Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

SEARCH RESULTS

my selections

10,842
Videos
49
Photos
148
Docs

Search Again

advanced search

Tom Coffey

Vietnam | 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Nobody believed him. Tom Coffey was seeing a lot of intel that indicated a big enemy build up. Then, at midnight on the Vietnamese New Year, all hell broke loose all over the country. Eventually they were beaten back, but the NVA and the VC had made their point. (5:32)
It was like nothing was happening. Tom Coffey had just returned from Vietnam and he wondered, don't these people know what is going on over there? But he busied himself in his new assignment, a great post at Fort Bragg in an intelligence brigade. (5:20)
After deciding to leave the Army, Tom Coffey got a big break when a friend set him up with a job working for Ross Perot at Electronic Data Systems. After five years, he started his own financial services firm and that was prospering when another friend came to him with an idea. (5:51)
Tom Coffey was one of a group of Vietnam veterans who built the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Louisville. It is in the form of a giant sundial in a plaza on which the names of all the Kentucky natives who perished are inscribed. (6:52)
Tom Coffey remained active at his alma mater, Eastern Kentucky University, serving on the foundation board for 20 years. In 2010, the university bestowed a great honor upon him. (2:45)
Everyone makes some good friends in the Army. Tom Coffey reminisces about some of them from Officer Candidate School and from his tour in Vietnam. (Caution: strong language) (3:38)
Tom Dill

WWII | USS LST-340

It was a rough time getting through the end of the Depression, but Tom Dill was lucky enough to go to college after graduating in 1939. After being an alternate for an appointment to Annapolis, he went ahead and joined the Navy, anyway, in 1943. (3:58)
When Tom Dill joined the Navy in 1943, the first stop was Northwestern University for three months of midshipman's training. He was next sent to the Small Craft Center in Miami and, finally, to Long Beach to await assignment. He became an officer on an LST, a new type of ship that became a vital part of amphibious warfare. (5:45)
LST-340 had been fully repaired and headed for Hawaii with new officer Tom Dill on board. He participated in some landing exercises on Maui in preparation for the Mariana Islands operations. While staging in the Marshall Islands, which had already been secured, a party from the ship went ashore for some recreation and encountered a stray Japanese soldier. (3:30)
The men of LST-340 thought it must be more LST's in one place than ever as they assembled for the landings on Saipan. Then they found out about Normandy, which was happening at roughly the same time. Ship's officer Tom Dill describes his vessels cargo. LVT's, which were carrying Marine artillery, and a few "Ducks." (4:37)