Oral history interview with Charles Chupco

Milligan:So I'm just going to give a quick introduction. This is Sarah Milligan with the Oklahoma State University Library. We are at the Chilocco annual Homecoming reunion just north of Newkirk, Oklahoma. I'm here talking to Charles Chupco about his time in Chilocco, as well as his military experience. That's it. I like to start just with a little bit of information about yourself, where you're from, maybe a little bit about your parents, if you have siblings, just some background information.

Chupco:I was raised in Wewoka, Oklahoma, which is about seventy miles east of Oklahoma City. Was raised by my grandparents, but in actuality they were my mom 1:00and dad since I was raised by them. I went through the first through the eighth grade there in Wewoka, Oklahoma. Then from the ninth grade on I came to Chilocco, Oklahoma, or Chilocco High School. From there, I spent from 1956 to 1960, until I graduated. While at Chilocco, I took auto mechanics as my trade, of course, the normal football, wrestling, track that everybody did. One of the surprising accomplishments that happened while I was there was that I was a champion golfer for when we finally got our nine-hole course done and we had a 2:00tournament play. It must have been my senior year, and I was the champion golfer for that year. That really surprised them when I look back at old newspapers and stuff and somebody mentions, "Oh, you was a champion golfer." I say, "Yeah, I guess I was."

Anyway, then I graduated in 1960. I graduated on the twenty-seventh of May, 1960. Twenty-eighth of May, I was sitting in San Diego, California, and I was in the Navy. Previous, in my senior year at Chilocco, I joined the Army National Guard there at Chilocco, 179th infantry. During that summer, must've been 1959, we went down to Fort Hood, Texas, and spent two weeks training down there. Since I was a pretty good-size guy, they said, "Here's a BAR [Browning automatic rifle]," which is a big machine gun. I hauled that around for the two weeks we 3:00was down in Fort Hood, Texas. From there, I found out that I didn't think Army life would do me very well by lugging that thing around, digging latrines, and all that stuff. My heart was always set that I was going to go into the Navy. My uncle was in the Navy, but I had another uncle that was in the 82nd Airborne.

They didn't ever influence me, but I always seen my uncle that came in from the Navy. He was always dressed pretty in the nice white uniforms that was starched. They just impressed me so much that that's what I wanted to do. A few months 4:00before I was going to graduate out of Chilocco in 1960, the National Guard says, "You're getting ready to graduate. We're going to send you to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for six months' training." I said, "Well, I don't think I want to go." The Navy recruiters came to Chilocco, and then I signed up with the Navy. I told them, "Will this keep me from going to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri?" He said, "It sure will. We'll have you on active duty, and you won't have to worry about the Army anymore." When I joined on the twenty-eighth of May in 1960, I made it a twenty-year career. I'm a career Navy person.

Milligan:You sat on it early, and it was a good fit.

Chupco:Yes, it sure was.

Milligan:I want to back up just a little bit. You were in Wewoka until the 5:00eighth grade until you decided to go to Chilocco. Was there a reason that you went to Chilocco at that point?

Chupco:I think it was more or less the environment at that time. The status of the family, we didn't have a lot of money, and it cost money back then to--. I think it was just a benefit on my part for them to send me away to school. My mother had went to Chilocco and graduated. I had a couple of aunts that went to Chilocco and graduated. It was just kind of a like, I don't know if it's a tradition, you'd call it a tradition, but people went to Chilocco to learn, to train, and to work with each other. That was where they sent me.

I don't remember exactly how it ended up, but we went down to the post office. There they had a social worker that they applied my name to go to school at Chilocco. I got approved, and that's how I ended up going up there. I remember coming up to Chilocco on a bus. They dropped me off at the highway. I had a suitcase and me, and they said, "That's the way to the school building." It was a long, long--. All I seen was a bunch of trees and a blacktop coming down this way. They dropped me off, and from then on Chilocco became my home.

Milligan:Do you remember your first day?

Chupco:I do. The first day, when the bus dropped me off and I had my suitcase, I was walking down the blacktop coming this way. You couldn't see anything. It was in August. I had no expectation. I didn't know what was going to happen. It was a school, and I was going to school. I don't know if I was about halfway down, maybe a quarter way down, a pickup truck came behind me. I think it was Mr. [Ray] Colglazier. He was a boys' advisor at Home Six at that summertime, and he said, "Do you need a ride?" He said, "Get in. I'm taking you down to school." He took me down to Home Six. In the summertime, the boys that stayed through the summer, they put them in one home so they could keep track of them. He took me 8:00to Home Six, even though that was a senior and junior home. Home Six was. Home Two was a freshman home. It was still summertime, so they put me in Home Six.

I remember them calling out a couple of boys that came and got me. I'm of the Creek tribe, and they was of the Creek tribe. They put us all together in one room. I was bunking with those two guys from the Creek tribe. We spoke--we know the language, so when we speak, we'll be able to do that. If they had put me with another tribe, I don't know if we could've communicated. I hate to say that 9:00because we all speak English, but there are just some factors that Creeks maybe do that maybe a Choctaw person or Chickasaw or Cherokee person don't do, or maybe another Native American, he doesn't do quite as well. We just kind of bond together; we know we're of these particular tribes. That was my first day. They put me with some Creek boys. That what my first day when I started, for probably a couple of weeks until people started coming onto campus. Then they moved me to Home Two, which was a freshman building.

Milligan:It sounds like they were really deliberate, you as a new student, to put you in with other boys who were also Creek. Sounds like they did that on purpose.

Chupco:They was already here. Maybe they was working summer here. They was 10:00older; they weren't freshmen. They was maybe juniors or seniors at that time they put me with them.

Milligan:When they moved you to Home Two, who were your roommates? Do you remember?

Chupco:I don't remember. It was a big dorm. There was maybe--it was bunk beds, so maybe there was eight people in this one dorm. In one room there was probably eight of us stacked in there. I could not tell you. I don't even remember who all it was at that time.

Milligan:Understandably, I should've asked the size of the room first. (Laughter) Did they make an effort at that point to try and keep you with other Creek boys at that point, or was it more broadened?

Chupco:Not that I remember. I think we was just all kind of put together, and we just learned to live with each other from then on.

Milligan:Was that your first experience in group living?

Chupco:Yes, it was. I grew up as a single child, so at home it was just me and then my parents. The only time we really had any interaction with other people was since my dad was a Methodist preacher. When we'd go to church on Sundays, we usually went to--. He was a circuit preacher, so he'd preach at four different churches on four different Sundays because we rotated churches that he preached at. Every time we went to church and went to camp there, I knew everybody. I knew all the kids we'd played with, we went to Sunday school together, we played down in the creek with. I knew the majority of the people. My interaction with a 12:00group of people, it was usually there on the Sundays, Saturdays or Sundays. In actuality, I didn't learn English at a early age. I tell other people I really didn't learn English until I went into the first grade. When I went to first grade in Wewoka, Oklahoma, grade school, we was in the first grade in this one room. There was probably, I'd say, five to eight Indian boys and girls in the same class. They put us back in the corner because we did not know English. That's the way they started teaching us English: separate from the white kids 13:00when I was in the first grade.

Milligan:Do you remember how you felt about that?

Chupco:It didn't even have an effect on me as long as I was with these boys and girls of the same--. We was of the same--in Wewoka, it's all Creek. We was all just learning whatever we learn, whatever they taught us. There wasn't no differential, being separated from other kids, because we was there to learn. That's what our parents told us, and we was kind of being mindful of that. That's what we did.

Milligan:I was thinking, I can vaguely remember what it's like being a first grader. I can't imagine starting something as new as school and not really understanding what the teachers are telling you. That's really more where I'm 14:00coming from.

Chupco:I tend to think I must've had some learning of English, but I don't recall that. Every place we went--as I mentioned, my dad was a Creek minister, and when we went to church, they talked in Creek. They preached in Creek. When you went to the campgrounds to eat at lunch, we was inundated by Creek. I don't remember English being spoken in all that. I'm sure we had, but I just don't recall. I always think I was just Creek all the way up to the first grade.

Milligan:I see what you're saying. That's probably--do you still have much 15:00chance to speak Creek? Do you get to use that language very often?

Chupco:I don't get to use it very much. I listen to a lot of tapes. I have a lot of tapes of Creek singing. I have songbooks. I got a Bible. I don't know how to read it, though. I can sing in Creek, and I can speak broken Creek. If somebody asks me something in Creek, it would probably be broken English and broken Creek if I answer them back, if I can even recall it. That's probably a sad part on mine. When you leave the environment of the Native American places that you've been, you lose that part of you. Not to say that when you come back to the Oklahoma area and you go back to the Creek people, and they're speaking Creek, 16:00it's very difficult to know the complete sentence when they speak it. You pick up certain parts of the language, and say, "Oh, yeah, I got an idea of what he's talking about." Before, they'd talk to you; you just knew. Now you have to kind of guess as to what they're saying.

A funny thing happened many years ago when my uncle was still alive. We had been away. Being in the Navy, we'd come back home and visit a Indian church where my uncle was at. He told me, he said, "You come here, I don't want nobody speaking English to you. They're all going to speak Creek to you. While you're here, you speak Creek." That really kind of set me back. I said, "Golly, I don't even know if I know that." While we was there at church and while we was eating there, him 17:00and everybody was speaking Creek, and they spoke to me in Creek. I had to think that probably I didn't speak as much as I usually do because I shut down because I didn't know no language to speak back to them. My wife was with me. She always remembered that because to tell somebody, "You speak Creek while you are here," is really--. I really thought he meant it. Maybe he didn't really mean it, but in a way it seemed like he meant it to me when I was there. We got through the day, and it was okay.

Milligan:When you went back, did you have the same experience, or was it just that once?

Chupco:That's the only time that I really remember. Nowadays, you go to a Indian 18:00church or a Creek-type church, it's more English than anything. You don't hear the language being spoken in preaching. Then in singing, they sing both in English and Creek. Before, when you went to a church, it was all--. That was just the way it was.

Milligan:Going back to Chilocco, when you were there, I know you did mechanics. That's what I heard you say. What were some of the other--do you remember any of the other sort of classroom environments or teachers that stand out, or anything like that, favorite subjects, those sorts of things?

Chupco:Literature, always. I liked literature and to study literature. I don't 19:00know what years it was that was in literature. When they asked us to read instead of listening to lectures, I think those types of doing that, making us read out loud a poem or a play or something like this and putting emphasis in reading the action verbs instead of monotone, I thought literature really emphasized that to me. I really did like literature. I've always been good in math and physics and things like that, so I didn't have any problem with that. 20:00English, seems like English I didn't do very well in. I don't know why I didn't do very well. (Laughs) Why would we not do very good in English? I didn't, but I liked literature. I excelled in literature because I was able to, I guess. You can read and produce that. As far as knowing nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and all that stuff, in the lower levels it was fine, but as you got higher, it seems like it got harder.

Milligan:I'm going to try not to make any inferences. With the auto mechanics part, what made you choose that as your trade?

Chupco:There was a time that probably I was not thinking military. I always liked automobiles. I thought I could repair them probably just as good as 21:00anybody. We changed tires, and the things that auto mechanics did, I liked doing, working with my hands and repairing engines and automobiles. I think that's what led me that way. There was a lot of other opportunities. Could've went into painting. Could've went into dry cleaning. Could've went into agriculture. A lot of different ways to go, but I selected auto mechanics. That's where I learned that trade: at Chilocco.

Milligan:Did that come in handy at points in your life?

Chupco:I really didn't pursue any kind of work in auto mechanics after I joined the Navy. Whenever I come home, that was just to take care of the car. We took care of the car if it needs a oil change, if it needs new tires. You was aware 22:00of those things because being in auto mechanics in Chilocco, those kinds of things of maintenance stuck with you. I think that was a helpful point about going to auto mechanics at Chilocco.

Milligan:Well, you also said that once you went to Chilocco, Chilocco was your home from then on. When you look back on your time there, how do you feel about it? I mean, you're here at the reunion, so that means there's still that lingering connection.

Chupco:Yeah, there is. First year at Chilocco, of course, was my freshman year. We went through the freshman year, and I had the opportunity to stay at Chilocco through the summer by having a summer job at Chilocco. I stayed there for two summers: end of my freshman year and end of my sophomore year. They hired some 23:00boys to cut grass on the campus for the summer, and it came from auto mechanics. I got hired. Me and another boy got hired to cut the grass, the Chilocco campus grass, through the summer. That was a way to make a little bit of money. They put that money in the bank for you to use during the school year. For the first two years, I didn't return back home. I stayed here at Chilocco. Really, two complete years of not going home, I didn't feel I missed it because I had a home 24:00here. I was here at home in Chilocco.

That really helped me to be able to subsist, be independent on your own, without having to rely on people, if that's the case. We still interacted with other students here during the summertime, in the evenings, as well. They had dances for us. Of course, the meals were always provided for us. As anything else, our campus life and the rooms we had, we still had to clean and take care of. The building still had to be cleaned and taken care of. I was just talking to a lady the other day. I said, "Do you remember every Saturday they put out a list of 25:00where you was supposed to take care of?" Are you supposed to work in the bathroom? Are you supposed to work in the hallway, shining the hall, or working down in the lobby, taking care of that? These gals from Home Five said they did that every Saturday. We had a job to do, even on the weekends. I don't even know if we had any time off. I don't remember, other than in the evenings.

Milligan:Well, we can sort of intersperse things that may come up back against Chilocco as we move forward with your military experience if things trigger. I wanted to move a little bit towards when you enlisted in the National Guard. You talked about going down to Fort Hood. How was it to be on campus here as a 26:00student, but also be enlisted as a National Guard which was stationed here?

Chupco:I don't think there was any difference. If people looked up to you because you was in the National Guard, I didn't feel that or see that anywhere. I really didn't know that as I went from my freshman year, junior year, to my senior year other than if it was getting paid for. I think that was another good thing. You attend these meetings. You have a weekend a month that you go Saturday and Sunday. You train, and they pay you for that. Being in Chilocco, I 27:00would say the biggest part of the people there, we didn't have anything. We didn't have money coming in to us to be able to spend like we wanted to. A lot of people shared. When they got a letter that came in, (and they're probably lucky to have five dollars in it) he'd grab all of his friends, and we'd go to the canteen. We'd drink Coca-Cola and peanuts.

It was a sharing experience; you don't see one person doing that. He'd get his friends that we'd all be able to go and share in that. I can very well remember it. Maybe I was lucky to get two letters from home a year from my parents because they weren't fluent or could write in the English language very good. 28:00Maybe it was just a little note. Maybe it had a couple dollars in it or something. When you got that, that was a thrill. Maybe it was a birthday they remembered, or maybe it was Christmastime. The communications back home in my life, it was very sparse. My home at Chilocco, I was with people, and I was able to interact with a lot of people. I guess that's why it became a home to me.

Milligan:Did your parents come visit at all?

Chupco:No.

Milligan:Not once? Which I don't think is unusual. I was just curious.

Chupco:No, they never did.

Milligan:When you graduated in 1960 and you got to join the Navy and fulfill 29:00your childhood mission to put on the white suit, you were immediately shipped to California. Is that right?

Chupco:Yes, we graduated on the twenty-seventh. The next day, I reported to the physical place in Oklahoma City. Passed the physical because I had already taken the test. They just wanted me to report down there on the twenty-eighth. I reported on the twenty-eighth. That evening, that night, they put us on the plane to San Diego, California.

Milligan:Oh, gosh, so physical to double check, and then just shipped you off.

Chupco:Yes.

Milligan:So what did you think when you made it to California? Do you remember that at all?

Chupco:I remember us getting off the plane. They loaded us on the bus because 30:00there was a number of us being shipped out of the Navy office up there because that's where we was at. When we landed, they put us on a bus and took us out to the training center in San Diego. When we got off the bus, there was a whole bunch of squares out there. They said, "Find a square to stand in with your bag," or baggage, whatever you had. As we was standing there on the baggage stuff, then I think it began, the hollering and the screaming and the, "Stand tall!" The military training began at that time on the squares. From then on, it 31:00was like a twelve-week time there in San Diego. It wasn't hard because I had come from an environment of living with people and being under cleaning, and we had duties to do. When you was instructed by the Navy instructors or whoever and they told you to do it, we just did it.

Some people had a hard time. When authority tells you to do something, some people do not adapt it as well. I think we adapted well. Of course, I don't know how many people came with us when we flew to San Diego, or how many people from Oklahoma was in the same company that I was in. I think everybody just kind of 32:00went, and they put you in different places. I didn't find it difficult at all going through the military because I felt like, when I look back on the training environment we lived in with groups of people in Chilocco, as well as having cleaning and authoritative figure above you at all times, it was a breeze. I didn't have any problems at all.

Milligan:At that point you were in boot camp?

Chupco:Yes.

Milligan:What happened after you left boot camp then?

Chupco:Just before we left boot camp, I got orders, what are you going to do. I 33:00was just a seaman, seaman recruit. I didn't have any job skills or anything, and I don't remember even them talking to me about going to a school or anything. I was just a seaman recruit. I got orders to USS Maury AGS-16. I really didn't know what that was other than it was in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Come to find out, it was a geographical survey ship. After boot camp, went home on two weeks' leave, and then I had to report back to (I don't remember where we reported back to) to fly over to Hawaii. Everybody that I knew and spoke with knew that I was in the Navy.

"Where was you going?" Whenever I said, "Oh, I'm going to Hawaii," "Oh, wow, 34:00that's a nice place but a long ways." Hawaii, when you spoke "Hawaii," their visions was palm trees and beaches and soothing music. It wasn't a military environment. It was what we all think Hawaii is when we think of Hawaii. That's the way people thought. Maybe to some extent that's what I thought because I hadn't been on a ship other than a training thing. When we flew into Hawaii, there again we rode a bus and went to Pearl Harbor. Then we checked onboard the ship, and they then assigned us to wherever they wanted us to be. That's where my time started there, on the Maury.

Milligan:What was your job?

Chupco:My job, I was second division. Second division was deck division which took care of the middle half of the ship. First division took care of the front part; second division the middle part; third division took care of the aft part of the ship. It was sweeping, painting, chip paint, red lead, keep it clean, basically. We had a cargo hold. As you became more knowledgeable in doing things, you was able to run the rigs, taking cargo in and out. As a young recruit, you was probably down in a hole moving boxes, putting them in nets, and then they'd haul them up. It was just a general job that everybody did that 36:00didn't have a regular job to do. We did everything.

Milligan:How long were you on that ship then?

Chupco:I was on that ship for three years. I advanced in rank pretty easily. I always liked guns, so in a couple of years I--. You know, you watch people. "What would I like to do in the Navy?" I said, "I think I'd like to be a gunner's mate." I checked, and I kept checking. I took courses, filled out my courses, and got approval to take a test. I was still in the deck division. I wasn't in the gun division. I was still in deck division, but they gave me 37:00approval to take the gunner's mate, third class test since I had advanced to seaman E-2 and advanced to E-3. You take a test to go to E-4, so I got approval as a E-3 to take the E-4 gunner's mate exam even though I didn't have no experience. I passed the test, so they transferred me to the gun division. Onboard the Maury, the guns were mostly small arms since it wasn't a combatant ship. It was mostly small arms. Kind of luckily, I fell into it because the guy, the third class that was down there--we had a second or first class that was in charge of that gunnery department along with the officer. That young third class was getting out of the Navy. He left, and I just kind of moved right in. That's 38:00where I started my career as a gunner's mate.

Milligan:Is that what you spent most of your career in the military?

Chupco:I did. Most of it was. When I left there, I had advanced to second class while onboard because there was just a waiting time of one year before you can advance. Just before my three and a half years was up, I got advanced to second class. I made the decision that I was going to make it a career. I advanced to second class and signed up for six more years. Got a two-thousand-dollar bonus and got a transfer. I got transferred to a brand new ship in San Diego, 39:00California. They was putting it into commission. They had built the ship, and they was selecting the crews for it. I was one of the pre-commission and crew for it. It was a combat stores ship. AFS stands for food [supply]. It was a floating supermarket. It had frozen food, fresh vegetables, anything anybody--. It would resupply other ships that stayed at sea. Once we unloaded all our stuff, we'd come back into port and reload it back up. Then we'd go back and resupply them again.

I was in the gun division, so there we had some guns onboard. I learned to 40:00operate those and become gun captains and whatever we had to do. On there, I advanced to first class. I took over the division, but I had a chief above me. Then, of course, you have officers above you there. I had been out to sea for approximately--normally you spend about five years at sea, then you get to shore duty a little bit. Well, this particular ship was at San Diego. We got home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan, so I went over to Japan for three years, three and a half years over there in Yokosuka, Japan. We just stayed over there. It was during the Vietnam war that I was onboard. Then we'd come back down to the gulf of Vietnam, and we'd resupply all the carrier groups and destroyer groups, 41:00any ships that were out there.

We'd leave out of Yokosuka, Japan, and come down for, say, four months doing that, in and out of Subic Bay, Philippines, resupplying ships--so they can go back out on the line, fill them up, and make port visits to Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan. We'd do four months doing that, and then we'd go back up to Yokosuka, Japan, and maybe have upkeep to do any repairs that we needed for six, maybe eight, months. Then we'd come back down and do the same thing over and over. I spent three and a half years doing that in Japan. They said, "Gunner, you got too much time at sea. You need to go to shore duty." I said, "Okay, I'll 42:00go to shore duty, I guess." I put in to be a recruiter, Navy recruiter. In 1969, I got orders to a recruiting school in Dallas, Texas. I went to recruiting school. Well, I guess the school is in San Diego for, like, six weeks. Then went to Dallas to get orientated, and they moved me to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which was my home town.

Milligan:Did you request that?

Chupco:Yes, I went to a recruiting station in Oklahoma City, and I was there for three years. During that three years, that's where I met my wife. (Laughs) We got married. She come from a family of eight. I was just the same, so it was a 43:00big change. It was a lot of fun, my transition. I got ready to leave recruiting duty because it was only three years, but she had only been married with me for about a year and a half. She didn't know anything about Navy life. I got orders to electronics school in Great Lakes, Illinois, so I was in electronics school for a year in Great Lakes, Illinois. I had left Oklahoma City, and she came up later, about three, four months later. She learned that she had to get the household packed. Packers come in, move you out. Her and another lady drove up to Great Lakes, Illinois, and we had a place up there that we stayed in for a 44:00year before I got orders to Guam from there.

Milligan:So when did you go to Guam?

Chupco:Had to be in '71 or '72 because I was on gunboats then. There were seven gunboats in Guam, and we always traveled in pairs. The gunboat that I was assigned to was already over in Vietnam, but I was in Guam. They flew me to Guam, got her settled in, and they said, "Well, gunner, you're going to have to go to Guam. They don't have any gunner's mates onboard, and they need you over there." I said, "Okay, I'm ready to go." I had my family settled. We went to 45:00Anderson Air Force Base which is in the northern part of Guam. They met me there, says, "Gunner, we're going to have to take you." I said, "Okay." Since I had secret clearance, they handcuffed me and gave me a bag. I had to wave through the window to my wife and tell her, "I'll have to write you a letter. They got me." They flew me out, and when I went, we flew into Saigon. Of course, I was met by people that were authorized to release my bags from me because I was carrying secret documents with me. I had to write to my wife. I said, "I'm 46:00sorry I didn't say goodbye," because I didn't realize they was going to do that to me. When I checked in, they just took me, so I didn't get a chance to say goodbye.

Milligan:Why--there's a lot of whys. (Laughter) Why did it need to be you, and what was the point? You were just transferring intel? Is that what was going on, and people were just transporting you because you had the clearance?

Chupco:I had clearance. I was selected. I don't know how I was selected; they knew by my orders. When I checked in, on my orders they got a lot of codes on there. They know. They said, "Here's a first class gunner's mate. Got his top secret clearance," and they said, "Gunner, come with me." I went with them, and 47:00that's when they said, "Okay, here you are. Here's what you need to do to be able to be relieved of your thing." I said, "Okay." You just know those things, being in the military for these years. When I got to Saigon, I was met by these people, and they took that away from me. Then they transferred me down to a SEAL base to catch my ship. I stayed overnight at the SEAL base, and then the next day they transferred me to the little port where the gunboats came in and out of. That's where I was put onboard. We didn't have a gunner's mate onboard. We only had one gunner's mate onboard that ship. They said, "Gunner, we lost our gunner a couple months ago. We've been without a gunner, and we need you to get these guns ready to shoot." I said, "No problem. I'll take care of it."

I worked to get them ready and make sure they was ready. We had a three-inch .50 [caliber] gun, forward; I had a 40 mm, aft; and I had twin .50s on each side. That was the armament on that gunboat. In two, three weeks' time, I said, "Captain, we're ready." He said, "Let's go try them out." We was out at sea. He said, "Okay, let's go to general quarters." General quarters, everybody goes to battle stations. We went to battle stations. I went to the front gun up there. During this period of time, we'd been having training sessions with people in 49:00gun mounts as to what they needed to do, how they needed to operate it, and we had dummy loads that we'd been practicing with. There was an island out there, uninhabited island. It was just a rock, like a piece rock stuck out there. They said, "Okay, let's give it a shot." We did it manually through the gun, and we fired shots in there.

Then, of course, we had a control that we relinquish control to them up there, and they can control us. That went fine. Then we went back--to the .40, and we just fired rounds, just fired and fired until we run out as much as we needed. Of course, they wanted to see how the twin .50s run. I had people who knew how 50:00to operate those things. I said, "Okay, they're ready to go." They had a box of ammunition. What they did was put a balloon out there in the water, weather balloon. Blow the weather balloon and stuck it out there, oh, maybe two hundred yards or three hundred yards. They'd fire at that thing. Of course, it's very difficult for a balloon to get punctured unless you hit it just right. They're just all around it. They turn the ship, and the other side would fire and fire at it. The ship was then combat ready. They considered it combat because it 51:00wasn't combat ready when I come onboard until after we had repaired the guns.

After we had fired the guns and made sure that we was ready for combat that we became combat ready. Our job in Vietnam was to stop Saipan traffic along the coast. We carried a Vietnamese officer with us, and he had intel that knew when they was transporting ships, or boats were transporting ammunition, guns, people from north to south. Our job was to inspect them, call people to come and get 52:00them, lock them up, or whatever they do to them. We did a lot of this at night. Daytime, there was nobody out there on the water because they can see people. They always did it at nighttime. Our job at night was to have our guns manned, and the Vietnamese officer would get his intel. He said, "Okay, let's stop this one up here."

Our ship would maneuver until that Saipan or something would stop, and we'd go onboard and inspect the Saipan with the sidearms onboard. He would clear it, or either we would confiscate. Then they would send smaller boats out to take contraband and take it back into port, and then we'd go back on patrol again. 53:00Our patrol time was, like, three months at a time along the coast. Then we'd go back to Guam, and we'd get relieved by two other boats that did that three months at a time. We'd go back into port for a little upkeep, painting, rest our crew or switch some crew members around. I was in Guam for two years. We was in Guam for two years. I got transferred--well, I have to go back. The war ended while we were over there, 1983.

Milligan:Seventy-three?

Chupco:Seventy-three, the war ended. They said, "Okay, we don't need the boats over there anymore. Send them back stateside." All seven of us, we sent our 54:00families back. They loaded up airplanes, and they flew them all back. They said, "Well, we'll be back in about two months." We started our trek back. We had to be refueled at least once a week because we wasn't carrying that much fuel to be able to go long distances. We had--food refueled for our crew. We had crews of twenty onboard; that was our people. We transit back, finally made it to Hawaii. Then from Hawaii, we made it to San Diego. The boat that I was on, it was going to Great Lakes, Illinois, is where it was going to go. We made it through the 55:00Panama Canal. Went through Fort Lauderdale into Norfolk, Virginia. I got off in Norfolk, Virginia. My time was up then, and I went back to recruiting duty. I went to recruiting in Lawton, Oklahoma, for two years. That's where my family had moved.

They knew I was going to Lawton, Oklahoma, so my wife and kids, they all got a house. She had did that. That's the Navy wife. She got that done, and then after two years of recruiting they said, "We need you again." Of course, they always 56:00need you, right? You're getting off recruiting duty; your time is almost up; they're going to send you to the USS John Paul Jones guided missile destroyer out of San Diego, California. There again, we loaded up, and the family moved to San Diego, California. The ship was in Long Beach, California getting worked on. That's where it was getting overhauled, but it was actually stationed in San Diego, so we bought a home in San Diego. I had to go to Long Beach, California. I'd stay up there, like, two weeks. Then I'd come back home for a weekend, then go back up for two weeks for, oh, maybe six months. Finally, the ship went out 57:00on trial runs and got all its certifications, and finally made it back to San Diego, California. (Laughs) Then from there, that's where I retired in 1979 off the USS John Paul Jones.

Milligan:What was your decision in retiring then? What sort of prompted you?

Chupco:When you're in the military--I knew I was going to make it a career, and twenty years--. There's even today, some people spend twenty-eight years, and some people spend more than that in there. When you get to the break of, say, thirteen, and fourteen years--I'll go back a little bit further. My first 58:00enlistment, after three and a half years, I thought I would get out and be a highway patrolman. I wrote the Department of Oklahoma Highway Patrol and asked for an application or to get what are the qualifications to become a highway patrolman. I got a letter back from them; had to be twenty-five years old. I was nowhere close. I wasn't even twenty-one years old yet. That was one of my decisions. I said, "I might as well just stay in the Navy," so

I stayed in the Navy and didn't become a highway patrol.

As you get into the thirteenth and fourteenth year, six, seven years is a long time away. It seems like it was because you're in a situation where it's just 59:00hard. The Navy is just, "Oh, I don't like this captain here. I don't like my lieutenant. He's just driving me crazy." Then you say, "My time is getting close." The long run, after twenty years, you start getting retire pay, after twenty. You get full medical benefits after twenty years. Those overrode the hardships in the thirteenth and fourteenth year, mainly for retirement, getting paid, medical. Family is taken care of, and we can do really what we want after that. That's what kept me in until 1979, to be able to retire. I had a year of 60:00National Guard time, which give me some longevity time which got me over the twenty-year mark where it's easy enough to retire at twenty years with full pay. Usually it's 50 percent pay is what they pay you at that time.

From San Diego, we said that's what we want to do, but the decision that come up prior to retiring is, "What are we going to do after twenty?" We had a camper, probably two years prior to retiring, and we came back to Texas. We didn't want to come back to Oklahoma. We wanted to come to Texas. It's farther enough away from family that we're not in the gossiping family ties that we've seen. We 61:00wanted to be away from family. I wrote to fifteen Chambers of Commerce in East Texas and got information back from them, why would I want to live in this particular town. We was looking at maybe twenty, twenty-five thousand. We'd been in big cities, and said, "Oh, we just want to go back and take it easy for the rest of our life." It wasn't that easy when we came back.

We visited Nacogdoches; we visited off [I]-20 up there close to Shreveport and all those, Longview, places up and down that road. There wasn't anything for me 62:00to get a job at. A job, a job. Everything was just slow. We were used to fast-moving and stuff. We really didn't make a decision to come out to West Texas. When I retired, we just took a month off. We went to Yellowstone; we went to the Black Hills; we traveled to Colorado and finally made our way back and stopped at her mother and dad's house in Enid, Oklahoma. We decided, "Let's drive over there." We went over there, West Texas, and stopped at--I can't think 63:00of the name of the town now. We stopped there and camped at the campground at the lake. I said, "Let's go into town, and let's get some pizza." I had two boys. "Oh, yeah, Dad! That's great! Let's go."

We went into town. I don't know if it was a Pizza Hut or what it was. We walked in and ordered pizza. I said, "I'll have a pitcher of beer." "Oh, no, we don't sell beer. Dry county. You got to go to Crockett, Texas, to get beer." I said, "Okay." That kind of wasn't a big deal, but it's another checkmark. (Laughs) We went back to the campground, Fourth of July. Fireworks, they were going to have fireworks out at the lake and all that, and they had fireworks at the lake that 64:00evening. People had been drinking, carrying on. Somebody pulled a gun. Somebody's cousin shot a cousin just right in this pavilion, right across from us. Cops came out to haul them all off. Ambulance came out and hauled them off.

I had my family inside our tent. If they had shot through the metal, it would've went right through there. It wouldn't have stopped them. That's where we was at. The next day, one of the guys came out and apologized for shooting and all that kind of stuff. We loaded up and came to Austin, Texas, in 1979. We came to Austin, Texas, and went to KOA, and we said that's where we're going to stay. 65:00That's where we stayed. I went back to school and got my business degree. Went to work for--funny thing is, I went to work for Cliff Beck Chevrolet as a bookkeeper doing warranty work, balancing warranties for the month, ten key. He said, "Here's your desk, here's your ten key, and every twenty-fifth day of the month, we start our balance."

I did that for almost a year, and I said, "This is not for me. I can't do this." Nice people to work with, but--. My wife had went to work for Round Rock School District in 1981, and 1983 I had worked as a electrician. Well, let's go back. 66:00We got a house in north Austin. To qualify for it, I had to have a job. Even though I had some money for down payment, "Oh, no, that's no good." You had to have a job on paper. The realtor gave me a job on paper as a carpet layer for four dollars an hour. That's all it took. As long as I had my name as a carpet layer for four dollars an hour, I got approved for this house, a loan for this house. He's the one that helped us get our house there, and we lived in it for almost forty years. (Laughs)

Milligan:Are you still there?

Chupco:No, I sold that one, but then I went and worked for an electric company 67:00as a electrician helper because I needed a job while I was going to school. As an electrician helper, you just kind of was the dog for the journeyman. We pulled wire through empty new houses, the boxes that you see in the walls, pulled air condition wires, just getting it--. I did that for maybe a year and a half. I said, "I'd really like to work in the office. I could do payroll. I've got an accounting degree." "Okay, yeah, good deal." So they hired me inside the office to do payroll for them. I worked there for almost three years. My wife 68:00went to work in '81 at the school, and in '83 she said, "They got a job opened up here if you want." It was a man in textbooks, doing textbooks. I applied, and they hired me.

"Can you type?" "Yeah, I can type over thirty words a minute. I can do ten key," and all that stuff, so they hired me. I worked for Round Rock School District for twenty-five years and retired. I started out as a secretary in textbooks, doing secretary, giving books to so many schools, keeping how many textbooks this school had, that school had, all administrative type work. In the back room, that person was also audio/visual, taking care of 16 mm projectors, slide 69:00projectors, film projectors. I said, "I can do that. I had some electronic training in the Navy." (Laughs) He said, "Oh, come on back." Start putting plugs in the--broken plugs, putting them together, fixing them. "You're pretty good. You know that stuff."

I moved from the office, went into technical operations, they started calling it. Computers came into the Round Rock School District in 1983. They had a big IBM box sitting on the secretary's desk. Had about three or five gigabytes of hard drive. Big, heavy thing. I put one on my wife's desk. I said, "Here's your computer; here's your keyboard; here's your big screen." It wasn't a big screen then, but it weighed a ton. We also set up from Apple since Apple was right 70:00there in Round Rock. They did Apple. We put Apple labs. We started putting Apple labs in these schools. Then they sent me to laser school. They sent me to printer school. After so many years, my boss was going to retire, and they asked me to take over. That wasn't my intent when I first went to work. I wanted a job, eight to five, punch a clock, I leave, and I have no worries.

Well, it's not that easy. They see you, they say, "Ah, that guy, we want him. Here's your pay raise. You're in charge. You got four guys that you're going to be in charge of." "Okay, yeah, I'll do this." That just kind of led on and led 71:00on. Became in charge of, total ended up being seven guys. When I retired, it was all computer technicians. We'd all been qualified by Dell Computers. They was all certified warranty people by Dell. We also had two telephone people. Since the district repaired its own computers, it repaired its own phone system, we didn't have to call outside people to come in. Technical operation was my department when I retired with seven people, and after twenty-five years I turned it over. That was six, seven years ago I retired. That was my career. 72:00That's where I ended up and where I came to today.

Milligan:Two different careers, two full careers. Gosh, there's a lot to even make a decision here. One of the things, I didn't interrupt to ask this, but I'm curious about it because it comes up in other interviews. When you moved into your military career, did you have interactions with other Native Americans? Did you see other Chilocco folks? Did you ever sort of have that connection back to campus or back to home or with that sort of ethnicity being different than the majority?

Chupco:Being in the Navy, anytime you seen a--not in my younger part because you 73:00don't have any power in the lower area other than making friends with someone. A lot of times you can tell the Native Americans, seems like, right off. You've been around people enough to say, "Ah, he's not Mexican. He's a Native American." You can almost for some reason, and if you approach them that way or in a way that you finally get it out of them where you're from, to learn those things. I have not seen a lot of them. I don't know if Navy is not the place--. I seen a lot of Navy guys in there today that stood up, the most I've ever seen...

Milligan:During the breakfast?

Chupco:--during the breakfast. (Laughs) Usually we look around, look at each other, maybe three of us stand up. Today there was a bunch of them. I said, "Golly, that's a lot of Navy guys here today. Wow, that's great!" In the military, the Navy, you don't see that many Navy guys come through there. Oh, there's been here or there or something. Being in the Navy, I knew they had Chilocco reunions way back when we used to have them on campus. They used to have it in the dining hall. We came back for a couple of them if the timing was right for us to come back and go to a Chilocco reunion when they'd have it on campus in the mess hall up there. Then we went away for a long period of time.

You want to come back because you knew a lot of classmates. You kept your annuals, and you kept your books of people you graduated with. You say, "I wonder how many people are going to be up there this year that we get to see?" There's never always been more than six to ten. Sometimes about six people is all you see from your class. When we had our fiftieth year up here when I came up here, I think maybe there was ten of a class of seventy-six. We had seventy-six people in our class when we graduated, and maybe there was ten at our fiftieth year up here. I have no idea what happened to the rest of them. Anytime we came back to Oklahoma, I don't think Chilocco was never out of your 76:00mind. You always remembered this place up here.

Milligan:You felt--I've heard that from other people, but it sounds like you talk about that as alumni.

Chupco:We've came up here quite a bit. I didn't come up last year, but we was up here the year before because maybe we had a conflict with another scheduling or something. We try to be aware of the season, knowing that it's going to be in May or the first part of June, and we try to allow to work around that so we can make that effort to come up here. Like so many of them, we don't know how many 77:00more years we'll be able to come up here. Whatever we have, we'll continue to come. If we have that opportunity to come up here, we'll do that.

Milligan:Do you have ways in your life now that you sort of nurture your own Native American identity? I mean, Chilocco you get together with a bunch of folks with that and maybe family, but I don't know.

Chupco:Very difficult. I find it very difficult because I live in Texas. You don't have a group of Indians down there, or I haven't seen a group of Indians down there. Since I grew up, to me, in a church environment, and then there was 78:00this environment over here, we were not allowed to go to Stomp Dances and powwows and stuff since my dad was a Methodist preacher. That was taboo; stay away from them. Maybe it wasn't mentioned, but they was over here.

Milligan:Why was that?

Chupco:I don't know, and I wonder why, even today, because I feel like I missed part of it. I don't understand why they wear certain things. Why do they wear the handkerchief on the back of their thing? Just certain things because I didn't grow up--my life growing up was over here. That was because a lot of 79:00time, the association with Stomp Dances and powwows was drinking, and that was a no-go. That was a no for the preacher's kid on this side over here, so stay from that. My uncles used to come back from their military service, and they'd go to Stomp Dances and powwows. They'd be out all night long, and they'd show up, coming home early in the morning. Uncle would come home, and dad would be, (Grumbling) smelling beer and stuff. That was just what seems like separated them at that time. Really, as you read history, those were going on when we was in Alabama and Georgia.

When they celebrated, they did dances and did things, I'm sure. When they become Christianized, I don't know if there was any separation at all. I just don't know. I've read books, and I've read the internet, and I've read the histories of Georgia and Alabama and the separation of the Seminoles and all that, and I'm still curious even today of powwow dress, powwow dances, powwow songs because it always seems they're Western Indians and not Eastern Indians. I don't know if you realize because it's Cheyenne, it's Osage, it's Crow, and it's Arapaho. It's 81:00all kind of Western tribes that does most of the dances and most of the singing that goes on. Otoe, and it's not the Cherokees. It's not the five civilized tribes. It's the other tribes that does that. Why? I don't know. They do have Stomp Dances over there in eastern Oklahoma.

Milligan:That's interesting. I think I've kept you for your hour and a half. (Laughter) Is there anything else that we didn't talk about or that you didn't get a chance to talk about that you feel important to mention?

Chupco:No, I think we covered my start as a young person, a pretty long route that I've been on, and up to my retirement, making my trips here, and other 82:00trips that we're--. We're leaving the twenty-fifth, here next weekend, Sunday. We'll be flying to London, and we're going to catch a Royal Caribbean ship, Navigator of the Seas for a twelve-day cruise of the Baltics and the northern capitals up there. It'll be our sixteenth cruise. (Laughter) I worked all this in. I worked these in between--.

Milligan:You're still vacationing on boats, though.

Chupco:Yes, still boats, still doing boats. (Laughter) I'm still doing boats. Some people say, "Oh, I wouldn't float on one of those things! Sea's too deep 83:00out there." They're absolutely correct. I'll tell you a instance. On some of those ships that we've been on, Navy, we've stopped in the middle of the ocean and had swim call for the crew. They'd just jump off and dive into the water. When that's going to happen they usually call me, say, "Hey, gunner, we're going to stop tomorrow. Would you post some sentries," because, you know, sharks and stuff. I said, "Yeah, no problem. Tell me when you're going to do it, and I'll have them posted." Captain would just stop the ship and then free float. Swim call for the crew, and they'd just jump off, dive off, come back onboard. For a 84:00hour or whatever at a time, they would do that. That water's deep. If you was to go down, you'd never come back up. We would lose them. I can understand when you say, people go overboard, and they can't find them. They go down, it's a long ways down.

Funny instance though, I'll tell you another story, being on gunboats and being over in Vietnam. Warm water does not evaporate to make freshwater very much. It evaporates because it needs to be a little cooler to evaporate to separate the salt water to make fresh water. Our trips over there, a lot of times we didn't shower for a couple of days because we tried to keep the water for the cooks to 85:00do that. If the captain seen a rain shower or a squall over there, he would call, say, "There's a squall over there on the port side. All who want to take a shower, get your soap." Everybody would go down below, and then he'd go underneath the squall. We'd all get naked and wash ourselves, and that was our shower. (Laughter) We'd towel off and go back on patrol again. People wouldn't have ever thought that. To wash clothes, sometimes we'd just tie a rope on our pants and shirts and dangle it over the side, and the waves would wash it for 86:00us. Then you'd bring it back onboard and rinse it out in a bucket and hang it on the rails to dry. That would be sometimes our day. Showers, we take it for granted. We can just go in here, go in there, but sometimes we can't do that in a lot of situations. Those little things make your day.

Milligan:Those are really special memories, too, because it's not what most people--.

Chupco:You wouldn't think that. It was just us out there; it makes no difference. The soap was flowing, the rain was washing it off, and we was all 87:00clean. We felt good, washed our hair, because after three or four days it's not always the best place to be (Laughs) when you get a bunch of sailors together down there. It was a good time. Those are good thoughts.

Milligan:I think that's a good memory to end on. I like that. I like that.

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