W. John McNally III oral history interview

The Scope and Contents note of this oral history was originally generated by feeding the electronic transcript into OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4o on 2024 July 26. It was then reviewed and edited by a human.

Oral history interview with John McNally for the Dartmouth Vietnam Project. McNally recounts his early life growing up in a military family and his college years at Duke University on a Navy ROTC scholarship. He discusses his experience serving as a gunnery officer on an amphibious ship in Virginia before attending Vietnamese language school and counterinsurgency training in California. He recalls arriving in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968, working as a naval advisor on a small Vietnamese Navy base, participating in military operations, and experiencing the dangers of war. McNally describes how his growing anti-war sentiment was solidified by the futility and corruption he observed in Vietnam, leading him to cofound the Concerned Officers Movement after returning to the U.S. in 1969. McNally recounts his life after returning to the U.S., where he attended law school and pursued a career in civil liberties and legal aid. He also discusses his ontinued skepticism towards military interventions and concern for veterans' welfare.