Thornell Billingslea, Veterans Oral History Project, Vietnam War 

Mr Billingslea: You're the Man! Brother. A Great Man! Hope you have a long life You Deserve It! What a Fighter!... In General! ThankYou! God Bless You!

You are an inspiration sir. A true hero.

What a great story God Bless you Sir & all the Men who served in Vietnam. The Herd !! 173rd Airborne

All I can offer is my thanks and welcome home.

Thank you for everything, Mr. Billingslea. I was born in ‘68, but all of you men (my coaches, teachers, etc) inspired me. I enlisted and served myself to be like the men you were! We owe you a debt that we can never repay. Welcome home, sir.

Thank You SIR for your Service and Dedication to our country during a very difficult time !! MUCH RESPECT for all of you Vietnam Combat Veterans......WELCOME HOME SIR !!

I am a 68 yo Navy Veteran who would be honored to salute this hero

Sir, I salute you. Welcome home! Thank you for the interview. You are an impressive man. God Bless You🙏🏼

What a story !Thank for your service Sir & God bless!

Welcome home and thank you

Great guy!!

Thank you Thornell for your service. I truly enjoyed your share.

Welcome home, thank you so much for your service 👊🏻🇺🇸

Awesome!

Thank you Mr. Billingslea for a trip into my dads experience i never go to hear. So much respect Sir.

Thank you for your service sir, welcome home, your a class act.

What a superb bloke you are Thornell, amazing resilience, fortitude & fighting spirt, with a tremendous will to live. Massive respect from a Scotsman, you are a magnificent man & human being. 🙏🏻💙♥

What a true American patriot. Thank You Sir, for sharing your story, very informative an inspirational!! God Bless

Amazing

I was a grunt in Vietnam 1971. Co D, 2/1st Inf, 196th Bde. Served in the bush all in I Corps.

Truly inspiring person... thanks for your continued service to other vets. Your experience is similar to other black vets (I've treated for PTSD) from Vietnam.

Thank you Thornell Billingslea. Your service and your story was amazing. I'm glad your PTSD has not ruined your life and that you help others who still suffer. You have my thanks and respect. God Bless you.

Thank you Sir for your service and welcome home bro, 68 yo Navy Veteran

God bless you soldier, so glad you came home.

Thank you Sirs, shared!

This Man! Is outstanding! G-d Bless him.

Thanks Mr. Billingslea, you're an amazing man, and a true American hero.

God Bless you, Mr. Billingsea! Very interesting and well conducted interview.

Great Story! True Hero!

Welcome Home, Thank you Sir, God bless you ALL...

Can thank you enough for your service and loyalty to your fellow Soldiers. God bless you.

Thornell..thank you ...young man...

A fellow soldier I would like to get to know and call a "friend". God bless you!!

Thank You for your service sir

Thanks Thornhill you are a inspiration and a credit to all who served in vetnam

Wow.What a brilliant bloke. What an example. Good on yer Mr.Billingslea. Top man.

A good and decent man. A real trooper

Really nice guy. He could become friends with anyone. Decent man.

Well done, sir! Much respect and thank you for your service.

Wow much respect to you sir thank you for your service you are a HERO and a great overcomer I wish you the best sir may GOD RICHEST BLESSINGS BE YOURS

Thank you sir.

Another amazing story of a true hero. Another hero that wasnt given the recognition,or help for what they did. What they went through and still going through things to this day. Im british. But thanks for alllll of your services. Men women and service dogs All true heros🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇

Truly an American hero. Sorry you had to go through that experience and sorry for the loss of your comrades. I grew up in Jacksonville Florida in the 60s and know of the racism you experienced. Things are much better now I can assure you.

god bless u mr.b! from the 9th div/ 11tha.c.r.!80's!!

He seems so gentle and well spoken. I’m glad he wasn’t made to get jammed in the animal survivor mode permanently after War. God Bless all our Soldiers. Treat them with nothing but kindness and respect.

This man is a hero!

Thanks for for u wavering service,USA

What a gentleman 🙏. God bless you and your family. Regards from Rome🍀

Thank you Sir.

Welcome home, thank you Sir, God bless you all..

A GREAT MAN!!!

Great Interview! Thank you Thornell for sharing your experience as a soldier … Wow ! I salute you sir and “welcome home” !

Outstanding diaglogue. Very illuminating and a great ammount of information that gives a great picture of the man and the times.

Great interview! God bless

What an awesome story and an awesome person. I salute you and thank you for your service

Mr. Billingslea, You Are an Absolute Hero and Inspiration to me! Thank You for Courageously Fighting Communist Atheist Slavery! You Proved Yourself the Best Possible Man during the worst possible experiences! I despise the evil bigotry you sometimes endured! God Be With You! I Thank You for All that You Are and Stand Up For! We Thank God You Returned!

Thank you for your service. God bless you.

Thank you sir true valor great man my Hero thank you so much

Mr. Billingslea, You're a GREAT MAN. The Vietnam Era MEN are the finest, most loyal, best educated, best trained military MEN this nation ever produced. What horrors you had to endure! What high TREASON you had to put up with from the media, hippies, and Hollyweird! And yet you Vietnam MEN STIIIIIIIIIILLLLLL remained loyal to these United States. Your example of manhood leaves me in AWE. I studied this war for 10 yrs; no!, USA did NOT lose that war. Because of our superb fighting troops, USA accomplished our strategic objective of HALTING EVIL communism's spread. You men shouldn't have been sent to that war, but what you did there inspires great RESPECT; the military glory is YOURS. Welcome home and God Bless You! Respectfully, Mike Hart-Jones, S.Riding, VA

Thank You.

Enjoyed your interview. . Continue helping others.. One day the wars on this earth will cease.

Thanks Thornell

Proud of this man 👍👍👍👍

Hey Thornell, I’m so sorry you had to live through losing all your friends and then having to escape / evade for three days & all that. I wish I could have been there to help you that day. LT Field Artillery 155mm

War is Hell. We were just a bunch of teenagers with guns. Some of us had two jobs. We all knew how to shoot guns. Some of us were trained to do construction work or run telephone wires from telephone poles pole to pole. Many drove trucks full of cargo. We were all potential targets. No job was without it's own set of fears. Vietnam 66

god bless you sir.

What an incredible warrior...and exemplary human being! Intense story.

7 Jul 2021 First off allow me please to express grateful thanks on behalf of all like-minded war history buffs for such informative, instructive and edifying public service programmes, serving as priceless historical recordings of momentous events in human history. Thank you Veterans Oral History Project. There are of course other similar initiatives touching specifically on the American Vietnam War experience, including the Vietnam Voices series of interviews, where Montana residents who saw action in 'Nam are invited to give their accounts for posterity. Definitely worth one's time and effort in studying the reminiscences proffered by the participants, I vouch. As is my custom, I do very conscientiously read fellow commenters' viewpoints and feedback before contributing mine. I do not always concur with their perspectives on all counts of course, even from Viet Vets themselves (and this coming from a foreigner, a Singaporean who, thankfully has been spared the horrors of war, although I did my dutiful peacetime military service for my country). No two war veterans who fought the same war or even battle(s) in the same window frame must be expected to present identical accounts / recollections / sentiments years-decades afterwards. It's just the way the mind, psyche and subconscious works, what with the passage of time and subsequent myriad life's encounters and experiences. The one who was badly wounded and had his service honourably discharged and never quite overcome the PTSD demons afterwards is entitled to his deep-seated malcontent and unresolved hurts-issues, as much as the reasonably adjusted vet who (miraculously) survived with but minor scrapes and went on to say, a hugely successful post-war civilian career, is entitled to his pride for having served and happy-go-lucky disposition. Live and let live I say. Here then are my overall thoughts of this particular interview session, with due respect to all dissenting voices : 1) Despite completing only high school education and not being a college alumnus, Mr Thornell Billingslea is admirably articulate, not the ghetto-speak that Afro-Americans are sometimes unfairly stereotyped as. Of even greater source of pride and awe, in my book, is the apparent lack of acrimony and ingrained sense of injustice and angst which he suffered during those volatile years of explicit and at times vicious racist bias against blacks, a sad, sad chapter in US history. Notice how composed, dignified and gentlemanly he carries himself in recounting the hints of overt and subtle racism while in 'Nam, at precisely the time and hour when he was risking life and limb fighting a most unpopular and controversial war far, far away from home. The only 'blip', and fully justified definitely, was when he wanted to go for the jugular at the fucking moron who spat at him upon arrival back home, with a badly mangled left arm to boot. I am quite certain I would have executed a kick at the nincompoop's testicles, a short stay behind bars worth the trouble (in any case the defence attorney would likely have won the case for him on account of his war circumstances then). 2) You must give it to Mr Billingslea too how very lucid, vivid and precise his recollections of all those happenings decades ago are. Thank the Heavens for it! Age and the spectre of dementia have been relatively kind to this warrior-soldier it seems. Long may it be so. And when some exact details slip through, Mr Billingslea is totally honest about it. Tell me, viewers, at which point of the interview do you suspect that he is faking it? I can't discern so. And even to this day, his intrinsic respect for authority and military hierarchy shows up so clearly in his tone of voice. If you want respect, first learn to respect those who have earned it. And it's not like he's a blind slave to military doctrine. The point about not firing first while out on patrol until the damned enemy sniper has taken out one's comrade is "crazy", he made it that much clear (and sheepishly he confessed that subsequently the squad leader said to hell with the edict). Not once too does Mr Billingslea sing his own trumpet of his (heroic) escapades. I hope viewers herein will join me here in commending a real hero when we are privileged to meet one. 3) The revelation of how he was blessed to come under the tutelage of a Native American grunt whose jungle survival instincts very likely saved his life is most intriguing indeed. 4) Unfavourable critique of the interviewer Dr James Smither's conduct of this session is off-track I assert. I find his line of questioning very measured, earnest, sincere, courteous,insightful, incisive and analytical. His experience in dealing with the subject at hand shows, although he could have probed a bit more on the very sensitive topic of fragging of officers (and Mr Billingslea made no bones about it, about others who were guilty of the crime). People must bear in mind that a professionally trained interviewer is expected to pose both close and open-ended and follow-up questions (apart from a prepared questionnaire-script), and that "uh-huhs", " I see...", " okay...." are not out of keeping. If uttered honestly (and not for dramatic, pretended effect) it shows genuine listening skill. Of course discreet silence and respect must be accorded when the interviewee becomes overwhelmed by emotion and breaks down. Also, the interview could maybe have lasted longer (unless it was in fact edited). I trust that my ruminations here are well-balanced and objective. Readers are free to comment of course. Gracias.

War sucks. Sorry. What a good story buddy, thx. Very brave of you.

" Sir I cannot even start to imagine".. your comings.. and goings." In the face of such warfare".. "Man you were a bad dude.

Welcome home soldier .... God job

I think the guy “new “ guy who survived also has a video on RU-vid that I watched today

Yeah I took that train to Knox and being a Michigan boy from Lansing

I served in the 9th infantry division in 1968.

this was uploaded in 2020? why does the quality look like an FMV cutscene?

Godbless

Welcome Home brother

Sky Soldiers brother . The Rock OEF VIII Battalion Mortars 2-503 HHC OEF X 2-503 ABLE CO SPARTANS

I realized War what's really hard especially when you're 19 2018 but I truly believe to keep going back to it over and over you just punish yourself especially if it was traumatic cuz you would be having these bad feelings to the day you die it's not easy to not think about it but possible good luck to all the veterans I'm finally at peace with it the war is over it will always be over God bless all the veterans

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Sorry wrong comment meant for a DRUMMER Steve Moore THANK YOUR SERVICE SIR LT BAGGYPANTS U.S ARMY PEACE OUT

Those bunker and tunnel tunnels were there since WW2😢

When I was in boot camp there was a guy that kept pissing his bed every night until he was discharged under medical conditions.

That Sgt sitting on that trail with the 60 , left those men stranded…….

He got a bronze star is all... Really? This man deserved a DSC at least.

Hero

I was gonna make an insanely stupid comment, but there's enough of those already.

Why are all these guys from Michigan?

Will smith could play this guy in a Vietnam war movie. It’s uncanny how much they look a like. Also a great interview 👍🏻

Do You remember Sam Hill Sir?

He's speaks and sounds a lot like Colonel West.

I want to know did you make friends with the puppy?

David Goodine killed by friendly fire Da Nang 1969 ; don't want to know who did it, just want to know what happened . The friendly fire Soldiers died in Nam too, their stories Should Be Told Too !!!!!!!

Man let this guy tell his story! to many questions

Train the interviewers not to say "um-hmm" and "okay" after the veterans answer a question.

He kind of favors Samuel Jackson ! Anyhow thank you for your service!

Stud

I just came back from Vietnam War, I had been there since 1969 and just came back in 2000, and no one told me that the war was over until I came out of the brush. I had been living in the brush all this time eating grubs and vegetation that I could find. America didnt care about their soldiers, I still had dead leeches on me from 1969 when I took off my uniform. I am still fkd up from that war and when I hear a helicopter above, I run to it thinking that they are coming to pick me up, when I hear gunshots, I dive in thye first trench that I see.

They don't really make men like this any more.

The supply sergeant you told that you had wounded back down the hill should be brought up on charges for ignoring you and not relaying your message.