing was that why ____+. After a while you lose your sense of time and place. In other words, when you're out in that field for more than two months it's hard to know what day it is, let alone date, let alone the month, those kinds of things are sort of incidental. And when you're dealing with people who deal with time as a season, planting season, harvesting season, dates and things like that don't really have the same meaning. At one point I was -- I went to a party at night, and they were partying. I didn't know what the party was about. I didn't understand the language. I just partied, I partied, ____ just sat down, drank, smoked and talked, tried to talk. And one of the things that struck me at the end of that evening was that this is the way -- this is the way ____+ living for thousands of years. That while I was there it could have been 2001 scene, or, you know, could have been any time in history, because there was if you weren't getting the newspaper articles, ____+ you'd still be in this little _____ just wondering how ____+ if you had enough ____ to last through the winter for the village. The -- the importance of things was so different that I lost that sense of time. I lost that sense of cultural differences. It didn't matter that I had a college -- or somewhat of a college education, these people never saw kindergarten, those kinds of things became incidental, culture, education were all incidental to what we were doing there. We didn't have them there. It was the basis of survival, just ____ from one minute to the next, ____+ a season, it was all ____. So when you -- when you lose that sense of time, you look at things differently. Kind of not -- you don't have the same concerns, you don't have the same ____. It's -- I don't know how they explain it. It's just -- you lose that sense of urgency. It's just a matter of going from one task to the next rather than going from one date to the next.

Ryan Pearson:

The forms that you have with your pictures, do you keep those in your mind while you are taking the picture or do you look at the photograph ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

I look at the photograph. I don't look at the form.

Ryan Pearson:

Just a few -- two closing -- two more questions. I think everyone mostly knows that war equals death and that ____, but when you look back on your own years in the service, are your personal memories generally good ones or bad ones?

Jerry Kickish:

Generally good ones. Death isn't all that bad. There's worst things than death.

Ryan Pearson:

Do you want to elaborate on that?

Jerry Kickish:

Living under an oppressive regime is worse than death. I think that was evident from a lot of Mountain Yards. They wanted the freedom, and their freedom was ____+, and a lot of people died because of that. Death also wasn't bad in the sense that sometimes death's the only way that you have to feel your ____+. Someone who's ____, if you kill them, it's good. ____+. ____+ personally I would have rather them come back with some of the photos that some boys came back with. ____+. Just outright killing ____+. Not all of the problems ____+. So death in itself isn't ____+.

Ryan Pearson:

Is there one ____ about your wartime experience that you wanted to share with future generations ____+ substance ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

I think war will always be with us. I think it always has, I think it always will be. I don't think there's -- if you look back on -- on different wars that we have had, some of them were for the right reasons, some were ____+. I think that the important things to -- even with the good intentions that I had when I went in, it's still ____ how things came out, no matter what my intentions were in terms of how we ____. It's still ____. Just have to do the best we can at the time and hope for the best. I don't think there's -- there's a way to get around it. I don't think anybody expected us to be fighting in Afghanistan, ____+ situation ____+ right or wrong. It doesn't matter what the reasons were for the Afghanistan War, whether it was ____, its affairs, Middle East or not, it doesn't matter ____. The fact is ____+ that how you resolve it, can negotiate, ____+ kill them ____+. And I think it's -- it's going to be up to people who ____+ to decide whether it was good or bad ____+. At the time war is the best we can. I think that there's ____+ is -- there were people ____ I'm sure ____+ who were there because of the conflict who were there not for any other reason other than the excitement of it, and that was the ____+. That was the ____. I think that the causes, atrocities, _____+ I could understand how it came about, although I'm not saying that it was a ____+. War crime is war crime, whether it's done by ____+ by Americans ____+ war crime _____+ should be held accountable and as we know from our history ____+. ____ gas they were used ____+. So those things happened just because things material to the point where it's not a matter of trying to free the country or free it from ____+, but instead killing them. That's -- that's what Vietnam was all about. Vietnam was about body counts. Eventually that mentality caused ____.

Ryan Pearson:

____+ is there anything else you would like to include in ____+?

Jerry Kickish:

There was one question that you had that asked -- we'd passed on until later. Would you go back to that ____+? It was about three or four questions before the last one.

Ryan Pearson:

The most important thing you've learned in Vietnam, is that the one?

Jerry Kickish:

Ah. That the human spirit is capable of things that are amazing, that survival instinct does not diminish sub sacrifice. If the only thing that the soldiers were concerned with is staying alive, it's not going to accomplish anything. In order to fight a war, we have a reasonably clear objective. To be able to see that what we're doing ____+. So I think that -- the thing that impressed me throughout ____+ Vietnam was the human spirit. _____+ very difficult situations. People were willing to risk their lives for each other for a cause, lay down their lives for that ____+. A lot of people died trying to help ____+. ____+ that situation. ____+ safety, ____ survival instincts, that don't stick your head up. Sometimes it's ____+. That's why ____+ things about ____+. ____+ it's not something that we plan for, something that happens, whether it's a ____+. So in spite of the fact there's death and destruction going on all around you, there's still that spirit of -- of ____+ save people. Trying and doing things ____+. ____+ for the war ____ the war is not ____. But, unfortunately, ____+ people going to war and to realize that. So ____+ war. It's...

Ryan Pearson:

Do you think the -- it diminishes as time has gone by, or do you think how it is today, is it -- or how it was then in any event ___ today as with regard ____? ____+.

Jerry Kickish:

Some of these questions are -- are -- are, you know, philosophical in nature in terms of, you know, let's ____+. It's hard to ____, you know, _____+. Life ____+ with regrets. What happened ____ then. It's too bad. I had some unfortunate situations then, but overall I'd say I don't have any regrets, I don't have any regrets for going. So ____+ situation ____+ compared to some here.

Ryan Pearson:

That's all I have. Thank you for your time.

Jerry Kickish:

You're welcome. ____+.