I interviewed Bill Furan in Tyler in January 2006 and mourned his passing in 2017. We’ve been learning about Bill’s service in Vietnam to help us better understand the impact of the Vietnam War on persons in our region.

Bill began life in Tracy, but moved to Marshall with his family and graduated from Marshall High School in 1962.

Receiving his draft notice motivated Bill to enlist in the Army in 1967. His Army training included Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; leadership training and advanced infantry training at Fort Gordon, Georgia; and Airborne School and the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) Course at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Bill’s final training involved serving as a squad leader with an advanced infantry training unit at Fort Lewis, Washington, during early 1968. While there he received assignment orders to a combat unit in Vietnam.

The Army flew Bill from the West Coast to Vietnam in a commercial aircraft filled with troops. He arrived May 21, 1968. Four days and a couple in-country flights later he arrived at his new unit, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade.

Local Viet Cong insurgents welcomed Alpha Company’s newest squad leader by firing on Bill’s in-bound helicopter, forcing him to jump 10-15 feet to the ground because the helicopter crew did not want to land under fire.

Bill explained that his company was in the field for most of his year in Vietnam, either patrolling in the lowlands and valleys or in the jungle-covered hills and peaks of the Central Highlands (GIs called patrolling “humping the boonies”) or doing combat assaults, using helicopters.

Bill’s role as a squad leader required him to prepare and lead his squad of ten men and a radio telephone operator (RTO) on both sorts of missions from his first day with his unit.

He explained the squad’s preparations for a patrol.

“(W)e’d have them in formation with their rucksack out in front. I would go through and make sure they had what they needed before we went out in the boonies. Everybody was humping at least 85 pounds counting the hand grenades and the rounds (120 rounds of M-16 ammunition), their food — a case of C-rations — and a machete, a pick, and a rifle. (It was) a lot of weight — the water alone was maybe 10-15 pounds (5-6 quarts). Of course, you’d drink it down and you’d eat it down, too. Every three days they’d come out and we’d get a hot meal and another case of C-rations each.”

If the mission was not a combat assault in helicopters, they headed out on foot, usually with the other two squads in their platoon, but sometimes with all three of the company’s platoons. Bill remembered a particular company patrol not long after he arrived.

“At night we’d set up in a circle. You’d dig in and then send out four squad patrols in every direction. We were in the lowlands and on a ridge. You could look down into the rice paddies and see an island of palm trees. That’s where this squad went and set up. It was during the harvest season and the rice was high. Viet Cong sneaked all the way around that palm-treed island and threw hand grenades in on them. The captain sent me and my squad out to get them and see what happened. These guys got it right about dark.”

Bill shared what they found when his squad reached the palm island.

“(W)hen we got there — some of them were blown to bits — three out of 11 were walking. This was the first time I and my squad saw a lot of bloody stuff and we had to spend the whole damn night there. I was begging them to send in a chopper. (They replied) ‘No, we’re not going to do it until morning.’ I made my men throw hand grenades in the rice paddies where we figured these guys had sneaked up and we fired our weapons all around, making sure they aren’t going to do that again. We didn’t have a medic with us. We did what we could to stop the bleeding, but some of these guys (were) making sounds that were inhuman — real eerie, nasty place to spend a whole night. In the morning they brought in a medevac.”

That incident left many in Bill’s squad shook up.

“Some of the guys were green (inexperienced) in my squad and they took that real hard. I had to be mean to them. I said, ‘Don’t focus on what happened to these guys ’cause you’ve got to stay alive here. You got one year here and no matter what happens, your goal is to stay alive.'”

Bill preached that message to his troops. He also took care of them in other ways.

“Most of the kids were 19 years old and they’d come to me because I was older and I was a sergeant and I was the one that kept sticking around there all the time. I worried about them. I taught my fire team leaders everything I knew. They all knew how to read maps. They all knew how to call in artillery. And these guys were just PFCs — 19 years old.”

The men of Bill’s squad relied on his steadying presence and the skills and lessons he taught them.

The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the impact of the Vietnam War on Lyon County. If you would like to help share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, please contact me at prairieviewpressllc@gmail.com or call Jennifer Andries at the museum at 537-6580.