Charles Billo oral history interview

Charles G. Billo, resident of the Upper Valley. Oral history interview documenting his experience as a United States Foreign Service officer during the Vietnam War. Billo discusses his education, including his K-12 years in the Bronxville, NY, school system; his undergraduate years at Brown University as a member of the Class of 1964; his application to Navy Officer Candidate School, and his ultimate decision to attend Columbia Business School and Columbia University’s School of International Affairs [now Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs]. He discusses changing views toward the war while in graduate school and then his experience receiving his draft summons following graduation in 1967. Billo describes entering the Foreign Service, his assignment to the CORDS [Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support] program, and his training in Washington, D.C. He discusses his arrival in Vietnam in 1969 as an economic reporting officer, with joint responsibility to the embassy in Saigon and the deputy for CORDS in IV Corps; his transfer to Can Tho in June 1969, where he surveyed rice usage, consumption, and US imports; and his next assignment in 1970 to a post in Milan, Italy. Billo describes meeting and marrying his wife in Milan. Billo reflects on the US government’s handling of the Vietnam War and how it has and has not affected current military conflicts.