Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
3:47 | When Henry Templin had to leave college, it didn't take long before he was drafted. He thought he had a classification that would keep him in headquarters instead of in the field, but with the stroke of a pen, he became just another grunt when he arrived in Vietnam.
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He arrived in the middle of the monsoon season. Everywhere was deep mud, but Henry Templin learned that you could travel a little and it would be hot and dry. He started as an ammo bearer and quarreled with the gunner in his squad, which was why he was glad to transfer to a rifle squad.
It started off slowly, but when Henry Templin's unit was moved further north, it became heavy combat. He had gotten used to living in the field and being in the middle of live fire and having jungle rot. It was at Hilltop Mary Lou that he learned just how devastating a fight in Vietnam could be.
The fighting was heavy at Hilltop Mary Lou and LZ Baldy. Henry Templin noticed that the NVA was a much tougher opponent than the VC he had been fighting. He saw friends killed, bodies bagged up and revenge taken.
He did his best to help along the new guys. Henry Templin remembered what it was like when he first arrived in Vietnam. He dodged booby traps, wrote letters home and tried to stay alive. Later in his tour, he was relieved when a skill he'd acquired before being drafted took him out of combat.
It was no mystery to Henry Templin why the Vietnamese people he came into contact with hated American soldiers.
He felt like a million bucks in his new uniform, headed home from Vietnam. That changed quickly when he got to Los Angeles. He couldn't believe what was happening, though it changed when he got home to Louisiana. There, his service was appreciated.
