Fred Alvis

WHY I WENT OVER YONDER

I was raised as an Army brat. Mom and Dad were from the Deep South – the Tennessee Mountains, very rural. Having been to several countries as a child, I still consider most of my upbringing to be in Georgia (Fort Benning/Columbus) and Tennessee. All of my childhood had been around soliders – all of it. Drums, flags, parades, tanks, and guns; all were very heady stuff for a male child.

Dad had been in for 22 years, having served in the Marines in the South Pacific during WW2, then in the Army in Korea. In 1962, when I was 12, he received orders for Vietnam. It was time for him to re-up but he declined saying he had been through 2 wars and had 2 teenage boys – enough was enough. Dad never spoke about the wars – never.

In 1971 I received orders for Vietnam after being drafted. I went and got an education so had to go 3 years instead of 2. Dad said only one thing to me after I told him I was going to join instead of being drafted: “Son, don’t join the Army.”

This was in ‘71; all services had pulled out of Nam except the army (so the public was told). Well, Dad shouldn’t have said that. I went straight down to the Army recruiter, joined, picked the most dangerous job I could think of, and volunteered for Vietnam. Thus I became a door gunner/crew-chief on helicopters. I wasn’t a lifer, a career guy – I wasn’t anything but an ignorant young man full of romantic ideas and adventure, most coming from books and movies I had seen as a child, coupled with my upbringing.

I questioned myself as to how I would be, facing the beast. Was I a coward, a hero, or someone in between? I was also afraid of heights… chuckle, so why not fly. I placed myself in a war, in the most dangerous job I could think of, doing what I was deathly afraid of – being high off the ground. I did it for adventure, a look at me, to find out what I was made of, and to experience war first hand.

Would I do it again? Yes! Hell yes, but not for the reasons that I went for in the first place. I would go for my brothers; to have their backs, to try and keep FNGs alive till they learned the ropes.

Brothers, all that flag and bugle stuff is ok, but that’s not why I would go.