David Hoffman | Verbal Vietnam Vet Fought For His Freedom In 1970 @DavidHoffmanFilmmaker | Uploaded September 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This 1967 documentary clip is from a longer film that looked at Black Vietnam veterans including this speaker, Preston Lay Jr. The documentary highlighted the complex and often contradictory experiences that black returning Vietnam veterans had from white returning Vietnam veterans. Many felt that they had been fighting for a country that still treated them as second-class citizens.
During the Vietnam War, African Americans made up a significant portion of the U.S. military forces. In 1967, approximately 12.6% of the U.S. population was African American. The percentage of African American soldiers who served in the Vietnam War was roughly proportional to their representation in the overall U.S. population.
Here are some additional excerpts from this interview which includes words from Preston Lay and another Black Vietnam Vet - Akmed Lorence:
"We were in this foxhole and the CO, he was one of the most scared people I’ve ever seen doing any kind of an operation, and we were being artilleried by the North Vietnamese artillery batteries in the DMZ, the mountain areas."
"And he was speaking to another lieutenant and he was saying, “the coons are getting out of hand.” He looked over at the other corner of the bunker and he saw me, and he quickly changed his statement from “coo’ … to colored people are getting out of hand.”
"Now, right away it doesn’t make me feel like I want to help him or I want to serve his cause. And from before I didn’t have any kind of a feeling for it to start with..."
"I have been made even more angry by going to Vietnam and having to contribute and seeing Black youth die in Vietnam and still yet coming back and no one wants to listen to us; no one wants to hear what we have to say, and no one wants to do anything for us. We’re still being treated as sub-humans."
"I’ve come back from Vietnam and I’ve seen the things in my neighborhood. I walk through the alleys and the alleys are piling high with garbage. I see young children, young Black children running through the streets. They don’t have the proper clothes on. And it’s not the same old lie that their parents don’t want to work. That is not the case. The case is they can’t find jobs."
"You know, I think one of the worst mistakes that the Man has ever made is to think that we would be fool enough to be trained in warfare and still yet come back home, watch our people live in misery, die in misery, and still be stupid enough not to want to help our people."
"Now if the people on the street, the people in the so-called riots. I call them revolts. If the people in the revolts are to be shot down and killed, then I don’t think there is any brother who is going to stand around knowing what he can do and knowing what he is capable of putting out, he’s going to stand around and watch his own people get shot down."
"If a man on the street dies, I die. If this country ever decides to exterminate black people, I’m sure they are not going to exclude me because I’ve been in Vietnam. They’re going to exterminate all black people and that includes all Vietnam veterans."
"But they’re not going to do it. If the United States government were ever to pull out of Vietnam and you asked them what happened to the 80 billion dollars they spent in Vietnam. Why can’t they put it in our black communities? They’re going to say they don’t have the money. Well, where did all the money disappear to?"
This 1967 documentary clip is from a longer film that looked at Black Vietnam veterans including this speaker, Preston Lay Jr. The documentary highlighted the complex and often contradictory experiences that black returning Vietnam veterans had from white returning Vietnam veterans. Many felt that they had been fighting for a country that still treated them as second-class citizens.
During the Vietnam War, African Americans made up a significant portion of the U.S. military forces. In 1967, approximately 12.6% of the U.S. population was African American. The percentage of African American soldiers who served in the Vietnam War was roughly proportional to their representation in the overall U.S. population.
Here are some additional excerpts from this interview which includes words from Preston Lay and another Black Vietnam Vet - Akmed Lorence:
"We were in this foxhole and the CO, he was one of the most scared people I’ve ever seen doing any kind of an operation, and we were being artilleried by the North Vietnamese artillery batteries in the DMZ, the mountain areas."
"And he was speaking to another lieutenant and he was saying, “the coons are getting out of hand.” He looked over at the other corner of the bunker and he saw me, and he quickly changed his statement from “coo’ … to colored people are getting out of hand.”
"Now, right away it doesn’t make me feel like I want to help him or I want to serve his cause. And from before I didn’t have any kind of a feeling for it to start with..."
"I have been made even more angry by going to Vietnam and having to contribute and seeing Black youth die in Vietnam and still yet coming back and no one wants to listen to us; no one wants to hear what we have to say, and no one wants to do anything for us. We’re still being treated as sub-humans."
"I’ve come back from Vietnam and I’ve seen the things in my neighborhood. I walk through the alleys and the alleys are piling high with garbage. I see young children, young Black children running through the streets. They don’t have the proper clothes on. And it’s not the same old lie that their parents don’t want to work. That is not the case. The case is they can’t find jobs."
"You know, I think one of the worst mistakes that the Man has ever made is to think that we would be fool enough to be trained in warfare and still yet come back home, watch our people live in misery, die in misery, and still be stupid enough not to want to help our people."
"Now if the people on the street, the people in the so-called riots. I call them revolts. If the people in the revolts are to be shot down and killed, then I don’t think there is any brother who is going to stand around knowing what he can do and knowing what he is capable of putting out, he’s going to stand around and watch his own people get shot down."
"If a man on the street dies, I die. If this country ever decides to exterminate black people, I’m sure they are not going to exclude me because I’ve been in Vietnam. They’re going to exterminate all black people and that includes all Vietnam veterans."
"But they’re not going to do it. If the United States government were ever to pull out of Vietnam and you asked them what happened to the 80 billion dollars they spent in Vietnam. Why can’t they put it in our black communities? They’re going to say they don’t have the money. Well, where did all the money disappear to?"
