Kevin Trainor ‘66
Dartmouth College Oral History Program
Dartmouth Vietnam Project
November 15, 2016
Transcribed by Karen Navarro
SMID: This is Emily Smid (’18). I’m at Rauner [Special Collections] Library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Today is the 15th of November, 2016, and I’m interviewing Kevin Trainor, who is in Idaho Falls [sic], Idaho.
TRAINOR: Twin Falls.
SMID: Or Twin Falls, Idaho. Excuse me. This interview is for the Dartmouth Vietnam Project. Thanks so much again for volunteering, Kevin. It’s really nice to be able to talk to you today. So, to begin, and this is how we begin all of these interviews, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about your childhood and your early years?
TRAINOR: Well, I was born in Washington, DC, in April, 1944. My dad was in the Navy, and he was on a destroyer in the Pacific. And when he got home, I can’t remember the sequence, but we lived in a couple of different places when he was still on a destroyer. And then at some point he went to work for the Securities Exchange Commission in Washington, DC, and we lived in a rented house in Arlington, Virginia, probably from 1950 or before until 1957 or ‘58 when my parents bought a house in Fairfax County, Virginia. We moved out there. Went to parochial school grade school, and then went to a parochial high school in Arlington, which was a joint venture of five different Catholic parishes. And, you know, I guess I had kind of a normal childhood. [laughter] There wasn’t anything extraordinary about it.
SMID: So, what did you think of your dad being in the Navy? Did you look up to him and hope maybe you would follow suit someday? Or did you not like the stress of that lifestyle as much?
TRAINOR: Well, you know, he was just in the Navy during World War II, but he stayed in the Reserves afterwards, because he really liked the Navy. And so, you know, it was always something and, you know, in those days there was a draft, plus everybody you knew, all your friends, parents, dads had been in the military during World War II, and that’s just what you did. So, you know, I figured I was going in the military. And then, in high school I had the opportunity to test for the Navy ROTC scholarship, and I did well on that, so I initially had a—I got accepted at Dartmouth, but they didn’t have enough scholarships for me. My dad said he’d pay the first year and I was on my own after that, and I got the scholarship [inaudible] at Dartmouth.
SMID: So, you got the NROTC scholarship specifically for Dartmouth or you chose Dartmouth out of other schools that you could have gone to?
TRAINOR: Well, the way it worked was, you apply at schools that have the Navy ROTC unit, and you would try to, you know, you’re competing with other people to get in the school, because you had to get accepted at the college. And then, where you ranked with the other Navy ROTC guys, you might get the scholarship. I got accepted at [College of the] Holy Cross [Worcester, MA], and I also got the scholarship there, but I wanted to go to Dartmouth [inaudible]. So I went the first year.
SMID: What did you like about Dartmouth? What made you want to come here?
TRAINOR: [laughter] That’s like where all the sports on winter carnival were when I was a junior in high school. And my dad had a friend who went to Dartmouth who I always admired. And I knew that Ivy League school’s a big deal.
SMID: Did any of the people that you grew up with in DC also go to Dartmouth? Or did they…
TRAINOR: No. When I got there, I didn’t know anybody. I was scared to death. It seemed like everybody had gone to fancy prep schools, which was not the case, but it just seemed that. And when my parents dropped me off, I didn’t know anybody. Well, actually I’d met one person that summer because—or a couple of guys, because does Angus King’s name ring a bell with you?
SMID: No.
TRAINOR: He’s a real successful Dartmouth ’66. He’s been Governor of Maine and he’s a Senator from Maine, and he’s really done well. He’s an Independent and he really knows how to swim with all the sharks. And he grew up two counties away there in Virginia. His mom had a little get-together for the incoming freshman, so I went over there, and she had, there were six or seven guys that went over there. I met one fellow that we became really good friends and we remain friends. So I did know one or two guys [inaudible].
SMID: So, being a person not from the prep school, you didn’t take the prep school route to get to Dartmouth and didn’t have too many, much of a community. Did you join activities? I read your yearbook and I saw that you were a Chi Phi, which isn’t a fraternity that exists here anymore. So, can you tell me a little bit about what you did with your time here, what you liked about the school, what you didn’t like about the school, and then kind of about NROTC and whether that served as like a community for you?
TRAINOR: Well, freshman year wasn’t much fun. Lived in South Wigwam, which I don’t even know if the dorm exists anymore. And it was way down the end of the big drive that goes past Tuck School of Business. And I tried to get down there for a reunion and there’s another building, so I never got down there. Does it still exist?
SMID: No, it doesn’t.
TRAINOR: Okay. And there were three Wigwams: north, middle and south. And Wig South was the furthest away of any dorm and everything on campus. And, so it was a long hike to classes. I was scared to death. And I played freshman football for about two or three weeks, and it was just taking so much time. It was a mile-and-a-half walk to the field house. So it was just eating the time up. So I quit. And then…
SMID: Were you recruited to play football?
TRAINOR: No, but they came around looking for me when I got there, because I was a good football player in high school, and one of the coaches came, actually came by the dorm looking for me and wondered why I hadn’t come out. So, that’s when I went out. I just didn’t think I had the time. But I wound up playing rugby, and I played rugby for all four years, both fall and spring. And I really enjoyed that.
And freshman year, I just, I don’t think I knew how to study. You know, I’d gotten good grades in high school obviously to get in Dartmouth. But, you know, I was just petrified. [laughter] Plus, if you flunk out when you have that Navy ROTC scholarship, there’s a good chance you’re going right to boot camp. And, you know, I wasn’t too excited about that. But I made some friends in Navy ROTC and then friends in the dorm. And by spring semester freshman year I was feeling better. And then, Chi Phi, the national fraternity does not exist on campus, but they went local just a couple of years after I graduated. We were never really that excited about a national affiliation, being as isolated, but, as you know, most fraternities are kind of Southern oriented.
SMID: Yes.
TRAINOR: But it exists now. I think it’s called Chi Heorot.
SMID: Oh, yes, okay.
TRAINOR: Right across the street from the gym. It’s right across the street from the gym, and it’s still there. And I came back sophomore year, and then that sophomore year then I moved up to Wheeler Hall, which was really a neat place, in the [inaudible] Wheeler which was really cool which I roomed with one of the fellows that I’d met right before I went up to school. And I pledged at Chi Phi and that was really good. I mean, I enjoyed the fraternity. And the school had a good system because, and I don’t know what they do now because it seems like they have just completely lost control of it.
When I was in school, you couldn’t even go in a fraternity house as a freshman. I mean, you couldn’t even walk in. And then they had rush the first couple of weeks of sophomore year, and the idea was that you have met some people that were upperclassmen in fraternities, and they called them dirty rush, you know, somebody you like, but then make sure you met some of the other guys in the fraternity. And I’d met Chi Phi guys in playing rugby, and I’d actually met a couple or three of them that studied down in the fan room in the Library. I don’t know if it’s still there, the fan room, off the reserve quarter.
SMID: Yeah, yeah.
TRAINOR: It was just this room with a long desk with a [inaudible]. There was a fan up at the end, so it was called the fan room. I met some guys during this time. The reason guys, for some reason guys—and I didn’t smoke, but I’m pretty sure you could smoke there. The fan was just pretty [inaudible]. But, and I just met some guys there.
I joined Chi Phi and enjoyed that for two years. And it was a good system because they only let 15 people live in the fraternity house, so basically you didn’t live in it until your senior year, so you’d just, you know, crawl in the hole with the fraternity brothers and you’d also have friends outside the fraternity. And then, your senior year when you lived there with everybody, then the guys who are your class and you’ve known them for a couple of years, and so it was kind of fun.
SMID: Were any of the guys in Chi Phi or what is now Chi Heorot with you also in ROTC or ROTC program?
TRAINOR: They were. There was, my year ’66, there was one other guy in Navy ROTC with me. And then the year behind us there were three guys, Navy ROTC, I think. That would have been ’67. And I can’t remember the ‘68’s. Then there was a couple of guys ahead of us. It’s kind of funny because it turned out that was a connection with the Marine Corps because there were two guys in the class ahead of me, ’65, who were not in Navy ROTC, but they went to a program called PLC, Platoon Leaders Class, and they went to Quantico [VA] in the summer, and some got a commission that way. And I took the Marine Corps option. In Navy ROTC you could apply to get a commission in the Marines. And do you know much about Navy ROTC?
SMID: I know quite a bit about the way that it functions at Dartmouth, but outside of that…
TRAINOR: Okay. Well, I mean, it was a heck of a deal. I mean, the scholarship paid tuition, books, and gave you $50 a month walking around money, which was a pretty good deal, pretty nice beer money [inaudible] And you had to give them six or eight weeks each summer to go on a cruise. The first summer was with the Navy on a ship, and then the second summer there was three weeks’ amphibious warfare school down at Little Creek, Virginia, and three weeks of flight training in Texas. And the first summer on the ship, I was not impressed at all. Nothing worked. Nobody cared that nothing worked. And the Navy just didn’t excite me a bit. And we had a Marine officer who was in charge of Marine Navy ROTC, a Phillip Frazier, who was [inaudible] a quiet guy who had grown up in China. And he spoke three of the four major dialects. Just a really bright guy, really impressive guy. And so…
SMID: What was his name? Sorry, I didn’t catch that.
TRAINOR: What?
SMID: His name?
TRAINOR: Phillip Frazier (F-r-a-z-i-e-r). And in his quiet way he got three guys in my class to apply to get admission to the Marine Corps. Actually, four of us. Yeah, four of us. And he was just a low key, real quiet guy, but he was squared away and super smart, and he understood absolutely what was going on in Southeast Asia. And the government didn’t, the Defense Department didn’t know what he did. [laughter] His dad sent the family home from China I think it was 1939 or ’40 when the Japanese were invading there, and he could see it was going to be pretty awful. And I can’t remember if his dad was a missionary or some medical missionary sort of thing. So he came home and started school in Brown [University, Providence, RI] when World War II started. His grades were lousy and his father told him he wasn’t going to pay for him anymore, so he joined the Marines, and made some landings in the Pacific, lived through that, got back, went back to school and got his degree, and went back in the Marine Corps because he was worth it. And through his career in the Marine Corps, because of his language skills and his growing up in China, he wound up working with the CIA for a bunch of different [inaudible]. And, I mean, he’s really an interesting guy, an amusing guy. If you could take him to any kind of cocktail party, he’d get along with everybody. He could size people up [inaudible] and get them to talk to him. [inaudible]
But I have a good friend that I served in the Marines with who’s worked for the CIA since he got of the Marines in ’70 or ’71, and we’ve stayed in touch. And he’s like an editor or in charge of some publications that they put out internally and have to do with China, because he’d been to school in the Marine Corps and [inaudible] Chinese. They were interviewing a bunch of old employees. I told him about Major Frazier, who still lived in the DC area. And so he sent three of these young guys by to interview him, and they went back like three or four times. They told my friend, Andy, that Major Frazier was the absolute most interesting person they’d met in this whole project that’s gone on for several years. But anyway, I mean, he was the kind of guy [inaudible] Marine anyway. It’s a long answer.
SMID: So, you know, you mentioned your friend kind of predicted what was happening in Vietnam, and I wondered how you felt about being in the NROTC program at Dartmouth, and I think, so I guess when you were there, a few things would have gone down. JFK [President John F. Kennedy] would have been assassinated, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident would have happened, and Rolling Thunder would have started. So, what was campus like hearing about all of that? And then also, how did you feel about the prospect of maybe being sent there?
TRAINOR: You know, you got to remember the Gulf of Tonkin was what, ’64, ’65?
SMID: Yeah, ’64.
TRAINOR: ’64 and nothing happened after that. I’d never really heard of Vietnam, and Major Frazier didn’t directly address Vietnam. The things I remember was that he said this domino theory was bullshit. These people all hate each other. The Vietnamese hate the Chinese, the Thais hate the Vietnamese, the Laotians hate the Vietnamese, and basically the Vietnamese look down on every one of them, everyone, so they will never all fall together. They’re just trying to establish their own independence, after centuries of [inaudible] colonies of the French and the Japanese and whatever. I don’t think he thought we’d get involved, because it didn’t make sense. And so, in ’66 when I graduated, things were heating up, and the first Marine battalion in the year before. So, you know, the handwriting was starting to be on the wall. But, when it was payback time, I got four years of education, so you gotta do what you gotta do.
SMID: Yeah, you didn’t think when you were here, you didn’t think that you’d have to be sent to Vietnam?
TRAINOR: No, I thought it was a possibility. Yeah, I said it’s payback. But not until really toward the end, because it wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, the Marines sent one battalion of Marines in there, I think it was like April or May of ’65 when they were supposed to be advisors to the Vietnamese. And you got to remember, Emily, this was 50 years ago, and we, the US, hadn’t gotten stuck in [inaudible] trying to convince people to be a democracy. World War II was barely over. Korea was over. Korea probably had to do with keeping the Chinese from overrunning the whole area. But, you know, it wasn’t like we’d been at war for 15, 17 years like we have right now in the Gulf, basically bullshit wars, you know. Anyway…
Shortly after graduation when I went to The Basics School, they briefed all of us where we were headed. [inaudible] everybody wanted. It wasn’t like the Army where you had a presence all over the world. I mean, every Marine officer was headed to Vietnam.
SMID: Yeah. So, you were commissioned when you graduated as a 2nd lieutenant, is that right?
TRAINOR: Correct. You sound like you know something about this.
SMID: [laughter] I have to do some research.
TRAINOR: Okay, well, so do you have a background in it? You got a brother or your dad or other relatives that have been through this?
SMID: No. Everything I’ve learned is just from having done this project, but no. No family, nothing like that.
TRAINOR: What’s your major that you’re doing this?
SMID: I’m a history major.
TRAINOR: I was, too.
SMID: What was your…
TRAINOR: Pardon me?
SMID: What was your concentration? I forgot to ask what your concentration?
TRAINOR: American history. It was baseball bats, trolley cars, I’m sure that’s what we used to call the course [inaudible]
SMID: I read that you ended up going to law school after you served. Did you think going into Dartmouth that you wanted to go to law school afterwards?
TRAINOR: No, I’d never met a lawyer. I met one lawyer until I got to law school. A shipmate of my father’s was a lawyer, really interesting guy, and they remained friends right up until my dad died. And his friend just died here about a year ago, a week short of being 100. But I hadn’t met any lawyers. My parents didn’t have friends that were lawyers. I ski bummed for two years after I got out, met my wife, and figured I had to start doing something. And I took a road trip back east to, well, several reasons. One, I wanted to introduce Linda to my parents, and I was going to see some friends up in New England, a couple of them Marines and a couple of them Dartmouth grads. And we were staying with a friend up in Burlington, and I called the school to see about what placement could do, because I’d never been privy to any of those services because I knew what my job was when I was getting out. And they said “yeah.” And so, I went down there the next day. Linda couldn’t believe it. She went to the University of Wisconsin and they had thousands of students. And I get up the next morning at 9:00 and the head of the placement—I forget who he was or whether he was a professor or whatever—I spent like five hours with him, and they gave me a bunch of tests. I was leaning towards being a teacher and he said, “There’s gonna be tons of teachers. You’re better off being a lawyer.” So, it was pretty [inaudible], pretty amazing. Nothing very well planned.
SMID: So, to backtrack just a little bit. Okay, so I know that I mentioned that you being at Dartmouth in ’63 when JFK was assassinated, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what campus was like when that happened? This was just something that I’ve been asking people that I’ve interviewed before and I like to kind of hear different perspectives on the same event all on the same campus. So, if you could talk a little bit about that if you remember it?
TRAINOR: The school just went dead. My recollection, you know, was just kind of a typical fall day, kind of lead sky, overcast. I was playing squash, and I finished that, and I can’t remember where exactly, I was going back to my room or something, and somebody told me the President… The first thing I heard was the President had been shot. I was heading back toward the dorm and somebody else said he’d died. But I just can’t remember, just, you know, the campus just kind of looked dead. No people walked around or anything. It was just really, really sad. Yeah, he was pretty popular with most people our age. And they cancelled a couple days of school. I wound up getting a ride to go all the way home to Virginia. They drove home Thursday, drove back Sunday.
SMID: It’s been a little bit like that around here these days, too.
TRAINOR: Yeah, that’s been a tough week. And then, Gwen Ifill dies yesterday. That really got me upset. I really liked her.
SMID: So, okay, so you graduated in ’66. You were commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant. And then, where did you go from Dartmouth?
TRAINOR: Dartmouth to Quantico to The Basics School. The Basics School. Every Marine officer goes to The Basics School, and that’s where you learn how to run a platoon and how to participate in company size tactics. Yeah, basically you learn how to be a company grade officer. And for a while, they backed off of that and were letting some officers in, straight in the aviation program, and did not require them to go to The Basics School. And they’ve regretted it and that didn’t last very long. They’re back to everyone going to The Basics School. My Basics School company just had our 50th reunion get-together about two weeks ago. In fact, it was really good to see the guys.
SMID: So, were you the only Dartmouth student in your Basics School class?
TRAINOR: No, there was [inaudible]. Pat Woodworth. And I don’t know if you get him to visit or not. Really good guy. Evan K. Woodworth [‘66], [inaudible]. And he’s had a real successful career since his time in the Marine Corps also. [inaudible] [both talking at the same time]
SMID: So, did you feel like you coming to—it’s abbreviated TBS, right?
TRAINOR: Pardon me?
SMID: Don’t they abbreviate it TBS?
TRAINOR: Yeah, TBS, yeah. Because what it is is there’s The Basics School, and then there’s another so that you stay in beyond four years. They have a couple other schools. [inaudible] intermediate school. Oh, amphibious warfare school is the next one they want all the Marine officers to go to. And then there’s another one after that, Command and Staff College. The Basics School was the first one the 2nd lieutenants go to.
SMID: Did you feel like you learned—did you feel like after leaving TBS that you were ready, that you were ready to be a leader? Or did you, were you still—I mean, you were so young at the time, it seems like a big responsibility for such a young person.
TRAINOR: [inaudible] [both talking at the same time] I think they gave us the basics. I think it’s a lot better now. I’ve been back there a couple of times for these reunions, and the Marine Corps does a much better job now, I think, with their 2nd lieutenants than they did then. They give you the basics.
SMID: In what way?
TRAINOR: Pardon me?
SMID: How is it different?
TRAINOR: Oh, now I think they understand… I mean, you have a 1960’s fix, and World War II was over by what, 20 years? And we got in that dustup in Korea, but basically our military had cut way back, and they were lazy. And no, we weren’t ready for what we wound up getting into right away in Southeast Asia. And, you know, they had to learn from their mistakes in Southeast Asia and change their approach at The Basics School, which they have obviously done now. I think it’s just a much better school than it was then. I mean, it was good then. It was… OCS was tough and they were just trying to weed people out there, you know, they’re trying to find out who really wanted to be a Marine, and who can hack it, you know, where The Basics School was more of a school that would teach you how to run a platoon.
SMID: Yeah. And OCS is Officer Candidate School, just for the recording.
TRAINOR: Bulldog. And they’re just, they’re just eating on you, and just trying to see who really wants to be there. Although, I mean, the Marine Corps has good schools. I can remember the first forced march at OCS, and I had a really good drill sergeant.
SMID: Do you remember his name?
TRAINOR: Oh, yeah, Weber. Sergeant Weber. Never forget it. And he was pretty young. He was the only buck sergeant who had a platoon of officer candidates, and everybody else had staff sergeants. And after you were there a little bit, you’d figure out this guy is kind of a shining star if they would turn him loose for [inaudible] the Navy ROTC unit scholarship guys. And he was good. I remember the first forced march and he put the three biggest guys in the platoon at the end. He said, “Nobody falls out. Nobody leaves anything behind. And you guys better carry it.” And you learned really quickly that everybody’s got to work together. And that’s kind of the whole deal with the Marine Corps. A lot of people on the outside don’t understand.
SMID: Do you feel like that stuck with you when you went to serve in Vietnam?
TRAINOR: Absolutely. Absolutely. [inaudible] [both talk at the same time] Go ahead.
SMID: So, from going to The Basics School, then you, where did you move from there? Somewhere where I’m assuming you got a platoon?
TRAINOR: No, I didn’t. One thing about the military, or I assume the rest of them, but the Marine Corps, you know, any choice you have is based on how well you’ve done. So, you go through The Basics School, you get graded on everything, the classroom stuff, principle stuff that they call leadership stuff, and the field stuff. And then you put in your choices for your military occupational specialty, your MOS. Then, if you’re at the top and they need people, then you get your choice. If you don’t, then you don’t. And I was hot to be an infantry officer. I had about five friends from Dartmouth who were in the Navy and were in flight school, and they were writing me and telling me what a blast that was flying [inaudible]. Plus they were worried about [inaudible]. At the last minute I put in for flight school. I was going to The Basics School down in Pensacola [FL].
SMID: So, you went from The Basics School down to Pensacola for flight school?
TRAINOR: Yeah, that was in like December ’66.
SMID: Okay. And so, can you tell me what was it like being there and flying for the first time? And did you like it? Was it scary? I’m sure it was scary.
TRAINOR: Well, you know, being a Marine on a Navy base, you know, when you first get there, it’s like—I don’t know how to put this—if your parents are really strict with you, and then all of a sudden you wake up and you’re at Dartmouth, and you’re the only one that makes your rules then, it’d be cool. You know what I mean? But being a Marine on a Navy base… Pardon me?
SMID: You have a lot more freedom.
TRAINOR: Exactly. And so, you know, that was apparent right away. I mean, there wasn’t 6:00 a.m. formations and you weren’t doing a lot of physical stuff. And it was cool, it was fun, and Pensacola’s a neat old town, and a nice beach area there in Florida. But, it’s the same thing. If you want choices, you have to do well. And the classes were something completely different from what you’d do before. I mean, there’s like physiology and aerodynamics and engines. There’s just all kinds of different stuff. It’s interesting, but it’s different, so you try to do well. You’ve got to put the time in. I mean, you can sluff along and get by, but if you want to do well, you’ve got to put a bunch of time in. And I was probably studying as much there as I did in college. And about three or four months into it, I failed part of the eye test on the flight physical, which disqualified me from pilot training, but it was just the depth perception portion. But, I still qualified to be a naval flight officer, which is a crew member. And I thought about, you know, just going back and become an Fg Officer [Flying Officer], but my friends were already overseas. They’d already done half their 13 months, so I decided I enjoyed the flying, so I just decided to stick with that, so I stuck with that then, and continued to…
SMID: Were you disappointed?
TRAINOR: Oh, yeah, really disappointed, yeah. Absolutely, because I really enjoyed flying.
SMID: Did you realize that your eyesight wasn’t good or was that a surprise to you?
TRAINOR: Well, [inaudible] took a physical every six months. I took it six months later and passed with no problem, never had another problem with it. They tried to get me to go back with the pilots program and I said, “You know, I’m almost a year into this thing and I like what I’m doing.” Probably not gonna make a career out of it, so I just stayed with it. And I’ve been flying ever since. And I knew my depth perception was fine. I’d been playing sports my whole life, and you can’t catch a ball if you don’t have any depth perception. I think it had something to do with alcohol the night before. [laughter]
SMID: Oh, no. Did you have a plane that you liked the most?
TRAINOR: While I was in the service?
SMID: Uh-huh. Or just, well, when you first started your training, was there one specific type of model of plane that you were most excited to get to fly?
TRAINOR: [inaudible] The first plane you’d fly in those days was the T‑34, which was a single-engine, piston driven airplane. It was aerobatic and it’s a really neat basic trainer. But when you get into this naval flight officer program, I mean, I’m flying then, and you’re flying as a crew member. You know, you learn how to navigate and do that kind of stuff. And then I was back working hard because in the Marine Corps there was only—the Marine Corps doesn’t have a bunch of transport airplanes. We just have tactical airplanes. And at that time the only tactical airplanes with a two-man crew were the F-4 Phantom and the A-6 Intruder. And a job for the flight officer, the other crew member in the Phantom, wasn’t much, whereas the A-6 was an all-weather attack plane. It had first a navigational system and, you know, all kinds of... It was an all-weather. And the job of the navigator, the bombardier navigator, was probably as important as the pilot. And I wanted to get that, so I was [inaudible] get a shot at that.
SMID: So, did you go from Pensacola to Vietnam? Or did you go somewhere else in between those two?
TRAINOR: In the pipeline, as they called it, that I was in, I went to BNAO School, Basic Naval Aviation Officer School, in Pensacola, and that was about four months. And it’s a pretty demanding school. I came in number one in my pre-flight class and I came in number one in math, so I had a choice. And I was headed off to be an A-6 bombardier navigator. So, that was, I don’t know, six weeks, plus 16 weeks. Anyway, it was the summer of 1967, and I headed off to Glynco, Georgia, which was basically a [inaudible] Nav school. That was a tough school. And I came in first in that, and set a service-wide record. Some admiral came down from the North and pinned my wings on me. And it was no big deal, I wasn’t married, so, but didn’t have family there for the [inaudible]. And from there I was off to Navy Air Station in Sanford, Florida, which was a real short school, but where you got some kind of clearance and qualifications to [inaudible] nuclear weapons or something. And all these schools were all jammed up because of Vietnam. So, when I got there…
SMID: I’m sorry, what? Did you say because of Vietnam?
TRAINOR: Pardon me?
SMID: The phone service just cut out a little when you said it. Because of something?
TRAINOR: Vietnam. I mean, the pipeline was full. I mean, like I said, in 1966, you know, the country had been sitting on their butt for 20 years, and then all of a sudden [inaudible] people made a decision, “We want to really gear up and send a whole bunch of people to Vietnam,” and none of the schools and training commands were prepared for it. And so, it was like a big accordion effect. You know, like, and I forget the principle in the physics demonstration in class which was a big long kind of a slinky thing, it was a [inaudible] That’s what it was like. There’d be a hundred guys waiting to get into the school with 50 seats, so they really get all plugged up. And then they get through, and then they’d have empty seats a month later at the same school. I mean, it was [inaudible]. So anyway, so I get to Sanford and it’s all plugged up, so I’ve got a month there with nothing to do, so they made me the leader of a brig platoon there. So I was a 2nd lieutenant running a brig platoon and making casualty calls to families of guys killed overseas and stuff.
SMID: So, what were the men in your platoon like? Were they mostly enlisted men or…
TRAINOR: Oh, they’re all enlisted guys. They’re all coming back from Vietnam. They’re all short-timers with serious attitudes, and I mean, serious, poor attitudes. And I’m a brand new 2nd lieutenant, you know, trying to keep them from getting in jail so they can get discharged and go home to their girlfriends. And I’m trying to find something to plug my phone into here. Hang on just a second. I’m going to go upstairs because I know I’ve got a plug-in up there where I can sit down and talk to you. I’m afraid I’m going to lose this phone.
SMID: Okay, I’m going to pause the recording, just in case.
[Pause in recording.] Go ahead.
TRAINOR: So anyway, that was kind of interesting because we were chasing guys that were UA, unauthorized absence or AWOL [absent without official leave], you know? And everybody, the search, you know, goes to Florida, because there’s beaches there and girls there. [laughter] And so, we would have all these guys being picked up in our brig. Hold on for a second. Still with me?
SMID: Yes.
TRAINOR: Okay. And so that was kind of a taste of reality dealing with real Marines. And all these guys all had a month to do or two months to do and they didn’t care. But we had these two guys that we got to chase through the swamp down there. And we knew they weren’t going to get away, and my troops were just enjoying the hell out of it. We just would, you know, we’d just keep them so we knew we could go get them before they got to a paved road and got away from us. And we’d pick them up and bring them back after three days of this, and they just were so sorry they’d ever been UA. But anyway, then from there all of a sudden they got a set of orders to a squad that most people never heard of.
SMID: So sorry. I have a question. So, the people who were deserting are people who had already been overseas and were coming back?
TRAINOR: No, most of the deserters were Air Force and Army. They weren’t Marines we were chasing. They were just poor performers. We never closed the door to the brig, and we would tell them a story, because we would just hold these guys until somebody showed up from the Air Force or the Army to take them somewhere and deal with them, and they’d be in our brig for two or three days, or a week or something. And then we’d just tell them, you know, “We’re never going to close that door. And if you want to escape, we’ll just let you escape, because we’ve got nothing else to do but chase you across the swamp, you know, so…” [laughter] And they would look at us and they’d [inaudible]
SMID: Would they try?
TRAINOR: Never, never. No. [laughter] The two guys we picked up, we put them in there and got them cleaned up and there was five or six other guys in there, and they looked at them, and of course you know they were all [inaudible] about it. If anybody had had a [inaudible], that was the end of that talk. But anyway, so I got orders…
SMID: Oh, sorry, I have just one more question. Do you think that—you said that the people in your brig platoon were kind of underachieving, misbehaving types, and do you feel like you were able to sort of give them…
TRAINOR: My Marines? No, my Marines were good Marines. It’s just they were really short. They were—by “short” I mean they were going to be discharged within a month or so.
SMID: Oh, okay, okay, so they had already come back.
TRAINOR: They’d all been to Vietnam and I’m sure most had been really good Marines. But, I mean, it’s like your attitude’s going to be a week before you graduate.
SMID: Right. Yeah. [laughter] So, and did you hear kind of what they had been saying about Vietnam? And did that help you prepare for when you would have to go?
TRAINOR: Well, everybody talks about it, but there’s no preparation until you get there really. And, you know, I wasn’t in a social situation with them. That’s not how you run a platoon. And I wasn’t there that long. That only lasted a month or so. And then I got orders to this squadron that I wound up being in, and it was a combined reconnaissance squadron, which I didn’t even know exists in the Marine Corps. And they had two missions, photo reconnaissance and electronic countermeasures. And so, and it was a typical military deal, Marine Corps deal. You get called in and they say, you know, “You’ve got orders. You’re going to BMCJ.” “What’s that?” And the guy that I’m talking to didn’t really know what it was. And he says, “You gotta be there tomorrow by 1700, so you just pack your stuff and get on the road.” And that was at Cherry Point, the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point [NC]. And I got there and that squadron had historically been for second tour guys, and they had never had any people like me, which we used to call “nuggets,” you know, that were new guys on their first tour, aviators. So they had nothing set up to train us. And what had happened was that the guys who were in that squad were getting turned around and going back to Vietnam, so they had to do something about it and had to start letting first tour people in it. And we were the first ones that was part of that bunch. So it wasn’t super welcoming.
SMID: Yeah, that sounds intimidating.
TRAINOR: Yeah. And Cherry Point was really a bad place for a bachelor. It’s way up in the boonies of North Carolina. And, so anyway, so that was September of ’67 and I was there for a year, and I did well there. I was the only one of the new guys to get qualified on both missions on all three airplanes we had, which was really good because it just was more of a challenge and made the tour in Vietnam go faster. And the squadron operations officer who was really a really squared away guy, he kind of ran the squadron. The skipper was kind of lame. He gave me the opportunity. I asked him if I could get checked out. And I had my orders to go overseas in September, and this was in June, and I was qualified on most of the electronic countermeasure part of it, and I asked if I could get into the photo part. And he let me. I was the only one he let, so it was pretty cool. It’s a lot more flying and the flying was good. Flying’s like money in college [inaudible]. That’s like doing a [inaudible].
SMID: [laughter] So, do you think that being a Dartmouth alum, do you accredit your Dartmouth education to, well, I mean, aside from your just personal intelligence, being able to climb to the top of all of these classes and training programs that you’re in? I mean, that’s pretty extraordinary.
TRAINOR: Dartmouth’s a good school. But, I don’t know, I’m the—I’m sure all my commanding officers knew I went to Dartmouth. I don’t if it meant much to some of them. I know it meant a lot to others. But, you know you can compete and do well if you can put in four years at Dartmouth and graduate. None of us set the world on fire as an undergrad at Dartmouth. I knew… I had a job. I knew where I was headed. I hadn’t even thought about graduate school yet. So yeah, I mean, Dartmouth teaches you how to think, teaches you how to write, and I think teaches you how to deal with people in what outside extracurricular stuff you do there.
And it was like when I went back and visited with the placement guy—I was back around Christmas of ’71, and my wife—well, she was my girlfriend then—she couldn’t believe the guy spent all that time with me, [laughter] [inaudible] a big university. And he said, “You know, Kevin, it’s good you’re in Idaho. The Dean of the Law School in Idaho,” which is where I wanted to go—I wanted to stay here—“he’s a veteran. He really makes an effort to get some veterans in the school, because frankly you’re not gonna do that well on the law boards.” I couldn’t argue with him [laughter] because it seemed like he was [inaudible] test. But I bought the book to review for law boards and I was in the 99th percentile. So, I guess Dartmouth… So, no, and I had some other choices, but I wanted to stay in Idaho, so I chose to go to law school. Been here ever since.
SMID: Well, I guess it’s better to be underestimated than overestimated, as they say.
TRAINOR: Pardon me?
SMID: I said I guess it’s better to be underestimated than overestimated.
TRAINOR: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn’t know what I was getting into. The second lawyer I ever met in my life was when I went to my first class in law school. I mean, it just wasn’t part of what I grew up around.
SMID: So, just going back to your experience, so you said you were at Cherry Point, and you mentioned that you had someone help you get into the photo side of flying, and can you talk a little bit about what exactly it was about that that kind of made you begin to…
TRAINOR: Well, the squadron… You know about the Bay of Pigs?
SMID: Yes.
TRAINOR: And you’ve seen the pictures of the SAM sites?
SMID: Yeah.
TRAINOR: Well, which is surface-to-air missiles for shooting down airplanes. Okay, and what a big concern—how should I start this? When Kennedy and the country was pissed off, that was to the nuclear missiles they had down there. What tipped them off to the nuclear missiles was that my squadron, we regularly deployed down to Key West and Guantanamo and would shoot photo and listen to the radars down there. They suddenly made the tape of [inaudible] stuff, and it was a Fire Can offense on radar, which is the fire control radar for SAMs, the surface-to-air missiles. And there was no reason for the Russians of giving the Cubans surface-to-air missiles. And people didn’t believe, or didn’t want to believe my squadron. And this is before I got there, being in ’61, that they really had tapes. So they sent their then photo planes, which [inaudible], and those are Marine pictures from those missile sites. And they never get credit for it. They always say the Air Force took the pictures.
But, for this squadron I went to, although it was on the East Coast, and not in Vietnam, it was still a tactical squadron. I mean, they had the things that they did that were part of, that would be an intelligence gathering plan for the country. But we were feeding guys who… There’s three of these squadrons in the Marine Corps. VMC’s A-1—or VMC A-2 at Cherry Point, VMC A-3 at El Toro, California, and VMC’s A-1 which was at the [inaudible], and that’s where I was going to be going. It was going to be [inaudible]. The skipper was kind of an intelligence sort of guy, not a snake eating Marine jet pilot. But our system ops was a Naval Academy graduate who had toured Vietnam, toured as the [inaudible] officer, came back and went to flight school, and then another tour [inaudible]. He was shit hot. He was a squared away guy. And he liked me. He knew I was doing well. When I asked him if I could qualify for the photo [inaudible], he let me take a run at it. And kind of shot my sunglasses because I was flying all the time, but it was worth it flying all three airplanes. Yeah, if you’re going to do something like that, you might as well be good at it. And you gotta be good at it because people count on you. I mean, you’re gonna go to war, you gotta be good at it. People count on that. [inaudible] part of it, we were flying support for the Navy strikes up in North Vietnam that they would not cross the beach unless one of our green VA-6 airplanes were able to Route Package with them. So, I mean, you had to have your shit together.
SMID: So, can you tell me a little bit about your transition from Cherry Point, if you went straight to Vietnam, and like kind of just what was going through your mind at the time and whether you felt prepared?
TRAINOR: You know, it’s the same thing I tell my [inaudible]. I was better than the other new guys. And in the flying game there’s—have you ever read The Right Stuff?
SMID: No.
TRAINOR: You should read that in connection to that. You’ve heard of Tom Wolfe, right?
SMID: Yes.
TRAINOR: Okay. Not Thomas Wolfe. Tom Wolfe. The Right Stuff, about aviators, and it’s including, excuse me, now the name escapes me, the guy who broke the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager. And then, it’s like anything, and probably… You’re a history major. You’re a senior now?
SMID: I’m a junior.
TRAINOR: Junior, okay. But you’re getting there where things are boiling down to small groups.
SMID: Yeah.
TRAINOR: So, circles within circles, and you get together with [inaudible] history majors, and you know you’re with them [inaudible] in your circle, and it’s closer to the center of another group that you don’t think as much of, but there’s always people who are in a tighter circle than you are. You know what I mean?
SMID: Yeah.
TRAINOR: Talk about that with your friends that it exists. And it really exists in tactical aviation, because everybody has to believe they’re really good or they’ve got no business there. But also, everybody knows who’s better. You don’t talk about it.
SMID: But everyone knows.
TRAINOR: Everybody knows. And people that think they’re in a tighter circle than they really are are looked down upon. Everybody knows who they are. But, you know…
SMID: You were the best.
TRAINOR: Yeah. I mean, that’s twenty… What was I, 23 years old? I can’t remember. Anyway, 24, I guess by then. You’re going off to war. You’ve gotta get your shit together. People are counting on you. You’re with the Navy guys crossing a beach, you know, and you’re shooting photo for the guys you’re getting the pictures for, and there’s no room for a slacker.
SMID: So you were ready.
TRAINOR: So I was going over, but I didn’t know where I was going to be in the circles when I got to [inaudible] and Da Nang [Air Base], until you’re there a little while. You just hope you don’t screw up.
SMID: So, you landed on Da Nang?
TRAINOR: Yeah.
SMID: And is that—did you—where were you going to be stationed?
TRAINOR: Right at Da Nang. You get off the airplane. It’s about 100˚ with about 100% humidity, and it stinks. I mean, it just smells, because what our practice was—well, the Vietnamese, they all go in a ditch—our practice was poopin’ in 55-gallon drums cut in half, and pour diesel fuel and then you’d burn it. So everything stinks. You don’t think you’re gonna last three days. And then after you’ve been there a while, then you just enjoy watching the new guys show up and you can see they’re just gagging. [laughter]
But, then you get to your squadron and get going. We just went to Vietnam, my wife and me, and it was really, you know, nostalgic isn’t the word really, but it was something. It was my third September in Vietnam. And everything’s changed except the [inaudible]. They’re doing really well, which was cool to see.
SMID: Was it strange being back or how had did it feel?
TRAINOR: You know, it was. But, I’d talked to some friends, Dartmouth guys, that had come back before me, and they gave me the skinny on it and they were absolutely correct. I mean, the Vietnamese are doing really well. They’re really [inaudible]. You know, they refer to that as the Americans’ war. It’s way behind them. They have the fastest growing economy in Asia. Food’s good, the beer’s good, which we always knew, but you always had to be careful taking a chance on it. You know, it was a really good month. Just hot.
SMID: Good. I’m sorry. Are you—all right, so you land in, you were stationed at Vietnam, I mean, at Da Nang, excuse me. And can you talk to me a little bit about, so you took part in two types of missions. So, you did photo and also electric…
TRAINOR: Electronic countermeasures. When I first got there in early September of ’68, we were still bombing in North Vietnam, and that went on until December. And you get there and the weather’s hot, and thunderstorms in the afternoon, and then shortly after that, that part of Vietnam slides into monsoon season where it just rains constantly, and your blood’s thinned out and then you’re just cold just because of the change. And we were going up north a lot and, you know, that was really serious [inaudible] stuff. And I got to do some, I got to do it for a month, and I was the only new guy that, I think, that went north. And I was also, you know, flying photo. And by the time that 13 months was [inaudible], 13 months in the Marine Corps, because you’re just busy, busy, busy.
Then you get out of country. I got out of country a couple of times. A girlfriend I’d been chasing at Dartmouth for a couple of years, she really was even less interested in me than I thought she was. She ended that shortly after I got back. I think I saw her once. I’m glad I didn’t waste R&R [rest and recuperation] trying to see her. [laughter]
SMID: And so, can you tell me a little bit about like the sorts of, I mean, I’m assuming that when you were sent out on photo missions specifically, you were sent out with like a tactical purpose, but did a lot of what you saw or anything that you saw surprise you or, I mean, what were these sorts of emotions that you felt doing this type of work?
TRAINOR: I’m just trying to think. You know, you get into a routine, and actually you’re kind of in the routine that’s not a routine, because we were flying around the clock, and so you’re sleeping when you can, and there’s times when you’re flying a lot, and then there’s other times when you go like a couple days without flying. You know, from enjoying the down time, you go to being really bored and anxious to get flying again after a day of that. And then, after you’ve been there for a while, after you have a hundred missions with our squadron, you give the operation to [inaudible], people you would not fly with. And then you’re just flying with people that you really, I could trust, and that’s good. And then you start getting short and then [inaudible]. The first month you’re nervous and the last month you’re nervous. [inaudible]
SMID: Sorry, I’m going to pause the recording.
[Pause in recording]
TRAINOR: I was trying to shut up so you can tell that. [laughter]
SMID: [laughter] No worries.
TRAINOR: [inaudible] I mean, you know, you learn the country, and that’s what it was when I went back in September. You know, we were going around on the ground in Northern I Corps, which was I’d been over it, you know, hundreds of times shooting photo of stuff, but it was cool, you know, being there on the ground seeing it. But, you fly over it, you get really familiar with it. You have to be because you gotta know where you are. And the same thing when we were going to North Vietnam, you know, you have to be familiar with it. You need to know where you are. But, as I was saying, you get into a routine, you’re flying around the clock so you’re catching sleep when you can, which is difficult because it’s hot during the day.
And on my tour, the first four, five months were just kind of a blur because we were super busy and we were still bombing up north. And then it got into the spring of ’69, and they quit bombing north, quit bombing far north, still bombing up north, the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone] where we were still up there and we were still shooting photo missions all over the place. I mean, we were shooting photo missions in North Vietnam and Laos the whole time, and I can never understand why everybody made such a big deal about going to Laos. We’d been going there the whole time. And then, through that summer of ’69, things seemed to slow down a little bit, you know. You get under a hundred days and you start thinking, “I’m gonna get home and be done with this.” I mean, like I mentioned, the last month you’re as nervous as you were the first month. And in my case, in June, when Nixon was going to start cranking up again because we weren’t getting anywhere in Paris, so all of a sudden we started shooting photo further north than we’d been going, and the guys that got to go up there were…
SMID: So, in Cambodia?
TRAINOR: I don’t remember going—I’m sure we were over Cambodia, but I don’t remember. We covered everything west of Vietnam, that’s Laos, in the middle of the Plain of Jars, and I don’t think, you know, 50 years ago I could have told you that was Cambodia. I just thought it was still Laos. But we started going back up north further, and so the crews that were going up there were crews that had already been up there, which was guys like me that were down to 70 or 80 days. When you get under a hundred days, it’s kind of [inaudible]. You know, two-digit midget. And I didn’t really feel like going back up there. [laughter] And that’s what we were doing. Yeah. I can remember. [laughter] We used to—I don’t know, do you want these anecdotes?
SMID: Yes, I would definitely.
TRAINOR: There was a major in the squadron whom I really liked. Most majors I didn’t think much of, but our company grade officers and lieutenants and staff, [inaudible] we thought of ourselves as the backbone of the Marine Corps, and most majors were overweight piece of shit. This guy was not. He was a good pilot and a really good guy.
SMID: Do you remember his name?
TRAINOR: Yeah. Major Doyle. It was Bob Doyle. And he and I, we flew a mission in the EA [electronic attack] spectrum electronic countermeasures in the fall of ’68, where we only had—we had seven of those airplanes in the squadron. We only had one that was up. The Navy had [inaudible]. And we flew a six-and-a-half hour mission. We plugged in three different types of airplanes to stay up there with the Navy. It was really—the Navy was really excited about the fact that we could stay around there. I mean, you had two inches of water in the cockpit, and just this… Anyway, in June we’re going down for a photo mission, F-4, the Phantom, and we briefed two crews. One bird went down, meaning it had a mechanical problem [inaudible] go up to North Vietnam.
And, so we’re riding in the truck going down there. I’ve got a new guy for a pilot, and Major Doyle’s got another new guy for his electronics and system officer. My new guy, this Naval Academy graduate, gung ho, hyper, and he’s just, God, just asking me a million questions, writing down the flight line and [inaudible]. And Major Doyle leans over and these Naval Academy guys [inaudible], you know, pie and pipe sort of guy. And Major Doyle leans over, he says, “[inaudible], don’t ever confuse Captain Trainor with anyone who’s someone who gives a shit.” And [inaudible] looked to me and he didn’t know what he’d say. [laughter] And Doyle just starts laughing. It was just, you know, [inaudible] was a new guy. And anyway, all I said was “Barnie, when I call for speed, don’t you hesitate, because I have been before and we’ll need to go faster.” [laughter] We were up there and we got the picture, and he took me up with him again and we got the pictures. Worked out all right. I mean, he was not somebody I would… In fact, he was on my list not to fly with, and he told me he had to go with me because we had to go and get photos. We were only sending guys that had been there before, you know, and that’s just kind of how it was. Major Doyle was a cool guy.
SMID: Were you always flying with one other person or…
TRAINOR: Yeah. Since it’s a two-person aircraft.
SMID: So I’m sure you got close to the people you would fly with regularly?
TRAINOR: Yeah. I have this one good friend that we ride motorcycles together still, and he lives down in California. He’s been super successful in a worldwide charter jet leasing company. And the biggest charter jet in the world. A really neat guy. We still ride motorcycles. [inaudible]
SMID: I’d say that’s close, then.
TRAINOR: He is really [inaudible]. And we’re fortunate our wives really get along, too, and stuff. We try to get together three or four times a year and it’s always fun.
SMID: That’s nice. And then, so, I asked about the photo missions and I don’t want to neglect the electronic countermeasure. I know you touched on that briefly, but that’s not something that I’ve been able to hear all that much about in talking to people so far. So, can you tell me a little bit about what that would have been like and like what a typical mission was like, or especially in the Vietnam context?
TRAINOR: Do you know anything about it, ECM [electronic countermeasures]?
SMID: Well, I know that, from research, I know what the point of it is and kind of like how it works, just sort of try to jam signals so that the enemy can’t…
TRAINOR: Right. At the time that the state of the art [inaudible], you would come up and transfer the signal on the same frequency that the radar was on and try to blank out the scopes, turn your scope into a [inaudible] a big mass of white noise. They’ve gotten other ways that they do it now, but that’s cool stuff. It was state of the art. And the Marine Corps was the unlikely state of the art service. I mean, we had the gear and the Package, much better than the Air Force. And what had happened was after Korea, these guys—do you know what warrant officers are?
SMID: No.
TRAINOR: Okay, the enlisted guys, and then in certain specialties, they can get promoted to be a warrant officer. It’s not a commissioned officer, and they’re super good at what they do. And in the aviation business in Korea, these guys were all avionics, you know, geeks you’d call them now, realized that we needed a way to jam radars if we were going to be able to penetrate areas and bomb them. So, they started working on this stuff just like a ham radio operator. And they came up with jammers that were just like homemade [inaudible]. And, but we were the only ones that did it tactically. The Air Force theory was to stand off and jam from the outside away from where the bombers were going. And the Marine Corps believed you had to be able to send a plane right into the Route Package and get in tight with these radars, and we’d block them out.
Plus, these guys understood that the strength of the signal that you could generate with the aircraft generators, even with beefed up generators, you know, a generator that you could [inaudible] just above the aircraft. It wasn’t big enough to really do the job. So, so then [inaudible], but they started developing the EA-6 electronic. A-6 was an all-weather Pack which I wanted to go to, but I pulled out after I got my wings. And then I found that they had taken a team of the EA-6 basics, and there’s only six. I had 13 on the [inaudible], but some of them were converted, some of them were ground up. And they carried a receiver in the cockpit, which was really a real [inaudible] deal and super secret and everything, and where you could listen to radars and see where they are. You could look at it immediately and determine the frequency of the radars transmitting on pulse rate frequency, which was how fast the pulses were going, and the higher a pulse rate frequency, the more accurate it was, more definitive the radar was like [inaudible] they had real high pulse rate frequencies. You could determine the pulse width of it. And basically, when you record these things, a single machine has its own fingerprint. So, you keep track and [inaudible] you can tell whether it moved. Then they got, as I say, [inaudible], and I can’t remember the names involved in [inaudible] jammers which were pods that hung on your wing, and had an old propeller in the front which was where [inaudible] ran their turbine. And I can’t remember the numbers, but the amount of energy they developed was like 40 or 50 times what the Air Force could put out with their jams. Plus, we could spear our jams. We’d have four or five of them in each pod, I can’t remember. We carried four pods to [inaudible]. We’d go in the Route Package with the Navy plane. And when these SAM sites came up, you could steer the jammers, you know, at the missile site, and just jump on them. But you had to be careful, because they had beam rider defensive missiles to ride back up and knock you. You know, it was like a sword fight, or chess match. You’re turning it on, you’re turning it off, turn it on, you turn if off, you know. Anyway, that’s what it was. And that’s those first four months I was in country.
SMID: So, you said that…
TRAINOR: It’s high octane stuff.
SMID: You had run those missions before getting ready to bomb an area?
TRAINOR: No, you go in there with them. You cross the beach with them. You know, you cross the beach… And see, the Air Force would stand off and do it. And we’d cross the beach with them, and we’d have an idea where they were going to bomb. That coordination was never as good as it should have been. I know it’s a whole lot better now, because there’s a fellow here in Twin Falls who did this same stuff in the Navy. He was about 10 years younger, and it was really fun to visit with him about [inaudible] afterwards. But, you’d have an idea where the Navy was going. Everybody had call signs, so you kind of knew who was who, and you’d go on the Route Package with them, and when there’s radars lit up, depending on what—and you knew where they were supposed to be and where the targets were, and you could, through your training, make a decision which was threat and which wasn’t. Because you didn’t want to just light this stuff up, because it just tells everybody where you are. You follow me? It’s like playing hide-and-seek with your friends out in your yard, and you get a flash. Well, you turn on your flashlight and [inaudible] begin to think it’s you. So, if you’re looking at one friend, but that’s not the friend that’s got the garden hose, you turn on the flashlight and your friend with the garden hose can whack you with the garden hose. You follow me?
SMID: Yeah. So, did you ever feel, I don’t know if guilty is the right word. I guess, did you ever feel kind of, apart from focusing on the tactical issues at hand and sort of what it was that you needed to do in your position, did you ever kind of feel badly about…
TRAINOR: I thought the war was bullshit. I knew I had to do my job if I was gonna get home and chase girls, get on with my life. I never felt guilty. I mean, [both talk at the same time] I’ve thought more about that this last year or two. Pardon me?
SMID: Did you feel like that when you were there or more so when you had come—after you’d come home, you kind of…
TRAINOR: Oh, you know, you’re reading more and you’re smarter now, than, you know, when you’re 25 years old. To say you’re young and dumb [inaudible]. [laughter] [inaudible]. You read more when you get done and, you know, get smarter. But, you know, when I was there, the effort was [inaudible]. They were having their civil war, and yet, you know, they didn’t understand the choice. Democracy was a long way off. But, they’d been at war since the late ‘20’s. They’d been digging tunnels all over the place. And yet, they were committed. They weren’t going to quit. And that was clear when I was visiting in September. That was just… And having read some stuff—I’m reading this book now that this friend of mine, the CIA guy who’s retiring now after the election, he’s ending his federal service, but he’s given me some publications they put out. And the CIA was telling us what their capabilities were and what their resolve was, and what really was going on, and the politicians weren’t listening to them. You know, if Kennedy had lived, we wouldn’t have gotten that deep into it.
SMID: Does knowing that make you feel sort of like a pawn?
TRAINOR: It was a waste. It was a waste. You know, everybody’s a pawn. You’re a pawn at Dartmouth. And it was a waste of some really talented guys that would have been my age, unbelievably talented guys, you know. And but this year’s been kind of—going back to Vietnam and then going to this 50th reunion a couple of weeks ago, it made me just realize how it burned up some very bright people.
SMID: Did you feel at all like—something that’s been kind of interesting to me in the conversations I’ve had is sort of the difference between people who fought in Vietnam and the way that they interacted with civilians versus the way that the enemy was characterized, like within the American troops, and just kind of like how that distinction is kind of interesting for me just hearing about how the civilians were always incredibly nice, like treated the Americans and their presence with a lot of respect, but then how the North Vietnamese forces were pretty dehumanized and just hated. And I don’t know if you had that similar experience?
TRAINOR: I’m not sure what—I kind of understand the question, but I’m not quite sure. The NVA [North Vietnamese Army] is a hard bunch. The Communist regime is a hard bunch. And those people were in it forever. You know, I did 13 months there. You know, those people they drug out of their villages up north, you know, they lived next to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the ones that weren’t soldiers for whatever reason, and they were [inaudible] every night. We took pictures of it the next day, and all the bombs [inaudible] and they’d come back, and they were just living down there, hundreds of miles from home. And never seeing their families. And, you know, and they’re hard people. They were torturing people and murdering people. They’re assholes. But, now they have it. And then they wanted to get to you, and they got there now. I think the country’s better off.
Now, I wouldn’t want to live under Communism, but it seems to be working there. They have their own brand of capitalism, entrepreneurs, and which they seemed to be encouraging. You know, the government’s getting [inaudible] what it is, but they’re giving people freedom to live and pursue their interests. These guys I was back over there with, we went by this one villa, [inaudible]. He was saying they’d [inaudible] Catholic church and [inaudible]. And it’s a three-story building now. It’s really... And they’re leaving the religions alone. The way our guide explained it is the government doesn’t [inaudible] some revolution or some [inaudible] something’s going on, being promoted by the churches, and just, “you want to go to a Catholic church? You want to go to a [inaudible] or whatever?” They’re just leaving them be, you know, being happy. Nobody’s shooting them. Nobody’s setting mines. You can walk anywhere. Shoot, my wife was walking around after dark and [inaudible]. They don’t put up with crime. You don’t see any policemen anywhere. [laughter] We were asking this one guy, we were in the market, and we were just talking, and his English was pretty good. “Oh, where’s the police?” “Oh, they’re around.” “What if you have a problem here? How do you get them?” “Oh, he’d be here in 50 seconds.” “50 seconds?” Not a minute, no. 50 seconds. Not 45. No, 50 seconds. [laughter] And they just kind of… But he said, no, they just don’t put up with that.
SMID: It sounds like you stay in good contact with a lot of the people that you served with, and that you formed a lot of bonds. And for that reason, you sort of, do you feel proud of having served? How have, amongst like the groups that you remain part of, how’s your perceptions of like the Vietnamese, the experience of the Vietnam War changed over the years?
TRAINOR: Yeah, I mean, I didn’t have this [inaudible] on until getting close to this trip and visiting with the other guys who have been back over there. I mean, and my best friends were all the guys I served with, a lot of whom, you know, they’re college grads, smart guys, and a lot of them were Navy ROTC scholarship guys. And you meet other guys. And you spent a lot of time with somebody in a situation like that. Some people you don’t care to see again and other people you really want to see. So yeah, they’re my best [inaudible]. And since the internet came out, then you get back in touch with the other guys, you know, [inaudible] the last 15, 20 years. It just expands the people that you can stay in touch with.
And something else you said. [inaudible]. We went to Cambodia. And everybody read about Pol Pot and the killing fields and everything. But, you know, it just, [inaudible] these Cambodians is [inaudible]. It didn’t register, you know? And I was back from Vietnam, I’d gotten married, going to school, starting a family. You know, it was in the paper and you read it, but I never could get the players straight. And going there and meeting the people and seeing some of that stuff, the real life stuff, what an asshole that guy was. Just really, that guy killed three million people, a third of the whole country. And it could happen again. It could happen anywhere. It’s just like Hitler, you know. He only got 35% of the vote. But he was strong. It’s just that their democracy or whatever was weak. Just kind of frightening, especially after last week.
SMID: Yes, sir. Ultimately, are you proud of your having served in Vietnam?
TRAINOR: Absolutely. I mean, you know, they gave me a heck of a deal, a four year education at an Ivy League school, and I owed them the time and I wanted to do well at it and I did. And I’m proud to have been a Marine. Nobody’s ever an ex‑Marine. Those are the guys I stay in touch with. I mean, pretty much everybody’s on the same wave. Some people are more gung ho than others. But I mean, everybody—you asked before about working together. Together, and that’s the whole thing. But, I mean, you’ve heard the term “gung ho,” right?
SMID: Yes.
TRAINOR: Do you know what it means? Do you know where it came from?
SMID: No.
TRAINOR: It’s what Major Frazier [inaudible] [both talk at the same time] Pardon me?
SMID: I say it, but I don’t know its origin.
TRAINOR: Okay, Major Frazier, you remember him?
SMID: Yeah.
TRAINOR: [inaudible] at Dartmouth. He was an astute, Southeast Asian guy. I can’t remember if it was a Korean or Chinese word, “kung-ho”. It means “forward together we labor.” That’s what that means. The Marine Corps kind of adapted it back in the ‘30’s when they were in China. But that’s what it means. You can just count on everybody around you.
SMID: Wow. That’s good to know.
TRAINOR: Yeah.
SMID: So, those are the only questions that I have for you. Is there anything else that I didn’t ask you about that you wanted to say or talk about?
TRAINOR: Australia was great. The girls were unbelievable. It was just marvelous getting to see that country. I got to go back a second time. It was really fun when I came home. I got stationed in California, which was really a nice place to decompress after Vietnam. The girls were amazing there and the beer was cold. It was just great. You had money in your pocket. It was just great. [laughter] Flying was good. And I had a good friend clear from grade school who was in the Navy stationed down in San Diego. We got to see a bunch of each other and chase girls and it was a really fun year.
SMID: And then you retired, right?
TRAINOR: Well, I got discharged. I got out. You know, it was four-and-a-half years was my commitment, and on up here to Idaho to ski bum and that’s where I met my wife. Been here ever since.
SMID: Well, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today.
TRAINOR: I hope I haven’t gone on long. You got me going thinking about stuff.
SMID: I’m glad. No, you didn’t ramble on at all.
TRAINOR: The college has kind of annoyed me the last 50 years, with their attitude toward people like me. Oh, the Navy ROTC and President [James E. “Jim”] Wright, ex-President Wright is trying to get it back. And I thought it was good for the school, to have their input into the military, the Dartmouth influence on the military; you know, how little it would be, I think it’s important. The Navy kept the school afloat during World War II with the V-7 and V-12 programs. They would have gone bankrupt.
SMID: So, did you hear about, I guess this would have been when you were overseas, but did you hear about like the Parkhurst takeover and ending ROTC at Dartmouth?
TRAINOR: Yeah.
SMID: I’m sure that, did that frustrate you?
TRAINOR: Yeah, I mean, they’re just breaking up—you know, it’d be like going into one of the temples I saw in Cambodia, you know, and breaking it up, like tearing up the office there in Parkhurst and everything. And now the school has problems with—if you can believe what you read, it has problems with assaults on women and really bad drunkenness. And when I was there, we were a hard partying school, but we were a hard working school, and I can’t remember ever hearing anybody abusing a girl. People got drunk and, you know, did what you do when you got drunk, but I can’t ever remember anybody forcing himself on someone. And we always cleaned up the fraternity house. And I was down there in June this year viewing the place. It’s a shithole. And I can’t believe they live like that.
And you know, I blame some of it on the college. They’re the ones that are letting these people in. And they’re not getting… When I was in school, if stuff like that would have happened, it would have been a quick ride out, or you know, three years and then try to get back in. And the fraternity would have been shut down, not just threatened. And I’m just, you know, an old guy. We couldn’t believe it. I mean, this friend of mine who lives near me, in Bethel, Vermont, 30 miles up the road, and we were back there, and Linda and I were staying with him, and I wanted to go down and see the Chi Phi house. He said, “Ah, you really don’t.” And I pushed it. I said, “Oh dear, we’ve gotta go see it.” I couldn’t believe it.
SMID: Yeah.
TRAINOR: Plus it looks like they changed the rules. A couple of people we talked to, well, I guess it had been—they had a whole lot more guys living in the fraternity houses than they allowed before. That probably does not help anything. But, pretty disappointing.
[End of Interview.]