HIS SENIOR TRIP TO SOUTHEAST ASIA: LOCAL VET RECALLS VIETNAM WAR EXPERIENCE

Larry Schuster likes to joke. And if you know him, you might be familiar with a joke Schuster has been telling for over fifty years. As Larry tells it, he spent most of 1969-70 on his ‘senior trip to Southeast Asia.’ Of course, he was not hobnobbing around the area enjoying the beach. Rather, Schuster was stationed in Vietnam and the action he saw was anything but a joke. In honor of Gov. Noem’s declaration of“Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day” this week, Schuster shared the story about his time in service.

Schuster is a native of rural Eden and graduated from Roslyn High School in 1969. He volunteered for the draft soon afterward. It was a very tumultuous time in Vietnam in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, and Schuster says they all knew “that something was going to have to happen over there.”

He and a few other young men from the area met in Webster, traveled to Sioux Falls and then headed for training at Fort Lewis, Washington. Advanced training followed basic training and by the end of 1969, Schuster was headed to Vietnam with the 101^st Army Airborne Division.

It was definitely a shock to the system when Schuster arrived. He describes the physical stress of going from frigid below zero temperatures in South Dakota to the 90 degree wet heat of Vietnam. After getting off the plane and boarding a bus to get to their base, Schuster inquired with the driver why there was mesh covering the windows. “When he told me it was so RPG’s (rocket propelled grenades) would explode outside the bus rather than inside, I knew I was really in for it,” he emphasized.

Over the next eleven months, Schuster’s Vietnam story would feature many common themes if one is familiar with that war. Unknown enemies, sweltering jungles, typhoons, monsoons and lives lost. His first job was the grim task of sorting rucksacks left over from the battle at Hamburger Hill earlier that year.

Schuster arrived in the country during the extremely wet monsoon season when it might rain all day and night. When it didn’t rain it was beyond hot. He describes how every day, they would take off their wet clothes and hang them to dry in the heat of the sun.

As far as their missions and goals went, Schuster described everything as “chaos.” He noted, “No one understood what we were doing. Basically, we did what we were told.” In general, they were trying to infiltrate the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who was coming south. He added that at this point, the U.S. was cutting back personnel and working towards an exit strategy.

Schuster explains that after the French left Vietnam in the 1950’s, the North Vietnamese kept getting stronger. They were a cunning enemy who employed every trick in the book. The NVA were experts with mortars he says. Helping them in this effort were disguised scouts.

“Every day, regular-looking people would come up to us with ice and pop,” Schuster tells. “They would want to know where we were going to be the next day so they could bring us more pop, they said. Well, we learned pretty quick that they were trying to figure that out so they could mortar us.”

Schuster describes the North Vietnamese as “regular people fighting for a cause” and “very devoted” but again, they were cunning. During a firefight, he explained, the NVA would take away the wounded and dead right away. “It was bad for morale,” Schuster said. “They would do everything they could to make you feel like you didn’t succeed.”

 On the other side, the people that they were allegedly fighting for, the South Vietnamese, were rather disinterested in the Americans war efforts. “The French tried to tell us that they (the South Vietnamese) didn’t want us there,” he said. “All they wanted to do was farm and be left alone.”

Schuster had many jobs and assignments during his months in Vietnam. Another one of them was as a ‘tunnel rat.’ The North Vietnamese were experts at building tunnels. “There were tunnels everywhere,” he said. “The Vietnamese would stay underground for years.”

Schuster was one of those in charge of exploring those tunnels and rooting out the enemy. “I only weighed 100 pounds back then, so I was the first one they looked at for that job,” he noted. He describes the scary task of going down into the tunnels, often swimming through water and grenading the enemy.

A lifechanging event for Schuster would occur in March of 1970. He was with a squad of five men with a Sergeant McCarthy leading them. When the group realized they were lost, they called in phosphorous bombs to help them find their location and then headed that way. Sgt McCarthy led the way, and within just ten strides stepped on a Bouncing Betty landmine.

 McCarthy was badly maimed and all the other men had injuries as well, including Schuster. Schuster had taken shrapnel to the knee, neck and hands. The radio that Schuster himself was carrying had been damaged and was worthless. Though they tried to flag down helicopters, it was no use. (Schuster wryly says that his division should have actually been called the ‘101^st SEMI-Airbourne’). McCarthy lasted one hour and then died. In the days that followed, Schuster had his shrapnel removed and was quickly back in the action. He would go on to receive a Purple Heart for the ordeal.

Schuster describes his job as a radio operator as no picnic. He had to pack around a 25-pound radio in addition to tons of other gear. He was also commonly sent out in the dark of night with small groups to help investigate anything from a noise to a small campfire. “It was so dark in the jungle that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,” Schuster says.

Towards the end of his time in-country, a Second Lieutenant got Schuster a job in the rear that he did actually like. “I would ride helicopters around and drop off supplies. I only got to do that for a week and a half and they called me back up with a different job. I thought, ‘What did I do now?’” He ended up spending his last month sitting with radio operators and taking calls as his superiors had noted his value in that area.

When Schuster got the chance to head back to the states even though it meant staying in the military for another six months, he took it. He arrived back in the states on Veterans Day in 1970. He ended up at Fort Knox, KY training personnel that was headed to Vietnam, and then on a military funeral detail.

When he made it back to South Dakota, Schuster says it was a lonely experience. Most people did not seem to know or care where he’d been the last year. He does describe support from his former classmates, superintendent and others in the area, yet he recalls the negative feelings of many at the time towards the war.

“Even if people were against the war,” said Schuster, “they shouldn’t have been against the people who went. We were following orders.”

As Schuster looks back on his two years in the military and his time in Vietnam in particular, he does not regret it. “For me it was a worthwhile experience,” he emphasized. “I survived it and I would do it again. It makes you appreciate everything else in life.”

Schuster is now a firm believer that all young people should go into the service for a time. “Even if it’s just for training and then you get some money for college, kids would learn a lot of respect in the military,” he said.

After all these years, Schuster still values the time he spent in the military and the people he met. Every two years, he still makes an effort to attend the reunion of his division, traveling to places like New York and Kansas City. Through the years, the number of guys attending has dwindled as time takes its toll. Schuster adds that he seems to be one of the few healthy ones as the others suffer from problems relating to Agent Orange. He attributes his good health to the “fresh air in South Dakota.”

Schuster still resides in rural Eden and enjoys a quiet country life. He stays active in the local VFW Post and looks forward to Veterans Day each year.