Upon hearing about President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Gene Reynolds made a startling comment about his own possible future, never knowing how immediately true it would be.
"When I heard the news on that day, Nov. 22, 1963, I said to one of my co-workers that it sounded like the communists were about to take over the world, and I told him that I thought I would soon be drafted," said Reynolds, who was 21 years old at the time.
"That same day, just as I got back home, my sister Betty handed me my draft notice."
From that point forward, Reynolds, now a 77-year-old Texas-side resident, would eventually find himself stationed with the Army's 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One) as part of one of the first ground combat units to be deployed to South Vietnam.
Born in 1942 in Sandy Town, Arkansas, not too far from Batesville, Reynolds graduated from Cave City High School in 1962. He was the senior class president.
"Cave City, Arkansas, is best known for growing the sweetest watermelons in the state - just like Hope is for growing the largest watermelons in the state," Reynolds said. "I left that area soon after I finished high school because there just weren't any jobs around there."
Reynolds moved to Hooks, Texas, where his sister Betty and her husband lived.
"My first job there was in railroad maintenance labor then I got a job in quality control as an ammunition inspector at the depot," he said. "I was still working in quality control when I heard the news on the radio about the assassination."
Reynolds soon journeyed to Little Rock and was sworn in Decemebr 4. He was sent on to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for about seven weeks of basic training. From there the Army sent him on to Fort Riley, Kansas, for additional rifle training with the relatively new M-14 automatic combat rifle - a firearm that could also launch grenades.
Upon being assigned to the Big Red One's 26th Infantry unit, Reynolds boarded a troop transport along with 3,200 soldiers and left the West Coast bound for Vietnam in September 1965. Once reaching their destination, Reynolds found out they didn't have long to wait for combat.
"Back then, we loaded up with all of our jeeps, trucks and other vehicles and our equipment and we sailed all the way across the Pacific before docking in South Vietnam," he said. "We were setting up our field headquarters and we stayed there a few days before moving up to the Ho Chi Minh trail."
This trail was a semi-clandestine military supply route running from North Vietnam slightly southeast into Laos and Cambodia. The trail was used by North Vietnam to help furnish both the regular North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong with food, men and weapons.
"The enemy started launching mortar shells against us before running away into the jungle, but we had to be careful not to shoot any civilians because the enemy would hide among the civilians and you couldn't tell them apart."
As for Reynolds, who by that time had reached the rank of corporal, his primary job involved hauling supplies and ammunition by truck to various defense locations.
"I had to help supply our units in their camps," he said."You had to fortify your position everyday with large sandbags. We had to attach empty soft-drink cans to barb wire fences and barricades so we could hear them rattle as the enemy disturbed them while trying to move in closer to us. But a lot of the time, the cans would just rattle because of the wind blowing, so we just had to stay awake all the time just to make sure we wouldn't get ambushed. We had to take turns staying on guard so the best we could do was take turns standing guard for two hours then sleep two hours. For the most part, I really don't even remember getting much sleep while I was there."
As if lack of sleep wasn't bad enough, surprise ambush by enemy snipers shooting from their tree perches also took its toll.
"I saw two of our people get shot by a sniper," he said. "One got shot in the arm and the other one just got a glancing shot to the head. I also had a friend who got shot in the hip."
Besides the combat, the thick humidity coupled with the monsoon season guaranteed Reynolds would experience both Vietnam's wet and dry seasons.
"During the monsoon season in particular it seemed like it would rain just about every 30 minutes," Reynolds said. "Just as you would dry, it seemed like you would get wet all over again. Sometimes, the rain would be so heavy we'd have to pull the trucks over by the side of the road until the rain cleared and sometimes that's when the enemy would mortar shell the back of the convoy."
Reynolds did find some lighter moments by coming to know a fellow soldier named Daniel Carmody, who was of of Irish ancestry and grew up in the Queens section of New York City.
"One day when the enemy came running out to attack our convoy, Daniel grabbed a hold of an M-60 machine gun mounted on the front of one of our vehicles. He just started firing at them and scattered their attack," Reynolds said. "He may not have been able to shoot and hit many of them, but I think he was sure able to save a lot of lives that day on our side."
Reynolds said the Army sent his unit back home by the latter part of December 1965.
"We were just part of the first 125,000 troops our country deployed to Vietnam," he said.
Eventually, there would be more than 500,000 American servicemen deployed there by 1968. Instead of taking a troopship back to the states, Reynolds flew home on a commercial airline the Pentagon contracted.
"We flew on a commercial airline and landed in San Francisco and I was glad for it because it took a lot less time to fly back," he said. "When we first went to Vietnam, we went by troopship and not only did it take longer, but we hit some sea storms and that tilted the ship and swung the galley while we were trying to eat. It also made you seasick. I was glad to be back home after Vietnam and I got my job back as an ammunition inspector at the depot."
Reynolds continued to serve in the Army until December 1969, but he continued his military service in the local Army National Guard unit from 1977 to 1979. He also served in the Colorado National Guard for a year (1979-80) as well as with the California National Guard's 143rd Maintenance Company in 1983 before going to serve with the Kentucky Air National Guard, stationed in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1985 to 1988.
Reynolds continued his air service by getting into the Air Force Ready Reserve, where he participated for four years between 1988 and 1992 as a safety specialist. It was at this point that Reynolds was transferred back overseas to Stuttgart, Germany. There, he became part of 2nd Corps Support Command, a ground forces civilian unit, where he became the commanding general's safety adviser.
From Germany, Reynolds next deployment took him to Saudia Arabia where he served with a group of 39 civilians along with 7,500 soldiers stationed there from Dec. 6, 1990, to May 5, 1991, for the Persian Gulf War.
"During that time, one of Iraq's Scud missiles landed and went off 10 miles from our headquarter's location right near the Kuwaiti border and it shook the ground when it hit. It felt like an earthquake when it hit," Reynolds said. "A second Scud missile landed and went off directly near headquarters and it shook the ground and caused 17 ground fatalities."
Within about five weeks the war ended, and Kuwait was free of Iraqi control by the end of February 1991.
"Within a few days of the war ending, some of us would be driving jeeps near Iraqi soldiers and they would all throw their hands up and want to surrender to us," Reynolds said. "But I just told the driver to keep going. When the war started, Iraq set (Kuwaiti) oilfields on fire - a fire that wound up being 10 miles wide and 30 miles long. The smoke caused by the fire was so dark you couldn't see each other. You also had to have a compass with you to find your tent because there are no landmarks in the desert. It's nothing but miles of sand and we had the sandstorms."
Reynolds and his civilian unit eventually were transfered back to the states in October 1991.
"It was good to be back home after spending six months in the desert with burning oil and dirt all around," said Reynolds, who retired from all government service in 2007. "My motto has always been safety first, safety last and safety in the middle, as well as keeping fit as a fiddle."