(upbeat curious music begins) - [Narrator] "Postcards" is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Wyndham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar, showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music, plus your favorite hits, 96.7 Kram, online at 967kram.com.

(dark music) - [Royal] You look at yourself in the mirror, and you see a face that's totally void of all emotion.

You don't see a 19 year old kid anymore.

You just look at a face that looks like he's 40 years old now all of a sudden.

(dark music) - [Charlie] I never had camaraderie with another man like I did in Vietnam.

It's that kind of a closeness that you had with everybody.

(dark music) (helicopter blades whirring) (dark music) (birds chirping) - I was going to a security police tech school at the time, and they came in and said they needed 25 volunteers to go to dog school.

They put us in a large room, and said that 25 people will volunteer, and they had you sign a piece of note paper that stated, "I volunteered," and then once you sign that, they said, "You've got the rest of the day off now."

So I remember I wasn't exactly too eager right away at first.

I think I was volunteer number 16 or something like that.

My name is Royal Hettling, and I was assigned to the 43rd Security Police Squadron stationed at Cam Ranh Bay Airbase in 1970, '71 to the canine unit.

When we arrived there in August when the plane landed, the gate kennelman was there and greeted us.

On our way over to the east side, the truck pulled over in front of what was called a naval air facility.

He pointed across the road to a little village we called Mica Village.

He said, "12 Vietcong snipers came out of there, destroyed this guard shack over here and that observation tower, killed about three naval people, and attacked that naval facility.

This is what your tour is gonna be like here.

Welcome to Vietnam."

(helicopter blades whirring) (weapon firing) (helicopter blades whirring) (helicopter blades whirring) - [Interviewer] Were you drafted?

- I was going to be, and then when I found out I was gonna get drafted, your number comes up, and then all of a sudden they quit taking the number.

My boss told me, "Let me know about a month and a half before you go, 'cause I need to get somebody to replace you, and it's gonna take me a while, so I told him, "You better get somebody.

They're taking 'em really fast.

They're taking like, 20 a month."

Then as soon as I got to somebody, they dropped down to two a month.

So now it's a long way's gonna be, they're not taking nobody now.

So that's gonna be forever before I go, and I don't have a job, I got nothing, so went down to try to file for unemployment, 'cause my friend did that and he got it.

I filed, and the guy gets done, he says, "I hope you're not planning on drawing compensation."

I said, "Well, I was hoping so."

"Oh, we'll find a job for you."

I said, "Don't bother.

I'm getting ready to be drafted into the Army."

"Oh, you're gonna go in the Army?"

He looks at my thing and says, "Oh, have you ever thought about the Marine Corps?

Looks by your credentials, you're just the kind of guy they're looking for, and it just so happens my son's the Marine recruiter in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Should I have him come and see you?"

"Might as well," I said.

So I left the unemployment office in Marshall, and I just drove in the yard at home.

Mom comes out and says, "Hey, somebody from Sioux Falls is on the phone for you."

(chuckling) I barely got home, they're already calling, wants to meet.

So that's how I got in, and then got sent to bootcamp, and I thought I'd made the biggest mistake of my life, 'cause I thought the world would come then end.

(intense rock music) I was in the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam with the Second Battalion Infantry Unit, Second Battalion, Fifth Marine from April 1966 to about April of 1967.

We did just about everything, but I was in forward area all the time, and you could be hit almost any time.

(automatic weapons firing) I never had camaraderie with another man like I did in Vietnam in the infantry.

I could meet like, you and I never met before, and I'd be out on perimeter watch, and you'd come along and say, "Is this position 34?"

And I'd say, "Yes it is."

You'd say, "Well, I got it with you."

So we'd sit down there all night.

It'd be like we never seen each other before, and we talked like we're just like that, personal stuff, and then in the morning, what?

And I don't even know your name, I can't remember your name.

And you take off with your company, 'cause you're in a different company, and you went on a different mission than I did, so we'd never see each other again, but it's that kind of a closeness that you had with everybody.

(dramatic music) - The story about canines in Vietnam, a lot of people don't realize that in 1965, the military brought 4,000 dogs to Vietnam under Operation Top Dog, and these are meeting three main roles, scouts, trackers, and sentries.

I think the first use of dogs actually started back in World War I. I don't exactly know exact history, but I think it was more incidental.

It was a dog named Stubby, I believe, who started more as a pet, then it turned out that the pet was found to have some military value.

Then during World War II, the Doberman Pinscher, especially in South Pacific Islands and in Korea, they used them more so, and in Vietnam more so too.

Unfortunately, the first dog I was assigned to was a shepherd black lab mix named Pepper.

Pepper and I did not exactly get along too good, but my sergeant at the time kept saying, "Keep trying, he'll come around, keep trying.

Here's some dog treats.

Just play with him in his kennel today, and just get on his good side."

So I said, "Okay."

He let me in his kennel run right away, 'cause he knew when I had those dog treats.

So I'm breaking those dog treats in little pieces, giving it to him a little piece at a time, and I'm down to my last little tidbit, I'm on the far end of his run.

Then I heard a little faint growl.

I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm in trouble."

And it's a good thing what was very popular at the time was what they called the under the wrist watch.

It was a watch you wore under the wrist, had a wide band, and it had two buckles on the top side of your wrist.

He came at me, and I saw those big four big canine teeth coming, so I just shoved my wrist in his mouth, and he chomped down on that band, and the first chomp, he had that band completely off, and he was chomping down on my wrist, so I'm trying to grab my other hand to get that gate open to get out.

I got out, got the gate shut, and I looked at my wrist, and he had bitten me several times.

The kennelman kinda walked over and said, "He got ya?"

I said, "Yep, he got me."

Right away, the medic said, "Okay."

He said, "This qualifies for the Purple Heart."

I said, "Oh, you gotta be kidding, forget it."

I says, "Don't even write this up."

I said, "This is embarrassing.

You're a dog handler, and you get bit by your own dog?"

I said, "I'm not gonna live this one down."

By the time I got back to my hooch, right away, it was all up and down the kennelmen, "Hey, I hear Pepper got the new guy."

Then a kennelman says, "Well don't feel too bad about it.

You're only the eighth one he's bitten."

About a day or two later, I was reassigned to another dog named Thunder, and we bonded immediately, and he was a real winner.

Thunder was a sentry dog.

We would go out at night from the time the sun went down to the time the sun came up in the morning, and we would secure such things as camp perimeters or any target that was considered to be of high priority that the VC would likely try and destroy.

(intense rock music) - You had to be ready all the time, even though nothing was happening.

But it wasn't like the movie show where they're like, Rambo showing bodies flying all over, and he's attacking.

People could never get by with that in real life.

What I experienced wasn't nothing like that.

It was more like you're alert all the time and waiting for something to happen.

Two months, nothing would happen, then all of a sudden, bang, something would happen.

(thunder booming) We were on a perimeter watch, and we had not really heavy rain, just a light mist.

The sky was lit up 50% of the time with flashes, and then it'd be dark, flashes, dark, and the Vietcong hit the side of the hill.

It was about seven or eight, 10 shots, and then we'd shoot back.

Hundreds of rounds were going back, and the Vietcongos would say, "Yeah, the Americans got many bullets," and I guess that one night proved it.

Not everybody had a radio, and I was one that had a radio in my position, and so the command bunker's calling, 'cause they're hearing all this shooting on our side.

"What's going on out there?

Do you need reinforcements, do you need help?"

And I said, "No sir, I think we're gonna be okay.

I think it's just a harassment attack."

I see this flash of light that's so bright, it was white, for just a 10th of a second, and that's all I remember.

And I'm just laying there, and I'm thinking, "They shot a mortar round, a mortar round.

I've been hit with a mortar, and I'm dead now, I'm killed."

Then I lay there a while, I get a most calm feeling, and then the more I'm thinking, I thought, "You know, I think I'm still in Vietnam."

I didn't know you stayed in Vietnam when you were dead.

I thought you went someplace else, and then I started getting scared, and I thought, "Maybe I'm still alive."

Still didn't know what was going on, and there's a guy next to me, and I said something about, "Brown, did you feel something just a little bit ago?"

He says, "God, it felt like somebody hit me in the head with a two by four."

We didn't know what happened.

We thought we were both, you know, like a mortar round had hit me.

Like, we're still thinking that.

And then we started feeling, 'cause it's supposed to be a third one with this.

We couldn't find him, and he wasn't dead in the bottom of a hole that we dug.

We couldn't find his body or nothing, so I started saying his name out, and then pretty soon, here he comes, he's under a bush about 25 feet from us in the rain.

I said, "What in the world are you doing out there?

Why didn't you come back?"

And he said, "Well, you scared the heck outta me."

He said, "You lit up like a Christmas tree, and sparks were flying all over you, and I didn't know what to do, so I got the heck outta here."

And then we kind of determined it was lightning, 'cause we heard on the radio that somebody said, "God, did you see that lightning bolt just a little bit ago?"

Then we determined that, and the lightning had hit my radio is what happened, and it went through my ear, and tried to go out my feet and my fingers, but it couldn't.

It went out the top of my head, and blew a hole in my scalp about the size of a 50 cent piece.

I did find out later on that five other ones were hit by lightning, and they all died.

(melancholy music) - One funny story there, if you wanna call it funny here, I was supposed to be kinda securing part of the control tower, and we came under a rocket attack that night, and you're still in fairly new country there, so this is you're still part of that learning curve.

You know, you're kinda learn how things do, and I'm starting to watch the rounds coming in.

You know, they're coming in, and I'm kinda watching 'em.

They're coming in a little closer and closer, and a little closer, and it finally dawns in you that, "Hey, you know, these things are getting a little close.

I should think about taking cover here."

So in your inexperience here, you kinda look around real quick.

You know, "Where's my best cover?"

And there's a lot of sand, you know, sand blows around like snow drifts here do, and I saw a little, a small tree, and there's like a little crater that formed around that tree.

It was about 20 feet away from me, so I covered in about two or three steps, and I dove in behind it, and as I picked my head up, here, I saw my rifle, I firmly planted the muzzle in the sand, and I quickly pulled it out, and it had plugged the muzzle with sand.

So I had to quickly break it down, and putting the cleaning rod through to clear all the sand out.

All this time, here's Thunder standing on top of the sand dune, just looking at me, and if you could read a dog's mind, it' like he's saying, "Where did they get this guy from?

Man, I got my hands full if I gotta look out for him this entire year.

Yeah, I've got my paws full," you know?

(chuckles) (melancholy music) Now, when we were there, they would like to have you walk across the patrol to your assigned area.

It's like walking a beat.

What I found best is that Victor Charlie, he knows you're there.

Why do you wanna make yourself that visible to 'em?

I like darkness and shadows.

He likes darkness and shadows and cover.

So I tried to adopt as much as his tactics as I could for myself.

I'd be always asking myself, "Now, if I was Mr. Victor Charlie, if I was gonna come through here, where would I choose to come through?"

Some nights, the stress level would be rather high, 'cause you know, your dog would be alerting.

That's when you kinda know, "Okay, now it's the mind game.

Now he's now playing with me.

He knows I'm here somewhere.

Now let him try and figure out where I'm at."

You just kneel down by Thunder, and you just talk to him, and say, "Thunder, if you can just give one second.

Just give one second, that's all I need is one second."

Then you just pat him a little bit and tell him what a good dog he is, and you just stand up, and you check your rifle over again, just to make sure that's working okay, check the magazine, you know, you feel that spring in the bottom, you know?

Reload that magazine in it, and you put a chamber in the round, and then you put your selector to full automatic, 'cause you know that if they're gonna come through there, you're not gonna have any time to get any radio message off or anything like that.

The only way you're gonna be able to warn anybody, you see how long you can hold your finger on that trigger.

And so then you just start walking down that narrow lane, and your mouth is so dry you can't swallow, your heart is not beating in your chest, it's pounding in your chest, and you're trying your darnedest to walk on air.

And once you reach the other end of your area into the clearing, you see the reflection of your own shadow, and you darn near empty your clip into it.

That's how tense you are, but you catch yourself just short of doing it.

Then you look, and you just say, "God, you know I'm way out over here.

Everyone else is way back over there.

My only way to get back over there to wherever anyone else is, I gotta go back down that same lane again."

So you go back through the same emotion again going back down that lane again, thinking, "Well, they weren't there the first time.

They may be there this time."

So you go back through that again.

Well, you make it through there the first time.

When you get back there, now they tell you keep going, keep doing it.

For the next several hours, you're doing that.

Well, turns out that you were okay that night, and nothing happened that night.

It was all over where you were the night before.

But you come in in the morning, you climb into your bunk, you really don't sleep good, 'cause you're just so wound up yet.

You get up, you head to the latrine, you look at yourself in the mirror, and you see a face that's totally void of all emotion.

You don't see a 19 year old kid anymore.

You just look at a face that looks like he's 40 years old now all of a sudden.

(triumphant music) (plane droning) - Well, basically, I started out in what they call the Pioneers, which is no longer in existence They're part of the engineers.

We were in the same regiment as the engineers, anyhow.

The only difference, we done mostly pick and shovel work and help loading and unloading supplies Actually, we worked with the engineers and if the infantry needed help on the front lines, we ended up there too.

Jack of all trades and master of none, I always said.

- [Sherece] What would you say is the most memorable day of your service?

- Memorable day?

(planes droning overhead) I think other than getting home on leave for Christmas with my brother, Peleliu sticks in my mind the most because when we went in to Peleliu, we made for Cape Gloucester, New Britain, first, and then we went to an island called Pavuvu for a staging area, and there was nothing there but rotten coconuts and coconut palm fronds.

And we had to clean all that stuff up and that was overrun with rats and land crabs.

So we had to push that all into piles with Caterpillars, crawler tractors and after we got it all piled together then we took the leaves off of the palm fronds and used them for clubs and killed rats and land crabs.

And then they finally fired those piles, they took and put fuel oil all around and soaked them in fuel oil and lit 'em and burned up the crabs.

And anything that came out of there we had to kill right away, they were on fire.

And then from Pavuvu, then we went to Peleliu.

And on board ship, the captain of our outfit, so the outfit I was in, he told us how many Japs were supposedly on Peleliu and how many Marines were going ashore.

He said, "You got a choice to make.

There isn't room for all of us on that island."

'Cause the island was two and a half miles wide and five and a half miles long, that's all there was.

And he said, "You're gonna have to make up your mind who stays."

So we knew what we were doing.

They told us when we went in, figured a week to 10 days, we were there for the six weeks of the worst combat we ever hit.

Guadalcanal guys said it was much worse than Guadalcanal.

And then after Peleliu, then the Guadalcanal guys, after New Britain, half of the Guadalcanal guys went back stateside.

And then after Peleliu, the rest of 'em went back stateside, so it was all new personnel and were the old timers, then.

And then when we went to Okinawa, I and another guy had supplies and we were truck drivers, and we had supplies on our trucks that apparently they didn't need right away.

So we got to stay on board ship for three days.

And the other guy, he wanted to get ashore because of kamikazi pilots that were dive-bombing their ship.

And I said, "What the heck you worried about that for?"

I said, "We got three square meals and a dry bunk to sleep in."

The guy said, "The captain of the ship isn't any better than you or I if we do get hit."

He wanted to get on shore.

(planes droning loudly overhead) (explosions) A couple of good ones!

(laughs) - [Sherece] I felt the heat from that one.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) I did, too.

I'd say 70 years ago I would've hit the deck with that.

- [Sherece] Yeah, exactly.

(Paul laughing) But anyhow, when we got... on shore on Okinawa it was just a walk-in, but about the fourth day is when the infantry hit the real opposition and from then on it just kept getting worse.

And I drove the truck hauling supplies and we were drowning in axle deep mud with all six wheels running.

One day I changed three outta five tires and our spare rack had room for two and I had changed two of 'em on the road.

(plane droning overhead) And the third one, when I came into the motor pool, the third one was on the inside dual.

So we had to take that off and then put a full set of new tires on it and it was digging into mud that was filled with shrapnel, and that shrapnel cut the tires.

But we were just pushing our way through things, hauling supplies up to the front lines where the guys needed it and then getting back, getting ready for another load.

So that's what I did on Okinawa.

I enjoyed myself driving trucks, too.

- [Sherece] Yeah?

- I drove trucks and Jeeps and four-by-fours and then the engineers, when I was in there, I got on heavy equipment, so I had a little experience with that.

(planes droning overhead) I got back to the States the 6th of November '45, and that happened to be my girlfriend's birthday.

So I called her from Oceanside and told her I was back in the States.

(plane droning overhead) And I didn't get discharged until the 23rd of December and I couldn't get a bus or a train to get from California to Minnesota.

So I hitched a ride with some guys from Texas 'cause my kid brother was in the Navy at our Navy base in Texas.

And I knew that, so I got a ride there and I spent Christmas with him and then he got leave and the two of us came home in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve of '46.

We got as far as Owatonna on a train and started hitchhiking.

And we got over east of Mankato.

There used to be a filling station there.

And the guy dropped us off there, we stood outside for a while and got chilled through.

And then we went inside and the place was open.

And got inside and the guy sitting at the counter having a beer turned around, called us my name.

And anyhow, he says, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Well, we said we're trying to hitchhike home.

He said, "Hitchhike?

Hell, I'll take you."

He had a Model-A Ford, we fought snow all the way back to Minnesota to our own place.

(chuckles) - [Sherece] So, you had to stay there?

- Pardon?

(plane droning overhead) - [Sherece] Do you end up staying there, then?

- Yeah.

Actually, they took me over to my then girlfriend's place and they put me up for the night and we stayed there.

And then in March she and I got married.

I took flying lessons on a Aeronca Champ for several years after I came out, but I couldn't afford a plane, so then I ended up dropping it and just kept on farming.

And when I got rounded out, I ended up, like I said, a truck driver, and then I bought the Caterpillar and went to contracting.

And then the state game warden job.

I spent 25 years on that.

I don't know what else there is.

- [Sherece] Any advice you would give young people today?

- Well, do the best you can and hope for the best.

Keep on one day at a time.

That's all you can handle.

- [Sherece] And you might live to be 101.

- I'd say the good Lord isn't ready for me yet.

Whatever's coming must be something I gotta wait and see.

- [Sherece] Yeah?

- And I'm not worried about it.

I don't lose any sleep.

- [Sherece] Good.

- I go to bed at night and shut off.

Wake up in the morning and then I'm ready for another day.

- [Sherece] Yeah.

(Paul chuckles) (triumphant music) (plane droning) (triumphant music continues) (bright curious music playing) - [Narrator] "Postcards" is made possible by The Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms.

A retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar, showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 kram.

Online at 967kram.com.

(bright music resumes) (bright music fades out)