Joseph A. Wall
[b. 6/16/1923]
Emily Spurgeon[00:00:00]
“Today is Wednesday, October first 2008. I am Emily Spurgeon and I am interviewing Joseph A. Wall over the phone. Mr. Wall is 85 years old and was born on July 16, 1923. Mr. Wall is my grandfather. Mr. Wall served in WWII and the Vietnam War. He was in the Air Force and the Marine Services. He held the following rank of: Corporal in the Marines and Senior Master Sergeant in the Air Force."
[00:40:4]
JW: That’s correct.
ESK: Were you drafted or enlisted in the war?
JW: I enlisted.
ESK: What made you decide to enlist in the war?
JW: Uh, I would either enlist or I would be drafted. So I went and I enlisted.
ESK: Where were you living at the time?
JW: In Jasonville, Indiana.
ESK: Why did you pick the service or branch you joined?
JW: I had always admired the Marines, and I decided that that’s where I would go.
ESK: Do you remember the first days in the service?
JW: Very well. What would you like to know about that?
ESK: Anything you can tell me.
JW: Okay. Well we left Indianapolis on the 8th day of September 1942, going to San Diego California to the Marine Recruit Depot, where we spent 6 weeks in boot training.
ESK: What was the training like?
JW: It was very tough.
ESK: [laughing] I can imagine.
JW: We had to march in fact, we made 30-mile marches, carrying a forty-pound pack on our backs, and those who could not swim were taught to swim. We had to swim in the ocean. They took us out a ways then we had to swim back in. Then we were on the rifle range, and was taught how to shoot various weapons. And that’s about it.
ESK: How did you get through it? Through training?
JW: Well, I was young [laughing]. I was pretty strong for my size. And just a lot of determination
ESK: I can imagine how difficult that could be, actually I cant really but…
JW: It was tough Emily.
[00:03:07]
ESK: You said you served in WWII and then again in Vietnam?
JW: Yes.
ESK: Where exactly did you go in those places?
JW: Well, I was in the [Marshals, the Gilberts, the Carolinas?] you might have to get the spelling on those.
ESK: I’ll find them later.
JW: Ok and, then we came back to the United States just before they hit Tarawa.
ESK: Do you remember arriving at the places? And what was it like when you reached a new destination?
JW: Well, it was mostly the same thing. We were island hopping and we were being; when we landed in the various islands, we were shot at quite a lot. And actually it was just warm, you know? I know it’d be hard for you to imagine something like that, but we were being shot at quite a lot, in fact continuously. But we prevailed and I think that when we finally drove the Japanese out of the islands, that’s when we had a big turn in the war. Then we finally prevailed.
ESK: Do you remember celebrating, like after you won a battle?
JW: No. No we didn’t have time to do that Hon.
ESK: What was your assignment, like what was your job assignment?
JW: In the Marine Corps?
ESK: Yes.
JW: I was an infantryman.
ESK: And what exactly did you do?
JW: [laughing] That is a, what we used to call, lovingly, a “ground pounder”. We walked everywhere that we went. We carried our backpacks we carried our rifle and we carried ammunition with us.
ESK: How many pounds do you think you carried?
JW: Oh well lets see, the rifle itself weighed about nine pounds, we probably had twenty pounds of ammunition with us, we had on our backpack, we would carry underwear and clothing to wear. And we carried everything around on our backs.
ESK: Did you do the fighting yourself?
JW: Yes.
ESK: So you said it was a constant fight, a constant battle?
JW: Yes.
ESK: Were there many casualties in your unit?
JW: Many Hon, many. I was very fortunate.
[00:06:36]
ESK: Can you tell me the most memorable experiences you had serving in the Marines?
JW: Oh, I don’t know it was so long ago Hon. I’ve forgotten most of it or tried to, you know?
ESK: Yeah. Is there anything?
JW: Well probably the most, mostly that I can remember, when they told us that we were going to go home and we loaded a boat, first troop ship, and then we sailed and finally we reached San Francisco, and that was the same time as V-E day in Europe, and the would not let us land there that day. In fact, they held us about fifty miles of the coast of California, and brought us in to the harbor the next day.
ESK: Were you ever a prisoner of war?
JW: No. No Hon, I never was one.
ESK: Were you ever awarded with any medals?
JW: I received the Bronze Star when I was serving in Vietnam.
EKS: Can you give us more detail on the Bronze Star?
JW: Well, let’s see; the Bronze Star is right underneath the Silver Star, and above the Silver Star is the let’s see I think its the Medal of Honor, or something like that. I’m not real sure any more. But I received it for valor while I was in Vietnam.
EKS: What did you have to do to receive it?
JW: Well, mostly I was doing my job [laughing], but, you know, mainly I guess it was held I was accepted by the troops, and doing what I was supposed to do and doing it in an excellent manor.
EKS: During the life in the service did you keep in touch with your family?
JW: O very, definitely.
EKS: How did you do that?
JW: I was in the Marines, I was not married but I kept in touch with my mother who lived in Jasonville
EKS: How did you keep in touch?
JW: By mail.
EKS: So you wrote letters back and forth?
JW: Yes. Yes.
EKS: What about in Vietnam?
JW: OK. Yes, I continuously kept in touch with my family, which consisted of my wife and my two children
EKS: What was the food like in the service, like your meals?
[00:09:54]
JW: We mostly, in WWII, had c-rations and they were already made meal package we carried with us, and retired to get heat some water and make the c-rations edible.
EKS: Now what about in Vietnam?
JW: In Vietnam we were on an air base, where we had dinning halls so we were fed very well at that time.
EKS: What type of foods did you eat were they well balanced meals?
JW: Yes.
EKS: What were the portion sizes? Did they give you a lot of food or--
JW: Well we could eat what we wanted really.
EKS: Oh ok.
JW: We could go back you could go back through the mess line and they would put food on your plate and if we wanted more we would go back and they would give us more.
EKS: Hm so it was like a normal cafeteria?
JW: Well not as you know it, but at that time, yes.
EKS: Did you have plenty of supplies where you were at, or did you ever feel like you needed more?
JW: No, I think we were very well supplied. Well once in a while we’d run short of ammo but we’d get it then we’d be all right again, but most of the time we were very well survived.
EKS: Do you feel any pressure or stress?
[00:11:44]
JW: Not now. No.
EKS: Did you then?
JW: Yes, many times.
EKS: What was it because, was it just the fighting?
JW: Well mostly it was from the unknown. What was going to happen next and your always apprehensible about that.
EKS: Was there anything special that you did for good luck?
JW: For what Hon?
EKS: For good luck?
JW: No I don’t think so.
EKS: Did you have any comrades that did anything?
JW: Oh I don’t know we were a pretty knit bunch of people and we always stood behind everybody you know, we backed people up on what they had to do.
EKS: How did you entertain yourself?
JW: Well in WWII we did not have much entertainment because the USO people, some of them could not go where we went. But then in Vietnam we had oh like Bob Hope came over there, oh and who else? And his entourage, and they went around to various places and they put on a performance for us. It wasn’t too bad.
EKS: Did you enjoy the performances?
JW: Oh yeah everybody did.
EKS: What did you like most about them?
JW: Oh I don’t know, a fresh voice from the states, you know and we knew we were quite a way away from it. And, I know that once when I was in, this was during WWII, that I remember that I was at Pearl Harbor for a while and Bob Hope came in there and you probably wouldn’t remember Jerry Colona but he was one of Bob Hope’s sidekicks. And he always made a big joke about playing the violin and he would squeak it, and you know all like that, but then he actually sat down and he played us a song, and he could actually play that violin. And that I have never forgotten.
EKS: When you were on leave what did you do? Did you go home?
JW; Yes.
EKS: and what was the homecoming like?
JW: Well, it was pretty good. I didn’t-I got thirty, when we came back from when I was in the Marine Corps we got thirty days leave so I went home to see-when I went to see my father (my mother and father were divorced) and my father lived in Provo, Utah so I went. And I stayed about ten days with him and his wife and his daughter. Then I went to Indiana to see all my relatives there which I had quite a few there my sister and my gaggle of cousins.
EKS: Where did you travel I know I’ve asked this multiple times but where did you travel in the service?
JW: In the service?
EKS: mhm
JW: Well, mostly I went to one area and during the Marine Corps I stayed in that particular area which they call the South Pacific. And in Vietnam I went to well, we flew to Saigon and then I stayed for about thirty days then they sent me up country to Phan Rang and you could tell its about two hundred and so what miles from Saigon and that’s where I spent most of my time.
EKS: What was it like in Vietnam?
[00:16:40]
JW: It is not a very good place [laughing] really it isn’t. It is nothing compared to the United States at least not at that time, and let’s see I was over there- It’s a backward country. They had people living in little hamlets, they’re called barrios and it was a dirty place. It was not clean they didn’t have the hygiene standards that we have in the United States.
EKS: What about in the South Pacific?
JW: Oh that was just jungles and very few people there because they had all vacated and we were just going from one place to another.
EKS: Did you ever interact with the people who were already there, not the enemy, but were there people in Vietnam like civilians?
JW: Oh yeah I met some of them. Yup, in fact the way I met most of them was if they worked on the base that I was stationed at.
EKS: Do you remember anyone in particular or particularly?
JW: No not really, because they discouraged us from becoming too familiar with the people. Because over there, you got to realize Emily, we did not know who our enemy and who wasn’t. In fact we had a fleet of air planes that they called “Spooky” and they were gun ships and they would fire about 12,000 rounds a minute, now that’s a lot of ammunition, and I went to the barber shop one morning and we found out that the barber had been killed in one of the raids. So he belonged to the Vietcong and we don’t know how many people did belong to the Vietcong. And that was one of the things that made it very dangerous over there.
EKS: Do you remember anyone any people that you thought with like Americans particularly?
JW: Would you repeat that Hon?
EKS: Did you have any close friends in the service?
JW: Oh yes. I’d say that some of them are right here in Albuquerque. We correspond occasionally, call each other occasionally
EKS: Did you ever pull any pranks with your fiends?
JW: Oh once in a while. We would [short sheets and bobby?], I’m sure you don’t know what that is, or maybe you do. I don’t know.
EKS: I don’t
JW: [laughing] That’s where you fix the bottom sheet where they cant feet down in the bed. Everybody gets angry. And then one man we put a pan of water next to his bed and held his hand down in it, and you know what happened from there.
EKS: So did it work?
JW: Oh yeah it did Hon. [laughing]
EKS: So were there any like humorous events or unusual events that you remember?
JW: Well actually when you go to those places everything is unusual Hon, because nothing is like home. There’s no they don’t having and buses, well they have busses over there but they don’t have any trains they don’t have much industries and they are mostly farmers, and they farm with the water buffalo, that’s what they use for their beast of burden. And things like that.
EKS: Do you have any photographs from the wars?
JW: Do I have what?
EKS: photographs, pictures?
JW: Yes I do.
EKS: When the pictures were taken were you in them?
JW: A few yes.
EKS: Did you usually take pictures with your friends, or was it with anyone who was around at that time?
JW: Well we mostly took pictures with friends. A lot of the times we weren’t allowed to take pictures.
EKS: What did you think of the officers or fellow soldiers?
[00:21:51]
JW: Well most of the people were good people. We had a few who weren’t but guess you find that everywhere you go.
EKS: Did you ever have some one you looked up to a hero for instance like an officer above you that you looked up to?
JW: Yes we had one in the Marines that I looked up to quite a bit, but mostly the officers, most of the officers that I looked up to were people I knew in the states. Like there was a General Jim [Ardeger] and he became a friend of mine and his son spent as much time at my house as he did at his house. And General [Ardeger?] was a four star general. You make few friends like that and then most of the people in your own category of the enlisted people, which I was one, that you make friends with they are more lasting friends than most people.
EKS: How did these people influence you?
JW: Oh I don’t know. I think it was a mutual admiration of society than anything else, you know we could talk and a lot of the same things interested us you know the same interest that they had and things like that.
EKS: Did you keep a diary or journal during the wars?
JW: No I did not Hon.
EKS: Did you know anyone who did?
JW: Not that I can remember. I don’t I mean I’m sure somebody did but its nothing that I knew hon.
EKS: Which war impacted your life more which war do you remember the most?
JW: It normally works that you remember the last one the best. But when I was in Vietnam of course I was there, and separated from my family I could not see them you know things like that and I went a full [?] without seeing my wife or children
EKS: Do you recall the day your service ended?
JW: Yes it was November the 1st, 1976.
EKS: You do remember!
JW: Yes I do!
EKS: Where were you when this happened?
JW: I was in [Warner Robins?], Georgia.
EKS: How did it feel to know that you were finished?
JW: Well, you were sort of, at least relieved, it was a hard adjustment. To make from the everyday rigor of being in the military and then being out of the military, in which I had saved my relationship with the military at that time because I retired.
EKS: How did you spend the days and weeks later?
JW: Well, I had a job to go to after I got out and I went to it but we got about thirty days before I got to work and then I went to work for these people in Spencer, Iowa.
EKS: What was your job?
JW: I was their general manager they were a house building company and I was their general manager that’s what they hired me for. We had been friends for years and so they wanted me to some work for them.
EKS: Did you ever attend any more schooling after the military?
JW: Just a minute honey. [coughing] Yes, I took some courses but not anything formal.
EKS: What were the courses of?
JW: Mostly on management.
EKS: So you said that you are still friends with some people from the service, could you give me more insight into that?
JW: Well, one man that lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, I keep track of him all the time. We call each other occasionally. There’s another man that lives in Kingston, Tennessee, but we call each other quite often. And let’s see, I’m trying to think who they are at the moment, but those two mostly stand out I’m my mind that I keep in touch with.
EKS: Did they serve with you in the war?
JW: Yes.
EKS: in Vietnam or in WWII?
JW: Mostly when I was in the Air Force Hon.
EKS: Are you in any veteran organizations?
JW: I belong to the D.A.V. that���s the Disabled American Veterans and that’s the only military organization that I belong to.
EKS: So what did you go on to do as a career after the war?
[00:28:04]
JW: For a while I was the personal and financial officer for the Iowa Commission on the [A.G.?] and then my son got killed and we moved to Albuquerque. And then I was the head bookkeeper for a organization that had Meals on Wheels [Unintelligible] and things like that. And then I went to work as a purchasing agent for the US Air Force at [Cortland?] Air Force base and I stayed there until I retired.
EKS: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war and military in general?
JW: Yes. Yes it does. I have probably talked about it more to you than anybody.
EKS: What type of activities do you do in the veteran organization?
JW: Well, they don’t have meetings, you just whenever you need aid, need help or anything mostly they’re kind to help. You go to them and the have officers around the state and you can go to them and go to and talk to the people and they do their best to help you out. Well they do meetings but they have meetings at night here and I do not go out at night. It may sound strange to you but I don’t Hon, neither your grandmother or I go out at night.
EKS: I can understand. Have you ever been to any reunions?
JW: You mean for the military? No. I haven’t I go to my family reunions. Fact I was in Indiana what the 11th to the 17th or 11th to 15th just this past month.
EKS: I know, Mom told me about that I was going to interview you in person but I didn’t have all the materials I needed.
JW: Oh I see that would have been nice. You see the only thing I have left in Indiana now are, beside of you and your mother and outside of Tanya’s family, is I have three nephews and one niece and that’s all my family that is there because well I had a whole gaggle of cousins. But I try to go back every year that I can but I don’t know how long that’s going to go on. I’m getting old hon.
EKS: [laughing] How did you service and your experience in the war affect you life after the war?
JW: What?
EKS: Oh never mind.
JW: I think it made me a better person. I think I’m more congenial to people, in fact I very seldom loose my temper anymore. I used to have a very hot temper and I don’t any more. And I think it has made me a better person.
EKS: Which war did you serve longest in?
JW: In the air force, well actually I spent twenty-one years in the air force. I spent three years and twenty-one months in the Marine Corps.
EKS: did you enjoy being in the air force more?
JW: Yes, for the simple reason that if we went over seas most of the time we could take our families with us. We couldn’t when we went to Vietnam, but any other place we wanted to we could. We had better housing than most of the other services. And just a general, over all general feeling about it than being in the army or the navy or something like that.
EKS: Where did you go when you weren’t in battle but were still enlisted?
JW: During WWII we had and [R&R?] back in Hawaii for a long time and we spent three weeks back there and then we went back out, and then in Vietnam we had a week and ten days or so and instead of me meeting my wife, we decided that we wouldn’t because we would have to leave one another. So I went to Australia with some friends, we had an Australian squadron on our base here in Phan Lang and they wanted me to come visit them down, so I went down there and I stayed a week down there.
EKS: What was the life like being enlisted but not in battle?
JW: It was not bad. It was most of the time just like you had a job where you got up and went to work everyday and went home in the evening. Of course you had some things that weren’t so good sometimes you had to go one deployment or something, of that source and that wasn’t too good because you were away from your folks.
EKS: What did you do you said that it was like a job and you woke up and did what you had to do what id you have to do in those times?
JW: Ok, while I was in the Air Force I was a management analyst, and I normally had a desk job and what I did what stick my nose in other peoples business seeing that they were doing their jobs.
EKS: So what areas did you manage over?
JW: The whole base that I happened to be on.
EKS: So everyone?
JW: Yes.
EKS: So did you have a boss?
JW: A what?
EKS: A boss, yourself?
JW: I didn’t hear you right
EKS: Did you have a boss yourself? Was there someone directing you?
JW: Oh yes, I had a boss, oh yeah sure did. We had an Officer in Charge and I was usually the Enlisted in Charge. And we took scare of the money details and so forth everyday.
EKS: Is there anything you would like to add that I didn’t cover?
JW: Oh nothing that I can think of at the moment Emily.
EKS: Well I’m going to back and ask you some questions about each war specifically.
JW: I’ll see if I can remember them enough to answer.
EKS: Can you distinguish between the two wars?
[00:36:32]
JW: They were entirely two different types of wars Hon, for me anyhow because I was in two different branches of the service. And each of those had a different mission the Marine Corps were taking islands, were taking territory and were trying to drive the Japanese out of the south pacific. And in Vietnam the army- well, the Marines had most of that and they did most of the ground pounding, and the fighting out in the boondocks in other words out in the jungles or what have you, and we were on an airspace that had airplanes that would go and bomb these people. In other words Emily, the Air Force where I was, was a very much safer place than the people in what we call the boondocks which is out in the jungles or what have you.
EKS: What was the climate like? Was it very hot where you were at?
JW: Yes. Continuously it was hot all the time and very, very humid which your familiar with that. The humidity.
EKS: Probably not that intense though!
JW: The temperatures that I’ve seen get over 110 degrees and hot. You just walk a block or a quarter of a mile and you were wringing wet.
EKS: Were there any breathtaking sites or beautiful places that you ever went to?
JW: Oh Australia was a beautiful place to visit that I know, and most of the places. Well Hawaii I was stationed there for three years and but most of they places out side of that, were in the United States and I got to see a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally see.
EKS: So you said they told not to interact with they civilians too much, how did that make you feel not knowing who your enemy was?
JW: Its very scary, it’s a weird feeling not know whether the guy standing next to you is, what we call, we called the “Charlies” that’s what the Vietcong were called in Vietnam, and Charlie he was about anywhere. And I know that they blew up our pipe line about every night that went from the South China Sea to our base and it brought our fuel to us and they blew up our wells one time which were of the base, and we were without water for ten days. And oh, different things such as that and you didn’t know whether to trust them or not.
EKS: Have you seen any war movies that are based on wars?
JW: Oh a few but I don’t go to any of those hardly. Because so many of them are not factual. You know.
EKS: So do you think they portrayed the war poorly?
JW: A lot of them do but there’s a couple of them that have been out that have been believable. You know, but I just made it a point, I just don’t go to any of them.
EKS: So back to beginning, deciding whether to enlist or to be drafted, who did you feel enlisting? Did you really want to enlist or did you just decide it because you knew it would be better than being drafted?
JW: Well, I think at that particular time Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941 when I graduated from high school in that spring all of my buddies were being drafted and they were being drafted into the army. Well, I didn’t seem like I wanted to got to the army because my brother had been in the army Air Corps and he said “nah, you don’t wanna go in the army” and I said “okay- I’ll go into the Marines then.” So I did.
EKS: What is so bad about being in the army?
JW: Well, they were treated differently than we were. They didn’t have the, well I don’t know about WWII because those peoples were in the same boat we were in at that time, but in later years when I was in the Air Force we had better, we had better food and it was just a better atmosphere for me it was any how, and I’m sure other people felt the same way.
EKS: When you said that you wrote letters back and forth between your family, was that really difficult for you to be apart from your family?
JW: Well, it was but my family was so spread out at that time that sometimes we lost track of one another and what have you there were five children in my family, Emily. I had two brothers and two sisters and my youngest sister got married when she was fifteen years old my other sister she became a nurse, [Anastasias?], and then my older brother he made a career in the Air Force, and my second brother he was in WWII and he flew air planes over the hump. And, that was where was I, I was over in India and we were all scattered around and half the time we didn’t have each other’s address. I knew where my mother was. I didn’t know where my father was all during WWII.
EKS: So you brothers also participated in the services did any one else in your family?
JW: No just me and my two brothers. They are all gone now. All my brothers and sisters are gone. I’m the only one left in my family now.
EKS: I’m sorry.
JW: That’s just the way it goes hon.
EKS: You said that Bob Hope came to visit what were his shows like? Was everyone really light hearted, did everyone enjoy it?
[00:44:59]
JW: Yes I think most people did.
EKS: Was it like a big change in the atmosphere?
JW: Oh yeah they made it lively for a while. You know change from the day-to-day things you had to do. It was a break.
EKS: Do you remember any other performers coming to visit?
JW: Oh kind , I was just trying to remember Bob Hope was one of the biggest ones and his USO troop and he brought [Unintelligible], I guess they thought they’d cheer up the troops that way I don’t know but I'm trying to remember who else, there’s Bob Hope and he had Jerry Colona with him and he was also in Vietnam, but he wouldn’t stay all night in the country he’d go to Thailand. And what was her name, I can’t remember her name. But she stayed on our base one night because they were going from there to somewhere else. So she stayed on our base she came to our [NCO?] club and she could drink like a fish [laughing] but I can’t remember her name! There’s a lot of things I can’t remember any more Emily.
EKS: Do you still have your Bronze Star?
JW: Yes I do. I sure do hon. And I received several commendation letters while I was in the militatary.
EKS: How rare is it to receive shuch a medal?
JW: Well, I don’t really know, but I know it’s a fairly high medal. Well it’s right under the Silver Star, and then im not sure what’s next. I don’t rember tell you the truth, Emily. I could probably find out for you if you needeed that.
EKS: Well I think we pretty much covered everything.
JW: Ok.
EKS: Is there anything you would like to add?
JW: No I don’t think so. I think you covered it very well I think you’ve done a good job.
EKS: I enjoyed interviewing you.
JW: Why thank you.
[00:47:59]
[Small talk with my veteran]
End of interview.
[00:50:5]
