Robert E. Thebodo 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 September 13. It was then reviewed and edited by a human.

Oral history interview with Robert E. Thebodo for the Dartmouth Vietnam Project. Thebodo recounts growing up in a working-class family in Massachusetts as a child of a World War II veteran. He discusses his decision to enlist in the Coast Guard after high school, seeking honorable service while hoping to avoid the draft. He describes his Coast Guard training in electronics and subsequent assignment to a long-range navigation (LORAN) site on Con Son Island, Vietnam, where he worked on navigation systems for aircraft and ships. Thebodo shares stories about the island’s environment, encounters with snipers, and interactions with Vietnamese prisoners, as well as the emotional strain of adjusting to life in a war zone. He describes his return to the U.S. and encounters with anti-war sentiment. He then details his career after leaving the service, attending the University of Massachusetts on the GI Bill and eventually working at Dartmouth College as the arborist and grounds supervisor.