human

Sam Hermanstorfer, originally from Minneapolis, MN, served in the US Army as a wheeled vehicle mechanic and was stationed in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. He served in-country, assigned to the motor pool of Company B of the 701st Maintenance Battalion, first in Lai Khe and then in Dau Tieng, South Vietnam. Afterward, he spent a year stationed in West Germany and was discharged from the military in 1971. He was a member of VVA 470, where he volunteered with the Honor Guard.

Writing Letters Home

It’s time to pretend you’re part of Sam’s social circle. Who will you be? You can choose one of the following:

1. Mother

2. Father

3. Sister

4. Friend

You just received an envelope in the mail from Sam. Before you read it, think about how it feels to see his handwriting. How does the paper feel in your hands? What were the last things you knew about his time in Vietnam? What do you hope to learn in this letter?

Censorship and Self-Censorship

Letters were often censored by military authorities to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information. Soldiers also practiced self-censorship, avoiding details that might worry their loved ones or reveal military operations.

What type of information do you think Sam keep from you? What would he be worried about you knowing? What should YOU not tell HIM so he doesn’t get in trouble or worry about life at home? Does this feel like lying to you?

Open the letter Sam sent you and read it. Think about what he shared, then write back to Sam.

Digging Deeper

Emotional Context: Soldiers often wrote under intense stress, fear, and homesickness. Their words may reflect anxiety, trauma, or attempts to reassure family members. Sometimes, they tried to downplay dangers to avoid causing distress at home.

Limited Perspective: Letters often offer a very personal, subjective view. They may not represent the full reality of the war, broader events, or the experiences of other soldiers.

Communication Delays: Letters took weeks to arrive, so events described were often already outdated. This lag could create confusion or misunderstandings between soldiers and those back home.

Cultural and Historical Context: Understanding the era’s political climate, anti-war sentiment, and soldiers’ backgrounds helps interpret the letters’ tone, content, and subtext.

Psychological Impact: War letters can reveal the psychological toll of combat, including signs of trauma, loneliness, and moral conflict, even if not stated explicitly.

Expressions of Camaraderie and Routine: Soldiers often shared stories of daily life, friendships, and mundane routines, which provided comfort and a sense of normalcy amid chaos.

Hope, Longing, and Connection: Letters were a crucial emotional lifeline. Pay attention to expressions of hope for the future, longing for home, and efforts to maintain relationships despite distance and adversity.

Sam was born and raised in South Minneapolis, the first of two children. Both his parents served in the Army Air Forces during World War Two; his father was a crew chief, and his mother was a teletype operator. After the war ended, his father worked as a printing press operator, and his mother worked as a janitor in the Minneapolis School District. Sam graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1965, at which point he unsuccessfully tried to enlist in the Army. He was medically disqualified from serving, but he was intent on making it work; he underwent two corrective surgeries, and after three years, he was allowed to enlist in March of 1968.

He attended basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and was trained as a wheeled-vehicle operator. In 1969, he was sent to Vietnam and joined the 701st Maintenance Battalion in Lai Khe, about 50 miles north of Saigon. Sam worked on “All kinds of wheeled vehicles. Anything with tires under it. Trucks, trailers, Jeeps – that was pretty much all I ever handled.” Even though he worked in the motor pool, it was far from safe. Lai Khe, one of many military bases known as “Rocket City,” was frequently attacked by North Vietnamese artillery. “It lived up to its name.

It was pretty much an area where they liked to shell the compound a lot. It was pretty common practice that at any time of the day or night to have to run to the bunker, or something, for protection… There was a lot of weird things that would happen, too, where a rocket would come in and land. One time, we had one that came right through the roof of one of the buildings that was the radio guys’ repair shop. A shell came right through the roof and never exploded.”

Despite being a mechanic, Sam was nonetheless expected to maintain his combat skills and stand on guard duty at night. During those shifts, soldiers spent an entire night in a bunker, monitoring the perimeter of their base or encampment for signs of movement. He later recounted a particular story from one of those guard duty nights: “There was 3 of us assigned to one bunker. We were sitting on the back of the bunker, there, and I was sitting in the middle between the two other guys… all of a sudden, I started to scream very loud. I had gotten bitten by a scorpion right in the spine. I was right in between the other two guys, and I was the lucky recipient of the scorpion bite…” 

He spent the majority of the night in the base’s Aid Station getting medical attention, and was given a choice by his officer: he could either go back to the bunker and finish his guard duty, or he could do it again the next night anyway. “I went back on guard duty for the rest of the night, but word got around the whole bunker line that somebody had gotten bitten, and everybody was afraid to even go around the bunkers then for fear of a scorpion, or a snake, or something.” The sting left Sam with permanent nerve damage for the rest of his life.

He spent six months in Lai Khe before transferring to Dau Tieng, a much larger base about 20 miles southeast, where he spent the remainder of his tour of duty. Dau Tieng, by contrast, was very well defended and much safer for the mechanics working in the motor pool. They also enjoyed better working conditions, being able to perform maintenance in tents instead of being completely exposed to the elements. By the time Sam was to be rotated out, his experiences in Vietnam had taken their toll.

He later recalled his frustrations with how the war was being handled. “I was scared. I was rather ticked off with the way things were going on, because we had areas that they could ambush us from, and we weren’t allowed to fire back at them… They had a lot of ‘no fire zones,’ where we weren’t allowed to fire into the area.” Such ‘no-fire’ zones were widely implemented in the aftermath of the My Lai Massacre in 1968, and included traditional burial grounds and cemeteries, villages, and anywhere else that might have had a civilian presence or cultural importance. “That didn’t apply to the Koreans, though,” Sam recalled. “The Koreans were feared

by the Vietnamese, because the Koreans would go out from the compound that they were at, from the bunker lines, and they’d go out looking for the enemy. They would do their body count by cutting off the ear, and that’s how they proved their body count, by the number of ears that they had. Unlike us. We’d just say, ‘Well, we’d seen this body or that body,’ and that was it.”

In 1970, Sam was rotated out of Vietnam and stationed in Wachenheim, West Germany, for a year. He was discharged from the military in March of 1971 and returned home to Minneapolis. He found work with the United States Postal Service, where he stayed for 31 years. Sam was very involved in veteran organizations in Minnesota; he was a Post Commander at the Ballentine Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 246, and after moving to Anoka County, became a member of the Vietnam Veterans of America Post 470 after meeting fellow veteran Mike Clark at the Anoka County Fair. Sam was a member of the 470’s Honor Guard, which provided military honors at veterans’ funerals. Sam participated in an interview with the Anoka County Historical Society in 2003 and donated many of the letters he wrote in Vietnam. He passed away on January 23, 2018, at the age of 70.

Chapter 1: The Draft

I was born free, and then I was drafted...I thought for sure I was about to be read the Riot Act! — Steven Ruud

The Vietnam War stands as one of the most contentious periods in American history, not only for the conflict itself but also for how the US supplied its military with soldiers - the laws of conscription, better known as the draft. The draft was managed by the Selective Service System (SSS), a federal agency responsible for conscripting men between a certain age into our military. As the Vietnam War escalated, the draft became a focal point of societal tension, protests, and calls for reform. These mounting pressures resulted in the introduction of the draft lottery in 1969 and the eventual withdrawal from the war in 1973. 

The Selective Service System

The Selective Service System had been in place since World War I to ensure the U.S. military could call upon a sufficient number of men to fight. During the Vietnam War, the system required all men 18 to 26 to register for the draft - for WWII that ranged from 18 to 46. Registrants were classified by local draft boards, which were community-based and often operated with significant autonomy. These boards decided who was eligible for induction, received deferments, or exempt status. Deferments played a crucial role in determining who would be called to serve - if the local board identified a cause for deferment, a registrant would not have to be called in the draft. Common deferments included education for college students, which allowed many young men to delay service as long as they remained in school. Others received occupational deferments for working in essential industries or medical deferments if deemed physically unfit. The system was criticized for favoring the well-connected and the wealthy, who were often able to secure deferments through education or influence, leaving poorer and minority men more likely to be drafted. Before 1969, the Selective Service operated under a quota system. Local draft boards were given quotas based on the military’s needs, and within each local jurisdiction, men were called up by age, with older men in the draft-eligible range being drafted first. This approach was a legacy of previous wars, but as the Vietnam War dragged on and the U.S. involvement deepened, the number of men needed increased, leading to more frequent draft calls. 

The Introduction of the Draft Lottery

As the war became increasingly unpopular, so too did the draft. By the late 1960s, the draft had become a lightning rod for anti-war sentiment. Protests against the draft were common, and acts of defiance, such as burning draft cards or fleeing to Canada, highlighted the deep divisions within the US. The Selective Service System, with its perceived inequities and lack of transparency, became a prime target for reform. In response, President Richard Nixon introduced the draft lottery on December 1, 1969. The lottery system was intended to make the draft more fair and equitable by randomizing the order in which men would be called up based on their birth dates. In the first lottery, each day of the year was assigned a number, and those with the lowest numbers were drafted first. This system replaced the previous method of drafting older men first and ensured that every eligible man, regardless of social status or education, had an equal chance of being drafted. Although the lottery system was a significant change and marked a shift towards a more transparent process, it did not eliminate the draft’s unpopularity. Many viewed it as a new way of selecting young men to fight in a war, which was increasingly seen as unjust and unwinnable. Instead of leveling the playing field, the burden of conscription still fell disproportionately on those who could not afford to attend college or secure deferments.