Steve Allen of Newman, Illinois was a combat Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War from 1970-1971. He attributes his Christian faith to keeping himself and his men alive and helping him make moral decisions during the hell of war.

Richard Bartolotti of Valier, Illinois was drafted after high school, joined the Marines and was sent to Vietnam in 1965 where he was involved in dozens of “skirmishes,” as he calls them, and injured by a grenade. Bartolotti reflects on the positive and negative effects of war and military training, and how his experiences shaped his life and perspective on the battlefield and life back home.

Patrick Lam was just nine years old in 1979 when he was forced to leave Lái Thiêu, Vietnam by his grandmother who had organized an escape by boat. He left with his uncle’s family leaving behind his mother and three siblings. After being rescued at sea by the captain of an oil rig, Patrick and his relatives were taken to Kuku Island where Patrick learned self-sufficiency.

In 1967, Pham Thein Khoc’s college education came to a halt when he joined the South Vietnam Army as a combat engineer. Shortly after the Vietnam War, Pham was arrested and taken to a prison camp in Bình Thuận, where his physical and emotional health deteriorated. After enduring years of post-war anxiety in Vietnam, Pham and his family were finally able to immigrate to the United States, although Pham had to leave his oldest son behind in Vietnam.

Illinois Public Media seeks Illinois residents who were among the service members, refugees, conscientious objectors, and draft resistors with first-hand experiences of the Vietnam conflict at home or abroad as part of our year-long gathering of oral histories and TV and radio reports during this 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.