 Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland Public Television with host Ray Gildow. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airports serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport for information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tech Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at niswatex.com. Hello again everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents. We're tonight we have an unusual event, unusual for me and this is my 11th year of doing this show and we've been running a series on PBS about Vietnam and I had an opportunity to invite a friend of mine here this evening who is a Vietnam veteran who is involved in combat and I didn't really know if I should ask him to do this. I didn't know if he would be comfortable doing it and just for the record he has never publicly gone anywhere and talked about this before so it's kind of it's a first for Lakeland Public Television and it's first for us and my guest this evening is Buford Johnson who as I said is also a friend of mine a fellow bowler although neither one of us are going to brag about bowling but Buford has a very very interesting background before we talk about his Vietnam experience. I want to just give you a short synopsis of some of the things that he has done in 1967 he uh he enlisted in 1960 I believe 60 and he left Fort Benning and was employed by Mankato State as a political science instructor in 1968 he ran for the U.S. Congress in the sixth district he was the endorsed DFL candidate in 1969 to 71 he worked for the Center for the Study of Local Government at St. John's University in 1972 he was selected to attend the Army Command and General Staff College and where is that located Fort Leavenworth Fort Leavenworth in 73 to 82 he sold real estate in 1982 he became a financial planner and in 2015 he became what do you call yourself a farmer a gentleman farmer a gentleman farmer and he now raises chickens and he's got a couple of mules and he's living the good life but he has an incredible story about Vietnam and let's just maybe back up to before you went into the military you had an interesting plan of what you were going to do I was going to be a monk I wanted to be a monk out of St. John's and that worked out quite well up until about I was I wasn't working quite well until they said I don't think you fit here and they asked me to leave so I went to college at St. John's I finished off there I I had a rifle team at the time and I was on the rifle team I had a couple other friends that were on it and anyway we used to beat the ROTC team quite bad on the rifle range and I get a call from Colonel Lorimer at St. John's who's what they call them command head of the ROTC program you want to know why it wasn't ROTC I said I don't qualify first couple years I was in the seminary and he worked out a deal with me and I love deals and you know kind of a trump thing anyway the the deal was this I wouldn't have to attend class I wouldn't have to do any grilling he wanted me to organize an ROTC team he wanted to beat the University of Minnesota I would have match ammo that we could use on the college team are these handguns or are they rifles these are rifles 22 rifles okay and but I would have to take all the exams and there was no cheating on the exams it with me it was on the up and up there and he had a sergeant that was sponsoring the or that was overseeing the rifle team ROTC rifle team and the sergeant was working with me on on so I could read the material and he would review things with me and then I'd take the exams but no drill no nothing and it worked out pretty good we we beat the University of Minnesota and so I'm in ROTC and where was your hometown where St. Claude oh you were born in St. Claude okay and anyway make a long story short my senior year we came in second in the nation got beat by Nebraska and it was my fault that we got beat because the spotter shot him I had about three rounds to go and he said boy and I'm shooting off hand he said keep it up he said you've got a perfect score going I put the rifle up and I couldn't even I couldn't even find the bull you're just like buck fever yeah I think I blew the next one and got some points in the next two and we lost by one point in Nebraska but just took second into the nation yeah yeah but anyway yeah and I jokingly say well I I left the seminary and I went into the army because the hours were the same up early in the morning but I never thought I'd really enjoy the military I felt my intent to start with I went to Port Riley Kansas for a summer training with ROTC I did quite well there and I came back and decided I wanted to go regular army and I remember you can't do that I was supposed to go six months as a reservist they said no I I qualify for RA regular army and I went in and as a regular army officer so did you start out then as a second lieutenant and uh Fort Benning did you go to Fort Benning no I I got there but I went to Fort Benning I went to jump school ranger school okay and I was assigned to a shouldn't say this either I guess but assigned to a the 12th infantry at Fort Riley Kansas the big red one and they were on their way to Korea and unfortunately I got caught in a place off limits with the commanding general's daughter oh and now remember the following morning on a Friday Saturday morning at five o'clock I didn't go with six o'clock we had formation and uh I got a call to go talk to Colonel Belier with his name a big red about six with six six seven big guy I walked in and he said lieutenant two ways to become well known on this post one is to do an outstanding job the others just grew up royally you're well known on this post this is the following morning wow he says you're well known on this post at this time and you haven't been here long enough to do an outstanding job so take it for what it's worth go back to your unit and wow and then shortly after I was transferred to uh to Germany and I found out that general officers can transfer somebody for their own good oh and I understand his daughter had gotten some other officers in trouble wow so I wasn't the lone ranger there so you went to Germany and I went to Germany and now you ended up in special forces yeah I had no idea what they were I thought it was special services we passed out volleyball oh really yeah and anyway uh I went in and I walked in and they started talking you know they I was supposed to report they had a helicopter pick me up out of Grafman beer um to go to Bod Tolst and what's going on I mean um I thought my escapade in Fort Riley was catching up with me and uh I walked in this room and people in the room were talking Polish to me and I well I I knew it was Polish but I don't speak it my grandfather in the relatives came from Poland and um so I told them like you know I I know you're talking Polish but I don't speak it they want to know if I would join special forces I'd have to be a volunteer like I don't know what it is and you got to tell me we can't it's classified oh really so we went round and round on this and then basically what I was going to get was an assignment to a Polish study team you know I would learn Polish and they had a whole network of things but if the balloon went this cold war the balloon went up into Poland we would have gone and so yeah that sounds interesting so I took it and so did that require a lot more rigorous training well you go through a whole gamut not only rigorous but see what they made a lot of special forces into like a ranger unit basically what they are is highly qualified individuals that can train somebody else our mission was to train others others and um I wasn't in the unit very long in the Colonel Simpson I don't know why but it took a liking to me he was a C team commander ended up in his operations office and then he was assigned the mission of developing counter-insurgency doctrine for the armed forces and so I went with him and we did a lot of a lot of traveling checking on special forces teams that were committed now was your rank still the second I was uh I was that time uh yeah I was no I just made first lieutenant okay so I was probably a junior I know I was a junior officer in the operation and there weren't very many Americans I mean a native born most of them were a lot of Finns Lithuanians foreign-borns I had a so I worked with that had served in seven different armies that one you know at time he was a saboteur wow during world war two and so it was an interesting group of people but I got traveled to the Middle East into Africa and Southeast Asia so what was the next adventure for you then after that experience I volunteered out of special forces to stay in Vietnam as an advisor uh when I saw what was going on in Southeast Asia it was uh I realized Vietnam really needed some help some help what what year would that have been roughly that would have been uh well the first time would have been about 63 then at 64 65 because I think it was in June of 65 that it really started to gear up really well it was prior to that um actually the first before my time but when the war transitioned from guerrilla war to a conventional war and we never our whole American structure never adapted to the fact that we weren't fighting insurgents the insurgents or the guerrilla thing was a tactic used to keep us spread out and didn't want us to mass our forces because it became a conventional war I think of 1960 when they when the Viet Cong unit in the south in the Delta area um didn't fought a vietnamese south vietnamese battalion and defeated it and the realization at that point for the vietnamese was that this we're now in a conventional war wow and but the americans never accepted that I don't understand um we were doing our study on counterinsurgency and um that was really uh you know disguised for for a conventional war so what the what the um what the guerrillas were to do or the insurgents were supposed to do was harass us so that they could build up their their hardcore forces so in I think it was January of 65 early the late part of 64 the 305 being north vietnamese division uh hit and uh the vietnamese were able to stop them but they came in through the bambitut area with with a with a full division and there were other uh regiments that came through and you know conventional forces but we were training the south vietnamese to fight guerrilla war and you know the supposed to you know pacify the villages and this type of thing it really wasn't what the war was about and uh what people don't realize ho chi men was a genius I mean it was a uh unbelievable organizer and uh his uh general uh with a gap yep general gap um was a tremendous statistician I mean this guy knew how to how to fight a war but they also understood the most important weapon that we that they had was was propaganda and to the point in infiltration and they did a beautiful job of it um it must have been really tough for soldiers not to know who was the friends and who were the enemies I mean that was just something to dealt with all the time you know the word you know the vietnamese language is interesting uh bond and bond and I don't know which one is which I mean in terms of the accent one one when bond and his friend and bond is shoot oh really I mean the words are close but for for vietnamese they could pick it up on the accent on it but I couldn't understand it so when I heard somebody holler bond I I just ducked wait and see what happened but uh no there is an interesting situation uh you but you didn't know if you know when you're dealing with the vietnamese you know you're right which what or who's who right you get to you get to know the individuals but um you know what you didn't want to do is you didn't want to go into a village with by yourself somewhere and have some little kid hang a grenade on you um you know anyway that happened all the time didn't it yeah it happened and uh you know you get the thing off and what are you going to do with it yeah you know you can throw it into a crowd of people yeah uh so after you came an advisor in vietnam um did you see the war developing as it was did anybody that was there did they see this oh yes escalating to the oh yeah very much so very much so um I know uh I had to be in probably November 64 um I was with a um a regiment in bonks on in the I forget the province but it was a hotbed for for the communists it was really supportive of the of the north vietnamese and we'd set up in a defensive position and we were supposed to secure highway one and to the north of us about four or five miles we had a company on a big hill and I went over there one um one evening and uh to spend time with the company commander and see how things are going and the the night I was there we went down to check the the outpost and they had landlines you know it was the telephones and we went down to check the first one see how he was doing it we got there and the whoever got in didn't cut the wire they cut the cord on the on the phone itself oh but but the uh on the first one there were two two fellows there two vietnamese and their throats were slit and and uh oh really so we we hustled we couldn't call back um we hustled over to the next one and uh their throats had just been slit and just and so we didn't much we just missed it because they were still you know the blood was still gushing out oh really yeah so you're right so we were right there and then uh the shooting started the mortars and the attack on the on the hill itself and so we were outside of the you know the enemy between us and the hill and the company commander said I gotta get I gotta back up there I said no you're not gonna make it up there um no he said I'm going up I said I'm gonna just hang hang tight right here and uh he went up and they overran the hill and and uh they were either killed or captured and and uh marched him off it but the uh company commander was it was the colonel's nephew I guess it was he was pretty upset about it and but uh they hauled him off I don't know whatever happened to him never did here never did here no wow but just from a point of view a mental process you know when I should have been scared I mean I should have been afraid yeah I don't remember feeling afraid but I do remember thinking that well I would really admired the skill of the enemy you know it's saying well they did you know these are remarkable well trained individuals that that's what they did is not easy to do I mean they're usually there's it should be a sound or somebody would have fired around or something but it was redundant stealth yeah the all stealth and uh so we weren't we weren't dealing with amateurs we were dealing with professionals and uh so how did you go from uh being an advisor then and did you end up being in charge of a platoon no no I was never in charge you never were in charge so you how did you end up in your actual combat experience and when you had your well we I was with the unit when we got engaged in combat okay and you were still an advisor and did you have south vietnamese in that unit plus americans well I had a I had a team of uh five people oh okay I had a radio operator I had a lieutenant sergeant and uh usually an interpreter but uh it was amazing because a number of vietnamese that spoke english or some english and I tried to speak speak vietnamese tough language to learn as well it was tonal yeah and right now I have a hard time hearing much less being able to handle the floor so was it that unit that you were with then that ended up getting separated from someone else that you ended up being well we went up this is later on we were up in the highlands and um it would have been west of bammie to it and uh the unit I was with just when I my last tour over there I uh we could overrun by the north vietnamese division we didn't know we first we engaged a reinforced company and it was the advanced company advanced force for the for the division and we hit it and it delayed us while the division surrounded us a whole division surrounded you yeah yeah and we got trapped and how many were there in your group that were trapped well it was a 45th regiment so it was a good size unit but and then how long were you actually trapped in this environment well we fought and I remember uh colonel bah when we realized what was going on we we were looking for reinforcements and we couldn't get them because they were tying everybody up uh all over the country and that was their strategy yeah and um couldn't get the support we needed and but when they when they decided to come in I remember telling them on my channel telling them don't don't come in piecemeal come in with a strong force to break us out but they for some reason piecemeal they didn't believe that there was that large a force up there because there was no intelligence indicating the force was going to be there wow and so it was a total surprise and how long were you actually surrounded there in that environment it was about 30 days 30 days yeah and you don't have a absolute recollection of all of it I just know it because you got caught in mortar what I got in a mortar barrage yeah and uh I don't know if I had a concussion or what but uh yeah we and you said that when we were talking about this one other time you said that when they would try to radio you at night the vietcong would intercept those well we didn't dare respond to anything because then they couldn't figure out where we were because they were looking for us yeah because they uh we could monitor till the batteries ran out um what was going on and uh out of quang nai that we had a intel officer there as a major and I don't know what his name was but fortunately um but he kept telling the helicopters that you know we're still missing 10 americans um is that how many were left of you there yeah 10 yeah and uh see it was yeah my advisory team and another advisory team from us another battalion but um you know we haven't found it 10 americans yet keep your eye out for him well every time he say that in the open on the air that told the vietcong you were there yeah well they they'd come looking for us wow and could you hear them at night were they ever close enough so that you knew there were somewhere oh yeah yeah yeah real close with them one time they were making a sweep and one of the vietnamese are still alive saw that we were going to be caught jumped up and hollered and ran off I remember that saved your lives and ran off and the the the north vietmese ran after him of course I heard the shooting and he's out of ammo we were we were out of ammo a long time and um but but remember uh colonel bah telling the troops you know we can try to withdraw right now or we can hold hold the division here until reinforcements do come up but if we withdraw now they might put the country in half wow and every commander that was there said we'll stay and fight till the last man wow and you know this this is the vietnamese I I remember the commander of this of the battalion these are very noble yeah vietnamese military they knew they knew what the north vietnamese would do to them would do to them but um um when when I took over the advisory unit at uh with a ban me to it um the uh die with me said to me don't talk to me about tactics he said I've been fighting 12 years I fought against the french and now I'm fighting against the north he said I understand tactics I need weapons I need logistics he said you keep me supplied that's what I'm going to keep fighting wow and basically early in the war we didn't give the vietnamese not only didn't give decent weapons but uh we limited their supply because they wanted to go north you know I've never heard anybody talk about that but they didn't have the resources to do it didn't have the resources to do it and the other thing that it was interesting because they wanted to go after the north vietnamese in Cambodia and Laos they wanted this you know really cut the the supply line off uh in in Laos and the americans were just absolutely opposed to that and not only did they supply the um going down to Ho Chi Minh trail they used to ship in supplies they had camouflaged those ships like like um islands oh really yeah little little islands and uh the one out of I think without a tuiwa where they they spotted vietnamese spotted the ship and one of the air force uh vietnamese air force pilots spotted the ship because they'd come up out of the water when they unloaded wow wow well they they sunk the ship but it was already unloaded and we were rushed in to uh try to save some of the villagers because they they went into the village and rounded up the villagers to haul the stuff up into the hills and um anyway uh we were going to push after them and um we were going to use a gas now you may probably remember this in a newspaper I don't know but uh we were going to use uh tear gas and it was canisters that they were using the military police were using and they were kind of a makeshift device to spread them out but we were going to break up the hold on the civilians but we couldn't we couldn't make the attack or go after them or use the tear gas until the reporters got there wow reporters didn't show up till about 10 o'clock that they've been partying all night before and they came in about 10 well then it was too late because of the of the wind conditions everything changed we were going to kick off about six in the morning so the only people that got affected by the gas were two of our own soldiers and uh the civilians were never seen again I'm down to the last minute and we're almost we're out of time already you didn't even get to some of the key parts but so you spent 30 days in this jungle surrounded you ran out of food basically you guys were skinny emancipated weren't you when you when you finally were rescued I think I weighed in at wall to read at 129 I left wall to read at 123 wow and 30 days that did that change your life that 30 days well it does it makes you think you know what's life about how important it is you know how insane war is war is the absolute insanity I I do agree with that and um you know combat is what 90 percent absolute boredom and 10 percent sheer absolute terror wow listen thank you for coming on and sharing your story it's an amazing story there are a lot of amazing stories from Vietnam and hopefully it's something we don't repeat again in our lifetime well appreciate being here thank you thank you you've been watching Lakeland Currents when we're talking about what you're talking about I'm Ray Gildow so long until next time