Interview with Dennis Duffie, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Sara Duffie, April 6, 2020.
For this project, I will be interviewing my grandfather Dennis Duffie. He is currently living in Arizona so I will not be able to talk to him in person, so we agreed to conduct the interview over the phone in the next coming weeks. I decided to interview him because I thought that his military background would be interesting to learn about. He fought in the Army during the Vietnam War, which was a very controversial time in the United States. Since he is my grandfather and we have a close relationship he seems comfortable in talking to me, but it is apparent that it is hard to talk about his time in the war.
Like many veterans, talking about the past and the experiences he went through seem to not be the easiest, but he said he is willing to share some stories. Knowing the difficulty of opening up about his time in the war, I need to make sure that I am not asking insensitive questions. I want him to feel comfortable and I want to make sure that my questions do not sound bias, judgmental, or too deep. My strategies to preventing this is to do deeper research on the war and the feelings of people during it so I can get the best understanding of everything.
In this interview I will be focusing on my grandfather’s experiences in the war and the social changes from the Vietnam War to wars/the military today. I also want to discuss how he thinks the impact war has over people may have changed over time.
“The Vietnam War and Its Impact – American Veterans.” Encyclopedia of the New American Nation,
www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/The-Vietnam-War-and-Its-Impact-American- veterans.html.
This source discusses how the Vietnam War affected the soldiers who fought in it. Veterans from the war suffered numerous physical injuries but also suffered emotionally. Unlike wars such as WWII, the soldiers in Vietnam served individual tours rather than staying with their unit throughout the whole war. This led to many soldiers becoming more detached and made it harder for them to adjust to their old life at home. Soldiers were also not given a warm welcome when they returned home from fighting. The war was very controversial in the U.S and soldiers who fought were not given the most support. After experiencing so much trauma while fighting, the cold welcome home made it even harder for soldiers to deal with their physical and emotional pain.
History.com Editors. “Vietnam War.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009,
www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history.
This source discusses how divisive the Vietnam War was for the country and what the ultimate roots were for the start of the war. Vietnam had been ruled by the French since the 19th century so Ho Chi Minh created the Viet Minh as a league of independence. This was inspired by the other communist countries at the time. This then led to the creation of the Viet Cong (communist Vietnamese) who tortured and killed thousands of people. The U.S was scared that the domino theory would come into effect and countries would start to fall to communism as well. After things in Vietnam continued to heat up and more people started to be held as prisoners and executed, the U.S decided it was necessary to go to war. This led to countless numbers of protests by U.S citizens who did not support the country’s involvement in the war. This ultimately led to a divide within the country.
“Whats Changed In The Military, And Whats Next.” NPR, NPR, 24 June 2013,
www.npr.org/2013/06/24/195225987/whats-changed-in-the-military-and-whats-next.
This source talks about what has changed in the military since Vietnam occurred. Vietnam was a very chaotic war because of all the protests it caused. Since so many people were upset at the U.S involvement in it, it caused the military to change in many ways. After Vietnam the military started using more technology and computerization within their system. The U.S was not fully prepared for the Vietnam War, which led to many issues. This increase in technology has enabled the military to become more prepared when going into battle. There have also been several cultural changes within the military such as who can serve. Women can now enlist in the military as well as gays. This was not always allowed, and this evolvement has helped the country grow and better their military.
SD: Alright so, did you enlist in the army or were you drafted and how old were you? If enlisted, what was your motivation for joining?
Dennis Duffie: Okay so when you say enlist, that usually refers to um well enlisting is not usually for officers. Your brother could not go to the recruiting station and say I would like to enlist as a colonel or I would like to enlist as a lieutenant so the word enlistment only pertains to non-officers. However, I volunteered in college, Michigan State University. What I volunteered for, you can stop me at anytime, was to take the lasat two years of college, junior and senior year, and take ROTC. Do you know what ROTC is?
SD: Yes.
Dennis Duffie: The R is for reserve officers. For example, Kyle (my brother) could be in the army reserves today and be at home for five years. If there is a pandemic or a big war the government may say hey Kyle, you’ve been a reserve officer for the years and you have not had to go to any of these wars… since it is still going on we are going to take you in because you are a reserve officer. So when I was in college, there was a number of colleges that were given land by the government and so they became known as, like Michigan State, became known as land grant universities. Anyway, I did not volunteer to take ROTC as a freshman and a sophomore because it was mandatory, you did not have a choice. (non-transcribed). But for all practical purposes I volunteered because I had decided to take the third and fourth year ROTC program knowing that at a minimum, I would be a reserve officer and I would graduate go do something wherever or go do whatever line of work I wanted to do. In the weekends I would be in the reserves, so I volunteered.
SD: Okay.
Dennis Duffie: But after four years, I did really well in their programs so I was offered a commission as a lieutenant, a second lieutenant, in the regular army not the army reserves. So not only did I get that because I did well, they caled me a DMG. A distinguished military graduate, which means when I graduate I got my diploma I was also given an army lieutenant commission in the regular army, which meant that I was in the army literally the day that I graduate, they sent me down to do training in Fort Benning, Georgia. But to answer the question, for all practical purposes, I volunteered, I didn’t enlist to be an officer because of the ROTC program. I was a regular army officer so I had to go into the army to be an officer.
SD: Gotcha okay, so that covers that.
SD: So were you in the military before the war came up or did you join for the Vietnam War?
SD: But now that you answered that question, you volunteered prior?
Dennis Duffie: No, the war actually started with other countries in 1955 and it went to 1975.
SD: Ah okay.
Dennis Duffie: So I graduated from college in 1965.
SD: Okay.
Dennis Duffie: And what I didn’t know was that I was going to be sent to Vietnam for my first job. I didn’t know that but I um thought the army was better than the Air Force for me because I just thought the opportunities for leadership and the opportunities, I was kind of into sports and the outdoors, so it just seemed better than always flying and supporting airplanes.
SD: Gotcha.
Dennis Duffie: So your dad and me are a little different because he chose air force and I chose army because I thought it was a better fit for me and when you think about it, I was only 18 when I started college so I guess I was going on 20 when I had to decide junior year if I was going to continue with ROTC or if I was going to quit because it is only two years mandatory. I don’t know about Iowa for your dad if it was mandatory but I bet it was. Um I bet it mattered but anyway the war was already going on and if you think about it, the people who were like to professors in the military, they weren’t threatening but they were almost like “hey Mr. Duffie if you don’t take it you might get drafted after you graduate, so maybe you’ll think about going for four years, getting a reserve officer commission. So anyway, they kind of said that to us because they knew the war was still going when we graduated in 1965. Anyway when you’re 18, you’ve been there, it’s hard to make those kind of decisions. Hey you’re going to go into the military for at least four years.
SD: Yeah.
Dennis Duffie: Anyway, that might answer question number two.
SD: Okay so the military today has evolved in many ways such as improving their training. With your experience in the war do you think your instincts took over more or do you feel you needed better training?
Dennis Duffie: For the most part, I think the training was perfect really. They sent me immediately right after graduation, basically I, after gradution, basically I drove all night to be in the army in Georgia to start training the give us. You’re a second lieutenant and have never been in the army you do whole weeks of training in the basic officer course after that they sent me to three more week of training at the airbourne school. So I learned how to be a parachutist, I had five jumps during that training.
SD: wow.
Dennis Duffie: Pardon me go ahead.
SD: Oh nothing you’re good.
Denis Duffie: Then they sent us to Hawaii for what was supposed to be our first assignment and they knew but I didn’t that the moment I got there I was going to get on a boat and go to Vietnam but we were there a few weeks, about four weeks, and we had more training, training, training, training. It was like jungle warfare training and rifle range training. So when we got to Vietnam I felt like okay I at least have had eight week and then three weeks and then four weeks of training that I thought was up to the requirements that I had so I didn’t feel like the training was insufficient. And yeah if you just follow your instincts you can do some wrong things in war.
SD: Very true.
Dennis Duffie: I suppose if the commander says charge and your instinct is to jump in a fox hole and hide, they’re probably going to shoot you as a coward.
SD: Very true.
Dennis Duffie: Alright, that’s number three.
SD: Alright, how do you think the media played a role in the war and how do you think the media involvement in wars has evolved today?
Dennis Duffie: In both cases, in its very best, the media in its very best can tell the Americans what’s going on. In Vietnam we didn’t have cellphones and iPhones, we couldn’t do instant messaging or emails or any of that. So they kept the Americans informed but it was always a little delayed, like a week or two when something would happen the media is trying to get the information back you know from Vietnam to Washington and what they saw they didn’t like so they became the big influencer on the American public. And the American public said this is a bad war we’re not really there in the hearts and minds of Americans. The Americans don’t really give a darn and it was influential in a real sense in that they told the American public hey you should not support this war and then I think in Afghanistan and Iraq the same thing has been happening faster. If the media sees something, within a nanosecond, they have already told Washington or California or wherever their media outlet is, exactly what happened ten minutes ago so it’s kind of instantaneous whereas when I was there you know communicating even with family, you sat down and wrote a letter and then you had to scrounge a stamp from some place. I mean like stick it in the mail delivery, actually we didn’t have to use stamps now that I think about it.
They had the GI’s [ground infantry or general soldiers and airmen as distinguished from officers] send it home without a stamp but anyway the media had a huge role because they would influence the American public against the war and I think the same thing has happened I more recent conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. They said why are we here why are we spending trillions of dollars. I want give you an anecdote if that’s the right word the media sent a reporter from New York City for a newspaper called the New York American Journal. My commander said hey you go sit with Mr. Duffie over there, Lieutenant Duffie, for about a week and wherever they go you go. While the media was in Vietnam a reporter was given to me as a platoon as a platoon I had 43 men and um he was wearing a black vest and a helmet but he had a camera and that’s what his job was, to follow us around and take pictures of what we did and then send them back to the newspaper in New York. And the thing I’m going to send you, have you ever seen that picture of me throwing a hand grenade?
SD: No.
Dennis Duffie:
Well he was with us and during one incident I stood up and threw a hand grenade and he took a picture of it and it came out in a newspaper in New York and a girly magazine somebody told me about I found out there were pictures of ladies in lingerie and on the next page there was that stupid picture of me but there’s a caption and the caption is “Marines, deadly one-armed job” so I am going to insert that when I text you with these written answers. So you sort of have enough on that question?
SD: Yes. Alright. What was your experience with the hostility against the war by U.S citizens?
Dennis Duffie:
What’s funny is that everybody knew there was a lot of hostility against the war. I didn’t see a lot if any, I saw one incident that was pretty bad but for the whole year I was there, I saw nothing that would cause me to think that the American publics should be hostile but in my case as an officer and as a career officer, my family and friends treated me like a war hero. I don’t know why but again I was 23 and I was 22 when I went over, actually I was 23 when I got back and I had no one spit on me or holler at me or say something cruel or rude. It was just the opposite it was “hey this is my son he was in Vietnam”, “hey this is my brother, my big brother, he came back from being a soldier in combat”. So your teacher was asking very good questions but maybe the difference is in what some of the officers experienced versus what the enlisted men and women who were privates who got drafted whose mom and dads didn’t want them to go to war. If Kyle were drafted to go to Afghanistan there may be some hostility with Kent and Kathy saying hey why did you draft my son and send him to war we didn’t want him to do that, he didn’t want to do that, this war is no good.
SD: I gotcha, that makes sense.
Dennis Duffie: That us my experience with that one.
SD: Okay. How did going to war affect and shape family structure? How did you keep in touch with family members?
Dennis Duffie: Okay, Linda and Linda and I exchanged letters regularly but again it would be a week or two or three weeks late so what you’re reading is really old new, really old news. So we decided we would use audio tapes so we had a small four inch casette and we would record um, messages and I Love you’s on this tape and then we would put that in the mail and send it. And the third way we could talk to families do you know a short wave radio?
SD: No.
Dennis Duffie: It’s like, It’s like a wireless thing that goes from any place in the world to another place like you say “hello Sara over” and you say “Hi grandpa or whatever, Papa over” and it’s crazy. It was called MARS you may want to google that.
SD: That’s cool.
Dennis Duffie: So soldiers would line up, officers would get in line, and we would be able to talk to our wife let’s say I think I did it in the whole year, about three times.
SD: Okay.
Dennis Duffie: And Nana always says the operator, Nana would say “what did he say, what did he say” and the operator would say “he said he loves you” and she would say “Oh, tell him I love him”
SD: Haha that’s funny.
Dennis Duffie: That’s one part of the answer, I want to look at the notes I wrote. Family structure may not be the best way to phrase that question but I wanted to say that the war and my participation was hard on the family. We had only been married two months when I went and uh we were in our early twenties people, my wife, my parents, my wife’s parents were always worried and concerned about my safety. They knew that infantry lieutenants were down the dozen in combat and were usually big targets for the enemy. But uh it effected but families, my family and Nana’s family just because for personal safety and all of that.
SD: Gotcha, that makes sense.
Dennis Duffie: And the other thought is When I went back to Vietnam the second time, when I went the first time in 1966 in January for a year and then I came home and when I had to go back in 1970 when I went back for that time we had two kids. A guy named Kent and Lori they were very very young so what I missed as far as family implications of going to war, I missed two kids growing up their whole year when one was, I don’t know how old they were I would have to think about it but I didn’t get to see that part of their childhood. Plus, Nana had to do all the child rearing alone because one she’s worried about me and she has two screaming kids and all because of the war.
SD: Yeah.
Dennis Duffie: Nana took out uh we discovered an audio tape from back in those days and Nana sent it and her voice is about twelve octaves higher than it is right now.
SD: Really?
Dennis Duffie: I’ll have to find it, it’s really cute she talks about Kent and Lori and all the things she’s done she’s so guess what I bought, I bought a wig, wigs are really in fashion now guess what I got I got a wig!
SD: Haha that’s funny.
Dennis Duffie: I gotta find that, I gotta find this tape, so anyway I missed the kid’s activities when they were young and then Linda, Nana had to go through and raise two kids without her husband. Alright so number seven.
SD: How do you think gender roles have evolved since the Vietnam War? Do you think it would’ve been different if women fought in combat?
Dennis Duffie: Bottom line is the Pentagon has looked at this almost every year. Back in the 60s there was no interest it seemed in the part of America or American military or even graduating high school girls there was no interest on them, on their part of going into combat and having a mission that was actually to go out a look for the enemy to kill them, literally. There was no interest, but now as we’ve evolved, originally women in the military were used for roles like secretaries, stenographers, maybe nurses. There was a very limited and that’s evolved now such that , I don’t think there is any job in the military, that if a woman wants to do, a girl, that’s usually they come in at 18, um that they can’t do. They can be in the infantry, or the armour, or the missle, air defense, so that’s how this thing has evolved.
The problem is, I have probably a different opinion than most, there’s a term called national will, it’s like what is the consensus thought of mom’s and dad’s and families? Is it that hey if my daughter wants to join to go be an infantry officer or private I’m all for it and I’m going to go out there and search and actually go looking for the enemy in order to catch them, one or the other. It’s not, I just don’t think there is support for that. I mean widespread support it’s probably minimal, but it has evolved where now our country says hey we don’t want to discriminate women, young women,18, or young men so they can both go into the infantry and armour, and field artillery, and all roles where the job is not to support those kinds of soldiers, rather to be one of them. We started by opening up the signal corps, driver and mechanics, and signal corps and all these different lines of work and only in recent years have we ever thought about opening up combat jobs and now they’re basically all are now open to women.
SD: Gotcha
Dennis Duffie: If women are captured or killed, I’ve got a hunch that support for that would wane for awhile and citizens of the United States would say hey I don’t think that was a good idea, maybe we ought to rethink it. Plus, in my opionion if we went back to the draft, where there aren’t enough volunteers to go to war, they have to draft uh people to go to war. You know a lot of the young men that were drafted during World War II, they really weren’t very interested in becoming infantry privates, at all, so now I wonder is there a problem with uh men who get drafted in the future let’s say are assigned to the infantry against the will, and the women come in I got a hunch there gonna say well we won’t force them into the infantry we don’t want to look stupif by forcing these girls into the infantry if they don’t want to. Then I think what’s going to happen is male soldiers are going to say that discriminatory because you’re telling me just because I’m a male, I have to go in the infantry.
SD: Yeah.
Dennis Duffie: And the reason why my sister doesn’t, so kind of crazy. That’s my two sense on women in the army.
SD: That makes sense, alright when you returned home from serving, could you feel the division of the country because of the varying opinions on the war?
Dennis Duffie: Yeah I really could. When I came back the first time especially the whole country was against this thing called Vietnam and there were instances of cruelty that some soldiers did, because of that, the support for the war was not very good. Uh, we lost 58,000 soldiers, uh and I think the American population probably said that’s enouguh, enough is enough. We want our soldiers to come home and get rid of this war. So anyway the answer is yes I could definitely feel it.
SD: Okay gotcha. How did you integrate yourself back into society after returning home? Was it difficult?
Dennis Duffie: Okay in my case the question is really more oriented towards a young Kyle Duffie who enlists in the army goes in for a couple years has to go to war maybe, comes back and the assumption is that it might be hard to forget all those experiences and go get a job uh with Ernst and Young as a you know?
SD: Mhm.
Dennis Duffie: Ironically, I think that the American industry giants then an now like to brag about the fact that they have looked for young soldiers who have come back from war who survived and have some skills like leadership and discipline kind of like technical skills, just high morality, survive they know how to lead other men and women so I think a lot of those people are integrated pretty quickly.
SD: Okay. That makes sense.
Dennis Duffie: You can also say this, I had a soldier who was in my platoon and I found his name on the internet I can’t think, I was looking at kind of like, it was almost like a club. The unit I was in has meeting every five or six years of veterans of the Vietnam War that were in our unit but anyway I found this guys name and I sent him an email and I was like hey how’re you doing I haven’t talked to you in like 50 years. I got a huge threatening email.
SD: Really?
Dennis Duffie: Yeah. It was almost like he was scared. It’s like oh my god I hope he doesn’t find out where I live. He basically said ever since I got out after two years, ever since 1968 I have been angry and I’ve been spit on and he just goes on and on. You were one of those officers you didn’t have to do this and you didn’t have to do that that (unintelligible) , anyway so there were a lot, a lot of soldiers who did have a difficult time reintegrating. I want to change gears and say for an officer to do a career and get out after fifty years, which is how old I was. I thought I was old but your dads 50. When I got out it was difficult to reintegrate into a job, it just was. I was a full colonel and had a pretty high salary but when you go looking for a job no one was really willing to say hey I don’t really need you to come in here at age 50 without a set of skills, you didn’t grow up at Marriott, you didn’t grow up at General Electric. Over there in the army your skills might not be that good for my company. So in my case I was asked to go into the Red Cross by a three star general, and so I did. My integration became easy because I was invited to go with my three star general and work for him at the Red Cross.
SD: I gotcha, that makes sense.
Dennis Duffie: And the skills were pretty similar because I was his chief of staff and when I went to the Red Cross he needed a chief of staff so that’s what I got to do for him as well.
SD: That’s cool.
Dennis Duffie: Alright, number ten.
SD: Alright, what was one of the biggest challenges you faced when stationed overseas?
Dennis Duffie: Okay I am going to give you, in the notes I’m giving you I’m giving you threefold, because it’s hard for me to pick any one but there were three that come to mind. One is when you have, like when I was commander in Germany I had 600 soldiers. Soldiers, overseas, who are 18 can get into all sorts of messes.
SD: Yeah.
Dennis Duffie: They can get girls pregnant, soldier girls in denial. They can get drunk and hit a German and kill them because that happened to one of my soldiers hit and killed a German, he was drunk. They can say hey I hate this place I don’t want to be in the army. I’m going to take a leave and go to Amsterdam where you Sara have been, because they have a lot of pot and I know I can get pot because it is legal there. It’s not legal in the army so as a commander overseas, the challenge was how do I keep these stupid 18 and 19 year olds out of trouble. No drinking, excessively, no drugs, be careful around young women. You know women that are soldiers are into the young men too. So I had those issues. I think I used to word indiscipline somewhere.
SD: Gotcha, that makes sense.
Dennis Duffie: When you’re overseas there’s usually, (unintelligible), there’s an enormous amount of training and readiness to demand what you do. When you have to wake up at the crack of dawn and get on helicopters to be deployed to different places in Germany and different readiness tests, qualifying for the rifle range it’s sort of like it’s never ending administration and stuff. So you’re I was getting to my office at 4:30am everyday because of the workload. So the workload is very stressful, young soldiers can get into loads of trouble. Then the third thing is what kind of activities can you do to keep family moral up because a lot of wives come with their husbands overseas and are basically isolated in a foreign country. Many of them cannot get a foreign drivers license, they’re stuck basically. There husbands run off and are all excited soldiers are going on exercises and all this. Mom and dad or mom especially and need some sort of outlet so commanders are alwys trying to find opportunities for them to get out, have a picnic, have a celebration, or do something to keep their morale up. So taking care of soldiers who get in trouble, keeping family morale up, and at the same time trying to do all the stupid work they demanded we do overseas. It is very very hectic.
SD: I bet. That sounds crazy.
Dennis Duffie: So anyway, that’s my story.
SD: Awesome. Thank you.
This interview was conducted over the phone. I had to edit it a little when he would speak about things other than the topic. To prepare for conducting the interview, I texted my grandpa to see if he was available and then I went into a quiet room in my house so that there would not be background noise. It was a little more difficult to interview him over the phone because at times there would be an echo, connection loss, or volume difficulty. I recorded it on my computer and called him on my phone to try and limit the muffling noise. Due to the pandemic, I was not able to see him in person so the phone was the only way I could continue with the interview.
Overall, I think it went well. There were definitely some difficulties with the technology such as uploading it from my computer and trying to capture the best sound in the interview. My grandpa talked a lot so he helped to make it flow and provided me with a lot of information, which was helpful. He went in depth on all of the questions so I did not have to diverge from the questions very much.