Interview with Melvin Gene Milstead, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Allison Stanley, March 10, 2020.

 

Melvin Gene Milstead was born in Hyattsville, Maryland on November 21st, 1943. He was an E-3 Navy soldier who fought in the VFA-143 fighter squadron, affectionately called the “Pukin’ Dogs”. He was a plane captain working with the Phantom II Jet aboard the USS Constellation. He served from 1962-1964 joining immediately after graduating high school. He was awarded the Domain of the Golden Dragon which is an unofficial Navy Award given to soldiers who cross the International Date Line during their service. He was also awarded two medals for his time in service.

During the Vietnam War, the US Navy played a couple of different roles. Some US Navy ships were more inland providing supplies and medical support by means of rivers. Other ships, like the one my Grandfather was on, were out in the Gulf of Tonkin involved in naval combat or creating a blockade to prevent supplies from reaching enemy forces. Because of this, the Navy fought almost a separate war from the one on land. Additionally, only about 25% of Vietnam soldiers were drafted and 85% of soldiers were able to make a successful transition into civilian life. This aligns with my Grandfather’s story as he was recruited in high school and became a plumber upon his return. 

Hack, David. “Vietnam War Facts, Stats and Myths.” US Wings, www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/.

“Fact vs Fiction: The Vietnam Veteran.” FACT VS FICTION…..THE VIETNAM VETERAN, www.vvof.org/factsvnv.htm.

“The U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War.” Vietnam War 50th, www.vietnamwar50th.com/assets/1/7/U.S._Navy_in_Vietnam.pdf.

Transcription:

Allison Stanley: All right, so would you like to start by saying your name and just some background on yourself?

Gene Milstead: Gene Milstead. [I was] in the Navy: E-3 in the Navy. I was a member of VFA-143 from 1962 to 1964. We were a fighter squadron aboard USS Constellation. We are also known… our nickname is the Pukin’ Dogs, and you can see by the logo why we got that. Who named it was the first commander’s wife. They had a statue like this in a lobby when they first formed the squadron, and she comes out and says, “It looks like a dog pukin'”. So they named it “Dog Pukin'”. Right now, it’s the top fighter squadron in the Navy. People were complaining about it being called the Pukin’ Dogs, and an admiral came down and was talking about the thing. They [the people complaining] wanted to change it to just plain the Dogs, and the admiral looked up and says, “You guys are the top in the military. I don’t care what you call yourself.” So that was that.

Allison Stanley: So how old were you when you began your service? 

Gene Milstead: I was 18.

Allison Stanley: What level of education did you achieve before the war? 

Gene Milstead: High School

Allison Stanley: High School? So you fought in the Navy a little bit before [the US entered] the Vietnam War. Did you fight at all in that war as well? 

Gene Milstead: Well, yes, we went… we went on a cruise. Let me go back to the beginning right here. I got– we were on this cruise. We finished up our operations readiness inspection in Hawaii, and we were getting ready to leave for Japan. I get a letter from my girlfriend [motions to his wife across the room]

Allison Stanley: [laughs]

Gene Milstead: …and it said that we were going to Vietnam. I said “Now what is she talking about ‘going to Vietnam’?” Then the captain came up over the speakers saying, “We are going to Vietnam. I don’t know when we’ll be pulling to port again. We could be at sea for long days.” We were at sea for 43 days, and we finally got there at the very, very beginning. At that time, we could not pull into Japan. We had to go to either Hong Kong [or the] Philippines. That was another place that we could always dock at the time with any kind of thing. Let me pass this on here to you. [hands over an official document certifying that he had crossed the International Date Line]. Being that way, we crossed the International Date Line which now means that you joined the purple dragons. I mean, the golden dragons.

Allison Stanley: So you– did you plan to join the Navy after your graduation? 

Gene Milstead: Yes, I joined the naval reserve before I left high school. I was in the Navy before I even left high school.

Allison Stanley: So what was your attitude like going into service? Were you excited to serve? 

Gene Milstead: Yes. Yes, I was very excited about going into the navy because I recommend the Navy to anybody. I was in Naval Air. I worked on– we worked on the Phantom II Jet, and we were stationed at San Diego. And people want to go into the Air Force to work on airplanes. I say “Where do you get stationed in the Air Force? The desert! Where do you get stationed in the Navy? Out in the Ocean!” That’s the way I feel about the whole thing. And being over there, I was just you know, a plane captain aboard the ship. That meant you just– you preflighted the planes before they took off, you know, and the army, put the officers in there and buckle them up and check them off and everything. And we were in the– we’d be on a carrier. We had a battle circle. Now, the carrier could not go in the middle of that battle zone. Because you had an aircraft carrier, with the flight deck full of planes all filled up and ready to go. One bomb on that deck and the whole thing would have been gone. We had a four destroyer escort following us around to protect us. And there’s only– on the USS Constellation, there was only one gun, and that gun was a salute gun. The rest that was there– they had missiles, but that was a salute gun. And we got into the battle zone and like I said we couldn’t. We had to deal with it. It was about a 100 mile circle. We had to be just inside the circle to get our combat pay. For the Phantom IIs, it was no problem at all for them to get that far. They could almost go Mach two. Mach two, which is twice the speed of sound, they could move.

Allison Stanley: So you talked about how you were in San Diego and everything. What were some of the [other] places that you were stationed and where did you go?

Gene Milstead: Like I said, Hong Kong and Subic Bay in The Philippines mostly at that time, but in previous crazy events, quite a few parts of Japan and South Korea one time I think.

Allison Stanley: And then during the Vietnam War, or like when you went to Vietnam, where were you kind of like stationed geographically?

Gene Milstead: Geez, just out in the ocean. I mean, you couldn’t really see anything you know. You wouldn’t be stationed anywhere: you were just out there.

Allison Stanley: Do you know why you were out there? I did a little bit of my own research, and it talks about how the Navy kind of formed a blockade around Vietnam. Do you think that that was like part of what you guys were doing out there?

Gene Milstead: Yes. Yes, but that was more or less only– that was more or less only the destroyers doing that kind of stuff, and the carriers were out there to protect them.

Allison Stanley: So you mentioned that you got a letter from Grammy [his current wife] while you were in service. Were you dating her the whole time that you were in service? You were dating her before you went into the Navy and then…?

Gene Milstead: High school and on [laughs].

Allison Stanley: So did you experience any like homesickness and like missing her and missing home?

Gene Milstead: Well stationed in San Diego, and being born and raised in Washington DC. The only time I really got any kind of homesick was when Kennedy was shot. They showed a funeral on TV, and they’re going down the avenue. I knew all the buildings they were passing, and that’s not something– I got kind of homesick and missed home.

Allison Stanley: So why did your service come to an end?

Gene Milstead: Because my time was up. [laughs]

Allison Stanley: Did you experience any like serious injuries while you were in service.

Gene Milstead: Yes, it was quite– there was actually quite a few of ’em. On the carrier, the flight deck is the most dangerous area and the most dangerous job there is in the Navy. You might have seen on the commercials with that one girl… before they had the cable snap. A plane would come down and catch a cable. That would snap and come across the deck and quite a few guys– they got their legs cut off on that thing. That cable is a good two inches or bigger around. I forgot exactly what it is. And we had one fella in our squadron that really upset everybody. He was on the flight deck, and on the front of the flight deck, they have these shields that come up when the plane is gonna flare up. One of those shields– one of those shields fell down. The pressure came back and hit him and pushed him into a catapult where another airplane which was an AD that has a real low tail fin, and when we raised it up, it took his head off right there on the deck. And that’s about the grossest thing that we saw on the thing. The reason the cables would break was because we had– the Phantom II is so powerful that people didn’t realize how powerful it was. And here is my two medals. There’s a case with my two metals right here.

Allison Stanley: So can you talk about these medals just a little bit?

Gene Milstead: Well, it was like I said. It was in the battle zone. I got to meet a guy who got I think it’s $80 more for being in the battle zone a month. [laughs]

Allison Stanley: Can you describe how it felt to come home after your service?

Gene Milstead: It was absolutely great. [laughs] Yeah, what you don’t realize while you’re out there at sea and all this kind of stuff and then you come home, you don’t know what you were missing completely. And this girl walks by with a perfume. You haven’t smelled that in so long. You’re almost floating [laughs]. It’s just so great to be there you know. Of course, coming back I wasn’t really all that happy because we had, at that time, we had the hippies fired up and you know. I kind of hated the war, and I kind of hated the hippies. [laughs]

Allison Stanley: So how did you feel about like the anti-war protests and all that was going on?

Gene Milstead: Well I was not for the protests myself period. I think that it would get kind of stupid sometimes. Like I said, I was kinda against the war but wasn’t going to be protesting.

Allison Stanley: Did you go back to school at all after your service? Like I know you do wood turning a lot. Did you go to school for that at all?

Gene Milstead: Nope. I went to plumbing school 

Allison Stanley: You went to plumbing school. That’s right. You were a plumber. I forgot that. So you went to plumbing school and then how many years were you kind of doing that?

Gene Milstead: 30 years.

Allison Stanley: So that kind of just became your career after you came back?

Gene Milstead: Yeah. I became a master plumber.

Allison Stanley: Was there any hardships that you might have faced, coming back or was it just like?

Gene Milstead: No. I didn’t have any views, no withdrawals or anything like that because like I said, I didn’t really see the action in my opinion. You know, the real veterans you won’t hear talk about it. And when they do talk about it, it scares the hell out of you when they do talk about it.

Allison Stanley: Do you have any good friends that were kind of like involved in that side of the war?

Gene Milstead: Well, I ran into quite a few of them on the jobs, and one particular job, I remember when the guy came, you know, he was– he fought in Vietnam. And one time, on a job, a helicopter flew over the job. This is you know, a construction job, and he literally sat there and shook. And they got– his friend had to calm him down and say “No, they’re on our side. Don’t worry. They’re on our side.” to calm him down. He was actually shaking. You know, that kind of stuff you run into on the things.

Allison Stanley: That’s all the questions I have for you. Thank you for [letting me interview you]. Are there any other things you would like to talk about?

Gene Milstead: Uh no. That’s about the biggest thing.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

This interview was conducted in person with no editing. I pulled all of my questions and prep work up on my laptop and recorded audio on my phone. We conducted the interview at his house. The only other people at the house were my grandmother and mother who were in the other room. During the interview, their grandfather clock began to chime for a second but it wasn’t that great of a disturbance.

I think that the interview went well. He came into it with some things that he wanted to talk about as well which helped facilitate conversation. I think that the only times that it didn’t really flow was occasionally when I would be listening to him talk and I forgot that I had to ask another question so I would have to find my place in my notes again. I actually forgot to ask him a question that I had been planning on asking him which was “what did a typical day look like for you?” It was easy to think of off script questions, but I had trouble trying to connect one idea to another while going off script. I wanted it to be cohesive so I tried to remain mostly on topic with my questions. I think that the amount of the interview that was unscripted was perfect. It allowed my grandfather to share what he wanted to and to add in more information that I hadn’t anticipated in the pre-interview stage while not going off on a tangent.