Vietnam Veteran Roger Waggoner
Roger Waggoner was just 17-years-old when he enlisted in the Marines. He served 13 months in Vietnam. Photo submitted.
“I always knew I was going to war. I always knew that was my job.”
Mary Beth Sallee
Managing Editor
Hart Co. News-Herald
Roger Waggoner always felt it was his duty to serve his country. After all, it was somewhat of a family tradition as his father, grandfather, brothers, and uncles had all served in the military.
In 1965 at the age of 17, Waggoner was ready to enlist.
“I was gonna join the Navy because my oldest brother was in the Navy, and I had a couple of cousins in the Navy, but I went to enlist and both times the recruiter wasn’t in the office,” Waggoner explained. “So the next time I went I said, ‘Well, I’m going somewhere.’ I went across the hall and signed up for the Marines…When the recruiter asked me why I was volunteering, ‘Well, to fulfill my military obligations.’ It’s just something you do, at least in my family anyways.”
Waggoner was sent to Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp. This was his first time away from home.
“Physically, I was in pretty good shape, an ol’ farm boy, you know, young. But mentally, they just break you down,” Waggoner said of his training. “…They break your mind down and keep pushing you and pushing you…That was the most difficult thing for me in all four years (in the Marines).”
After boot camp, Waggoner underwent Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for approximately six weeks. He then came home to Hart County for leave for 30 days before being sent to San Diego, California for more training.
Then, it was off to Vietnam.
During his first four months in the foreign country, Waggoner was a cook in the mess hall. Waggoner was upset with his assignment and instead wanted to be out in the field.
“The mess sergeant was pretty disappointed with me, which I wanted him to be,” Waggoner shared. “He said he didn’t want me no more, transferred me to infantry. That’s what I wanted all along.”
Waggoner’s time in Vietnam came with its fair share of close calls, as well as divine interventions.
“Most of the cooks where I was (before I was moved to infantry) got killed,” Waggoner said. “A mortar line come in one night and killed most of the cooks, and I probably would have been one of them.”
“Mysterious how things work out,” he added.
Another situation occurred in which Waggoner told a squad leader that he would go on an assignment if needed. The squad leader said for Waggoner to stay behind and that he himself would go along with another solider. The squad leader was on his second tour in Vietnam and only had about one month left before he would have been back home. Both the squad leader and other soldier were killed.
“That could’ve been me,” Waggoner said. “Little stuff like that sticks with you.”
Yet another close call came knocking on Waggoner’s door when he almost set off a booby trap. In Vietnam, booby traps came in a wide variety of lethality, ranging from sharpened punji stake pits to explosive trip wires.
Waggoner discussed both his training and encounter with such traps.
“We were training one night (at boot camp) on booby traps,” Waggoner said. “The whole company had to go through a course. They set one…simulating a bomb, and I was the only one from the whole company that went through there without setting off one.”
“When I got to Vietnam, it (training) paid off,” Waggoner continued. “We were on an operation, and they told us when we went in, there were a lot of booby traps in that area, so I’m hyper-sensitive about it. I was walking slow. All of a sudden, I felt something like a wire or something across my ankle and my boot. And I stopped and I looked down, and I seen a trip wire, so I stopped and I backed up.”
U.S. soldiers came to the booby trap and set it off so that no one was injured or killed.
“That’s something that’s a part of you once you get there,” Waggoner said. “You just think about surviving.”
Roger Waggoner always felt it was his duty to serve his country just as his father and grandfather had done before him. Photo submitted.
During this same operation, other solders right beside him and all around him were getting mortared. Waggoner, however, didn’t get a scratch.
“It was like I had a good luck charm, but of course I know that’s not what it was,” he said. “…Sometimes it just makes you wonder. You can’t go until it’s your time…I don’t care how bad it is or how bad it looks. If it ain’t your time, you ain’t going. Everything has an appointed time and season.”
During the war, Waggoner lost about 10 to 12 friends of whom he came to know, appreciate, and respect. He spent a total of 13 months in Vietnam – 13 months of surviving but also 13 months of living.
“You know how human nature is, just trying to survive – a sense of humor, whatever it takes – to keep from going overboard, keep you focused,” Waggoner explained. “You don’t want to sit around thinking about it all day long. It makes it worse.”
Waggoner returned to the U.S. in 1969. During this time, there were those who opposed American involvement in the Vietnam War. Some even treated U.S. soldiers and veterans poorly, blaming American troops for the chaos overseas. Although Waggoner himself was never personally subjected to verbal war-related attacks, he said it was evident that the tension lingered.
“…I could feel it, all that stuff in the air,” he explained. “Disapproval, disappointment, you know, like it was our fault we got sent over there.”
Waggoner finished out his military service as a mess hall cook at a Naval shipyard in Virginia where his brother was stationed. He served his country as a Marine for a total of 4 years and 3 days and was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Presidential Unit Citation.
Waggoner was just a 17-year-old boy when he enlisted in the Marines, but like many other young soldiers, he was forced to grow up quickly in the midst of bullets and bloodshed.
“It makes you do some things you said you’d never do,” Waggoner said. “I didn’t start smoking until I got in Vietnam. Same thing with drinking.”
When asked what it meant to him to serve his country, Waggoner replied, “It meant quite a bit at first, but you know as things change, the hunter became the hunted. It didn’t feel too good. That’s why I said you get in that trying to survive mode.”
“For me, it was hard just like everybody else, but I always knew I was going to war,” he concluded. “I always knew that was my job.”
Pictured here with his daughters Coni and Reneau, Roger Waggoner served his country as a Marine for a total of 4 years and 3 days. Photo submitted.
