‘I Did A Lot Of Growing’ in Vietnam
Nimrod man’s Army unit was one of first in Vietnam
By Jennie Zeitler
Ray Hiedeman of Nimrod graduated from Breckenridge High School in 1962, having grown up on a farm between Breckenridge and Fergus Falls. Vietnam was not a country talked about on the daily news at that point in time.
Ray finished a two-year program in industrial drafting at Wahpeton (ND) State School of Science in 1964. Vietnam still wasn’t popping up in the news, and it definitely wasn’t anyone’s focus. Ray worked in the Twin Cities for a few months. One day back at home, his life took a different turn.
“I stopped at the recruiting office and found out that I hadn’t been in their records, because I was born in Fergus Falls and not in Breckenridge,” he said.
Ray went ahead and volunteered in order to set things in motion. He figured that the draft was inevitable and he wanted to speed up the process.
By the time he left for training, his advanced schooling had netted him some perks in the Army. Throughout his training, he was a squad leader.
“I never once had to do KP the whole time I was in the service,” he said.
Ray’s induction into the Army was Sep. 25, 1964, in Fargo. He started basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
“We took a train from Fargo to St. Louis, and then another train from St. Louis to Fort Leonard Wood,” he said.
He and his buddies checked in about 1 a.m. The quartermaster was closed by then, where they had to pick up supplies.
“There were no mattresses. I had two wool blankets and slept on the floor that night,” said Ray.
They were housed in an old World War II barracks, which had heat. But because of an outbreak of spinal meningitis at the basic training Army post of Fort Lewis, Washington, they were required to keep a window open all night for fresh air at Fort Leonard Wood also.
“The water froze overnight in the cigarette butt can,” Ray remembers.
When basic training was done, he went home on leave, Dec. 10, 1964.
He started the new year by reporting for Advanced Individual Training, Jan. 1, 1965, to become a military policeman. By the end of March, he was at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
After several months there, and with less than a year remaining in his enlistment, Ray and other soldiers were given a new assignment that they weren’t told much about. It was still only January 1966 and talk of escalations in Vietnam was mostly rumors.
“Everyone’s leave was canceled,” Ray said. “When we were on the ship en route, the orders to Vietnam were confirmed. It was 22 days of rough weather. Near the Philippines it was really miserable.”
Troops that came after them were flown, rather than being transported by sea.
Ray’s unit was ordered to take the area around Cu Chi and make a camp there.
“The U.S. presence in Vietnam was pretty new and nothing had been established yet,” said Ray. “The personnel who were already there were advisors.”
It took most of two months, but Cu Chi was then in American hands. The wooded jungle area was cleared and a base camp for the 25th Division was set up. A perimeter was established and then expanded. Extensive Viet Cong tunnels into the area were cleared. Enemy ammunition and supply caches were confiscated. Mines and booby traps were neutralized.
This was all part of a 25-day airlift ‘Blue Light’ that moved 9,000 tons of equipment and 4,000 men by the 25th Division.
Tents were set up, with more permanent structures added later.
“We tried to dig foxholes in the ground with an entrenching tool, but it was just like solid brick,” Ray said.
They would discover how quickly solid clay the consistency of bricks changed to mud, once the rainy season started.
“A lot of things changed just during the first couple months,” Ray explained. “We were all assigned M14s at the beginning. That later changed to M15s, but they jammed. A lot of soldiers went to get their M14s back again.”
At first, the soldiers were issued jungle boots that were made of leather. They soon discovered that the leather didn’t do too well in the mud and slop of a Vietnamese wet season. So, jungle boots were changed to canvas.
By April, the rest of the division had arrived. Ray’s job as an MP was to escort supply convoys from Saigon, about 20 miles away, back to Cu Chi.
There were a couple close calls that Ray experienced during his time there. One of them involved a helicopter landing near a fuel depot. They had not realized that a fuel tank on the copter had been shot during flight and it was leaking. When it was discovered, everyone jumped out and ran as fast as they could.
He lost one good friend over there, a soldier serving in intelligence.
After only eight months in Vietnam, Ray’s time in the Army was up. He flew to Oakland, California to outprocess before heading back to Minnesota.
About a year after his return, Ray married Janice, who he had known before his tour of duty. They hadn’t kept in touch but connected again once he was back. They have two children and grandchildren.
The military culture in Vietnam had been different at the time that Ray was there, compared to later in the 1960s and early 1970s.
For example, “At a reunion, someone asked me one time how the drug problem was when I was in Vietnam,” Ray said. “I answered that there was no problem. There were no drugs then.”
Looking back, Ray is glad that he served.
“It was an experience where I did a lot of growing,” he said. “I learned a lot, having contact with other cultures. We didn’t necessarily need to know the language to communicate.”
Ray and Janice have their home base near Nimrod, Minnesota, where they’ve lived for nearly 40 years. It is “the place I’ve lived in the longest in my life.”
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