Billy Brown was born in Ada, Okla. and moved with his family to Borger in 1952, where he remained until he graduated high school.
“I was in the 1963 class of the Borger Bulldogs,” said Brown.
Brown entered the service in 1965 and was initially sent to Fort Polk in Louisiana.
“From there I went to Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Lee, Va.; Fort Campbell, Ku.; and then our temporary duty station in Fort Sill, Okla.,” said Brown.
In July of 1966, Brown was sent to Vietnam at the young age of 20 by plane.
“I was in the rifle company in the infantry. I ended up in a place called Pleiku, they moved us around a little bit. I ended up out on Task Force Boston, and that’s where I spent the rest of my time in the field,” said Brown.
“Basically, we would go out and look for the enemy, do air patrols, and had a lot of firefights.
“We would go out on patrols, not sure what would be coming in on us. The Montagnard tribes worked with us some, too,” said Brown.
The Montagnard tribes were indigenous people of the coastal areas in Vietnam before being driven to the central highlands by invading Vietnamese and Cambodians. The were known for allying with armed forces against the Vietnamese, helping both American and French soldiers.
Mr. Brown described some of the deranged perils American soldiers dealt with in Vietnam.
“Some of the kids over there were so brain-washed that they might walk right up to you with a grenade, we’re talking seven to eight years old,” he said.
“You sure had to watch what you were doing over there - and you really had to watch for punji sticks. They were ambush sticks that were sharpened and hidden in pits to conceal them, and they were dipped in a deadly poison.”
Mr. Brown also witnessed the use of Agent Orange in the dense vegetation carpeting the jungles of Vietnam, which still negatively affects his lungs today. Agent Orange was used in the Vietnam War to clear vegetation quickly in order to give soldiers better visibility.
“You could have a big greenhouse or a big line of trees, and it wouldn’t take that Agent Orange no-time to eat every bit of the foliage,” he said.
“We used it for protection to give us a better kill zone so that the enemy couldn’t get up so close to us and so that we could see them better.”
He described what the environment was like in the deep jungles of Vietnam.
“The humidity over there was killer. I lost over 100 pounds while I was there.”
Mr. Brown said that monsoons were common, and would often make the terrain difficult to navigate.
“It would get really muddy, up to your knees at times.”
“You also had to watch for snakes,” said Brown, referring to the three-step viper Richard Dunn spoke of in Part 1 to this series.
“That particular snake could only break the skin if it bit you on your earlobe, in between your fingers or on your lips. And if they bit you, you could only take two to three steps before you were dead.”
Snakes weren’t the only creepy critters American soldiers had to dodge.
“The malaria and the mosquitos were awful bad, and the rats were about the size of jack-rabbits.
“We had our cots rigged up with a frame coming up and with the nets hanging down, so you could keep the rats from jumping on you while you were sleeping,” he said.
Injuries sustained in combat and remembering friends lost in war, along with a man who saved his life
Mr. Brown sustained an injury to his right foot and ankle while jumping out of a helicopter in Vietnam, and remembers how a fellow soldier saved him.
“We came under fire where we were supposed to land, they call that a Hot LZ. When I jumped, I was about six to eight feet above ground and when I came down I twisted my right foot.
“This real big [soldier saw me fall] and hollered that he would come get me. I told him not to, that he would just get us both killed. But he said ‘No, I’m coming to get you,’ and came and threw me over his shoulder and carried me out of there.
“This boy got killed three days later, he took a direct hit from a mortar,” he said.
“I saw a lot of combat, and it was bad- I lost a lot of good friends over there. I lost a lot of Borger boys over there that I grew up with and that was hard,” said Brown.
He listed the names of those men for The Pampa News, so that their sacrifices would be remembered.
“Wayne Platt was killed, and I believe he was in the 25th infantry. David Dabilla was a Marine- he took a direct hit from a rocket, and there wasn’t enough of him to bring home. There was another Marine from Stinnett, his name was Marvin Hawthorne.”
Brown and other veterans that spend time at VFW post 1657 also feel that not all POWs were given back to the United States.
“North Vietnam never gave all of our guys back. Ninety-nine percent of us [veterans] feel that they never gave all of the POWs (prisoners of war) back. There’s really no evidence to support that on record, but that’s our personal feelings,” he said.
Although times of war weren’t easy, Brown says that he had a lot of good times just sitting around talking and visiting with his fellow soldiers. He said that they spent most of their spare time around base camp, because the little surrounding villages were off-limits to them.
Mr. Brown also got to see the cities of Hong Kong, China and Tokyo, Japan while overseas for R&R (rest and recuperation) following his foot injury.
“I got to go and R&R (rest and recuperation) in Hong Kong, [China] in 1966 or 1967 when they were doing all those riots. I don’t really know what the riots were for, but my guess is they were protesting Chinese leadership. And then I got to go to Tokyo, [Japan],” he said.
Back to the United States
Mr. Brown returned state-side in 1967 to Borger, but was still “on-call” as he described it.
“I got back 1967, but we had a six-year obligation that was kind of like being on-call. I was assigned to a riot squad outside of St. Louis, Mo. when I came home,” Brown said.
“I never did get called out, and received my discharge four years later.
“I got the Vietnam service ribbon, the good conduct medal and I don’t remember what the other one was,” Brown laughed.
Brown says that he and other soldiers returning from Vietnam were treated poorly by the American people.
“We weren’t treated very good. We were [called] baby killers, and all of that kind of stuff.
“The American people could have treated us better. And I’m so happy that the guys coming home now are not getting treated like we did,” he said.
He touched on his distaste for Jane Fonda as well.
“Jane Fonda - she was the biggest protester to the Vietnam War.
“She came over to Hanoi, and the soldiers that were trapped at the Hanoi Hilton were giving her messages just to sneak back home, well she just turned it over to the North Vietnamese. She thought it was such a great place, I don’t know why she didn’t go live there all the time.
“She came to the Vietnam Vets asking us to forgive her one time. We said hell no. And that goes for Jimmy Carter, too.
“When you go over there, you don’t come back the same person you were before you went. Most of us were 18, 19 and 20 year-old kids going over there, and you really had to grow up quick.
“But even though we are all crippled up, we would go back again. People don’t realize what they’ve got here. Until you go to a foreign country like [Vietnam], then you wouldn’t realize what you have here. The main thing is the freedom,” he said.
Mr. Brown said that it was difficult to find good medical care when first he returned to the United States, as well. This caused Mr. Brown’s injured right foot to only progessively worsen over the years.
“It tore the ligaments and tendons loose [when I jumped from the helicopter and twisted my foot], and they (Army) wouldn’t fix it. They put it in a cast for two weeks and sent me back to a unit,” he said.Then in 2012, by the time medical options for veterans had improved, the bottom part of his right foot broke and doctors put a screw in it.
Mr. Brown’s foot was held secure by a removable stap-on-brace after the surgery.
Then he went to take a shower one night, and took the brace off. This caused him to lose stability and fall on his left elbow, breaking it and leaving subsequent nerve damage that doctors feared would cause him to never be able to fully straighten his arm again.
“The doctor that did it said that I would never be able to straighten my arm again, but he did such a great job that I can get it almost perfectly straight,” Brown said happily.
He spoke on his current pysical health.
“I smoked and I welded. I’ve got COPD and congestive heart failure- and I’ve got Agent Orange in my lungs. They don’t have a cure for Agent Orange,” said Brown, but he says that he is thankful for his physician, Dr. Black.
“I think the world of Dr. Black, make sure you put that in the article,” he said.
Mr. Brown asked that The Pampa News pay tribute to another person close to his heart as well.“We lost our post chaplain here awhile back, he got a purple heart. He was a great guy and a good friend of mine,” he said.
“I just wish everybody would please remember Danny Miller. He was a great friend and I miss him.”
Brown is thankful for his friends at the VFW and says that it helps to have people to talk to that understand.
“It’s hard to talk about unless you’ve been there,” he said.
Family
Mr. Brown married his wife of 50 years, Nancy Lamb of Pampa on June 7, 1969.
The couple had four children, and are now proud grandparents to seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. The couple moved to Pampa in 1985.
The Pampa News would like to wish Mr. & Mrs. Brown an early Happy 51st Anniversary and would like to thank Mr. Brown for his service to our great country.
