A Vet’s Story – William Freer

Vietnam – To Hell and Back

Shadows. Coming toward us. Stay still. Thump. Thump. Sound of footsteps? My own heartbeat? Louder. Louder. The enemy: a 10-year-old boy holding two grenades. My God. Shoot him or the whole battalion gets wiped out. No time to think. Not even one second. Wave of nausea. Severe smoke. Silence.

This is one of the nightmarish memories that haunts the daily life of Vietnam War veteran William Freer. Having been in the U.S. Marine Corps for six years during a time of much international disunity, his memories are as equally limitless as they are devilish. Although he tries to smother them, the effort is futile. The memories always seem to spark.

“When you’ve been in hell once,” Freer said, “you never want to go back there again.”

Although out of the service for 39 years, Freer’s only physical attribute that gives away his age is his salt and pepper hair, cut short. His broad shoulders and athletic physique are evident through his black jacket. His well-defined jaw bone and blue sunglasses make him look as tough as nails.

With his mind cluttered with graphic images, Freer’s military stories start before the Vietnam War. They start before the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and they even start before special training. They start in boot camp, September 1961.

After graduating in 1961 from Phillipsburg High School in Phillipsburg, N.J., the 18-year-old athlete enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. In high school, Freer was a football player and a track star and was in top physical condition. However, after spending time at Parris Island’s boot camp training in South Carolina, his athleticism increased exponentially. Twelve weeks later, Freer graduated from Parris Island.

Camp Pendleton, Calif. December 1961: RECON Battalion Training

Freer woke up to a new world of strangers, tight quarters and intense physical activity. The 11-mile platoon run with 42 men was the worst of it. They ran uphill, downhill, through the mud and in the rain. Everyone had to come through the goal posts at the end. Men stumbled through, men were dragged through and men were carried through. It didn’t matter. Looking around, Freer thought to himself, “What the heck did I get myself into?”

Freer said that after a while, he learned why the training was so extreme.

“They separate the men from the boys,” Freer said. “They want you to understand the meaning of discipline. They want you to understand the meaning of respect and they want you to learn that before you give orders, you have to take orders. That is what the Marine Corps is all about. Like my drill sergeant said, ‘We’re gonna make you or break you.’”

Kaneohe Marine Corps air base, Hawaii. January 1963: Guerilla Warfare Training

“Uncle Sam sent me to some good places,” Freer said with a smile. Kaneohe was one of them. However, the training in Hawaii was grueling and competition between battalions was fierce.

It was a track and field meet. It was a major event, four runners to each battalion. The company commander held the attention of all of the gathered battalions.

The commander barked, “It is a three mile race and the track is a quarter of a mile long, but…” At attention, Freer stared straight ahead, he knew there was a “but,” there is always a “but.” The commander continued, “The second bend is called Nicotine Bend, and once you get down a little farther, you’ll come across T-Bird Straightaway. If you smoke, you’re gonna be suckin’ wind at the second bend, because the wind hits you in the side of the face. If you drink, you’re gonna be blowin’ wind down on the straight away because the wind hits you directly in the face.”

Freer didn’t want his “gas tank to go empty and to end up getting dragged across the finish line,” so while everyone was on liberty, he sniffed out the course like a bloodhound. He started off by walking around the course to see just when the wind would start up. He walked around again. Again. He started picking up some speed. He figured out which direction he should turn his head to avoid the wind. Once it came to race time, Freer was prepared. After finishing three miles in 14:32, Freer finished 20 yards ahead of the competitors, and led his team to first place.

After the race, the company commander approached him.

“Lance Corporal Freer,” the company commander said, “You’ve got yourself a 96 hour pass. Go do whatever the hell you want to do and have a good time. I saw you working your butt off when everyone else was on liberty so that you could come in first.”

Freer agreed that he worked hard to enjoy his liberty. “I didn’t go to the picnic and have chicken sandwiches to get that pass,” Freer said. “I had to go out and really work hard to earn it.’

Freer’s attention to detail and tediousness would be useful, and even lifesaving, as his military career continued.

Phillipsburg, N.J. June 1964: Last Leave Before Vietnam

“I was acting weird on my leave in June,” Freer said, “and my father could sense it. I was tense, I wasn’t talkative and I was scared. Before I went home, my platoon commander said to me, ‘Don’t’ be too far from the phone because there is a strong possibility that we will be going to Vietnam. If you get a phone call, you get back to the station. If you don’t, then enjoy your liberty because I know it’s your last, because you are getting out in ’65.’ I told my father [William S. Freer Sr.], and he just told me that I had to do what I had to do. In July, we got orders to move out.”

Vietnam. July 1964: Wartime

Death, fighting, massacres. “I saw a lot of hectic things,” Freer said, “and I didn’t know if I was going to come back alive.”

Upon arriving, Freer’s battalion not only hit the beach, but made military history. “We were the first helicopter to go inland and to secure the whole area,” Freer said. Their accomplished goal was to put up a third air strip for jets.

Freer received his first mission. He was to go out on a RECON patrol with six other men and with very specific orders. “I was told not to make contact with the enemy,” Freer said, “not to engage with the enemy, just to go out and get information. If, by chance, I did have to engage with the enemy, I would have to go back to the company perimeter and scratch the mission. The specific orders were to go out at dawn and come back before dusk.”

The eminent problem was the difficulty in identifying the enemy.

“You never know who the enemy was going to be,” said Freer. “They were like gophers. They’d go in a hole, they would hide, and then they’d get behind you and shoot you.”

All of the missions were to be completed in utter silence; all communication was done by hand signals. If someone made noise, they were liable to be shot. The men followed the unofficial motto of the service, “You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours.”

As Freer and the men scoured the unfamiliar surroundings for hours, they finally came across physical confirmation of the enemy’s locale: two caves. One was stocked with enough ammunition to take out a whole battalion and the other with ample food supply. They documented the location of the caves, and two to three days later, looted them and destroyed them.

For Freer and his battalion, the tables were constantly turning. There were confident times. They accomplished 48 different helicopter combat raids and raided 12 villages in less than a year. During the raids, they took captive many enemies who, after being interrogated, proved to have useful intelligence information. However, there were also disheartening times. These times haunted Freer and are still trapped in his memory.

Flames of fire were dancing every where. But it wasn’t a happy dance. It was more like Satan’s victory dance. Every direction and every angle that Freer could see was burning in brilliant shades of red and orange. A drop of sweat started to slide down the side of his face, seeming to unleash a flood of perspiration. But Freer could not move, not even to wipe off the sweat. One movement, one noise and he would be killed. He was trapped in a foxhole during an air raid. One hour passed. No movement, muffled breathing. A second hour. The thud of his heart. The drip of perspiration. The third hour. Silence. Stiffness. It wasn’t until three and a half hours that Freer was finally able to tear himself away from his temporary refuge. The enemies had passed, the fire had subsided and Freer had survived.

Freer recalled this memory as his most vivid from Vietnam. He said that during the raid, he had no concept of time, for each minute that passed aged him and he was scared to death. Freer had enough of the fighting, he had enough of the hiding and he had enough of the killing. It was time for him to go home.

It was 1965, a year that marked the end of Freer’s military duties. When the time came, the company commanders approached him this three words, “Relief is here.”

Freer said that hearing those words was an intense and difficult experience. “Here I am, fighting in this place, seeing what I saw for a year, and then all of a sudden, it’s done and I get to go home,” Freer said. “I didn’t know what to think.”

Freer and a handful of men whose time in the service had expired, boarded the relief helicopter. When the rotors started and spun them away, the only thing they were leaving behind was an island of disaster. When the helicopter landed at approximately 1:30 a.m., Freer ate his first hot meal in over a year of steak and eggs.

1965-2004: The Aftermath

“Vietnam was like hell,” Freer said. “Hell is the worst place in the world. I was there for a year.” Freer had served his country for six years and would be repaid with perpetual nightmares and flashbacks.

Although never seriously injured, Freer’s physical appearance gave testimony to the hellish war. His body was covered with cuts and bruises and he was as tired as death. When he got onto the United Airlines plane headed home, he collapsed in his seat. A flight attendant took notice of him right away. “My God, you look terrible,” she said. Then it hit her. A man who had just spent the last year fighting to protect his country was on the plane. She immediately insisted that he sit in first class and treated him to complimentary champagne and food. The plane took off and over the loud speaker, the pilot’s voice welcomed Cpl. Freer and announced his presence. At once, the whole plane erupted into applause and cheering. As freer looked around, tears slid down his face. He was filled with honor as he wiped them away.

Freer soon found out that not everybody applauded his wartime actions. In fact, he was received at home as a killer, not a hero.

His front yard was swarming with newspaper reporters from miles away. Freer was the first person home from Vietnam in all of Warren and Northampton Counties and everyone was hungry with questions.

“What was it like in Vietnam?” shouted one reporter.

“Is the war almost over?” asked another.

“Is it true that you killed anything in front of you?” screamed another. “Is it true that you are a baby killer?”

Outraged, Freer shut his door, unable to answer any questions. It was too soon, and the respect that he was receiving was embarrassing for the sacrifices that he had just made.

“We earned the right to wear that uniform,” Freer said. “Whether you are in the Army, the Air Force, the Navy or the Marines, whether you are a Coast Guardsman or a National Guardsman, whatever you are, you earned it. When you earn something like that, you want to be respected for what you had to go through.”

Aside from the initial commotion, and a few more similar situations, Freer started to adjust to life after war. He turned down an offer to continue military life. “You have to know when to get out, and you have to know when to stay out,” Freer said.

Today, Freer resides with his wife, Linda, in Orefield, Pa. He has two children, Willaim III and Kimberly, and four grandchildren. Linda is a professional ventriloquist and magician with over 25 years of experience. Freer takes pleasure in accompanying her with her company, Amazing Events by Linda Holliday, as she performs for hundreds of organizations.

Even with the comfort of family and a wife, who Freer says tries her hardest to understand what he went through, Freer’s life is plagued with events of the past. Thirty nine years out of war, and Freer can sill remember the 12 months of hell on earth. He remembers the intense physical training. He remembers the gut-wrenching fear before going to war. He remembers the helplessness of being trapped in a foxhole for hours. He remembers the 10-year-old boy and the decision that he had to make to save his whole battalion. Thirty nine years out of war, and Freer still remembers.

Carey E. Yorio is a junior at Lehigh University. Her hometown is Rivervale, N.J.