It is said that life doesn’t give us obstacles any bigger than we’re equipped to handle. When Maj. Thomas W. Daniels Jr. was assigned to Advisory Team 52 of the Vinh Long Province in July 1965, he was already 39 and a veteran of over 20 years in military service. His life and military experiences uniquely prepared him for this position. If I had asked my father, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” the response could have been, “Which one?” Like so many kids, those stories didn’t interest me when I was growing up, and I didn’t ask. A Veterans’ Oral History Project through the University of Memphis provided me with answers when I listened to the two-hour recording 10 years after his death. The best part was being able to hear his voice.
T.W. Daniels Jr. was born in Fayetteville, N.C., near the sprawling Fort Bragg military base. His father was an unreliable provider, so financial re-sponsibilities fell heavily on his mother and theUSS (SS-313), a submarine operating in the Pacific. He learned that when a submarine spent more time on the surface, he developed bad seasickness. When his enlistment ended in 1947, he tried civilian life, but joined the Army after a year when they gave him a better rank (E-5) than the Navy. His first job in the Army was as a recruiter in a small North Carolina town, and he would extensively use his interpersonal skills in Vietnam. Then he was assigned to an Engineer Construction Battalion, where he advanced to sergeant major—valuable experience when schools and bridges needed to be built in Vietnam.
