Specialist+Robert+I.+Boltz


 * ==United States Army==

Drafted February 9, 1966
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I wound up at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where I took basic training. First time since the Korean War they had basic training there, mainly because they needed artillery people. There were 2,500 of us that took basic training there. I was trained through advanced training, and I was an assistant gunner on an 88 self propelled howitzer. I also was trained in stationary artillery pieces, 105 and a 155.
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 When I was in Vietnam, we would get information from back home, my comrades and I could not believe the protests, the burnings, the lootings, the hippies, the flower children, or Kent State, where some of the students got shot by riots, and protests, and sit ins. It didn’t help our cause of what we were there for. And knowing that the government did not have the backing of the people of the United States, when you look at the Vietnam War, the media brought Vietnam into everyone’s home for the first time in world history. That’s what constituted a lot of riots, a lot of protests, and to be honest, you have a right to protest, but in this circumstance, it just did not support the GI’s that were over there.

Full transcript of the interview with Mr. Boltz.