Today I wanted to share a short research project that I did in college on Vietnam War Vet, Robert Pastrana. A couple years ago, I was lucky enough to work with the cousin of X-games gold medalist, American motorsports competitor, Travis Pastrana.
I was able to attend the Pastrana Thanksgiving (which meant the entire family gathered in Travis' skate park garage and jumped out of the ceiling rafters into huge foam pits, and ate donuts). During this trip, I interviewed Robert about his life and time in Vietnam. So here it is!
Robert Layne Pastrana was born in December of 1949 in Annapolis, MD. The Pastranas are a Swiss and Puerto Rican family of eleven (six brothers including Robert and three sisters). His mother was a housewife; his father started and owned a concrete contracting business that is still operating today. In April of 1967, Robert joined the Marine Corp before he was eligible for the draft (he was still 17 and attending high school) and in July, shortly after graduation, he went to Parris Island for boot camp.
I worked for my dad all summer, every summer after I turned ten and then at fifteen I began working at a fast food restaurant, Burger King. I was definitely dating during high school which meant that you get into your friends car or your car and you hang out in a parking lot with girls and beer. It was less populated back then and people would just get together at midnight to go to some big open field to hang out. Every weekend it was the same thing, fast food and enjoying the party. It was all about fast cars and big groups of people. Then for Sundays, the whole family would sit around to watch Ed Sullivan on television.
I started hearing about the Vietnam War when I was fourteen and in the tenth grade. I can remember the seniors sitting around at school talking about enlisting and there were a lot of volunteers from the junior and senior classes. The guys that planned on just getting a job out of high school would enlist but with the college kids, it was about avoiding the war. At that time, I didn’t know anyone who had been drafted and I wouldn’t know anyone who was drafted until my return from Vietnam. All of my friends were in high school with me and you couldn’t be drafted while you were still in school. We were losing around 450 people a week to Vietnam and I thought it was admirable to join the military. I got caught up in it myself and could not wait to join.
There were two guys from my hometown that were killed in Vietnam while I was still in high school. I didn’t have any relatives who died there but these two guys stick out in my mind. However, it didn’t influence my decision on whether or not to join. I’ve just always been someone who has accepted that that is what happens in war. I’ve always been a middle of the road opinion person.
After graduation in June, I was at Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp by July. About 80% of people in Parris Island were volunteers and about 20% of all the guys were avoiding jail time. Back then, you could avoid going to jail for something that wasn’t too major if you went into the military. I went to a mandatory school called Infantry Training Regimen (often referred to as ITR). If you were in the Army, you went straight to your specialized area after boot camp. But for the other military areas, you had to go to infantry training where you learned about war preparations and get specialized training. My Infantry Training was at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. While I was there, there was a mandatory test and no matter which job you volunteer to do, whatever the test says, you do it. My test said I would be an equipment operator, so I learned how operate the bulldozers, heavy equipment, etc.
After my equipment training, I volunteered to go to Vietnam and I was sent to California for another Infantry Training program. The program lasted 21 days, 7 days a week and was meant to re-familiarize everyone with the weapons from ITR. In Vietnam, 80% of people there were volunteers. Most just wanted the excitement, you don’t go to fight for your country, you go to fight for your friends and that’s where my friends were going. There were a lot of questions like what’s the right thing, why are you at war? Well, my answer was, it should be fun.
I spent 12 months and 20 days (from December 1968 to December 1969) in Vietnam, stationed about 60 miles south of Da Nang, and there were some good memories and some bad memories. You know, when you are standing next to a truck and all of a sudden, it blows up, it leaves an imprint on you. It’s going to be something that you remember but not something you think about at night. It was his turn, not yours. At night, we slept in 26-man tents inside of the outpost. We didn’t have bathrooms, we had burn barrels and usually about 3 or 4 nights a week we would have a warm meal, other than that we ate C-rations. During the summer, it was around 130 degrees. It was so hot that you couldn’t touch metal. Then there would be two or three months of monsoon rains and it would rain every day. When it was raining, it was cold. You’d have wet socks, wet shirts and the gear wasn’t great, it wasn’t waterproof. The good thing about the rain was there was less action, less incoming rounds, just less everything.
Most of the day consisted of building supply routes for troops that were farther up the mountains, we were always driving supplies up and down Route 1. One guy would be driving and the other guy would sit behind him with an m60 machine gun in case of enemy fire. You’d see those old cowboy movies and then all of a sudden, you’re in them. Sometimes a truck would run over one of the Vietnamese children and you would have to sit down with an elder from the village the child lived in and discuss the situation. They were always nice, especially considering the way we forced ourselves into their lives. The Vietnamese children were pretty fun and very war smart. They would come to us and say, “Vietcong come, you go.”
Nighttime in the outpost was usually when we took fire. It was very active at night with lots of incoming rounds. I remember having to learn how to sleep; it doesn’t come very natural with constant noise and constant motion. We also had to go on patrols at nighttime and we took a lot of fire then too. It wasn’t like the civil war battles when you can see your enemy, they were always hiding and they were very smart at guerilla warfare. It was mayhem at night, but it was trained mayhem. We also had the Medivac, so any injuries sustained were taken care of very quickly, there usually wasn’t anything major.
In Vietnam, we got mail about every ten days and each time we got mail I received ten letters. When I left my mom cried and my dad called me a damn fool but both of them were proud of me. When I got back home, the response was all positive from everyone. My family had a sign up in the front yard when I got home and the local newspaper did an article about me. I didn’t experience a negative response from the public, but if you wore your uniform or if you went looking for an argument, you could find one easily. After my return, I got 30 days of leave and then went back on base for awhile. The war was still going on but I was done.
In 1970, the Kent State shootings occurred and I remember it very clearly. My first thought was good, maybe this will slow down some of the protest. I didn’t take personal offense from it and I didn’t know any protestors but I had seen them. It never made sense to me to get into the political part of the war. If I’d had a friend that wanted to protest, I would have told him “go, you dumb bastard.” However, what Jane Fonda did should be punishable by death. She provided hope and inspiration to the enemy. Protestors did that too but that was their right. Also, I did know some guys that tried to avoid the war but they did it by going to college. I didn’t mind that, if it makes them smarter and they come out and get a better job because of it then more power to them.
As for politics, like I said before I’m a middle of the road opinion person. While I was in Vietnam, Johnson was president. A lot of soldiers didn’t like that Johnson was calling the shots in Vietnam because Johnson was not a soldier. We would tell him what was needed in the war and he would do half of what we asked. We’d ask for big bombs, he would send little bombs and that’s frustrating when your friends are out there dying. Then, when Nixon took office, he ended the war in the worst possible way. What did our soldiers die for? If you get your ass kicked and you lose, that’s okay. All we had to do was fight it hard and win it quick. It was ridiculous to think that the United States would not win in Vietnam.
Robert Pastrana still lives in Annapolis, MD today, right beside the house where he grew up. He and his brothers also still work for the company his father started when Robert was a child. He has left me with a sense of admiration I have never experienced before. I feel lucky to have been able to speak with him and hear his story.
One of the things I love most about historical research is the difference of opinion. Obviously, Robert was there, fighting, in Vietnam; whereas, I was not even thought of yet. In fact, my mother hadn't even graduated high school yet. But through my studies, I have formed my own opinions of whether or not going to Vietnam was the "right" route for the United States. As Robert said to me, he believes that it was ridiculous to think the United States would not win; but I disagree with him. We fought for years, and we lost roughly 60k men. The Vietnamese suffered 300k deaths and were still fighting. They do not value life the way we do in America. Communism does not pity the masses. But in reality, neither does Capitalism, it's just different. Let me know your thoughts.
