Interview with Francis P. Coyle, April 3rd, 2022

Interview with Francis Coyle, United States Army Reserves, Retired

Interviewed by Maria Coyle

April 3, 2022

Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Library, Vietnam War Oral History Project West Chester University

Maria Coyle: Hello, my name is Maria Coyle. Today is April 3rd, and I am interviewing Frank Coyle for West Chester University's Vietnam War Oral History Project. We are meeting and recording via Zoom. This interview is being conducted for the University of Kentucky's Louis B. Nunn Center. I would like to thank Frank for his gift of time today and knowledge that will no doubt be an asset to future historians. All right, so getting started? Where did you grow up? Frank Coyle: Philadelphia. M. Coyle: What was your family like? F. Coyle: Regular middle-class family. Lived in row home in the northeast section of Philadelphia in the 1940s and the 1950s. M. Coyle: What did your parents do? F. 00:01:00Coyle: My father was a police officer. My mom was a housekeeper and she also worked a full-time job. M. Coyle: What did she do? The housekeeping? F. Coyle: Oh, no housekeeping at home as far as the family was concerned, but she also held a full-time job for most of her adult life in a, a company that manufactured the ceramic pieces and parts for heaters and stoves and things like that. M. Coyle: Oh, OK. Did you have any siblings? F. Coyle: I did. I had a brother and a sister, both older. M. Coyle: You're the youngest. F. Coyle: I'm the youngest. M. Coyle: So what were you like as a child? F. Coyle: I was just a wonderful little boy. I was- *Laughs* Sorry about that. I was very shy. I was 00:02:00all wrapped up with the cowboys. Always wore cowboy boots, I guess until about the age of nine or ten years old. M.Coyle: Did you play, did you play any sports, or do any activities at school? F. Coyle: No, not really. Not really. Most of us who lived along the street where I grew up, we just sort of roamed around during the day we went to; there were a lot of woods and farms near where our houses were, and we would go and build forts and roast potatoes and do all kinds of things like that. But we, we, we didn't get involved too much in organized sports where we would play, you know, all out in the middle of the street, some football and baseball. M. Coyle: Were you very involved in school? F. Coyle: With extracurricular activities? No, no. M. Coyle: What about academics, academics? F. Coyle: Academics I was, uh, in the upper, upper edges. 00:03:00Yeah. M. Coyle: What were your friends like in high school? Was it still the same friend group? F. Coyle: No, no, no. All new friends in high school. Although we all, all, most of us who had gone to Catholic school or went to Northeast Catholic High School, the rest of the kids went to different the different high schools, but uh, no we all separated and, uh, developed new friendships. M. Coyle: Did you have a job in high school? F. Coyle: I did. I was a newsboy delivery person. M. Coyle: Were you always pretty aware of the news, then? F. Coyle: No, I just handed them out, I didn't read them. I got home, *laughs* looked at the comics. M. Coyle: Looked at the comics. So did you know what was going on politically in high school and going into college? F. Coyle: Politics was not that important in the lives of most people back then. I can 00:04:00remember when there would have presidential conventions and campaigns that were on TV. Most people would complain about the fact that they weren't able to, to see their, their favorite shows on television, that they were being interrupted by all these conventions. Most people did not watch them. M. Coyle: Did you get a sense from a young age about your parents politics were, were they not very low? F. Coyle: It was something that really wasn't spoken about a lot in around the table. And the politics and political affiliations were, were never spoken really at the gatherings that I recall as a child. M. Coyle: So did you have any, um, family members that served in the military? F. Coyle: Yes. My dad was in the Navy during World War Two. My Uncle Frank was in the Navy during World War Two. My dad was on a destroyer. My uncle Frank was on uh, an aircraft 00:05:00carrier. I had another uncle by marriage, Uncle Nick, who was in the Air Force. Another Uncle, Henry, and he also was in the new army during World War Two. M. Coyle: How did that shape your perception? Of the military. F. Coyle: Always had a great respect for the military. You know, the military was, uh, you know the number one in most families at that point in time. M. Coyle: Did you see yourself joining from a young age? F. Coyle: I did. I did. Yeah, at a point I considered the- going with the Marines- didn't do that. Also considered going into, trying to apply for West Point- didn't do that. Decided to just go up to a conventional college. M. Coyle: Where did you go to school? F. Coyle: For high school? M. Coyle: College. F. Coyle: College. What's now LaSalle University. 00:06:00Back then it was LaSalle College. M. Coyle: OK, so you went into college in what year? Do you remember? F. Coyle: Went in 1960 and graduated in 1964. M. Coyle: OK. At what point did you, um, enlist in the reserves? F. Coyle: After graduation. At the time, the Vietnam War was just it was just starting to get attention. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a huge thing. Most people didn't even know about Vietnam or Viet Cong, but there was, there were drafts in effect at the time, and I decided to join the reserves, and I joined the reserves in February of 1965 for a six-year enlistment. M. Coyle: How did you decide to do that instead of going straight into the workforce? F. Coyle: Well, I did try to 00:07:00go into the workforce, *laughs* but as I said, the, the draft was, was a big thing back then and the very first question that would come from any interviewer when you applied for a job was "have you satisfied your military obligation?" And if you said no, they said, "OK, touch back again with us, you know, after, after you satisfied the military." M. Coyle: So it wasn't really a choice. F. Coyle: No, no, it wasn't. It was either join the reserves or wait to be drafted. But I was able to get a full-time job for several months in the interim with an insurance company, and I was the I was a claims investigator for the legal department. M. Coyle: Wow. Did you like it? F. Coyle: Oh, it was. It was interesting. It was different. Yeah, but I joined as I said. I joined in February of '65. I was sworn in and I called. The next day. I called the, the 00:08:00local draft office to let them know that I had been I had just joined and the woman I spoke to said, "Well, that's good because you were number one to be to be drafted this coming Monday." *Laughs* M. Coyle: What! Do you know what you would have been in? F. Coyle: I would've just been drafted into the regular army. M. Coyle: OK. Oh, that's good. That's funny. F. Coyle: And then after-after joining the reserves, as I said, that was February of '65 and I went to one on active duty that April, actually on Good Friday, left for, for Fort Knox. M. Coyle: How was your training? M. Coyle: Um... It was interesting, was good. M. Coyle: What was your first thought like when you first got there that first day? F. Coyle: It's sort of chaotic. No one knew what to do or where to go 00:09:00or anything like that. I mean, it was a matter of- you lived in the, in the same clothing that you, you arrive there in for about four or five days until they started issuing, issuing uniforms. But, you know, people were young guys were from all different parts of the country. No one knew anyone. So this matter of making new friends and then just trying to try to listen to and- and behave and do what you were told to do. M. Coyle: Was everyone around your age? F. Coyle: Yeah, yeah. Mostly, mostly a lot of young college grads. M. Coyle: So most people went to college. I know that people would go sometimes to avoid the draft. Did you ever come in contact with that? Going to college to avoid the draft. F. Coyle: Mm. No, not really, not really, because the draft hasn't been 00:10:00that prominent at the time of making a decision to go to school. M. Coyle: What was your what was your initial reaction when you first heard of the Vietnam War? F. Coyle: I first really heard of it when I, after I joined the reserves, and I would hear that the other reservists at the meetings told me about the Viet Cong and Vietnam, and before that I knew very, very little about it. It didn't get much, much play. And but within a couple of months, everything just seemed to break loose and it got pretty ugly. And in fact, when I was in basic training, the president who would have been, I guess, Lyndon Johnson's time went on TV and he was he had to make a decision as to whether to increase the draft or call up 00:11:00all the reserves. And he made the decision to, to increase the draft and leave the reserves where they were. Because in all honesty, the reserves were not- after they were after members got back to their reserve units, the reserves were not really well trained back then as they are today. And they felt that it would be much, much better to increase the draft, bring in new people into the army, train them and form them and have them ready to go, as opposed to a lot of guys who were getting up in years. M. Coyle: Were you grateful for that? F. Coyle: *laughs* There was a lot of cheering that went on in the barracks that night. Yes. Yeah. M. Coyle: So you were, you stayed there while you were training in Fort Knox? F. Coyle: Yes. Yes. M. Coyle: What was it like? Like, what was your room like? Did you have your own room or not? F. Coyle: No, no. Everybody, you, 00:12:00you lived in a barracks. You were probably- 45 or 50 of us? One big open room. You had a bunk. There was a bunk on top of the bunk, so there were two bunk beds and you had a very narrow metal 'closet', so to speak. And the wooden footlocker, you had to keep everything in, and other than that, you had no personal possessions, everything, everything of a personal nature, absolutely everything had to be either sent home or thrown away in the trash. M. Coyle: Wow. So you had no privacy. F. Coyle: No, no, no, nothing. Your showers were in large rooms with multiple folks all year. All the other facilities were just out in the wide open. And yeah, that was it was. It was kind of basic. You could not 00:13:00have any food or cookies or candy or anything hidden away. But we could smoke! M. Coyle: Did you smoke a lot? F. Coyle: Oh, yeah. Yeah, everybody did. Everybody did. M. Coyle: Where did you get the cigarettes? F. Coyle: Oh, you could buy them locally. They would give us tax privileges, which is the post exchange, the store where you could go buy odds and ends. And we could go buy cigarettes and. Other, other underwear and stuff, because I think they gave us maybe two sets of underwear. And you'd have to go buy, buy the rest to get you through the week so that we could send your laundry out and still have, you know, clean clothing. M. Coyle: Did you bring money when you went or did they give you? How did that work? F. Coyle: They gave us all a little bit first, After the first couple of weeks. Yeah. M. Coyle: So back to the living area. Very little privacy, so did you make friends? F. Coyle: *Laughs* Yeah, everybody 00:14:00is, you know, you just did that. It's amazing how rapidly you can adapt to your surroundings in a short period of time. M. Coyle: Did you make a lot of friends? F. Coyle: I did, yeah, yeah, yeah. M. Coyle: Any that you remember a lot to this day? F. Coyle: Honestly, no, no. Never stayed in touch with any of them. Because. Well, when I was in there, I broke my leg. After about four or five weeks and in training and I was off into the hospital for about five months, I guess it was. And so most of the guys who I had been in, in the basic training company, they went on to the further training and they were shipped off to 00:15:00Vietnam. M. Coyle: Wow, so we will definitely get back to that, but can you tell me what a day of training looked like? F. Coyle: Yeah. Up at five o'clock in the morning. Out for more *reavily* and the inspection, everybody will be all lined up in the town hall to count off, and call out the names, make sure everyone was there. After that, we have, uh, maybe a half-hour of exercise go running around the two-mile tracks and doing other push-ups and sit-ups and jump-ups and whatever. After, after the initial exercises, we went for breakfast around 7:30 and you had about five minutes to eat. You ate whatever was put on your plate. 00:16:00We couldn't talk. We had to go through the horizontal bars in order to get into the, into the mess hall to eat. They finally, they afterward discontinued that, because too many people were breaking their legs, falling off the horizontal bars or banging into the sides of them. And so you would get your, your tray, the, the cooks would put a portion on and you, you ate it. You could not not eat it. And you couldn't get any extra if you wanted it. *Laughs* You had about, we had about five minutes. As I said, you could not speak with everyone, was in total silence. And then we went out for food training, which could be, you know, could be a Long March or for the combat training, could be in tear gas training. All different types of things, but most training elements only last, lasted 00:17:00about maybe 45 minutes to an hour. And then there would be a break and some exercise and then you go to another phase. So it was varied. And we wrapped up normally, normally the day would wrap up around five o'clock in the evening. But in the meantime, we would also always go back to the mess hall for lunch around noon. Then after lunch, we'd have maybe 10 minutes to go into the back into the barracks to wash up or whatever and what to do and then back out then for some more training until about five or five-thirty. And normally we'd be pretty much semi-free for the evening. M. Coyle: What did you do during the evenings? F. Coyle: You took care of your uniforms, shined and polished your boots for all your gear. There wasn't much, much idle time because the lights went out at nine 00:18:00o'clock and we had to be in bed at nine o'clock. M. Coyle: Oh wow. F. Coyle: then there were old barracks that were built back in World War Two. So they were- they were very combustible in the event of a fire, and you would take turns that there were two stories the barracks and there would be loads of fire guard on each floor. And then you would rotate. So one day you would be the fireguard from five o'clock, four-six o'clock and then it would go around throughout the entire floor and then you might be from six to seven. The most coveted one was to have the first one so that you can have fire duty, maybe from or from, say, nine to 10 o'clock or early in the morning, from five to six o'clock and each, you would have to run over to see what was called CQ, which was called charge of quarters and sign in as the fire orderly for that floor for 00:19:00that time and then, then get back. M. Coyle: Wow. That does not sound like fun. So what was it, a very stressful time. Stressful. F. Coyle: No, no, it wasn't. You mean doing the, doing the fire duty? M. Coyle: Just in general? M. Coyle: No. Everything was new to us, and, you know, you just did what you were told that if you didn't, then you you suffered the consequences. Back then they were they were a little more rugged. M. Coyle: Were you ever punished for doing anything wrong? M. Coyle: Eh, you were. Everybody would get punished, you know, at times and, you know, sometimes the entire squad and you'd have to drop down and do 50 or 60 push ups. Or, when they really got an angry with you, you'd have to go into the "dying cockroach position". Which was laying on your back with 00:20:00your arms and your legs extended up into the air and your chin on your chest, which isn't bad for the first three or four minutes, but after that it becomes very uncomfortable. *laughs* M. Coyle: They were getting you in shape F. Coyle: That they did. They did in a relatively short period of time they had. Yeah, they really did. Within a week, most people were Were in shape and well-coordinated and acclimated with everything. M. Coyle: What was the general perception of the Vietnam War? F. Coyle: You know, that's really a difficult one to answer. I don't know if most Americans even knew why we were there. It was a tragic event and we lost 62,000 young Americans. You remember, you know, after the. After being back home, and it really started to get nasty in the in the 00:21:00late 60s and into the early 70s, and- M. Coyle: I'm sorry, in the reserves like at the time when you were training, what did everyone think? We'll talk about, like the general like American Perseption. F. Coyle: Mm-Hmm. The reserves were kind of loosey-goosey. *Laughs* OK. Not to use an inappropriate expression, but that we were not well-trained at all. And we had initially we had meetings once on one Sunday a month when I first went in. And on that Sunday, everybody who was Catholic, whether you were Catholic, Jewish, any other thing, everyone went 00:22:00to what was called "Mass Call". So we would get to the reserve station before in for formations and everybody would be accounted for. And about an hour later, they would call for a church call to which everyone went- regardless, regardless of your faith- Everyone went to the Catholic Mass Church call and the. What you could do was after church pool, there were the lunch, so if you live relatively close, which I did, I would go to mass, go to church, call and head home. And then go back after what was what was the lunchtime. So you'd wind up with maybe two, two and a half hours off and take a nap and then just go back and be at the Reserve Center for another hour/ hour and a half and that day would come to an 00:23:00end. But when things became more, more serious with Vietnam, the numbers were increasing dramatically as far as the draft was concerned. The reserves tightened up quite a bit. We went from one Sunday a month to two weekends a month where we'd have both Saturday and Sunday. Church calls were done away with basically. I mean, and it became a much more serious issue. That, coupled with the social issues that were going on, there was a lot of variety time in the mid-60s and we had to do a lot of weekends where we would do riot control. Or practice for riot control, in the event that we're called for it. M. Coyle: What did that look like? F. Coyle: Just basically, you know, formations required for, 00:24:00for retaining large, you know, large groups of rioters, you know. It's, it's hard to really train for something like that because you don't have the other side there, you know, rioting against you! *Laughs* It's one-sided. We were, we had our weapons and fixed bayonets, so, we were prepared for, for ugliness. Which thank God, we never had to, at least, my unit never had the experience of. M. Coyle: So your unit pretty much stuck together? F. Coyle: Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. M. Coyle: Your unit, did you train, among other ones? Maybe I just... F. Coyle: No, no, no. Everything was within your own unit. But I was in One Hundred and Fifty-Seventh battalion support- The Support Battalion, which was the it was the largest self-sustaining infantry brigade in the country at the time, which 00:25:00meant it had infantry, artillery, aircraft, and support. And I was in the Support Battalion. And we took care of making sure that everybody was fed and all that kind of good stuff. M. Coyle: So you said that you would go on Sundays, were you allowed to go home for weekends? F. Coyle: Oh, yeah, we were hopeful with, well, we would go on Saturday from like, eight o'clock in the morning to five o'clock at night, then we'd go home and come back the next day. But occasionally there would be overnight trips like there was a facility up, up in what's called Indiantown Gap. And on occasion, we would go there for training, and on occasion, we go to Fort Knox or not Fort Knox, Fort Dix in New Jersey for some weekend training. M. Coyle: So when you came home, what were your parent's 00:26:00reactions? F. Coyle: When I came home...? M. Coyle: For the weekends, like, what was that like? F. Coyle: Uh... Well, nothing special because they knew what I was doing. No, it was uh -just hi! He's back! *Laughs* M. Coyle: OK, so you said you had a job during this time? Was that, was that, like after your training or before? F. Coyle: A job, what do you mean hun? M. Coyle: When you were working out of college, you said you worked for a couple months? F. Coyle: Oh yeah, from the time. Yeah, I- I worked for an insurance company for several months, I guess about five or six months before I went out before reserves, I went for- for my 00:27:00training. And then after I came out, I had had some interviews, I had had an interview with uh, SEAL Test Foods, National Dairy. And uh, when I came back, I got back in touch with them, because I had interviewed with them before I went into in the basic training and then, I came back and, I think I guess, I came back from training after my six months was up. And I spoke with them, I guess, on a Friday, met with them on Monday and then started the following day, working, working with them. M. Coyle: Wow. So I know, just because you're my grandfather, that you got married while you were in the reserves. M. Coyle: How did you meet? Like, how did you find time for that? F. Coyle: I was well, let's see, I was in the reserves when I met your grandmom. And in fact, we were, we 00:28:00were engaged at a point, and I had gotten a phone call from someone, a fella I worked with. He was in a different office. And he said to me, "Have you seen the bulletin tonight?" I said, "No, why?" He said, "Go, take a look at it" he said "your infantry reserve brigade has been activated. You guys are going to Vietnam in about a month and half." So uh, *laughs* I just left everything on the desk, went home, looked at the paper, saw it all, and called your grandmom and said, "Hey, look, let me come up and see ya." So I went up to see her and the. I said, "Look, I'm going to be going away. We're going to have to, you know, just postpone things." And it turned out that we were, we were not called up. The 00:29:00gentleman who was the commanding general of the, the brigade at the time was very much interested in getting an additional promotion. And he kept, you know, speaking to everyone about how, how 'ready the hundred and fifty-seventh brigade, infantry brigade, was for combat'- which we weren't. *laughs* He thought so. And it turned out afterward that we found that within about a week or so that we were not being called up after all. M. Coyle: That must've been a stressful week. F. Coyle: It was interesting. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, if we had been called up, we would just postpone things and resumed later on.

*A phone call interrupted, so we paused and took a break*

M. Coyle: So your unit was activated? F. Coyle: No, it was not, there was, it was reported in the newspaper that we were going to be activated, but it was- it was false reporting that it never happened. We were never called up. M. Coyle: Did that happen often? F. Coyle: No, just that one time, just that one time, normally, if they said you're going to be called up, you went. M. Coyle: Wow. It what was the reaction of everybody you when you found out that that was fake? F. Coyle: Well, it wasn't fake. It was- somebody who had started some, some type of progress. It's just that it never came to fruition. I think we were all quite happy. Selfishly, that *laughs* I wasn't being called up. Yeah, yeah. M. Coyle: So you told me that you broke your leg during training? F. Coyle: Yes. M. Coyle: 00:31:00Can you explain what happened? F. Coyle: We were doing hand-to-hand combat, one of the, one of the items in the hand-to-hand combat involved throwing the, the other party up over your head and over your shoulder. And it was on the last throw of the day, and it was me and a friend of mine were 'opponents' *Laugh* and I guess I took a bad fall and came down and snapped my leg in three places: the tibia and fibula, both down near the ankle, and then the, I think it's the tibia up toward closer toward the knee. So that pretty much ended my, my training from there, because from there I was, I went over to the Army, Ireland 00:32:00Army Hospital there at Fort Knox and they put a full cast on my leg from foot up to my hip. And that's the way I was for the next four or five months. M. Coyle: Wow, long recovery F. Coyle:Yeah, was in the hospital a long time, and then they sent me home for a couple of weeks. But the traveling by train with a full cast on your leg is, is not the most pleasant. And it was a 24-hour train ride from Louisville to To Philly. M. Coyle: Was that common? People breaking their legs in combat or not as bad as yours? F. Coyle: I don't know. I really don't know. I really don't know. M. Coyle: So you broke your leg after you saw the news- like 00:33:00that was after. F. Coyle: Oh no, that was. I broke my leg when I was in basic- basic training at the very beginning. M. Coyle: OK. OK. F. Coyle: I went into it, went away for it, for training on it was Palm Sunday at 1965. I think it was maybe the end of March or very early beginning of April. And then I broke my leg actually on my mother's, on Grandmom Anna's birthday, May the 11th, 1965. M. Coyle: So. So you were in the hospital? F. Coyle: I was in the hospital, yeah. I called her from the hospital to let her know I had broken my leg, but that I was ok M. Coyle: OK. Oh, my goodness. I also heard; my dad told me that they made you work at the hospital? F. Coyle: Oh yeah. As soon as you can get out of bed, you got a, you got a job and you, it could be something as simple as dusting 00:34:00window ledges or doing almost anything that the more- more able you were, the more of a job you got. As I got, became more mobile, I could actually walk around, they put a walker on the cast and you got to where you could walk around without braces on. With, with crutches on down the hallways. But I, I was actually assigned, I guess, for about a week. I was doing the, the paperwork for incoming injured at the emergency room at Ireland Army Hospital. And it's amazing how, how quickly you can harden to that's that kind of thing because the first- first couple of people you saw come through all bloody and banged and broken up. It was sort of difficult, but after, after a day or so of that, you 00:35:00just become hardened, you just accept that's another- that's another patient.

In the. It's a little small, but- but it doesn't rip you apart personally. M. Coyle: Was that your first experience where you realized, like, how injured people were coming back? F. Coyle: Well, these were people just locally. M. Coyle: Oh OK. F. Coyle: These were from, you know, from training, training, accidents or, or accidents, you know, automobile accidents that the, the soldiers stationed there at Fort Knox might be involved in. This didn't have anything to do with combat. M. Coyle: OK, my bad. So you worked while you were recovering? F. Coyle: Oh, yeah. Yeah, everybody did. Everybody did. Everybody did. And after I was, after a while, they say we were able to take the cast off 00:36:00my leg and they still had to stay in the hospital, I guess for another couple of weeks, you know, for physical training and things like that. And after that period, they sent me back to, to the basic training unit that I had been with before. But since I was a reservist and I was only allowed to stay there for six months, they, they did not recycle me through for retraining. So I was still relieved at the end of what would have been my six-month basic training period, but I was doing other things, so I was actually working at the basic, at the training camp, helping with and taking care of the new recruits coming in. And I would take, I would take charge of the quarters at night from midnight till 00:37:00maybe seven o'clock in the morning. Which and that's basically the, it's an office, it's just stays awake all night long. And if there are any problems, you know, that's that's, that's where they're directed. And yes, you know, we had a television in there, and some of the sergeants on occasion would stop in and we'd; we'd sit and chat.

M. Coyle: So speaking of television, what, what were you like starting to see at that point? Were you starting to get into like any music there? F. Coyle: No, not really. Not really. Huh. I don't even remember what we would have been watching. This would have been. Oh. In, oh, I guess, late summer, late summer of 00:38:001965, God only knows what was worn, especially in Kentucky. *Laughs* M. Coyle: So what was your, so you did this six months? A couple of which you were in recovery? F. Coyle: Mm-hmm. Yes. M. Coyle: And then you went back.Was that an additional amount of time that you were helping the new recruits? F. Coyle: Well, I went after I was released from the hospital. Then I went back to the to the basic training unit that I had been in before- before I was. And that's where I was helping out with- with them. M. Coyle: Was that during the rest of your six months or was that an additional? F. Coyle: No, that was doing the best that was during the balance of my six months. M. Coyle: OK. What did you do after the six months were up? F. Coyle: Came home. That's when I came home and started to went to work, M. Coyle: So after all of that, and I guess just seeing 00:39:00more of the news and everything going on in the world world, what was your perception? Of the Vietnam War, you know, F. Coyle: I honestly don't know that I had one. We just- we just accepted the fact that it was something that we had to fight for, that there was, there were principles and doctrines and freedoms that we were fighting for on behalf of these people. The news, the news was not what it is today. The whole news was taken care of in a half hour in the evening, once, once a day, and you had the, the one newscaster who did the news, the sports, the weather, and everything else. *Laughs* And that was all on a 00:40:00half-hour as opposed to the 24 hour news headlines that we have today. The most striking thing would have been every day they, they would give the death tolls of American soldiers in Vietnam. And, uh, and that was, that was, that was difficult because you would see the numbers every day. One day it would be three hundred and sixty. The next day, four hundred and eighty, four or five hundred. And that one was pretty much every, every night. But. We just believed that the government knew what it was doing in sending us there, and we, for the most part, most Americans supported it. There were a lot of riots among people who did not support it. And. It was, it was a tragic time in our history. A lot of, 00:41:00a lot of civil strife, a lot of strife. M. Coyle: At the time, what did you think of the riots? F. Coyle: A lot of the riots against the war were they were "hippies" as we referred to them then.*Laughs*. They were very progressive and we weren't- we weren't fond of them as a group. There were also a lot of racial riots that was starting to become very, very prominent in the big cities. And it was, it was difficult. It was difficult. But, probably not as bad as it is today. I mean, there was, there was- there was less of a division then than there is today. I believe. Yeah. M. Coyle: What did you hear about the Gulf of Tonkin incident at home? F. Coyle: Not a lot. Not a lot. You know, we hear 00:42:00reports as to what happened. As I say, you didn't have the coverage, the news coverage to get little bits and pieces. Most of us, you know, didn't really, we didn't understand a lot of what was going on. We knew that we were there and we had to fight for what we were fighting for, but uh, the military leadership was not very good at the time. It was, uh, general Westmoreland's who was a major military failure probably. And, you know. It was, it was a very unusual period, really was. M. Coyle: Did you have any friends in high school that went and served? F. Coyle: Yeah, I had some friends in college who when the couple who never made it back. Yeah. Yeah. M. Coyle: How did that affect you? When you 00:43:00heard of that F. Coyle: It's it was difficult, you know, knowing you always felt as though, you know, you weren't there, and sometimes you felt guilty for not being there. Sometimes it felt happy for not being there. There was always a sense of, you know, maybe I should have been there to. F. Coyle: With the benefit of hindsight, what do you think now of of the Vietnam War, like, do you wish that you were there? Obviously, I not wish, but like, do you still share this sentiment like I should have been there? F. Coyle: I I really don't think about it all that much anymore. I think more so at the time. But you know, every once in a while, I'll have a thought cross your mind to say, "OK, you know, 00:44:00maybe I should have been there". Were, had I been there when I made it through. You never know, never know whether you get back. Sadly, there were, what 62,000 young Americans who stayed there, who died there was just the tragedy and the. Nothing was gained. Absolutely nothing was gained. M. Coyle: Do you remember hearing about the fall of Saigon? F. Coyle: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. What did you think them? I thought it was tragic, tragic. M . Coyle:When the soldiers came back to the United States, they were treated very poorly, do you remember any of that? F. Coyle: Yeah, that was disgusting. Yeah, yeah, that was yeah, I remember all of that. They were- they were treated terribly. They were treated 00:45:00like third or fourth-class citizens; spit upon, and things thrown at them, called foul vile names. When I, when I came home from, from Ireland Army Hospital, after they gave me what they would call like a "health leave" or "go home for a couple of weeks" just because you were, you were well enough to move around you, but you were well enough to go back in for training. So rather than have everybody all cooped up, they would, they would send everybody periodically home for a couple of weeks, just to clear out the, the, the hospital spaces. And, I, I was, the only clothing I had at that time was my military clothing, so I came home in full military uniform and that was on a, that was on a train, the 00:46:0024-hour ride. And most of the people on that train were not pleasant to me. Yeah, it was, it was- it was not nice, not nice. I mean, I finally had to beg a woman to get me a soda. Because I had this, you know, I had the full cast on my leg, I couldn't I could barely walk, especially on a moving train. And, no one, no one there, no one on the trade car that I was on was especially helpful or pleasant this once they saw the uniform. But as I said, I was finally was able to get one woman, much against her, her free will *laughs* to go to the club car to get me a drink.

M. Coyle: Do you remember any other instances where people...? F. Coyle:No, that was the only one I had, hun. Yeah. But I remember seeing, yeah, I remember seeing the video of some of the troops going back home. And the way they were treated by, by the protesters. It was, it was pretty ugly, pretty nasty. M. Coyle: So how do you think your life was shaped? By your time spent, obviously, in the reserves and then also how everyone was treated afterwards? F. Coyle: I don't know. I don't I really don't know that I can answer that. It's. I'm sure it had some type of an impact, but just what? I, I couldn't put it into words, I really couldn't. I think military service is good... I'm glad my sons didn't 00:48:00have to go. And I guess I was fortunate that, even though I spent six years in the reserves, I didn't, I didn't face any combat like my dad and my uncles did where they were out fighting on a daily basis. And your grandfather, Smith. He was, he was a lieutenant in the army during World War Two, and he lost, he lost his eye as a result of the wound from that. So I forgot to mention him earlier in the listing. But, uh. I don't know, it's, it's, it's hard to say. It probably had an impact, but I don't know that I could really quantify it. M. Coyle: Do you remember what your, um, dad or your uncle's thoughts about the war? Like, 00:49:00given that they were veterans. F. Coyle: There was no, there was no anti-war discussion, ever, that I can ever remember. My dad had died before the war really, he died in 1963, before Vietnam really got it up and going. But there was no one, no one in our families who were, who were against the war. No one, you know, it was a thing that our country was involved in. And then we supported the troops who were fighting it 100 percent. M. Coyle: Yeah. How how has that impacted your thoughts of like the military today? Do you still think that it's under poor management? F. Coyle: I do, I do. Yeah. The recent episodes in 00:50:00Afghanistan, where we were pulled out with so many people behind did it in the terrible, terrible, terrible manner. The situation today with the Ukraine. Our military leadership is more concerned about social norms and not offending anyone. When I was in, in the military and basic, basic training, pretty rugged drill instructors. And they would call you things that I could not repeat to your dad! *Laughs* That and they would, they would hit you, they would throw things at you. They would kick you if need be, not enough to, to harm you. But to nudge you. But the job was to take and create a person who would just 00:51:00function on command. Wouldn't question and would have the courage to, to run up that hill, maybe not come down, but they'd run up that hill. Today, we don't have that. We're too concerned over everybody's feelings. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. These people, those drill instructors did not care about your feelings. There were, there were a lot of guys who, who couldn't take it and they would break down mentally and emotionally and they were put out. I saw, you know, I saw that happen. There was one guy in the, in the company I was in who she just had a physical, mental, emotional mental breakdown and uh. They sent them home, but yeah, it's. It, it developed character, it developed courage. It 00:52:00developed a lot. And today, I don't think we have that, that strength in our military. And that's- that's a shame. That's a shame. M. Coyle: Are there any stories as we're wrapping up the interview that you feel like were interesting or things that you want to add to, that you think that historians would be interested in? F. Coyle: *Laughs* Probably not. You know, there wasn't anything of any heroic nature that I did, you know. Our job was to, you know, to supply and support the front line guys. So, you know, in combat, if we had not been turned and turned into, you know, just regular infantry soldiers, our job as a unit was to feed and supply and support the, the guys because for every, every single soldier you have, it takes about five or six in the background to keep 00:53:00them well supported and in a position where they can play in a combat manner. No, but I, it was a it was a relatively uneventful period. M. Coyle: No, I, I think that there is definitely a lot of good stuff in the interview. Any major takeaways you'd like to leave us with? F. Coyle: No, no. Just don't, just don't fool around with hand-to-hand combat unless you want to get a busted leg. M. Coyle: All right. Thank you so, so much. F. Coyle: You're welcome honey.