Interview with Leroy Faust, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Savannah Haley, April 6, 2020
Leroy Faust (circa 1991) two years after he was appointed Colonel.
a. Leroy Faust served in the Airforce from June 1967 – July 1993 (26 years, 1 month, 28 days). He’s held Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel. His primary specialties were Communications Computer Systems Director (6 years); and Commander/Communications Computer Systems Officer (20 years). His military education is very extensive and started at the National Defense University (May 1981).
He has been given numerous awards like the Defense Superior Service Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal (One Oak Leaf Cluster). He provided base telephone, telecommunications support and/or air traffic control services at the Air Force installations like the F.E Warren Air Force Base. He served as Commanding Officer in various communication squadrons. Also, he served as Senior U.S Advisor to the Commanding General, Communications/Air Traffic Control Wing, Chinese Air Force(Taipei, Taiwan).
He served on the battle staff as the communications/electronics officer for the 416th Bombardment Wing and provided telecommunications/air traffic control services in support of assigned B52s aircraft that were on strategic nuclear alert. He served as the Chief Negotiator for telecommunications mutual support agreements between Headquarters U.S. European Command and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allied nations. He authorized communications annexes to the US. European war plan (4102 Plan) supported a full range of warfare including nuclear war. He supported various communications initiatives of national significance in support of U.S. Continuity of Government programs with a focus on late trans/post-nuclear attack.
b. My grandfather was a part of Airforce during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War started as a war against French colonial rule in the region. It turned into a Cold War confrontation between international communist and anti-imperialist forces and free-market democracy.
North Vietnam was run by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DVR), it was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist countries. Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Vietnam communist party wanted to unite the country under communist rule.
The Republic of Vietnam (ROV) was in the South and was allied with the U.S. and other anti-communist countries. In the Spring of 1961, the administration of John F. Kenndey expanded U.S. support for the South Vietnam government, fearing that if Vietnam became communist so would others in the region.
President Johnson also believed in the so-called “dominio theory” and pursued a containment strategy. He drastically increased U.S. involvement by permitting a series of intense bombing campaigns and sending hundreds of thousands of U.S. ground troops to fight.
In 1968, the Tet offensive happened was a bold North Vietnam attack on the south, showing many U.S. officials that they could not win this war. In fact, rising opposition to the war was one of the major factors in Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection in 1960. Nixon campaigned for president with a “secret plan” to end the war in Vietnam. Eventually, he expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia. He eventually pursued the gradual withdrawal of American troops and the increasing reliance on South Vietnam armed forces. By the end of 1969, the number of American troops was cut in half.
In 1973 the Paris Peace Accords established that the last remaining U.S. troops in Vietnam would be withdrawn. In 1976, North Vietnam won and the country was united under a communist government. It was a clear defeat for the U.S. but the surrounding countries of Vietnam did not fall to communism which proved the domino theory false.
Leroy Faust is a former airforce officer. The Airforce did resupply missions, medical evacuations, and rescue missions but the most important part of their involvement in the war was their bombardment of the enemy positions. American airpower ravaged North Vietnam’s troops, infrastructure, supply positions with modern fighters, bombers, strategic B-52 bombers operated from Guam, and other attack aircraft.
Anti-war sentiment
America’s rapid military involvement in the Vietnam war resulted in one of the largest social movements in America’s history. The antiwar movement used education, politics, politics, and peaceful protest to call for a negotiated settlement in Vietnam rather than war. The public’s knowledge of the movement came from the media’s coverage of mass demonstrations. The beginning of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam in 1965, provided sharp focus and simulation to the loose coalition of people who disliked the war. The military draft also added to the anti-war sentiment with 1,000s resisting the draft through legal and illegal methods. Anti War activists were not impressed with Nixon’s efforts to lessen the anti-war sentiment and they increased their protests. Nixon was harsh on anti-war activists and appealed for support from the “silent majority.” Press coverage of anti-war activists became more negative. However, Vietnamization lessened U.S. troops and casualties in Vietnam and helped defuse domestic protest in 1969. That did not last because the U.S. invaded Cambodia in 1970 and resulted in the movement’s most extensive and tragic protests. One of them being Ohio Kent State University where National Guardsmen fired in a crowd and killed four people. Some of the public could not tolerate any expansion of a war they thought was winding down. The release of the Pentagon Papers in 1970 damaged government credibility, created greater public disillusionment and decreased the tolerance for an extended war effort.
Hall, Mitchell K. “The Vietnam Era Antiwar Movement.” OAH Magazine of History, vol. 18, no. 5, 2004, pp. 13–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25163716. Accessed 11 Apr. 2020.
Pritzker Military Museum & Library. “Armed Forces of the Vietnam War.” Armed Forces | Vietnam War | Pritzker Military Museum & Library | Chicago, www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/vietnam-war/armed-forces/.
“The Vietnam War (Article) | 1960s America.” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1960s-america/a/the-vietnam-war.
Transcription
c.Savannah Haley 0:02
Can you just state your name?
Leroy Faust 0:05
Poppy [interviewee rolled his eye]. Leroy Faust.
Savannah Haley 0:10
To start off, how would you describe experience up the NATO school?
Leroy Faust 0:14
Right. That was a good experience. It was interfacing with other senior NATO officers in a national arena to discuss military, economic and geopolitical challenges that were facing NATO. At the time, that was 1982. America went there.
And you know what NATO is.
Savannah Haley 0:39
I did but I can’t remember
Leroy Faust 0:40
It’s NATO is a civilian-military organization. It was formed right after World War II to stop the Soviet takeover of Western Europe. That’s, it was a gentleman score and what I mean by that, no tests.
Savannah Haley 1:03
No tests wow.
Leroy Faust 1:04
It was a good school. So that’s the answer to that one.
Savannah Haley 1:08
Okay. What causes shaped your decision to join the airforce?
Leroy Faust 1:14
Several reasons, one was to avoid being drafted by the army. Nobody wanted to go into the army during Vietnam, it was a terrible place; to serve the country and its opportunity for travel. The pay was good, the opportunity for promotion based upon merit and challenges: you know, education, training, and the Vietnam War was going on. I felt an obligation to serve the country.
Savannah Haley 1:50
You were an Air Force officer, what did that entail?
Leroy Faust 1:54
Providing leadership and particularly in the military, if you’re an officer, you get leadership at a really, a very young, young age. At 24 years old I was in charge of 1000 people in an industry. [You] don’t just don’t get those opportunities, making decisions, challenges, opportunities for advancement and also there’s opportunities for failure too. Yeah like in the military if you make one big mistake your career is over with. It’s that simple. So okay.
Savannah Haley 2:35
What did you think of the Vietnam War as an Air Force officer?
Leroy Faust 2:39
Stupid war stupid. They were supporting the domino theory. You know about the dominion theory?
Savannah Haley
Yeah, I know about the domino theory.
Leroy Faust
It was all bullcrap because if Vietnam fell, you know, and it was supposed to be Thailand, Cambodia, and go all the way across Southeast Asia and India. None of us happened. The theory was wrong. It was the wrong war, wrong place and at the wrong time, we should have never gotten into it. Kennedy, President De Gaulle told Kennedy not to get into that, [President Kennedy’s I am assuming] workers, friends, family said we can’t win this and they left. And there’s a war we couldn’t win, at least not conventionally. I mean, not that by conventional means, which is not nuclear. We could have won it in a day. Or an hour. One or two. Just nuke and back to the Stone Age. You can’t justify that. It was a waste of national treasure and a waste of money. It was a waste of lives. The world could not win it, you know, and a lot of it was John, President Johnson, a terrible president and he escalated that thing because he didn’t want to be the first president to lose a war. They had a military-industrial complex. That was the industry making a lot of money off. The war and wanted to see it. This is all my opinion. They wanted to see it go on. It was just a stupid war. And the problem is, we’ve never learned from that war and any other war, we make the same mistakes. We’ve been in Afghanistan now. 17 years for work. We spent $4 trillion in the Middle East for what is the worst place in the world than it was when Saddam Hussein was in. So anyway, that’s that answer to that, that’s what I think about the Vietnam War.
Savannah Haley 4:34
I mean, I want your opinion, because this is your perspective on this type of thing.
Leroy Faust 4:37
I thought that night I think that now, and I thought that then, and I thought it before I went in the Air Force. It was a stupid war. We couldn’t win it. We’ve had no business in there, just stupid.
Savannah Haley 4:49
Yes.
Leroy Faust 4:51
We lost 53,000 lives in that stupid war. That’s just our side.
Savannah Haley 4:59
So, what were the biggest changes in the military during your career?
Leroy Faust 5:04
One of the first ones was, well, the all-volunteer force went to the draft, get rid of the draft because Vietnam, and the draft was really unfair. Yeah, it was really unfair. Plus the military didn’t want to, you know, in the military, we didn’t want people in our forces that didn’t want to be there, you know, so we got to hire quality people. But that was a big transition going to all-volunteer forces, not so much for the Air Force because the Air Force always attracted high-quality people because we’re a very technical service, but the army has a lot of problems like meeting the goals for the old volunteer force. Also, the transition from a wartime environment to peacetime and one transition after the Vietnam War. When that false stopped the military really had a hard time; funding went away, national priorities changed. You had to volunteer all-volunteer force. We had all these people coming back from Vietnam that were drug addicts. That was a big problem. I mean, I was a commander, then choice, you know, and I had court-martial authority and all that. And I threw a lot of people out since a lot of people were in jail because of drugs. It was a terrible time. Vietnam War, Cold War, and also the Cold War. But the transition out of the Cold War, that’s where the Soviet Union collapsed, but I didn’t see much of that because I retired in 94. And that happened in about 92 or 93. And also, [the] expansion of women into the military. When I went in 67. We had women but not a lot of women. They could only go in a certain career field. Like admin, and that type of thing. And they started opening them up. Just recently got up to combat and all that. So that was a big adjustment.
Savannah Haley 7:10
You already kinda touched on this but Vietnam was met by a lot of opposition by the American public. What else contributed to this sentiment, not just the amount of deaths.
Leroy Faust 7:21
Well, press reporting it every night. Every night on TV, [unintelligible], the main news media, which was a good thing yeah brought it they brought the war. The front lines, they were there, right into American homes. And they see all these see America, America, America, our culture and everything we want things quick and overwhelmed.
Savannah Haley 7:51
Yeah
Leroy Faust 7:51
We don’t. And after about six months body bags started coming back. Every week, there were thousands of people being killed. It lost, it lost its support.
Savannah Haley 8:04
Especially when the pentagon papers came out.
Leroy Faust 8:08
And then I’m going to get to some of that. Press every evening. You know, nightly reports of U.S. deaths, prolong fighting, there wasn’t any insight. Then this student unrest contributed a lot. Student unrest, you know, protests and everything. And then there was an incident at Kent State University, with the National Guard, who had weapons, they killed people that really caused the problems. And then there was income, correct assessments of threat, and senior military and civilian. In my opinion, and we were incompetent, they just were totally incompetent. Johnson and his administration was incompetent. Westmoreland, who was four-star generals in charge of the war, kept on asking for more and more people. He should have realized we weren’t winning the war and they lied a lot about body counts. They lied about how many enemies were being killed. I mean, it was just it was, it was a disaster. So all those things contribute to and then finally, why it ended and why then it was Congress refused to fund it. Wouldn’t make it appropriate. That ended it. And then Nixon came on.
Savannah Haley 9:37
Taking the war out of Vietnam.
Leroy Faust 9:39
He got us out of there. Alright, that’s it.
Savannah Haley 9:43
Okay. What role did the airforce have in the Vietnam War?
Leroy Faust 9:46
Mainly the airlift was strategic tactical bombardment. That was the main thing then evacuating people was mainly, bombing, bombing you know, fighters and B52s into twos, bombing the South and the interdicting the lines of communications the supply lines from the north and bombing annoy. just bombing.Conventional weapons.
Savannah Haley 10:17
How would you compare the conditions of the different branches in the military during the Vietnam War?
Leroy Faust 10:20
From worst to best? Worse was the army. They had it the worst. And then the Marines, and then the Air Force. And then the Navy, because the Navy went out on ships and went on. So that was how I would rate it as far as worst to best. And the army, the army lost a lot of people.
Savannah Haley 10:47
Yeah. Even though you did not serve in Vietnam, what effect did it have on you?
Leroy Faust 10:52
I lost a lot of confidence in other people back there in our military-civilian leadership. It was a senseless loss of life. Another thing we did, we never had an exit strategy. We knew how to get in there but we couldn’t figure out how to get out of there. That’s the problem we have in Iraq and Afghanistan. We didn’t have an exit strategy.
Savannah Haley 11:24
Yeah
Leroy Faust 11:25
How are you gonna get out of there once you topple the government, they own the place. What are you gonna do? And the problem is we don’t understand their history, don’t understand their culture. We don’t understand their religion, and we’re gonna establish democracy in that part of the world. You’re crazy. You know, democracy. First of all, you got to have an enlightened society. No, Europe was totally different. European culture was very similar to the U.S. Than it was with those people.
Savannah Haley 11:55
Yeah, Eastern and Western cultures are very different.
Leroy Faust
Very different.
Savannah Haley
So you worked with…
Leroy Faust 12:02
Life. The value of life. Life, life doesn’t mean the same thing in eastern cultures. You know, China.
Savannah Haley 12:11
Yeah, they are a lot more collectivist than we are.
Leroy Faust 12:12
As it does here. I knew I found that I saw that in Taiwan. You know, okay.
Savannah Haley 12:19
You worked with nuclear weapons, what effects did nuclear weapons have on military and warfare?
Leroy Faust 12:23
It changed everything, it changed everything. The way we planned war and the problem is you gotta have the problems, you got to have nuclear weapons. So the other side doesn’t use their nuclear weapons. But then what do you do if you can’t really use them? Unless you want to have a strategic nuclear war Holocaust, you don’t want to have that? So we went through in war planning, we went through several concepts, one was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. In other words, we will be so powerful, that if somebody attacks us, it guarantees that they will be destroyed, too. And then there was also peaceful coexistence. You know, we’re gonna live with these bastards, but we’re gonna do it peacefully because we can’t afford a war. And we can’t afford war because it’ll be a nuclear war. And some of the problems that we had like in Europe when I was there, how we plan at least and I wrote war plans when I was in Europe the 4102, which was the European war plan. I wrote annexes to that plan. And the problem that you had over there was it, the Soviet Union and their allies, the Warsaw Pact nations attacked and came through the Fulda Gap in Germany with their tanks and everything. And we could sustain and stop them for about two days. But their numbers were so overwhelming that somebody had to make a decision because we did and we were committed because we had [replace “because we did we were commited” with “and we did because” and it makes more sense], what made us committed was we had all of the US citizen dependents over there in Europe. You know you lived. You didn’t live there, your mother lived there.
Savannah Haley
Yeah
Leroy Faust
We have thousands, hundreds of thousands. So we were committed.
Savannah Haley
Yeah.
Leroy Faust
So after two couple days, we had to make a decision. Either we just give up or go nuclear. And thank God it never, never happened. And we would have gone nuclear. I was [unintelligible]. This is disgusting. I knew one man. This one full colonel, I was an attendant colonel at the time. [The colonel] Said ‘what we’ll do, we’ll take a missile and we’ll do an airburst over the Soviet Union to show them our resolve. That we’ll use nuclear weapons. We’ll do it.” I remember I looked at this guy and I said,” Are you f***ing crazy? I said you don’t know a goddamn thing about the Soviet Union or Russia, and their history. They’re so hyper about defending the Motherland, you. You love a nuclear weapon above them. I tell you that I guarantee you, they’re gonna do they’re gonna sign off every damn thing they have towards the United States”. That’s crazy. So that was taken out of the plan. I mean it was dumb. Then he had to do time. That was Nixon. And I can’t remember what other but it was just different types of things of how you are. How you would fight a war if you try to keep it conventional. You did not want to go nuclear. And what happened to Reagan, he defeated the Soviet Union economically. He drove it to the ground. They couldn’t compete and the economy collapsed. That’s what happened to the Soviet Union. But as far as the threat today, the threat of an all-out strategic nuclear war is much, much, much less than it was during the Cold War.
Savannah Haley 16:16
Tensions aren’t as high tensions because tensions aren’t as high, or is it? [I had to repeat it again for him to hear] Because tensions aren’t as high?
Leroy Faust 16:22
Yeah, yeah. But you know, but the threat of somebody loving a nuclear weapon or something is much greater. Yeah, because you have all these rogue nations, and all these terrorist groups if they get hold of a nuclear weapon. During the Cold War, it was basically the allies. I mean, there was NATO, the U.S., and its allies against the walls of [unintelliable]. Everybody understood what the spheres of influence were. What the rules of engagement was. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, that all changed so that there were no rules. Still not with these terrorists and that’s what’s his name? Bush and Clinton and all of them have tried to show that if you hit us we’re gonna come back and we’re gonna hit you will eventually get you and we’ll kill ya. And it took, what 10-15 years to get Bin Laden but we got him. But then they don’t care because you know they’re killing you know in the name of Allah they go to you know, they get seven versions and all this crap you know the people that look friggin nuts.
Savannah Haley 17:39
Yeah, I think anyone in power is a little bit nuts. [I had to repeat my self for him to hear.] Anyone in power is a little bit nuts.
Leroy Faust
I don’t know about that. I don’t know if I would agree with that.
Leroy Faust 17:52
So that’s, got any other questions.
Savannah Haley 17:56
No that’s it. Thank you.
Leroy Faust 17:58
Oh, you’re recording I forgot.
e.This was conducted in person. I currently live with my grandparents so I was not endangering him. I edited it a lot because my grandfather has a low voice and the otter.ai could not understand some of it so I had to edit it so it made sense. I also edited some of it for clarity because some of the things he said did not make sense by just reading it off of the transcript. I went into a family room, it was away from the rest of my family but my dog followed me in. So you can hear her scratching at her collar and panting in the recording. My grandfather’s dog was also in the room and she doesn’t like my dog so you could hear her growling at times. I also did not realize until after the interview was recording that you could hear my mom talking in the kitchen.
f. If I could do it over, I would have interviewed in the basement where the dogs could not follow us. I also would not have said yeah as much. I was good at not interjecting “yeah” at the beginning but I forgot about that later on. It messes up the flow of the interview and also made it way harder to transcribe. I think the interview flowed pretty well there was not a lot of awkward silences but my grandfather did interrupt me sometimes because I gave him the questions in advance and I think he was excited to get his answers out. I could have ordered my questions better to make the interview flow. For example, I should have followed up “What did you think of the Vietnam War” with “What role did the airforce have in the Vietnam War? instead of “So, what were the biggest changes in the military during your career?”. It went off-script at the end when I asked about tensions. He started discussing terrorists and Allah and I did not want to go down that route because I did not want the interview to go into Eurocentric of Mulsim or the east. So I tried to my opinion that you can not judge a whole group of people based on some crazy people of that group. I do not think I expressed that opinion well with “Yeah, I think anyone in power is a little bit nuts. Anyone in power is a little bit nuts.” However, I should not have added my opinion since its an interview and I did not want to end the interview in disagreement.