Oral history interview with Bunnie McCosar

MilliganAll right, this is Sarah Milligan with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. I am at the Chilocco Indian School for their annual reunion. It's May 27, 2016. I'm talking with Bunnie McCosar--

McCosarMcCosar.

MilliganMcCosar, that was my first inclination, and I second-guessed myself. We are going to be talking today briefly about his time at Chilocco but more primarily about his military time. I want to reference here, too, that we talked a couple seconds ago about the fact that you were interviewed a chunk of time ago.

McCosarI forgot what the name of the project was. It was a national thing though, Veterans Historical Registry or something like that.

MilliganYou did the interview, did you say it was twenty or thirty years ago you were interviewed?

McCosarYeah.

MilliganI just wanted that as a flag so if somebody wants to go chase that down and look at the two different, they know, but you think it's probably in the 1:00national archives as part of one of their projects.

McCosarIt's on Facebook with my name--

MilliganOh, okay.

McCosar--under my name.

MilliganI'll look at that to flag it for sure, okay.

McCosarSomebody put it on there.

MilliganSomebody did it. Okay, I'll look that up. That means it's online and I can find it.

McCosarRight.

MilliganOkay, so just to get started, I wanted to ask some really general questions. Just tell me a little bit about yourself, where were you born, a little bit about who your family is, and all that good stuff.

McCosarOkay, I was born in Claremore, Oklahoma, but my family lived in Holdenville, Oklahoma. That's sort of where I was raised up before I started going to school. Went to a lot of small schools around Holdenville before I developed with a large family there, my family there. We were forced to go to government boarding schools. I was sent to Jones Academy with my brother and 2:00some cousins. I stayed there quite a while from about mid-1940s until 1951. After that, I was sent to Chilocco, here, 1952 through 1956. Graduated here. I knew I wanted to be in the military, so I was always reading up about the military and what branch of service I might want to go into. I took mechanics here at Chilocco, and so I wanted to be an aircraft mechanic. Entered the service and got to the highest rank I could there as a mechanic. We didn't receive too much encouragement to go to college during my time here.

MilliganAfter Chilocco?

McCosarYeah, after Chilocco.

MilliganCan I follow up on something you said just a second ago really quickly?

McCosarYeah.

MilliganYou said that you were forced to go to Jones Indian School? Does that mean that you didn't want to go to a boarding school?

McCosarNot really. When you're poor, you don't realize you're poor. It's just natural life there. Way back in the late 1940s, there were a lot of poor Indians around the country there, and they really couldn't afford families. No jobs or anything like that. They split us up, maybe keep the younger kids at home. Four of us in the family went to boarding school. Two girls went to Eufaula, and two of us went to Jones Academy.

MilliganThen when you moved on from Jones to Chilocco, how did you feel about that?

McCosarIt was a different world because Jones Academy was all males. When I got 4:00to Chilocco here, there was females here. That's about the only period in my life that females were in my life, just here at school. Twenty-two years in the Marine Corps, no females. Part of the later story there when I got retired and come back to Oklahoma in late 2014, I become member of a church. Only one deacon; he trained me to be a deacon. It's all women. I'm the only deacon there. Only male there.

MilliganThat is quite a shift, isn't it?

McCosarYeah. I had to learn how to deal with women. Marine Corps language and techniques, they said I talk too loud or too harsh.

MilliganWell, at least they're willing to communicate with you.

McCosarYeah. Most of them have college education. I have a college degree, also, so I don't let them get by with anything. (Laughter)

MilliganI'm sure the same goes for them.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganThat helps me understand a little bit. When you came to Chilocco in 1952--you said that you were interested in the military. Were you interested in the military when you first came to Chilocco, or is that something you sort of developed while you were here?

McCosarI started thinking about it because the Korean War was still going on. I thought I might have to go, so I prepared myself for that and learned to be a mechanic, auto mechanics here, because I wanted to go into aircraft mechanics.

MilliganHow did that fit with the fact that Chilocco had a National Guard unit here on campus?

McCosarI didn't really faze me that much because I was small, underweight. Most 6:00of the men I knew back then, they were larger, taller. I really didn't get interested in it. I tried sports, but I still was too small. I think I tried out one time. I ran up against my big tall relative on my mother's side, and I could try to knock them down, but all I could do was wrap myself around his legs. He couldn't go nowhere, and he said that's real good. (Laughs)

MilliganThat was a good strategy.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganThe Korean War was going on. It sounds like you sort of saw that something was inevitable with you and the military.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganHow did the time you had in Chilocco, you were working on, you know--your practical training was for mechanics. What about just being here, in general? You had moved from Jones Academy where there was all boys, and you 7:00moved here to where it was co-ed. Was that the only real shift that you had from coming from there to here?

McCosarThat's about it. It was kind of harder to deal with females, I guess. I was the bashful type. I wasn't a person of a lot of words. Very few words. I got fussed at a lot in my younger days. Somebody would talk to me, say something to me, my only answer was, "Huh." My mother would make a comment about that and say, "That's all he knows how to say: 'Huh.'"

MilliganWell, that would make it hard.

McCosarYeah, a few special words I would use, and Jones Academy superintendent got after me for saying "sorta." "Why don't you say 'somewhat'?"

MilliganDid you switch to somewhat?

McCosarI switched to somewhat. Somewhat, I did.

MilliganSomewhat! I've heard other people talk about whenever they come to 8:00Chilocco that it was fairly regimented, it seems like, you know, that you had a schedule, you had to be a certain place at a certain time, you had room inspections and things like that. Was that a shift from you at Jones Academy, assuming?

McCosarNo, we was the same down there, same technique, but I didn't see it as being regimented. It was just the normal thing of life, the way you're supposed to do to get things done, at a certain time, on time.

MilliganGot it! So you liked that schedule--

McCosarYeah.

Milligan--it sounds like. It seems like when you left Chilocco in 1956--tell me what your next steps were.

McCosarWell, I saw a job in Ponca City. Auto mechanics took me down there, and applied for a job. After I graduated, I waited two weeks to get an answer back after graduation. It never came, so I joined the military service. About two 9:00weeks after I left, here comes a--saying I had a job in Ponca City. It was too late then.

MilliganWithin two weeks, yeah.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganWould you have rather had the job as the mechanic, you think, than what you ended up doing?

McCosarNot really. I wanted to go into airplane mechanics.

MilliganIt was probably a good choice.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganSo tell me about how you joined the military, then.

McCosarBasically I went down to enlist in the service. I had chickened out and decided I better go to the Air Force to be an airplane mechanic. It was a rainy day, and no recruiters there except the Marine Corps. He said, "Come here, boy. I want to give you a test." He gave me a test, and I passed it. He said, "Would you like to join the Marine Corps?" I said, "That's the only one here; I guess 10:00I'll go." He tried to get me to go for four years, but I wanted three years because I didn't know what they offered. I should have took the four-year course. He could guarantee me aviation if I had took a four-year course.

MilliganOh, I see.

McCosarFor three years, I had to join the infantry. When I was in infantry in Camp Pendleton, California, humping those ninety-pound packs, heavy radios, we got a helicopter ride from off a high mountain there, and I said, "This is the way to go." I decided to reenlist and get some aviation mechanic training.

MilliganOh, so you joined as infantry, and then you reenlisted?

McCosarRight.

MilliganAt what point did you reenlist, then?

McCosarAfter my first three years were up.

MilliganOkay, so you did finish those first three before you tried to switch.

McCosarFinish the first three, and you reenlist for whatever you want to go to. Same place or different place, different job.

MilliganRight. Tell me a little bit about when you went to basic training in California, it sounds like. Is that right?

McCosarYeah. Everybody thought it was hard. I didn't think it was hard. I was growing up being away from my family and not under strict guidance, I guess, learning everything on my own, I guess. It's the way it was ordained for me to go because I'd learned to take care of myself and do things by myself and depend on very few people to get me along. I never did get in trouble when I was young.

MilliganOh, really?

McCosarMy parents taught me and gave me good training lessons. They were church-going persons. I didn't have no difficulties with anything about doing what I was supposed to do and learning how to do things, again, learning on my own. I would go out in the woods, roam around the woods all day and come out the place I wanted to. I could travel the woods. I could take care of myself, see 12:00what foods are out there, birds and animals out there.

MilliganAfter you finished your time at Camp Pendleton, what did you do? What was your process?

McCosarAfter Camp Pendleton, (that was advanced infantry training there) we went, assigned to a military unit we was going to serve with for the remainder of my enlistment. I was sent to the 5th Marines, a well-known Marine Corps regiment. They fought in World War II in France, Germany. They're a special breed of fight men. They're tough ones. All them grunts, they're the best breed of grunts that are around, to us. We take care of them; they take care of us.

MilliganWhat did you think when you first got, basically got assigned to them?

McCosarWell, I knew the going was going to be tough because we had to do a lot of marching and running and training all the time. They sent us a lot of different places to desert training or to cold weather training to keep us in shape there and get prepared for what's coming up. We always expecting a war every twenty years.

MilliganOh, that leads me to a--I know this is on your other paperwork, and I'll get it more specifically, but when did you--sounds like you enlisted in '56 or '57?

McCosarFifty-six.

MilliganOkay. It sounds like you spent a good chunk of the first three years training.

McCosarYeah, it's always training. Every year, it's training. You're training to 14:00do something better and different and learn new techniques.

MilliganI also think it's interesting that you sort of started paying attention to the military when the Korean War was going on.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganWhen you enlisted, did you have thoughts that that was sort of part of what you would have to--

McCosarRight.

MilliganYeah.

McCosarYoung fellows were going in, buying those magazines that showed Korean War, World War II, battles against the Japanese there, showing a lot of KIAs [killed in action]. It kind of affects you, but a lot of us it didn't scare. We expected that as being part of the job.

MilliganSo at the end of your three years, your initial three years, you reenlisted. Maybe tell me a little bit about that. You told me why.

McCosarYeah, I got tired of humping, they call it, carrying that big pack on 15:00your back, humping up and down hills and over deserts. I decided to go to aviation. They sent me to school at Memphis, Tennessee, to learn how to be a aviation mechanic. I spent six months training how to be a aviation mechanic. After that, after completing school, then they sent you to operating squadrons wherever we needed them. They sent me to California. The place is gone; it used to be called LTA, which stands for "lighter than air." Those old dirigibles housed there, big hangars, houses there. We had a big helicopter base there. That was close to Santa Ana, south side of Santa Ana, California.

Trained there until they were expecting something to happen in Vietnam, so we 16:00was starting to prepare for that. All of our training was geared toward that. We'd fly aboard small aircraft carriers. Learned to land and operate off of those. We learned how to land at day and learned how to land at night, learned how to lift heavy loads off the aircraft carriers. We practiced for a space program. They had a big space module dummy that we would have to go out and lift up. They were heavy things. Like when they'd land in the ocean, we'd have to go out. If we was nearby, we'd have to go out and do the job of picking them out of the water. Kept busy with a lot of things. We didn't sit around doing nothing. We was always training, always training.

MilliganSo did you find that whenever you actually got to aviation mechanics, that was something you enjoyed?

McCosarYeah. At that time, I think at that young age, all the young men were 17:00looking towards the killing side. If they wanted to be aircraft gunners or aircraft maintenance men, they would be assigned to these machine gunners aboard aircraft. That's kind of expected. They trained us into how to do that under flying conditions there. A lot of them wanted to do that where they would be shooting a lot of ammo. Fantastic, they would give a young man all the ammunition he could shoot, and you got you trained men, (I hate to say it) a trained killer. All the ammo, and you can chew it up.

MilliganDid you have that sense whenever you were in the middle of it that that was sort of what the perception was, or--

McCosarWell, when you get in the middle of it, your thoughts are more, "I hope I 18:00spot the fellow that's shooting at me first before he shoots me." It's surviving, then. When they're shooting at you, you can hear them popping through the aircraft, hoping it don't hit the wrong thing or person or some part on the aircraft.

MilliganWell, let's back up a little bit and talk--in order for me to understand a little bit better what your progression in this was, you were in California again and doing more training, and you had gone through aviation mechanics school. You said that you felt there was a feeling that Vietnam, military intervention in Vietnam was imminent. How did that progress, from your standpoint, from being imminent to--

McCosarThe main thing was going aboard ships, small helicopter carriers (we 19:00called them LPH [landing platform helicopter]) and training how to fly, operate off there, carrying men, equipment, our recon teams that go out and do the heavy, investigate and see what's happening out there. We learned how to do medevacs, search and rescues, how to haul them in, how to haul out the bodies in order to take them to hospitals, where field hospitals might be located. They taught us First Aid, to keep them under control long enough to get to an aid station. We got it down to within an hour because anything over that, two-hour time limit, they're dead. Helicopters were a great help then. There were a lot of survivors.

MilliganMy understanding is that this was the first real time in military 20:00history that helicopters were really being used.

McCosarIt was beginning to advance because they had used helicopters in the Korean War. Marine Corps had them in the Korean War. They was beginning to learn how to operate. When we went in, I was in the first Marine Corps squadron that went in as a complete unit into Vietnam. It was kind of a historical thing because we was the first ones there. We were the ones that developed a lot of things that later squadrons coming into Vietnam would use, the techniques they needed to fight the enemy.

MilliganOh, gosh, so you all were the first ones in? You didn't have anyone that had gone and come back to tell you what to expect?

McCosarNo, we were the ones developing it.

MilliganDid you know that when you kind of got the orders to go out? Did you know that you all were going to lead the way?

McCosarYeah. We kind of expected because that's the way the Marine Corps operates. Send somebody in to learn. Then they pass that information back to 21:00those coming in behind them. We developed techniques how to fight them. We were trying to help people that really didn't want to fight. We had difficulties with them.

MilliganWithin your unit or once you got over there?

McCosarWith the Vietnamese. Marine Corps aviation, they're not a bunch of dummies. They are high GCT [general classification test], like a IQ test. They're above 110, at least 96 or higher to get into aviation. They were pretty well good at it and known. We'd have to test and see if they could handle themselves in a combat situation. We'd train them. If they couldn't, we'd have to weed them out and give them a different job.

MilliganWhen you got the orders that you were going to, that your squad was 22:00going to be sent to Vietnam, do you remember what you felt or thought about that?

McCosarI wasn't really apprehensive. We was looking forward to it because it would get away from that olʽ normal training: fly, fly, fly, train, train, train. We was a big operation that was preparing us, Talungan [Island] operation, Talungan in the Philippine Islands. During the middle of the operation, then we got the word that we were going into Vietnam. We start gearing up, preparing ourselves for that. All the bigwigs' speeches were going on to get us hyped up, I guess. We were the first ones to be going in as a complete unit. Army was there. We went in to help them because they had them old Flying Bonanza, you would call them. They couldn't lift very much. We could do a little bit better. A lot of help would be coming later. We helped them. We'd go 23:00on assaults with them, learn from each other, learn new techniques about how to fight the enemy.

MilliganDo you remember whenever you first got to Vietnam, then? You went from the Philippines to Vietnam, right, just directly?

McCosarRight.

MilliganSince you all were the first, I'm curious what your impressions were.

McCosarWe kind of enjoyed it there because we were doing something different there. We hated to be doing what everybody else was doing. We were glad we were being the first. I didn't ever hear no regrets about going there. We were prepared for it.

MilliganWhere did you first fly into? Like where were you stationed when you first got to Vietnam?

McCosarWe was aboard a helicopter carrier, and they went to an old Japanese airfield way down south of South Vietnam, Sóc Trăng. It was a old Japanese Air 24:00Field, and that's where they put us. Was a small air field, large enough for helicopters. We operated out of there trying to train the Vietnamese how to do assaults out of helicopters, how to assault the enemy by way of helicopters, how to be fed, extracted, moved around. We would drop them one place, come back an hour later, pick them up, and move them some other place. It was a learning process for them, also.

MilliganGot it. Your initial was--well, you said this, but it reiterates. Your initial was more training-focused than it was combat-focused at that time.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganWhat do you think that the Vietnamese people that you were training--you said that they weren't ready to fight. I understand that. Other than that, that sort of reluctance, do you remember having impressions of them or working?

McCosarWe didn't see them that much on the airfield. There was a road passing by, and that's about the only contact we had with them. We wasn't allowed to go out into town that much because of relationships, I guess. We dressed funny and acted different than they did. We wondered about them because we would see two men walking down the street holding hands. That's their custom but not an American custom. We had orange flight suits, but they told us to get rid of them because the monks in that area wore orange, so they was changing our ways. We was practicing survival, also. If we got shot down, we would have to survive out in the jungles for a little while. The orange is helpful there, but it also helps the enemy find you. We was jungle training, sea training, surviving at sea.

MilliganIt seems like you had been doing training in that similar environment before that, as well. Okay, so you, how long were you in Vietnam that first time, then?

McCosarAbout six months, from April to August. April, May, June, July, August, about five months, I guess. We'd go for a thirteen-month tour overseas. This was the end of our first thirteen months. After that we got orders to return to the States and teach other people what we had learned. We'd go back and--with different squadrons, and we would help them understand how we had been fighting a battle over in Vietnam. --training a lot of different people to go do the job we were doing. They would do a lot of new techniques, also, but not much 27:00different than what we had established.

MilliganWhat do you think was a little different that you all had to develop from what was already there?

McCosarOur main purpose was to get troops in fast, and we would get out fast. Next thing was learning how to get the survivors going, that two-hour limit for wounded men. We had to learn how to do that. We'd learn techniques of how not to fly on the same path because they were smart, start getting smarter. If an aircraft came in the same path, they would know where to set up and shoot them down, which they did later on. A lot of people didn't remember that because they were getting shot down later on because they followed the same path. We made 28:00assaults there, not really heavy in '62. The funny thing is we'd make our assaults; couple aircraft come back with arrows in the tail, rear-end of the aircraft.

MilliganArrows?

McCosarYeah. They had mountain people down in that part of the area there, no weapons. They had homemade weapons, something they'd make at home, not regular rifles like they had later on. They'd shoot arrows at us to--.

MilliganLet you know they saw you?

McCosarYeah. (Laughter) There was Army people there also training us in their techniques and how to drop grenades like a small bomb, I guess. They put it in a glass pint jar and drop it out the window. When it cracked open on the ground, it would explode. They was teaching us how to do things, also. Seen a lot of 29:00news reporters, not a lot of them, a few. The courageous ones would appear there. I don't know if you know Dickey Chapelle. She was there, combat photographer. She lived with us for about two weeks. They would pass through there. We'd help them go out on operations with us and take pictures with us. Good public relations for the Marine Corps, I guess.

MilliganWell, since this was the early years of the Vietnam conflict--what year were you, I guess maybe, what date around the time that you were actually sent to Vietnam?

McCosarApril, I think around Easter Sunday in April 1962, and we stayed until 30:00about mid-August.

MilliganOf '62?

McCosarYeah. After we left--the Army helicopters couldn't operate in high mountains very good. They sent the Marine units up north where there were high mountains, and they started operating there. After we left, those people that replaced us, they had aircraft accidents in the mountains, trying to land in the mountains or land in high jungles.

MilliganWhy do you think that that started happening after you left?

McCosarI think there were in a little bit better trained enemy areas. Down further south, we was in a civilian modernized area where they weren't very present. They were present further out away from the big cities, or starting to 31:00build up in the high mountains.

MilliganDid you have a sense of what the conflict was while you were there?

McCosarYes, I did. We was trying to help them seek their own democratic policies and government. It would be hard to do that because their politicians were not politicians. They were seeking their own benefit. They forgot about the people, taking everything away from the people, take away their lands. They worked for the state and the greedy government official. Anything Americans would hand out for the people, I think the politicians got the top half and would sell it back 32:00to the Americans. Americans would rebuy it again. Go through the same process again.

MilliganIs that something you witnessed?

McCosarYeah. We'd go out and fly over them. We could see stockpiles of American equipment down there being sold.

MilliganWell, so you've described what the goal of what you were doing during that, what was it, six months, five months, that you were there the first time.

McCosarAbout five months.

MilliganI'm wondering whenever--what was your next step when you came back?

McCosarThe next step was going back and training other people to do the same job. New helicopters were being developed there. I got in on the ground program 33:00of that because I was still a single man at the squadron I was in. All the volunteer work was given to single men, I guess. They wouldn't let married men do a lot of that stuff or take them away from their families. I got sent up to Patuxent River, Maryland, to start working on a new type of helicopter, larger helicopter, more powerful helicopter coming in. Trained on that so I'd be able to go back and train the squadron people. The only thing exciting about that was I performed, or helped perform, the first search and rescue of a Navy pilot that went down out there in the bay. We'd go out there and pick them out of the water, but the thing was, the new helicopter could float on water. I think they forgot about it later on after they went to war with it. We was sitting in the middle of the river there testing it for leaks and everything like that. They 34:00got a mayday call, and we had to lift up out of the water and go pick him up. It might have surprised the pilot because we sat down in the water and waited for him to jump back in the water and come to us.

MilliganThat was the first time that was used for a search and rescue?

McCosarYeah.

MilliganYou all just popped in the middle of the water?

McCosarYeah.

MilliganDo you remember his reaction?

McCosarHe gave a surprised look on his face, I guess. He jumped back in the water and come swimming up, and we pulled him in. He wasn't injured or anything; he was in good condition. We had to take him out and fly him to the nearest hospital for examination.

MilliganBut he was okay?

McCosarYeah. New technique, new helicopter come along, but they hadn't really developed them that well because later on the pilots didn't really understand how to land those things. They'd make hard landings, and the heavy aft pylon way 35:00in the back of the aircraft, the structure was not strong enough. After so many landings, those things started falling off. Sometimes they would fall off in the middle of the air. A lot of people died because as those aircraft fall apart, they would disintegrate in the air.

MilliganWhich aircraft was this?

McCosarH-46, it was the H-46A. Had a lot of problems. A whole bunch of them eventually fell out of the air before they finally found out what it was.

MilliganWhat was it?

McCosarThe structure wasn't good enough. They'd made too many hard landings. They had a door at the rear end they called a ramp. Most people would fly with it down, but that takes away structural rigidity. They were supposed to fly with the ramp up so everything would be more firm and secure, but they weren't doing 36:00that. Eventually, all that bouncing would make the structure weak, and it would fall off. About the middle of the Vietnam war, they finally realized what was going on--downed all the aircraft, all the units. They couldn't use an aircraft until they got fixed.

MilliganWas the repair easy to make?

McCosarNot really. Well, it might have because they probably had to hire a lot of Japanese. We had to send our aircraft up to Japan to work on them. They probably had a big factory up there to repair them things and get them back in action. Probably cost a lot of money to get them repaired and back to Vietnam.

MilliganThis actually leads me to a question about your role. You were an aviation mechanic. I'm assuming that you had experience with all the helicopters up to this point, but when they started to make that shift, how did you 37:00transition your role as a mechanic into that?

McCosarIt was about the same thing. If you're a mechanic, you flew in the aircraft you worked on. It was a mandatory requirement to fly with your own [aircraft] as a mechanic. You're the crew chief. You're also the gunner. You were also the loader. You were also the duty doctor if there was no one aboard the aircraft to help the injured, the wounded. You were doing a lot of jobs there, and we learned how to do a lot of that. We did it all. We had to train how to do it, so we had to weed out processes for those men that couldn't handle that, couldn't fly aboard helicopters. Survival, the whole crew working together 38:00there, helping each other.

MilliganYou were back in the States, it sounds like, or at least you left Vietnam in 1962, and it sounds like you came back to the US and helped with that transition and did the training with the transition. How long were you in the US, or were you redeployed at some point?

McCosarI went to Jacksonville, North Carolina, from 1962 to 1966. During that time, we was still training aboard helicopter carriers, going to the Caribbean Islands onboard ships for six months at a time, or going to the Mediterranean for six months at a time, learning how to operate off a helicopter [carrier], plus work with foreign countries. We trained with foreign troops that didn't know how we do things. Trained them.

MilliganIt sounds like a good chunk of your effort was spent on training other, not only training within yourselves but helping with training for other countries'--

McCosarNationalities, countries, yeah.

Milligan--yeah, military.

McCosarWe had a lot of pilots that would come and train in our helicopters and go back and train their own people, also.

MilliganWhat do you think the--well, let me go somewhere else I was going to go. Was that pretty standard operating procedure, or was that something specific to the unit you were assigned to, to do all that training?

McCosarIt was generalized for the whole Marine Corps squadron. Every squadron had to learn it.

MilliganWere you--was everybody else doing training with all these other countries?

McCosarYeah, right. In time, they would go out, assigned to helicopter operations aboard ships that wouldn't be doing that. They would come sometimes to land squadrons, but training was about the same thing. I returned to Vietnam again in 1966. We were supposed to have been the first C-46 squadron there, but 40:00another squadron we had trained, [was] out [of] California, closer, so they were sent first, ahead of us. We were the second CH-46 squadron into Vietnam.

MilliganOh, okay.

McCosarIt made a big difference there because we could haul more troops faster, but then at that period, they were still falling out of the air, taking a lot of people with them. We could carry fifteen to seventeen American men, maybe twenty-five Vietnamese, (they're small) but we were still losing a lot of men [because the] aircrafts [were] falling apart. They was improving them, making better rotor blades and better engines. Lift more, fly faster.

MilliganFrom your perspective as a mechanic, how did you, how did you deal with 41:00that, because the machinery was falling apart, obviously? No?

McCosarIt didn't faze me that much. It kind of [came with] the job. Some would say it come with the territory.

MilliganI guess that's true. It seems like, though, if your job was to make sure the machinery was in tip-top condition or working, and the machinery itself was faulty, it seems like it would be frustrating as the mechanic. No?

McCosarNot really. About all I can say is it come with the territory.

MilliganStill the same, okay.

McCosarThat's it.

MilliganGot it. You went back in '66. Where were you stationed in '66?

McCosarWe were [sent] north, way up to Da Nang. That's way north, and they call it I Corp, First Corp, whatever you want to say. Started operating there where the action was a lot heavier. All the divisions from the enemy side were coming across that border, bypassing it and going down through Laos and Cambodia, 42:00coming into that area. They had objectives to take over that part of the country first or go down to the middle and sneak across toward Saigon. A whole bunch of divisions were coming across there or waiting to come across. We were having to fight them. It got heavy at times because Marine companies fight real good, but they could only fight for certain length of time before their ammo and all their supplies run out. A company is maybe about two hundred and fifty men. They were meeting NVA [North Vietnamese Army] regiments that are fifteen hundred men. If they're reinforced, they're about twenty-five hundred men they're fighting against.

Way in back of them would be a lot more waiting to come across. They would feed their selves down like that. The first ones that get shot up, here comes the 43:00second wave. They get shot up; here comes the third wave. It's a lot of battle going on there. Had to call everybody in we could to help that one company or battalion. They had to learn how to fight as a battalion, not as a small unit. It got real bad at times when they would engage, probably a division, a battalion against a division. That's a lot of people. A lot of Marines were getting killed. Had to seek help from the Army. Lots of times, the one big battle I remember, they had to take the wounded, the volunteer wounded off the helicopter carriers out there under medical care. They asked for a lot of them to come back and help in the battle. A lot of sailors joined the battle too. They jumped aboard the aircraft. They might not know how to shoot, but they know 44:00how to carry ammo and supplies and carry bodies.

MilliganWhat battle was that?

McCosarI don't think a specific battle; probably April battle accelerated. Dong Ha Battle, they would call it. They didn't have no particular name to give it. It was by date and location.

MilliganSo it was in '66?

McCosarYeah. Marine units would walk into the trap and get shot up, and we'd have to go in and haul a lot of people in, a battalion in, to help them out. It was big battles of the invasion coming across there, and they knew how to set traps for us. Nearly wiped out a lot of people there, but we still had to go back and send other people in there to fight them. I think one company, they called them walking dead because they only had about twenty-three people left 45:00out of the whole unit.

MilliganOut of unit of--?

McCosarA company.

MilliganOut of an entire company, oh .

McCosarYeah, out of two hundred and fifty men or less. It's kind of bad, but it might say a two-hundred-and-fifty-men company, during that time of war, warm bodies were hard to obtain. A company might be two-thirds of what it's supposed to be, and another third would be taken to guard different places. When talking about a company, it boiled down to about a hundred men out there, trying to fight a large unit.

MilliganI guess, help me understand what your role in some of those were. Did you spend a lot of time on the ground, or were you really more focused on staying with the--. Do you understand what I'm asking?

McCosarBasically our whole training was we gathered them up at their pick-up 46:00point, loaded them all aboard aircraft, all of them sat together at the same time to enter the battle. That's when it actually started. Things would get hot; aircraft would get shot down. Mainly on the ground, when they got into the hot battle there, all the casualties, our next step was to start hauling out all the dead bodies or the wounded, wounded first. Might save them. The dead would go second. Then the next part is to haul in ammunition because by that time they were running out of ammunition and water. Next part was hauling in food for whoever survived. The whole process was one right after another, doing the same thing all the time, always launching out to help our grunts. It gets hard. It 47:00got hard at times because when we extracted the KIAs, they would practically fill up a helicopter with dead bodies, and that made it hard to see, especially with all the antiwar activity going on about that time, too, '66, '67, '68.

MilliganWere you--I guess you had been in the States before you went back in '66, but while you were in Vietnam, were you fairly aware of what was going on in the States?

McCosarWe had radio; that was about it. In aviation, you don't have much--to watch television or all that stuff. I think we were getting twelve-, sixteen-, eighteen-hour days out there, trying to help our grunts. Once in a while, half a 48:00day off, take a break, we'd go to television station or radio stations, tell them what's happening. Army, I think, published a newspaper. It was sent out to everybody and let us know what was going on around the country.

MilliganYou knew, you had a decent awareness that there was a lot of protesting going on?

McCosarYeah, yeah.

MilliganDid you all talk much about it within your unit?

McCosarNot really. Only thing they would talk about is what they'd do with some of those characters. I can't tell you that.

MilliganWell, (laughter) I think you're being too polite to tell me that. You can tell me whatever you want. Yeah, I'm sure that was disheartening, to put it mildly.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganHow long were you there that second time, in '66?

McCosarOne year, thirteen months.

MilliganYou were there thirteen months.

McCosarDuring that time, going on a large assault operation, Hastings, it was another battalion, a whole division. They didn't realize that. They ambushed us and landed on--well, there was a operational mistake, too. When the helicopters land, you're supposed to fly into the wind so it got more lift on the aircraft and set down. The weather reporters gave the wrong information because the wind was coming from the rear end of the aircraft. Now you don't have no lift. When we got to the zone, we were overloaded, too heavy, going too slow, and they started crashing. I think four of them crashed in the zone. Marines running out of the aircraft would get chopped up because the crashed rotor blades were 50:00chewing up the ground now, right in the middle of the battle, and everybody would have to move off to the side one way or other because they're overloaded, too. Then they were starting to fight the battle, already that close. We'd have to go extract all of them if we can. That's part of the, I don't know if you'd call it excitement or what. Kept your blood churning.

MilliganI'm sure there was lots of adrenaline.

McCosarYeah. Then others died by reckless aircraft disappearing off the radar screen, flying over the ocean or the waters, or if they was coming back at night and forget to read the charts right and know that there's a high mountain ahead of them, they'd fly right into it. I think we lost four like that. They didn't 51:00find them until about two years later. Our grunts went out there patrolling, and they come across the aircraft. Four bodies still in the aircraft. A lot of the older helicopters still operating, and they'd malfunctioned too. I guess they'd disappear into the ocean.

MilliganWas it--with you being the mechanic for that, did you basically know the machine that you were working on, or did you have to know a bunch of different machines to be able to work on them?

McCosarJust your own machine, you listen to it. A good mechanic to what noises it was making, or if it's grinding or not grinding, or if it ain't supposed to be grinding, or the vibrations. Pilots could tell there was something wrong with the aircraft because they'd start feeling something in the controls and tell you 52:00it's got some excessive vibration coming out of the pedals or the cyclic stick. They would tell you something needs checked out.

MilliganWere you pretty much assigned to one type of helicopter, then?

McCosarRight. One helicopter, you stuck with it your whole tour. You had to know that aircraft, what kind of problems it gives. -- Had a listening stick, where I stick it to my ear and stick it on my aircraft, and I could hear the different sounds the engine, the aircraft is making.

MilliganOh, really, while you were flying?

McCosarOn the ground. Well, you could do it in the air, too, but you can't be [outside] the aircraft. (Laughs)

MilliganYeah, I guess that's true. So it was something that while it was on the ground, you could do some diagnostics just by being able to listen to it. That's interesting.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganYou were thirteen months. When did you come back, then, to, I 53:00guess--when did you leave Vietnam, and where did you go?

McCosarI left Vietnam and come back to Yuma, Arizona, for about two years just to get away from normal fleet and reinforcement operations. I stayed in that Yuma, Arizona, with a search and rescue unit--out in the desert, learning how to do desert operations. Then had to go back to Vietnam again. During the meantime, my son was born in 1978, about that time, '78, '77. Only son I had. They'd send me more to schools at Memphis, Tennessee. Learned to do different jobs, data analysis then, about all the problems that the Marine Corps has with their 54:00aircraft, what's causing the main problems, what parts are defective, and all that stuff. I was just reading all the reports of what has to be repaired so we could tell the commanding officers what they needed to be looking at.

MilliganDid you--I guess that would have been ten or twelve years after you had been in Vietnam.

McCosarAbout '78, yeah.

MilliganHow did, you know--what was that shift between being in sort of a combat zone to coming back? Were you just doing regular maintenance and training continued or exercises?

McCosarThat's about it, not as much as we did aboard regular operating units. We was search and rescue for fixed wing base there, fixing jet aircraft. There was 55:00a bombing range around there where they'd come to practice all their bombing and shooting, whatever they had to do there. We had to go pick them up if they crashed or anything like that.

MilliganWhich it sounds like you did a little of, anyway, before, whenever you all were just, regularly. I keep thinking about this. I don't know if you're going to remember anything about it, but when you were interviewed before, twenty or thirty years ago, right--

McCosarYeah.

Milligan--do you remember some of the things that you talked about or some of the things you were asked to talk about?

McCosarIt was about the same thing, but I was fresh out of Vietnam, and sometimes I thought, just like you were, antiwar questions. It looked like they was trying to get me to say some antiwar things in my answers in my interview.

MilliganOh, you felt like that was something that was being targeted.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganI wonder if--has your viewpoint changed much since you were fresh out of Vietnam compared to now?

McCosarNot really. The politicians got us into war, and the politicians helped us lose the war. Not the military. Politicians gave away our victory.

MilliganYeah, Vietnam was--well, I won't presume to tell you what I think Vietnam was. Political, I guess that is the word I'm thinking. Political.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganIt made me think of something, too, when you talked about the combat 57:00photographer that was stationed with your--

McCosarSquadron, yeah.

Milligan--your squadron, yeah, really, as the first ones in. One of the things that is sort of well-known about Vietnam is it was the first war that was really strongly covered by the media. Do you have any thoughts about that aspect of it?

McCosarNo, not really. There have been combat photographers at all times in all wars. They just weren't allowed to show their pictures in the large publications, I would think. They was confined to being published in books or magazines or something like that, but really not in a newspaper. They told good stories and gave their own ideas of it, of what happened in there. A lot of the Marine units would read those things, and they'd learn from it because they'd give good information about what was happening and what to expect when they go 58:00over there.

MilliganWas that a more popular culture audience, or was that specifically-targeted writing for other military groups?

McCosarProbably for other military because they were involved. They were giving a lot of help to go in there to carry them into battle, take their pictures, and carry them out of battle. When their picture-taking time was up, a lot of them would stay awhile but not that many.

MilliganWell, so do you, did you have one way or the other--like when you came back in '67, there were still things happening in Vietnam.

McCosarWell, after Yuma, I went back to Vietnam again in '69.

MilliganOh, gosh, so you had three.

McCosarYeah. This time I received some promotions, E-7 Gunnery Sergeant, sending 59:00me back out to Vietnam, but this time I went [aboard an] aircraft carrier for a six-month trip. [We] operated off of aircraft carriers. They would send us--aircraft carrier for six months and then [come back to a] land [base] for six months.

MilliganWhat was the difference for you of being onboard an aircraft carrier versus where you had been your other two tours?

McCosarMy job was different this time. I was in control of [flight] offices or doing certain things that were not involved with actual combat flying.

MilliganMore administrative maybe?

McCosarIn a way, yeah, helping to train crews but not doing the flying. I think after you make staff sergeant, you had to start being a training person.

MilliganHow did you feel about that?

McCosarIt was okay. I hated to not fly because it really didn't scare me that 60:00much, but that's part of the job, yeah.

MilliganYou mean dealing with the promotional aspect of it?

McCosarYeah.

MilliganIf you could have had a choice, would you have gone back to flying, then?

McCosarYeah. Kind of disappointed me that I didn't get back to flying, but they wouldn't let me do it with my title position. I had to be a trainer.

MilliganSo how long did you do that, then?

McCosarAnother, well, I did about six months aboard ship, then six months on land, then returned back to the States after the thirteenth month.

MilliganBoth on the land and on the aircraft carrier was both training.

McCosarYeah, I think one time we were aboard the aircraft carriers, and big storm. I believe that Japanese ships were getting in trouble by the hurricanes. 61:00They got stranded on a small island, and we had to go rescue them at night in a hurricane. High wind, dark, we did it.

MilliganYou made it back.

McCosarYeah, all the aircraft did. [We] had to learn how to fly two at a time, I guess. No aircraft would fly by itself.

MilliganWhat was the rationale for that?

McCosarIn case one goes down, somebody else knows where they're at.

MilliganIs that still the policy? Do you know?

McCosarIt's still the policy, yeah.

MilliganWhen did that start?

McCosarIt might have been the Vietnam War. It might have been--before that. It got real serious back then because aircraft would disappear at sea, and nobody knew where they were at, where they went down. You had to keep an eye on each other.

MilliganThat makes sense to me. Um, do you have any idea about, from your perspective because you were, from the first time you went to Vietnam to the last time you were deployed to Vietnam, do you have a perspective in any changes with either our military presence there or the roles or the job in general?

McCosarNot really. It about all remained the same, but they developed new techniques now for different type of weapons, aircraft being used. They've improved a lot in their techniques. They learned how to work together a lot 63:00better than what they used to. We used to have problems with radios. Everybody had a different radio channel but not no more. They're trying to consolidate them so everybody can be on the same channel, monitoring what's happening.

MilliganYou mean everybody within, everybody in the military in general, or everybody in the Marine Corps, or everybody--.

McCosarSame way with the Marine Corps, aircraft unit, they had their different radio channels to operate on. Understandably, all of them couldn't be on the same channel. We get in the heat of battle, though, everybody getting excited, everybody'd be on the radio. You couldn't make out what was going on. Too many people talking.

MilliganIt's still important, it sounds like, to have that one consolidated space when you need it. When Vietnam ended officially then, you were back in the 64:00States? Is that correct, or were you somewhere else?

McCosarI was back in the States. I think I was on recruiting duties then. The only other exciting thing in Vietnam was we was stationed up north near DMZ. All the Marine squadrons had to send a helicopter or two up closer to there, to be closer to DMZ in case fixed wing aircraft get shot down in combat and have to go into the water or crash on land. We'd have to go in there and pick them up. That's hazardous because they had big missiles up there then. They could shoot you down fast. We had to fly as low and fast as we could to get at them.

MilliganFor search and rescue?

McCosarRight. You had to pick them out of the water or wherever they landed in in enemy territory. There were a lot of people working on Air Force and Navy. 65:00Air Force mainly had their own large aircraft, rescue aircraft, Jolly Green Giants [Sikorsky HH-3E helicopter]. They were a lot faster than us. They probably had better equipment than we had. Against them, all we had about that time was the M60 machine gun--not very heavy.

MilliganIn what circumstances would you be, would your aircraft be deployed to do that search and rescue versus--

McCosarRight. Everybody had to take their chance up there, no favorites.

MilliganYeah. So if you were the closer one, you--.

McCosarIf there was nobody close to the aircraft, we'd have to do it. They'd put out a mayday call. They'd know where you were at, so you go out and help that fellow.

MilliganWas that something you had to take part in a lot?

McCosarI didn't. A lot of other aircraft crews did. A lot of them would crash or get shot down. Send more aircraft in, bigger units, until they finally collect them. The policy was developing pretty well then: leave no one behind.

MilliganI'm curious what your perspective was whenever they made the announcement that the US was going to pull out of Vietnam.

McCosarI think I was kind of disappointed that things hadn't turned out like we had hoped. Think the Marine Corps was very disappointed that we didn't get to invade North Vietnam, their hometown way up north.

MilliganOh, yeah.

McCosarThey could've changed things quite a bit there if they'd allowed us to do that. We couldn't bomb their airfield. We couldn't bomb their ports where all the ammunition was coming in. We couldn't bomb their railroad track bringing all the ammunition down.

MilliganDo you know where that decision was coming down, or how it was communicated with you all?

McCosarIt was coming out of the White House is about all I can tell you. I won't mention the politician's name, but he was the one big hand in it there, that gave the country away.

MilliganWell, you can if you want to. (Laughter) It's probably not going to be a secret to everybody.

McCosarYeah, they already know it anyway.

MilliganWell, I wonder, too, was that a sentiment that was shared within the, within your colleagues? Was that something you all talked about?

McCosarProbably throughout the whole Marine Corps. They didn't let us go up 68:00there and do a job on them.

MilliganDid you all ever talk about why you thought that was? I mean I understand politics, I get that, but--.

McCosarPolitics, that's about it, because we had some Marine General fighters back then, not politicians. Like probably nowadays they're more politically-orientated, not combat. We had Marine fighters that come out the old Corps, World War II, wasn't afraid to fight.

MilliganThat were your, that was your--

McCosarThe leaders then.

Milligan...your commanders at the time?

McCosarYeah, yeah.

MilliganUm, so how long were you, how long was your military career overall?

McCosarTwenty-two years.

MilliganSo you retired, I guess, after twenty-two years?

McCosarYeah, Master Sergeant. During that time, though, it probably was hard on 69:00the family because out of twenty-two years I probably spent at least ten years away from my family.

MilliganAt what point in there did you get married, then?

McCosarNineteen sixty-five--

MilliganOh, okay, yeah, so in between two of your different trips.

McCosar--and the first eight years of my marriage, I was gone four years. That kind of had an effect on when I was about to retire. Come back from one side of the world and got to North Carolina. They was ready to send me to the other side of the world. Not much time with the family, so I said it's time to leave.

MilliganYeah. When you came, when you were, when you landed in--wait I have it. I have it somewhere. You were back in Vietnam, and then you left Vietnam again for the third time in '70 or '71, '70.

McCosarYeah. I went to recruiting school then--until about '76, I think.

MilliganSo the rest of your career was more like recruiting.

McCosarYeah. Then after that, just normal training again because we weren't going back to Vietnam, although they had a few units there but not that many anymore.

MilliganWell, in '76 when you decided to retire, then you had your child in '77 or '78. After you retired, you weren't that old when you retired, right?

McCosarMust've been forty, isn't it?

MilliganForty, I think that's probably right.

McCosarThirty-eight to seventy-eight.

MilliganDepends on when you graduated, yeah. What'd you do?

McCosarWent down and got a job and went to work. Had a family to support.

MilliganYou did have a family to support. What did you work in? What did you--

McCosarI went to mechanics again. Went to work in the water heater manufacturing company, and the Union closed it down. Went to work in a paper cup making company, and the Union closed it down. I went to work with the Georgia State Prison System for five years. Learned how to be a babysitter for criminals. Then my knees were wearing out at that time, so I decided to retire. A lot of my friends, when they got sixty-five, they were all dying. I said, "I ain't going to wait that long. I'll retire."

MilliganYeah. All your friends were dying at sixty-five? That's pretty young. Well, this leaps back to where we started, which was your time at Chilocco, and 72:00I'm curious if you had, in your time in the military, did you have other people that were Native American that served with you? Was that ever sort of part of the--

McCosarThere were several that come through but not that many in aviation. I'm pretty sure a lot of them could have passed the test to have that GCT score, but they didn't go necessarily to aviation. Come across a few. They had their problems like they do here in Oklahoma.

MilliganYou mean a lot of alcoholics--

McCosarYeah.

Milligan--and substance abuse?

McCosarYeah. I guess probably the PTSD coming out of Vietnam was affecting them. I admit I have it, but it's not as large as the regular. I probably would have had it greater if I had personally went out there and killed people, but I 73:00wasn't directly involved. I was indirectly involved in helping getting them killed. I had a lot of problems with that. All my dreams were always carrying Marines into battle, or flying with a Marine somewhere. For a long time, my dreams were like that.

MilliganWhen you came back?

McCosarYeah. I could hear a loud noise, and I'd be ready to hit the ground. It usually got me pretty hard when I heard a helicopter flying. There used to be a helicopter base, and regular cities now have helicopters flying around. I get a little bit anxious when I hear helicopters flying. I was used to the slow helicopters. You knew by the sounds what type of helicopter it was. They'd make a certain sound, and you knew what was coming. It would make your heart pump fast. You'd know what was going to be happening, like it was in Vietnam, getting 74:00ready for a battle or something.

MilliganDid you, did you have any kind of support to deal with that?

McCosarNot really. They tried, but I wasn't that bad off, I guess. What they literally did, their diagnosis was give me some tranquilizers.

MilliganWas this the VA?

McCosarGive me little pills to take. They'd make me go to sleep too much, so I quit taking them. Never went back.

MilliganDo you identify pretty--well, how do you identify with your Native American heritage?

McCosarI read. I read quite a bit. I got whole books about my Native heritage, about Indians, and different tribes, and what they did, why they did it. I take 75:00it with a grain of salt because historians are mostly pale faces.

MilliganYes, they are.

McCosarAs pale-face concept of it, if the Indians wrote the books, it would be a lot different.

MilliganNot arguing with you there by any means.

McCosarOkay. I dealt with it okay. Of course, I was away from 1956 to 2014.

MilliganYou were away from--.

McCosarMy Native people. My wife's family died out, and then she finally died out after a while. I decided to come back and be with my brothers and sisters.

MilliganHad you kept in touch with them much while you were gone?

McCosarI'm trying to. There was thirteen of us in the family. One died in Vietnam at Khe Sanh. One was--he let drugs get ahold of him. He died. What's 76:00that make? Nine?

MilliganEleven.

McCosarEleven siblings alive.

MilliganYeah. Are they mostly in Oklahoma?

McCosarYeah. Well, two of them are out in California, overdosing on that bad air out in California, LA.

MilliganWell, good weather, bad air.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganThat's one of the things I wonder about, too. Did you join any veterans groups or anything like that whenever you left the military?

McCosarNot really, I'm not a joiner. I consider myself a loner. I take care of myself; you take care of yourself. I got to where I don't depend on other people for assistance unless it's a emergency or something. I depend on myself.

MilliganWhich is interesting because it sounds like while you were in the 77:00military and part of that group that you couldn't have that mentality, it seems like.

McCosarYeah. We had to, basically, start how to survive yourself. Then it's also helping the other Marine in the next fox hole next to you survive. That's your brother, all of them.

MilliganDo you keep in touch with anybody that you were--

McCosarI tried, but those scammers or whatever you call them, hackers, messed up the email system quite a bit, so I fell out of it. They did a lot of damage to my emails and website.

MilliganThat's frustrating. I'm sorry.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganWell, I know that there is--now that you are sort of getting, trying to reconnect with your Native roots, are you involved or interested in getting 78:00involved with any of the Native American veteran groups?

McCosarWe tried down there, but we're all getting old. It's hard to get them to all meet together at one time.

MilliganWhere physically is that?

McCosarOkmulgee. They give a lot of language classes down there. We was trying to learn that, trying to learn to speak, trying to learn to sing Native language. Of course, I can't leave out the Native American food, too. We try and do all that. We try and help the younger generation, those that are willing to learn, to relearn their history.

MilliganYeah. Did you grow up in a home that spoke a native language?

McCosarRight, they all spoke the Creek language, [and] they could speak [our native] language with Chilocco--English. Most of the language I heard back then 79:00was Creek language. I could understand it, but I couldn't speak it.

MilliganI see.

McCosarWhen I went to college and I got my degree, they wanted me to take a foreign language class. I said, "No. I've already learned a foreign language: English." That shook them up a little bit. They had to have a big discussion about it. They finally agreed that English was my foreign language.

MilliganGood for you! No, I'm serious. So where did you go to college?

McCosarUniversity of Tennessee, Chattanooga. I learned to be--I always liked art. I went for my own edification, not to make money at it but to see what I could do in art. I still do that.

MilliganWhen did you do that?

McCosarWell, 1978 to 1986, eight years. Worked, going half-time. I do artwork, 80:00but I don't do it for pay. I do it, and after I get tired of looking at it, I give it away to my sisters or relatives. Some I sold. I lived in a small town back then. Them rich people from Atlanta would come up, and they'd buy pictures, the rich cats.

MilliganDid you show? -- Well, I will have other questions about that, but I don't have to do it right now. Well, so you're back and--just one more question, and this revolves around why you're here today. Like, what brings you to the 81:00Chilocco reunion? Like, what's the draw?

McCosarI've never been to a reunion.

MilliganReally?

McCosarThis is my first time back. I've come by, passed to see one special friend here who was in my class. He was a baker. I come by, stopped by to see him while the school was still operating. That was about it.

MilliganBefore '80, then?

McCosarYeah.

MilliganWhat do you think--now that you're back on campus after all this time?

McCosarVery disappointed in what they let happen to it. A lot of beautiful buildings went to heck. It shouldn't have happened.

Milligan-- Well, you're back. You're right. A lot has happened with the 82:00buildings, I'm sure.

McCosarI thought it was a real good school. It helped those little American Indians, but I can see the other side where Native Americans need to learn more how to operate with white people, pale faces, whatever you want to call them, white eyes or whatever.

MilliganYou can call me whatever you want. (Laughter)

McCosarNo, you don't want to hear that!

MilliganI won't take it personally. Maybe I should, but I won't!

McCosarThey need to learn how to operate, and how to do it, and how the procedures are because I see a great failure in their education about learning how to deal with other peoples, even within their own families. They've lost it. I see all the results out there on the streets. I come back to be a deacon, to help the widows, the orphans, the poor, the hungry, the children. I found it. I found it here. It's very difficult to deal with that because of the parents' and 83:00grandparents' failures to teach them the way they should go.

MilliganDo you think that's a loss of who you are as a people, like, from the Native perspective?

McCosarIt is a great loss because they don't know their own history now. They don't know who their ancestors are. They don't know, most cases, a lot of cases, they don't know who their relatives are. A few cases might be because--the joke is you can't marry into the Creek Nation now because you might be marrying your relative. That's why they're getting other nationalities into the Nation now.

MilliganSmall.

McCosarYeah. Just for your own edification: I married a pale face.

MilliganI don't know why I made that assumption, but I did. I shouldn't have. (Laughter) Yeah, well, so your plan to come back is to reconnect with your 84:00family and to help, it sounds like, help your tribe.

McCosarRight. I'm a religious man now after my wife's family died and she died. I talked to God and asked for directions where to go. He sent me here. He sent me to one special place. He sent me to one special person who taught me to be a deacon before he passed on. I think he knew he was going to pass on. He prayed a lot for someone to come along, and here I come.

MilliganHere you are. What church are you affiliated with?

McCosarBelvin Baptist Church in Okmulgee, right close to the university down there. I'm dealing with them, learning how to deal with children, how to deal with women, learning how to deal with other churches. Everything is not in a set pattern with everybody. They all have their different techniques. You have to 85:00learn all those different techniques, rules and regulations about ceremony and ritual.

MilliganYou learned anything interesting?

McCosarMost of it's interesting because I've never known how they operate here, the Creek Nation, the Muscogee Nation.

MilliganSo when you grew up, was that not something that you grew up in? Like, that wasn't part of what you all--.

McCosarYeah, but when you're too young to realize there is a difference there--. We was poor, but we didn't consider ourselves poor. We were used to it. People would help us, but that's part of growing up, I guess. Everybody else was poor, too, just not us. Had to deal a little bit with racial relationships because my 86:00grandmother, she was dark. If we traveled with her, get on a bus to go to town, they'd say, "Go to the back of the bus." Said, "Okay, there's good seats back there." Didn't bother me.

MilliganYeah. Well you--I don't consider you to be a dark-skinned person.

McCosarYeah.

MilliganIs that something when you came to, when you started going to Indian boarding school, was there a division there between--

McCosarNo, not really. Only time I come across that was I was based in North Carolina, South Carolina, traveling through there. That's when I started seeing those signs about white people only, colored people only.

MilliganWhere did you feel like you fell in that line?

McCosarI thought I fell within the white people's line. I didn't consider myself black. Of course, this is my summertime tan. In the wintertime, I turn white like a pale face.

MilliganYeah. It's interesting because North Carolina still has a fair amount of 87:00Cherokee in at least a portion of it.

McCosarThey were real discriminated against back then. Probably still are.

MilliganWell, I think it's good that you--I'm happy you came back, and I'm happy to hear it was a good thing.

McCosarI'll probably try to come back, but I need to change things about the way they do things here.

MilliganWell, you got plenty of people you can talk to.

McCosarThey need name tags and years they attended. They don't know by just looking at them. You have to go up and ask a stranger what their name is and what year you were here. Maybe it starts you to talking, but it would be helpful if you had a name tag and years you were here.

MilliganWell, you're the second person I've heard that from today, so you've got momentum behind you on that. They may just put you on a committee to do it, but--

McCosarYeah.

Milligan--that's okay too. Unless there's anything else you want to add, I think we're getting towards the end of our time.

McCosarThat should be about it. I'm a man of few words. Like I said, "Uh!" (Laughter)

MilliganIt's interesting, though. You had such a specific role, but you played such a broad, you had such a broad impact, it seems like, during your time. It is very interesting.

McCosarThe only thing unusual because when I was in the military, white folks didn't realize that there were a lot of Indians in this country. I always ended up being a Spanish. They see my last name, and they say, "Are you from Scotland." I said, "No." Do you tell them you're Indian? They act like they knew all the Indian tribes, about seven hundred different tribes. "What tribe are you, then?" After about five hundred times I got asked that question, I have to develop a joke. You don't want to hear it.

MilliganI don't? I might. If you don't want it on the recording, that's fine.

McCosarOkay, I'll tell you. I'll try to take it out of Marine Corps terms. 89:00(Laughter) They would ask me, "What tribe are you?" I say, "Well, I was in a little band of short people, real short people. When they get in the swamp, they would travel through the tall weeds. They would have to go to the highest mountain around, stick their hands up, and say, 'Where the heck are we?'" So I say, "It's the Heck-Are-We Tribe." I reduced the language down.

MilliganI think I can get it. (Laughs)

McCosarI told that to a pale face officer one time. He remembered that story the rest of his life because my son got involved through the Peace Corps with his wife, and they went to a Peace Corps meeting. There was this Marine officer there, and he saw that name there. He told my son that story I told him. That was about thirty years later. My son called me at home, said, "I know what tribe 90:00you are." (Laughs) He started telling me that story. He remembered that.

MilliganThere's actually something really special about that, I think. That's neat. All right. I'm going to set you free.

McCosarOkay.

------- End of interview -------