Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:32 | It was over a hundred degrees and there was a garbage strike when Tom Grissom arrived in Saigon. After he got used to the aroma, he had to get used to a new kind of war, a war in which there were no battle lines and anyone could be an enemy. He had a desk job, but even in the compound where high ranking officers lived, there were booby traps.
Keywords : Tom Grissom Vietnam Saigon trip wire booby trap civilian Vietnamese Arc Light Communist anti-war
Coming out of ROTC at Texas A&M, Tom Grissom became a reserve Army officer and was sent to an infantry regiment. He drew an assignment to the Philippines to train their troops and arrived in Pearl Harbor in November, 1941. He departed for the Philippines on December 1. In another week, there would be war.
It was still peacetime when Tom Grissom left Hawaii in a convoy bound for the Philippines. He never got there. Diverted to Australia after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was unsure what his part in the war would be. Then, all the unassigned officers from the ship departed on another ship for the Philippines. They were stopped short at Darwin.
Tom Grissom was in Australia en route to the Philippines when the word came down. General MacArthur is evacuating from there and coming to establish his headquarters in Australia. He became part of that effort, including processing refugees. When someone with finance knowledge was needed, his college degree made him the choice.
Tom Grissom was an accidental finance officer. Assigned to that function in Australia, he returned to the States after the war and continued in that capacity, rising to the highest levels of the Finance Corps.
