Thornell Billingslea, Veterans Oral History Project, Vietnam War
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- Thornell Billingslea shares his experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War.
Special thanks to Mr. Thornell Billingslea for sharing his personal history with us, and to Dr. James Smither for conducting this interview.
The GVSU Veterans History Project was established in 2006 to collect, record and archive oral history interviews and other materials relating to the experiences of military veterans of all eras, as well as of civilians and foreign nationals with stories relating to the American experience in wartime. We work in partnership with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, and are one of a small number of archiving partners across the country. As an archiving partner, we post our interview videos and other materials on a website that is part of the Special Collections of the GVSU Library.
In addition to conducting and archiving oral history interviews, the Project also produces documentary films and public access cable television programs, develops book projects and gives, live presentations around West Michigan and across the country. Dr. James Smither of the GVSU History Department serves as Project Director, and Prof. Frank Boring of the GVSU School of Communications is our resident filmmaker.
Content Information:
Title: Billingslea, Thornell (Interview outline and video), 2016
Creator: Billingslea, Thornell
Date: 2016-03-03
Publisher: Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor: Smither, James (Interviewer)
WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.)
Collection: Veterans History Project
Citation: Billingslea, Thornell, “Billingslea, Thornell (Interview outline and video), 2016,” Digital Collections, accessed January 25, 2020, digitalcollections.library.gv....
Original Video and Complete Transcript: digitalcollections.library.gv...
FAIR-USE COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER
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Thank you for treating us to your wonderful story, sir! We salute you.
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.
I am a 68 yo Navy Veteran who would be honored to salute this 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 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.
👌
@@JC-wi2jz😊06 Yvonne
Sir, I salute you. Welcome home! Thank you for the interview. You are an impressive man. God Bless You🙏🏼
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.
I was a grunt in Vietnam 1971. Co D, 2/1st Inf, 196th Bde. Served in the bush all in I Corps.
Thank you Mr. Billingslea for a trip into my dads experience i never go to hear. So much respect 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 !!
Thank you Sir for your service and welcome home bro, 68 yo Navy Veteran
A fellow soldier I would like to get to know and call a "friend". God bless you!!
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. 🙏🏻💙♥
Nicely said. they all deserve our respect.
My brother was in Pleiku during the Tet offensive
Thank you for your service sir, welcome home, your a class act.
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.
The black soldiers were the racist. You ask any vet of a any war off the record They would run when the fighting got hot. Cowards very few tried to fit in. The Japanese hated them because blacks in the occupation of country assaulted many young women. Most were sent to prison or back to the states from a deal made with the Japanese. The poor little Emmett tills father was convinced and executed grave in Germany. For assaulting many young girls a young as 9 same thing in Vietnam. Black troops had to be watched while raiding villages . Google it it's all their in print.war was open season on young girls. Several black soldiers in Vietnam were taken care of by fellow personnel. Executed for grape... pretty bad RUclips allows drag queens to groom children but the" R" word will get you banned
What a story !Thank for your service Sir & God bless!
What a true American patriot. Thank You Sir, for sharing your story, very informative an inspirational!! God Bless
Welcome home and thank you
Welcome home, thank you so much for your service 👊🏻🇺🇸
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.
Thank you Thornell for your service. I truly enjoyed your share.
Thanks Mr. Billingslea, you're an amazing man, and a true American hero.
Great Story! True Hero!
This Man! Is outstanding! G-d Bless him.
God bless you soldier, so glad you came home.
Awesome!
Really nice guy. He could become friends with anyone. Decent man.
Amazing
Great guy!!
God Bless you, Mr. Billingsea! Very interesting and well conducted interview.
Thornell..thank you ...young man...
Can thank you enough for your service and loyalty to your fellow Soldiers. God bless you.
Thank you Sirs, shared!
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🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇
A good and decent man. A real trooper
Thanks Thornhill you are a inspiration and a credit to all who served in vetnam
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
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!
god bless u mr.b! from the 9th div/ 11tha.c.r.!80's!!
Thank You for your service sir
Thank you sir.
Wow.What a brilliant bloke. What an example. Good on yer Mr.Billingslea. Top man.
This man is a hero!
What a gentleman 🙏. God bless you and your family. Regards from Rome🍀
Well done, sir! Much respect and thank you for your service.
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
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
What an awesome story and an awesome person. I salute you and thank you for your service
Welcome home, thank you Sir, God bless you all..
Thanks for for u wavering service,USA
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
“Their example of manhood” what a great statement & way of putting it. We think the bar is set high for us as men now, smh.. It’s nothing compared to the standard that these men had to live up to. Thankyou for your selfless bravery.
Great Interview! Thank you Thornell for sharing your experience as a soldier … Wow ! I salute you sir and “welcome home” !
Thank you Sir.
Outstanding diaglogue. Very illuminating and a great ammount of information that gives a great picture of the man and the times.
A GREAT MAN!!!
Thank You.
Great interview! God bless
What an incredible warrior...and exemplary human being! Intense story.
Thank you sir true valor great man my Hero thank you so much
" 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, Thank you Sir, God bless you ALL...
Enjoyed your interview. . Continue helping others.. One day the wars on this earth will cease.
god bless you sir.
Thanks Thornell
Proud of this man 👍👍👍👍
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.
I think the guy “new “ guy who survived also has a video on RUclips that I watched today
War sucks. Sorry. What a good story buddy, thx. Very brave of you.
Welcome home soldier .... God job
Yeah I took that train to Knox and being a Michigan boy from Lansing
Sky Soldiers brother . The Rock
OEF VIII Battalion Mortars
2-503 HHC
OEF X
2-503 ABLE CO SPARTANS
I served in the 9th infantry division in 1968.
this was uploaded in 2020? why does the quality look like an FMV cutscene?
Thank you for your service.
God bless you.
When I was in boot camp there was a guy that kept pissing his bed every night until he was discharged under medical conditions.
Welcome Home brother
Sorry wrong comment meant for a DRUMMER Steve Moore THANK YOUR SERVICE SIR LT BAGGYPANTS U.S ARMY PEACE OUT
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
Those bunker and tunnel tunnels were there since WW2😢
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
He got a bronze star is all... Really? This man deserved a DSC at least.
Godbless
Will smith could play this guy in a Vietnam war movie. It’s uncanny how much they look a like. Also a great interview 👍🏻
Hero
Why are all these guys from Michigan?
I was gonna make an insanely stupid comment, but there's enough of those already.
That Sgt sitting on that trail with the 60 , left those men stranded…….
He's speaks and sounds a lot like Colonel West.
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 !!!!!!!
I want to know did you make friends with the puppy?
Do You remember Sam Hill Sir?
Train the interviewers not to say "um-hmm" and "okay" after the veterans answer a question.
exactly....
@@danthedewman1 - I don't blame the interviewer, because if the interviewer did not receive training, it's the fault of the sponsors who set up the interview. These are important video documents of historical importance, and the interviewer, with some exceptions, should only be asking questions. I saw one interview, where the veteran would answer a question and then look into the eyes of the interviewer to see if his question was good enough to merit an "okay".
You're being hypercritical. The interviewer did a great job!
@@MikeJones-hc1gw - Explain to me the meaning of "okay" as stated by the interviewer quickly after the answer of the veteran. What effect does it have on the interview?
OK, you're lookin' for a win. You wanna hear you're right. Ok, you're RIGHT. The interviewer stunk. Please conduct all interviews; you're infallible. You spread so much positive energy. I'm impressed. G'bye, Hero!
Man let this guy tell his story! to many questions
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.