Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
5:51 | There was none of the abuse from anti-war protestors when Joel Gartenberg returned from Vietnam. He was lucky in that respect but not so lucky when he walked in the door at home. His wife was leaving him. But he pressed on, soon married again and moved on with his career.
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Following his combat experience in Vietnam, Joel Gartenberg had a long and diverse Army career. He retired in 1990 but volunteered to do anything he could during Desert Storm.
Joel Gartenberg enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school in 1959. He had a variety of assignments but, one day in 1962, he observed a friend taking a test for the Academy at West Point. He took the test, too, and was accepted.
West Point graduate Joel Gartenberg headed to Ranger School and Jump School and then on to his first assignment in Germany. Then the Army sent him to Fort Bragg for military advisor training. He was destined for the Central Highlands in Vietnam and the Tri-Border area where the action was hot.
Joel Gartenberg thought he was in shape but when he got to the Central Highlands in Vietnam and started climbing those mountains, he found out there was room for improvement. He was an ARVN Advisor but his counterpart was vastly more experienced than him, having fought against the Japanese and the Viet Minh.
When his senior advisor was wounded in a mortar attack, Joel Gartenberg got him to the Medevac and, years later, the man found and thanked him. The Vietnamese commander of the ARVN unit was a highly experienced soldier, much more so than the young American advisors. Their role was to provide the American muscle, the artillery and the air support and the Medevacs.
For the latter part of his tour, Joel Gartenberg coordinated B-52 strikes using available intelligence. He recalls a frightening experience while at a Special Forces camp near the Laotian border. They were receiving artillery fire, possibly from inside Laos.
History is not accurate, according to Joel Gartenberg who served as an ARVN advisor in Vietnam. Incidents such as My Lai were isolated and overblown. Even after we left, the South could have prevailed if we had continued to adequately support them.
