Oral history interview with Richard Mendez

MilliganSo this is Sarah Milligan with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. Today's date is May 27, 2016. I'm at the Chilocco reunion on the Chilocco campus, and I'm talking with Richard Mendez (right?) about his time at Chilocco, as well as his time in military. This is part of a veterans history project for the Chilocco alumni group. Okay, so tell me a little bit about, just where you're from, who your parents are, your siblings, just a little bit about that kind of stuff.

MendezOkay, my name is Richard Mendez. I'm from Fort Hall, Idaho, from the Shoshone-Bannock tribes. I have four brothers and four sisters. Actually, like, three brothers and four sisters. I lost a brother and a sister, so there was ten of us in our family. My mother is (her name?)--

MilliganYeah!

Mendez--Elvina Mendez. She passed away a couple of years ago, and she's Shoshone from Fort Hall. My dad, his name was Magdaleno Mendez, and he was from Mexico. He was Spanish and Aztec. Lived in Idaho most of my life. I lived off and on in Elko, Nevada, also. I went to school in the Blackfoot School District around Blackfoot, Idaho. I didn't really do too good there. I got kind of kicked out of school. It was in the early ʼ60s. They didn't allow long hair, and I had long hair. Everywhere I went they kicked me out because I wouldn't cut my hair.

MilliganNow why wouldn't you cut your hair?

MendezBecause I didn't want to. In our tribe it was traditional to have long hair, but the schools didn't allow it. Back then everybody wore, like, a butch haircut and stuff like that. Eventually I went to Nevada and went to one school in Elko, Nevada, and they kicked me out for the same reason, because I wouldn't cut my hair. Then I went to Battle Mountain, Nevada, and they did the same thing. They let me in there for about two weeks, and then they said, "You need to cut your hair." I said, "No." Anyhow, I ended up coming to Chilocco. That was in '64, and I spent '64 and '65 here. Eventually cut my hair. (Laughs)

MilliganOh, really?

MendezWell, it was not allowed to go on a date with the girls. You had to have your hair cut, you had to wear a tie and a jacket, so that got me to cut my hair.

MilliganThat seems unfair to hold that--.

MendezSo anyway, I enjoyed my time here at Chilocco. Prior to that when I was in school, I hardly ever went to school, maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays, and I was off running around Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I had older cousins that used to pick me up all the time, and we'd go out. I was only, like, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Used to party with them all the time. It was kind of bad for me. I didn't realize it until I got here to school that I really didn't know much, but being here at Chilocco, it kind of forced me to go to school every day, forced me to learn. I enjoyed my time here. I eventually went home for the summer of '65, and I came back in the fall. Of course, I was drinking again--

MilliganIn the summer?

Mendez--yeah, so I come back here, and I was drinking when I got here. I come into Wichita, and we bought stuff from Wichita when the bus stopped there. We got here, so I was already kind of a little bit out of it already. I start picking fights with Navajos, which was kind of like, at that time, there was probably 90 percent of the school kids here were Navajos. The rest of us were from all over the United States. Anyway, I got thrown in jail.

MilliganOh, seriously?

MendezYeah, then they let me out. and I come back out. I was here for about two weeks, and they gave me a choice to clean up and cut my hair. Again, I had grown my hair all summer. They would consider letting me stay here. I did all what 5:00they asked me to do. Then I went in to see the superintendent, and he says, "Well, I've got one problem here. You don't like Navajos, and 90 percent of the school's Navajos. All you want to do is seem to fight with them." I said, "Well, I can always change my ways." He said, "I think it's a little too late for that." I said, "You gave me a choice to clean up and not do this or do that and you'd consider my staying here." He said, "I already considered that, and you're out." I waited another couple of weeks until the tribe sent me a bus ticket to go home. When I got home, I got the runaround there, and the schools wouldn't accept me in any schools, so I decided to join the service and join the Marines. I was watching the news reels on TV then about Vietnam, and this was in '65. I 6:00went down and enlisted. I figured the fastest way to get there was to join the Marines, so that's what I did. Oh, back to the school, my sister was here the same time I was, Angela.

MilliganDid you all come together?

MendezNo. Yeah, on the second time, yeah. She wasn't here the first time. In '65 she came. No, I guess she was here in '64 and '65. I think we came together. Then my other sister, Tansia, came in '65 or somewhere around there. I had a brother in Concho. Yeah, he was in Concho, and I had another sister in Fort Sill. We were all kind of this way, most of us, anyway.

MilliganYeah, so that was a question. How did you decide to come to Chilocco? I mean there was lots of options if you're going far away.

MendezThat was the only thing available, I think, at that time. I don't know. My 7:00mother got the application. There were several coming here from the tribe, so I was tossed in with them. Yeah, there was other boarding schools. There was one down in Brigham City that's closer to us, but I didn't know about that. I didn't know about any of the other schools. All I know is I was told to come here, so I came here. I enjoyed it, like I said. I enjoyed my time. I learned. I started going to school. I started to understand and follow everything along. I didn't really want to go home, but I didn't have much choice when they kicked me out.

MilliganDid you have the option to stay here over the summer at that time instead of going back home during the summer?

MendezNo, they just sent everybody tickets to go home on. Okay, then I joined 8:00the service. Went to boot camp in San Diego; graduated from there. Went to my training in Camp Pendleton [California], and then from there I had thirty-day leave, and then went to Vietnam, shipped out.

MilliganThat was very quick.

MendezYeah, so I served with the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines [Regiment], 1st Marine Division, from a little bit north of Da Nang all the way down to Chu Lai. I spent thirteen and a half months there my first tour. When I got there, they asked for volunteers, and they said, "You're a volunteer." (Laughs)

MilliganThat's how they volunteered? (Laughs)

MendezI went into machine guns, so I was a machine gunner, M60 machine guns. There was--.

MilliganHow old were you at this point?

MendezI was eighteen. There was fourteen of us that went through training together and everything, and we went over there together. There was a whole bunch more, but these guys I went through, some of them through boot camp, some of them just through the training. They called it ITR. I think it's infantry training regiment or something like that. We got over there, and the first night we were there, (that's when we got there, late at night) they said, "We need volunteers, and everybody's going into weapons." I went into machine guns. Half of the other guys went into rockets and mortars. I think one other guy went with me to machine guns. That very first night, five of them were killed, the first night we got there. It was kind of a little scary, but it was like at that time 10:00as I was told a lot through my life, I wouldn't ever make nothing of myself. I kind of didn't really care whether I lived or died, or whether I stayed or came back or not from Vietnam. I think after my third month there, I got shot. I got wounded. Wasn't bad; just took a chunk out of my leg.

Then I was very--I didn't really care. That kind of changed my mind a little bit. (Laughs) I figured, "Ahh!" So after that, probably another three or four months, I got wounded again from a grenade. We got attacked and got pretty well, wiped out a lot of us, a lot of our company. I served my thirteen and a half months there, and then I came back. I was stationed in Barstow, California, as 11:00military police. We were on what they call the Running Guard because there were too many people, so we worked, like, four on, eight off, four on, eight off. I was there for nine months doing that. The only time we had any time off other than the eight hours we had off was if we paid somebody to stand our shift. It was pretty hectic. Plus that, we had to stand inspection every time we went on duty. We had to be perfect, perfectly dressed with our clean, new uniform on every shift, shined boots, shined brass. After about the second or third month, I applied to come back to Vietnam.

MilliganSo how did you end up being with the military police then?

MendezThat was just where I was assigned when I got--. When I came back from Vietnam, they assigned me and another guy. There was only four of us that came back that went over, from the original fourteen of us that went over there. Me 12:00and one of the other guys, we were stationed at Barstow. The other guys went back East. We were hoping to get back East because they went on sea duty and they got to go around, up to Naples and all that, Italy, on a cruise. It was training, but they still got to go, and here we got stuck in Barstow. Hot. It was cold there; it was in November or December. Just around the first part of December when we got there. Like I say, I served there for nine months. After the first three months, I was ready to get out of there, so I put in for Vietnam. It took the six months, and I kept asking, "What's the problem? What's the problem? When am I going to get to go back?"

MilliganSo you would've rather gone back to Vietnam than stay?

MendezYeah, than stay there. They said, "Well, there's a whole lot of guys that 13:00need to go over there. You've already been there." I kept saying, "I got experience." Anyway, they finally gave me my orders to go back to Vietnam, so I got a chance to go home for a couple of weeks and come back. Had to go through ITR training again for, I think, a month or something like that, or three or four weeks. Then I went back to Vietnam. I was stationed up in the north by the DMZ [demilitarized zone] in that area with the Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines [Regiment], back in the machine guns again.

MilliganWell, the DMZ area's a pretty rough--.

MendezYeah, I was around by Khe Sanh too. Khe Sanh was really bad. I think they were already done with that. They'd already moved out of there by then. I missed the worst part of it, I guess, the Tet Offensive, because I came back. I went 14:00over in August or September of '66, and I came back again in November. Then I went back. It was the end of November. Then I went back again in, I think it was August--yeah, around August, sometime around August and September. The Tet was between February and so forth, so I kind of missed that. Went back in '68. We did a lot more. I guess we were out in the field a whole lot more over there, and we went as a company. When I was down south in the first tour, we were platoon- or squad-sized, things that we did, patrols. Up north was all company-sized because we ran into a lot of North Vietnamese regulars. They did 15:00everything big because we had to. I got back over in machine guns, and I ended up getting put in charge as a team leader.

A little bit later on I ended up being a squad leader. By the time I left there I was acting platoon commander for weapons. -- The biggest thing we did was we went on an operation called Operation Dewey Canyon in the A Shau Valley. We were after big guns that they were shooting at us. We were stuck in kind of like the monsoon season. It was bogged down. We didn't have hardly anything to eat. They couldn't bring in our supplies because every time they'd try to come in they'd get shot up. They couldn't see because it was all foggy or raining all the time 16:00off and on. We never got resupplied, so we had to go out looking for food, looking for something to eat. Came across a patch of pineapples, which was a big mistake. (Laughs) We ate those, and we had bad runs for a while. We had bananas. We ate bananas, green bananas. You could take a green banana and cut it up, boil it in rainwater. Tastes just like a boiled potato. We ate those.

MilliganDid you know that before you did that?

MendezNo. We tried eating one one time, and it just makes you pucker up, green bananas. We'd carry some around on our packs until they ripened. Then we found a village up there where some people, they had to evacuate it, but we found a 17:00bunch of rice and sardines, I think they were, fish like little sardines and stuff. It kind of reminded me of home because my older sister used to like to cook rice and sardines together, mix sardines in her rice. It was--I don't know. She liked it. I didn't care for it, but when I got there I was so hungry I ate whatever I could. That's why I thought of my older sister when I was eating that. "Oh, this is what my sister used to make."

MilliganI was about to say, did you have that conversation? Like, "This is cool to eat because, you know, childhood."

MendezYeah, so we had that, and we looked all over. We spent, like I said, forty-one days out there. We lost about, I think, three or four guys the whole time we was out there out of our company. There was a lot of other ones that got into some really bad stuff and lost quite a bit of guys, but we were kind of fortunate. We did run across them guns we kept chasing from mountain to mountain, but they had abandoned them. I mean they were big, like 175 [mm] 18:00Howitzers. They were big, long guns. We found a lot of machine guns, ammo, rifles. They just left all their weapons. They kind of threw them in a big olʽ pit and tried to bury them, but we found them.

MilliganDo you think that they were going to come back for them later? Is that the idea?

MendezI think that's what they were thinking. They knew we was going to destroy the guns, the big guns and stuff, because they couldn't hide them. Anyway, after that, we came back off that operation.

MilliganHow long were you out in the field for that one?

MendezThat was forty-one days. We came back out of that one, and I think we had about a month or two. I can't remember. We were going to be pulled out. The 9th Marines were the first ones to get to Vietnam, so they would get to be the first 19:00ones to get pulled out when they started withdrawing in '79. I just happened to be with them. We were going to get ready to pull out, so they took us back into, it was called Cua Viet. We were stationed back there for, I think it was about two weeks almost. Then they had a place, a gunning placement called Dong Ha Mountain. They were taking a lot of incoming rounds from the North Vietnamese and the armies. They were circled around them, so they dropped us in there on top of that mountain in choppers. Then the next couple days we were up there getting ready to go out. We didn't know what was going on. We just knew we was going to go down and start looking for them. They were going to chopper us out, and they brought the choppers in up there. It wasn't a very big place. It was on 20:00top of a big olʽ high mountain, just a flattened area where they put their gunning placements at.

It was just enough to land, I think, one or two choppers at a time. They landed ours; we jumped on. We started going up, but it took a bunch of hits. They started telling everybody to get out. We had some guys that just barely came over, and they were laying on the floor. I said, "You better get up! Them rounds are going to come through there!" They were scared. Me and their sergeant major started throwing them out the back. That was the only way to get them out. They would not get out of that chopper, and we were taking hits. We were the last two to jump out, and we were probably, like, about ten, fifteen feet off the ground because it was just hovering up there. We jumped out, and Sergeant Major broke his legs. I was lucky; I landed all right. The chopper went down, and the crews, they were all killed. They decided we're going to climb down, and there was only 21:00one way down, way back the other way, and that's where all the North Vietnamese were. We start climbing down the mountain, very steep.

MilliganWith one guy who has his legs broken.

MendezNo, he didn't. He stayed up there because they had the gunning placements there. They still had that up there. They had security around there. So we went down, and we got down the mountain. We was going around. These ones come running out there and shooting at us. One platoon took off after them. Said, "Hey, get back here! Don't do that!" They followed them anyway, and almost all of them got wiped out right there. There was an ambush; they set them up. We went over there and helped them, got them medevacked out. We went up this what they called Hill 126, and they had a double circle of perimeter of North Vietnamese. They just blasted the heck out of us. It lasted for two days, and we lost just about 22:00everybody. I had nine machine gunners, and I only had one left when we got done. My rockets, I had one of my guys from rockets. There was like six of them. We pretty much got all wiped out. There was only about twenty-five, maybe thirty of us that walked out of there. The rest of them were either wounded or killed. That was just before we was going home, so that was kind of spooky. We got out of there, and we went back to--I'm pretty sure Cua Viet's what they called that place.

We went back there, and we was there for another, about a week, week and a half before they pulled us out. Took us down, we loaded up on ships, and headed to 23:00Okinawa. I was on the USS Paul Revere. I used to think that was kind of funny. I had a friend that was in the Navy, and he was on one called the USS Peter Rabbit. (Laughs) They named them like that. I got to Okinawa, and they said, "Well, you've got a choice. You can go home, or you can stay here because you've only got one more month." If you had less than six months, they let you out early. I opted to stay so that I could get out early instead of having to serve the whole time. I ended up serving three months in Okinawa. I was platoon commander for weapons and platoon commander for Second Platoon because we'd lost all of our officers and most of our people from there. I was a corporal E-4, and 24:00we had another guy that was a corporal that was in charge of First Platoon. Then we had one sergeant that was in charge of Third Platoon. Then we had our--our CO, our commanding officer was, I think he was a first lieutenant, but he was one of our only officers left that didn't get killed.

MilliganIn that last--.

MendezYeah, in that last little thing. We were all pretty much in charge, so I kind of stayed there for a couple of months until we built our platoon back up and our company back up.

MilliganDid you have the choice to leave earlier? It sounded like you did.

MendezI could've left earlier, but, no, I decided to stay there. It was cool because first time--well, I went to Okinawa when I first went to Vietnam. They let us have a week there. We could go to town and go out, but we had to be back 25:00by midnight. Same way when I came back home. They let us have a week there. Then when I went back again, the same thing. This time, we said, "We're doing the job of an officer. Why can't we have officer's hours? Why can't we stay out all night?" They said, "Okay, yeah, as long as you're back by eight o'clock in the morning when you have your platoon out and stand muster." We said, "Oh, good," but they said, "You can't go to officers' mess to eat with the officers or the officers' club." (Laughs) Anyway, it was cool. We got to do a lot of things. I got malaria while I was there, too, in Okinawa. I guess it was from Vietnam, but I was sick for a couple of weeks. That was about the only bad thing about that. Then I got stabbed one night by some Puerto Ricans over there so I almost got killed in--. Two tours in Vietnam, and almost got killed in Okinawa. (Laughs)

MilliganHoly cow! What happened?

MendezJust drunk walking down the street. I don't really know; I was so out of it already. I don't know if I ought to say this. I used to go to this one bar all the time. I had a girlfriend that owned another bar. We got mad at each other one night, so I went down to this other bar. I used to go there when I--if I ever wanted to get drunk, I'd just go there because first time I went there, the guy--I ordered a shot of vodka, and he filled up a glass.

MilliganLike an eight-ounce glass?

MendezYeah. He said, "If you can drink that all down, drinks are on me all night, anytime." That night I did that. I went down there, and I drank that up. I was there drinking it for quite a while. Then I decided to go clear across to this other place. It was kind of bad there because there was guys that used to, people that hung around. If you're by yourself they'll jump you, take our money or whatever. I just happened to be by myself. I don't really remember too much. 27:00I just remember them pushing me against the car, and I saw a flash. They actually sliced it right in here. The military police were sitting across the road watching the whole thing, I guess. I didn't know. I just remember I was laying on the table, and they were sewing me up. I kind of come to. I woke up, and I said, "What in the hell you guys doing to me?" (Laughs) They said, "We're putting you back together." I says, "Oh."

MilliganDid the military police know that you were military?

MendezYeah.

MilliganThey do something afterwards?

MendezYeah, they got them. They picked them up and everything, but then they took me in to the hospital.

MilliganI see.

MendezThen they wanted me to go downstairs and identify them. I said, "How am I supposed to identify them? I don't even know who they are. I don't even know--all I remember is them pushing me against the car and I seen that flash." 28:00They said, "Well, we were sitting there. We saw it." I said, "Then you guys ought to know who it is." They said, "Yeah, but we need you to say." I said, "Okay, that's them." (Laughs) Then after that I got out and came home. They flew us into Travis Air Force Base in San Francisco, and we were there for about a week and a half. They wouldn't pay us--because they didn't want us taking off anywhere, I guess. I don't know. They wouldn't pay us, and we had money coming. I had my mom send me some money there, and then they said, "Well, we're decided. We're going to take you to El Toro Air Base," Marine air base in--Santa Ana right by--"and you guys will get out there." They loaded us on these what they call cattle cars, big olʽ trucks with cattle cars, yeah, with seats in them. 29:00Then they packed us a bag lunch. We rode down on those all the way to Santa Ana.

We were there for another, I think, couple of weeks or two or three weeks. They come around one day, and they said, "If anybody here didn't finish school, we're going to be doing classes for GEDs," so I took my GED classes there. Got done with that since I didn't make it here. (Laughs) After that, got out, and I went home. Got in trouble; messed around there. Not too long after I got home, somebody said I hit a car when I backed out of the bar. I was in Elko, Nevada. I know I didn't touch that car. I was sitting home at my house on my car outside, 30:00drinking a beer. They come and they--it's not illegal to drink in Nevada outside. You can drink there. They came, but they still arrested me for leaving the scene of an accident, drunk in or about the automobile. They gave me thirty days, and I think it was a $150 fine. Suspended my license for a year. After I got done with that, I went back. I was home for about two or three weeks, and one of my friends' brothers killed himself in Ely, Nevada, which is quite a ways a way from Elko.

We drove up there for his funeral. We was coming back, and we stopped in this little town, Wells. We bought a six-pack of beer, and we took off. I guess they called the police on us and told them because they used to do that to the Indians. They'd tell on them. We just got about ten miles out of Wells, and here comes the state police and pulled us over. I was driving, which I didn't have a 31:00license. I was drinking. I ended up spending seventy-two days out of ninety days in jail for that, and $350 fine, and my license was suspended for another year. The judge told me, "If you ever get caught again, you'll never drive." I said, "I guess it's time to get out of Nevada." (Laughs) I went back to Idaho, Fort Hall, where I'm from. I did a little bit of work, whatever I could find. I went to school at Haskell. I went to school--I started school at Idaho State University for civil technology. Oh, before I went to school, I was working in Nevada for a while. I was working with a surveying outfit, and I worked there for about six, eight months.

MilliganLike, doing land surveys?

MendezYeah, this guy taught me all kinds of, how you do all the work with the theodolite and all that stuff. I said, "I think I'll go to school and get me a degree." He said, "What do you need school for? I can teach you everything you need to know." I said, "Yeah, but I have to have that little piece of paper." That's when I went back, went to school, and I started ISU in civil technology. The only thing we did was go up on the hill and shoot backsights down. That was the amount of surveying in that class. I said, "Well, that ain't for me." I was going to go to Logan, Utah, which is one of the best schools around for engineering and surveying and stuff, but by the time I got done with figuring out all my scholarships and my veterans and everything like that, I would have to be living on, like, five or six dollars a month. I said, "Nah, I ain't going to do it." I found out about Haskell. They had a survey and mapping class. I went to Haskell, and it was free. I went to Haskell, took their drafting design.

Then went it came time for our surveying and mapping class, our instructor quit, and he left. Went to work somewhere, so me and another guy named Charlie from Farmington, New Mexico, we taught the class for credit. All we could do is go out and measure the football field and different terraces because that's all they did was terracing work and stuff like that around there. My last year, my wife graduated. Before my wife graduated--I got married there. I had to wait for her, so I took extra classes. Then I worked with the survey and mapping with soil and conservation, doing surveying and mapping with them. That was part of my credit, also, for the extra year I went to school. Plus, I worked out of 34:00Kansas City Structural Steel in Kansas City. Got married then to my wife. We've been married since then, so it's been forty-one years. From there I went back to Idaho. I was working at the cafeteria, too. I got a job there--

MilliganAt Haskell?

Mendez...yeah, so I was a cook there. I worked in the bakery for three months, and then I was a cook for the rest of the time. I had a steady job, but I didn't want to stay there. I got a job with Idaho National Engineering Laboratory out in Idaho at the nuclear site. I didn't ever get back into surveying, but I did drafting and design. I worked there for about a year. Then I got into designing, and I worked there for another eleven years as a designer. In the meantime I was 35:00still kind of boozing it up, so I decided I wanted to quit drinking. I didn't know how to do it, so I figured, well, maybe if I go to church I'll settle down. I started going to church, and I started getting involved in the church.

MilliganWhich church?

MendezEpiscopal. Pretty soon I got so involved in the church, they started having me do this, and do that, and do that. I got more involved, and I started losing interest in my job. I was asked by the bishop if I wanted to seek holy orders, and I said, "I might." I decided to, and they had a program, training program, there that they said within two years you could be ordained as a deacon and then another couple years as a priest. To make a long story short, I was there five years, and they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't ordain me. They just 36:00kept putting it off, putting it off. I'd had a three-year scholarship for seminary in Chicago. I kept putting that off, hoping they'd get something done. Finally, they said they wouldn't do it. My bishop said, "I'm going to send you to seminary for a year, and you've probably got more classes than any of them do." I went to seminary at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Came back, and they still wouldn't ordain me.

MilliganDid they give you a reason?

MendezNo, they just--I don't know. It's just like they--. When I first started, I told them I had a scholarship, I was going to seminary. They said, "Oh, you don't need that. You're just going to be on the reservation." In other words, "You're just going to be talking to a bunch of dumb Indians." That was what I figured they felt. When they seen that I was making more progress than most of 37:00the people and everything--plus that, I was doing things in the church for several years before that. I was leading church services. I did funerals. I did stuff like that. I don't know what the reason was. I was supposed to come back from seminary in two weeks before I graduated and be ordained, and then go back and graduate. When I came back, they wouldn't ordain me, so I went back. One of the guys that I knew, a friend, was from Wyoming.

There was actually three guys there from Wyoming. They told the bishop what happened and all this and that. Then he called me one time and asked me, "Have you been ordained yet?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, it's been, what--six months." They told me they'd ordain me when I got back, and they didn't. They 38:00said, "We'll wait a couple months, and then we'll do it." Then they didn't. They kept putting me off, so he said, "If you want to come to Wyoming, I'll ordain you." I went to Wyoming in January of 1990, and I was ordained there. Served Wyoming for five years, and then I went to Utah. I was there for seventeen years, and I retired first of January 2012. Stayed retired for a while, and then I went back to work (Laughs) at a treatment center, working. That's when I quit drinking, too, and everything. That was my main goal was to quit drinking.

MilliganThat seemed to lead you somewhere else.

MendezYeah, it was a challenge because it was--. When you go to seek holy orders, you have to go to a psychiatrist and all this and that. You have to go 39:00through a lot of stuff. They had recommended me not to get into that, to our standing committee in--

MilliganOh, your psychiatrist?

Mendez...the church. Yeah, he recommended that to the church. He said, "The only way to help you is to," commit myself for six months. That really got me mad, so I said, "I can do it." It was a push, and so I did it. I quit. I had a hard time, but my brother's a Baptist minister, and he helped me through. I stayed away from my friends and family that still drank for almost a year in order to make sure nobody was going to bring me back. Other times I tried to quit, but I went back to it because I didn't really want to, I guess. I didn't really want 40:00to make that commitment. Everything I tried never worked, so my brother told me one time, he said, "Did you ever asked God?" I said, "No." One day he was doing a revival service. I went over there, and I did. I asked God. I said, "I will do anything if you would take that want and desire of alcohol from me." After that, I never had the desire or want to drink. Took me longer to quit cigarettes, (Laughs) but I quit smoking.

MilliganNot as easy of a process, not that any of it was easy, but--.

MendezI quit in '81, smoking, and started back a year and a half ago.

MilliganOh, really?

MendezWorked in a casino. It was nothing but smoke. They had a room about as big as this, a little casino about as big as this room out here. Bad ventilation. It was so bad. I was working security. That's the only time we got to go outside was to go out and take a break, go out and have a smoke. I started going out, 41:00puffing on it, puffing on it. After a while, I started inhaling. (Laughs) So I'm back at that, but that's my life! I'm married. I have two kids. My son just turned forty in April, and my daughter's thirty-six. My son has four kids--three? He has five, but three of them are his. Those are my grandkids. Plus, all the numerous brothers' and sisters' grandkids are my kids, grandkids. My wife is named Josephine. She's a Navajo. (Laughter)

MilliganOh, no!

MendezI said, "God got back at me."

MilliganI was about to say. (Laughter)

MendezAll I did was fight with Navajos all my life, and then what'd he do? Made 42:00me marry one. (Laughter)

MilliganDon't you wish you could send a letter to that superintendent? (Laughter) I have about five or ten more minutes left with you before the time I promised to let you out--

MendezOkay.

Milligan--so I have, like, two questions.

MendezAll right.

MilliganSo are you involved with any kind of veterans groups, like, since you got out of the military? Do you still have a connection to the military?

MendezI'm a life member of the VFW. This was when I was in Utah. Since I've been back to Idaho, no, because they have a veterans group there, but they're kind of like on their own. They don't associate with most of--we got a lot of Vietnam veterans back there, but they've only got about four or five that they even talk to--

MilliganIn the VFW?

Mendez--yeah, in the Fort Hall veterans group. I don't know what they call themselves or what they do. The only time they want people to come is when they do powwows or something. They want somebody to carry the flags. We did have a pretty good group in Utah. We were involved with the schools and stuff like that. We did flag raising for the schools on Veterans Day. Took them little flags. Took them little poppies or something every year. We'd give them 43:00something. We'd raise the flags. They would sing for us and stuff like that, and we'd talk to them about our experiences and things like that. It was kind of neat. Since I've been back to Idaho, no, I haven't really been too involved.

MilliganAnything specific--because you mentioned that they really only want to see you to carry the flags at the powwow. Anything specific for Native Americans' veteran groups you've ever been involved in?

MendezLike what I just said.

MilliganOh, that's it? (Laughter) I didn't know if that was specifically Native American or if that was larger.

MendezYeah, it's just Native American. We have our own post. I can't remember what the number was. When I first got back, we started a Vietnam veterans post in Idaho Falls, specifically because they were kind of offering us counseling 44:00and stuff like that for people. At that time we didn't know about (what is it) post traumatic stress, so they were offering us counseling and stuff like that. The VFW club where they wanted us to go was the old World War II people and stuff like that. They had their little rituals they wanted to do. We didn't feel like we were any part of that, so we didn't want to associate with them. Plus that, you walk in there, it's a bar. They're drinking. We didn't want their counselors because they had no experience. They had no understanding of what fighting was, what war was about.

MilliganSo their counselors didn't have an understanding of combat?

MendezNo, they learned everything from the books. We didn't want that, so we wanted to start our own post. We started our own group, and we wanted to counsel each other. We knew what our problem was, and that was alcohol, and for some of 45:00them, drugs, marijuana. Drugs weren't too bad as they are now, but mostly alcohol. We called ourselves the Freedom Birds. I guess it went out years ago. I haven't been back home for so long. I seen one guy with a jacket, yet. I don't know what happened to mine. I seen him, and I asked him. He said, "Oh, no, I just got this from somebody else." Then I found out that they had changed their post to something else. Yeah, they're still around. They meet on, I think, the third Wednesday of every month. I'm always working or busy or something. I haven't been able to go up there. Other than that, no.

MilliganSo I'm curious about why you're here at the Chilocco reunion. Like, what brings you down here?

MendezI had a choice to make. We're having our Marine Corps reunion, our 46:00company, Kilo Company, in Savannah, Georgia, in November. We have one every two years. I figured it'd cost too much to go down there to fly and to stay the night, rent a car, everything like that. I said, "We'll just drive to Chilocco." I haven't been here, and I've been wanting to come. My wife and I said okay, we're going to go. So we drove down here, and I thought maybe I'd see some people I know, which I have. I ran into a few but not too many. There's only one guy left of all the guys that I came to school with here. The rest of them are all gone. He didn't come, but I know there was another guy from Fort Hall that came after me. One of the girls that was here when I was here, she's here, but that's about it. I just wanted to come down and see it, (I haven't been here for 47:00a long time) see what it looked like. Last time we drove through, it was in '94.

MilliganI was going to ask.

MendezYeah we drove through here and drove around the campus, but there was no casino, no nothing around here. We just come from visiting my brother in Texas, and we thought we'd drive up to Oklahoma City and visit a friend and then come up this way.

MilliganSo the gates weren't locked then?

MendezNo. That's about it. I don't know what else to say. That's my life in a nutshell. (Laughter)

MilliganWell, you're very succinct. (Laughs) I think I'll release you back into the wild just because it's close to four, but I appreciate your time.

MendezThank you.

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