Martin Foye Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Brianna Baranowski The Vietnam War and Military, March 23, 2016.
The interview was conducted over the phone.In order to record the conversation I had to put the phone call on speaker while garageband recorded the conversation. Some editing was used. I had a quiet space prepared ahead of time.
Martin Foye is my uncle and was stationed in many different areas around the US and in other areas. He just retired from the military entirely a few years ago. My uncle was involved in the Vietnam war and was happy to share his experience.
“Where were you deployed while you were in the military?”
“A training school at Lacton Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Going there three months after I graduated from college and was commisioned in October of 1966 and my next assignment from there was to Denver,Colorado, where i went for seven months for Air Intelligence Training School Education and upon completing that training, Aunt Barbara and I got married in the internum before I actually started the Intellegence training school in Denver between […] so together then from Denver we travelled to Nothern Michigan where I was stationed for three years in a stratigic air command bombwing where I was the wing photo interpreter officer.”
“What did you say? What is that? A wing operative…?”
“I was the wing photo interpretation officer, so we were, my responsibility included building the war plan for the use of nuclear weapons if the president of the United States should order our bomb to go to was and drop nuclear weapons, so we had to build the war plan and I had to, I was trained to look at target photography to help the pilots and the navigators find their ways to the target and deliver their bombs on target.”
“Interesting.”
“So that was my responsibility for there three years […] and at the end of that three year period, I had been selected to go for my graduate degree, and the Air Force sent me to the University of Arizona in Tuson, so sixteen months later I had a masters degree in History and Political Science for the University of Arizona and my reward for that was the assignment to Vietnam for one year. Leaving Barbara with Deb and Trisha, they were toddlers at that point, so for one year she was a single parent while I was gone to Vietnem. Upon my return from Vietnam, I was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, and I spent five and a half years there in a variety of different jobs. All of them as an intelligence anylist, but in different capacities and part of it dealt with inteligence relating to our Vietnam prisoners of war and missing in action. Also in a watch center, 24/7 watch center where we got all kinds of indications of Forgein Policy and National Security Developments. You know there was one time when I was on the telephone, I had one phone talking to the United States Defense […] in Portugal, with one hand to one ear, and in the other ear I’m talking to the White House conveying the report that he had just called in about the death of the dictator in Portugal…laughs… and so making sure that the White House was current on this latest development. […]”
“Interesting”
“Sorry. After I had finished five and a hald years with the Defense Intellegence Agiency the Air Force sent me to the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Lebonworth, Kansas for one year. So I was a student there at the Command and General Staff College with approximately eight hundred other students. Let’s see, forty of us were Air Force, a hand full of Navy and Marines, they were overwhelmingly Army because it is the Army Staff college, but we did also have ninety Forgein Officers from fifty-two countries as fellow students there, so that was a wonderful learning experience in that kind of an environment. At the end of that one year of school, i was returned to the Pentagon for another four years. Where I was on the headquarters US Air Force Intelligence staff and i was a plans and programs officer for those four years.”
“Sorry quick question. Which wars did you take part in then? You tookk part in Vietnam and…?”
“I was in the Vietnam war, yes.”
“Okay.”
“And I was going to say that I concluded my Air Force career after Germany. I returned to the Pentagon for a third time, but this time as a Staff Officer for the national security agency responsible for […] between the NAS and the Office of the Seceritary of Defence and the Defense Intelligence Agency where I had once been assigned and i think they sent me there because I already had two Pentagon assignments: one to DIA, I told you about earlier, and then the second one to Headquarters Air Force Intelligence, so thats where i concluded my Air Force Career and subsequently found employment as a civilian with the National Security Agency which was the last organization I just mentioned i was assigned to while in the Pentagon. So I segwayed from being an Air Force assignee to a NSA Civilian Employee”
“Interesting.”
“So thats the end of my, in short, my Air Force carreer that spand twenty-one and a half years.”
“Well that was a great job, thank you.”
“My pleasure, my privilage”
“So, in the Vietnam war, going back a little bit, were you stationed in Vietnam at the time?”
“I was stationed in Vietnam, I was actually in the capital city, Saigon. That was the name of the capital, but after the communists gained control with the invasion from North Vietnam, when United States turned its back on the South Vietnamese people and we no longer gave them weapons and arms to defend themselves the were overrun by the North Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese communist changed it from Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City, naming it for the communist leader of North Vietnam. Thats how its known today as Ho Chi Minh City”
“Okay. So, […] You probably remember, but your time there in Saigon what was the differencebetween the United States culture and Vietnam’s culture at the time?
“Totally different.”
“How so?”
“I was living for that year in Southeast Asia which is ofcourse where Vietnam is located. Just south of China, on the Indo-China Penninsula, with Cambodia and Laous, and Tailand is also adjacent to it. Very deffinite asian culture there. The people spoke many of them spoke some English in varying degrees of comprehension on my part, but of course with very thick Vietnamese accent. They all spoke French, because Vietnam had previously been a French colony and then when the French left after their military defeat by the Vietnamese nationalist led by Ho Chi Minh, who I said was communist, where they defeated the 1954 at the battle of […] then the United States steped in as the protector of the South Vietnamese, which was prodominetly Buhddist and Catholic. Once the communists gained controled over the South, when the United States left and declinded to give ammunitions to the South Vietnamese then the Catholics faired very badly and were persecuted and a lot of Vietnamese who were very friendly well disposed to the United states ended up in what the North Vietnamese called Re-Education Centers buy they were all like concentration camps where they were subjected to very harsh treatment and I’m sure many of them died in those camps, but it was a totally different culture than anything i had previously been exposed to. The people were very friendly, the food was very different it was asian and i had to get used to a lot of the food as a result, yes i could eat at the officers club i could eat at the dinning hall, the chow hall, but if you went out on the economy, into saigon itself it was going to be vietnamese or french food you would be served. Any time we traveled from one base to another it was by truck or by helicopter and you always you knew you were at risk because it was a war zone of snipers or explosives or in the helicopter having it shot down by shoulder launched ground missel. So there was definitly a risk associated with service over there one of the most profound cultural differences i found was my office was in the compound of the Vietnamese Air Force headquarters where i served as an intelligence advisor to the Vietnamese Air Force headquarters and there the mens room, if you could call it that, consisted of bricks on three sides of a whole in the ground, and you squat over the whole to take care of buisness. So I’d certainly have not experienced anything like that back here in the states.”
“Right, thats really interesting I hadnt really thought about that.”
“I’m with it […] sickness get dissentary over there. Pick up some kind of a bug we were cautioned not to drink, we could not drink the water, it was not potable and we were advised not to drink even local Coca-Cola because, yes it was bottled over there by a distributer franchise but through using the local water. You sometimes look at a bottle of Vietnamese Coke and you can see little something or other floating around in it and didn’t want to get close enough to find out what that was. So usually we would end up, as a result, having to drink beer or wine or US bottled fruit juice for the year.”
“So definitly sounds like you had an experience in Vietnam, more or less.”
“It was an experience yes. But […] well I’m here and I make the most of it and you just, you bare with it and everything had to be very careful of what you ate and what you drank because you could so easily get very sick.”
“Yes exactly. That kind of leads me to my next question to. How was it coming back to the United States after that experience? You just recently retired so how was it leaving the military?”
“Leaving the military? Or leaving Vietnam?”
“A little bit of both.”
“Well leaving Vietnam it was a very welcomed change. I subsuquently felt terrible for the Vietnamese that I met over there knowing that many of them were unable to get out of their country when Saigon fell and the communists took over and knowing that many of them did not fair well and may not have in fact survived those re-education centers and many of them in fact had been shot simply because they were in the military of the former regeme that we had supported and collaborated with, but never the less I was happy to be home. And footnote on that, I flew home from Saigon on Thanksgivng Day, so you can imagine what kind of Thanksgivning that was. Barbara wasn’t expecting me home for another approximately ten days. But I was very happy to be home and as you can imagine Thanksgiving day was a very appropriate day to be coming home. I was very thankful to be arriving home safe and sound, when so many men and women who went over there never came home and some of them didnt come home with all of their physical and mental faculties the way they had left. They came home war casulties, so I came home healthyphysically and mentally so i was very greatful for that.”
“Really I only have one more question for you.”
“Okay”
“My question is do you remember why you wanted to jion the military in the first place or was it because of the draft?’
“It was because of the… Well, first and for most it was the draft. I wasnt given much choice in the matter. I recieved notifi…Of course when I turned eighteen I had to regester for the draft and a t that point i hadnt yet graduated High School when i registered. Approximately, two months before i graduated from Iona i got notice that my student deferment was being changed from student deferment to 1A. Which meant that i was prime candidate to be drafted. So realizing that the jig was up I went to the Air Force recurter. I had no desire to serve in the Army or the Navy, so I thought the Air Force, and if i had to serve my country that the Air Force would be a good way to go. So I went down and applied to the Air Force recruter for admission to Air Force OTS and probably about a month or six weeks after I graduated from Iona and I went to the Air Force recruter an said well I havent heard from the Air Force yet but I already received notice that im being drafted, so what happens now. He said well I think i can talk to the draft board and tell them that you have an application pending, but if you get a second notice and you havent heard from the Air Force I dont think theres anything i can do for you, you will be drafted. I was down in San Antonio probably about three weeks to a month, when Grandma Foye wrote me and told me that my second draft noticehad showed up at the house. So I had made it just in time and going into the Air Force I did say to you earlier and I still do believe this sincerely that it was a privilage and considered a pleasure because this country opened its arms to me as an immigrant boy who was fourteen and a half years old and took me in and gave me an opportunity to get an education and I have been profoundly appreciative of that privalage of being an American citizen that i never considered that just doing my duty. Yes i was going to be drafted, would i have voluntered for the military if i werent being drafted? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not, it sort of forced my hand. I ended up deciding that I liked it, it was good to us, and we saw part of the country and get an educations, more education. I ended up staying with it for twenty-one and a half years longer than i had anticipated I would stay and I left only because your […] cousin Tom […] Tom did not do well moving around as a military kid. He found it very difficult because he was so young, he was only eight when I left the military, but every move was very difficult, he just didnt adjust quickly enough. So i said i’ve got to leave, I can’t continue to do this to this young boy. His sisters did beautifully, but not he you know we’re all different. Well I decided to get out sooner than I otherwise might have. You know I might have stayed much longer than twenty-one and a half years. I got a job with NSA and sort of didn’t look back.”
“So that really it for the interview and I just have one more basic question. Any of the information here do you want to keep it private? Or if i share it with my class is that alright?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Okay.”
“yes, Yes, I don’t have any problems that there.”
“ Okay, well that’s it. Thank you so much for your time.”
“Well its my privilage.”