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ualr-ms-0076_02_na_01_02_doc15_dm
No full textA one-page letter from J. R. Butler, president of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, to Claude Williams, director of Commonwealth College in Mena, Arkansas, and to members of the Commonwealth College non-resident board, announcing his immediate resignation from the non-resident board
Frederick S Ursery interview
No full textFrederick S. Ursery enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967 at the age of twenty-five. He served as a radio operator in the fire direction center of the 6th Battalion, 77th Artilery Regiment. Ursery spent the first four months of his tour at Cu Chi with the 25th Infantry Division. His unit was later assigned to the 9th Infantry Division and moved to Can Tho.Robertson: This is Brian Robertson and today's date is November the 15th, 2023 and we're in the Bobby Roberts Library of Arkansas History and Art doing an interview for the Arkansas Vietnam War Project. And what is your name, sir?
Ursery: Fred Ursery.
Robertson: Okay, Fred, I always start these interviews off by asking when and where you were born.
Ursery: I was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on March 5, 1942.
Robertson: Okay, and what were your parents' names?
Ursery: William and Mary Ursery.
Robertson: What did they do for a living?
Ursery: My father worked for a laundry and my mother was a seamstress. She made draperies. furniture covers, that sort of thing. And I had three older sisters.
Robertson: Okay. What was it like growing up in Pine Bluff?
Ursery: Well, it was very good, actually. It was kind of like the old timey TV shows and everything was good. The schools were good. People didn't lock their doors, you know, you hear about that, but that was true. It was kind of like, leave it to Beaver. So I had a good childhood. Yeah.
Robertson: And so did you graduate from Pine Bluff High School?
Ursery: I graduated from, yes, in 1960.
Robertson: Did you have any idea what you wanted to do after graduating high school?
Ursery: Yes, I had determined early on that I wanted to be a lawyer. So that was my career goal. And I ended up, I went to Vanderbilt University. which is now hard to get into, but back in 1960, usually one or two people from the class of Pine Bluff High went to Vanderbilt, so I knew a lot of people that had gone there, so that's where I went. Spent four years in Nashville, which I enjoyed because I'm a country music fan, and I got to go to the Grand Ole Opry regularly. And then after that, I went to law school in New York at Columbia University Law School. I'd had a fraternity brother at Vanderbilt who had gone there, so I'd gone to visit him a couple of times and I liked it there, so I applied there and got in and it was kind of the same. uh... situation there i was columbia was hard to get into but i was able to get in i think because i was from arkansas and they wanted geographical distribution or at least my classmates always claimed that's why i got in but i graduated from law school in nineteen sixty seven which was at the height of the Vietnam War. Everybody was scrambling trying to either get in a reserve unit or get lined up with some military position. As I grew up in Pine Bluff, I had dealt with the Pine Bluff draft board and I had been deferred through college and through law school. So when I got out in the summer of sixty-seven, the lady who ran the draft board who I knew, she told me, she said, well, you're going to be drafted and the way it looks now, you'll be drafted in December of this year. So I decided, well, I don't want to sit around and wait until December. So I went to the recruiter and signed up. Everybody assumes I would go in as a lawyer, but back in 67, it was hard to go in as a lawyer. They didn't need many lawyers. They needed people that wanted to be or didn't want to be. To sign up for a lawyer position, you had to sign up for five years. And at the time, that five years sounded like something I wasn't interested in doing. So I went to the recruiter. I originally thought I was going to go to OCS and be an officer. And I was given the choice of either infantry, artillery, or armor. none of which sounded good, but artillery sounded the least offensive of those, so I signed up for the artillery.
Robertson: Now, did you, while you were in college, both at Vanderbilt and then also Columbia, did you follow very much what was going on with the war?
Ursery: To a certain extent. I was following it mostly. with a self-interest. But I was keeping up a little bit and we all, everybody in the class knew that we were going to have to deal with the draft. So that was a topic of conversation. What are we going to do? Or some of them, how are we going to get out of it? How are we going to not do it?
Robertson: political feelings about the war at that time?
Ursery: Well, actually, no, I was, I mean, I was not an activist. It didn't seem like a real good idea to me at the time to be over there, but I would say I had a neutral feeling about the war. So I was not a protester and I had not given any thought to going to Canada or what have you. I did have one of my fellow law students that graduated in 67. He ended up, he got drafted and he was assigned to go to Vietnam and he left and went to Sweden.
Robertson: Oh wow.
Ursery: He had spent about 20 years over there. But it was most of the people that I knew in law school were trying to determine what they were going to do military-wise and they were not protesting.
Robertson: Now what did your family think about you joining the military?
Ursery: Well, they thought correctly that I didn't have much choice.
Robertson: Good point.
Ursery: I mean, they were worried about it. My family was always more worried than I was. And like when I was in Vietnam, they were all very worried. More so than I was because I knew what the situation was. They didn't, they were just watching the news and knew it wasn't good. But I had a lot of support from home. I had a lot of friends and relatives and all that would write me on a regular basis.
Robertson: So how did you, you know, once you decided to enlist, what happened after that?
Ursery: I signed up with the thought that I was going to go to officer training school, which, let me just take it one step at a time, after I signed up it was August of 67 that I went in the military. And I went through basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. And then after that, I was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which is the artillery center. That's where I got the advanced training in artillery. And the thought at that time was, after I finished that, I was gonna spend 10 months in officer training school. And then after that, I would have to serve two years. So after I got in and was in the military, and I said, no, wait a minute, that 10 months that I'm going to serve doesn't count toward my two years? They go, no, you go 10 months and then serve two years. And I made the decision that may not have been a good decision, but I said, well, I'm not going to go. I'll just go in as an enlisted man. So I actually only served in the military a total of 18 months because when you got over to Vietnam. and served your time and you had only six months or less left when you got back in the U.S., they'd let you out. I ended up actually served an additional month in Vietnam. I was there 13 months, but when I got home, I was out. It was over. So my entire military career was... 18 months, 13 of which were in Vietnam. So that's the, I started to say short version, but it wasn't too short.
Robertson: That's pretty short. What would you say the mood was like in basic training and maybe also AIT as far as the thoughts of the people you were with potentially going to Vietnam?
Ursery: I think I was fortunate to a certain extent in that I went in 67. And I think that was before a lot of the protest. It was before a lot of the drug use. And I would say most of the people that I was in basic and AIT with were normal people. They were like me. They, okay, I got drafted, let's do it. And most of the, I was 25. years old. So I was older by far than most of the people that I was with. Most of the people had just gotten out of high school, so they looked on me as kind of an old man. But there were some exceptions. There were some college people, too. You know, the thought is that, well, back in those days, all of the college students managed to get out of going to Vietnam. That's not true because I served with a lot of high school graduates, but I also served with people that had gone to college.
Robertson: So were you able to come home before you shipped out for Vietnam?
Ursery: Yes. When I was at Fort Sill was when I got my orders to go to Vietnam. Of course, that was no surprise because just about everybody got orders to go to Vietnam. A few went to Germany. I'm not sure how that worked out, but I was not surprised. I was going to Vietnam and I had, I don't remember now, but probably two weeks off before I shipped out. Well, I didn't ship out, I flew over. I left Oakland, California and flew to Vietnam and it was not even on a military plane, it was an airplane. charter flight. It was kind of like a regular airplane had stewardesses and all of that, but it was full of people that were going to Vietnam. And as I recall, we stopped, I think in Hawaii to refuel and maybe the Philippines too, but it was just a flight over. I think it took like 20 hours or it was a long flight. but on a regular airplane.
Robertson: Right. What would you, how would you describe the mood on the plane going over to Vietnam?
Ursery: I think most of them were going, what the hell are we getting into? But I mean, I guess the mood was just like, okay, that's where we're going, let's see what happens. I mean there wasn't any protest or... Right. anything like that. Everybody was just kind of sitting there nervous. Because you didn't know until you got over there where you were going to be assigned. You just you're assigned to go to Vietnam. You land there at Long Bien and then you get your orders.
Robertson: So speaking of that, what went after the plane landed and you're going off the plane, did you have any impressions or particular thoughts going through your head?
Ursery: The main impression I had is the airline landed in Vietnam or was approaching the landing and I looked out the window. I could not believe the massive infrastructure. that had been built there. I mean, all these runways and buildings, and it just looked like a city. I think that kind of shocked me to think that there was that much going on. That was my main impression. And then when I got off the airplane, my next impression was how hot it was. And then after I got off the plane, I was assigned to somebody who took me to a little camp there at Long Bien while they determined where I was going to be sent. I mean when I landed I didn't have the orders, what you're going here, it was kind of a three day typical Army thing, sit around three or four days while we figure out where we're going to send you.
Robertson: So where did you end up getting sent?
Ursery: The first place I went was a place called Cu Chi, and then C-H-I, which was the headquarters of the 25th Infantry Division. That's where I was sent. I was assigned to an artillery unit, the 6th Battalion, 77th Artillery, but that was a part of the... 25th Infantry. And Cu Chi was probably 30 miles west of Saigon, so I went there in a convoy.
Robertson: Did you have any trouble on the convoy, or what was that trip like, driving over there?
Ursery: No, I didn't have any trouble getting over there, but I did notice that I was in the back of a two and a half ton truck. I was in there with a bunch of other people and I looked and I noticed that the floor of that two and a half ton truck had a concrete floor in it. And I go, oh well, that's not a good sign. Anyway, it was an uneventful trip to Cu Chi, and then I got assigned to my artillery unit, so I got to meet all those people. Of course, you're the new boy there. You know, the way it worked, people served a year over there, typically. So you would go in and there were people at all various stages of how much time they had left to be in Vietnam. But when I got there, of course I had 12 months, or it actually turned out to be 13. So they were just, everybody was very nice, but they refer to you as a new boy. But I got along very well with all of them. people that I work with. And we had all types from all over the country, and they were blacks and Hispanics and every iteration of people. And they'd all been like me through basic training and AIT. As one of my friends from Chicago said, I graduated from high school and then less than a year later I'm in the middle of a rice paddies. So it was a culture shock for everybody.
Robertson: So what was your job there?
Ursery: I was basically, I was assigned to the headquarters unit. sounds rather glorious, but you had four or five, I was with a 105 Artillery Battalion and they had four different artillery batteries that would be assigned to different places. I worked primarily at the Fire Direction Center. and people would, the infantry and others would call in where they wanted artillery to be fired and it would come to me and then I would send those instructions out to the various batteries to fire that artillery and support them. I spent a lot of time at the base camp. But then... I'd also spend a lot of time out in the field because they would move the so-called headquarters unit out to be where the batteries were. So a lot of times I was just out in the middle of nowhere. But I was primarily on the radio.
Robertson: So what-if there was such a thing as a typical day- What was a typical day for you from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night?
Ursery: Well, it would depend on whether I was at the base camp or whether I was out in the field. But we would work. You would be on duty for eight hours, then you're off duty for eight hours, and just, you know, that way nonstop. And if you think about it, that doesn't give you a lot of time to sleep. So you'd be on duty eight hours taking these radio calls and sending them out and keeping track of what was going on. Then you'd have eight hours off to go eat and then try to sleep. And there weren't any holidays necessarily, so it was just a continual cycle of eight hours on, eight hours off. Now when like we were at Can Tho or Cu Chi, you'd get a day where you could go into town.
Robertson: What were your accommodations like, your sleeping arrangements while you were there?
Ursery: Again, I'm sure it depended on where you were, but. Basically, I was sleeping, when I was at the base camp, I was basically sleeping on a cot that had a little rubber. inner tube type mattress, and then it was surrounded by a mosquito net because the mosquitoes were pretty bad. So that was basically it. Yeah. And then they had, you could go, they had a rather primitive setup where you could go take a shower. They had, but it was... a cold shower. And sometimes over in Vietnam it could get pretty cool. So you wouldn't want to take a cold shower, but that was the choice.
Robertson: Do you remember any particular fire missions that stand out for you?
Ursery: Well one in particular. We had. The fire missions would be called in to me, and I would then send it to the battalion. And they had- people that were flying Piper Cub aircraft that would be the forward observers and he would call in the fire mission to me. And I knew those people. I remember the call sign on this guy was shotgun three eight and I had met him. mid-air collision and was killed.
Robertson: Oh, wow.
Ursery: And I, all I heard out of that was static. I mean, I didn't hear him say anything. I just hear this static and another helicopter. I remember they radioed in to me. They said, well, your shotgun.38 had a mid-air collision and went down like a rock. I thought that was a rather indelicate way to put it, but he had a mid-air collision with the Arvind Air Force. That's the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. They had some aircraft and they were flying in the same area and they managed to collide. So that one stands out as the most prominent collide. I had.
Robertson: Now how long did you stay at Cu Chi?
Ursery: I was at Cu Chi from March, I got over there March 1, and I stayed at Cu Chi until July. And then they moved our 6th Battalion, 77th Artillery from the 25th Infantry Division to the 9th Infantry Division, which was in Can Tho. And Can Tho was in the Mekong Delta. You know, there were, in Vietnam, there were four corps. The first was, you know, that. Cu Chi was in III Corps, Can Tho was in IV Corps, and it was a city on the Mekong Delta.
Robertson: How was that, or was that assignment any different than your previous one?
Ursery: It was basically the same thing. We were assigned to a different infantry. No,
Robertson: would you-and I'm sure it varied-but would you typically have fire missions every day?
Ursery: Yes. And, uh- I was in the military. Well, yes, we would have fire missions every day because every night they would, the artillery units would fire what's called harassment and interdiction or H&I, which there were certain areas where they could fire and they would do that every night in order to disrupt the Viet Cong. They would, you know, they'd have the maps and they'd go, well, this is an area where you can fire. And so they'd fire there every night, just keep them disrupted. And by the same token, it was not unusual for the Viet Cong to fire mortars and rockets into where we were. I mean, that would happen fairly regularly.
Robertson: What was that like?
Ursery: unnerving, to say the least. But they actually, although they would fire those rockets and mortars into where we were, they very seldom. killed anybody because our tents were set up. We had sandbags that were up about four feet. So at night when you'd hear those rockets come in, you'd just get down on the floor. And the only time that it ever killed anybody was with one of those mortars landed right in the middle of a tent or something, which didn't happen all that often. Yeah. So there. rockets and mortars that they fired on us at night was primarily harassment also. But I'll go back to Cu Chi where I was at the beginning. They later discovered that under our base camp and all through Cu Chi, the Viet Cong had all of these tunnels that they had built. So what they'd do, they'd go out and fire at us and then get back in their tunnel. So it kind of reminds me of this deal over in Gaza because they later found they had a pretty good network of tunnels and had hospitals and stuff in it.
Robertson: That reminds me, did you have any kind of interaction with South Vietnamese civilians?
Ursery: Some, yes, because the civilian men and women would come on to where our base camp was and they would do our laundry. They would take our uniform. Of course, we'd pay them, but we had interaction with them. then, and some of them worked there like at the mess tent. So yes, I had interaction with them, and then I had interaction with the South Vietnamese who were in the Arvin unit. And as I think I told you earlier, we had a sergeant from the Arvin that was assigned to our unit. And we worked with him. good friends with him. And then we'd go into town and you'd have dealings with the civilians if you wanted to buy food or whatever.
Robertson: Not that you could get into their heads, but did you have any thoughts about- how they viewed your presence there?
Ursery: Well, the ones that I was dealing with, they were all very nice. But when you'd get out in the country, and you'd see these farmers out in their rice field or in these small little villages, I think their attitude was... not so much hostility. They didn't want to be bothered by us or the Viet Cong. They just wanted to be left alone. And so you'd see them, you'd go through a village or something. They would just try not to make eye contact, which was probably good. I tried to do the same thing. But I did. didn't notice direct hostility against us. And I'll also say that while I was over, the 13 months I was there, of course you're in combat and you're shooting artillery rounds at soldiers, but I didn't see any abuse of the prisoners or anything like that. You know, you read about that, but I didn't see that.
Robertson: Well, speaking of that, that leads me to something else. Sometimes you'll hear about instances of racial tension in Vietnam. Did you see any of that while you were there?
Ursery: No. I got along very well. There were a lot of blacks in our unit. And no, I'd like to say I was. in from 68 to 69, which I view is probably the golden age of the war before the protest and before the drug use and all that. I saw very little drug use too. Now there were some guys that would occasionally get some marijuana and smoke it. But uh... It was not common.
Robertson: Did you keep in touch much while you were over there? Keep in touch with home much while you were over there?
Ursery: Yes. I had, I wrote a lot of letters because you had a lot of time on your hands. Like when I was on the radio. waiting to get those fire missions, otherwise you're just sitting there. And so I did a lot of reading. I read a lot of books and wrote a lot of letters home, got a lot of letters from my mother primarily and other relatives. And that was very important because everybody looked forward to mail call. And of course, this was before anybody had. email or anything like that, so it was all just letters. And we could send letters for free. All you had to do, I'd write up in the corner, APO San Francisco or something, so didn't have to worry about stamps.
Robertson: Did you receive letters pretty regularly?
Ursery: Yes.
Robertson: What was it like if you didn't get a letter?
Ursery: Well, you'd be disappointed if you went to mail call and didn't get a letter. But like I say, I was fortunate in that I got caught quite a few letters. I had a friend of mine from high school whose father I knew, he would send me letters and one
Map of buildings at Fort Chaffee
No full textThis folder contains a map of Fort Chaffee at the time of the Vietnamese Refugee Relocation program. Johnye Strickland obtained a copy of the map during her time at Fort Chaffee for her Vietnamese Refugee Oral History project.Johnye Strickland and Johnye Mathews are the same person. Following her divorce in 1977, she changed from Mathews, her married name, back to Strickland, her maiden name.Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council (ANCRC
Carl Nelson interviewed by Bonnie Grice, transcript,
No full textThis folder contains a handwritten transcript of an interview with Carl Nelson about life in the 1930s, his career in education, and the Great Depression. The interview is conducted by Bonnie Grice.Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council (ANCRC
Report on HEW's Role in the Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, Vietnamese Refugee Program (With Some Expanded Narrative)
No full textThis folder contains a report by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare on its role in the Fort Chaffee Vietnamese Refugee Program.Johnye Strickland and Johnye Mathews are the same person. Following her divorce in 1977, she changed from Mathews, her married name, back to Strickland, her maiden name.Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council (ANCRC
Lucille Babcock interviewed by Johnye Mathews and students, transcript,
No full textThis folder contains a typed transcript of an interview with Lucille Babcock about her life in the 1930s. The interview is conducted by Johnye Mathews and students in her English 1312 class.Johnye Strickland and Johnye Mathews are the same person. Following her divorce in 1977, she changed from Mathews, her married name, back to Strickland, her maiden name.Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council (ANCRC
Bessie Moore interviewed by Johnye Strickland, Interview 8, transcript
No full textThis folder contains a typed transcript of an interview with Bessie Moore, conducted by Johnye Strickland.Johnye Strickland and Johnye Mathews are the same person. Following her divorce in 1977, she changed from Mathews, her married name, back to Strickland, her maiden name.Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council (ANCRC
Kathleen Cherry interviewed by Jackie Kraus, Interview 1, transcripts
No full textThis folder contains a typed transcript of an interview with political activist Kathleen Cherryon the topic of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Arkansas. The interview was conducted by Jackie Kraus for the Women in Arkansas Politics Project.The audio recording of this interview is located in the Oral History collection, UALR.ORH.0167Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council (ANCRC
Astronaut Day with Vic Snyder and Kalpana Chawla at Booker T. Washington Elementary
No full textVic Snyder (left) poses with NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla (third from left) and a group of teachers and student ambassadors during a visit to Booker T. Washington Elementary School
Astronaut Day with Vic Snyder and Kalpana Chawla at Booker T. Washington Elementary
No full textVic Snyder (left) stands next to NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla at an assembly in the library of Booker T. Washington Elementary school. Chawla presents a signed photo of a space shuttle launch