• Format
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Text
• Extent
  • Duration: 13 pages (transcript)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Moody_Day_2018-05-22_transcript

Day 1 Interview with Jerry Day Interviewer: Lane Moody Interviewee: Jerry Day Interview attendee: Alex Macaulay Date: May 22, 2018 Time: 39:55 Location: Sylva, NC Lane Moody: How are you doing today? Jerry Day: I’m good. LM: That’s great. Basically, what I’m wanting to do is, I just want to hear your story. Like whatever you want to share or be remembered as or by. We can start off with your family life if you want, like when you were a little kid. If you want to start there if you want you can tell me about that, like who, who played an inspiring role in your childhood? JD: Hmm. My grandfather. LM: Really? JD: Yeah. LM: I can see that. JD: We grew up on just a small farm over in Nantahala, a little mountain farm and he was probably the biggest farmer in the area. And I spent a lot of time with him. LM: Yeah, he was teaching you the ways of the mountain? JD: Yeah. Yeah. LM: Did you attend school? JD: At Nantahala. I went and graduated at Nantahala High School. And then went to Tennessee Temple in Chattanooga on a basketball scholarship. LM: Oh yeah? Wasn’t your senior class only like 8 people? JD: There was 13, 9 boys and 4 girls. LM: Yeah? So, you guys were like a close community? JD: Oh, yes. LM: Did you stay in touch after you graduated high school? Day 2 JD: Yes. With a lot of them. LM: For the most part. How was the atmosphere at your high school, though, compared to what you think a high school would be like today? Do you think you guys were more of a safe learning environment, like you felt wholly comfortable and relaxed in school? JD: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Uh huh. LM: It was like a family kind of an environment? Everyone knew everyone? JD: Oh yes. A lot of us went to church together and everything. LM: That church in Nantahala? JD: Uh huh. LM: What kind of church was that? JD: Baptist. LM: Baptist? JD: That was the only, that was the only church that was in Nantahala. At one time there was a Holiness church. There wasn’t but eight or ten people that went there. LM: What kind? A Holiness church? JD: Holiness. Let’s see it’s like one of those where they spoke in terms, I mean spoke in tongues and handled snakes. And… LM: Oh, it’s one of those churches. JD: Yeah. LM: That’s kind of surprising to hear about a church like that in this area. JD: It was all just one family, the Princes. He was the pastor and his whole family made music and it was just that one family that went there. . LM: Were they like an outcast family? Or… JD: No, no, no. Not at all. LM: What kind of music did they make? JD: It was usually really up beat. LM: Like bluegrass type? Day 3 JD: No, it really wasn’t bluegrass. It was just a real fast beat. They sang the same songs we sung at our church. They always had guitars and drums and all that stuff, which we had a piano. LM: So, I understand you went to Vietnam. JD: Yes LM: I would like to thank you, you know, for your sacrifice. JD: Thank you. I appreciate it. LM: Yeah, I understand that is quite brutal and that was quite the sacrifice you made. JD: Well, thank you. LM: Did you draft? Or, were you drafted? Or… JD: I was. I flunked out of college and I was drafted. LM: What college did you attend? JD: Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga, Tennessee. LM: Oh yeah. JD: It was a small Christian school. LM: Yeah? JD: And then after I was drafted, I volunteered for the Marine Corps after I was drafted. LM: So you volunteered? JD: Uh huh. There was three of us. Two boys from Franklin and myself volunteered together. LM: Did you grow close to them? JD: Never saw them. LM: Really? JD: Never saw them afterwards. That’s the reason we’d volunteered together, to go through boot camp together. And when we got to boot camp, they’d promised us and when we got to boot camp, they sent all three different ways. And I was working at the staging town in California, the last stage before you went to Vietnam, and I was processing all of their papers and they came through the line that I was processing. But I saw them there but didn’t see them until after we got back. Day 4 LM: Oh, so they made it through? JD: Yes, uh huh. LM: I bet that was quite a relief. So, how was, how was boot camp? Like how long did you attend boot camp? JD: Well, they cut it from 16 weeks, 16 weeks to 12 weeks. LM: Yeah. JD: So that could get more people trained and to go to Vietnam. LM: It was just more intense training? JD: Oh yeah. Yeah. And it was rough. Boot camp, Marine Corp boot camp is a big adjustment. You go through it you grow up fast going through the camp. LM: Everyone is making you feel real little? JD: Oh yeah. Yeah. They say they break you down and build you back the way they want you. That’s pretty much what it is. LM: Did you have like, um… a routine, like just an average routine that you started your day with in boot camp? JD: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. Everything is something, like heat. I was down there in June and July in Paris Island, South Carolina. Something like heat. They’re not supposed to keep you out in the heat, any PT [physical training] or anything. So instead of keeping you out there where people see, they just bring you in the barracks and you do it in the barracks. AM: No chance of getting a day off, huh? JD: No, No. You didn’t have a day off, even Sundays. They’d give you an hour to go to church on Sundays. Everybody went whether you wanted to go or not. They forced you to. LM: They forced you? JD: Uh huh. LM: Was it like a church of everyone? JD: Yeah, interdenominational. It was, it wasn’t what I was used to, being Southern Baptist, you know. But… LM: Did you miss that church while you were in boot camp? JD: Did I miss it? Day 5 LM: Your home town church? JD: Uh, yeah, yeah. You know, it was part of where I grew up and everything. We were there every Sunday. LM: Did you develop any close friends in boot camp? JD: I had one real close friend from Texas. And we still stay in touch. LM: You do? JD: Uh hum. LM: Do you like hang out or you just…? JD: No, we call and write. And Facebook, now. But he and I were, had the same job. And I worked as a, well I worked as a general’s aide for a little while. But we worked in the adjutant section in Vietnam. We processed all the medals, vests, and everything, the paperwork, that’s what we did in the adjutant’s section. He and I worked together, and all. We still just stay in touch. LM: What was his personality like? How can you describe him? JD: He was just an old country boy like me. You could tell, we had a little bar there on base, you could tell if he went and had too many. We had what we called the “shitters” and the “pissers.” LM: Yeah? JD: And he’d turn, coming back there, he’d turn ‘em over on the way back from the bar if he’d had too many. He was a big old tall Texan. A real good guy. It was mine and his duty every morning, we’d raise the flag to the same song, and I can’t even think of it now, same song played over Armed Forces radio every morning. Every morning it was the same song, it was a rock song. He and I were also over the mail and everything going out to the base. It was Force Logistics command that we were attached to. We had to go in, we went to… in to Da Nang, to all the bases around every day to deliver and pick up stuff. We had a secret and confidential clearance, both of us did. We went through to pick up papers and deliver papers. You’ve seen on TV I’m sure, we’d be handcuffed to the briefcase. It was that kind of thing. LM: A high class job? JD: No, no, it wasn’t. We wasn’t out in the boonies all the time. We still had to stand guard for the night. Pull our part of it. We had to go out on patrol around the base, still just like any of the others, but we wasn’t out in the boonies, not all the time. LM: How could you explain Vietnam’s first impression on you? JD: I was scared to death. LM: When you landed down? Day 6 JD: I was scared to death. We got on base and we landed, and they took us over assignments, where we were going, and we spent the night there. And of course, through all your training, they prepare you to be scared. They want you to be scared. LM: Yeah. So, you had that motivation? JD: Um hum. And that night, we got a mortar attack that very first night. And I was nineteen years old and scared to death. LM: I would hate to be in that situation myself. It would definitely make me terrified. JD: Uh hum. Even though we wasn’t in a highly dangerous area, we got, at least once or twice a week, we would get mortars and rockets and stuff. We had a hooch we lived in and it was just plywood for 4 feet and then just screen on up. Because of… It was so hot you couldn’t breathe. And we had tarps you could let down if it rained real hard it wouldn’t blow in it. We slept on just a canvas cot with mosquito nets over us. But outside we had bunkers built out of sandbags and metal on top. But we had, we were supposed to fill by ourselves, but you could go out and get a work party at the gate, of Vietnamese for the day, and they would come in, and 50 cents a day, and they’d work and fill your sandbags for you. LM: For just 50 cents? How much do think that would be like to them? 50 cent. JD: I don’t know what that would be like now to them. Or to us, back then, of course we didn’t make … I spent two years and made corporal in two years but I still wasn’t making but $120 a month myself. And I’d save $100 from Vietnam. I lived on $20 a month, but you didn’t need anything over there. Everything was provided for you. There was nothing to spend your money on. Except you could go buy some candy or something. LM: Yeah. JD: Of course, you had to buy your beer that night when you went to the bar and turn the pissers over. LM: Was that an every night thing? JD: Do what? LM: Was that an every night thing? JD: No, No. Some of the guys it was. But… LM: My great uncle Jim was in Vietnam and he had always had a beer opener. You know how they always pushed… He always called it his church-key. JD: Yeah, that’s what we called them, church-keys. It really wasn’t just a beer opener. It was a that opened your C-rations. That’s what it was made for. Most people used them for opening beer. All you could get was Schlitz and Black Label. That’s all we had. Day 7 LM: How could you describe the difference between the global atmosphere of Vietnam versus America? Just the day-to-day weather and humidity? JD: Oh God, it was always hot over there, year-round. LM: Always? JD: It was hot and muggy, year-round. There wasn’t, you didn’t have any cold time at all. Then you had your monsoons. Every year you had a monsoon. It rained and rained and rained. Through our hooches, we had boardwalks that the Seabees built and they were built out of pressure treated two-by-sixes and two-by-eights. And they plugged so much rain they would float. To get to your hooch you would have to walk on them and they floated out through there. But it started and it was just rain, rain, rain. LM: Were you ever in, like, what kind of area were you in? Was it like grasslands? JD: No. We were at, it was called Red Beach, outside of Da Nang. And it was real sandy. LM: Sandy? JD: Um hum. Yeah. LM: So, the ground was always hot? JD: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, the whole area was hot. LM: What was the wildlife around there like? JD: Never saw any. LM: Really? No insects? JD: Oh, yeah we had plenty of insects. Mosquitos and stuff. LM: Just some rodents? JD: Oh, I can’t say I never saw any. I went in and sat at my desk one day and there were some two-by-fours laying there and they told me not to move. And there was what they call a bamboo viper that was in those two-by-fours. And that’s, I never saw anything else. They kept us a good ways in the perimeter and they sprayed that agent orange. They sprayed that all the time. LM: Has that caused any like health issues? JD: Yeah, I’m on 90% percent disability because of it. LM: That seems to be a reoccurring thing. JD: It’s a contributing factor. The biggest contributing factor is heart problems and sugar. I have both. Day 8 LM: My great uncle Joe died of that. It gave him heart failure. JD: Mm hmm. LM: Sad. JD: Yeah, it killed everything around the base. LM: How were the people? Were they rude or very shocked to see you? JD: They were, uh… and like I say, we had to go into Da Nang and around some of the other bases every day. They were cordial. I wasn’t in contact with a lot of them, I mean very many of them, because of our job and everything. Because we were pretty well going into Da Nang or something. All of them was just on their little scooters going, you know. Didn’t have a lot of contact unless I went and got a work party. LM: Is there anything you wanted to share about your experience? JD: I enjoyed playing basketball over there. LM: Yeah? JD: Believe it or not, we had, well before I went, I was supposed to be over there in October, and I got to Camp Pendleton, California, and they kept me, thought I was going to go and they kept me until March playing for the base team. LM: Yeah. JD: And then I got over there. My officers had an outside court behind our office and, I got to playing with them and they had teams with different… army and marine corps and everybody had different teams and we had tournaments. LM: Did you guys always win? JD: No. No, no no. It depended because there was such a big turnover, you know, of people. Coming and going. We won some and lost some. LM:. Well it’s just a game though. All about having fun. JD: It wasn’t to me. (Laughter) LM: You wanted to win? JD: It was just like playing, even poker, I wanted to win. LM: Did you win? JD: Huh? Day 9 LM: Did you win, in poker? JD: No. [Alex is a good poker player, he can play. He and John Frady]. Of course, I’ve got a son that here lately has been winning when we play. . But we had fun. It doesn’t mean as much to me as it did back then. LM: Yeah. JD: If anything, I was too competitive back then. LM: I understand you became quite successful after you came back to America? JD: Well, I guess I’m like everybody else, I worked hard. I went to Western when I got back. That’s the reason we ended up here. I got back on May 13, I got out of the Marine Corps May the 13th and my wife and I got married May 31. And, then we had the daughter. And through those times it was pretty rough, ’cause I was trying to go to school, part-time work, part-time everything. It’s like anybody else. You go through those trying times. But we made it and I went to work for Duke, it was Nantahala Power and Light when I went to work for them. Duke bought us out. I spent 31-and-a-half years with them, then retired. Part of that was on disability. I had three back surgeries and then I had, while I was out with them, I had a heart attack and five bypasses. So they wouldn’t let me come back to work, so I ended up retiring. LM: Well, are you doing pretty well now? JD: I do pretty good. I know what I can do and I know my limitations. LM: Yeah. JD: And, I’ve got grandkids that keep me young now. Jake, one of my twin boys, him and his family have moved in. They sold their house and they’re living with us now. We gave them some property down here and they’re going to build a house down here. But, all of my kids have done well. We’ve got four kids and all of them have, I’m very proud of them, all of them have four-year degrees, all of them. Three from Western and one from NC State. LM: What are their degrees? JD: Rachel’s is in computer something, I forget. LM: Yeah. JD: And Jake’s in business. Rachel works, my daughter, she works at Western. Jake and Josh are my twins. Jake is an assistant supervisor over 14 counties, Right of Way, with DOT. And Joshua is a supervisor with America’s Home Place, builds houses. And then, Jerry, our youngest he works at John Deere. He’s the southeast regional supervisor. He’s got his degree in agricultural engineering. The rest of their degrees… Josh got his in construction management at Western. LM: Botany, the one that works at John Deere, Western is a good college, that’s a good degree to have there. Day 10 JD: Yeah, yeah, In ag engineering. He’s, He’s been, I’ll show you some brochures. He’s been in State’s ag program, they put out a brochure and he’s in it. And a lot of stuff. He just spoke, it’s been just about two or three months ago, he spoke in Washington, D.C., to the Chinese councilor, to the American Farm Bureau, and Congress. And he stayed up there a week speaking to them. But he’s with big farmers, he goes everywhere. I guess his biggest trip, I guess, is Australia. LM: That would be fun. JD: Yeah, I didn’t realize they are the second-largest cotton-producers in the world. Australia is. I didn’t know that. And they, you wouldn’t think that. It’s like, when he first got out, he went to Texas and worked for the largest potato producers in the world, I mean, in the United States. And they were In Texas. I wouldn’t think they grew many potatoes in Texas. I went up there and visited, and saw what they done there. They sold all of their potatoes. The select potatoes went to Lays, to make potato chips. The ones that they grew. And then the culls, Campbell’s soup. But you can’t use a big potato in a potato chip. It’s got to be a certain size. But he’s the only one not married. Josh went and got married a couple of weeks ago. And his wife graduated from Western. And Jacob, Jacob’s wife graduated from Western. And Rachel’s husband graduated from Western. So, it’s got to be a pretty good school. AM: Yeah, keeping us in business. That’s pretty good. LM: How many grandchildren do you have? JD: Jacob has two girls, little girls, ones six and ones two, that stay here with us. And then, Matt and Rachel, they have two. They have a daughter whose 17, who’s very into volleyball and then they have a son whose 15. LM: Yeah? JD: And, he likes football. Let’s see. I have four. LM: Family is something you’re very proud of? JD: Oh yes. Yeah. Very much so. LM: Best thing to be proud of. JD: Yeah, they’re all, they don’t give us any trouble much at all. LM: They’ve kept you straight. JD: And of course, Rachel’s husband, he’s older than my boys. And they’re all afraid of him. He’s a lieutenant now with the highway patrol. And he’s stationed in Asheville. He goes with Western on all their football trips. He went to Hawaii with them last year. He travels with the team. LM: That’s cool. Did you keep a pretty strict household? JD: Yes. Day 11 LM: I can imagine. JD: When you’re a Marine, you have to. LM: Yeah. JD: The old saying, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” And that’s true. Marines are a close-knit bunch. LM: Yeah. JD: We have a chapter of the Marines in Franklin that I belong to. And we still get together and... LM: Talk? JD: Yeah, we get together, we do things, charity work. LM: Yeah, like what? JD: Help, especially other families, especially Marine families. LM: When they’re suffering? JD: Yeah, in our area. LM: That’s good. Like financially? JD: Yeah. Right. And we’re in all the parades over there in Franklin. Like Memorial Day or Veterans Day or something were you always take a part in all that. There’s about 250 people that belong to it. LM: That’s quite a bit. JD: Yeah, for a small area, for this area. LM: Yeah. How were you treated in this area once you came back? JD: This area, I was treated fine. You couldn’t, when I got back to California, of course, back then you had to wear your uniform to get military discounts to fly. LM: Yeah. JD: And going through airports and stuff, there’s always somebody who had something to say, holler at you or something. LM: So, it was pretty rough? Day 12 JD: Yeah. There was always somebody saying something. You couldn’t… I never went into town in Oceanside, California with my uniform. I never wore it into town. Of course, all they had to do was look at our haircuts and. LM: Yeah, you could tell. JD: Yeah. LM: How does that make you, like, feel, being treated that way after coming back? JD: Well, I never did understand the war to begin with. LM: Yeah. So … JD: But I didn’t, I didn’t feel respected at all after we got back and what we had to go through and everything. Even though I wasn’t out in the bush much, we still, you know, had to fight. We’d be attacked in the night on perimeter, and like I say mortars and stuff and we had to go out and walk on perimeter duty, make sure they wasn’t too close. But it didn’t make you feel good. A lot of stuff I don’t like to talk about. So, if you’ll excuse me. LM: Yeah, no I don’t want to push you at all. I understand that it’s a very touchy subject. JD: I kind of try to downplay my part over there, as just sitting in the office. But that wasn’t the only thing [Speaking to dog] Right, Buster? I think one of the worst things was the general asked me if I wanted to come home early. And I still had about a month left. And he said the Seventh Motor Transport Battalion was, they were shipping the whole battalion back state side. Well, I said, “Sure.” So he cut me, had my orders cut, and shipped my transfer to the Seventh Motor Transport Battalion. And I waited over there for about 30 days. And then they put me in a ship headed home. That thing was a flat-bottomed boat and down below deck they had all their equipment and everything. Topside out on the bow of the boat was where our barracks was on that ship, just like that. I never even got out of sight of land and I was seasick. 21 days and I was sick the whole… I would go below deck and eat at the mess and I’d come up and hang over the side and puke it up. LM: That’s terrible. JD: 21 days. I’d go straight to my bunk and lay down, because there’s nothing to do on that ship. They called it a LST. It was just a big flat-bottomed boat that they transported equipment and stuff. And come to find out, the guys that had longer time than I had, beat me home. They flew home. LM: Wow, yeah? Stayed sick? JD: Yeah, and you get sick like that, when you get on land, for three days and was still sick. LM: You felt motion sickness? JD: Yeah. You have Diane’s washing machine on this side. AM: Yeah, I don’t know how we’ll spell that in the transcript. Whir, whir. Day 13 LM: Is there anything you would like to say to further today’s society for good? Is there something that people should just…? Like, what kind of wisdom would you like to share? JD: I don’t have any wisdom. LM: No? JD: (Laughter) No, I don’t reckon. We’ve got a lot going on, especially political stuff and everything. That I wish we didn’t have, not one way or another, just political, a lot of stuff. And I’m not talking about our presidents here or nothing like that. I just, I get kind of caught up in that. All the stuff, local and I wish we could… But I guess as long as we have a democracy and a two party system, we’re going to have it and there’s nothing we could do about it. And again, I’m not talking about one party or the other. It’s just some of the things that we don’t seem to be able to correct, that over the years, it would seem like we would see what’s wrong, and we could do something about it. LM: I agree. There’s a lot of corruption that should be corrected. JD: Ah, yeah. I really worry about young people and the society we have now with drugs and all. See, when I grew up, you went to the bootlegger and bought a beer, and that was the worst thing you could do. LM: Yeah. JD: And, where I grew up there was no alcohol or anything. That was the worst thing you could do. Or go out and hot rod your parents’ car. Drink beer. And that was it. And now, now look what kids are confronted with, the choices they have to make and all. It’s, I really worry about grandkids growing up in that. LM: Yeah, because the opposite is happening, it’s just getting worse. JD: Uh hum. Uh hum. AM: Jerry, we appreciate it.

Jerry Day is interviewed by a Smoky Mountain High School student as a part of Mountain People, Mountain Lives: A Student Led Oral History Project. Day grew up on a farm in Nantahala. After he was drafted, he volunteered to join the Marine Corps and discusses his time in Vietnam where he worked in the adjutant’s section. He shares his life after the war, including marriage, college, children, working at Nantahala Power and Light for 31 years, and his grandchildren.

• Creator
  • Day, Jerry
• Contributor
  • Moody, Lane
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 2018-05-22
  • Date: 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s; 2000s (Decade); 2010s;
  • Date digitized: 2019-08-15
• Extent
  • Duration: 39:55 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 13 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Autobiography
  • Basic training (Military education)
  • Day, Jerry
  • Electric industry workers
  • Families
  • United States. Marine Corps -- Military life
  • Veterans
  • Veterans -- North Carolina, Western
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Personal narratives
  • Western Carolina University
  • Western Carolina University -- Alumni and alumnae
• Location
  • Swain County (N.C.)
  • North Carolina, Western
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - Mountain People, Mountain Lives
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Moody_Day_2018-05-22
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library