Barry Romo,
Chicago, Illinois
Postal worker - He went to Vietnam in July 1967 as a second lieutenant in the infantry
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"First off, I was scared and that’s the truth. I was afraid I was going to make a mistake. I was a 19-year-old lieutenant. I was going to be in charge of 45 men in combat. … I wasn’t afraid of dying. … But I was worried that I would get people killed."
"My father had been a World War II vet, and I knew that when they went to France, there were people throwing flowers at them. I get to Vietnam, and instead of flowers, they’ve got chicken wire on the buses so that the people can’t throw hand grenades at you."
"Slowly I learned that the people didn’t want us there. They never helped us. They wouldn’t tell us when we were in an area to step on mines. They wouldn’t smile … . When we were going through the villages that we were supposedly liberating, what became apparent to me was, one, they didn’t want us there and, two, what we were doing to them was racist and immoral."
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