Interview with Bob Tschida, History 150 Spring 2023, Conducted by Torin White, March 19, 2023.
Overview:
Bob Tschida talks about his horrific experiences being a Navy seal in the Vietnam War. He talks about the struggles of leaving his family behind and leaves them with the knowledge that they may never see him again. These experiences include the overuse of Agent Orange by the Americans in Vietnam, and how that chemical has affected him to this day. Also about how he was captured by the enemy and held prisoner. He also explains how the return of him and his fellow American soldiers wasn’t as they expected. The Vietnam War was a very controversial war for America. The media and protestors were not so welcoming to the returning soldiers from the war. Bob explains his experiences with returning from the war, and how he dealt with the hatred thrown toward his way. Lastly he talks about how the American economy was affected by the war and how he dealt with his money after returning.
Biography:
I interviewed my Grandfather Robbert(Bob) Tschida, who is a Navy war veteran and served in the Vietnam War. He was born in Mexico and adopted at a very young age by a family who lived in California. He lived in many states across the US, including Hawaii which is where my mom was born. He moved many times because of his work being in the Navy. Throughout the interview Bob explains is experiences and mostly talk to him about what was different after the Vietnam war. This interview gave me a different understanding of what post vietnam war was like in the perspective of a soilder.
Transcript:
Torin 0:01:
Okay, I’m here with Bob Tschida, my grandpa who was a Navy Commander war vet from the Vietnam War. And we’re going to be talking about his experiences during the war and post war. So to get started, how long before the war did you join the Navy?
Bob 0:28:
I joined the Navy in 1959. Vietnam War started officially in 1955.
Torin 0:40
Oh, Okay.
Bob 0:43
So it was a few/couple of years after that it started when the US first got involved with Vietnam, they just sent over advisors. So there wasn’t a lot of interplay between us, meaning the US in Vietnam to later.
Torin 1:05
Okay. Awesome. Where were you first deployed when the war started?
Bob 1:13
I was deployed on several different ships. Mainly destroyers, and we would spend six months deployed in the Pacific, we would go to Japan, Taiwan.
Torin 1:40
Oh, just staying on the ships.
Bob 1:43
On the ships, yeah.
Torin 1:48
Okay, and before being deployed, did you know anything about Vietnam as a country? And what were your first impressions of the country when first arriving?
Bob 1:57
I knew nothing about Vietnam before. So when I arrived, my first impressions were, boy is it hot here.
Torin 2:10
I bet.
Bob 2:12
The terrain was jungle mostly, and Rivers. The people of course had their own ethnic backgrounds, which were different than us. They dress differently. They had different values?
Torin 2:29
Yeah. So completely tropical.
Bob 2:30
Yes.
Torin 2:33
Okay. While in combat, what were the biggest challenges you faced in the heat of the war?
Bob2:39
Oh, my God. The biggest challenge, of course, was staying alive.
Torin 2:45
Yeah.
Bob 2:49
For me, and the men that I was in charge of. I guess that was the biggest Yes.
Torin 3:02
I remember. You did tell me. Weren’t you a prisoner, weren’t you kept prisoner
Bob 3:09
Oh god, yes I was, for a day though, and we escaped and were rescued.
Torin 3:19
How did you escape? Or are you not allowed to say,
Bob 3:23
I’d rather not talk about that.
Torin 3:25
Okay. That’s fine.
Bob 3:28
No, that’s okay. But we did escape, they had two of us. In a bamboo cage.
Torin 3:35
Really?
Bob 3:40
And we escaped from there and found our way back to the rivers. And eventually, one of our river boats picked us up.
Torin3:50
Really? That’s awesome. It must have been awful. Alright, was there any way of contacting your family and friends back at home during the war?
Bob 4:06
No, there was only letters. No phones, no cellphones, no internet. We just wrote letters.
Torin 4:16
Only letters. And how long did it take, normally, to get a letter from your family? Or if you were to send one out?
Bob 4:24
Usually about two weeks.
Torin 4:27
Two weeks. Okay. Did you write to your family regularly?
Bob 3:30
I wrote to my family, I wrote something, at least every day. The letter would probably be finished in about a week and I’d send it off
Torin 4:47
Okay. Okay. Awesome. And I did some research on Agent Orange. Agent Orange.
Bob 4:58
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Torin 5:00
So that’s like an herbicide that the US military like sprayed around to kill like brush.
Bob 5:09
It was sprayed to defoliate the air, because it was a jungle.
Torin 5:15
Yeah cause it was so thick. Just make it easier on you guys, right?
Bob 5:20
Yes. But it also affected us.
Torin 5:22
Yeah, I know
Bob 5:26
My voice is one of them. I contacted Agent Orange while I was there. I didn’t feel any effects of it during the time until I got home. I got cancer in my vocal tube. They operated on it. But my voice is different because of it. I had two heart attacks because of Agent Orange, both of which were corrected, and I had one kidney removed, that was cancerous because of Agent Orange.
Torin 6:03
Oh, wow, that’s awful. So at the time, they didn’t think it was any harm to the human body at all.
Bob 6:08
Right. Right. But they found out differently.
Torin 6:13
Yeah. That’s awful. And they dumped so much of it over the country. Okay. And when you returned, did you feel not wanted or underappreciated by the media and protesters?
Bob 6:27
You know, yes and no. Protesters, the only time I came in contact with protesters was through the. Excuse me, through the media. No face to face.
Torin 6:44
Oh okay, just like on newspapers, and.
Bob 6:47
So I would see what was going through newspapers and television. Did it affect me? Yeah, somewhat, I felt a little bit underappreciated.
Torin 7:03
Yeah, because all the other wars, the returning soldiers were praised and everything. But like, the Vietnam War was so controversial, that like, not a lot of people… and they should be bashing the government, not the soldiers who fought for you, like you were sent to protect them
Bob 7:26
But, you know while we were there. We didn’t think about are we put in the back of our minds our own feelings about the war, because we were there to do a job. And that was the foremost in our minds to be successful and do that.
Torin 7:45
Yeah exactly, exactly. That’s a good way to think about it while you’re there. How was your life different after you returned?
Bob 7:56
Not much. I must say that my life afterwards was about the same as it was before. We kind of shied away from any protest movements. No direct conferences as I said earlier. We were glad to be home.
Torin 8:31
Yeah. Where were you living at the time?
Bob 8:36
In Virginia.
Torin 8:39
In Virginia. Okay, were you still living with your parents at the time? Or did you have your own house?
Bob 8:47
My parents died about that prior to me coming back. Actually, prior to me going.
Torin 8:54
Oh, really? I did not know that. How old were you? You were young, correct.
Bob 9:07
Pardon?
Torin 9:08
How old were you? When you went in? You were very young right?
Bob 9:11
I went in country in Vietnam. I was 40.
Torin 9:19
Oh, really? Okay.
Bob 9:25
I did a, as everybody did, a one year term in Vietnam, in country we called it.
Torin 9:30
Okay. So, you were there for one year?
Bob 9:35
Yeah.
Torin 9:41
Okay. And the last question I have here is I reached research that the war severely damaged the American economy. In what ways were you affected by this change at all?
Bob 9:50
Not really. As I said, We’ve. No I didn’t. We moved a lot. And our feelings were experiences were, that wherever we lived the economy was good in some areas and different in others such as well, food might be more expensive in some areas, but not in others. But we always had the support of the military in what was called commissaries where the price of food was less than on the economy.
Torin 10:39
Oh really? For, for the soldiers? Is that how they helped you out greatly after the war?
Bob 10:45
Yeah. Well it was during the whole time.
Torin 10:49
It was just the whole time you were there?
Bob 10:50
Yeah.
Torin 10:52
What other ways did the military help you after the war? Like did you have a lot of downtime afterwards?
Bob 11:00
I had 30 days, downtime.
Torin 11:02
Really?
Bob 11:05
But certainly the military took care of me with all my ailments after the war.
Torin 11:14
That’s good. Yeah, that’s good.
Bob 11:18
Excuse my voice.
Torin 11:20
It’s okay. As they should, I feel. As they should, I feel, help you with that. After dumping that agent orange everywhere, not doing enough research on that.
Bob 11:33
True. But it was all part of virtual.
Torin 11:40
That’s good. Were you definitely proud of yourself afterwards, making it through?
Bob 11:50
I was, I was proud of myself. That part of the war we call it “in country” was completely, what we did was different than what we did normally do in the Navy.
Torin 12:08
Really?
Bob 12:09
We acted more like soldiers in Vietnam than we did driving ships in the ocean.
Torin 12:18
Oh, really? So you’re on land more time?
Bob 12:22
We were in. On land yeah.
Torin 12:24
More than in the sea.
Bob 12:30
In the rivers, we weren’t at sea at all. So, we got around on what were called swift boats. They were fast patrol boats that monitored the rivers. And then with our special forces, we conducted operations in the jungle.
Torin 12:52
Okay. They were smaller boats, were the rivers like real narrow.
Bob 13:00
In some cases, yes.
Torin 13:02
Did you get stuck at all?
Bob 13:05
Yep. Lots of time. We’d have to push ourselves off.
Torin 13:07
Oh, geez. That’s awesome. Good experience. Good experience to look back on, I’m sure.
Bob 13:15
Yeah, it was you know, I…
Torin 13:20
Seeing a whole different country.
Bob 13:22
Back on that experience, I think it was a good experience.
Torin 13:30
That’s good. Awesome. Well, thank you for letting me interview for this history class. Appreciate you coming out here and letting me understand a little bit more about after the Vietnam War, and during.
Bob 13:47
Thank you. Thank you, anytime.
Torin 13:49
Awesome, thank you.
Research:
One historical background is the use of Agent Orange by the US military in the Vietnam war for tactical use. It was used as a herbicide to get rid of all the smaller trees and brush on the ground getting rid of “hiding spots” for the Vietnamese. What they didn’t know is that this chemical had major side effects on Vietnamese people and US soldiers, like my grandpa. These side effects include skin diseases, different types of cancers, lots of miscarriages, and birth defects(5:26). Bob happened to get cancer in his vocal tube caused by Agent Orange. The US strayed over 20 million gallons of herbicide over Vietnam and Cambodia land from 1961-1971.
Another historical background related to this war was that America’s economy was greatly impacted after the war had come to an end. Taxes for citizens had skyrocketed to pay for all the damages the war produced. The US military morale was severely less strong after the war just due to all the casualties and equipment destroyed. This caused President Johnson to start inflation throughout the US. After asking my Grandfather about this he stated that his life wasn’t impacted too much(9:50). The US government helped the soldiers out a lot by giving them no inflated food prices. The last thing I researched before the interview was how the soldiers were treated when returning from the war. Vietnam soldiers were looked down upon by the media and protesters against the war. They portrayed a very hostile attitude towards these returning soldiers. Some soldiers were not let into restaurants and were attacked by signs. During this time there was no warm welcome like in past wars for the soldiers who just risked their lives for Americans’ safely. When I asked Bob about this we said he never had any up-close interaction with a protestor, he tried his best to avoid them(6:27). But he did see them on the news and was disappointed in his country.
Bibliography:
“Coming Home: A Study in Contrast.” San Joaquin Delta College, 14 Mar. 2018, https://www.deltacollege.edu/student-life/student-media/delta-winds/2001-table-contents/coming-home-study-contrast#:~:text=Unlike%20the%20hero%20status%20given,signs%20with%20anti%2Dwar%20slogans.
Editors, History.com. “Agent Orange .” History.com, 2 Aug. 2011, https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange-1.
“The War Consequences.” Digital History, Digital History, 2021, https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3469.
Interview Technology and Process:
This interview was taken in person, recorded on my phone using “voice memos”. Editing the transcription did take awhile, maining due to my grandfathers voice, the ai didn’t pick up a lot of what he was saying. When I was returning from sprind break my grandfather picked me up from the airport and brought me back to his house to conduct the interview.