It was May 1970, deep in the jungles of Vietnam, and 19-year-old infantryman John Smith stepped to the edge of a hill to admire the view. Then came the snap of a wire.
“They must’ve thought, ‘This is a beautiful view. Someone’s going to come over here to look at it,’” said Smith, 76, of Newark. “And they were right. I tripped the wire.”
The explosion ripped into him, leaving Smith with two broken legs and nearly severing a finger, weeks before he was scheduled to leave the combat zone.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, which, according to the National Archives, saw nearly 20 years of U.S. involvement beginning Nov. 1, 1955. The conflict resulted in approximately 58,220 U.S. deaths, over 300,000 wounded, and an estimated 2 to 4 million Vietnamese lives lost. The war officially ended on April 30, 1975.
Smith, one of many American teenagers who served in Vietnam, enlisting at 18, recently shared his personal journey in the war, punctuating his account with a harsh reality.
“I was there for 17 months and 20 days,” he said. “I still don’t know why I was there. You know there was no plausible explanation of why we were in Vietnam.”
Smith said he enlisted because he became restless while working in a factory.
“The job wasn’t using my brains — it was using my brawn,” he said. “I thought the Army might give me a better opportunity.”
The opportunity came in the form of the infantry, the men who would be the boots on the ground in Vietnam’s treacherous hills and jungles.
“Vietnam is a beautiful country,” Smith recalled. “You’d be up on a hill 1,000 meters high, looking out on all that vegetation and landscape.”
But beauty was always laced with peril, he added.
“In the field, it was elephant grass, vines, trees, and hills. Once you slipped, you couldn’t stop. You just tumbled.”
Everyday life carried its own absurdities. Smith said he saw soldiers brush their teeth with the same brushes they used to clean rifles. And on his first day, he saw the dead body of a 19-year-old comrade.
“I asked for a priest,” Smith said, recalling that moment. “I didn’t think I was gonna make it.”
Racism shadowed his service. The officer corps was almost entirely white, and favoritism was blatant. After a friendly-fire incident, a white soldier walked off the front lines and was later promoted. “That wouldn’t have happened for us,” Smith said.
The Vietnamese knew how to exploit those cracks. He said propaganda leaflets fell from the sky: Black men, go home. You don’t have any rights in your country.
“They were 100% correct,” Smith admitted decades later. “But being 18 or 19, you’re indoctrinated. You don’t see the whole picture.”
By the spring 1970, Smith’s tour was nearly over. As he prepared to leave Vietnam, his brother, Gene, nine years his senior, transferred in. U.S. policy had barred siblings from serving in combat zones at the same time.
The elder Smith said his brother never asked his advice about enlisting, but he said it didn’t matter. They were both in it for opportunities they didn’t think were available elsewhere.
“I spent my career supplying whatever unit I was assigned to, whether it was medical, infantry, whatever was needed,” Gene Smith said. “I ordered helicopters, trucks, and mostly provided fuel.”
And with humor, he added, “I was in logistics for 26 years, not a ‘ground pounder’ like John, who was just the opposite.”
When Gene Smith went over to Vietnam, he had planned to spend time with his brother before John rotated out.
Instead, John encountered the booby trap.
Afterward, he was evacuated to Fort Gordon in Georgia, and later to St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens, New York, where he spent nine months recovering. His finger was crudely reattached, leaving permanent damage. The medical care was poor, and he said the racism was relentless.
But survival gave him a second chance. With the GI Bill and disability stipend, Smith studied business at Monroe Business Institute in the Bronx, worked on Wall Street at Bankers Trust as an Operations Specialist, and handled accounts for Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith.
He later joined the Newark Police Department, where he served in the crime prevention unit for 26 years before retiring. Afterward, he joined Essex County College as an associate professor for 31 years and later became vice president of the adjunct union, retiring last year.
Smith enjoyed a close relationship with the late N.J. Sen. Ronald Rice, dating back to when Rice ran for mayor of Newark and was part of several organizations that were pro Black advancement, including the NAACP and the New Jersey Black Issues Convention, which was dedicated to enhancing opportunities for the Black community in New Jersey, where John served a security chief.
Josie Gonsalves, 56, is the publisher of Public Square Amplified, an award-winning local newsroom in Newark. She said John was a top pick for her advisory board committee.
“I’ve known John for over eight years since I arrived in Newark,” she said. “He embodies what it means to serve both one’s country and one’s community; he’s always giving without expecting anything in return. John is a teacher and a veteran, and he is an amazing storyteller with countless stories to share. John represents the best of our community.”
Smith now lives with his third wife and talks about Vietnam with the calm of distance but the clarity of survival. The beauty of the country, the chaos of the war, the racism and contradictions all remain vivid, he said.
Reflecting on the 50 years since the war, John said, “I thought I could have a better life by joining the Army. But then you go to hell. They don’t tell you that before you sign up.”
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