HOST: [00:00:01] Of the 58,281 names on The Wall, more than 40,000 of them, two-thirds, died in 1967, ’68 and ’69. Robin Bartlett landed an I Corps right smack in the middle of that period. His training sergeant at Camp Evans had said to him, “Your life expectancy is less than 90 days.” The 1st of the 5th Cavalry Regiment had lost five platoon leaders the previous month, and Robin was one of five freshly-minted first lieutenants assigned to replace them. He’s the only one of those five young officers to survive his tour.

BARTLETT: [00:00:37] We were all hardened, well trained, very aggressive and gung-ho. And the others were either casualties, or a couple of them were killed.

HOST: [00:00:49] Stick around. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Founders of The Wall. This is Echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict… More than 50 years later. This is Episode 48: “Humping the Boonies.” Robin Bartlett was promoted to first lieutenant after just one year in the Army. His father, a West Point graduate, had taken eight years to reach that rank. His brother, also a West Pointer, had taken four years. I’m sure that Robin’s velocity to some degree reflected the quality of his soldiering, but to a much larger degree it reflected the Army’s urgent need for replacement platoon leaders in combat infantry units during the height of the Vietnam War. Robin joined me from Norwood, New Jersey to talk about the odds of surviving as a replacement platoon leader humping the boonies in 1968, how he defied those odds, and the book he wrote about his Vietnam War experience.

BARTLETT: [00:02:19] My family was deeply ingrained in the military. My grandfather went to West Point, my father went to West Point, my brother went to West Point, and we used to answer the telephone at home: “Colonel Bartlett’s quarters. May I help you, sir?” Um, and, um, my father said I’ll get you an appointment to West Point. In fact, he did, and I said, no, that’s not for me. I’m turning it down. I don’t want to go to West Point. And, um, ultimately went to college in Southern California at Claremont McKenna College. It’s east of L.A., uh, liberal arts school. I was a comparative literature major, which was literature and French language. And, um, it was, uh, at the height of the the war… Was beginning to really build up considerably. And I actually got, during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, I got reclassified and I said, whoa, I’m not going to be drafted. I mean, it was expected that I would serve my obligation as an officer and that, um.

HOST: [00:03:26] Expected by whom?

BARTLETT: [00:03:28] My family.

HOST: [00:03:29] Gotcha. And what year are we talking about, Robin?

BARTLETT: [00:03:32] Six, between ’63 and ’64… So I went into the ROTC program, and it just was really second nature to me. Um, and, um, finished as a Distinguished Military Graduate and at the ripe age of 21, having, uh, completed my college degree, brilliant as I was at 21 years old, knowing everything. And I was a tough guy then, too, I was really tough. Um, I decided I had never been challenged in my life up to that point in time. Never really challenged. So I ended up deciding to choose the most, uh, arduous, uh, direction that I could think of, which was Airborne Ranger, uh, an assignment to the 82nd Airborne Division. And I volunteered for all of that, and I got it all… Plus. So after graduation, actually, literally two days after graduation from college, uh, everything… I loaded everything I owned in my car, and I drove from California to, uh, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Division. And, uh, started my military career at that point, but I was not, i was not airborne qualified at that time. I was in the… I was there for about a month, and then I got orders sending me down to Fort Benning, and I went through, uh, Airborne School, Infantry Officer Basic Course and Ranger training.

HOST: [00:05:10] And so after you finished all of that training, how long was it before you were deployed to Vietnam?

BARTLETT: [00:05:17] A little over six months. It was on orders to go to the 101st Airborne Division.

HOST: [00:05:23] What were the conversations like around the house with your father, your brother, about the fact that you’d received orders for Vietnam?

BARTLETT: [00:05:30] Well, um, my, my brother had actually been very seriously wounded during his tour in Vietnam. He was an artillery officer, and, uh, he was seriously wounded and had come back, Um, and he never really was quite the same – both physically and mentally – as a result of that. He did complete his career, uh, in, in the, in the Army, came out as a lieutenant colonel. But, uh, that experience of being severely wounded, uh, really affected him. So my, my parents were obviously extremely concerned about me going, but our family was was very much committed to, uh, to the service to our country. And I know my mother was extremely anxious about it but didn’t show it.

HOST: [00:06:18] Do you remember the date that you left?

BARTLETT: [00:06:20] I do, I left on May the 9th.

HOST: [00:06:24] So I’m assuming that you landed at Tan Son Nhut?

BARTLETT: [00:06:28] Ben Hoa… Yes. Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base and then went to Ben Hoa replacement center. Okay. And this was right after the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Big Tet Offensive. Although there would be what was called the Mini Tet soon to follow thereafter, which I did experience. But there had been so many officer casualties in the 101st, and I’m sorry, in the 1st Cav Division, and throughout Vietnam, that when I got there, because we, we – I was with a whole bunch of officers from the 82nd Airborne Division all flown over together – and the first thing is said to us, “Well, you’re not going to the 101st anymore, all orders are cancelled and we’ll let you know. Hang around.” So for three days, um, we just tried to adjust to this incredible heat and smell and, um, took showers, like, three and four or five showers a day just to try to cope with the heat. And, uh, we didn’t have jungle fatigues at that time, so we were wearing regular army fatigues, which were terrible. Uh, and, you know, read paperback books and tried to sleep. Uh, and then finally one morning at about… Uh, what… One night, I got orders. Uh, a, a um, NCO came to my tent. We all had to sleep in a specific bunk, and that was all labeled to where we were, and he said, you’re going to the 1st Cav Division. And the next morning at 6:00, all my equipment with me, um, went to the, went to, uh, went to the airfield and flew to An Khe in II corps, which was the division rear at that point in time.

BARTLETT: [00:08:10] Um, and that’s when, you know, you drew equipment and they had a little bit of training. We had, I had a rifle, but no ammunition, but it was a big, huge, uh, division rear base camp. They they had, uh, places for us to sleep and cots. I mean, it was, quote, luxurious compared to the boonies… But we drew equipment, had our uniforms, received our uniforms, um, filled out some paperwork, did the administrative part of checking into the division, and I actually my, my brother had been with the, uh,1st Cav Division also. And, um, this actually turned out, at the time, the scuttlebutt on the unit was was very, very positive because they had more helicopters than any other division, uh, in Vietnam, and so you flew everywhere. You flew from point A to point B, and, uh, you had tremendous helicopter support, Cobra helicopter support, tremendous artillery support, jets… The whole nine yards, even even battleship support if you were out near the Gulf of Tonkin. Um, so that was the good news. And you were able to carry more water, more ammunition and lighter loads, lighter packs. My, some of my colleagues could be…

HOST: [00:09:35] Because you could be resupplied by helicopters more frequently. Correct?

BARTLETT: [00:09:39] Correct. My pack was like 45 pounds, whereas other officers that I know went to other divisions, they carried 70-pound packs. So it was a lighter, light infantry unit who could move very fast. And but the other side of that coin was that they could combat assault. You called a CHARLIE ALPHA, combat assault, you helicopter combat assault into an LZ, and they tried to place that LZ as close to the enemy force as possible. Mhm. So of course they would prep the LZ before, before you moved into it. But sometimes that LZ was still hot. They loved to shoot down – not the first helicopter – they like to shoot down the second helicopter. And if that happened, then the men on the ground would have to just fight it out. And then, when I finally got assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cav, uh choppered out to that unit. Mhm. To the, and it was assigned um with four other officers to that unit. So, uh, we waited around and waited around to go in to meet with the battalion commander, four officers. And uh, so the S-1 lined us up in alphabetical order called us to attention, marched us into the battalion commander’s bunker. About 8:00 at night, and this man was literally falling asleep in his chair. He was dead on his feet. There was a lieutenant colonel. He’s the battalion commander.

BARTLETT: [00:11:14] He gave us a two minute speech, and the S1 was standing there and said, “Where are we assigning these officers?” We were all second – no, I’m sorry – we were promoted to first lieutenant on that day. So we had all been in the Army for one year, and we were all promoted to first lieutenant after one year. By comparison. Took my brother four years to make first lieutenant, and it took my father eight years to make first lieutenant. But that was the need, that was the promotion situation of the day. So the battalion commander said, well, I guess it doesn’t really matter. What do we need? And the S-1 said, well, we need one in A company, two in B company, and one and one in C company. So he pointed at me and said, you’re in A company, the next two are in B and the third one is in C. I was the only officer to survive that tour. The other…

HOST: [00:12:11] Of the four?

BARTLETT: [00:12:12] … of those of the four, I was the only officer, the others were either casualties or a couple of them were killed. So, luck of the alphabetical order.

HOST: [00:12:23] Let’s talk a little bit about, um. About the attrition rate for platoon leaders in the infantry. Um, I was I was surprised to learn, as I read your book, that the the average expected lifespan for an infantry platoon leader was about 90 days.

BARTLETT: [00:12:45] Less than. Yes.

HOST: [00:12:46] Can you talk a little bit about some of the factors driving that statistic?

BARTLETT: [00:12:52] This group, at this point in time all had pretty much the same training. We had all gone through Basic Infantry Officer Basic Course, “IOBC” as they called it… Airborne, we were all airborne qualified… We’d been jumping out of airplanes. We were tough stuff and we all had had Ranger training. And Ranger training was was seriously the, the best insurance policy for Vietnam. But we were all hardened soldiers and and well trained, very aggressive, um, and gung-ho. And often those officers, uh, made the mistake of, of being too gung-ho, uh, and the soldiers that we led in our platoons, which average anywhere from 24 to 32 men, depending upon casualties and R&R, and, um, what, whatever sickness. Um, those men were draftees. They were 18, 19 years old and they were draftees, for the most part. There were a few who were regular, but not, not very many, I would say 90% draftees. And, uh, they were not gung-ho. They wanted to survive their tour, and they knew that the officer only had to survive six months before he was transferred to a staff job. So there was a – when, when a new platoon leader came in – there was a great deal of suspicion about from the platoon sergeant and from the squad leaders as to how gung-ho this officer would be. And I think one of the smartest things I did when I was first assigned as a platoon leader was to sit down with my, my platoon sergeant and my squad leaders and say what happened to my predecessor? And they were very revealing.

BARTLETT: [00:14:59] And I said, well, you know, you guys have have the experience. You’ve been in the field and I’m brand new coming in. And, um, we established some trust at that, at that initial meeting. And I listened to them and I took their advice. I didn’t think that I knew more than they did. Occasionally I did know more than they did. At the same time, they had the experience and I did not. So we established a good level of trust, and eventually they found that I, um, would not risk their lives unnecessarily. And when I gave orders and when I gave direction, it was because it was absolutely necessary, and I tried, never… I tried very hard never to place them in harm’s way unless, unless we were all in harm’s way. So I think that that was one of the things that was very influential, very significant for me. And one of the things that, um, a number of the platoon platoon leaders who went to Vietnam failed to do, they thought as a result of the training they had, um, that that they, you know, they were very gung-ho and they made some serious mistakes, uh, in terms of, uh, attacking the enemy and failing to keep the welfare of their soldiers foremost in their minds. There were other factors, too, but those are probably the two most important.

BARTLETT: [00:16:37] I think Ranger training probably was one of the most influential things, because in Ranger training, um, they taught, they taught you to be fearless and we were. They taught you to absolutely be fearless. Uh, and in command of every situation. And if you were ambushed, you learned and you knew that you had to attack or be annihilated and you couldn’t – with bullets flying overhead – you could not afford to be, to hug the ground and pray, that that was certain death. And so you had… Every… When you were ambushed, ambushed, or when you were in a firefight, all eyes turned to you, all eyes and all minds. And they were waiting for an order. They were waiting for direction, good or bad. They wanted the leader to give direction. And, um, that Ranger training helped me tremendously because it gave me a tremendous sense of confidence. And, frankly, there was never once in Vietnam that I didn’t feel in control of the situation. I was scared to death, but I still felt that I could control the situation and overcome whatever, whatever the issue was, in a firefight. And that training was was the best insurance policy I could have. I also was extremely physical fit. I was probably as fit, if not more fit than other soldiers in my, uh, in my unit. Um, I think there was a good deal of dumb luck. Just just good luck. Uh, that, uh, was on my side. I didn’t I, also didn’t do stupid stuff. I’ll give you an example. I had one, uh, this friend, he he landed a helicopter standing on a hill, and he was giving direction to the helicopter, standing on a hill and the rotor blades took off his head. Just dumb stuff like that. I didn’t, you know, real basic things like that. I tried to avoid doing stupid stuff.

BARTLETT: [00:18:54] Um, I, I shot a lot of artillery. I had the reputation in our battalion, perhaps, I think, of having shot more artillery than any other platoon leader in the battalion. And my favorite line was reconnaissance by fire. So I trusted my point man and my cover man to, if they had an uneasy feeling about walking into an area – and it’s just pure intuition – or if you were in the jungle and you didn’t hear any monkeys or you didn’t hear any birds, everything was super quiet… that, that was there was something wrong. And so I fired artillery rounds in front of us. A lot of them. I fired so much artillery, they put a budget on me: Maximum of 25 rounds. But, you know, when my men walked through the area, they had confidence that, you know, that, that that the area they were going to with that we were going to be moving into had been blown away. I mean, there were times that they knew I had to give orders that put them in harm’s way, but overall, I think they knew, um, I had their welfare at at heart and in my mind, as a foremost, uh, objective, um, if, if in a firefight, I had a wounded man, severely wounded man, um, all the men would immediately think, I’m sure, you know what if that was me? What if, what if I was the one who was wounded? What would be his objective? Would it be to attack, or would it be to call for a medevac? And my answer was simple: I always call for the medevac.

BARTLETT: [00:20:44] I mean, I tried to secure my position so that we weren’t overrun, made good decisions about that, so that we had good security. But then I’d call for a medevac and get that wounded man out. So lives were important to me, and I think they respected that. It was more important to me than body count and that, you know, that was the metric by which a platoon leader was measured, was body count. And we had body count. There was no question about that. But it usually came from ambushes. We were good at ambushing. When we ambushed, nothing survived. And that was also because we were pretty much in a free fire zone. So anything that moved, we killed it. Uh, this was closer to the Laotian border. When we were out, more toward the Gulf of Tonkin, we had to be more cautious about friendlies. But when we were in the three-canopy jungle, mountainous jungle near the Laotian border, anything that moved you killed it. Just no questions. You just shot, you just killed… Blew the claymore mines, whatever it was, and set up your ambushes and took them out.

HOST: [00:21:49] I’ll talk more with Robin Bartlett after a short break. It’s a big week here at VVMF. Big people are running around doing important, urgent stuff all over the place. Email and chat conversations are pinging way outside of normal work hours. It’s a small miracle we got this episode published. So what’s all the hubbub, bub? Well, I’ll tell you, it’s because this week we kick off the 2023 Tour of The Wall That Heals, VVMF’s exact replica of The Wall at three-quarter scale that travels to cities and towns all across America. If you want to know more about this traveling exhibit and the impact it can have on a community, check out Episode 15 of this podcast. The Wall That Heals will be in San Luis Obispo, California, March 16th through 19 and Hawaiian Gardens, California, March 23rd through 26. To see the rest of this year’s tour schedule, and to learn how you can bring The Wall That Heals to your town, visit vvmf.org.

SINISE: [00:23:06] Hello, I’m Gary Sinise. Nearly 3 million Americans served in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 have their names inscribed on The Wall. Those that pay the ultimate price in service to America. Some might ask why the Vietnam War still matters? It matters because more than 58,000 lives were cut short and their families forever changed. It matters because we should never forget how Vietnam veterans were treated when they came home. A lesson learned so that our current generation of veterans are treated with respect. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the organization that built The Wall, works to ensure that future generations will understand the war’s impact. I’m asking you to help keep the promise the wall was built on. Never forget. Visit vvmf.org to find out how you can get involved.

HOST: [00:24:05] Do you have loved ones who survived the Vietnam War and died after returning home? Did you know you can honor them at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC? We’re still accepting applications for the 2023 In Memory Honor Roll through March 29th. We also have an In Memory Facebook group with almost 20,000 members, so be sure to join that if you want to feel part of a community who’ve experienced a loss similar to yours. You’ll find the In Memory Honor Roll application and a link to the Facebook group by going to vvmf.org and clicking on In Memory. And now the rest of my interview with Robin Bartlett.

HOST: [00:24:59] You’re six or seven months in the boonies. You covered, you covered a lot of ground…

BARTLETT: [00:25:03] … a lot of territory.

HOST: [00:25:05] … Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about some of that experience?

BARTLETT: [00:25:08] Yeah. Well, we, um, would often make, uh, combat assaults, several combat assaults a week, moving us from point A to point B, uh, moving us closer to where intelligence indicated there might be an enemy force, trying to move us as close as possible to that suspected location. Um, and, um, typically we would be in the field for at least four weeks, sometimes six. And during that period of time, um, you wore the same clothes. We did get resupplied with food and water. The area had been, um, uh, saturated with Agent Orange, so they didn’t want us drinking from streams or trying to purify the water. If we if we encountered a stream, we would just wet down our towels and sponge ourselves off, but not drink from it. And the heat was intense. It was 105 to 115 degrees. The humidity, especially in the jungle, was was horrendous. I had to be very cautious about my men suffering from heat exhaustion or heat stroke. It’s not uncommon to have men evacuated every day for heat exhaustion, especially if they were carrying a heavy load. If they could carry the machine gun, ammunition, mortar rounds, that sort of thing. And, um, I got just as dirty as my men. I ate the same food, endured the same heat, had the same pains and aches. Uh, except, you know, I had to be responsible for them. I had to give orders. I had to be alert for their attitudes and make sure they were equipped to fight and and monitor them.

BARTLETT: [00:26:59] I had a protocol every time we went out on ambush. You know, I would check them out, have them jump up and down, make sure they didn’t rattle or make any noise, and that they had two bandoliers of ammunition and for hand grenades and and two smoke grenades. I mean, everybody had an S.O.P., of standard operating procedure of what they had to carry, and I made sure they had it. So we were equipped… Plus Claymore mines. That was our primary defensive tool. So on an average day, we would move from a night defensive position called an “NDP” to another night defensive position. The company would move and each platoon would have a different route that they would follow. So it was not an entire company moving. The company commander would walk with the mortar platoon, which was just one tube and, I don’t know, 8 or 9 rounds. That’s about all they carried. So it was limited support capabilities, but each platoon followed a different route, and that would be a hump of anywhere between, you know, in dense jungle, it might be five to eight kilometers. And if you were out in the more open terrain, it might be eight to 10 kilometers. Um, because you had to go more slowly when you had no overhead cover and you had in direct sunlight, we would stop usually, especially in the open areas, we would stop at 11:30 and just put up our poncho liners over our heads to keep the sun off and not pick up again until maybe 1:30, 2:00 in the afternoon.

BARTLETT: [00:28:32] And then on the way we would recon ambush, potential ambush sites, because we knew the enemy was watching us. We knew that they were there and watching everything that we did. Plus they knew our, they knew our, our procedures. They were well schooled on American what American strategy was. We didn’t fool them. And, um, so we made a big to do over three or four different ambush locations, and they would have no way of knowing which one we would ultimately choose that night. And every night we would send out a reinforced squad. I would take one, one night. My platoon sergeant would take one the next night. Each platoon would send out an ambush and set up for the night with the reinforced squad. That was pretty much our routine day-to-day for four-to-six weeks at a time, the longest I was ever out with six weeks. So I would say the average was for the enemy owned the night. They were trained. They were wonderful night fighters. They were better than we were. We would hole up for the night, dig foxholes and establish a night defensive perimeter.

BARTLETT: [00:29:40] And they learned to attack at night. They learned to move at night and attack at night. And they were very good at it. And they had sappers. That’s what they were called… Who, uh, and they carried very light loads, literally just a bag of rice and a couple of, uh, magazines of ammunition and an AK 47. They could sneak into our unit and and, uh, throw a satchel charge and or hand grenades before we even knew what was happening… we would put up, uh, trip flares, and they knew how to disarm the trip flares. I had numerous occasions, when we went out after, um, a night defensive position or an ambush and our trip flares would be dismantled. So they owned the night and they were very effective night fighters. Um, they were they did not wish to engage during the day because they knew we had superior firepower and we had artillery and we had helicopter gunships, and we could just bring those assets to bear very, very quickly being with the 1st Cav. Um, but at night time it was a different story and at night it was you just couldn’t tell what was going on. It was frightening. And you didn’t want to move around much because you were afraid you might get shot by your own men. So that’s when, that’s when a lot of casualties occurred.

HOST: [00:31:04] Yeah. There’s some very vivid, uh, descriptions in your book, and I don’t and I want people to read the book, so we’re not going to recount them here. But there’s some very vivid descriptions of times that you came face to face with the enemy.

BARTLETT: [00:31:21] I have to tell one funny story. In Ranger school, they made us…. They had a lanyard around our weapons, and that lanyard was around our necks…. So we would never, never allowed to remove that lanyard from your neck. So your weapon always stayed with you, regardless of how tired and exhausted you were. So, you know, the lesson was you never went anywhere without your weapon. Well, I had to take a crap, and I made the mistake of walking down from our night – this was in the morning – after everybody’s up and had their coffee, and we’re eating and we’re getting ready to move out, and I walked down to the edge of the night defensive perimeter, told my men right behind me that I was going down to take a crap and, uh, did not take my weapon. So I kind of went into the brush, just a little bit, not far did my business… And then as I was pulling up my pants, here was an enemy soldier looking at me from maybe 30, 40 feet away, and he waved at me. Now I think he was an enemy soldier. He didn’t have a weapon. I don’t think he was a friendly. He had a uniform on, and man, I turned around and ran back as fast as I could. So that was one of those times that I did something very stupid.

HOST: [00:32:47] Were there times when you were surprised, uh, by some some aspect of the enemy’s training or tactics or determination?

BARTLETT: [00:32:57] I would say only at night. That’s when we learned, when I found that that they were so effective at penetrating our, our, uh, our space, uh, regardless of the circumstances, uh, it could be raining, pouring rain, miserable conditions. And they were effective at, uh, getting close to us, throwing a hand grenade, creating turmoil. Um, I guess I had a great respect for NVA and VC soldiers for that capability. Um, and for their ability to monitor us… And not be seen. It was so rare that we would see find some of these, uh, observers.

HOST: [00:33:50] I guess another major threat that you face when you’re humping the boonies is, uh, is the environment. You talked a little bit about the heat and the humidity, but, uh, you know, there must be a hundred ways that that jungle wants you dead.

BARTLETT: [00:34:03] Yeah. Um, I mean, I’ve heard stories and talked with vets about snakes, and I did have one soldier who was bitten by a monkey and had to be evacuated because a lot of monkeys carried rabies. Um, you know, mosquitoes, of course, were just horrendous. At night time. You would lather up with mosquito repellent. You put on your shirt, tie… You know, turn up the collar, make sure your cuffs were down, lather your face. Um, but some sort of a hood over your head, but a mosquito still would find you. And you were always suffering from mosquito bites. And we took malaria pills every day. And then a big pill every week to… As a prophylactic against malaria. Uh, but water certainly was the main issue for us. He carried anywhere from a gallon-and-a-half to two gallons of water. And if it was intensely hot, you’d go through that by 11:00 in the morning. And, um, it was not uncommon for men carrying heavy loads just, just to fall over. And if you were in deep jungle, the only way to get them out was by use of a jungle penetrator… And, uh, medevac, uh, had to be called.

BARTLETT: [00:35:21] There was no GPS in those days, so they had to find you based on map coordinates. And if you popped smoke, it would just go up into the trees and hang there. They would never see you. So we had to cut down trees with a machete to open a hole in the canopy of maybe 10 to 12ft. And when we heard the helicopter overhead, we would fire a star cluster, which is a little bit like a Roman candle, through the hole. And you would pray that the door gunner or pilot or co-pilot would see it, and we would take a smoke grenade and tie it to the end of a pole, like a 20 foot pole, and pop the smoke grenade and hold it up over the hole so that the smoke would penetrate and they could find us, and then they would come over and drop this hook, and you’d hook the stretcher or you’d hook – if the man was capable of sitting on the seat – there was a seat that they could sit on. They’d haul him up and haul him away.

HOST: [00:36:21] You talk in your book about, uh, just having to prepare someone who was killed in action, having to prepare that body to be evacuated.

BARTLETT: [00:36:33] Well, I think that was probably the hardest job that any platoon leader had. Certainly the hardest job that I had. And my men didn’t want to do it because I don’t know whether it was superstition or they just thought maybe they would be the ones next time. But it was my job. Our medics carried these three by five cards. “Death cards,” we called them, had a hole punched in it, a little piece of string, And it was my job to write down the coordinates as close as possible to where the soldier was killed. They actually tracked where, where each each man had died as close as possible. And I would go through the man’s pockets, make sure there wasn’t anything there that didn’t, shouldn’t be there. Uh, and sometimes, you know, documents or whatever, paperwork… Letters would go in a separate paper bag or plastic bag back to the rear, to the S1 to be returned to the family. And, um, so I would attach this card to the man’s boot along with one of his dog tags. The other remained around his neck. And, uh, we didn’t have body bags, so we wrapped him in the poncho. And, you know, these ponchos would flap around when a helicopter came in, so we didn’t want that. So I carried some twine with me and tied it off at the head and around the middle and around the feet.

BARTLETT: [00:38:12] And then when we were in an area where we could bring in a helicopter to a landing zone, we would… the man on the on the helicopter to go back. And the hardest time was the very first time that it happened, when my, when I first lost my very first KIA. Uh, there would be others, but the first is, I think the first is always the hardest. And I call that my “First Worst” day in Vietnam. And it’s, I had a picture taken of me on that day, just so I would remember how I felt on that day. And it was… it happened, it happened again. Happened several times, again. Many times again. I actually didn’t keep count, but… But I couldn’t allow it to affect me. I couldn’t allow it to impact my decisions. I couldn’t allow it to get control of my emotions. It was my job. I had to do that. That was that was my job as the leader. And what I ended up, what I ended up doing was taking that experience as well as some of the other more horrendous things that happened, and I liken… To have a titanium-steel trunk in the back of my mind. That’s that’s the way I sort of envisioned it.

BARTLETT: [00:39:43] And I took those emotions and those experiences, and I locked them away in that … titanium-steel trunk, and I locked it down… And it stayed there, and I would not allow those emotions to affect me. Um, I had no friends in my unit. We called each other by numbers. My name was “Foggy Day One-Six,” and I was addressed as “One-Six.” Never, Lieutenant. So, um. That, that stayed with me… That, in… That locked in that trunk for 20 years. And literally about 20 years later, all of a sudden I started to have leakage. This is, just as this is my description, right? I, I had leakage from my trunk… And I started to have daydreams, not nightmares, but daydreams during the day. Wide awake. And some of these events came back to me as… And I saw them as realistically as they happened in full detail, color – in color even! And I got scared. I was really taken back. I said, oh my God, I’m having a breakdown. And fortunately, I had a good friend who was a psychiatrist, and my, my civilian job was in publishing, and I had helped her to get her book published. And I just happened to be on a trip and was near her. And I said, I’d like to come visit and I’d like to have an appointment with you.

BARTLETT: [00:41:26] And I told her about what was happening to me. She said, well, you know, you’re experiencing some PTSD. I said, “After 20 years? Come on!” She said, it can happen any time. And she gave me a very simple exercise to practice, and I did, and it went away. But I think when you talk and I’ve talked to a lot of Vietnam veterans, there’s a common saying that there is rarely a day that goes by that you don’t remember something that happened to you during that year. And it’s true for me. There are certain times during the day… When I brush my teeth at night – I don’t know why – but at night when I brush my teeth for some, I guess it’s gotten to be a habit, there’s, there is a recollection of something that happened to me during that period of time. Or I’ll be taking a walk in the morning and I’ll see something… I’ll, I don’t know what. It’ll just trigger a memory… A conversation at work, will trigger a memory. Will trigger an event. And it’s difficult to talk to anybody who was never there about the significance and the meaning of those events, because they have no basis for which to evaluate it, except other vets.

HOST: [00:42:58] How important was the journey of writing this book in terms of helping you deal with those demons, or had you already dealt with them when you started the project?

BARTLETT: [00:43:07] I had pretty much already dealt with most of them writing the project, which took the better part of ten years because I had a family to raise, and the only time I really had to work on the book was I had a job that took me on long airplane flights coast to coast, and I’d whip out my laptop and and write on it, write a chapter. And, um, it was an effort at that point in time to really come to grips with, uh, with these experiences. And having talked to a lot of, uh, vets. I found that a number of things happened to me that did not happen to them. I had a number of unusual things happened to me that did not happen to them. And so each one of those events, each one of those stories, uh, got translated into a chapter in my book. Some of them are horrendous and some are kind of funny. I tried to mix it up a little bit. I had some unusual funny things happen as well.

HOST: [00:44:07] Mhm.

BARTLETT: [00:44:08] Um, it was amazing to me on… When, when I was writing the book and it was originally designed as a catharsis, um, that I could recall incredible detail about what had happened. Um, my favorite author is Stephen King, and Stephen King in on in his famous book, his very well-known book called “On Writing,” talks about falling into the computer. And that’s literally what happened to me, meaning that you are so absorbed in writing this story that it became real to you. And as fast as I could type, I was able to reconstruct the story, reconstruct the event in incredible detail. I could see the colors… I could see what happened… I was sweating… I came away exhausted. I even smelled the smells. I could even smell the smells. So, um, that took the better part of about ten years to get it done to that point…

HOST: [00:45:16] Remarkable piece of work and a lot of, uh, a lot of people whose names our listeners would recognize, uh, seem to agree… Uh, just on the dust jacket, you’ve got, you’ve got blurbs from Barry McCaffrey, Jan Scruggs, H.R. McMaster, uh, Dale Dye. Um, you know, this this book has….Made an impression.

BARTLETT: [00:45:37] I have my medic and RTO, too. They contributed reviews. I wanted to have, uh, grunts who were with me, uh, during that experience. Uh, I wanted them to read it, too. And comment.

HOST: [00:45:49] When you came back to the world, you were still in the military. And so you didn’t get sort of spat out into, uh, American civilian life at that point, which which probably insulated you from, from some of the experiences that that other returning soldiers and sailors and Marines and airmen had… But you’re you’re keenly aware of how US service members in general were welcomed home or not welcomed home. I know that’s a really important issue for you.

BARTLETT: [00:46:22] That’s absolutely true. I was a Regular Army officer, and my assignment after Vietnam was to Fairbanks, Alaska. So I went from the the fire to the freezer. And then after that was transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, back to the Infantry school, which was my last assignment. And, um, as you say, I never really encountered protesters. I never encountered, um, people who had, uh, uh, were violent against the war or, or had, uh, strong feelings about the war, even within the military. There was just it was not something that was discussed. There was no even internal discussion about the war. We just carried on. And it wasn’t until maybe about 15 years later, something along those lines, when I decided to work, I was working in my civilian career in publishing, and I worked. I wanted to do a video about an essay that I had written called “The Trail.” And I worked with a good friend of mine, and we used photographs and artwork that I had brought back with me from Vietnam, from combat photographers and artists, and put this video together, um, was very pleased with it… And this was a good this was a good 20 years ago. Um, and I showed it at a meeting of the 1st Cav, New York, New Jersey, 1st Cav Association. And, um, there was a VA representative at that meeting, and he was looking at some of the original artwork that I brought with me, and he says, “I think I know this artist. I think I know this guy. He lives he lives down in, uh, Delaware. I’m going to contact him.” Well, you know, combat photography and artwork is in the public domain. And I had used it. I had no permission. I didn’t even know who the who they were. I mean, there was no recognition of names, but I had used this artwork without permission, and, uh, the VA representative took my name and phone number, and I was driving my son to, to college, returning him to college, and I get a phone call on my cell phone from this John, this fellow by the last name of Johnson, and he said, “I understand you’ve used some of my artwork in your video.” And I’m thinking, “Uh oh my God, I’m in trouble.”

BARTLETT: [00:49:01] And I, he said, I haven’t seen the video, so I gave him the URL so he could look it up. I said, well, I’m, I’m driving right now, but call, you know, let me call you back in 15, 20 minutes. And I did. And when I called him back, he said to me, “I am so proud that you have used my artwork in your video. I’m so pleased to contribute to what you have done.” And we had a nice conversation. I broke down in tears, and we had a nice conversation, and at the end of that conversation, he ended the call by saying “Welcome Home.” And that was the first time that anyone had said, “Welcome Home” to me in 20 years after I returned from Vietnam. And to this day, you know, it’s so powerful, a statement. And there’s nothing wrong with thank you for… Thank you for your service. I mean, that’s a wonderful thing to say to any veteran regardless of…. But, but Vietnam veterans are starting to walk in the boots of, uh, Korean veterans and World War II veterans. And if you want to have an impact on a Vietnam veteran, you say “Welcome Home,” and you watch the reaction you will get. Those are the two most powerful words you can say to anybody who served there.

HOST: [00:50:35] Well, Foggy Day One-Six…

BARTLETT: [00:50:38] Thank you.

HOST: [00:50:39] Thank you for, uh, for taking this time and sharing your story with me and with our listeners and, uh, and, and welcome home. Thank you.

BARTLETT: [00:50:47] My pleasure.

HOST: [00:50:49] Robin Bartlett’s book is called “Vietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History.” It’s a very compelling read. A boots-on-the-ground account from the leader of a small unit humping the boonies during the peak of the killing in the Vietnam War. You can find it just about everywhere books are sold, and at his website: robinbartlettauthor.com. We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice and healing.

HOST: [00:51:26] We’ll see you then.

[00:51:29] Oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo. Oo. Oo oo oo oo.

Full Interview with Robin Barlett