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Chetek veteran's photos to be preserved at museum
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| By: Anita Zimmerman |
November 10, 2009 |
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A friend snapped a photo of Fredrickson driving through a giant mud puddle (right). Both pictures were taken during the rainy season in 1965.
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Ask Harold Fredrickson what he thought of Vietnam, and he'll say it's a beautiful country.
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Unlike veterans whose memories are suffused with images of combat, he remembers the spectacular countryside and the beauty of the French-Indochinese people.
Before he left for Vietnam, Fredrickson aspired to a career in photography and a job with the United Press International or the Associated Press. Unlike the other men in his unit, he brought a camera along during his 40-month deployment.
Other than friends who were drafted to snap photos of him, "I'm the only guy that took pictures," he recalls.
Fredrickson served in Vietnam from March to November 1965. In total, he served a three-year term in the military, then another four months on a Convenience of Government order.
"We were the first aggressor forces that made a beach landing in Vietnam," he says. "Our landing craft dropped us on Red Beach just north of Da Nang with air and naval gunfire support-just like a John Wayne movie. We dug in at a cemetery and waited for further orders. We caught choppers to the demilitarized zone in Hue. Saw the enemy and I wanted to call in a fire mission. I was a forward observer. We were not allowed to fire because they were deemed not hostile. An interesting fact at this time, it was a court martial offense to have a loaded weapon without authorization."
He likens occupation to visiting someone's house or hosting a guest's stay.
"How do you want to be treated?" he asks.
The average annual income in Vietnam was $14, and GIs made $69.50 per month. Vendors "picked up on capitalism" pretty quickly, incrementally increasing the prices of their wares.
"We made friends with the local people. They liked GIs ... We purchased Coke for five cents but was $1 with ice by November 1965. Nothing like dollars to stimulate a friendship. We got along well. Language was a barrier, but we always understood."
Of the enemy, Fredrickson remembers encountering double agents but not finding out about it until afterward.
"We had Vietcong in our outfit Second Battalion Third Marines as scouts along with the barber and interpreter, but we did not know they were Vietcong at the time. It was very hard to identify the enemy," he recalls. "Vietcong were such small people-they're like kids."
Before his unit moved out, some soldiers signed fake names and "finked out" on their IOUs to local vendors. "It's all about money," he concludes. He speculates that relations between GIs and the Vietnamese might've soured after more of such incidents.
When Fredrickson got out of the service in June 1966, "Veterans weren't really well-received," he says. He went to Ferris State College in Michigan, met wife Gail and studied building construction and marketing. They had three children, and he worked in the lumber industry.
Photography remained an interest, despite the divergence from his original career plans.
He adds, "My family has always thought I had taken some outstanding photos while in Vietnam."
Those photos-of thick jungle vegetation twice as tall as men, children riding water buffalo, women selling fish, sandy beaches and sunburned soldiers-were packed away for years, like Fredrickson's ambitions, until this spring.
That's when he and Gail started the archiving project that became a potential museum exhibit.
"My daughter-in-law Kathy [Fredrickson] was familiar with the Vietnam veterans project at the Veterans Memorial in Madison and thought my photos and other material would be a great addition," he explains.
Kathy contacted Gayle Martinson, of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison, and Martinson agreed to preserve Fredrickson's photos and an oral history.
His story is all the more notable because Dickey Chappelle, Wisconsin native and famed female war photojournalist, interviewed his unit before her death in 1965.
"She went on a search-and-destroy mission with our outfit," he says. "She acted like just one of the grunts. Never complained about any of the conditions. She was the best connection with news from the U.S. She died in action shortly after I met her while traveling with another unit."
Chappelle's photos and biography are on the Wisconsin Historical Society's Web site, www.wisconsinhistory.org/topics/chappelle.
In sharing his story with the museum, Fredrickson hopes to keep memory of the conflict alive.
"It is part of our history. And as years go by, people need to remember the Vietnam War-although I think it was technically a conflict. Never forget all those who sacrificed their lives for this cause. As a foreign-born U.S. citizen, I feel grateful to the nation for giving me the grateful opportunity to serve this country. HOO-RAH."
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©The Chetek Alert 2009
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