Dean Borg: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm Dean Borg and we have just seen a preview of The
Great War, which will be airing on PBS nationwide
and on Iowa Public Television on Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week from 8 to
10 o'clock each night.
And now we're convening a panel of Iowans who aren't
from World War I, of course, but these are
people who can give us a perspective of how World
War I set the stage, if you will, for America's
involvement in other wars.
And we're going to be contrasting what they
experienced in World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan
and then we have a historian here who has
studied World War I and is going to give us a
perspective of what he has been able to glean in
history and set the perspective for us.
And that person is down on the far end of our panel.
He's Mike Vogt.
He is Curator of the Gold Star Military Museum at
out Camp Dodge in Johnston, Iowa.
He is from Gladbrook.
Mike, as just a brief summary here, when did you
first start getting interested in World War I?
And give us a little bit about how extensive is
your research?
Mike Vogt: I've had an interest in the First
World War, my grandfather was a World War I veteran,
but before anyone draws any conclusions he fought
for the other side.
He was a German soldier and immigrated here in
1921.
So word of mouth from my father and grandmother I
heard anecdotes about his experience and so that got
me interested somewhat early on, also intrigued
by an anecdote that was shared in a history class
at UNI that Merle Hay was one of the first three
Americans and the first Iowan to die in World War
I.
So off and on I have studied and revisited that
topic.
Borg: You mentioned a name there that when you said
Merle Hay, I think of that as a place where I exit
Interstate 80.
So Merle Hay Road is named for -- Vogt: Merle David
Hay, who was a 20 year old and enlisted in the Army
in May of 1917 from Glidden, Iowa and came to
Camp Dodge to take his army physical, was worried
about flat feet, that that would prevent him from
serving Uncle Sam, he passed his medical
physical, was assigned to the First Division, was
among the first units sent to France in support of
the allies in World War I and in November of 1917
that would cost his life in a trench raid.
Borg: And I'm going to show you just how flexible
we are.
I was sitting in the lobby of Iowa Public Television
just before convening this panel about three hours
ago sitting there and a gentleman walked in, he's
the next one here in line on our panel, his name is
Richard Peterson.
He brought in some albums and then he started
talking with me and I find out that here Richard
Peterson is a World War II veteran and
serendipitously he was born in 1917.
So on August 10th of this year, Richard Peterson
will be 100 years old.
(applause)
Borg: I asked at that point when I
realized what I had, if I'm not anything else I'm
a person who jumps on resources, and Richard
Peterson I recognized right away would make a
great addition to our panel so we quickly added
a chair and that is why Richard Peterson is here.
Richard, you're from Johnston, Iowa.
Richard Peterson: I'm from Johnston.
Borg: And of course you don't remember anything,
you were born in 1917 and World War I was just
underway at the time of your birth, but you did
enter World War II.
But you must have heard as you were growing up and
have some of the legacy of World War I from maybe
parents.
What did you know about World War I, just in a
sentence or two, what impressed you about what
you heard about World War I?
Peterson: What I heard about World War I was from
the American Legion members in this small town
where I eventually lived my life.
Borg: The American Legion.
Peterson: The American Legion because they were prominent in
that little town. And one of the things that they did was
attend the social club meetings that the school had for the
community where they got together and they sang songs
and they listened to programs and they listened to the
programs that the school could provide like music groups
and so on. So one of the first things I heard there that
reminded me of World War II was a song that went in such a
way, Today is Monday, today is Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday and at the end of it, all you German mothers
we wish the same to you. But it was a --
Borg: So was that a friendly song then?
Peterson: Oh yes, it was a friendly song, there
wasn't anything derogatory about it at all.
But they were, the soldiers were leading the
community singing and that was one of the things they
seemed to enjoy singing was, Today is Monday, all
you German mothers, we wish the same to you.
Borg: Thank you.
Thank you for the solo too.
The next person here I also met serendipitously
and he has been a great resource for Iowa Public
Television in the time since.
But Roger Beau I first met, I was sitting waiting
for a concert to begin and Roger was seated next to
me.
We got into a conversation and I found out he's a
Vietnam War veteran from Vinton, Iowa and Roger, at
that time I realized that you also had some unique
experiences and we'll get into those.
But right now you live in eastern Iowa now.
Roger Beau: Yes I do.
And I'd like to give my viewpoint on World War I.
As a young boy, my parents would take me out to my
great-grand uncle's and he was a World War I veteran
and we would go there and I think it was Declaration
Day when they would decorate, this was a
holiday that preceded our Memorial Day, but he would
often times have a fellow soldier who was exposed to
mustard gas and he was very deformed from that
and as a young boy it scared me to be around
him.
But that was my introduction to World War
I.
Borg: Did that also, one more question then, did
that also form your opinion of the horrors of
war as a young man experiencing that tale and
seeing this maybe grotesque person?
Beau: Yes, that and conversations with my
father who fought in World War II.
Borg: Next in our panel here is a person who has
experienced the medical side of it.
Heather Dillwood is from Des Moines.
What war are you experienced in?
Heather Dillwood: Afghanistan.
Borg: How many tours?
Dillwood: Just one.
Borg: And how long in Afghanistan?
Dillwood: I was ten months in Afghanistan.
Borg: And what role?
I said the medical side of it.
In what role?
Dillwood: I was a combat medic in Afghanistan from
August of 2010 to June of 2011.
Borg: Some experiences that we'll get to a bit
later.
I've not quizzed you about those experiences but you
must have had some.
Dillwood: Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Borg: I'm looking forward to it.
Caesar Smith is right here on my right hand side.
Caesar, you're from Des Moines.
What war are you experienced in?
Caesar Smith: Vietnam War I was in, experienced in
I'm not sure exactly how much experience you meant,
but I did know many of those in World War II that
were in my neighborhood, black soldiers and sailors
that came back from World War II.
And so that everybody doesn't think I'm the only
one up here freezing and shaking, I've got
Parkinson's so I'll be shaking all over the
place.
Borg: Let me just delve into that just a bit more.
Did you spend time on the ground?
I think do I remember right that you're Air
Force?
Smith: I was airborne, 82nd Airborne Division,
paratrooper in Vietnam.
Borg: Did you do any parachuting into South
Vietnam?
Smith: No, we used helicopters in Vietnam and
landed by helicopter.
And of course we many times were in Agent Orange
areas which caused a lot of diseases, Parkinson's
has been one of them.
But I want to share one thing about World War I
because I don't know if it's going to come up and
it's important to those in Iowa.
The only officer candidate school for African
American officers from World War I was at Fort
Des Moines right here in Des Moines.
And all the officers over in the infantry units were
white and it was a big push to have some black
officers and I won't go through the whole history
of it but they agreed to have an officer candidate
school at Fort Des Moines and black officers did
graduate from that school.
Borg: And that, if I remember right, is your
experience too.
You went into the military as an enlisted person and
then went to what we call OCS or office candidate
school.
Smith: I went in the Army in '56 and went to Officer
Candidate School in '62.
Borg: And then commissioned as a second
lieutenant.
Smith: Out of officer candidate school, yes.
Borg: And then after you left the service at what
rank were you then?
Smith: I was a major when I retired.
I stayed 20 years and 7 days.
(applause)
Borg: That I know you've been in Vietnam because people count the
days who were assigned to Vietnam.
Smith: A lot of soldiers count the days, the
minutes, just going in.
Borg: Let's go back to the historian here.
Mike Vogt, what struck you about your study of World
War I and what happened in World War I?
What is the thing that contrasts most about the
way that perhaps Iowa, you can include the nation
too, but Iowa reacted to the call to duty about
serving in World War I as to what we're experiencing
maybe in the Vietnam War, in the Gulf Wars and in
Afghanistan?
What was the overall support?
How would you draw similarities or contrasts?
Vogt: I think there's a little of both.
The national support for the doughboys that were
mobilized in the First World War are much greater
than we would experience, we wouldn't experience
again until World War II.
Korea, Vietnam, the modern war on terror, Desert
Shield, Desert Storm, the ability for dissent and
disagreement with national policy is in higher relief
in more recent decades than what was tolerated
and what was allowed in the First World War.
So that's an interesting aspect.
It's a different world, dissent is not tolerated
in the First World War as much as it is today.
Borg: The PBS special, The Great War, shows the food
sacrifices that were made by Americans or urged to
make or even compelled to make, shamed to make if I
could put it that way in order to "support the war
effort".
We have evolved to a point where those sacrifices
that we also experienced during World War II and
rationing and things like that, we don't expect that
anymore.
And I think it was Lyndon Baines Johnson who was
justifying the U.S.
participation in South Vietnam who also said, we
can have both butter and guns.
That is a contrast, isn't it?
Is that where things changed about America's
being able to not sacrifice in order to
fight a war and also included in that is the
compulsory draft?
We don't have that anymore.
Vogt: Correct.
I think the, not I think, I'll just state it as a
matter of fact, the extent and the participation of
the United States in the First and the Second World
Wars agriculturally, industrially, in terms of
personnel drafted, 14 million Americans served
in the military in the Second World War, 4
million in the First, the succeeding campaigns, even
though in Vietnam and Korea the American
casualties, the killed number into 52,000,
53,000, the overall sacrifice to American
society or the impact of those conflicts on
American society was very slight compared to the
First and the Second World Wars.
It's something that shows up in the newspapers, it
shows up on the television but it's not affecting the
dinner table or the crops harvested from the field
or the consumption thereof.
Borg: I'd like to have other panelists here weigh
in.
I'm going to call on Heather first of all but
then I'd like to have all of you weigh in on that as
to how you felt about going to war for the
United States of America?
Were you under compulsion?
Were you drafted?
Or did you volunteer?
And then how did you feel about that?
Heather, first of all.
Dillwood: I volunteered.
There was a big uptick as far as the Iowa Guard
sending soldiers so I was taking the lesser of two
evils.
The unit I ended up going with was going to be,
their intention was to be an agribusiness team so I
would go as a medic to support those individuals
that would be speaking with Afghan locals about
their agricultural ways, their practices, things of
that nature.
So I volunteered because I wanted to be part of that
element as opposed to a bigger element.
Borg: Was it altruistic, you wanted to do something
for the good of America?
Dillwood: I just wanted to do my part.
That's all, simple as that.
Borg: Alright.
Roger?
Beau: For my part I volunteered to go in the
Air Force simply because I wanted a choice in the
matter.
The draft was going strong in 1969 when I entered and
there were a lot of bodies coming home and I thought
I'd make a decision that would impact my life.
Borg: Richard?
Peterson: Well, when I attended college at Iowa
State in 1935 I was attracted to the military,
ROTC people, so I got a commission as a second
lieutenant in 1939 and my first military active duty
assignment on August 1st of 1941 was to the 92nd
Engineer Battalion, which was a thousand or more
colored troops.
So there I was as a white officer in a colored
battalion with only the chaplain as a colored
officer in that time.
And so I spent the first two years of my active
duty training, working with colored troops in
different capacities, in different places and
different things.
Borg: Let me just say, contrast, because at that
time, the era that you're speaking about we pretty
much still were a segregated country.
Peterson: Yeah, right.
Right.
And my first active duty, the day after I reported
for duty down at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri we
got in a truck and moved everybody down into
maneuvers into Louisiana and Arkansas during the
days when that part of the country was still pretty
divided.
Borg: Let me explore that just a little bit more
before I bring in Caesar.
Did you at that time feel that was a good assignment
for you?
Did you enjoy that?
Or was that an assignment to people who were
segregated away from the normal and usual military
in the United States Army at that time?
Was it a good assignment?
Peterson: I didn't know what I was getting into
because I was a small town country boy raised on a
farm and so on.
And there I was with all these people and I was
only one of 23 or 24 officers that were
destined to help train them and get them into the
military's way.
Smith: That's how I felt when I joined the Army and
I was among all these white people.
(laughter)
(applause)
Smith: When I enlisted for
the draft, and this in '56, traveling down to
Fort Smith, Arkansas, got my uniform and we all got,
from Fort Smith we were going through Fort Knox,
Kentucky.
There were five black soldiers and the rest were
white and we got on the buses to go Fort Knox.
We stopped in Louisville, Kentucky for dinner.
We all got off the bus and started into the
restaurant.
As soon as we got in the door this black waiter
said, you, you, you and you, pointed at all of us,
said, you've got to follow me.
And we said, what are you talking about, we're going
to eat?
And he said, no, not now, you've got to follow me.
We went through the restaurant, through the
kitchen to the other side where it said colored and
that's where we were supposed to eat.
That same year when I went to the 82nd Airborne
Division, the great movie The Ten Commandments was
showing downtown at the movie theater.
I was in Army uniform, I went down to see the movie
Ten Commandments, I went up to pay and she said,
you have to go around to the side.
I went to the side and it said colored.
I went upstairs where they had an Army blanket
dividing the upstairs so black people sat on one
side and anybody white could sit on the other
side.
I hadn't thought about all that growing up in Iowa,
although there had been some instances in Iowa,
but nothing like that.
And so it might have been tough in the '30s but it
wasn't much better in the '50s and it didn't get
much better in the '60s.
But by the time I retired from the Army in '76
things had changed quite a bit.
But we're still dealing with those kinds of
issues.
And in terms of my serving in the service, my serving
in combat, I was the company commander of a
unit that was totally integrated and I had just
come back up from Florida where my radio man, my
radio guy in Vietnam, we found each other and spent
time together.
But the whole, all service time whether in World War
I or through if you're an African American or a
person of color, you had issues that you had to
constantly deal with.
Borg: And those were issues in addition to that
which every man and woman entering the military has
to learn, that there is a difference in rank and
rank has its privileges and usually when you're
coming in you're not at the rank where you're
going to be giving orders, you're going to be taking
orders.
In addition, you had to cope with discrimination,
if you will, because of your color.
And it wasn't only because of rank, it was because of
color.
Smith: It was more had to do with color than it did
rank.
Borg: Oh yeah, rank didn't even -- but you had to
deal with two things.
Yes, yes.
Heather, you didn't have that problem.
Of course you're Caucasian.
But you fought and you served at a time when the
services are integrated, or are they?
Dillwood: I'd say for the most part yes.
There's still some areas that women aren't
completely welcomed but it's getting there.
But I think we're all capable of doing the same
thing, it just depends on the person.
Borg: Roger, in experience in Vietnam, we're still
talking about racial divides here.
What was your experience in serving in Vietnam as
far as the races?
Beau: During my time we didn't have very many
people that were colored and so it wasn't a problem
that I saw.
In fact, those that were black, they were friends
and they just worked alongside us and I didn't
know there was any issues while I was there.
Borg: I'm just going to go back to the historian just
to wrap up this side of our conversation here and
that is the racial divide within the military.
Did that at all work positively or negatively
in any way?
Vogt: It worked negatively.
If you're told as a soldier that you're not as
good as people with lighter skin that has a
psychological effect on your training.
Borg: Okay, let me stop right there.
Did it, Roger?
Did that have a psychological, I'm sorry,
Caesar, did that have a -- Smith: I look like Roger.
Borg: An effect on you?
Did that affect you, the racial discrimination?
Smith: Oh, well, when you start off being the black
person you learn early in life it's going to affect
you.
As a matter of fact, you start off realizing it's
going to affect you.
There's no time in my life that I didn't know that I
was going to run into people who didn't like me
just because of the color of my skin.
And so that's an issue that is with you from the
time you're born.
Borg: Did that at all affect the way that you
felt about the country for which you were fighting?
Smith: No because I had, growing up I was
fortunate, I was born and grew up in Iowa.
I say I was fortunate because I went to
integrated schools, most of the time there were
fewer blacks than whites.
And in 1954 I went to Boys State, there was 836 of us
I think there, two black and they elected me
governor, so I figured they learned something
right there.
(applause)
Borg: Heather, I said I was going to get
back, I'm going to get back to a lot of you about
your individual experiences, but I told
you, Heather, that I wanted to come back and
talk about your experiences as a combat
medic.
First of all, let's define that.
That's not a nurse and that's not a physician.
What is a combat medic?
Dillwood: Typically they're like an EMT in a
civilian world.
We do the stabilization and the primary care for
individuals.
Depending on where you're located in any kind of
theater you could end up practicing medicine as a
physician or a nurse or a pharmacist because you're
prescribing medication.
And so there's a large -- Borg: There are no, as in
World War I, front lines and trenches now.
So in Afghanistan you didn't experience that.
Did you ever experience fire fight where you were
actually assisting wounded servicemen or women who
had been wounded in battle and you were in danger
yourself?
Dillwood: Yes.
There was convoy that I was on that we had taken
direct fire and so that was just kind of all of us
being hit with RPG's and small arms fire and then
IED's.
But also the base that I was on in Afghanistan was
a very small base but we had a forward surgical
team that we were role one medical facility so that's
where a lot of the people in our region, if there
was infantrymen or anyone really that was involved
in some kind of engagement and they were injured they
would come to our facility and we would stabilize so
we could transport them to a higher echelon of care.
Borg: And that's what I wanted to get at, that was
the way in Afghanistan, and that's the way we do
it now, you were in the business of stabilizing a
wounded serviceperson and getting them to, as you
said, a higher level of care.
That contrasts with the video that we're seeing
about World War I in which wounded and stayed in
place in the trenches in knee deep mud sometimes
and had to be piled upon other dead bodies because
just to keep them out of the mud.
Is that what you have experienced too in your
history research?
Vogt: A number of individuals in the areas
between the trenches would become injured, would be
wounded out there and that is an area that is prone
to sniper fire, machine gun bursts, so often times
wounded soldiers would lay for hours or days before
somebody could get out there at night to drag
them back to safety or they may die in between
the lines out there because nobody can effect
a rescue.
Smith: One thing about the medics, if you're in a
combat situation I think every soldier is confident
that if anything happens to them in terms of being
fired on, the medic is going to be there.
And the difference between the medic and the rifleman
next to him is the medic knows what to do for sure
and will do it.
And more lives are saved in terms of getting them
out by helicopter because the medics did what they
needed to do immediately.
Dillwood: Yeah, that's about accurate.
We should be doing that.
If they're not, it's a bad medic.
(laughter)
Smith: There are no bad medics.
Borg: But, Heather, that means that you've got to
call in a helicopter evacuation in order to get
that wounded person out.
Tell me how that works.
Dillwood: Well, typically speaking it depends on the
role of the medic within the unit.
If you're just one medic within a squad or a team
you would probably have another individual call in
for a medivac because your primary job is to
stabilize or do what you can for your patient.
Obviously if there's many of you, many medical
personnel then we can just call it in and you know
with your grid coordinates and what kind of equipment
you may need.
Borg: And there's a helicopter that comes
almost immediately?
Dillwood: Depending, yes.
Obviously if you're in a hot area and you're under
fire it will be some time before you can be
evacuated.
So it's the medic's responsibility to do what
they can for their patient and keep them alive as
long as possible until medical support, other
airvacs are available.
Smith: It might have been a little different than in
the jungles of Vietnam.
If you had a wounded person, no matter if you
were in a fire fight, the medics would usually try
to get in and land.
And many times they would land while you were under
heavy fire and get out the wounded.
They'd have gunships with them.
The medic on the ground and the medical team
coming in the helicopter you could always depend
on.
Borg: And then the two of you we've changed in that
we now get that wounded serviceperson out of the
combat and even out of the country almost
immediately.
Tell me how that works.
I'll ask you first, Heather, that is where you
said to a higher echelon of care.
Roger, Caesar I should say, you move in here too.
You move in here too.
(laughter)
Borg: I want to get to Roger in a minute.
Smith: I must be getting awful pale.
(laughter)
Borg: Tell me about the higher echelon
of care.
Dillwood: It would depend on the wounds that someone
had had.
Sometimes they would stay in Afghanistan, they would
go to another facility to continue their care and
sometimes even come back to the fight.
It would just depend on the severity of their
wounds.
They could end up, in Afghanistan they could end
up in Bagram, but if they still go beyond that then
they end up in Germany and then sometimes -- Borg:
Landstuhl in Germany and then maybe transferred,
stabilized further there and then back to the
States.
Dillwood: Right.
Borg: And, Caesar, I wanted to contrast that,
not contrast it but that was similar in Vietnam
because we quickly evacuated wounded service
people out of Vietnam, over the poles, back into
generally Andrews Air Force Base in Washington
and then fanned out from there to specialty care.
Smith: It would depend on of course what is going on
in the war in terms of the area you were in.
There were MASH units in Vietnam, there was a major
hospital in Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
I remember coming out of the hospital visiting one
of my soldiers that got wounded and the medivac
had come in and he went out on a gurney, I guess
it was to pick up, and the soldier was laying there
with his arms and legs next to him but he was
still alive and they were taking him to the
hospital.
So the amount of care and the quickness they can get
to you with medivac, in 24 hours you could be back
home if necessary.
Borg: That's right.
That's right.
I myself have met a plane carrying people back into
Andrews and I saw what you are describing here, men
still in combat boots who had been taken off the
battlefield that quickly and back into this
country.
Richard, I'm going to go back to World War II.
We've been talking here about the wounded.
What the wounded who were wounded in battle but were
still able to be saved, what did you experience?
You told me that you experienced in World War
II, you weren't in the initial battle of Omaha
Beach but you were there quickly afterwards.
So you've seen combat.
Peterson: No, I wasn't in a position to see or have
anything to do with the wounded people and how
they were handled.
But I have I think an interesting connection
between World War II and World War I in that I
spent nine months in France in one of the
barracks in Verdun, France where the French people
had resisted the German attacks so completely that
they didn't overcome the city of Verdun, France and
I was in one of the actual barracks and the forts,
they called them caserne in France.
That was an interesting -- it was for nine months,
September of 1944 until May of 1945.
Borg: Roger, I haven't gotten to you recently,
although I called your name several times.
(laughter)
Borg: But I do want, we've been talking
here about moving wounded and also the deceased back
into this country.
You were based in Thailand for a time.
Beau: I was based in Thailand and the closest I
came to combat were F105's and F4's that bombed
Vietnam.
And my experience was occasionally you'd have a
plane that didn't come back or you'd have a plane
that came back shot up.
The closest thing to a casualty wasn't due to the
war but I think the plane that was taking off
probably had some battle damage and it wasn't
detected and we had an F105 taking off and it
drew my attention because the pilot and co-pilot
ejected from this plane.
It was fully loaded with fuel so it continued on
down the runway and crashed at the end of the
runway.
Meanwhile, the pilot and co-pilot were high up in
the air and the wind carried them the length of
the runway and one landed on the grass and the
second guy came down in the ball of fire.
And interesting enough, when the plane ejected
they also dropped their bombs on the runway.
And I knew the fire control guy who had to go
out and pick them up.
Now, these bombs had little propellers on the
front of them that weren't released until the bomb
was released and the propellers had to make so
many revolutions before that bomb was active.
Well, he told me that a couple of the bombs only
had two more revolutions to go.
And you just hope you aren't too nervous and
make those two revolutions.
Borg: We're going to wind up our discussion here in
one more question but I want to go back to you,
the historian, Mike Vogt, and talk about a contrast
in armaments.
Roger has been describing here taking off F105's
based in Thailand taking off to the run over Hanoi
and bombing certain targets there, many times
were shot down and those pilots, if they lived,
were in prison camps.
Contrast that with the type of fighting that went
on in World War I and the taking of prisoners.
Vogt: As far as the type of fighting in the air or
on the ground?
Borg: Not air but armaments that were being
used, number one, and then the taking of prisoners.
Vogt: In the First World War, not only nations but
economies and scientists and physicists go to war
as well.
In the late 19th century, early 20th century the
same types of technological achievements
that gave us automobiles and telephones, etcetera,
increased the killing power and the fire
capacity of the weapons that are carried by the
armies into combat in World War I.
Machine guns, magazine rifles, rapid fire
artillery, high explosive shells, take a tremendous
toll on human life, more than any prior conflict.
By the end of the First World War 8 million
soldiers from all the combatant nations had
died.
Poison gas is unveiled as a weapon by the Germans in
the spring of 1915.
So the capacity to inflict dreadful wounds and to
kill enemy soldiers is many times beyond what any
warring nations had experienced prior to that
time.
Beau: I believe that my service was brought about
because a change in the war.
Prior to mine being sent over to Thailand the U.S.
had experienced a lot of our planes were being shot
down by SAM missiles.
Borg: Surface to air missiles.
Beau: Right, surface to air missiles.
And my career field was electronic
countermeasures.
And what that meant was we had equipment on the
airplanes that detected the presence of SAM's and
could tell the pilot or the back seat operator
where the SAM was and where it was coming from
and if they were the target.
And with this information they could avoid being
struck by the SAM.
Borg: Take evasive measures.
Beau: Take evasive measures.
Borg: Yes, Caesar?
Smith: Since we're getting close to wrapping up, I
think it's important to talk about, Mike can maybe
add something to it, women have always been a part of
the military all the way from the Revolutionary War
all the way up through what we're doing now.
But they were all volunteer basis.
All the nurses, etcetera, World War I, were
volunteer basis.
Women didn't get an opportunity to be a part
of it the way they should until World War II and the
first women to come into the service came in at
Fort Des Moines in 1942 when they had the Women's
Army Corp.
I was a little kid but I remember all the women
that were in town during that period that they
started training out at Fort Des Moines.
And from that beginning, from the Revolutionary War
when they were out helping all the way up until now,
I think everybody in here ought to give Heather a
hand because being a medic in combat is really a
tough situation.
(applause)
Borg: Heather, I'm going to have you
respond to that compliment and maybe give us some
personal experiences about being a woman serving as a
medic.
And then Mike, wind up that thought, if you will,
about women's service.
And then we'll have a final question.
Dillwood: I've obviously as a female, even now, you
still meet some resistance in some regards.
But as a medic I think women, we have that
compassion.
I don't know, I think we're all capable of doing
it all.
I'm kind of speechless right now.
You kind of caught me off guard, which is really
weird for me.
I'm glad that we get the opportunity to serve just
like everybody else because we're all capable
of doing it.
And I'm glad that we're getting to, the military
is getting to the point that it's opening its
doors for women to serve everywhere.
We may not be capable of doing it just like some
men aren't capable of doing some of the jobs
women are better at, but at least the opportunity
is there.
And I'm glad that we've gotten to that point.
And it has really been an honor for me to be, to
serve as a medic as long as I did and especially in
Afghanistan to have had the opportunities to be
even a small part of people's lives and help
them the best that I could.
Borg: Michael, was it a long hard role?
Women were just getting the vote in 1919 and
during World War I they didn't even have the vote
yet so they weren't really serving, were they, in the
military at that time?
And so how did that evolve and we're still
assimilating now and adjusting to getting women
into combat roles.
What was the evolution and the thinking on that over
the years?
Vogt: There is an old saying that an army is a
reflection of the society from which it comes.
And so the same difficulties and
discriminations that people of color or females
faced in their own society are carried, are endured
in the military as well.
The Army developed the Army Nurse Corp drawing on
lessons from the Spanish-American War in
the first decade of the 20th century.
In World War I a great number of Red Cross
personnel, civilian personnel were served in
hospitals in nursing capacities in France and
in the United States.
So they were part of the war effort but when it
comes to studying the First Word War we see
images of doughboys but rarely do we see those
nurses or those medical personnel behind the
scenes.
Borg: I'd be remiss, Richard, if I didn't bring
you into this conversation because during World War
II where you served we had the WAVES, the WAC's and
maybe WAF's also, women in Air Force.
Tell me how those service people were regarded at
that time in World War II.
Peterson: I probably was lucky and not really
having any attachment to those people.
The only attachment I got to where the ladies that
run the, the donut trucks, the Red Cross ladies that
run the donut trucks because they were
quartered, when they were not out in the, with the
troops, they were in that same area that I was in
Verdun.
Borg: And that says something too, doesn't it,
Mike?
The area where he served he didn't have any contact
with the women corp that I mentioned.
Vogt: The women originally, the
organization founded at Fort Des Moines that
Caesar mentioned prior, was originally created as
the Women's Auxiliary, or Women's Army Auxiliary
Corp, WAAC with two A's.
The program was so successful that when it
was suggested that they be deployed overseas the
Congress said, wait a minute, there was nothing
about sending them overseas as an auxiliary
component.
And that is when they got rid of the auxiliary and
they became the Women's Army Corp with equal pay,
equal rank, equal military courtesy and they are
deployed overseas to do jobs, everything from
clerks to mechanics to small arms inspectors, and
so they make a significant contribution to the war
effort.
Borg: And that is the acronym that I sided,
WAC's as they were known, Women's Army Corp.
What did WAVES stand for?
Vogt: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency
Service and they were the Navy component.
The Marines had Marines, they didn't have any kind
of an acronym, women Marines were women
Marines.
And the Coast Guard had SPARS from their
organizational, I think it's Semper Paratus is a
Latin phrase that SPARS comes from.
Borg: Final question that I want is we're going to
wind up here, how did these wars wind up?
The basic question that I want from you is your
experience and recollection in how you
were assimilated back into society.
Caesar already is laughing so he's got a story to
tell.
And I know that Roger does.
But how were you assimilated back into
society?
Was it with ticker tape parades?
Or was it in some other manner?
And I'm going to, let's start with you because you
go back the furthest Richard in World War II.
How did you come back to this country and what kind
of a reception did you get here?
Because I know that this nation created all sorts
of benefits for you who served in World War II.
They had college tuition for you, they had other
benefits that we had never seen before.
But what did you feel about having served and
then coming out and adjusting to civilian
life?
Peterson: Well, I happened to have been ordered back
from overseas to be on the staff of the commandant of
the engineer school in Fort Belvoir.
But, we were home on leave when the bomb fell in
Japan.
So when we went back there wasn't anything for me to
do but to just come back.
There was no reception, there was nothing.
We just happened to have been, Iowa just happened
to have been in Paris, in Paris for the excitement
after the end of that part of it, come back to Des
Moines and happened to be here when Japan.
But I went back to my work at the Iowa Power and
Light Company and there was no reception, nothing
big, never has been really.
Borg: Did you use the GI Bill benefits?
Peterson: No.
I could have gone back to college because I had a
few hours to recover from because I had got out a
little early but I didn't use any of the GI
benefits.
Borg: And let's go then to Caesar.
What was the reception that you experienced?
Smith: I want to go back a second before I get to
mine.
After World War I they had a great phrase, black
soldiers in the one unit we saw in the movie, they
came back to the States, they marched in New York
City, all across the country there was a lot of
celebration, but the black soldiers didn't come back
to anything different than it was before the war,
which is very disappointing.
Equality didn't change after World War I, even
though they fought in World War I.
Equality didn't change after World War II, even
though they fought in World War II.
There's something strange about the wonderful people
of our country when it comes to what they feel
about individuals and why they feel that way because
there wasn't any acceptance at all for
those of us coming back from Vietnam.
My foreign observer, when he came back, he got spit
on for being a soldier and all the soldier is doing
is what he's supposed to do, is what he's told to
do and yet they wanted to take it out on the
soldier.
So the reception coming back for me, I wasn't
expecting anything, I didn't get anything.
So that's the way it was.
I did have one interesting thing on the plane, I was
flying in from Hawaii back to the States and a
civilian guy was sitting next to me and he said, I
was in uniform, he said, what do you think about
this crap they talk about women being in combat?
You been in combat?
I said, yes.
He said, well would you want a woman in combat
with you?
I said, anybody who is willing to fight I'd be
willing to have them next to me, I don't have any
problem with it being a woman or a man.
And he looked at me like you don't know what you're
talking about.
So that was the reception I think I got in terms of
coming back to the States.
I've seen some improvements but overall I
think everybody knows we've got a long way to go
in terms of accepting everybody because one of
the irritating things about seeing in that film
through World War I when they're talking about
immigrants and talking so bad about the Germans, of
course we know what they did with the Japanese in
World War II, and here we are now in 2017 and we're
still doing the same kind of crap in terms of who is
an American.
It's really strange that we don't know who an
American is.
(applause)
Vogt: On my drive out here today I
passed an Islamic religious center and there
was a pot of flowers outside and in that flower
pot was a sign about this big with an American flag
on it that said, we support you.
And I got to thinking about that during the
film.
I think we have come a long way in terms of race
relations including women and others in the
military, but I'm not totally convinced we have
still escaped the long shadows that were cast at
that time in the First World War.
Borg: I want to come back to you just to wrap up our
thought here on assimilation and contrast
the wars, if you will.
Roger, you came back from Vietnam.
Beau: Well, I didn't come back from Vietnam, I came
back from Thailand.
Borg: Vietnam was the time.
Beau: When I reached Travis Air Force Base I
was discharged from the service.
Borg: Travis is in northern California.
Beau: Right.
And after getting my discharge papers I grabbed
a cab in the late afternoon to air base to
fly home, Los Angeles, and when my cab pulled up
there was another cab that pulled up behind me that
an Army guy got out of and there was a war protest
going on.
Borg: Now, were you in uniform?
Beau: I was in uniform and I was carrying a duffel
bag and we became the object of the war protest.
So we got shoulder to shoulder and we had to
wait through this war protest while they were
spitting on us and hitting us with signs and one
woman came up and hacked in this soldier's face and
when we got to the doors of the terminal the police
were on the other side of the doors and they
controlled access and they let us in.
And much to my surprise they were angry and they
escorted us to a room and we were ordered to stay
there until our flight left.
Borg: Just for your own protection.
Beau: Just for our protection and probably
not to cause any more riots.
Borg: Okay, you had something more to say.
Beau: Well, I think I need to tell you the rest of
the story.
I got on the plane and it was late in the evening
and my next stop was Minneapolis, Minnesota.
When I got to Minneapolis, Minnesota it was after
midnight and I and the fellow passengers
retrieved our luggage and I was left there to wander
the corridors, which were darkened and there wasn't
a soul around, and I'm walking down this corridor
and out from a side corridor this guy steps
out and the place just echoed.
He said, are you a GI?
And I said, yes.
He said, would you come here?
That scared me to the boots.
So I walked out and he said, I have a cot for
you.
Borg: Because you had to spend the night.
Beau: Because I had to spend the night and after
flying back from Southeast Asia the barracks that
they put me up in that first night was full of
guys that were getting out and they were celebrating
all night so there wasn't much sleep there.
And so I got some needed rest and the next thing I
knew he shook me awake and he said, your plane is
leaving.
I grabbed my stuff and here they held the plane
for me.
And then I got on and the most amazing thing that
happened, we took off, it was foggy and we got above
the clouds and it was bright, this was August of
'72 and I looked down and it was like the Garden of
Eden coming home.
(applause)
Borg: I can identify with that, not
that I experienced that, but I saw it.
I mentioned meeting the C5 at Andrews Air Force Base
at about 3:30, 4:00 one morning.
You can imagine how empty the runway and the
taxiways there are at that time.
The C5 pulls up finally, the door comes down, I
walk into that plane and just see stretcher upon
stretcher piled high just having loaded at Tan Son
Nhut in South Vietnam and then flying over the poles
landing at Andrews.
One of the most meaningful things that I'll never
forget, and it goes to the emotion that you were just
showing here about that story, is a nurse saying
to one of the GI's on one of those -- there was all
kinds of moaning that you can imagine in that plane
as I walked in and that very eerie feeling and she
said, you're okay, you're okay, you're home.
And what a meaningful statement that was.
Heather, what was your experience coming back?
Dillwood: Well, for the Guard, and I think active
duty is similar, we fly into a demobilization
base.
So we have to go somewhere they demobilize us and we
have doctor's appointments and things and then we
come back to the state and thee is a ceremony and we
get in formation and they have music and speakers
and they welcome us home and your families are
welcome to be a part of it.
It's pretty amazing to be part of it and it's very
emotional to have all of that support and to
finally be back.
Borg: You didn't encounter any hostility that you've
heard described here?
Dillwood: No, no I've never in all my years
being in I've never encountered it.
Borg: In fact, have you ever had people come to
you and say, thank you for your service?
Dillwood: Yes, multiple times.
It's always a little weird.
Borg: And Michael -- it's always a little weird?
Dillwood: Yeah, oh yeah because you don't know
what to say.
We don't do it because we want the thanks, we do it
because we're proud to do it.
We do it because we want to.
Borg: Mike, you've heard the stories here.
Just wrap it up for us on you're okay, you're home.
What did people experience contrasted over the years
and why did it change?
Vogt: The victorious armies, the sailor's
Marines that arrived home in the First World War as
Caesar indicated, they were met with parades and
some fanfare.
There was a big parade for the 168 Infantry of the
Iowa National Guard down on Grand Avenue through a
victory arch and they posed on the grounds of
the Capitol to have their photo take.
The Capitol hangs opposite the Governor's office at
the State Capitol if you want to see what that
image looks like.
World War II there was a great degree of fanfare
for those that were able to participate.
But Korea, Vietnam and other struggles around the
world have been more, I hate to use Harry Truman's
phrase, but they have been more police actions, they
have been limited in scope.
Now for the veterans that have to participate in
them it's war just the same.
But these limited actions, fighting guerillas,
fighting insurgencies, the sense of it being over,
the sense to the feeling to want to celebrate just
hasn't been there.
Borg: Thank you so much for sharing your insights
and your experiences.
It has just been enlightening for me and I
know for those of you who are watching.
We've been listening here to Mike Vogt down on the
end, Richard Peterson, Roger Beau, Heather
Dillwood and Caesar Smith.
I'm Dean Borg and I just want to remind you that on
Iowa Public Television as a part of the PBS series
that is coming now on Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday from 8:00 at night until 10:00 at
night, two hours each night on those three
nights this week, The Great War.
Thank you.
(applause)
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