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The Simple Lives We Live
The Long Way Home from Vietnam | John Ross (Part 2)
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In the 1966 blizzard, John Ross helped dig out a buried train, then opened Life magazine and saw himself in it. In Part 2, my uncle John shares his time in Vietnam, coming home to a country that didn't say thank you, and the Honor Flight that finally welcomed him home fifty years later. Have tissues ready, and listen for his two words on life: so be it.
So we're gonna go Vietnam. If it's okay with you, we're gonna talk about Vietnam. Is that okay?
SPEAKER_02It's okay.
SPEAKER_08Okay. So what age you said at 17 you went over to Vietnam?
SPEAKER_02I had to wait till I was 18.
SPEAKER_08You had to wait till 18. Okay. So tell me about the process.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_08How you got in, what you did over there, and and anything that you want to share.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I had volunteer, I had uh at a turn when I turned 18, I went down and signed up at the uh in the city. You have at that time you had to go in, what would what did they call it, where you had to sign up for something there. Everybody did, they were signed up. Everybody who turned 18 had to sign up. So after I got out of school, or after I got out of Dickinson and decided I wasn't going to go anymore, I had to wait. So I turned 18 that winter. And then that fall, that spring is when I got out of Dickinson. And so I had the two weeks there. And so I got I went on a train down to Fargo and went and went through the enlistment deal. And I I enlisted, and they were sometimes you if you didn't want to go right away, you could go home and get ready and come back. I said, No, I'm ready to go. So so I went I went from leaving beach to Fargo to then taking a train to uh St. Louis down to someplace in Missouri, and then we flew into Port Leonardwood for my for my basic and then I where's that at Port Leonardwood, Missouri, Missouri, Port Leonardwood, Missouri. Yeah. And then from then when everybody we all graduated from that there, everybody about eight of us got orders, and so I was there an extra two weeks in Fort. And so all I did then was drive truck and help people move because about that time a lot of people were moving out and stuff like that. Somebody would get a new place to go to, and so we'd do that. We all the eight of us knew that we knew where we were going to end up is going to Vietnam because everybody else had their orders, but we didn't.
SPEAKER_08So those who had orders did not go over to Vietnam.
SPEAKER_02Well, that doesn't say they didn't, but they went all they went already someplace, but they didn't one of the one of the reasons they I kept getting asked, they wanted me to go to NCO, they wanted me to become an officer. They wanted me to go to OSC, whatever that, to become an officer. And I I said, no, I'm not going to become an officer. I don't want to be an officer. So we got down to Fort Polk, Louisiana, which is uh Tiger Land, and that's where most people a lot of people went to NAM because they had a regular area out there that they you did stuff in. So I got down there, put my stuff in my bunk in my uh where I was gonna live, and they came in and said, Are you gonna go to NCO school or to uh officer training school? I said, No, I'm not gonna go to that. Okay, pick your stuff up and come with us then. Where am I going? You'll find out. So they took me someplace else, and you're gonna be here for three weeks. What am I gonna do? You're gonna become an NCO. I went to a training class to become a um what I what do you call it? I can't remember now, but uh squad leader.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02At the end of the three weeks, you will be a squad leader and you'll be a PFC. So actually, I it worked out because then I got my first straight before everybody else did. So we went through that. We went through everything that we could think of that we would do over there. I learned during that school, I learned how to do you know anything that there was. We did, we did everything. So then we got back and I got a squad. And um, my assistant squad leader was a farm boy like myself, he was from Iowa, his name was John Guam. And I had a squad of I I had my own squad then, and so we went through that, and everything we did for those eight weeks was we get up early in the morning and go through calisthenics, we'd have our meals, and then we'd go out and we'd do uh we'd go spend a week out in Never Neverland. You were do whack, you were in foxholes, you were in this, you were in that, you were going through those all training stuff shootings, and I they when you got done there, the sergeant that we had said, you're gonna do this my way, and you'll live through this. He said, if you want to dink around, I don't care about you then. So, and to get back thing, I I think that's how I say when I saw this in the service of farm kids, a lot of the farm people that I knew and knew or stuff like that, were put into those types of positions because when we were told to do something, we did it. There we had a lot of people that just didn't care. We weren't ready, weren't ready to take any responsibility for anything. They didn't, why are we here? What are we doing here, and everything like that. So when we got over to NAM, we flew out of Oakland and hit uh hit Guam and uh then got into Thompson Air Air Base and in uh Saigon. I walked off of that plane and it smelled horrible. It was so hot, stinky, and I thought to myself, what are we doing here? And this was quick. I actually years later found a book written by a person that sang, and his same words were in that book.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_02And I read that book and I text him back because he wanted people to get back. I said, if it wasn't you, it was me in that book. I said, that book is identical as what I did in um and how I got there and the stuff that you say at the beginning. But so I went up to I went up to replacement, and that was about 20 miles north. I went up to replacement, and uh that's where if you didn't come over in a regular company setting where the same people were all in the same, this is where you went to get wait for your orders or where you were gonna go. So you could either you might need you'd go be put to the second or the third or the fourth division or this or that, and if they needed somebody and stuff like that, and everything. So when I got there, I uh I bunked with uh some South Koreans and Aussies that were fighting over there. Of course, I could hardly understand any of them. I'm glad we were only I was only there for two days, and uh, and then I finally got my uh orders and I I got ordered, I had an infantry MOS, so I got ordered down to back down to Saigon, and I ran um guard for the BOQs down there, which is their military for the officers down there. I that and also for the mail uh mail trucks. I would have that, and then I would run shotgun on mail trucks. And uh first day I was on it. First day I was on it, the driver hit a Vietnamese policeman with the truck.
SPEAKER_08You hit a Vietnamese policeman with the Saigon with the truck.
SPEAKER_02It was more like the policeman hit us in the corner, but so that policeman got up, pulled his pistol, and went over to the driver. Well, I got out on my side and pulled mine because I'm issued a I'm issued a 45 and a rifle. So I pull out my 45 and I take it up to behind him, so I'm gonna behind him, and he's trying to get in there. And so he finally put his stuff away and and uh put his gun away, and I put mine away, and the driver said, Get in, and we and he guy was sitting there because we busted up his motorcycle, they're on motorbikes and everything like that, and everything. And he was yelling and screaming at that. The guy said, Let's get out of here, or we're gonna get in trouble. So we got out of there. I said, What kind of trouble? Well, we're gonna have to pay for that damn bike that I just hit over there. So we got on that. So I did. That's what I would do, and then being I was the only MOS of of um infantry. So if anything came up in December, we had uh I got over there in October, sometime in October, and so I was I would be guarding the BOQs and then doing the mail trucks and then helping out doing any place they needed somebody to stand with a rifle and do stuff like that and everything. So then we moved up to uh in December, we had Townsend Air Force Base where we came in at got overrun by the Vietnamese or the enemy and took out three or four of the uh guard stations of the Air Force Guard stations out there. So my lieutenant and I took off in the Jeep because we're the only ones that had infantry and had rifles and stuff. So we we go out there. Well, he he rolls the pickup on the way out. We're okay. Well, so the next day we we we get out there and to see what had happened, and they still had all the all the bodies up there, and that's when I found out that we're not we're not having a war with people that these were kids that had all had infiltrated and did all this and everything like that. So that's how you how you got nurtured into what are we really doing over here?
SPEAKER_03There were kids, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They were about 13, 14 years old. That's what that's what they that's what they used to infiltrate.
SPEAKER_05Were children, yes, and so you just saw the bodies?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they had them lined all lined up there, and then they would come and take them later and take them out.
SPEAKER_08They let them come and how do you feel when you I can't even I don't even know the questions asked, but like how did you feel seeing that when that dawned on you? Um I don't know. Can I just be honest? I don't know really much of anything in Vietnam. I feel like we haven't really I don't know a lot, so I don't know even the questions to ask in a sense.
SPEAKER_02Um no, that's fine. I'll help you through it here. I just kind of to me it, I was I guess I was prepared for it. I had the training that this was good, this is the way it's gonna be. You're gonna see things that you don't want to see, but you're gonna have to see them because this is not a regular war. If you remember, nobody'd ever fought in a war like this before. Nobody, everybody had had a front someplace. There's no fronts in Vietnam, they're just areas. And before they didn't have children, but the Viet Cong had children. These were children that were going through, that you're doing that uh on that. So you didn't know where we stayed there for those few times, you didn't know because they would bring in, they called them mama sons. They would the ladies would come in and do uh our laundry for us and stuff, and you didn't know if they'd be coming in at night with the black sheets on and stuff like that. But I that I didn't I don't remember it being a big deal, and that's not nice to say, but that's how we did it over there.
SPEAKER_08You had to almost be shut off to the emotions of it, yeah, basically.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I didn't really have any emotions. They tried to kill us, so right.
SPEAKER_08Did you so was it hard to sleep then? Do you feel like you just didn't sleep for a long time?
SPEAKER_02Or it was just something you had something that you had to do. I and that I we've had a lot of long talks about it. If you can put a lot of people couldn't do it, a lot of people, I know a lot of people from over there that would have gone bananas over it. I mean, just totally, you know, and and a lot of a lot of people did. I mean, it it they just couldn't handle a lot of stuff and everything like that. I didn't want to be around them because you never knew what was gonna happen. Your own people, you didn't want to be around them because you didn't know if they were yeah, I mean a lot of them were having real hard problems with how things were being done and and having to possibly take a life or seeing things like this and stuff. You don't know if that's the person you want to be around to help you out if you really need it. And I had there were the couple that I just you know, so anyway, after that, then uh we moved up to Longbin when they were building long bin up there, and I would uh I was still doing guard, we would do guard duties up there, and then we would do uh recons. And we would do the short recons. We do a three and three, in other words, throughout three out three days and out three nights. A lot of them, a lot of the more ones were five and five, and they were in going out to take somebody and get involved with somebody. Ours was to go find trails, go find where the enemy was, and not engage if you can do it. We weren't supposed to engage. We were you go, and if you find a place where you see a whole lot of tracks and they're bringing stuff in, there this and that and everything, we were not to engage unless we were engaged, where the other ones were sent out to engage, knowing because they knew that there was gonna be some, and they would go out in a more there'd be five of them, and then plus another portion of a brigade behind them, so that they were the front and stuff like that, and so that's kind of where I would be at most of the time up there. Um I had um my assistant squad leader, John, who was with me in AIT, got killed over there.
SPEAKER_08He was my best friend, and uh were you in on like were you there when he did no?
SPEAKER_02But no, we were close over there, but uh how old was he? Same age as I was, only he was oh my gosh, he didn't have to be there, he was the only son of a family. I can remember many times what the hell are you here for? Yeah, so that's uh on that so that but you know it's so it's hard to tell people, you know. We would we did a lot of the background stuff in instead of going out what I did and everything, and we didn't go out looking for a fight, but if if they needed somebody, I was in, I was in such a position, like they'd say, because everybody asked me, they go, Well, what'd you do over there? And I go, I did everything over there. Well, where were we at? I was in any place. If if a group lost a lot of people in a firefight and they needed people, they'd contact and you'd go out there and spend seven, eight, nine, ten days with them until they got their reinforcements in and stuff like that, uh, on that. So uh I got to see a lot of the land over there and stuff like that. And luckily, never really with a whole lot of people at the same time uh on that, and that's kind of the way it went the whole time when I was over there.
SPEAKER_08I I can remember, you know, some times we went places we probably shouldn't have been in on on that, and uh but I it just when you went over there, was it already something where the atmosphere was we shouldn't be over there? Why are we so did you have that feeling of okay, I'm gonna be going over it's a war that nobody thinks we should be going over?
SPEAKER_02And you know, I knew that no, I knew I knew we were people didn't want because we we had uh well from our area where we lived, we had one uh consciences of objector, but they ended up being in, and if you were at that point in time conscious of objector, you became a uh that uh medic.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02On that most of the time, uh but yeah, but then it really started popping up and stuff, you know, as we were over there. We were kind of I was over there in 66 and 67, and it'd only really been going on for a couple years, slowly coming up, but as while we were there, they uh you could always tell there was more people coming in, more people coming in, more people coming in, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_08So, did you have any real? Of how many people were actually dying from the US?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because they always told us how many got killed every we had stars and stripes and everything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08That was on the news everywhere. See, and that's I didn't know if you were hearing that while you were over there. Were you guys aware of how many were actually how many casualties there actually were while we were yeah there, yeah, you knew. So I'm assuming there was a lot of people that you knew that you met and were friends with who did pass away over there.
SPEAKER_02They had uh the a good there was a good book that I read. What was the name of that book that where the lady would I thought it was I thought it was a real book, but it wasn't a real book. The nurse wrote a book, and I thought that she had been over there, but she hadn't hadn't been over there. She wrote it uh, you know, it was a fiction, but yet it was based on of places and everything, and and pla and because I because I ended up I was in the hospital in Saigon.
SPEAKER_10Right.
SPEAKER_02And and she when I read that, I thought to myself, holy crap, that's exactly what I thought. I mean, I could I could I did it just came back to me and everything like that.
SPEAKER_05So but it was uh why were you in the hospital in Saigon?
SPEAKER_10Oh, because you were injured too, or he ended up having a septicemia.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh. How long were you in the hospital for?
SPEAKER_02Not very long. I well to tell you, you know how hot it is over there? I had to have covers upon covers upon covers on the deck.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, he was just having the chills, you know, and fever.
SPEAKER_02Oh that and everything. So but and it I've never had any problem with it since then. No, I got a scar from it and stuff, but that's but anyway, uh we just it was different things, you know. Somebody I can remember the ninth division moved, I can't eighth or ninth division moved from one point to the other, so you help guard you do stuff and different things like that, and you're out, and people it most of us just did it as a job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, and I mean you come in at night, well, that day's over with, you know, and stuff like that. And or if you're out on patrol, well, it's finally over with, you know, you get them back and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_08So was there ever um a free I've heard about like survivor's guild with those who've gone to work? Did is that ever something that you had since you did have friends who had passed away? Do you ever like why me? Why did I survive?
SPEAKER_02No, no, no. I I I always felt that I was pretty good about all that, all that. I don't, and maybe I wasn't when I got home, I don't know.
SPEAKER_10Well, you didn't realize you weren't you know well, yeah, right for a long time. Yeah, well, he was he was just like any other war, you know, knowing my dad, he never talked about it, World War II. And um, I know my uncle was in the Korean War and he never talked about it. Well, he never talked about it either, but I wasn't going to pressure him. And you know, so I accepted a lot of his behaviors because of that. A lot of times, you know, he'd get quite drunk, you know, and I always thought that that was probably from his, you know, that part of it. And um, but then you can explain that you finally got help, uh, you know, talking about it when we went to uh when we lived in Nevis, we he joined the VFW and uh and actually got with other people that were talking about it, and I'm thinking. And then I would be sitting beside him and oh wow, you know, you just think in your head, but I still didn't really visit with him because I figured let him talk with his friends and people I worked for worked with until I retired everything, had no clue that I was over there.
SPEAKER_02They most of them found out when I took the honor flight, and Andy had it all over Facebook and everything. He said, You're in the service, yeah. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's right, until we got over there and I was able to sit down with a bunch of people that had all been in the Vietnam War, Korean War, and everything.
SPEAKER_08You know, you sit there and because they could relate and you could relate.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's like uh talking about different things. Uh a good friend of mine, and they're now living over he was there, he was a medic. Um and so he in Fargo every two years the museum, the the Air Museum puts on a Vietnam week and brings in the planes and the different things and the everything that was done in Vietnam, and so I've had the kids there, and because every gun and every type of gun that's ever been over there was there. They had and they bring it up.
SPEAKER_10I explained it to his grandchildren, you know, and stuff.
SPEAKER_02And they had and stuff, and Kurt and Marilyn from would always come over and go with go with us in the one year. Uh they had a Huey there that was a medic Huey, and that he those are what he always flew into when they were there with a brush off to get the the wounded out and everything. Those were the items that he flew in all the time.
SPEAKER_10So he had PTSD that you would not know. I can't even imagine.
SPEAKER_08As a medic, you see everything, the worst of the worst. He was, right?
SPEAKER_02He still is.
SPEAKER_10He still is, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Although I think he's getting better.
SPEAKER_10I think he's better now that he also went on the honor flight. Yeah, he went to the flight. That helps a lot.
SPEAKER_02I he went last year. And so we went, we saw him last fall and everything. But he uh yeah, we sat there and talked about that, and he just, you know, he said, God, he said, this is what we he said. I said, yeah. I said, all it was was blood and guts, wasn't it? And he said, that's what it was, blood and guts. You know.
SPEAKER_08Do you ever think do you look back and go, how did I survive?
SPEAKER_02Or were I I mean, I'm just like you know, I I I I for some reason I really had it. I when I went over there, if I made it back, I mean I I made it back. If I didn't wasn't gonna make it back, I wasn't gonna I wasn't, I had nothing to worry about because I think if you worry a whole lot about it, you know.
SPEAKER_08You just don't your friend that you said who had passed away. So when you have a friend over there that you're close to and you find out that you know they haven't made it. Yeah, what does I don't how does the body get back? Do they do they wait to wars? I don't know how all that works.
SPEAKER_04Oh, like how do they get home?
SPEAKER_08Do you know that the body is taken back home? Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02Or they are they aren't. I used to I used to do body flights once in a while, film from uh Saigon to the Philippines. So that's where they would take them, take them to the Philippines, and then they'd get a uh air flight from Philippines back home.
SPEAKER_08Back home. So you knew then that the body was going back home to the Philippines.
SPEAKER_02They would have they would have somebody, uh there'd be myself and probably one other person that would be in the C 130, and that would be the body flights from there to there. And so we would be the guards in the in there. Oh, okay. They'd get off, they'd take them off, and then we'd fly back in the Saigon, and they would go to wherever they were. I would presume, and I I guess I can't really say. I I'm guessing they would go to one of the uh one of the sites, Air Force, like uh in LA or someplace like that, and then take them from there and everything and go on.
SPEAKER_08So because I'm picturing that has to be all either a lot of flights every day, or is it one flight a day with a lot of bodies?
SPEAKER_02Be more than because they as soon as they they get them, they get them into um they try to get everybody into one. Uh most of them, most of the funerals are closed funerals. I know when when I got back, I suppose I did eight, nine. Eight, nine of them in beach when I got back.
SPEAKER_10Funerals, you know, beach, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we had you know from how many who had just away. The beach, you had uh Sentinel Butte, Weeble all the way around and everything. Yeah, on that and everything.
SPEAKER_06So we really did have a lot of people from our area who didn't make it back then, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah. But there was some from others, relatives, and stuff like that that were also there. So yeah, there was there was different ones.
SPEAKER_08How long were you over there total?
SPEAKER_02I was over there total just short of one year. When you when you went denom, you would denom for a one-year contracted as that sounds okay. One year. And uh I got home probably about two days prior to what I was because you a lot of the times if you're in the field, they'll bring you out of the field about 10 days prior to your leave and get you back someplace where so that you can wait it out because they didn't because a lot of times the people there were people that were there on their last day, and then they get shot, killed, or something like that. So, but a lot of places you'd get out seven days prior, or something like that. So I got I ended up going back and doing, I can't remember where they took me to. I took me to I went back someplace and then I was their nightly duty guard and everything like that. Okay. So but you were more or less back away from any anything like that there.
SPEAKER_08So so I hear a lot of people when they when they came back, um a lot of people who were over there having like you were talking about the PTSD and like fireworks or shotgun noise. Did that ever bother you after? You know, see, I I read stories, but I don't know how much it still does. It still does. Fireworks still do.
SPEAKER_02No, fireworks don't. I fireworks don't. Something that I don't know is happens that doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_08Little stories that surprises you a little bit, okay.
SPEAKER_02When I took a job, my I took a job at uh farm bureau in Fargo and I was out to a I went out to a farm to adjust a claim, and I got out, I got out of the car and I heard this boom, and I hit the ground just like that. The guy had a deal for his black to take the blackbirds out of the cornfield and everything. One wheel, he says, back from service.
SPEAKER_08I said, Yeah, how long after you got back was that?
SPEAKER_10Well, explain your most recent one too.
SPEAKER_02Oh, in the tree. The tree. Well, when I that would have been uh probably three, four years.
SPEAKER_04Just three, four years ago. No, oh, after you've been out for three or four years, okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, I got it went two years ago. Lightning hit the tree outside our house where we're we're in a condo situation. Same thing.
SPEAKER_03Even just the reflex.
SPEAKER_02And I I went up on a look and go, the goddamn tree is all blown to bits. It was but I even if she hit does something and I'm not thinking about it and hit something, and I I mean there's a reflex there.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, you you do it, you don't ever lose on one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_08I mean, that's because some of us don't can't wrap our head around it. I mean, I really because breaking that situation.
SPEAKER_02I remember the first night that I was in in when I went up to a replacement deal. You get up there and it's your first night in and everything, and it starts to get dark outside, and you look over, and there's the firefights going on over there, and they got the helicopters going over there, and they got I just don't understand how you sleep. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06You you can't sleep, can you?
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, you do.
SPEAKER_06I mean but it's not restful sleep, it's not good sleep. No.
SPEAKER_08I mean, that's where I'm just thinking a year of that, of the highest stress you can possibly imagine, pretty much, and how that doesn't just wire your body, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, but it took me, like I say, it took me a long time to finally and come to grips that you know. I can talk about this when I we moved to Nevis and with other people and stuff like that, and and it uh I think I that helped a lot.
SPEAKER_10Oh, a lot, yes.
SPEAKER_02And then uh I didn't, I wasn't gonna take the honor flight. I did not want to, I had no reason to take the honor flight. Didn't want why would I want to go on the honor flight? Well, I've got two friends, neither one of them has been in the service. Both of them, most of our friends are half our age. I hate to tell everybody that, but most of our friends are half our age. And uh both of them said, You have to go. Chris said, You have to go. He said, I went and I sat and cried. He said, and I've never been in the service. I said, Well, yeah, and then who else was it?
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah, and she was like, give me some credit.
SPEAKER_02She had been there too, and she said, You have to go, and she kept pushing and pushing. Well, so I went to put it in. Well, then COVID came along, so they weren't taking anybody in. So finally they had talked me into it. So afterwards, I got I started to fill one out again, and I got a call one night about 9:30 at night, and they said, This John Ross. I said, Yeah, she says, you know, uh we're doing coat, we're doing the uh honor flies again. I said, Yeah, I said, you know what? I just filled one out, it's sitting here. Well, you don't have to, we still got your old one. And she said, You can go this year if you want to this fall in October. She said, We're doing one in October and one in September and one in October. We're doing one in October out of Fargo and one in September out of Grand Forks. She said, on the one in Fargo, you you're you're it's filled up. You're number seven if people don't make it. Because she says a lot of people have passed away or can't go, or this and that. She said, pretty sure you probably would be able to make it on that one. Well, I said, What about the one up in Grand Forks? Well, I can get you on the one in Grand Forks because it's not. She said, Why would you want to go to Grand Forks instead of Fargo? Well, I said, it's only an hour's drive up there, no big deal if I can get on. Plus, I said it's September, it's gonna be nice outside. I said, October can be anything, yeah, which I'm glad it happened because the people that went in October froze to death for a week.
SPEAKER_07See a lot of it, hey.
SPEAKER_02And so I went and then I went and I had uh it kind of had to melt down there because I went up to find John Guam's name on the on the deal. I found it, brought it back, and I just sat there, and now I know why they bring six nurse, they had three buses of us up there. Now I know why they brought six nurses and three, what do you call them?
SPEAKER_10Um helpers, wasn't it? Oh, or was it um psychologists?
SPEAKER_08Okay, I was gonna say counselors or yeah, okay, okay. Right.
SPEAKER_02She said, You need some help. I said I needed that a long time ago. I said I can I can I can I can deal with it right now, and I did because there were so there was a lot of people that were there with their friends that are were there together, and I wasn't with a friend, I was by myself. So I did that, and I was kind of sitting around there and I got looking. A lot of people were taking pictures, but one would have to stand out.
SPEAKER_05So I went around and started taking people's you know, if there were three of them, I said, somebody give me your phone and I'll take your picture of all three.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thanks, and so that's what I was doing then. So on that that was fun.
SPEAKER_08When you said you found John, John Guam's name, what was it on that you took it?
SPEAKER_02What was it's on the uh wall. The wall.
SPEAKER_08So you like took a picture of the wall, or what do you mean by taking what they do?
SPEAKER_02They give you a blank piece of paper. Yes, and then you can yeah, you have to go up to the DL and they will every name has a number to it. So if you know the easiest way is if you know the state, thank goodness, which I knew Iowa, then I went to Iowa, and then I alphabetically went to the queues and got that, and there he was, and the date that he was killed and everything. And so I went back and I found it.
SPEAKER_08I I will say I love hearing the stories. I love having a name because I think it is so special for family to know that even this many years later, their their child is still remembered. Yep, like how special, yeah. You know, that that happened that long ago and you still think of him.
SPEAKER_02I just do.
SPEAKER_08I love that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's so that doesn't mean he wasn't any better than anybody else, but he but when you make that connection with that, was your that was your connection there.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, how long was he there with you for the last one?
SPEAKER_02Uh got there in October.
SPEAKER_10I think he we got there and was he with you in basics?
SPEAKER_02You mentioned something about him being your yeah, he was in basic, and then in AIT he was my assistant squad leader.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then we went when I went in jungle training, and he was my assistant squad leader then.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_02And uh we got over there in October, I think it was, or was it November? I can't remember. He was killed in May, about halfway through. Not quite halfway through our you know, and he was 18? Yeah, he was old, yeah, he was a little older than I was. A little older, but a kid. Not much.
SPEAKER_08So a kid.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he was. There's most of them over there were that way. Yeah, there was a lot of a lot of us that were we grew up over there.
SPEAKER_00Not a good way to grow up.
SPEAKER_02Huh?
SPEAKER_00Not a good way to grow up.
SPEAKER_02No, but you know, I yeah, it it isn't because I think I think we see a lot of it. I never really realized until all of a sudden I started seeing all these people dying from PSTD or shooting themselves or doing this or doing that. And and especially like when we would lived in, we lived in Missoula for a while. I mean, there was there were people walking down the street shooting themselves, weren't they? You know, because they just couldn't they couldn't handle it. Couldn't handle it anymore, you know.
SPEAKER_10And uh And most of the people that are on the streets nowadays are Vietnam veterans, but they choose to be that way because that's all they know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because they just can't handle it. You know, back then PSD was not a word.
SPEAKER_08No, right, right.
SPEAKER_02You know, so right.
SPEAKER_08There wasn't uh there definitely was not a thing to put to it on that there.
SPEAKER_02So but yeah, I and you know, they say now would you do it again on a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_08Really?
SPEAKER_02You want me to go? Absolutely. I keep telling them if they get all a whole bunch of us old vets and everything like that, we take care of this operation. We ain't got time to time before we go anyway. We might as well deal with it.
SPEAKER_05Spoken like somebody you're getting over generation totally. I how were you treated when you came back?
SPEAKER_08Okay. Can you give me some examples?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um Angie was a school night with Lord of Weeble one night because Weeble used to have dances on certain nights tonight with Lord one time. I got the shit beat out of me and baby killer and all that and everything like that.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
SPEAKER_08Did that make you so much more angry?
SPEAKER_02Having seen what you saw, knowing like no, I just saw how stupid can you be.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, I mean, oh, these are the people you don't want in a war.
SPEAKER_04You know, you know, that's so true.
SPEAKER_02You know, on that and everything. And they weren't it wasn't being understood. Uh and I can understand why, you know, everything else had been a world war and a reason to be there. This, you know, if you go back to it and stuff like that and everything. But if it happens, it happens. You you you have to have if there's a reason in and you and you should be helping, you should help. I mean, I just I've I've always said, you know, a lot of countries have mandatory uh one or two-year enlistments and everything. That would never work here because nobody would do it anyways. So anyway, but uh and that's that's kind of the way most of us thought about it when we were there. When I when I would leave on leave, like when I would come home or anything, first thing I did, I went in the bathroom, put on I always had civilian clothes, put them on, and then took off. We all did that.
SPEAKER_08Every head for the yeah, because there was so much hatred around it.
SPEAKER_02You just didn't, and and we we would be told as we come in at some places, you know, make sure that something because there were gonna be people out here.
SPEAKER_08So what and I never I never I've never asked my dad this. Those who had family members that went over to Vietnam, do you know were they ever like grandma grandpa? Were I don't want to say harassed, that's probably the wrong word. But were people ever um not understanding to them, like oh, you have a son over there and like mean to them because of you being over there?
SPEAKER_02Were they ever do you know, nothing was ever said anything? Nothing was ever said okay, never talked about it.
SPEAKER_08So it's interesting that, like, they you know, nothing's said to them, which is a good thing, but you guys coming back and how poorly you were treated, even from the people around here, because you said that was even just in Webow.
SPEAKER_02So that's why I was you know, it's a smaller community, you would think it would be yeah, but it you know, a lot of the people were of the same age, but they're seeing this stuff on TV, absolutely, right?
SPEAKER_08And you get across with the city.
SPEAKER_02I don't think that the next other generation, like our parents and stuff, that it meant that much. I could be wrong, yeah. And I don't think that a lot of back in those days, that younger generation was not out being in the older generation's face or anything like that. Right, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Okay, so you having had that experience, I look at my generation or my kids' generation. Do you often think, because even from where I can come from, and I've said this to a lot of people, I think we are so used to comfort now. We've never been through hard times, especially like say my kids' generation, no, that I'm like, I think that they are upset or worried about just the dumbest things because they have nothing important to actually be concerned about a lot of times. Do you ever feel like that? Having lived through what you did at 18, I cannot imagine what other kids at 18 how they would handle that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the fact I I think if I hadn't been on the farm and had worked and had this, it would probably have been harder for me at that point in time. But I was used to doing it. And yeah, and I noticed that within a lot of the other people that I was around and everything, if on that stuff.
SPEAKER_08So but uh we're too soft anymore, John. We're too soft, like are like don't even get maybe this is the way to just put it. They have lived in such comfort and where a lot of times the world revolves around them, even family life revolves around them, that I don't think they know how to sacrifice a lot of times and how to deliver and you know, be put in an uncomfortable situation. They can't even go order their own food half the time.
SPEAKER_02So I know it's it's we have those long visits a long time about generational this and generational that, and and it's just one of the it's one of those things we just look at it, we just shake our head and go, it ain't ever gonna change on that. So, but I it uh I'm glad I went over there. I'm glad I did my service to the country, and uh if I was ever asked to do it again, I would do it again, knowing what I know now. Yeah, I it it just that's just somebody's gotta do it at some point in time.
SPEAKER_08Very true, it doesn't take care of itself usually. So on that, so well, thank you first off for sharing and talking about it because um some still don't want to talk about it. Well, I know I had asked you before, you know, and uh well I've I've I really do appreciate you.
SPEAKER_02I visited with uh Jared and visited with uh Jason and you know stuff like that. Yeah, we go back and forth once in a while and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_08It's good that they have you, yeah, and you have them.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think I think uh I I I every every time thank you for your service, you know, and that everything that's so good to hear.
SPEAKER_10I just love it.
SPEAKER_02I mean somebody are two brothers that deserve that, so yeah, so it's a lot of their life.
SPEAKER_08I mean, you give up a lot of your life to go and do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I yeah, I look at how long Jason has been, you know. I think that I have one we we are amazed at that family, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_08That she had done I'm amazed with Allison almost. Yes, yes, and I told Jason at one point he will come and he will um he's like you know, once he's done in DC, he'll come and he'll share whatever stories he is willing to share. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02On that, so but that we coming home was I think we had a when I got to Valley City, Valley City had a very, very, very good uh veterans program in the college.
SPEAKER_08So that helped more with that transition of crazy.
SPEAKER_02We had a veterans club in there and we were cohesive, and they uh everybody wanted to be in it, yes, and of course they quit super strong. The sororities wanted us to put, we would put stuff on, they wanted to be there, they wanted to be part of it. I mean, we were and not because we had to do it, we wanted to because all of us were kind of coming down off of a high, probably.
SPEAKER_08Two little adrenaline, that fight or flight for sun.
SPEAKER_02And uh, so for a long, long time. I mean, we just it would it was good on that, you know, and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_08So one last thing that I want to ask. What was it called that you went on? The flight?
SPEAKER_00The honor flight.
SPEAKER_08The honor flight. Because I didn't ask you before we go into the Time magazine. Can you explain to me what the flight, the honor flight is? I didn't ask that.
SPEAKER_02Okay. The honor flight, there's separate places all the way. Uh, the one that I went through was the honor flight of Minnesota, North Dakota. So it runs to the it half of the eastern half of uh Minnesota. No, the western half of Minnesota and the eastern half of North Dakota is the Minnesota, North Dakota honor flight. So each area is have there was there's one that is done on the western part of North Dakota because there was a it would be done last fall through Bismarck. Through Bismarck goes through Bismarck. Okay, so that's what it's called. They take allegiate airlines and take veterans, and right we had to wait until most of the uh World War II were all done, and Korean were all done, and then all the veterans. Last week now they're gonna start taking the desert storm ones. So everybody we go, we leave. It's for us, not not everybody gets the luxury of like we do down there. Our flight leaves early in the morning. I'll give you, can I give you a little bit of an episode? Yeah, we went to Grand Forks and stayed overnight and went to go on Flight. We had to be out there at six o'clock in the morning. So Andy's driving, and we start out at the airport, and I said, Oh wait, God, I said there's an accident. Look at this. I said, There's sirens, there's shit, there's everything going on out here. So we go up real slow. But what it is, it's an honor guard out there. The sheriff's department, the highway department, the police department, everything who has anything with lights on, they're out there standing in it.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And um for us to come in. And then we get up to the door, and there's two or three people coming. We can only take one bag because the bottom of the hole of the plane is all for wheelchairs, wheelchairs. So we can take one bag to put out, so they're coming, they're coming out, and they take us, grab our stuff, and take us in. And we'd been there before, so we have shirts and jackets that were donated by different places. It says honor flight and things like that. And we do not spend a penny. The only penny you spend is if there's something you want to buy as a token to take back or anything. So we got on a plane. There was, and a lot of the people who have to use the um or like handicap accessible stuff. They they will have uh what what do they call a volunteer? Oh, like they might have a wife or a daughter or a son along with them because they're gonna have to be in a wheelchair and be pushed around and stuff like that. So they that so I get we get in the and so we get in the plane, get ready to I get in the plane. My name, I'm uh I'm by the window. My name's John. Guy next to me is named John. The guy right behind me is named John.
SPEAKER_00A lot of John.
SPEAKER_02And so we get on the plane, and uh we're taxing out to go. And next thing I think, hell, it's raining outside. Well, the fire department was out there with their water jets doing a water thing a water thing on it. Yes, on that. So then we take off and we fly from there to Baltimore. Three what three and a half hours, three and a half, four hour drive flight to Baltimore. That's where we go, we go to Baltimore, okay, and uh we get there and uh go through, they've got it set up that it looks like it's they've got customs, the guy's gotta do this here, but it's walk through, yeah. And we get there, and then we get on a bus and go to they got a big posh motel for us, and so there's two people to a room, and John next to me was my and he's from like Harwood or something around close. Okay, and uh so we started, we got out, and then we spent all day at we went to all the name we went to all army, navy, air force, marines, and coast guard have their big memorials out there. And so we went to all of those and the air force wanted behind the Pentagon, and so we saw where the where that where that uh where they hit that back in 911. So on that, and we went we went every place, every place they went to. We went to uh what else did we?
SPEAKER_10Well, Fort Summit, you found that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Fort Sumter was the first thing we went to, where um Francisco Key did any deal. And then we went to the Korean Wall. And then that is, and then we went to the Lincoln's Lincoln, yeah. Lincoln, Jefferson, all those places. And they had the the wall is next to the uh Lincoln Memorial, so that's where the wall is there. That's where we got to go and do it. And at night it's all in lit up and stuff like that and everything. We s we we were there, we stayed there two nights. Okay. We were there for three days and two nights. Going through going through things, and so then we got we took off and flew. We should have gotten back a little bit earlier, but we got in the traffic jams and stuff. The bus decided not to leave when it should have left, and so we were late getting back and into uh Grand Forks, and what they do is before you go, they get hold of either your wife or the closest relative, and they have all your friends and people that you want to write letters and send to them, and then on the last night, on the second night we're there, we have entertainment, and then we have mail call, and everybody gets this pack of letters.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I knew about it, they weren't supposed to know about it.
SPEAKER_02And the reason I knew about it is her sister sends me a text and says, I'm not big into writing letters, so have a have a happy trip. So I go, What the hell is she talking about? Well, then she had to tell me. But how amazing, how creative you can't believe the people that were sitting there reading letters and go, I haven't seen him or heard from him for 20 some years. I can't believe this is happening. You know, and it just the guy next to me on the second, on the last night, he was a World War II vet. He was gonna turn 93 years old in a month. His daughter from uh South Dakota was with him, taking him around and that he was he was as spry, I mean, he was spry as I was. Yeah, we sat there and visited, and they had a couple of uh Vietnam vets who they had their sons there who had been in like desert storm or something like that. They had them and things like that and everything.
SPEAKER_08How did they contact people to write the letters? How did they know who to call it?
SPEAKER_10They advertise so oh, how do they contact like they contacted me as a wife and said to not tell, you know, okay, and so I just knew of anybody and everybody, of course, we've been around so many different places and stuff. So I knew our very close friends and you know, our relatives and neighbors and whatever, and so he had quite a packet, but then you know, there's some people that don't have a lot in their packets, so um they also contacted not not me, but the the organization contacted, you know, like schools and things like that, that they could, you know, write letters to a vet or whatever.
SPEAKER_02So cool, yes, yes, so neat and so any anything else that you want to add on to that onto onto the the well Vietnam or the flight or flight.
SPEAKER_00I I have been the biggest deal with the opponent for that, yeah because I didn't want to go.
SPEAKER_02Once I went, like I thought it was like a cleansing. I think I became a little more.
SPEAKER_10I just yeah, it you did your your whole attitude about life and everything changed literally on that well.
SPEAKER_02I'm the biggest proponent of that. Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_10And we uh we support it, you know.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot of different organizations that well, they're like there's a lot of bars that once a month all proceeds for that night go in. Okay, I was gonna ask, how does it you'd be surprised, like the American lead, they'll every place now is doing it. I mean, it used to be just one or two or three bars now.
SPEAKER_10Every place is doing it, everything the TV stations will also follow them and make a little uh notation on the news on what they're doing what they're doing or whatever. Yeah, it costs about how much I figured how much it was a lot per person. 200 and some I thought it was like three thousand dollars per person or no more.
SPEAKER_02I think because there was seventy some so thousand, seventy-seven thousand there, and then and then I think the I can't remember the the cost is for the flight, but it's all so you don't have to pay anything out of the thing. I had to I wanted a beer one night. The beer there cost eight dollars. Okay, so I gave them ten, I gave them a tip. So I spent ten dollars there, and I found a little patch out that I'm gonna put on my shirt that I wanted to buy, and that was five dollars. So I spent five dollars. There were people that you wouldn't have to pay for anything, everything was the food was tremendous, you couldn't eat it all.
SPEAKER_10The people were we brought things for them to have snacks and water and stuff during the during the tours.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, there were people there, and you were good just going by yourself and not having Angie with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, on that and everything.
SPEAKER_10And then you know, the fact that they didn't have a homecoming, yeah, so everybody gathers. My my friend and I went up to um Grand Forks, and um everybody gathers more than that picture.
SPEAKER_05You'll have to send me the pictures.
SPEAKER_10I will yes. I don't have the ones from uh you know the whole trip. This is the one that that I had somebody take. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_08That's that would be amazing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you walked you walked down, and I did. I guess we didn't I didn't even realize this, but I we'd been talking, everybody talking, what are you gonna do when you get home? What are you gonna do when you get home? I said, I gotta get home. I said, we're going fishing. I said, I we're going fishing. My wife and I are going fishing. Your wife fishes? Hell yes, I said, yeah. So we got in, got in line, and they take the everybody on everybody who's in a wheelchair, they take took them and took them out. And then we came, we were in line, and the guy who was telling me, he said, You get up here, you get up here and get in my line. I said, No, I'm back. No, I know that you and your wife want to get fishing so bad. He said, You get up here and get in here. And I said, No, yes. So he you we walked out, and all of a sudden you look down and you go, Holy crap, the place is filled with people with flags and band going, and and that's a big. You go down the steps and you just there's uh wide enough for two people to go down at a time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And uh it was I just I kind of looked around and Angie and her our friend were over here, they had, you know. So I went over and saw them and I got back in line, and and this was kind of amazing because there was a this was cute. Uh a dad and two young gals, one probably five or six, and the other one probably eight or nine. And I come up to them and they had something to hand hand me and everything. And I said, Thank you. And I shook the hand and I said, Would you like your dad to take a picture with it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So he took a picture and he oh god, he he couldn't believe really. He says, Thank you. And I went up a little further, and lo and behold, there was another one. And I did the same thing, so that's and it made me feel good so that they were out there. They do that, and we've done we've gone to the ones in Fargo when they've come back a couple times too to see celebrate with them, right? Oh boy, they it's it's when I talk to the people now, that's they're as excited as I am about it now, too. They just didn't think of it and they and they feel the same way. They just we're being and and that's a big deal for because they're getting they're getting people to donate. Companies are donating, like the should the jackets that we had, uh sugar, crystal sugar, crystal sugar had their nice fall jackets and rotary on and stuff like that. I mean everything just yeah, it's wonderful. It's just the greatest thing since peanut butter.
SPEAKER_08So and I like peanut butter, so I do too. I do too.
SPEAKER_02But uh we just I just wrote some other things down that uh we used to do. Um I actually when I was in Valley City, I we used uh I was me and another guy used to uh race cars.
SPEAKER_08Did they have like a yeah?
SPEAKER_02Wes Fargo has a race, a racetrack, race track. We have a circle track there where they even bring in the big time ones there.
SPEAKER_08So did you do that right after you came back from Vietnam and you were doing football and stuff like that? Is that when you were doing that?
SPEAKER_02Okay, I was going to college and then and then we moved out to Dickinson and I helped a guy build one out there and I raced out there too.
SPEAKER_08So did you wait out here? Here in Dickinson? Yeah, this uh Southwest Speedway or what is it?
SPEAKER_02I don't know, it was cleared south before there it's been, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Fran Martin had a car, and uh I helped him a couple of us helped him build it out of this place during the time, and okay, and then they would have we'd be part of the pit crew, and so every couple times they'd have race for the pit crew, so I got to race and then so can you tell me about the Time magazine with the blizzard?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, because that was after Vietnam too, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, that was before Vietnam actually.
SPEAKER_08Oh, that was before I was thinking it was when you just that's when I was going to school in Dickinson. Okay, so not too far, not too long before you left, really.
SPEAKER_02Like okay, light, yes, yeah, yes, they had the uh blizzard there in 1966. And uh the school was closed. I mean, there was snow all over the place. So and I was living, I was living with two other guys, one from New Salem and one from Richardton. The three of us were living in a house in the basement just close to the college. So we got up that morning, no school, everything done. So we uh went out and started taking snow off uh our people we owe. We cleaned theirs and clean a couple other driveways and stuff like that. And we thought, well, so we called job servers and said, Is there anybody around that needs help with snow? We would do that. And they said, Well, you you you want to go to New Salem? What do I want to help dig a train out? Well, I suppose. Yeah, do you have social security numbers? Yep, okay. So we go down there, and uh well, okay, so we had to do all the signatures and stuff like that. How are we gonna get there? We went down to one of those little putt putts, had some covering over it, and then puttputt, and it was warm inside there, and we took that putt putt down down there to New Salem.
SPEAKER_05How long did it take you to get down?
SPEAKER_02I don't know.
SPEAKER_08Because you were in Dickinson, yeah, from Dickinson to New Salem in that with snow, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We were on the tracks.
SPEAKER_08Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02So we get down there, and there a lot of people doing the digging that train out there, and we looked at it and holy crud. And so we got up there and we started digging and digging, digging, and digging. And that night they put us up in a motel in New Salem and they'd take us got us a meal in New Salem. And people were out of it. They had gotten the people out in a way by going in the back. And uh so we were there for one day, we were there two nights, and the next day. Next day they brought in the train to get in so we got in the they put us up in the caboose, yeah, up on top of the caboose in inside so we could sit up there and look out. Because on the way home, we had to stop at every section line and clean out the section so that they could go a little bit further, yeah. So they could in stuff like that. And so we were doing that, but before we even got out of before we even got out of the snowbank, because the snowbank was still real close to the sides, sides, because all they did was go down the way, make sure we could get out. All of a sudden we were going, and of course, it kind of moves like this and busted out the windows on the caboose. So we're doing a long home.
SPEAKER_05I would have never thought of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, neither did we. And so we got home real early in the morning and stuff like that. But that's how we did. And then we happened to see in the magazine, come on. I'm looking at that picture, it goes, that's me.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_08So you didn't even see them take the picture, you didn't have any idea.
SPEAKER_02Well, we knew there was people up there. There wasn't there was a lot of lot of people up taking pictures and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. And some guy from Bismarck is the one who's got that oh that had taken that picture and everything. Okay.
SPEAKER_08Because for the yeah, this well then to see it in light. I mean, who would have thought you would see it? You probably thought maybe Bismarck Tribune.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but not but so there was, yeah, then there was, then we found out that it was, and there was the Golden Valley News put out a little deal on it.
SPEAKER_09A little slip, yeah.
SPEAKER_02On that, and then of course, then they found Angie does uh water aerobics in the mornings, and I usually go in and work out because at the place they where she does aerobics, they got a little gym, they got like six different weight redeals and then bicycles and stuff. And I usually go there, and there's a guy in there I always talk to and everything. We were guys talking about, and he and he would he was telling me, he said, Yeah, he said, you know that storm. He said, I was working for some attorneys in Dickinson, wasn't it? Mm-hmm. And they got stuck in a train in New Salem. I said, Oh, really? Yeah, he said, you they can uh just I helped dig that train out. You what?
SPEAKER_10Proof.
SPEAKER_02So I had to take that and show it to him. Did you really have I think two or three speaking engagements because people Oh yeah, after that then I had they had church, a couple of churches wanted me to talk about it and the place where Yeah, the the touchmark um police wanted me to talk about it and then I got a great big article, front page article on the farm of form.
SPEAKER_08Yes, I saw that I saw because it was on Facebook not too long ago, and it actually just came through on my memories like maybe like a week or two ago. Yeah, so yeah. Well, well, did your friends get speaking engagements too, or just you because you were the only one that you could really see all the fighting?
SPEAKER_02And I never saw them. Uh the one I don't I've never seen again, but one of them, uh not too many years before I retired, I had a claim at his place, and he was still on the farm out in Richardton. And the god, we sat there for a long time just visiting about yeah, and things like that. On that, so that on that, but uh I got a bunch of different things that we've done in our past. Uh we do a lot of fishing in Canada, Minnesota's uh on that. We have been to Hawaii twice. We never we never do what they want you to do over there. We go on our own. It's cheaper and you can get more done. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, glacier park. We've always gone to Glacier Park. Uh, we go tenting and camping up there. Brandt used to work there when he was going to college, he would work up at Glacier Park, and so we would always go up uh in the fall and pick him up, too.
SPEAKER_08No, you guys have just one, yes, just uh one son. Um how old were you when he was born?
SPEAKER_10I was 23.
SPEAKER_08Okay, so not long after Vietnam, after you come back, had random. He was born in LA City. Okay. With just having one kid, do you ever regret not having more?
SPEAKER_10Well, I kind of tried, but it didn't happen. It didn't happen.
SPEAKER_08So you had had the one. And that was but then now we have two grandkids that we need to spoil, which is wonderful, right?
SPEAKER_02It's been spoiling already.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, they're they're grown-ups now, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, that is true because they're about the same age as my older ones, and that is pretty much our listening.
SPEAKER_02Because Rachel graduated from high school this last spring, and and uh Ben is a junior.
SPEAKER_08Uh yeah, so same ages as my older two, so yeah, they are on that and everything.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_08I just want to make sure everybody knows that when they're listening to the city. Sure, yeah. We don't want to miss them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, two beautiful grandkids, and then we've got Brant and his beautiful wife, Michelle. So uh we get together all the time. Quite quite best.
SPEAKER_10I would say you don't live too far. No, it's easier for us to come there, unfortunately, because again, they've all it's a drive.
SPEAKER_02They've got jobs and stuff like that, and everything. So we usually go there. Brant's actually coming home next. Him and Ben are coming home next weekend to our place and everything. He comes home once in a while, he'll help us put the garden, start moving some stuff around and different things. He likes to come home, so that's great. We do we do that, and we've always once in a while we do card shows in in the St. Cloud, and then we'll go spend a day with them in in the cities and everything.
SPEAKER_08So talk to me. Can you we talk about the cards really quick? Or I don't care how long you want to go on for it, but how what got you into um is it mostly baseball cards or is it all sports? Card collecting.
SPEAKER_02I I do mostly uh baseball, football, and some basketball. Baseball and football are my bowls but I I have a little bit of everything, but that's my majority. That's what I I feel that I'm most. We all my cards had been thrown away, and I didn't do anything until before we moved to rugby. So that would we were living in Dickinson at the time, and I kind of got started in it again. That would have been back in about what year was that we that's when we originally were that would have been about the early 80s.
SPEAKER_10Early 80s, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and kind of got into it again a little bit here and there, and then we got up to rugby, and that's when people were starting to do shows and stuff, and so we go to some shows and just kind of wander around. Well, I started a little shop up in rugby, and I'd have it open for like two days a week, I mean two nights a week, and then on Saturday, yeah, and so I had a lot of uh I got four or five eighth graders, seventh, eighth graders that would come in and and love to do cards, they'd love to sort cards, sort cards, and do anything I wanted them to do, and I would give them cards for that.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, yeah. It's good.
SPEAKER_02So we did that, and then I after that we'd moved, and then I then I started doing we'd started doing shows then. We'd moved out to Missoula and uh we started doing shows and we got into doing shows, and so we've been doing doing card shows for what 45 years. We're still doing them, you know. And people go, how long?
SPEAKER_08Is it becoming more popular?
SPEAKER_02Oh, car shows always way popular. It's so popular, it's popular.
SPEAKER_08Really?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it uh it really got really got popular during the pandemic. It was prior to that, it was popular, but it just through the pandemic it grew because nobody had anything else to do, so they were going down getting something to do in that time.
SPEAKER_08And the cards were fairly cheap in that time, and then yeah, now they're behind because we always got cards for our kids, like Easter baskets, things like that. And now of a sudden we're like, uh, they're in cases now. We have to like get somebody to unlock the cases in order to buy them.
SPEAKER_02Exactly right. And and it's good and it's bad. Yeah, and so but we stay on the tail end of the we like to see people being able to buy stuff and not having to spend a lot of money doing it and stuff like that. So we've uh everybody says, Well, I said, Well, we must be doing something right because people still come and see us and things like that, you know. Uh on that.
SPEAKER_09But yeah, we where's that old man and his old uh white-haired wife?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they all oh yeah, we got people that that follow us. You know, if we're not there, and yeah, but we we do we've got one uh well this coming Sunday, we got one in Fargo. And then in Bismarck, we got one in two weeks in Bismarck on that and everything. So we've done that. We used to do a lot of skiing, uh snow skiing when we were we used to ski a lot in big big sky. We spent two Christmases in big sky.
SPEAKER_10We brought our own Christmas tree one time. Oh, no way, a clocked one even.
SPEAKER_08Wait, was this before I was born? Yeah, uh yeah, because I'm like, what Christmas did you guys miss out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we uh yeah, we we went we went up to Big Sky twice, just spend the uh Christmas up there with uh her sister out of Helena, yeah, and we would do that, and then uh so we we hit a lot of the and then when we lived in Missoula, we went to did a lot of skiing the different places. And when we lived in Bismarck, actually, we went down to Terry Peak a little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah. We skied a lot down there, and we went to Canada a couple times skiing, so we happy and then uh we're gonna have one more thing to talk about, and that's the ugly part, right?
SPEAKER_10What well I'm gonna ask you a couple questions.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, golf. Yeah, golf. We both used to we both used to play golf, and then I uh we would used to do a I used to do a summer league in Fargo. I used to golf summer league in Fargo. Which uh golf course did you uh the one on the North Cole used to do some golfing in Fargo Summer?
SPEAKER_08Oh, is that right? Or no Minneapolis, sorry. Well, he did some golfing in Fargo. Okay, that was funny.
SPEAKER_02The one on the north side. Oh, I can't think of I don't know. Ever I can't remember. I don't remember. And then uh can I ask you?
SPEAKER_08Um, do you when you close your eyes, can you still smell Vietnam? Like if I were to be like, close your eyes, go back to could you still smell that? Because there's some smells that just stick with you forever.
SPEAKER_02So that's a smell that you well it yeah. It I I can I can close my eyes right now. I can see right now walking out of that plane and going into the bathroom and coming out of the bathroom and looking around, and there'd be a there's a lady squatting there, and this and that, and everything. There is no when over there, that's a third party place.
SPEAKER_08Oh my gosh. Okay, that smell will stick with you forever.
SPEAKER_02And that and that's that guy that wrote that book. That's exactly what he was talking about, and that's why I said, I know. You know, you know, and he hit it right on the on the button and stuff like that. So, but uh I'm happy. Yeah, we can we can go ahead and these are just some quick questions.
SPEAKER_08What how did becoming a dad change you?
SPEAKER_02Uh I think it it I had to have better priorities, which if I I take it back, the work that I did, I wasn't I wasn't able to do as much as I felt I should be doing and didn't do that with Brandt. That's always been something that I've not liked, but at the time I had to do it to make a living. You know it's on that. But I he has grown to be the son that you want want them to be. I mean, we never we've never had a problem with Brandt when after graduation he and his friends would go out to the parties and then they'd be the first ones back in. And uh same with our grandkids, wouldn't ever I mean everything's I think he sent put those values on them that we put on him and I think that uh he and I think he saw what we were doing and and has lived that lived out that everything that kind of what yep yep uh were you always an um an adjuster? Yes, that's what you except for no matter where you except except for four years. When we were in Missoula for four years, I was an insurance agent. I hated it. So went back to adjusting and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_08So um what's the most important less life lesson you have learned?
SPEAKER_02Did you write it down?
SPEAKER_08Remember you said Yes, I think we're gonna go view a through a few of these and then we're gonna talk about oh, right here.
SPEAKER_10I don't think no, we didn't write it in there, but this is basically what it was.
SPEAKER_02Okay. What you put into it is what you get out of it.
SPEAKER_08For life. Yeah, that's a great one. What's a moment from your childhood that you didn't realize was important until later in life?
SPEAKER_00I think that's on there, too.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, right. Oh yeah. I think that's we put those two together.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Or else we skipped it.
SPEAKER_08It is a hard one for a lot of people. It's a hard one to to come up with um on the spot as well. So the other questions I'm gonna ask, um, we're gonna ask them after we talk about what your cancer diagnosis. What kind of cancer do you have when were you diagnosed?
SPEAKER_02I was diagnosed um February of 2018.
SPEAKER_10And what kind of cancer? It's called Waldenstrums. W A L D E N S T R O O Excuse me, M S. And there's a really big long word for it, but that's basically what it is. And it's it's a disease that is in his bone marrow. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_08So is there treatment for it? No. Not really.
SPEAKER_02There's a treatment for it, but you will never cure it.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Cure it. Okay. You the treatment is to keep it dormant.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Slow any progression and then it was dormant for a long, long time.
SPEAKER_02We it was diagnosed. I in Oct. I always have my DA appoint physical appointment in October. That's my yearly appointment, everything with the doctor. And then he had called later. Somebody from there had called later and said, the doctor wants some more blood from you. And I said, and you said, what's that for? And I said, well, they want more blood.
SPEAKER_10Or a proton. Because he had had troubles with his back and was receiving epidurals. And a lot of the doctors didn't want to do it because his proton was just a little off. Okay. Okay. So he gets off the phone and tells me that he wants some more blood, and um it has to do with the protein. Well, it wasn't the proton, it was the proteins. His blood was full of proteins, which he wasn't supposed to have. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So we we went to the oncology department control boat. And uh the guy looks at us, you got cancer.
SPEAKER_10And we both looked at each other.
SPEAKER_02Huh? And she goes, morbid? How long? And so they diagnose, he diagnosed it four to five, four to five years.
SPEAKER_08That you would have left or that you had had it already as well. Nobody's life expectancy.
SPEAKER_10It's never been it was a very, very rare cancer. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So he he said you probably have four to five years of life. So that's when we decided we better get away from Nevis and move into Fargo so that we're gonna be there. So in the meantime, I had a PET scan at the Roger Maris clinic and found out it was only it was not in anything other than my uh bone marrow. So it had not moved in. Nobody could really tell when it was or anything like that. And uh so the next doc time we went, oh that doctor wasn't there, thank goodness, because I didn't really like him anyway.
SPEAKER_01Hey people, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02And uh so we then had we asked him, didn't we, the first doctor, if this was Agent Orange? And he said, No, you yeah, you don't have there is no Agent Orange, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Agent Orange isn't that was the one you didn't like. That's a bit yeah, I don't like it. I can understand.
SPEAKER_02And so the next one we went to the doctor says, Well, you've got Agent Orange. I said, Well, the other one said we don't, he says, You have Agent Orange, it's in your deal already. So he said, We have to watch, and so I I started what started doing is every four months. I was given blood. I'd have blood work done every four months, and they'd watch the different stuff and everything like that. And things were going good, going good, and then we then that doctor left, and we another doctor came. Well, it so happened we were walking down the aisle, and the doctor that came in was the doctor that she had worked with in St. E's in Bismarck, and he wasn't on college. And so we said, Well, can we have you as a right doctor? Yeah, I'll take you over. So then so we just kept on going and kept on going and kept on going. And he says, Finally, he says, You know, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. He said, We're not doing anything, and he said, I don't see anything that we should be doing. And he said, I wonder so so then he finally left, and then we were without any we had some they did some Zooms with people in here and there and everywhere because they couldn't get an oncology doctor.
SPEAKER_10But before he left, he recommended going to mail.
SPEAKER_02So he said the the VA will not pay for it. But do you still have your blue cross and blue shield? I said, Yeah, well then good. So we went down there and met with the person who knows this stuff. He said, Well, what he said, I'm looking here. He says, What do you want done? I said, Well, that's why we're here. What are we should we do? He says, Well, I said, the doctor wants to know if he should be doing something different. And he says, He should not do anything other than what he's doing right now, and that is nothing. Really? Yep. He says, I would not, if it was me, I would not be doing anything.
SPEAKER_10Watch and wait.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah, just keep doing the stuff and everything like that. So we were lucky then because after Doctor left that he wanted to keep up twice a year on the blood work and stuff, and so we would always he still has looked at it and everything like that, everything, and uh all of how so then Andrew kept because you can go in and take all my stuff out of my VA account out of my files or she can and she can copy it all and all she says she just some of your blood work's not getting good, getting worse and kept worse and well just kind of and she's little by little ingredients. They we had a new new PA in in if Angie likes them, they're good.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, because we should we should say Angie worked in oncology that's right, I were an oncologist, a nurse in oncology, so certified that.
SPEAKER_02I when I went into these doctors, I said, Don't talk to me. Talk to her, she'll give me the layman's terms when we get in the pickup.
SPEAKER_05And she knows what to ask. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So and so even she was thinking, you know, yeah, you are, but I don't know what she does. Well, then all of a sudden they said, Well, we might be getting a new oncology doctor here. And uh, so two years ago, story, two years ago, Angie, she goes down for two a week and a half, two weeks every year to Phoenix to see her sister and her husband down there because they have a home that they put out of the Airbnb, but then they and they got a lot of kids that use it, and then she always goes down in in uh March and stays with them. Okay, and so she was down there, and I get a call two years ago from up there, and they said, Oh, we got a new doctor. Yeah, uh, he wants to see you. I said, Well, I've got an appointment for to see a doctor and somebody in 10 days. He wants to see you now. I said, Well, Angie's not here, she won't be home till Friday. She'll be home Thursday. Well, then you be in here Friday morning. So, okay, whatever. So I called Angie and she says, Well, he probably just wants to meet you. Probably going through the files and just wants to meet you or something. I said, But you can meet me in 10 days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we get down there, we walk in, and we walk into the deal, and there's a nurse here, a nurse here, and you're sitting here, and I'm sitting here. And he walks in, looks at me. You're a walking time bum.
SPEAKER_07How did you take that in, G? Ah, my mouth dropped again. Yeah, like, whoa, that's great bedside manner, right?
SPEAKER_02Why? He said, I got a lot of questions for you. So we went through a whole bunch of questions. He would ask me a question, I said, yeah, that's I yeah, he said, that's part of the symptoms. I said, Well, the only symptoms they told us to look forward to was sweats at night, my lymph nodes and headaches. Right. I never have headaches. My she would check my lymph nodes. So you were checking the Liz lymph nodes from head to toe. Yeah. And uh stuff like that.
SPEAKER_10No night sweats, you know.
SPEAKER_02No night sweats.
SPEAKER_10If things sweat, it would usually the whole bed. The whole bed, yeah, it's an excessive yeah.
SPEAKER_02But then there were things I would tell him, well, yeah, I've got, you know, kind of this. Those are all symptoms. He says, here's what we gotta do. And so he says, Here's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_10The biggest thing that they've watch is called the viscosity of the blood. Okay, yeah. Okay, like the thickness of the blood. The thickness, yes.
SPEAKER_02And uh so he says, I'm gonna, I want you back here in two weeks, and you tell me what you want to do. Either you're gonna do it or you're not. If you're not gonna do it, then your consequences are basically kind of low, right? You know, I said, but he said, that's up to you what you want to do. So we got home, and first thing she does, she gets she gets her computer out and starts going through all this stuff of what he what he wants to do. So we got about this far, and and I said, What do you think? Well, I don't like this part of it, but you know what? Here's five pages of what what your uh symptoms can be, and I'm going to go.
SPEAKER_08Side effects. Oh, side effects, yes, yes. None of them looked great.
SPEAKER_10No, they really didn't. You know, one of them was Ben Musting, and that is a mustard agent from World War II, and that is very caustic. You know, there's people that have lost limbs and everything if it gets into the uh tissue, you know. And so I was a little concerned about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so anyway, I think two days later I said, hell, let's just do it. We got enough. I said, let's just do it. And so we called and said, Before that, I said, they said, come up right away, then. And so we went up, and uh and how they found in the bone marrow, actually, prior to all this and everything, is I had to have a but they they did a uh bone marrow aspiration.
SPEAKER_10Operation, aspiration, aspiration, yeah, and and found it in there.
SPEAKER_02So but uh then they set me up. I started then right away two weeks later, and I did uh chemo every four weeks, every four weeks I would do chemo. So I had six chemo appointments four weeks apart. On Thursday was six days or six hours of infusion. Friday it was three hours of infusion. Oh and uh I I went through it quite well. The only problems we ever had was getting, I have problems getting people to able to get blood work done. Yeah, but other than that, everything was fine. The greatest that VA up there was the greatest. We have the one of the best VAs in the world up there. I mean, they are in Minnesota.
SPEAKER_08Oh, in Fargo, okay.
SPEAKER_10They are just they won a lot of awards, a lot of awards for it and everything like that.
SPEAKER_08So blessed to be where you're at.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yes, and uh it just was. I mean, every time we go, I'd kiss it, and I'd look at other people that were there, and I look at her and I go, Why am I here? Look at those people here, they need it worse than I do. You know, I mean, you just kind of wonder, but anyway, we he afterwards he we got done with the chemo, he did another aspiration and took bone marrow out, and he said, You're in better shape now than you were than when you were diagnosed.
SPEAKER_10Really? Okay, he must have had it for one long time.
SPEAKER_02And nobody ever caught it.
SPEAKER_08But what what so what made them do the aspiration of the bone marrow? What caused them to do that if they hadn't done it?
SPEAKER_10Oh, you mean the second time?
SPEAKER_08Well, like, because that's not always a routine thing that you would do because it's pretty painful, isn't it? I mean, it's painfully extreme. So, what caused them to do that the first time? Because usually that's not part of them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10You know, some of the lab work that they did, you can tell.
SPEAKER_08Something wasn't right, and then okay, okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_10You know, like getting in the rule of a thumb or else um taking this part out, you know, and it all added up to something that was in the bone marrow.
SPEAKER_08Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
SPEAKER_10And so then they wanted to prove it as well as figure out what kind of disease, because there's a lot of diseases in leukemias and so forth that are in the bone marrow. So that's what gave the name Waldenstroms. Okay, gotcha.
SPEAKER_02And that's all we got all done with that, and that looked good, and so I I I was unable to, I I finally got able to get back on the water because after you take your infusion, you're you're done Friday, you feel pretty decent Friday, Saturday you feel pretty, pretty good, Sunday. You're not with a crap. And then from then for about the next seven, eight days, you just I could I could sit down on the chair and I'd fall asleep for four hours, just like that. Yeah, or I wouldn't sleep at all for however I and I really knew it because I'd want to go outside to do something, and in 15 minutes I'd have to come back in. I could there was no energy? I had no energy.
SPEAKER_10Well, his hemoglobin, you know, everything that the bone marrow does, his hemoglobin was low. Oh, yeah, his uh energy, um his platelets were low, so he he bled a little easier, you know. If he'd scrape his arms on something he was cutting outside, you know, like bushes. And uh cut yourself, and his uh his white count was low. So he didn't have to ever wear masks or anything, but we just kind of stayed away from crowds enough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02On that. So it's uh so where are you at with it today? Huh?
SPEAKER_08Where are you at with it today?
SPEAKER_02Uh Wednesday I have uh lab again. Okay, and then I have a doctor's appointment on third on a week from Wednesday. Yeah, yeah. Because we always wait for about 10 days for the last some of the lab work has to be sent away to be looked at and everything. And then so right now, as of the last blood work that we've got, because I I got done in October, and then we didn't do any, didn't do anything, didn't start lab again till January.
SPEAKER_10January. January, January.
SPEAKER_02No, we did some in December. December. Was it December? Yeah, because December and then four months would be uh April. Okay. Remember? Yeah. On that. And everything was looking good then. And so we're just right now we're looking, we'll know when we see it because Angie will know so on that and everything.
SPEAKER_08So they haven't given a timeline or anything like that.
SPEAKER_10He said uh that actually now with his treatment that was done and everything, that he and the and I noticed too in reading that um the timeline could you could survive for another 15 years. Oh, okay. And John says, I don't want to do that. 15 after you add it to 78 is not some place where you'd like to be.
SPEAKER_08But you know that, Dr. Hoy, you're a ticking time bomb. Yeah. I mean, are we all? We're all gonna die at any point.
SPEAKER_02I loved that because I knew then I was gonna be taking care of spacing. I knew exactly what we were going because we would come in then for the appointments and he would bring her up to the computer and be showing her stuff that that we never knew before, and nobody ever showed us. She knew as much as he did right there. She he had the track.
SPEAKER_10Well, his blood pressure went up at one point, over 200 systolic. And um, so they put him on some blood pressure medication. And I said, Well, that to me makes a lot of sense that you know, that he needs blood pressure medication because it's the viscosity, you know, and it's the heart trying to push all that stuff around. Yeah. And then a lot of people think, well, maybe a comadin would help. Well, no, that's a different focus on blood. That's clotting. That's not, you know, so yeah, there's a you know, and then I'm glad that I can be with him and sort things out.
SPEAKER_08So there is no timeline necessarily right now. We don't know.
SPEAKER_02We go from four months to four months.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, there you go. I love that. Has that has that changed though? Um, do you feel like having that diagnosis? Did that change anything for you with how you live your life? Well, making sure you do things that maybe you had put off.
SPEAKER_02No, you guys are just that last summer I wasn't able to fish. I wasn't, I I did get out fishing twice. Once I just I I was tired and it wasn't I it wouldn't have worked. I wasn't and so I just I wasn't we didn't do any shows and we were just I mean everything I just everything came to a stop. Yeah, yeah on that. We just didn't do hardly anything. Now I'm back, I'm doing what I want to do, and so be it. That's the way I look at it. Yeah, it's so be it, and and uh we've talked about if it comes back again, what's our options, what are we gonna do, and stuff like that, and everything so I don't I don't let it worry me. Yeah, I can't you can't let it worry ya. Or we'd never get into a car and drive our car because that is also you know, there's yeah, so but I I've I've gone back to working out some uh like I used to be and getting some of that strength back that I had lost and different things like that.
SPEAKER_08So yeah, I we're gonna is that frustrating to be like, oh, I gotta work out to get that strength back. Is that frustrating?
SPEAKER_02I like doing it. I'm just frustrated that I lost it in the first place. Yeah, I gotta and then I have to start. I was enjoying it, I enjoyed it because she she does it for she does her uh aerobics for a book goes about 40 about an hour, not quite an hour, and I can get through a whole deal in about 45 minutes of what I do in there, so it works out good for us.
SPEAKER_08So yeah, yeah. So what's something you always wished you did but never got around to doing? Is there anything?
SPEAKER_02Yep, that's when I wanted to be a bush pilot.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you did talk about that a little bit, and not be your own people and yeah.
SPEAKER_02What the hell did I say? Oh, and live in the forest.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Away from everybody.
SPEAKER_07Away from I'm gonna tell my husband that he's gonna say that's where you get it from.
SPEAKER_02Let's see if you got it on here.
SPEAKER_10I don't see it here.
SPEAKER_02Right here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Is it? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Is it in here someplace?
SPEAKER_10Might be.
SPEAKER_08Is there a family story? Um, or what family story is your favorite that you would want to keep alive?
SPEAKER_10I think we kept that empty too, but we talked about it. What do we talk about? Oh your grandpa at the wedding. Unless there was something else.
SPEAKER_02Well I oh Grandpa Ross.
SPEAKER_10It seems like there was something else too, but I don't remember what it was.
SPEAKER_02I have one story that I have always told everybody. And I went down to a wedding in Des Moines when I was probably a senior. I and I went down there. One of Uncle Homer's daughters got married.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Or was it Uncle Homer's or was it Donald's? I don't know. One of them somebody got married down there. And we're down there. It was we're having a lot of fun and everything. We go to the wedding, and we're sitting right behind Uncle Homer. Grandpa and I. And Uncle Homer gets up. He's gonna blow his nose and wipe his heels. So he pulls what he thinks it is. Hinky Jeff.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, Hinky, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which is not there's a fake number with cardboard with on top. And I can I can grandpa and I look at that. I can I can see Uncle Homer's face looking at that, going.
SPEAKER_07It's not gonna help me. That's not gonna help me at all.
SPEAKER_02On that and everything. That was that was yeah, I I I could I keep telling people stuff about that. That was hilarious because you get a student there and you just think there's a hanky in there. Yeah. Well, I didn't know there's a little bit there, but the rest of it's cardboard.
SPEAKER_08Do they still call it any pocket square or something like that now that they don't know? But that is really funny that they put cardboard and I know you've got to save that fabric, you know, for some uh in the blank.
SPEAKER_10This one right here. I didn't find it on the side or anything.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean about uh what I wanted that oh the bush pilot that's in there someplace, yeah. There was one that it was okay, okay. Here it was. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Oh, play guitar.
SPEAKER_02Play guitar, be a bush pilot.
SPEAKER_10He wants he'd always liked to do a bit play a guitar. Do you have a guitar?
SPEAKER_02I used to have one. I started Angie and I both started taking lessons, and it was too big for her hand that she didn't want to. And I could never get because I was on the road all the time and everything, and never got enough time to practice or to go to deals and everything. So but we've had it on and then I would try to scrum and everything, but I will that's one of the things that they're and live out in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_08So do you have any major regrets when you look back on your life now?
SPEAKER_02None looks lover.
SPEAKER_08I love that. It's the best answer. And then last question I have.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_08Um, what's one thing you would want your you want your family to remember about you when you're gone?
SPEAKER_02What'd you put on there, dear?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_02Take a serious question and make it funny. I think we won. You didn't put anything in there. I think we went out to that up there, didn't we? Yeah, I think we did. Yeah, we referred that one to the same thing as what you put into life is what you can do.
SPEAKER_10And it can be anything, you know, because it can be your your uh spouse, or it can be your children, or it can be yourself, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_08I feel like that's what you want people to remember about you, that like that's what you did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that you would try to I did this because I wanted to do this. Yeah, you know, it's like fishing. Uh I mean, you know, those were the what I want them to remember that Angie and I fished all the time. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08I mean, that was that was a lot of of living out of your life. Yeah, that is right. Like if you want to get a lot out of life, go ahead and do that. Yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we just we we fished together, we had the boat, and I mean, we just we did a lot of fishing. We did a lot together, and we still try to do as much as what we can and everything on that, and yet we still do things apart too.
SPEAKER_10I mean, you know, we didn't really want to be uh a husband and wife, that's all they did is togetherness, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_08So have to have some friends too. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02You know, like she she goes down to Phoenix, and I don't because I don't fly anymore. I don't I don't want to fly anymore. I just the planes have gotten too small, and my knees are up to my chest, and I don't feel like reading, and yeah, you never know who you're gonna have next year. So I just you go somebody's gotta stay home.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, you know, and I I and you're okay being at home by yourself. Sometimes that's kind of nice, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, on that and everything. So yeah, I we've done that. She's got her things, she likes she likes her stained glass to do her stained glass and stuff like that. So I can be working with my cards, getting ready for a show, and she'll be making stained glass.
SPEAKER_10Well, I notice you like them too, but jigsaw puzzles are my passion too.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, we'll be sitting downstairs, especially in the winter time. She's on that, and I'm on the cards, and we're watching Randall Offrey or something on TV.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah, our music, just even our music.
SPEAKER_02We're the old western. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Oh, yeah. Okay. Wow. Classic country.
SPEAKER_02Yes, classic country and 50s and 60s. But 50s and 60s also. So we like to reminisce on those channels.
SPEAKER_08Any other memories?
SPEAKER_02I don't we had, you know, we had mom and dad up to uh they used to come to Missoula a lot and everything, and it it was just like they were amazed when you took them out to something because it's something that they're never that that used to do or anything like that. So and uh and even like when we went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and that family reunion when we went down there. They're really they were not people who wanted to be around a lot of people. They had their friends, you know. Like I can remember we growing up, you know, they had two, three friends, and they go, you know, maybe once a month or once every two months and play cards in the afternoon or something like that. That was their getaway, you know. Going to Dickinson or Glenda's shopping was a trip for them. Yes, you know, totally different than what most of us are all. We've got a lot of things that we do and everything like that, but they grew up in a different age and a different environment than what we've had and everything like that. So because uh yeah, they worked. I mean, that was some people play, they worked to them. A lot of that work was play.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, dad and oh, let's go work with the cattle. He enjoyed that.
SPEAKER_08That's yeah, that was exciting for him.
SPEAKER_02Stuff like that was or let's go do this, and you know, yeah. It was fun. I don't have anything more special to Okay.
SPEAKER_08Well, thank you both. Uh you're gonna be amazed when I turn this off how long it was.
SPEAKER_02I just looked and went. I'm wondering.
SPEAKER_09Quit two hours ago.
SPEAKER_08Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Simple Lives We Live. I hope this story reminded you that everyday life holds beauty, meaning, and lessons worth sharing. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to follow the podcast and leave a review. It helps more people discover these stories. Do you know someone with a story worth telling? Reach out and let me know. I'd love to hear from you. You can connect with me on Instagram at the Simple Lives We Live. Until the next time, may you find join in the ordinary moments and gratitude in the simple lives we live.