Mike Gibson quit school when he was 17 years old and he wasn’t about to ever go back. When his father, a long-distance truck driver, demanded that he return to school, Gibson convinced his mother to sign the release papers that would allow him to enlist in the military. That’s how he found himself already in-country Vietnam on his 18th birthday in June of 1968.
“Nobody had ever been there before except one camp commander and one sergeant,”Gibson said. They marched straight to the I-core (region) on the DMZ (demilitarized zone). Walking through a rice paddy, they were ambushed by the enemy, surrounded by 200 against 15. They lost seven men that day, and, over the course of the next three months, the 5th Division saw three-quarters of it’s soldiers dead. Despite that, Gibson continued to go on patrol.
“Our soldiers were only considered as patrol because, ‘Vietnam was never classified as a war, it was a police action,’ Gibson said. It was on yet another of these “patrols” that Gibson came under enemy fire again, and this time a bullet pierced clean through his shoulder. There was no medic. All they were issued was a small personal first aid kit and that wasn’t going to stop Gibson from bleeding out. “Our clothes were just rotten, you know? I tore off pieces into rags and stuffed them into to bullet hole, and, by the Grace of God, that kept me from bleeding to death.”
Three weeks later, still waiting for his shoulder wound to heal, a helicopter came in short a gunner and Gibson was told to get aboard. He was now a gunny for the 4th Aviation. He served in that role until just shy of 20, he went to Korea joined up with the 16th Aviation there where his MOS (Military Occupational Service) as a mechanic was put to the test.
“There was no training,” Gibson said. “You just had to figure out what to do. There were no sights. You just put a dot in the middle of the windshield of the Huey, make a run to see how far off you were, and adjust the dot.”
“I want to mention Agent Orange,” Gibson added. “It was a defoliant that they sprayed in country to destroy jungle vegetation and uncover the enemy. If you were on the ground you got sprayed. If you were putting it out by helicopter you still got sprayed. Exposure causes severe side effects like prostate cancer, like I got,” he explained, “and it causes tuberculosis.”
“Do you know why they called it Agent Orange?” he asked. Because it came in orange barrels.
