Abby

Interview Questions:
1.) Where you you born?

2.) When is your birthday?

3.) What are you parents names?

4.) Do you have any step parents?

5.) Do you have any siblings?

6.) What are their names?

7.) What are they like?

8.) were you close to them?

9.) What jobs did you do before entering the service?

10.) Did you play any sports before you went into the services?

11.) Were any of your other family members in the military?

12.) Were you enlisted, drafted or commissioned into the military?

13.) What type of training did you have to go through?

14.) Did you take any specialized training?

15.) Was it hard adapting to the military life?

16.) Where did you serve at in the military?

17.) What was your trips like?

18.) What types of duties did you do away from the front line?

19.) did you witness anything that you would like to talk about?

20.) how did witnessing the things make you feel?

21.) Did you make a lot of new friends in to Military?

22.) If so are you still friends today?

23.) How did you stay in touch with your family members back home?

22.) Did you do the same with your friends?

24.)What were some of your off-duty pursuits?

25.) Where were you when the war was over?

26.) How did you return back to your home?

27.) what did you family do when you got home safely?

28.) what did your community do?

29.) was it hard adjusting to you civilian life?

30.) Are you part of any veteran memberships now?

31.) How did being a veteran affect your life today?

32.) did you learn any life lessons from being in the war?

Evans Transcript 1

Transcript:
Musser: This is Jack Evans; His birthday is March 14th, 1930. He served in the Vietnam and Korean wars. His highest rank that he achieved was Lieutenant colonel. We are recording this interview on Friday October 26th 2012, in Mr. Evans house. My name is Abby Musser. Ethan Krall, Mr. Evan’s and I are present. This interview is being conducted for the Veteran’s History Project at the Library of Congress. Evans: So we’re going to do one question at a time? Krall: Yes. Musser: Okay, Where were you born? Evans: I was born in West Chester Pennsylvania. Musser: Okay, Tell us about your child hood. Evans: Well, I was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and my father was a Lutheran minister, In Westchester, and I was born in 1930. And couple years of being a minister and my brother and I, because of the depression, He decided he’d better take on a new career so he applied to become a Chaplin in the United States army, and he became a Chaplin in the United States army in 1934. So my career began in 1934. Krall: Alright, you were enlisted right? Evans: No. Krall: Drafted? Evans: No commissioned. Krall: Alright, when you were commissioned, did your parents support you going into the military? Evans: I had no choice because my father was in the army and so my brother and I both were in the military, and we both at that stage in our career both attended the Citadel across from South Carolina and that was a military college and we were class mates at the Citadel and we graduated and both were commissioned in the United States Army on the same day in June of 1952. Musser: What school did you go to at West Chester?

Evans Transcript 2 Evans: I was just asked what school I went to at West Chester Pennsylvania. Well I didn’t go to any school in West Chester Pennsylvania because we moved from West Chester in 1934 but my father went into the army however, I was an army brat and we moved all over the United States and the world, and so I went to many different schools. As a matter of fact, my senior year in high school I went to three schools in my senior year. All three were in Germany. Musser: Okay, were you happy with being commissioned into the army? Evans: Again being an army brat, there’s not much choice there, no I’m kidding but, yes that was my career goal I had a thought about applying to the Coast Guard Academy but decided to go with the army and that’s when I went to Citadel, my brother and I. so we were very pleased, both of us, my brother and myself who has now passed away but we were both very happy about our decision to make the army our career. Musser: Describe your basic training experiences. Evans: Well again I guess I would have to say since I was a commissioned officer I didn’t have the basic training that you would get if you were just enlisted in the army or drafted but, my basic training probably started again when I was four years old. My father went in the army so we moved around with the army during World War II, and my father was in World War II in Germany. He was the second infantry division and we lived in Indiana at the time but as far as that goes, I grew up in the army as an army brat and that’s as thorough training as you could possibly get. Does that answer your question? Musser: Yes. Krall: When you officially joined the army, what were your duties like? Evans: Well my first assignment upon being commissioned which was in June 1952 was assigned to forkless Texas to go to the Gul Missal School. When you’re a commissioned officer, or a newly commissioned officer you go through basic training because you get all your basics for your branches, and mine being artillery. Krall: This time it was during the conflict of the Korean War. Did you actually get serve in Korea? Evans: I did serve in Korea; I went to Korea in 1953, towards the end of the Korean War. And I came back from Korea in 1955. In the mean time prior to that going to Korea, I met someone who is now my wife Paula, but we decided not to get married because we would both be better off. So I went to Korea first and went through that, and then I came back thinking we would get married when I got home which we did so we got married in December of 1955. Musser: Do you have some medals that you got to show us? Evans Transcript 3 Evans: I’ve got quite a few of the primary ones but I also have my miniatures which are all the service medals and decorations that I received Musser: Do you have any war stories that you would like to talk about? Evans: War stories um, there’s a lot of things that happened war time when I was of course in Vietnam, there are a lot of stories that are much too long to tell but I will say though that it’s interesting the difference between being in combat in Korea and Vietnam. In Korea it was probably the last classic war. We had ground forces against ground forces and it was like World War II almost, but of course they had more technology, but Vietnam changed everything because that was war where you didn’t know who the enemy was or where they were because they maybe looking for you during the day time and be you enemy at night time. So you always had this weird feeling that the Vietnamese person that you thought was your friend may not be at night, and so it made it much, much different. And gave us a lot less sleep. Krall: Did you like being in the Special Forces during Vietnam? Evans: I liked doing what I was doing, because we would execute the tanks and we would do that planning and they would tell us what to do based on what the planning was and so I liked that a lot more, it’s like being the coach of the football team but being on the field and it was a very good example of the difference you had to be very flexible when you were in the combat as opposed to the planning role. Most guys got along, so yes I enjoyed it because there was just never a dull moment. Musser: Did you make any friends while you were in the Special Forces? Evans: I did and that question’s a good question, and one thing that stands out in my mind as you ask me that, I had a very good friend who I did not know before I decided to be in Vietnam. He was a Special Forces, and he had a lot of experience in Special Forces but he also had a lot of language capability. He was an army Lieutenant Colonel. But he was raised in the Philippians and grew up in Hawaii. He was very able to speak the energetic languages, and he knew how to speak the language of the tribal people in Vietnam. And they lived up in the mountains. Most of his assignments were with them because they trusted him and they knew him, and he could bring back a lot of good information, and get things accomplished that we had to get accomplished. We couldn’t do it any other way. Then being able to speak their own language, and he could do that. The thing that makes me remember him so much is when his time was up in Vietnam and he was due to come home. The day before he could go home he came to me in my office and said “look there’s a CIA aircraft going up into the mountain region. They said I could have a seat. And I would go up there this afternoon, and they’re coming back tomorrow, and I’m going to fly back tomorrow. And have plenty of time to meet my aircraft to fly back to the United States Evans Transcript 4 and I said Ronny I don’t know I’m just uneasy about that, but Ronny was very convincing so he talked me into it and I said go ahead Ronny you deserve it because you have done so much work here so he did. He got killed that night, up in the mountains, and I’ll never forget that conversation we had just before he left. And the only thing I got back was the body under registration. But I had to take all of his personal items and send them back to the family, so that one tough week that we had to go through for that situation, but it’s something you never forget. Musser: What all did you do while you were in combat? Evans: Well that’s hard to say in a brief response but there’s two types of assignments and I may have mentioned this before but you have your staff assignments which plans the battle and you have your combat that’s supposed to execute the plan. During Korea and Vietnam, all my assignments and duties, were part of executing the plan. I was never on a high level staff in the combat zone. It was always the maneuver elements or the combat elements, so that’s primarily of what we did. We actually did that plan, and when things didn’t go according to the plan, then we had to make one up on the spot and try to recover, and whatever we had to do we did. And that was based on our own judgment and I liked that actually, it was good. Evans: One thing I wanted to add about the friend I was talking about that got killed the night before he was supposed to come home, when they dedicated the Vietnam memorial in Washington dc, the big dedication ceremony was at the Washington National Cathedral. And they had a small chapel on the right hand side that they used for purpose and what they did was they read all fifty four thousand names, that was on the wall that were being dedicated that week. And they had readers to read off all the names and I volunteered to be the reader because they had it set up so if you wanted to read a special friend of yours that was killed, they would try to schedule that. And I got on the schedule and each reader read for 20 minutes. So I went there and I got on the schedule because I wanted to read my friend Ronny’s name and I was able to do that and I took about four of those in a three day period. And I read the names of people that I knew that had gotten killed in Vietnam so that was a very special thing for me. And I’ll never forget it. Musser: What types of medals did you get while you were in the military? Evans: Well medals in the military are broken into two categories, that’s awards and service medals. The award medals are for specific things that you do, and most of the medals that I got are in this picture frame up on the wall. Those are probably from when I was in Korea and Vietnam, and Europe because I served in Europe as well. But as far as overall medals, that I was awarded those are it, but I have those miniatures and here they are right here, I’m going to each one but you can see that there’s quite a few of them. And I don’t think I could get through each one if I could remember then but that reflect an average career at least for me, in the United States army. Evans Transcript 5

Musser: What types of duties did you do away from the front line? Evans: Away from the front line? Musser: Yes. Evans: In Korea what did I do when I was away from the front line? I was never away from the front line; I was there for 16 months, on the front line. And so we were just very close to the Chinese and the Koreans, be I was on the front line the whole time. Krall: While you were part of the 155 battalion, how often did you have to call in artillery strikes? Evans: We would do target strikes when we got the opportunity of when there was a target to be fired upon, and it was an indirect fire, during that time I also was an air observer. So I was in an air craft looking for targets and we were firing on target at least two to three times. And we would fire at night and you would call that harassment fire. Just to keep the Chinese awake Krall: While you were on the front lines, how did you stay in touch with your friends and family back home? Evans: well clearly not like it is today, the mail was slow, but it was mostly the U.S. mail, no telephone personal contact at all but it was always how many letters that you could write. And that was it. The only postal service was a direct link and our only link, so we couldn’t do like we do today, and actually that’s a very big advantage for the military to have that direct contact. But we didn’t have that. Musser: How long did it take for you, like if you wrote a letter to your mom, how long did it take for her to get it, do you know? Evans: I wrote to my wife more than I wrote to my mother but anyway, the mail service was pretty good, but it was the only postal service flown by the air force, so if it started from Korea, so until she would get that letter, it was probably five days. Krall: When did you return back home after you time in Korea? Evans: When did I return back? Krall: Yeah. Evans: Okay, that’s a good question, when I came home from Korea I was assigned temporarily to go to school at Texas, and fortunately that’s when my wife Paula lived, and stayed while I was Evans Transcript 6 in Korea. And so I came back to Texas. Then December of that year I came home in April and December of that year we got married, and my father drove from the east coast and he married us. Musser: What did your family do when you got home safely? Evans: They said oh my God, No actually, that’s a good question because they knew that Paula and I wanted to be married and so they made the suggestion that they would drive all the way to Texas along with the church minister. The two of them would perform the wedding. And that was in December of 1955. So we’ve been married for 57 years Krall: After you were married what did you do in between your time from Korea to Vietnam like when you weren’t on active duty? Evans: Well I was on active duty the whole time, but when I got home I went back to school, and then I was assigned to the Tide Water North of Virginia, and I was with the U.S. air defense. And after that I went to school at the advanced course in Oklahoma. And from there I was assigned to a whole new unit, and we went to Germany, and Paula and I lived together. And we both moved to Germany, and spent three years in Germany. Musser: With being in the Korean War and then coming back home, was it hard for you to adjust to your home life then? Evans: No not really, I was just so glad to get home, I could take anything, and it was just nice to be back at home and of course the main thing I had to look forward to be adjusting to becoming a married man. And that was just one of my thoughts towards that because we both were very happy to be getting married and so that felt very nice. Krall: When did you become a part of the special operations group? Evans: When I arrived at Vietnam there was a question about where I should be assigned and I ended up being assigned to a group and I will not name the group but it was a brand new organization existing of just 35 people and they were going to be the ambassador of Cambodia and so we worked in his direction. We would go into Cambodia periodically in our uniforms and do what the ambassador needed done, which some of these trips would take up to seven days and we would come back out to Saigon Vietnam where we were quartered our assignment. But we got all kinds of different kinds of assignments. And I had a very high level of interest for what we were doing. But I had a higher level of interest in Washington DC. And Alexander Hegg was one of our advisors, and he worked for Richard Nixon. So it was that kind of an organization and even to this day, we still can’t say exactly what we were doing.

Evans Transcript 7 Krall: I understand that you had to keep a low profile on these missions and even now you can’t talk about them too much but is there anything else that you can say about them like how you went in, like you don’t have to go into detail about what you had to do in the mission but could you explain a little bit? Evans: We would be in a saigon primary and of course that was the official address if we were going to mail thing of that nature, but when we would have to go on the special project or an assignment over to Cambodia for the ambassador or whatever. We went over aircraft and the aircraft held just over 35 people and so we had our own aircraft and we could dispatch our own pilots so that we could go over, and it was interesting because the press in Cambodia kept going off but they couldn’t figure out what. So that’s why we wore so many clothing the whole time and even though we were in the field in Cambodia, we were wearing a lot of clothes and sometimes because we wore some many we would leave and get out into the country side. And then we would change into our field uniform. But the press would always follow us around and try to get a picture of us in uniforms in Cambodia, but they never did. Krall: Were there any close encounters that you could talk about or not?

Evans: Well the answer to the question is yes, there were close encounters, were there any I could talk about? Or at least not in detail but one thing that is interesting because of the system in Cambodia was that we worked through the British Monks to get information back and forth but we had radios but we weren’t on them very much but if we had to get something back we would run it through the monks. And that made it kind of interesting and different. Musser: Did you have to go through more training to be in the special operation? Evans: Some of the group of 35 did, Language training for example, was a good one, but there were other ones within our organization which was a small group. I did not because I did not know this was going to happen to me until I got to the saigon, and they put me in it. And I was excited to be part of this unit which I had never heard of. And so yeah I had no chance to prepare for it. Musser: Was it hard adapting to the life in the military with the special operation? Evans: No, that’s one thing about the military, once you’ve been in it for a while you get adapted to just about anything and of course the fact that my dad making me an army brat, I was very familiar with the military and that was not a strange environment for me at all. So I had no problem in the regard. But I did not have any language training but other than that no it wasn’t hard to adapt because of all the experience that I had

Evans Transcript 8 Musser: While you were part of the special operation, were you still able to keep in touch with your family and friends? Evans: Yes all of our support came through Saigon. The U.S. army and Saigon, so like the mail and things of that nature, when we came back to Saigon we would have some letters there and that’s where we would get that kind of support, all of it would come from Saigon. Krall: When did your 35 men unit leave south Asia, since you were in several countries there? Evans: They completed their mission when the North Vietnamese came into Saigon and took over Saigon and the US army evacuated, I was gone by that time. I was there for one year, so I was not there when that happened. But the whole thing fell at one time, practically, but yeah I was not there. Musser: Did you know anyone that was there when Saigon fell? Evans: Yeah But I lost touch with him because we worked with some Cambodians and Vietnamese too but that was the killing field and that’s what happened in the Cambodian army. Musser: Are you still in touch with any veterans from when you served in the military? Evans: Not really, any of the ones I served with but there are organizations I belong to that are for the military, but with all the services I did, the army, navy, air force, and Marine Corps, that’s nice where we are now. Were in Corn Wall Manor, because there are other veterans here so I can maintain that connection. Through right here at Corn Wall Manor even but the ones I served with directly? No. Musser: So did you say you are a part of groups that you can meet with them and talk to them about it? Evans: Yes, well here at Corn Wall Manor we have a lot of veterans, and I’m also on what's called the patrons committee and right now they are all veterans and there’s about nine of us and we do all the planning for memorial day, veterans day, and any patriotic holidays and that’s our job here at Corn Wall Manor, to plan those activities. Musser: How did being a veteran affect your life today? Evans: That’s a really good question, I have to think of a good summary answer on that, one thing that a Military career does for a person especially if it’s a successful military career you become very adaptable and flexible and that has paid off for me in so many ways and it’s just hard to explain. But you learn to be very flexible because you never really know what’s going to happen next, so you have to be ready. Evans Transcript 9 Musser: Did you learn any life lessons besides that from being in the war? Evans: Did I learn any life lessons from being in the war? Well that’s a tough question. There is nothing that I encountered during my military career that I was not able to cope with and that is because of my background and my experience with the army, and going to the Military College where you had to learn to cope with things, so I never really had a problem in that regard at all. Sometimes you have to think through a situation but I never really had that problem. Musser: What all did you do after you came out of the army? Evans: I’m going to cover some very general details but what I did since my background, and the assignment that I had had. I was quickly offered a job as a major defense contractor in the Washington DC area being a program manager. Managing some of their technical programs which again allowed me to travel world wide. As a defense contractor and I was retired army so I was a civilian. So that went for about 12 years. Then I retired as a defense contractor and went to work at Mount Vernon. The home of George Washington, and they asked me to organize a volunteer program which I agreed to do and I had never done that before so it was something new so that was in 2001 no it was 1991 ninety, ninety two until 2006 I was at Mount Vernon and a lot of what you see on the walls here in this room are reflections of my volunteer service at Mount Vernon, and my love of history. And I’ve got books and you say all the ones out in the sun room there but I love history so this is my truly “man cave” and Paula knows when I come in here, I don’t shut the door, But she does leave me alone.

Narrative:
Jack Evans was born on March 14, 1930. He grew up in a town called West Chester. His father was a Lutheran Minister. Due to the start of the depression, Jack Evans father decided to change his career and join United States Army as a Chaplin in 1934. Mr. Evans was an army brat his entire child hood which made it easy for him to be able to join the army later in his Career. Jack Evans didn’t stay at one single school, in fact; his senior year was spent in three different schools all located in Germany. Both Jack and his brother attended a military college across from South Carolina. They both graduated and were commissioned in to the United States army on the same day in June of 1952. Mr. Evans was very happy with being commissioned into the United States Army. He had first thought about applying to the coastguard academy, but then decided to go with the military. Both he and his brother were very pleased with the decision of making the army their career. Since Mr. Evans was commissioned into the army he didn’t have the basic training that you would get if he were enlisted or drafted into the army, but his basic training started when he was around the age of four. As I said earlier his father went into the army in 1934, so his family moved around with the army. This was when World War II started and his father fought in that War. He was in the second infantry division. At the time Jack and his family lived in Indiana. So his training actually started when he was about four years old. Jack Evan’s first assignment after officially joining the army was when he was assigned to Forkless Texas, to go to the Gulmissal School. His basic training was in artillery. Mr. Evans then served in the Korean War in 1953. Towards the end of the Korean War, He decided to get married to who is now his wife Paula. But before he went to the Korean War he met her and they talked about getting married after he got home from Korea. So when he got home he was assigned temporarily to go to school at Texas and fortunately that is where his wife Paula lived, and stayed while he served in Korea. And December of that year Jack’s father drove from the East coast to Texas to marry them. Shortly after Paula and Mr. Evans we married, Mr. Evans returned to war. This time he was serving in the Vietnam War. When Jack Evans when in to war they weren’t sure where to put him at first but then they decided to put him in a special forces group that we do not know the name because he was swan to secrecy. But it was a brand new group consisting of thirty five men. They all went to the ambassador of Cambodia and worked in his direction. Jack and his group of 35 other men would go into Cambodia very periodically in their uniforms and do whatever that the ambassador needed for them to do. Some of the trips that he and his group had to go on were very long;some even took up to seven days. But when they came back, they came back to Saigon. Saigon was the place where most soldiers received their mail. That was also where they were quartered their assignments. But the group of thirty five men that he was in received many different kinds of missions. Mr. Evans also was very interested in what they were doing. Jack Evan’s received a lot of medals during his services. One of the medals that he achieved was the Legion of Merit, which he received two times. The Legion of Merit is an award given to a military armed force by the president. Being awarded the Legion of Merit Signifies that you display Meritorious Conduct. He also received the Army Commendation Medal. The Army Commendation Medal (also known as ARCOM medal) is a medal that is given to Armed Forces of the United States. This Medal is given to people with the personality of heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service. He received the Defense Service Meritorious Medal is a special award given to a person that was in the military that went through many joint activities. This medal is given to someone for non-combat meritorious achievement. A veteran is given this award if they act in this manner all the time. . Jack Evans and his group also went to Washington D.C. to help. There they met me of the advisors named Alexander Hegg. Alexander worked for Richard Nixon. But even to this day, that group of people still can’t say exactly what they did. While Mr. Evans was in Korea he met a friend named Ronny. Ronny was in the special forces with Mr. Evans. He had a lot of basic training, but he was very strong in his language capability. Mr. Evan’s friend Ronny was an army lieutenant Colonel. Ronny was raised in the Philippians and grew up in Hawaii. He was very good at speaking the energetic language of the tribal people who lived up in the mountains in Vietnam. Being able to speak their language he could bring back a lot of good information. Towards the end of the war Ronny and Mr. Evans were able to go home. The night before they could go home, Ronny came to Mr. Evans and told him that there was a CIA aircraft going up to the mountain region where all of the tribal people were that he had developed relationships with. The CIA told Ronny that they had a seat for him and he would fly up to mountain region that afternoon and then he would come back tomorrow. He said that he would have plenty of time to reach the aircraft to fly back home to the United States. At first Mr. Evans thought it was a bad idea but he changed his mind and told him to go. The next day Mr. Evans found out the n Ronny had died that night, up in the mountains. The only thing that He got back was the personal items to send back to his family. After Mr. Evans returned home safely the next day, they dedicated the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC at the National Cathedral. There they read all fifty four thousand names of the soldiers that gave their lives for us to be free. They had soldiers Volunteer to read off people’s names that may have been close to them of they might not even know them; they just had them read them. Mr. Evans read Ronny’s name along with many other names of people he knew that were killed. But we are lucky to have Jack Evans today to tell us about his services.