But wait, was it technically a war? Congress never officially declared war, so
politically; the war is seen as a "conflict" or a "police action."  Usually when you ask a veteran though, they will tell you different. Sergeant Williamson is no
exception. What all of the veterans that served overseas in Vietnam encountered was most definitely a war. Over 58,000 were killed and over 300,000 were wounded. Not conditions of a "conflict." 

  Jeffrey, Jeff, was born on August 7th, 1950, and grew up during the Cold War era.  In school he was taught about the communists and how their form of government would only lead to destruction. And the teachers had the war to use as an example. Jeff and his fellow classmates grew to despise the communists for what they had done and what they had tried to achieve. Also, because of the nuclear threat from the Soviet Union, in class, Jeff would have drills that taught him to hide underneath his desk, away from windows.

 Jeff's father served in WWII in the Air Force and he flew a Bomber airplane. His jobs included controlling the bomb as it closed in on its target. The average
survival of a Bomber was seven flights because planes would be shot down and if the passengers survived, they would most likely be shot by the enemy. Jeff's
father survived twenty-five flights and got to return home. 

  During the nuclear threat, many people were advised to build bomb shelters. Jeff's  family did not build a shelter due to the cons of having neighbors. Jeff's father was a kind man and he had five children, making it a family of seven, including his wife. If his family was to create a bomb shelter, the neighborhood would know and if an attack was made, he would not be able to turn away the neighbors. But that also meant that there would be less food and supplies for everyone to survive.  Almost every convenience store had a fallout shelter in case of an actual nuclear bombing, so the need of a shelter was not mandatory. 

  In 1968, Jeff graduated from high school and soon enlisted into the Army. Soldiers that had been in Vietnam before him would return wounded and in caskets. Knowing and seeing this only made Williamson want to join the Army even more. He wanted the enemy to get payback for wounding his fellow citizens. 

  He attended basic in Fort Jackson. When he graduated, he was a honor graduate. Of his platoon, he was the second expert shooter. He scored 68/70, making him a sharp shooter, a skill that kept him alive while he was serving in Vietnam. And because he graduated a honor student, he was promoted out of basic to a Sergeant. 

  Because of the drafts, many draftees either deserted to neighboring countries, or barely did anything in basic. There were thousands of soldiers being sent through basic to replace the soldiers coming home, in any condition. During the draft, the men that were enlisted into the military did not have to fit certain requirements to be accepted into the military. Many draftees were out of shape and couldn't keep up during PT (physical training) and some Sergeants whipped the unfit soldiers trying to get them in a good physical shape. 

  During his years of service, Williamson was offered higher officer-ship three times but answered no each time. This was because he was in charge of about fifteen to twenty people at a time. He witnessed the disrespect that some officers got by simply doing their job. He did not want to be one of those officers. Williamson preferred to be friends with the soldiers that he was in charge of, instead of a power-hungry Sergeant. 

  Before he went to Vietnam, due to political statements made by Nixon and Kennedy, he was sent to Germany to "ripen-up." In Germany, the highest temperatures were 75ºF. During the winter months his uniforms included wool long-johns and wool caps. Williamson described the wool uniforms as scratchy and uncomfortable. At their base, they did not get much shelter. They were given pup tents even during winter. The snow would melt and drench all of their gear and clothing. 

  There was not much to do in Germany because all of the citizens around their base did not want them in their country. And if the soldiers would venture to a local bar it was almost certain that a fight would break-out. The conditions of Germany were miserable. In each company there were about four-hundred to five-hundred men. While he was in Germany he begged his Sergeant to let him go to Vietnam to fight, using the argument that many of the soldiers that were going over had wives and children.  

  Luckily, and unluckily SGT Williamson got to spend two weeks at home during Christmas with his family before he was sent to Vietnam.  It was lucky because he got to spend time with his family before serving two years in Vietnam. It was unlucky because Christmas where he is from was cold. So, therefore when he went over to Vietnam, the climate changes were drastically different. In the Summer in Vietnam, it would get up to 120ºF in the shade. During the dry season, the sand and dust would stick to their bodies due to being covered with sweat. 

  SGT Williamson's job in Vietnam was field artillery and more specifically, it was
to protect and cover the convoy's that would be transporting goods to other bases. He mainly would be alone, and preferred it because if there were other men, the enemy would have a greater chance of finding not only him, but all of them. Most of the roads were lined with trees and brush, jungle life. It was Williamson's job to locate the enemy as fast as he could and take out as many as he could before they took out the men in the convoy. 

  Because SGT Williamson had to be hidden, hopefully before the enemy would arrive where the convoy would be passing he was often the first one out in the morning and the last one back in at night. Being in the jungle and crawling through brush caused his uniform to turn into rags. Often he would have no socks, underwear or t-shirts. His base was 100 miles away from the nearest base and they only got a shipment of miscellaneous uniforms once a month. Williamson would get the last picks of the uniforms, and he would be stuck with uniforms of the same condition or a little better than his own. 

  When asked if he ever got scared during his jobs he answered "Oh yeah. Sometimes you got real scared. But after a while you got tired of being scared and then you got bored." He also shared that oftentimes when he was sitting in the woods by himself, he would get to thinking that, that day could be his very last on Earth. But as he continued to think about it, he decided that if he did die that day, at least he would have lead a good life. "And," he added, "it would hopefully be fast, so you wouldn't even know you were shot."

  SGT Williamson, while being out covering a convoy, was once left out there for
three days before being picked up by his unit. He roamed around to different
places during the day, so he would not be spotted by the enemy while he slept at night. For food, he ate wild bananas off of the trees in the jungle. He was never given a radio for when he was out on his jobs, due to the possibilities of the enemy picking up the signal. He could not contact anyone to come get him; he just needed to wait for someone to remember him. 

  One thing that many veterans don't like talking about is if they had killed anyone. SGT Williamson didn't like to think about it when he was in Vietnam. He thought of it as returning fire to what was trying to kill him. The enemy constantly attacked at night and Williamson could only see the light coming off of the enemy's guns. There would be thick brush separating them. Usually when he would shoot, he was trying to warn his buddies, and drive the enemy away.  

  After seeing what the enemy did to his unit, he had mixed emotions of shooting the enemy. He would often think that if they are going to shoot at him, no doubt he'll shoot back. Today, he is not proud of those actions, because he understands that he possibly killed men his age or even younger. He often did not know if he shot, the shot being a kill shot or ending in a wound, anyone because the firefights took place at night. If he was able to find the enemy, and they were not dead, he would take them back to base with him to get them medical attention. 

  During the rainy season, when Williamson was out on a convoy mission, he had fallen asleep and was in a trench. There were dead soldiers, enemy and his own, and they were all covered in mud. His plan was to kill the enemies that came to recover their fallen soldiers. When they came, he was asleep and they believed he was dead. Luckily for him, soldiers from his unit came at the right time and saved him. 

  One thing that was unnerving was how commonly soldiers died in Vietnam. Quite a few of Jeff's friends and buddies died, while only being a couple feet away. He told me a couple stories of soldiers dying in the hands of Mother Nature, not in the hands of the enemy. A couple soldiers were patrolling in the woods and found a baby cub, and starting playing with him. They didn't mean any harm, but the cub's mother stalked them from behind and killed them both. Another time, during the country's wet season, men were making a hill more accessible to the other soldiers by moving mud and there was an avalanche. The men were buried under more than twenty feet of mud, and were unable to be dug out. 

   Jeff also had his encounters with wildlife. While he would be patrolling in the woods, he would have to be careful where to step because of booby-traps set up by the enemy. Oftentimes, he would grab on to vines hanging from trees for support so he would not fall. And also oftentimes, the vines were not vines, but snakes hanging from down from the trees. And before he could crawl under the brush to hide himself to protect the convoys he would have to poke his gun ahead of him to see if the brush was home to any snakes that would hiss and strike at him if disturbed. He also saved two leopards that kids of a nearby village were going to kill to eat. 

  SGT Williamson would not always be hiding in brush when protecting convoys. Once he was in hiding in tall grass when he was almost trampled on by a native tribe carrying a black panther back to their village. Williamson stood up and offered cigarettes to the leaders as a peace offering. They took the cigarettes and traded him a type of branch that they chewed. Jeff did not speak the same language as the villagers so they used hand gestures to communicate.  The branch was bitter, but Jeff thanked them and they left him alone to do his job.

  During SGT Williamson's Rest and Recuperation (R&R) he went to Sydney, Australia. He said that is was nice over there because the citizens actually appreciated the GI's. There weren't any slum or dirty places in the country like in Vietnam. He got to see kangaroos that roamed free and also got to hold a koala. While he was holding the koala, it got away from him by climbing onto a thin branch that was above his head. He had to help the owner get the koala back by climbing a ladder up the tree. 

  Today most people I know are very patriotic and love the soldiers and their efforts and give them a ton of credit. "Proud to be an American," right? It wasn't always like this. When the Vietnam veterans returned home, they were despised by most of the American citizens. When SGT Williamson returned home after two years of service, citizens of America mocked him and spat on him in the airports. They also shouted cruel things at him such as a baby-killer and a coward. Some citizens also claimed that the soldiers would come home only to harm them.

  Since Congress never officially declared war, The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) would not allow any Vietnam veterans to join, due to not serving in a war. During the war, politicians called the war everything BUT a war, and this angered many soldiers including Williamson. Whenever Williamson's unit would win a battle they would call it "Seizing Victory from the Jaws of Defeat."

  His unit, upon hearing that they were being pulled out and it was due to a loss of the war they changed it to "Seizing Defeat from the Jaws of Victory." Williamson believes that America did win the war, on the battlefield at least. The government just negotiated their win away. The politicians were swayed for popularity votes from the protesters, and the decision to not drop many bombs on Vietnam made the soldiers believe they were fighting a war that their country did not support them in.

  At the time of the war, Jeff strongly agreed with the cause of the war, and thought that we should have been involved because of the steadily growing communist governments and because of how aggressive they were about it.  Looking back today if Jeff knew how the country would have gone about fighting the war, he would not have gone to fight it willingly. He pointed out to me that for every one soldier killed, five
soldiers were wounded. He believes that going over to fight a war without the
country's support was useless. 

  For his service, Jeffrey Williamson was given many different medals and he could noremember what all of them were for, but one significant one that I recognized was the Medal of Valor. This medal is earned for bravery. I fully believe that Jeff earned this medal and far more than that. I also believe that Jeff did not get full recognition for what he did for this country. 

  Jeff, I would like to thank you so much for your service to this country.  Thank you for risking your life and helping me to be able to have the opportunities that I have today in this country. Thank you! 

  -Alexis Shannon