Vietnam: Reflections of an Interrogator

By Donald H Sullivan

A different viewpoint of the Vietnam war. The experiences of a psyop interrogator during the war and his thoughts on the the people, the VC, the NVA, our own troops, and the war in general.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781300948025

Donald H Sullivan

I'm a native Floridian, retired from the US Army, I started writing in the army, mostly training and tech manuals. Boring stuff, but it whetted my interest in writing. I've written sci-fi, thrillers, mysteries, humor, fantasies, horror, and more. I'm now living in NC. While in the army, I served in air defense artillery, military intelligence, and psychological operations. I also worked in Federal Civil Service as a quality assurance specialist, ammunition surveillance. I love writing, reading, most kinds of music, and animals--especially dogs.

Book preview

Vietnam: Reflections of an Interrogator

Title Page

Vietnam: Reflections of an Interrogator

Donald H Sullivan

Copyright Page

Copyright 2013  Donald H Sullivan

ISBN:  978-1-300-94802-5

Revised edition.  Formerly published under the title, Vietnam: From a GI's Perspective

~~*~~

To all who served in Vietnam

in the

6th PSYOP Bn. (Saigon)

246th PSYOP Co. (Bien Hoa)

245th PSYOP Co. (Nha Trang)

244th PSYOP Co. (Da Nang)

Introduction

This book, unlike most books about Vietnam, is not about combat experiences.  It  primarily tells of  my  experiences as an interrogator/translator in Vietnam, and about my observations of the Vietnamese people, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN,) the Viet Cong (VC,) the North Vietnamese Army (NVA,) and our own troops.

Ask ten Vietnam vets to describe what Vietnam was like and you would likely get ten different stories.  It would depend on the unit he served in, the location he was in, and the time that he was there.  Also, it's possible that you could ask two vets who served in the same unit and were there at the same time and you might get different versions of what it was like, in the same way that several people can witness a crime and each give a different description of the perpetrator. 

~~*~~

My account of what it was like is based on my own experiences there, what I heard from other vets while in Vietnam, and my conversations with other vets here in the states.

I spent two tours in Vietnam for a total of nineteen months.  The time I spent there was divided about evenly between Saigon and Bien Hoa. (It was tour then; the term now is deployment.)   My first tour, in February 1965, doesn't really count as a tour.  I was assigned to MACV as an advisor, but was cut short after a few weeks.  I was medivaced out after an emergency operation to close a perforated ulcer.  Not very heroic.

In my second tour I was an interrogator/translator in a Psyop (Psychological Operations) unit, so I experienced many things in Vietnam that the average vet did not.  However, I was not unique in that regard.  GIs in different kinds of units usually experienced different kinds of situations. 

I never served with a combat unit while in Vietnam, and therefore for combat-related accounts in this book I had to depend on what I heard from troops who were in combat units.  I'm now retired and living in Fayetteville, NC, which is adjacent to Fort Bragg, so I meet and talk with lots of Vietnam vets at the clubs and snack bars on the post.  I have had the opportunity to exchange experiences with vets from all types of units. 

But I will limit this book mainly to accounts of my own experiences in Vietnam.  I will touch briefly on the combat aspects, as any book on Vietnam can't entirely ignore the fighting that was going on there.  

There are a number of books about combat in Vietnam in print, some very good, that have been written by Vietnam vets telling of their combat experiences in detail.

Actually only about one in twelve of all the troops who were in