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BELL COUNTY — It has been practically six a long time now, however retired U.S. Military Maj. Jasper “Gene” Hunter clearly remembers his first time in fight within the jungles of Vietnam.
“The primary operation I went out on, we acquired right into a heavy firefight with a Viet Cong platoon,” the 83-year-old Arkansas native stated. “There was simply bullets flying all over the place.
“I bear in mind very clearly hugging that floor. I didn’t assume I may get any nearer to that floor, and bullets had been kicking up filth proper subsequent to my face. Knocking bark off a palm tree proper in entrance of my face … we’re speaking 5 – 6 inches away.
“After it was over, I kinda felt like, ‘Effectively, if I lived by that one, I can dwell by the remainder of ‘em.’”
Hunter, who lives in southwest Bell County close to Florence, about 20 miles south of Killeen, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and the household lived on the campus of Arkansas State College, the place his dad did plumbing and electrical work for 46 years.
He went to high school on the college campus by seventh grade, then transferred to close by Nettleton, the place he graduated highschool in 1956. When he turned 18, Hunter joined the Nationwide Guard and in addition enrolled at Arkansas State, the place he was a member of the ROTC program. He completed school in 1960, was commissioned a second lieutenant in infantry and went straight into the Military.
“I made a decision I used to be going to be a soldier again once I was only a younger child,” Hunter stated. “I grew up on that campus, and through World Warfare II — once I was in grade faculty — they’d navy aviator coaching there, so we had lots of troopers there.
“Each morning once I would stroll to high school, the troopers had been housed in a dorm and they’d fall out into the road for formation. I’d see them coming and going on a regular basis, and I believed, ‘Boy, I just like the seems to be of that.’”
Throughout that very same time, Hunter remembers there being a WWII German prisoner of struggle camp close to the college — 425,000 German prisoners of struggle had been held within the U.S. in practically 700 camps — the place his dad labored with prisoners. Younger Hunter by no means went contained in the camp however heard tales about it.
“The German prisoners of struggle had been handled very properly. My dad stated they ate higher than a lot of the inhabitants did. They by no means had any issues with the prisoners of struggle. They had been glad to be the place they had been as a result of they weren’t ravenous to dying (or) being shot at in Germany. Every now and then, he stated, a few them would skip out of camp on a Saturday night time and go into city for a beer or one thing; then they’d come again to the jail.
“Afterward, after it was now not a prisoner of struggle camp, a good friend of mine and his household lived on the camp. Once I was 13 years previous, I labored as a carpenter helper through the summer time for the earlier chancellor of the college, and we tore down the previous barracks and used the wooden to construct a home with. My granddad labored with the crew, so I set to work with him.”
Within the Nationwide Guard, Hunter served in an anti-aircraft artillery battalion as a gunner on an M16 half-track, a car with rubber wheels on the entrance, tracks on the again, and 4 mounted 50-caliber machine weapons. He went from E-1 (personal) to E-7 (sergeant first-class) in 4 years, one in every of his prouder accomplishments, but in addition paid a worth.
“That was step one in turning my listening to into absolute hell,” he stated, with amusing. “Then my first job within the Military, I used to be a lieutenant platoon chief for a 106 (mm) recoilless rifle platoon, which was the second factor that ran my listening to into the bottom.”
After he went active-duty, Hunter attended Fundamental Infantry Officer coaching and Airborne Faculty at Fort Benning, Ga. Then it was on to Fort Carson, Colo, the place he educated troopers within the Superior Infantry Coaching Firm and was later assigned to the fifth Infantry Division (Mechanized). He was stationed in Hawaii after that, after which it was on to Vietnam in 1966 to function an advisor to the Vietnamese military.
“I favored working with the Vietnamese,” he stated. “Those I labored with had been all good troopers, I believed. We did all types of duties — that was the factor I favored about it. We typically did about two fight missions per week, after which the remainder of the time we did coaching; nation-building duties. I took volunteer medical doctors from the U.S. down into Viet Cong-controlled areas to deal with civilians down in these areas.
“I additionally labored with the Catholic Aid Companies. I’m not Catholic, however I donate cash to the Catholic Aid Companies in the present day due to what I noticed they had been doing. We’d get massive truckloads of wheat, oil, and issues, and I’d get a platoon of males and we’d escort these down into Viet Cong-controlled areas to distribute to the inhabitants. We constructed faculties; constructed roads … did all types of issues.”
Hunter served two excursions in Vietnam (1966-67 and 1970-71) and was in loads of nasty firefights, however by no means injured or wounded.
Together with that first fight mission, he remembers one other shut name.
“I spent most of my time within the rice paddies. We’d typically cease off into the rice paddies about seven o’clock within the morning and one time we stepped off and we had been in mud as much as our ankles, and water as much as our crotch, the entire manner.
“Then we acquired to a giant canal the place we didn’t have any sort of bridge to go throughout, so we’d simply go down by the water. Our rifles had been up over our heads, and a part of the time our heads had been underwater. We simply marched till we marched out of it. Helped one another; pushing and pulling one another alongside till we acquired out of that canal.
“A bit additional down, we acquired into one other canal, and we turned alongside that to go down the path, and about that point, a Viet Cong patrol opened up on us. A Vietnamese sergeant was proper in entrance of me, and a bullet hit him proper beneath his nostril. If he hadn’t been standing there, it will have hit me.
“I at all times felt like I used to be very fortunate. I felt like the great Lord was watching out for me. I attempted to watch out. I used to be at all times attempting to pay attention to what I used to be doing and the place I used to be strolling.
“You needed to maintain your thoughts off your loved ones. You’d stroll alongside a path and it will be sort of boring, and also you begin pondering of house and your loved ones, and also you needed to remind your self to return again to the place you’re and watch the place you’re stepping. The Viet Cong would put booby traps underneath leaves and within the filth, and in the event you stepped on a kind of issues, it will blow up your decrease physique.”
Essentially the most harmful occasions for troopers in Vietnam was at all times stated to be the primary month in-country and the final month earlier than going house. Some may deal with the stress of fight, and a few couldn’t.
“We had an artillery lieutenant, and he saved begging me to take him out on an operation,” Hunter stated. “I instructed him, ‘, most of those fight operations are only a stroll within the woods.’
“He stated, ‘I don’t care. I need to exit on one.’
“So I took him out, and we acquired right into a firefight. After it was completed and the Viet Cong took off, we had been standing beneath the timber, and swiftly, I hear this ‘Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.’ It was artillery hitting near us, and fragments had been flying by the timber above us.
“The soldier standing to the precise of me acquired a fraction in his left arm, and the soldier standing to the left of me acquired a fraction in his proper leg. It bracketed me by a few foot on all sides. That lieutenant pulled out his cigarettes and he stated, ‘Is it OK if I smoke?’ I stated, ‘Yeah, I feel they know we’re right here now.’
“He was standing there with that cigarette shaking in his fingers. He by no means requested me to exit once more.
“I bear in mind we had one infantry man that got here in and so they had me take him out to interrupt him in, and we acquired on the market and acquired right into a firefight, and he simply misplaced it. He was on the radio simply babbling and wouldn’t shut up. We acquired again in and the colonel says, ‘Uh, he can’t exit anymore.’ I stated, ‘I agree.’”
Hunter retired from the navy in 1977 with a complete of 21 and a half years service, together with his time within the Guard. He was at Fort Hood three completely different occasions, together with ROTC summer time camp in 1959, a 1971-73 stint with the now-deactivated 2nd Armored Division, and at III Corps Headquarters from 1976-77.
He and spouse, Pat, have been married for 63 years, and so they have two kids, two grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Again in April, Hunter was one in every of three space veterans chosen to take part within the nationwide Honor Flight program that offers vets from World Warfare II, Korea, and Vietnam the possibility to spend a day being celebrated throughout visits to numerous struggle memorials, together with these in Washington, D.C.
The Vietnam period was a troublesome time to be a soldier, Hunter says, and the Honor Flight helped heal a few of these previous, however typically nonetheless painful, scars.
“It was very unhappy throughout that point interval. Once I got here again to Travis Air Power Base from Vietnam, there have been protestors marching round in entrance of the gate, holding indicators (and) calling us child killers and the whole lot else. You assume, ‘Hey, I’m combating for my nation. Why on this planet do individuals deal with us this manner?’
“The Honor Flight was simply superb. My buddies, Bob Gordon and Ray Arrington, they had been crying from the beginning, however even after we acquired to the (Vietnam Memorial) wall — I’ve acquired 5 buddies on the wall — I held it collectively. Then once they did the mail name on the airplane, I couldn’t maintain it collectively anymore.
“That they had quietly gotten ahold of members of the family and buddies and had them write letters of help to every one in every of us, and so they put them in envelopes and introduced them on the airplane house. They instructed us about how they realized that for troopers abroad, crucial factor to them is mail name, so on and so forth.
“Everyone on that airplane was bawling like infants.”
After the Military, he and Pat offered actual property for seven years, after which began Hunter Leases and Property Administration in Killeen, together with Hunter Development and a storage door firm.
Now, Hunter describes himself as “considerably retired,” nonetheless managing rental properties, caring for a 300-acre ranch with Brangus cattle, and serving as a board chairman at Central Christian Church.
He seems to be again on his navy profession as “the best life ever,” and says he likes protecting busy and doesn’t thoughts an excessive amount of getting older.
“I’ve acquired a lot stuff occurring, I don’t have sufficient time to do the whole lot. Sixty-seven highschool classmates have already handed away, so, you understand, it’s good to be within the high 40 %.”
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