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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is

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Ken Gunner Guyer. He is a
US Navy veteran and a veteran of the

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US Coastguard Reserve. He served in
the Vietnam War and he is joining US

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aboard the USS Midway here in San
Diego, California. And Gunner, great

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to have you with us. Thank
you very much. Greg. Where were

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you born and raised there? I
was born in Denver, Colorado, raised

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in Phoenix, Arizona. Any military
history and your family key was my great

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uncle Mustang commander in the Navy Aviation
Machinists and he served on the Lexington and

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a Pearl Harbor survivor. My father
was Coastguard on Navy LSTs in the South

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Pacific. Those are the most significant
ones. What can instead to join the

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Navy? Growing up coming to San
Diego almost every summer my life, and

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spending a lot of it with my
uncle on the Navy base, and it

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just was a natural. I love
the water and love ships, and it

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was destined graduation and in boot camp. And you joined in nineteen sixty seven,

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so the war was going on at
that time. What did you expect

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as you entered the service, did
you expect to be sent to Vietnam?

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To be real honest with you,
I desired very very much to go to

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Vietnam. I volunteered in boot camp. Manning was such that they did not

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have openings in patrol boats, which
is what I wanted, so they put

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me on a oiler AO twenty two, the oldest ship in the navy.

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USS Cimarron got a little frustrated after
a few months, and a friend of

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mine got married, took leave,
and when he returned he had orders to

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Vietnam with the approval of the captain. I took his orders, and so

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how so then were you on your
way? It was I actually had to

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wait until I was I turned eighteen
years old, so I did thirty days

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leave. I did training, survival
school, and originally reported to Naval support

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activities Denaying and then to Denaying Harbor
Patrol. And what unit were you attached

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to at this point? It was
it was Denaying Harvor Patrol and our job

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mainly was to operate forty five foot
picket boats. I was striking for gunner's

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mate, so I had I was
in charge of a twin fifty caliber machine

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gun mount It was everything that I
wanted it to be. Loved being on

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the boats. Why, I don't
know, I don't know. I mean

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I got out of the Navy and
got my coastguard license and I spent forty

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five years on San Diego Harbor as
a licensed captain, So I boats were

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in my blood. So tell me
about the assignment of the boat. What

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was what was the job you as
a crew were doing, and your specific

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job. Okay, we had we
had a crew of five, and my

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specific job was gunner. We were
assigned to patrol not only Denaying Harbor and

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all of the Navy ships that were
anchored out there or doing gunfire support out

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there, but we also patrolled the
Denaang River, which took us into downtown

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Denang, and our main job there
was to search the junks that were crossing

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the river for contraband what type of
response did you get from them from the

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Vietnamese? It was that was you
know, that was expected. Didn't really

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have any incidents or anything. We
did find a Russian AK forty seven in

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a rice bowl in one of the
junks, and we arrested the two occupants.

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We did have South Vietnamese police officers
with us on the boat. What

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type of enemy presents was around there? There was really not a lot of

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obvious enemy presents. We did have
several incidents, the most The largest one

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I remember was the bridge ramp.
The ramp where the yfus would go to

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offload their ammunition and what have you. Did get hit with a couple of

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what we call sappers and basically the
whole ramp area blew up. We lost

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about ten sailors net incident, and
it was kind of shocking. But what

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it was the way it was.
Things go along and they seem, okay,

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I let your guard down a little
bit, and then this happens.

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So what was the size of your
crew on the These were forty five foot

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picket boats, and we had a
captain, an engineer, a gunner,

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and two seamen. Your nickname is
gunner. So how often did you have

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to engage with the gun Was that
fairly rare? Fairly common? How would

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you well down in denaying? It
was rare, and most of it was

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gunfire support for the Marine Corps on
the other side of the harbor. They

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would give us a coordinates and we'd
we'd lay in a little bit of fifty

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caliber rounds to help them out and
they would adjust our fire. My nickname

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really came when I transferred up to
the Quabet Patrol, which was about three

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miles from the DMZ up in the
northern part of South Vietnam. Pretty much

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action all the time, and well, I won't say all the time,

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because there was enough time in between
to put you a little on edge.

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Daytime we were escorting the supply boats
to Dongha and during the night we were

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interdiction for North Vietnamese Army trying to
get across the river. I can see

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why that would be a significant fire
spot, so talk to me about what

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that's like. That type of frequency
in combat. I almost would have preferred

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more frequency. There was enough time
in between where you kind of wondered whether

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you would react the same way.
It's the first fire fire, the very

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very first one that you remember,
and the one thing I do remember about

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it is being scolded by the boat
captain after we were done about my rate

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of fire. It was a little
a little too much, a little too

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often, and tended to get the
barrels on the machine gun a little glowing.

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But in all honesty, because it's
it's a group of people. Two

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Marines for Navy. The two Marines
augmented us with the searchlight, an infrared

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searchlight, and it was nice to
have them on board because they're training in

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how to handle weapons. I would
say much more extensive than ours was what

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were you expected to do as a
gunner? If what you had done was

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too much? What did he want
you to do? Well? It just

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judicious use of your ammunition is the
way I would put it. It didn't

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take much, just a little.
You're a little anxious your little tents.

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You're not really paying attention. You
have tracers coming towards you. You know,

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I don't know if you're really trying
to keep them from hitting you or

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what have you, but you just
you just are a little more excited.

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I would say within two or three
weeks, I was pretty calmed down.

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Did most of the enemy presents come
from the water or from the shore?

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It was definitely shoreline and there was
always North Bank. We did get ambushed

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one time. They had presence on
the South bank in two different locations and

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presence on the North Bank in two
different locations. So when we the standard

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procedure once anything would happen would be
to clear the area and then get all

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of the equipment that we're going to
be using to rendezvous and make our firing

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runs. So U the one time
that they were on both sides of the

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bank, we got a little bit
snookerd and we called in close air support,

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which we received from the South Vietnamese
Air Force A one sky raiders,

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and they took care of them.
How wide is the river? So how

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far apart were view from them as
they tried to ambush you? Well,

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the narrowest part of the river,
which is where they were, not like

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what's down in the in the Mekong
Delta at all. These are these It's

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a pretty wide river. I would
say it's probably at the narrowest part maybe

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an eighth of a mile wide,
to the widest part maybe a half mile

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to you know, it was it
was a wide river. It was the

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banks weren't that overloaded, so it
wasn't at all the delta. Um they

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had plenty of brush to to hide
themselves in. But these these were primarily

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North Vietnamese Army regulars. These were
not What kind of protection did you have

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on the boat as you're exchanging fire? For me, it was there were

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there were twin armored shields on either
side of the weapon, and then we

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had flat jackson in helmets. What's
the most harrowing um experience that you had

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was at the ambush? You know, I don't I don't recall something that

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would that I would describe that way
harrowing um. It it became not routine,

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but it became a matter of how
we operated once once an engagement would

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start. So it wasn't as bad
as as you might think. But I

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really can't don't remember anything that just
kind of stands out. What kind of

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speed would you be going on a
patrol before you would be engaging, Probably

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probably between as slow as four knots
too, maybe ten or twelve. And

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how fast could you reload your weapon? I had quite a few boxes of

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fifty caliber ammunition right near me,
so as I was getting low, resupply

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was actually pretty quick, so I
got pretty good at it. And how

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how did the communication work on the
boat since it was forty five ft long?

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Could you all pretty much holler to
each other or did you have different

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ways of communicating especially when things got
a little heated. Now, the boats

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up in Quaviette were actually about thirty
two feet. They were the old LCpl

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steel boats. Probably saw action in
Normandy, so loud engine, loud gunfire,

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anybody that needed to get anybody's attention
could I got direction quite a bit

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from the skipper. We have pretty
good communications. As you think back on

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your service, what specific events come
to mind when you think back on those

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years. Is it that for a
skirmish like you mentioned, Is it another

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instance? Is it when you finally
laugh? What moments are most vivid still

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in your mind? The one that
and I still am in touch with members

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of my gun gang on the USS
Jewett, the last ship I was on,

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our Captain Sam Gravely, great skipper
enjoyed being part of his crew.

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Sam found out when we were down
in Wellington, New Zealand, that he

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was admiral select He was the first
Black to make admiral in the US Navy,

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and that pretty much stands out as
something that was very significant in our

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career because it was it was not
just that he made admiral, but it's

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it's the fact that our captain made
admiral and he definitely deserved it. What

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made him a good captain poise,
calm, cool, He was a large

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man, I remember him sitting on
the stern of the Jewet and when we're

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in port in Hong Kong and fishing. But he was a good six foot

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six barrel chested, you know,
very imposing. I do remember one incident

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where he was on sitting in the
captain's chair on the bridge and there was

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a Russian troller in the way of
one of the aircraft carriers that was refueling.

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So we were sent to kind of
engage the troll and let him know

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that we'd appreciate him to move.
And it's just the way he uh,

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you know. We he loaded up
the missile launchers, he had the five

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inch gun trained on the troller,
and we went as close as we possibly

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could and sending messages to the trawler, you know, it's time for you

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to leave. And he just sat
in that chair like he was, you

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know, casually watching the sunset and
very calm, very cool. I assume

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the troller moved, Yes, yeah, he moved rather rapidly. He didn't

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need a whole lot of extra encouragement. No, tell me more about your

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time aboard the Jewet. Jewet was
I came aboard as a third class petty

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officer and was put in charge of
a three inch fifty gun mount. We

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did a lot of a lot of
gun drills and things like that, so

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I got to fire the three inch
quite a bit, and then they put

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me on as mount captain for a
five inch fifty four. With that one,

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it seems to me we did a
couple of gunfire supports for the Marines,

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oddly enough, right off the coast
of where I had served on patrol

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boats. In particular, we were
involved in the Sante Pow Camp raid,

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where the Green Berets had infiltrated a
Pow camp that was right next to Hannoi

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and the purpose was to rescue the
POWs. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese had

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already taken the POWs out and relocated
him to the Hannoy Hilton, so even

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though it was a successful raid,
we didn't get to complete the mission by

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getting the POWs. Were the troops
very cognizant of the POWs as the war

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one on. I'm sure you knew
about them, but was that a motivating

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factor to a win the war and
b make sure they got liberated as soon

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as possible. I don't remember it
being something that we talked about a lot

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until I got home. Once I
got home and got out of the service,

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the POWs became something that I kept
an eye on, and I was

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grateful for their release. It's been
since then. Here on the Midway.

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When I first got here, there
were four pilots that had been POWs,

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Ev Southwick, Will and I can't
remember this name, but Ev and Will

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have since passed away. And the
nice thing about it, and talking with

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Ev about the Sante raid here,
I was thinking that we had failed at

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something, and he kind of set
me straight. He said, you know,

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because of that raid, they moved
the POWs into the Hanoi Hilton and

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for the first time we had,
you know, cell mates and people that

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we could we could interact with.
So he said it was a good thing

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for us, and that kind of
made me feel better. But knowing the

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POWs here in what they went through, it it's still something that's on my

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mind. You had many different roles
in theater over there, you had you

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did you were on smaller boats and
in different parts of the country, one

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with less action and one with a
significant amount of action. And then what

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we just talked about from the Jewet
and so what did that experience do for

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you, and working with other people
and being in combat and a lot of

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different type of situations. Probably the
best thing it did for me is I

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ultimately became a San Diego firefighter,
and and I think it was it was

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the experience that I had on the
boats in different situations, both dangerous and

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not so dangerous. I think that's
what made me a good firefighter. I

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know it's what prompted me to want
to become a paramedic. And unfortunately San

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Diego did not have paramedics in the
fire department at that time. But I

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think my Navy service served me all
the way through my life. How are

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you treated when you came home?
Well, I tell people on the Midway,

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I don't remember too much about the
day to day patrols that I went

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on. I can think real hard
and picture them, but I remember every

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single step I took in the San
Francisco airport. When I came home.

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It was shocking. Here we are, we didn't know anything about this.

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We come home home, and all
of a sudden we're faced with gauntlets and

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ticket lines and people yelling at you
and calling us baby killers. I didn't

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even know where that came from.
I had captured a Russian SKS rifle and

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went through the process of getting permission
to bring it back home as a war

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trophy. Back in those days,
when you did that, you had to

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carry it out in the open.
So here I was in uniform walking through

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the San Francisco Airport with a weapon, So it drew an awful lot of

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the shouts and screams. Looking back
on it, I don't know how I

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feel about it. I don't know
what prompted America to go this route.

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So it's it's it's kind of a
confusing time, but it was not pleasant.

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I'm very glad to see that veterans
retreated a whole lot better today.

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Did it make you think any differently
at that time about your own service or

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was it just confusion over how they
got to that point where they were so

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hostile? No? No, I
never doubted anything in my service, never

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doubted the Vietnam War. I didn't
get into the politics of it. I

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was assigned to do a job,
and I did a job a gunner.

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When you think back to the different
things that you did and the impact that

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it made on the war effort,
the success along the DMZ. Hearing that

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story from the former pow about how
what you thought was unsuccessful was successful.

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You did a job, and you
did it very well. Ultimately, the

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end result of the war was not
what we wanted. But when you know

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that you did your very best,
how does that make you feel? I

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feel proud. I don't look at
it that we lost the war, I

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really don't. I believe wholeheartedly we
won every engagement. You know. It's

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it's the things that should stay out
of war that caused the problems, and

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that's the little thing called politics.
I have no regrets. I volunteered for

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everything. I asked for what I
got. As oddly as it might sound,

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I have very good memories. You
also spend time later in the US

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Coast Guard Reserve. Why did you
make that decision and what kind of things

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did you do in that role?
When I was a firefighter, the Coastguard

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had a great idea of bringing metropolitan
firefighters on board as reservists in a special

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firefighting unit that would be trained to
do shipboard firefighting in different harbors, with

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San Francisco, La San Diego,
and I think up in Seattle. It

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didn't didn't go over real big because
there weren't that many incidents of shipboard fires,

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but we report securityman. The great
thing about is I got to get

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back on small boats again doing patrols
in the bay, and I got to

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know about another service, which you
know, looking back on it wouldn't have

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been a bad alternative. I couldn't
have gotten the Navy. You were telling

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me before we started recording about how
even after that, your your your love

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for the water is perhaps the greatest
thing he took out of your time in

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the Navy. Yeah. I Unfortunately, I've lost my mobility due to age

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in Orange the exposure, and that
has put an end to my my time

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on the on the water. But
I enjoyed it. I was the chaseboat

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skipper for Team Dennis Connor during three
America's Cup up. Um. I got

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to do the ultimate in sailing.
I was a competitive sailor out on the

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bay and skipper the old twelve meter
stars and stripes here in San Diego.

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So um, Yeah, the water, the water was my life. And

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you know Midway's taken taking that over
and I get to sit up on the

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deck and watch everybody else enjoy it. That's fantastic. I didn't know about

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the America's Cup part. That's that's
about the pinnacle of sailing as you can

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get right there. Yeah, I
was. I was very pleased when Bill

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Trinkle, Dennis Connor's right hand man, asked me if I wanted to join

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the team, and I said,
well, aren't I two olds? No?

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No, I mean as chaseboat drivers, So uh so it was great.

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I was. I was back driving
a twenty eight foot inflatable which went

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every time a raceboat went somewhere.
That was the engine, so I had

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to go. We spent a summer
of ninety two in New York doing sponsorship

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fulfillment. Actually got to meet one
of our future presidents, Donald Trump,

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during that We took him out sailing. So yeah, sailing has been a

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huge part of my life. Were
you part of the team that got the

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cut back in eighty seven? No, I'm afraid not, but that's I

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do remember staying up till two in
the morning to watch that, and it

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was really great to ultimately be working
with all of those guys that did that

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fantastic event. What are you most
proud of from your time in service.

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I think probably the fact that I
participated in the conflict of the day and

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I did it as a volunteer.
I think that's important. I would like

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to see a day where anytime we
send Americans towards it's my volunteer. I

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think we'd get enough, you know. But I'm I'm I'm proud of all

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my service. And lastly, since
we're I board the USS Midway, how

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did you get associated with the museum? And what does it mean to you

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to be here every day? Oh? When the Midway came in, and

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I think it was two thousand and
six, I was managing the Marriott Marina

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just right up the street and I
saw them bring it across to the pier,

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came and inquired became a member.
And what I would do is,

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since I'm restricted to a wheelchair,
I had my lunches at the marina.

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I would get a sandwich and drive
down the boardwalk to the Midway, and

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because I was a member, I'd
go on board and eat my sandwich on

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the flight deck. When I decided
to retire from Marriott, I was up

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on the flight deck and one of
the docents that I had met asked me,

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what are you gonna do when you
retire? And I said, I've

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been active with the Maritime Museum.
Maybe I'll help them out or something.

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He just laughed. He said,
why don't you come over here and become

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a docent? So best move I
ever made my life. I can't begin

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to tell you how much it means
to be part of the Midway, the

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camaraderie, all of the people that
are on board that both served in the

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military and didn't serve in the military
and just want to be a part of

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it. Getting to know carrier operations, getting to know the pilots that were

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just streaks in the sky when I
was in Vietnam. It's been incredible.

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It's been incredible, Gunner. I
can't thank you enough for your service to

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our country, and I know it
continues as you educate people who come to

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the museum about not only the Midway
but the military in general. Telling your

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story. I'm sure for those that
let's stop to talk with you. So

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thank you for that and thank you
for your time today. We truly appreciate

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it. Thank you very much.
Thank you for doing this. Ers is

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great. Oh you're welcome. Ken
Gunner. Geyer, a US Navy veteran

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and a US Coastguard Reserve veteran,
served in the Vietnam War. I'm Greg

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Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Hi, this is Greg Corumbus and thanks

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for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a
presentation of the American Veterans Center. For

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00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:48.400
more information, please visit American Veterans
Center dot org. You can also follow

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