Vietnam Vets Weren’t Always Told ‘Thank You,’ Says One Local Vet

Every year on Veterans Day, it is common to turn on the news and hear politicians and other public figures thanking veterans for their service and wishing them well.

Former U.S. Navy Corpsman Charles Barber remembered when it wasn't always like that.

"Everybody hated the whole Vietnam War," he said. "So, consequently, they hated anybody who fought in it."

Barber, a Mountain View resident who works in a call center at the Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, recalled many a day after the end of the Vietnam War when people would put him down, refuse to give him a job and, some days, even spit on him.

It wasn't until recently that Barber noticed that opinions and treatment of Vietnam veterans has improved some, particularly in the American employment sector.

"It was very hard for Vietnam vets to get a job once we got out; nobody wanted to hire us," Barbaer said. "Once they passed the law that said employers could no longer ask to see your discharge papers and had no right to even know that you were in Vietnam, then things got a lot better for us."

But dealing with public sentiment over the Vietnam War was only half of the battle, Barber said. On the other side was the American military, which had not focused on helping service members like Barber develop skills that would benefit them after their service ended. Many veterans found themselves back in the real world, looking for a job.

Barber, who helped prepare bombs for deployment on U.S. Navy ships during the war, said his experience wasn't a transferable skill once he was back on dry land.

"It was not exactly a job with a lot of potential in the civilian world," he said with a laugh.

Drafted in 1970 when he was in college, Barber recalled that when he dropped his course load from 12 units to just 10, sure enough, the draft "snatched him right up."

However, Barber said he was optimistic about entering the military.

"As soon as I got the draft notice, my buddy and I went down to the Navy recruiter's office and said, 'Sign us up,'" he said. "We went in under the buddy program, but unfortunately, he only lasted two weeks, and then I was all alone."

Barber explained that back in the days of the Vietnam War, the military had a "buddy program" in which friends could enlist together and be guaranteed to stay together throughout boot camp and going forward.

"The buddy program was supposed to make you feel less alone and make things less traumatic, help with the transition," he said. "It didn't always work, though—I got held back by some physical requirements, and he went and ended up one company ahead."

Barber says he had a little trouble finding an area to specialize in once his initial training was complete.

"After boot camp, I wanted to be a journalist, because I had been the editor of my high school newspaper," Barber said. "But that program was closed, so they said, 'You're going to be a sonar technician.'"

He was sent to basic electronics school to learn how to be a sonar technician. Unfortunately, math was never his strong suit, so he didn't last long in that program.

"So then they told me, 'You're going to sea,'" he said.

Barber was assigned to the U.S.S. Constellation, a large aircraft carrier, where he started out as a gunner's mate.

"As a gunner's mate, you take care of all the firearms on the ship. And they can be as big as those 50mm guns you see people blowing each other up with in the movies." 

In his job, Barber handled bombs every day. In a typical day on the ship, he might be asked to go down to the magazine and get 12 pallets of 500-pound bombs "so men could fly them over to Vietnam and drop them."

Barber served as a gunner's mate for about a year and then had a change of heart.

"I decided that I didn't really want to be a gunner's mate. I wanted to do something that was challenging and could help people instead of hurt people—and something I could actually keep doing once I left the service. So I sent in a request to be a hospital corpsman."

Barber's request was eventually granted, and he was sent back to the States to attend medical training in San Diego at the Navy Medical Hospital. After completing his training, he stayed and worked in the hospital for a year and then opted to take additional training to become an operating room technician.

"That's the guy who the slaps the tools into the hand of the doctor in the operating room."

Barber loved his new job. Soon after, he was sent back out to sea on the U.S.S. Samuel Gompers, a Navy Destroyer Tender. The "Gompers," as it was nicknamed, would travel constantly to repair other smaller ships. The ship would be stationed in any one location for about six weeks a time. During his time on the Gompers, Barber was stationed in such locations as Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

"I ran the sick bay," he said. "We had one doctor, who saw all the really serious patients, and the sick bay took care of everybody else—we sewed people up, did lab work, took x-rays, just about anything a doctor would do."

Barber said he might have liked to continue in the medical field once he returned to the States, after the war ended, but it just didn't happen.

"Nobody was hiring operating room technicians when I got back, and that was the only real license I had—operating room technician."

Barber hopped around from job to job for a long time, thanks to public sentiment over the Vietnam War and veterans, and the economy. He worked everywhere from hospitals, to insurance companies, security agencies and even pizza parlors.

"It was very hard for Vietnam veterans to get a job once we got out," he said.

Today, however, Barber said the VTA call center is "the best job he's ever had," and he is a happy family man. He has been married to his wife, Patty, for 38 years, and they have two children—daughter, Joy, who is getting married this weekend, and son, Matthew, who works in Los Angeles as a film editor for Warner Brothers. They have two grandchildren.

Barber is happy to see how things have improved for Vietnam veterans since his days in the Navy. Most importantly, these days, he appreciates the words "Thank you."

"Back then, after Vietnam ended, nobody would ever say 'Thank you for your service,'" he said. In fact, things were quite the opposite, he recalls. "As military came back, they spit on us in the airports."

Barber said it meant a lot to him when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger passed the 2010 law declaring March 30—the day before Cesar Chavez Day—the first annual "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day," honoring and thanking veterans such as himself for their past service.

"It was only recently that people started saying, 'Thank you for what you did, and we're sorry.'"