January 19, 2023 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Oliver Halle shares some stories while he was in the Navy during the Vietnam War and also about his family (who resisted the Nazis and fled to America) secret that would forever change his life. The Veteran’s History Project at the Atlanta History Center provides unedited first-person interviews from men and women who served our great country.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is Lei Habib, and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. Our next one is brought
to us with permission from the Veteran's History Project at
the Atlanta History Center. The Veterans History Project provides unedited,
(00:34):
first person interviews from men and women who've served our
a great country. Today, we'll be hearing from Oliver Halley,
who will share with us a bit about his experiences
in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. We
will also be hearing about the unearthed family secret that
would forever change his life. Here's Oliver. I grew up
(00:54):
in a small family. My mother and father were only children,
so I had no anne, no uncle's, no cousins. I
had two brothers, my older brother who died in two
thousand and nine, who was two years older than my
younger brother, who's almost two years younger than I am.
He still lives in New York. My father and his
(01:17):
family emigrated from Nazi Germany in nineteen thirty five or so,
and my mother was born in Brooklyn, but her father
was born and raised in Germany and came here as
a young man. And my mother's mother was born in
Brooklyn as well, and we moved to Brooklyn when I
(01:37):
was a baby, so I have no memory of where
I was born whatsoever. My first memories begin in Brooklyn,
and then we moved to Statenalland when I was seven,
and that's where I grew up to my father and
mother built a legend around our family. Again, I knew
(01:58):
that my father and his family had moved from emigrated
from Nazi Germany, but they built a legend around that,
and the legend had to do with that his father,
my grandfather, who I didn't know. He was killed in
a car accident at nineteen thirty nine. I did know that,
and he was a prominent surgeon in New York. And
(02:20):
the legend was that they resisted the Third Reich. My
father was in an underground movement and it was all
very romantic, and that was the story that I grew
up with. But when I was growing up, everybody went
into military. That was just the way it was. A
(02:41):
lot of people don't know that. They draft began in
June of nineteen forty and it didn't end until I
think roughly nineteen seventy five. So even during the peacetime
between the Korean War in Vietnam, people were being drafted.
In my high school, you know, people either volunt here
to win into the military, and it was acceptable. Nobody
(03:03):
even thought about avoiding it if they got if they
didn't want to join, they were drafted and they didn't complain.
That's just the way it was. And I grew up
in that environment. At post World War Two. You see
a lot of veterans from World War Two during parades.
It was always a big deal and it's just what
you did that it was your turn to step up
(03:24):
when it came time. So there was never any doubt
in my mind I would go into service. And growing
up in New York and seeing the ships in New
York Harbor, I was attracted to the Navy. It just
it was just there was never any doubt that's where
I wanted to go. So my friend Kenny, I don't
I don't remember where, but somewhere he heard about swift
(03:45):
boats and I said, what's a swift boat? And he
described it as best he could, and I said, I'm
going to volunteer for that. I said, well, you know what,
I'll volunteer, would you. I know, we arrived in Vietnam
on September twenty seventh, nineteen sixty nine, and when we
got off the plane, you see all these sandbags and
we landed in Cameron Bay. Cameron Bay was one of
(04:09):
the swift boat bases and it was the headquarters for
Coastal Squadron one, and then from there we were going
to be farmed out to one of five coastal divisions.
And I remember seeing the sandbags and seeing you know,
you say, wow, we were definitely in a war zone
when you saw that, and you saw everybody in fatigues
(04:30):
and you had army, then an avy and air force,
and they said, whoa, this is the real deal. So
that was my impression. So on Christmas Eve day to
December twenty fourth, I think it was a C one
thirty flow us down to cat Low and the boats
(04:50):
were already there and we were happy. So we get
there and I remember we were sleeping that night int
Low in some barracks, and I remember the next morning
just I guess it was before the you know, the
truth winning with the Christmas Truth swinning effect. But it
(05:13):
was my first introduction to B fifty two bombing somewhere
in the area. I don't know exactly where, but I
mean it was incredible. I couldn't believe how the ground
was shake and you know, and it's like, ohoh, I mean,
you know, I hadn't experienced that in Denang and Denang
(05:33):
we worked in Denang. Marines operated out of I Corps
where we were. That's it. And we did work some
with the US Marines up in I Corps along the
Kodai River. This particular day, again I don't remember why,
but we would transport in Korean marines these rocks so Hian.
(05:57):
I don't remember, you know what, you know why, Oh,
I know somebody, you know. We're given an order, you know,
take pick these rocks up, take them to Hoyian, a
few miles up the river. So there was a sergeant
and probably you know, maybe ten to twelve of these
Korean marines, and we had on board. We had searched
(06:20):
a couple of sampans in the river, and I remember vaguely,
I remember that we took several women prisoners because they
didn't have paperwork, and they may have had some contraband,
no weapons, but they may have had contraband. I don't
remember why, and it's not particularly important. Well I remember
(06:40):
is we took them on board and handcuffed them because
they had done something and we were going to turn
them over to Navy intelligence in Hayian. So we had
these Korean marines on board too. It needs were young
getting these women. And I was in the pilothouse where
that's where I only stayed when well moving. I'm in
(07:02):
a pilothouse. And you've been listening to Oliver Halley recount
his early days right up to his enlistment and volunteer
enlistment in the Vietnam War. He volunteered for swiftboat duty
in September of nineteen sixty nine, and everything changed. We'll
hear more of Oliver's story here on Our American Stories.
(07:32):
Lei Habibi here the host of our American Stories. Every
day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across
this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
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(07:54):
Give a little, give a lot. Go to our American
Stories dot com and give. And we continue with our
American Stories and Oliver Hallie's story. Let's return where we
(08:16):
last left off. So I'm up in palace. One of
my h you know, crew members came up to me.
So mister Hallie said, we got a problem. He said,
these Karea Marines they want to rape these women. I
(08:37):
said what he said? He he said, they're eyeing them
over and the appointing and then you know, and they
make emotions and all this. I said, WHOA. So I
went back after and I went up to the sergeant.
He was the senior petty officer, not petty office, the
senior ranking guy enlisted. The guy there was no officer.
(08:58):
I'm trying to speak to him in English. I say,
you know, I'm pointing to say, you women, you know, touch,
no touch, you know, and you know, no English, no English,
and no no no touch, no touch. And the other guys,
the other enlistment, I can see they're getting angry. Now,
they're getting and the sergeant is trying to you know,
(09:19):
even though he didn't speak English, he understood what I
was trying to say, now he's getting confrontational. So I
told my crew members, I said, put the weapons on him,
put them on him. And it was it was tense.
It was very tense. They they they would determine they
(09:41):
were going to have their way, and I was determined
they weren't. And we made it to Hawaiian as since
and I told the sergeant, I said, you know you
you touch women. I said, you're a captain. He cocked
it out. You cock it out, your captain, He cocked it.
I kept saying that, you know, talking at you. And
(10:03):
so I mean, we've got to Hawaiian And as soon
as we got there, I reported these, you know, the
sergeant and his troops to you know, the our intelligence people,
and they, you know, report wherever when. I have no
idea what happened after that, But fortunately these women, you know,
we're not assaulted, and it would have been impossible to
(10:24):
let that have happened. It's just some things you just
can't do, you know. I mean, that's not our American values,
it really isn't. I mean, even at that age, I
understood that much as that's not who we are as Americans.
We don't do that. And now to segue into something
a little bit amusing. I'm back down again in Coastal
(10:45):
Division eleven, you know, down there in the Gulf of
Thailand and the Pacific Ocean area, and my commodore, Lieutenant
Command of Bill Martin, he called me in. I was
hot wherever I was. He called me into the headquarters immediately,
so I go back. I had no idea what was
(11:07):
going on. And he says, he hands me a teletype,
and I read this teletype my heart sake, and it's
best I recall. I wish I had a copy of it.
It said something like this from Commander in Chief Pacific two,
(11:28):
you know, Command of Coastal Squadron one, Coastal Levision eleven.
Boom boom, subject of presidential interest. I remember those words
of presidential interest. And I'm paraphrasing here. And it goes
on to say, as follows, Ruth Hallie Gorman, the mother
(11:49):
of Lieutenant JG. Oliver g. Halle Staton all in New York,
has written to the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon,
that her son is not getting his mail, and the
President has ordered an immediate inquiry to determine why he
(12:10):
isn't getting his mail. And and I was flawed because
I had never complained to my mother I wasn't getting
my mail. It didn't happen. I never said a word
that I wasn't getting my mail. Nothing. I was getting
my mail. It wasn't a problem. So I'm speechless and embarrassed.
I mean, this thing went out to the entire seventh Fleet,
(12:31):
this communication of presidential interest. So the commodore was very sympathetic,
and he said, well, we have to respond to this immediately.
When he suggests, I said, well, Commodore, I'm getting my mail.
I mean, I don't know where my mother's coming from.
I can't pick up a phone to caller and ask
it what's going on. So I remember, we responded that
(12:55):
I had been in transit and had been moving around,
and apparently the mail hadn't kept up, but there was
no problem. Be assured that there is no problem. Everything's
fine and it's okay. So when I got home, I
have a copy somewhere in a box. I know that
(13:16):
of a letter from a general in the Pentagon. How
that works, you know, since I'm in the Navy, But
who knows. But anyway, I remember it was a general
in the Pentagon who had written my mother that on
behalf of a president or something like that. They were
looking into why I wasn't getting my mail? Like I said,
it was a very embarrassing thing to me. And I
(13:38):
asked my mother when I got home almost a year later,
I said, why did you do that? I said, I
was getting my mail. Why did you do that? Oh?
I remember her saying, is you won't getting your mail? Okay,
So I do have, uh, you know something that is
(13:58):
very critical to who I am. And back in the
nineteen thirties, my maternal grandparents had a correspondence with a
woman in Australia named Esther Buck. Esther Buck was a
teacher in Australia and she communicated our wrote letters. I
(14:22):
should say, they correspondent only by mail. And we're all
the same, roughly the same age. You remember back then,
in the seventies, I'm talking about sixties and seventies, you
had that paper. You bought it at the post office.
I think they call it fly paper because it was
so light, and you would write a letter and then
you would fold it. Remember that you would fold it
(14:43):
over and put a stamp on it. But it was
so light and you'd send it by airmail because it
was cheap. But back then, if you remember, they were
airmail raids versus first class, whereas today there's no distinction. Okay,
So this correspondence and father, my mother's father and her mother,
they were both educated, as was my mother in New York,
(15:07):
and they had this correspondence. They got through the Park
of Pen company. It was just one of those professional
things and over the years they got to know each
other only by mail. I had never spoken, So when
my grandfather became too sick, my mother picked up the correspondence.
So we're talking probably about the late nineteen forties, early
nineteen fifties. So my mother wrote to Esther Buck and
(15:30):
they correspondent, you know, maybe once a month, once every
couple of months. And I remember Miss Buck, that's what
I called. She would send us little trinkets for Christmas,
that kind of thing. But again they never spoke. All
of this was by mail all these years. So now
I'm in Vietnam and it was arranged that I would
(15:54):
meet Miss Buck on R and R, and I was lucky.
I got two R and rs. First film was in
June of nineteen seventy. I went to Hong Kong, and
then the second one of the commodore was really generous
about that. I went to Sydney, so my mother arranged
by mail for me to meet her. So I was
pretty excited too. This is a big deal. And the
(16:16):
way it was going to work is I was going
to meet her at her home and then my mother
was going to call while I was there. Now, again
we're all at the same age. These young people have
no idea. But when you called internationally back then, you
had to call the overseas operator. Remember that you called.
(16:36):
Maybe you don't because if you never made an international call,
it wasn't very common. It was expensive. But you called
the international operator and you'd say, I'd like to place
its call of Sydney, Australia, and the international operator would
tell you that it might be an hour, might be two,
might be three, depending on the traffic before they could
get a line. So the plan was hopefully it would
(16:58):
all fall in a place while I was there, my
mother would be calling in. The date was September eighth,
nineteen seventy. And I've written a book, but it pertains
to this business I have is speaking business, and I
have a chapter in the book called Life Changing Versus
(17:19):
Life Shaping Experiences. September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life
forever forever. And you're listening to Oliver halle and again
we want to thank the Veteran's History Project at the
Atlanta History Center for this story. And we're going to
(17:40):
find out what happened on that day when we come
back more of Oliver Halley's story here on our American
Stories and we continue with our American stories and Oliver
(18:10):
Hallie's story. Let's pick up where we last left off.
September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life forever forever. I
don't know why I'm getting emotion little bit i'd think
(18:32):
about it. I told you earlier in this interview in
the beginning that my mother and father were only children.
I had no relatives, and my father's side, in particular,
a lot of mysteries that I never knew the answers to.
My father had committed suicide on May the ninth, nineteen
(18:58):
sixty six. I was in college. I was twenty years old.
I was a junior in college at the time. And
in that book that I wrote, I put in there
that you know he just couldn't outrun the demons that
had chased him from the Third Reich. And as I
said earlier, he had built up this legend he was
(19:19):
in this German underground movement and they got into street
fights and all of that. Well, turn out that's all true,
that part is all true. What never made sense to
me as I got older was why with a wealthy family,
Because my father came from a wealthy family. He was
an only child. His father was a very prominent surgeon.
(19:41):
And I didn't know until I sent you the story
of New York Times. I didn't know until this year,
until this year, February this year, that he had actually
been a physician for Kai's Wilhelm and Zar Nicholas of Russia.
I didn't know that until I see from the New
York Sue has seen the sorry to New York Times
(20:03):
nineteen thirty nine when he was killed in a car accident.
So anyway, eight minutes suicide, four years earlier. And I'm
sitting with miss Buck and she she had never married.
She was a woman, probably in the seventies at the time,
and she was so excited to see me. I mean, oh,
(20:27):
she was just fluttering here on flaring. Then I'm so
excited to finally meet somebody from the Halley family after
old these years. Oh so happy finally, you know, this
is wonderful. And I can't wait for your mother to called,
you know, I just so looking forward to that. And
then she said as follows she said, and I don't
(20:52):
remember her exact words. I was too stunned, and so
I'm close. But these are not the exact words. I
just don't remember what they were. Wish I did, but
I don't. She said something like this, did your mother
ever reconcile with her father for marrying outside the faith?
(21:16):
And I looked at this buck, and I said, this, Buck,
I don't understand your question. My mother and father, you know,
were Protestants. I don't know what you mean by marrying
outside the faith. And she said no, no, no, no no, no.
She said your mother was Jewish she married your father.
But I said, my mother's not Jewish. He said, of
(21:37):
course she is, and she's my head. At that moment exploded.
You know how you get shocking news, whatever the really
shocking news. That's what happened to me. It was like
that because I had experienced anti Semitism growing up. I
grew up a Methodist, but I experienced a lot of
anti Semitism. I don't care anybody you know that I
(21:59):
don't know I looked Jewish, okay, I mean there is
a stereotype, and I'm one of them. My head explored,
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So she saw
the look on my face and she stopped shure. She says,
oh my god, I hope I didn't say anything I
shouldn't have said. And I said no, I said, I'm
(22:19):
glad you did. But she didn't say another word. Well,
my mother called in and we all had a very
nice chat. Didn't bring anidas up, and Miss Buck was
so excited to finally talk to my mother. And I
left Vietnam I think September twenty three, so it was
(22:43):
a couple of weeks or so later, and got to
San Francisco and I outprocessed from active duty to the reserves.
It took I think five days. I was a treasure island,
you know, about an hour a day, you know, did
administrative stuff and they cut you loose. So at the
(23:07):
end of the week, I flew from San Francisco to
New York. A friend of mine picked me up, and
I went to my mother's house until I could find
a place to live. A couple weeks later, and I'm
unpacking my seabag, and this has really been weighing on
my mind. And as I'm unpacking my seabag, I said
(23:28):
to my mother, why didn't you tell us we were Jewish?
And she said, what where did you get that nonsense from?
Those are her words? And I said, miss Buck told
me and my mother very uncharacteristically. She was very polished,
very educated, very uncharacteristically, she said, as full as a liar.
(23:54):
She didn't talk that way. I said, no, I said,
miss Buck told the truth, and very uncharacteristically, my mother
completely broke down, I mean really broke down, crying, and
she said, please don't tell you brothers, and I said,
I have to. Well, As the years went by, I
(24:19):
would try and talk to my mother about this, she
shut it down. She acted like I wasn't even in
a room. If I want to change the subject, she
look up and talk about it. She wouldn't talk about it,
absolutely refused. So I never learned anything from my mother, nothing,
And she and my father had destroyed a lot of documents,
(24:42):
so over the years it would take me too long
to tell it. It doesn't fit in with the Vietnam
part of the story, so I'll just kind of synopsize
it real quickly. I learned a lot on my own
through reading books, and then when the Internet came into
being learned a little bit. And so the bottom line
(25:03):
is this. My grandfather on my father's side was Jewish
for sure, one hundred percent. I have the records to
support that he was Jewish. And my maternal my paternal
grandmother was a Lutheran. My father was raised a Lutheran.
(25:23):
So in the Jewish faith, you know, the bloodline carries
on the mother's side, not the father's side. So even
though my father was half Jewish, he wouldn't be recognized
as Jewish by Jewish people. So that that comment about
did your mother have a reconcile with her father? In effact,
my mother married outside the faith even though my father
(25:45):
was half Jewish. And you've been listening to Oliver Halley
and what a story he's telling, and this is just
a side story. With these side stories, will they informed
so much about all of our lives. September eighth, the
day that changed his life forever, and my goodness, why
didn't you tell us we were Jewish? What an identity
(26:05):
crisis for this young man. Also, he was learning that
everything he ever thought was true because he always thought
he was Jewish, he looked Jewish. Where did you get
that nonsense? The mom said, And my goodness, she then said,
miss Buck is a liar. And he knew then, he
knew for sure that it was true. And then the
(26:26):
reality said in and his mom, well, she just broke
down and she just started to cry, revealing her human side.
But never came clean, never told the real story. And
by the way, we learned that again and again here
on our American stories, particularly the World War two generation.
So many of them just wouldn't come clean about what happened.
Maybe it was so horrible they couldn't process it. Who
knows what the reasons are. When we come back more
(26:49):
of Oliver Halley's story, and it's a beauty here on
our American stories. And we continue here with our American stories.
(27:39):
Let's continue with Oliver Helly. So my father and his
mother were estranged. I don't know why. To this day.
That's a secret that'll go to the grave. I will
never know the answer to that. It kills me not
to know, but I'll never know. I do not know.
(28:01):
My father would write her letters. She lived in Queens
when we lived on Seaten Island. My father would write
her letters. And I still see this in my mind's eye.
They would come back unopened and there would be a stamp,
you know, this kind of stamp on the envelope, and
it would be of a hand pointing this like this,
(28:22):
and it would say return to sender refused with checkmark refused.
And she died in February nineteen fifty nine. But I
never met her, and to this day, I don't know
why they were strange. I had no idea. So that
day changed my life forever. When you find that you
(28:43):
there's more to your past and it's very different than
you were brought up to believe, that has a profound effect.
So that's the life change and experience. The life shaping,
without question, was my time in the Navy, and certainly
in Vietnam. I went over to Vietnam I was twenty
(29:04):
three years old as an officer in charge of a
swift boat. I came home I was twenty four, And
to have that kind of responsibility at that young age,
if that won't shape you. Nothing will. After Vietnam, I
spent a year trying to get into law school, but
(29:26):
working this odd job I had when I was in
high school just to mack time. I got into law school.
I began in August of nineteen seventy one at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And I went
through law school knowing that my career plan was to
(29:46):
become an FBI agent. There was never any doubt that's
what I wanted to do. I had formed that plan
years earlier when I knew I wasn't going to be
Chief Naval Operations. And I figured that out in high school.
By the way, in high school, so my career in
the FBI, you have two tracks, you know, the investigative side,
(30:07):
and then you can choose to go into management. It's
not like the military. You know, it's mandatory promotions you're
at you know, people choose in the FBI if they
want to go into management. And I had no interest
in it. After having the experience that I had a Navy,
particularly in Vietnam, I figured nothing could rival at nothing, nothing,
not even close. And then and I love the FBI.
(30:30):
My career I had twenty eight years. It was a
free ticket to a show. I loved it, but to
be kind, the best leadership I saw was in the Navy.
I started late in life with children. I'm married to
Molly Johnson Halley. She's from Charleston, South Carolina. She met
her in New York. She was an FBI agent as well,
(30:51):
and she was chief Division counsel for the FBI office
in Atlanta for most of her career. But we met
in New York. And I was just short of forty
one when my oldest daughter, of Caitlin, was born, just
short of forty two when my second daughter, Victoria was born.
They're Irish twins, the twelve days short of a year apart.
(31:14):
And then my son is in his fourth year of
medical school at Emery. And this is only a coincidence.
It was not planned this way. But my son, Tyler,
is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was
a near nose throat surgeon. And that's a coincidence. He
didn't do it for that reason. He didn't even really
(31:34):
know about it until recently. So I'd like to close
with this. One of the things that my father did
when we lived in Brooklyn and I was a young boy,
and I remember so vividly. On a lot of weekends
(31:55):
he would go into Manhattan and he was volunteered for
Church World Service. In Church World Service, even to this day,
I think sponsors immigrants. And my father went down there,
and you can picture this, these ships coming in from
(32:22):
Europe with thousands refugees coming to New York. Yeah, two
organizations like Church World Service sponsored these people, people who
(32:46):
had nowhere to go, no homes, lost families. That's a
very profound effect on me. And if you read the words,
and I know you have, of Emma Lazaris on the
(33:07):
Statue of Liberty, mere poor, You're wretched, You're teeming masses. However,
and my father and his family before I was born,
obviously coming to New York, I can only imagine what
they thought when they saw the Statue of Liberty. So
(33:30):
he volunteered his time to help refugees, and one of
them came to live with us for several years. Sergei Scholhakoff.
He was a Russian. He had been a veterinarian in
a Russian army, in Russian cavalry. I don't remember whether
(33:50):
he was captured or what happened, but either way, he
ended up in a refugee camp in Europe after the war.
He was on one of these ships and what I
remember is this was coming off the ship and people
being processed. My father. I remember the story saying, you know,
he's one of mine. He came with him and he
(34:12):
lived with us for several years, and then for health reasons,
he moved to Miami, but we stayed in touch, and
I last saw him when I was in the Navy.
A ship was in Fort Lauderdale and I called him
and I spent the night with him. A wonderful man,
a wonderful man. He loved this country what it gave him.
He lost everything in the war. I lost his family everything.
(34:36):
I think of my father and all of that, and
you say, how can you not give back? You know,
how can you not do that? This country gave my
father and his family a home when they were evicted
from This was the Vietnam War, one of those wars
(34:58):
like World War Two, that you know you're fighting to
defend your country. I can't say that it was, and
I won't, but but that's not the point. The point
was that military service was something that came to be expected,
and people in my generation, not everybody. Obviously, we had
(35:19):
a lot of people who didn't share my view, but
a lot did you know, we did our time we
came back from Vietnam, people say, well, you know, the
people spit on you or anything. No, No, I never
had that. Nobody cared when I got back. Nobody cared
(35:41):
you were Vietnam veteran. So what In law school, in
my class, we probably had ten or fifteen Vietnam veterans.
You know, we would talk case, we would probably you know,
we weren't all close friends, but we got along very well.
We could at least if there's anything about the war
it was still going on, we could talk about it.
You didn't talk about it with other people. They didn't care.
It was irrelevant. It meant, it was just they couldn't
(36:03):
relate to it. It was only when Ronald Reagan dedicated
the tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the Vietnam miss
him and I watched it on TV live. Oh my god,
that was powerful. And Ronald Reagan made it okay to
be Vietnam better, and he was. That was the first
(36:25):
it was okay. Then I could wear a T shirt,
you know, Vietnam better. I never did before that. Never.
I didn't talk about it. I didn't talk about it
because you know, I can't talk about it. I bad memories, pts, No,
nothing to do with that. Nobody cared. Nobody cared. But yeah,
that was it. So I went on with my life
(36:47):
and life was good. My FBI career was fantastic. It
was a free ticket to a show. I traveled all
over the world toward the end, you know, with the FBI.
And I was very lucky in my life. I really
was lucky. Probably I got a few lucky breaks along
the way. Didn't have to, but I did, and I'm
(37:10):
grateful for them. And I've got some plans in my
head for what I'm going to do about paying it forward.
And we're looking forward to hearing more from Oliver. What
a storyteller, What a life lived. And again a special
thanks to the folks at the Veteran's History Project at
the Atlanta History Center. And again we're always looking for
stories like this from you are listeners. And my goodness,
(37:32):
what a life well lived. After serving in Vietnam, serving
in the FBI for twenty eight years, A free ticket
to the show, he said late in life to children
like me forty one when he had his daughter, Caitlin
forty two Victoria Tyler, who was in medical school, carrying
on a family tradition. But that story of him greeting refugees,
I know that one because my immigrant grandparents made me
(37:54):
do the same thing. I love what he said about Serge.
He was a wonderful man. He loved his country. He
had lost everything in the war. Everything. He also said, Oliver,
the country gave my father and his father a home.
So true Oliver Halley's story here on our American Stories
This is Lei Habib, and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. Our next one is brought
to us with permission from the Veteran's History Project at
the Atlanta History Center. The Veterans History Project provides unedited,
(00:34):
first person interviews from men and women who've served our
a great country. Today, we'll be hearing from Oliver Halley,
who will share with us a bit about his experiences
in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. We
will also be hearing about the unearthed family secret that
would forever change his life. Here's Oliver. I grew up
(00:54):
in a small family. My mother and father were only children,
so I had no anne, no uncle's, no cousins. I
had two brothers, my older brother who died in two
thousand and nine, who was two years older than my
younger brother, who's almost two years younger than I am.
He still lives in New York. My father and his
(01:17):
family emigrated from Nazi Germany in nineteen thirty five or so,
and my mother was born in Brooklyn, but her father
was born and raised in Germany and came here as
a young man. And my mother's mother was born in
Brooklyn as well, and we moved to Brooklyn when I
(01:37):
was a baby, so I have no memory of where
I was born whatsoever. My first memories begin in Brooklyn,
and then we moved to Statenalland when I was seven,
and that's where I grew up to my father and
mother built a legend around our family. Again, I knew
(01:58):
that my father and his family had moved from emigrated
from Nazi Germany, but they built a legend around that,
and the legend had to do with that his father,
my grandfather, who I didn't know. He was killed in
a car accident at nineteen thirty nine. I did know that,
and he was a prominent surgeon in New York. And
(02:20):
the legend was that they resisted the Third Reich. My
father was in an underground movement and it was all
very romantic, and that was the story that I grew
up with. But when I was growing up, everybody went
into military. That was just the way it was. A
(02:41):
lot of people don't know that. They draft began in
June of nineteen forty and it didn't end until I
think roughly nineteen seventy five. So even during the peacetime
between the Korean War in Vietnam, people were being drafted.
In my high school, you know, people either volunt here
to win into the military, and it was acceptable. Nobody
(03:03):
even thought about avoiding it if they got if they
didn't want to join, they were drafted and they didn't complain.
That's just the way it was. And I grew up
in that environment. At post World War Two. You see
a lot of veterans from World War Two during parades.
It was always a big deal and it's just what
you did that it was your turn to step up
(03:24):
when it came time. So there was never any doubt
in my mind I would go into service. And growing
up in New York and seeing the ships in New
York Harbor, I was attracted to the Navy. It just
it was just there was never any doubt that's where
I wanted to go. So my friend Kenny, I don't
I don't remember where, but somewhere he heard about swift
(03:45):
boats and I said, what's a swift boat? And he
described it as best he could, and I said, I'm
going to volunteer for that. I said, well, you know what,
I'll volunteer, would you. I know, we arrived in Vietnam
on September twenty seventh, nineteen sixty nine, and when we
got off the plane, you see all these sandbags and
we landed in Cameron Bay. Cameron Bay was one of
(04:09):
the swift boat bases and it was the headquarters for
Coastal Squadron one, and then from there we were going
to be farmed out to one of five coastal divisions.
And I remember seeing the sandbags and seeing you know,
you say, wow, we were definitely in a war zone
when you saw that, and you saw everybody in fatigues
(04:30):
and you had army, then an avy and air force,
and they said, whoa, this is the real deal. So
that was my impression. So on Christmas Eve day to
December twenty fourth, I think it was a C one
thirty flow us down to cat Low and the boats
(04:50):
were already there and we were happy. So we get
there and I remember we were sleeping that night int
Low in some barracks, and I remember the next morning
just I guess it was before the you know, the
truth winning with the Christmas Truth swinning effect. But it
(05:13):
was my first introduction to B fifty two bombing somewhere
in the area. I don't know exactly where, but I
mean it was incredible. I couldn't believe how the ground
was shake and you know, and it's like, ohoh, I mean,
you know, I hadn't experienced that in Denang and Denang
(05:33):
we worked in Denang. Marines operated out of I Corps
where we were. That's it. And we did work some
with the US Marines up in I Corps along the
Kodai River. This particular day, again I don't remember why,
but we would transport in Korean marines these rocks so Hian.
(05:57):
I don't remember, you know what, you know why, Oh,
I know somebody, you know. We're given an order, you know,
take pick these rocks up, take them to Hoyian, a
few miles up the river. So there was a sergeant
and probably you know, maybe ten to twelve of these
Korean marines, and we had on board. We had searched
(06:20):
a couple of sampans in the river, and I remember vaguely,
I remember that we took several women prisoners because they
didn't have paperwork, and they may have had some contraband,
no weapons, but they may have had contraband. I don't
remember why, and it's not particularly important. Well I remember
(06:40):
is we took them on board and handcuffed them because
they had done something and we were going to turn
them over to Navy intelligence in Hayian. So we had
these Korean marines on board too. It needs were young
getting these women. And I was in the pilothouse where
that's where I only stayed when well moving. I'm in
(07:02):
a pilothouse. And you've been listening to Oliver Halley recount
his early days right up to his enlistment and volunteer
enlistment in the Vietnam War. He volunteered for swiftboat duty
in September of nineteen sixty nine, and everything changed. We'll
hear more of Oliver's story here on Our American Stories.
(07:32):
Lei Habibi here the host of our American Stories. Every
day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across
this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love what you here, go to
our American Stories dot com and click the donate button.
(07:54):
Give a little, give a lot. Go to our American
Stories dot com and give. And we continue with our
American Stories and Oliver Hallie's story. Let's return where we
(08:16):
last left off. So I'm up in palace. One of
my h you know, crew members came up to me.
So mister Hallie said, we got a problem. He said,
these Karea Marines they want to rape these women. I
(08:37):
said what he said? He he said, they're eyeing them
over and the appointing and then you know, and they
make emotions and all this. I said, WHOA. So I
went back after and I went up to the sergeant.
He was the senior petty officer, not petty office, the
senior ranking guy enlisted. The guy there was no officer.
(08:58):
I'm trying to speak to him in English. I say,
you know, I'm pointing to say, you women, you know, touch,
no touch, you know, and you know, no English, no English,
and no no no touch, no touch. And the other guys,
the other enlistment, I can see they're getting angry. Now,
they're getting and the sergeant is trying to you know,
(09:19):
even though he didn't speak English, he understood what I
was trying to say, now he's getting confrontational. So I
told my crew members, I said, put the weapons on him,
put them on him. And it was it was tense.
It was very tense. They they they would determine they
(09:41):
were going to have their way, and I was determined
they weren't. And we made it to Hawaiian as since
and I told the sergeant, I said, you know you
you touch women. I said, you're a captain. He cocked
it out. You cock it out, your captain, He cocked it.
I kept saying that, you know, talking at you. And
(10:03):
so I mean, we've got to Hawaiian And as soon
as we got there, I reported these, you know, the
sergeant and his troops to you know, the our intelligence people,
and they, you know, report wherever when. I have no
idea what happened after that, But fortunately these women, you know,
we're not assaulted, and it would have been impossible to
(10:24):
let that have happened. It's just some things you just
can't do, you know. I mean, that's not our American values,
it really isn't. I mean, even at that age, I
understood that much as that's not who we are as Americans.
We don't do that. And now to segue into something
a little bit amusing. I'm back down again in Coastal
(10:45):
Division eleven, you know, down there in the Gulf of
Thailand and the Pacific Ocean area, and my commodore, Lieutenant
Command of Bill Martin, he called me in. I was
hot wherever I was. He called me into the headquarters immediately,
so I go back. I had no idea what was
(11:07):
going on. And he says, he hands me a teletype,
and I read this teletype my heart sake, and it's
best I recall. I wish I had a copy of it.
It said something like this from Commander in Chief Pacific two,
(11:28):
you know, Command of Coastal Squadron one, Coastal Levision eleven.
Boom boom, subject of presidential interest. I remember those words
of presidential interest. And I'm paraphrasing here. And it goes
on to say, as follows, Ruth Hallie Gorman, the mother
(11:49):
of Lieutenant JG. Oliver g. Halle Staton all in New York,
has written to the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon,
that her son is not getting his mail, and the
President has ordered an immediate inquiry to determine why he
(12:10):
isn't getting his mail. And and I was flawed because
I had never complained to my mother I wasn't getting
my mail. It didn't happen. I never said a word
that I wasn't getting my mail. Nothing. I was getting
my mail. It wasn't a problem. So I'm speechless and embarrassed.
I mean, this thing went out to the entire seventh Fleet,
(12:31):
this communication of presidential interest. So the commodore was very sympathetic,
and he said, well, we have to respond to this immediately.
When he suggests, I said, well, Commodore, I'm getting my mail.
I mean, I don't know where my mother's coming from.
I can't pick up a phone to caller and ask
it what's going on. So I remember, we responded that
(12:55):
I had been in transit and had been moving around,
and apparently the mail hadn't kept up, but there was
no problem. Be assured that there is no problem. Everything's
fine and it's okay. So when I got home, I
have a copy somewhere in a box. I know that
(13:16):
of a letter from a general in the Pentagon. How
that works, you know, since I'm in the Navy, But
who knows. But anyway, I remember it was a general
in the Pentagon who had written my mother that on
behalf of a president or something like that. They were
looking into why I wasn't getting my mail? Like I said,
it was a very embarrassing thing to me. And I
(13:38):
asked my mother when I got home almost a year later,
I said, why did you do that? I said, I
was getting my mail. Why did you do that? Oh?
I remember her saying, is you won't getting your mail? Okay,
So I do have, uh, you know something that is
(13:58):
very critical to who I am. And back in the
nineteen thirties, my maternal grandparents had a correspondence with a
woman in Australia named Esther Buck. Esther Buck was a
teacher in Australia and she communicated our wrote letters. I
(14:22):
should say, they correspondent only by mail. And we're all
the same, roughly the same age. You remember back then,
in the seventies, I'm talking about sixties and seventies, you
had that paper. You bought it at the post office.
I think they call it fly paper because it was
so light, and you would write a letter and then
you would fold it. Remember that you would fold it
(14:43):
over and put a stamp on it. But it was
so light and you'd send it by airmail because it
was cheap. But back then, if you remember, they were
airmail raids versus first class, whereas today there's no distinction. Okay,
So this correspondence and father, my mother's father and her mother,
they were both educated, as was my mother in New York,
(15:07):
and they had this correspondence. They got through the Park
of Pen company. It was just one of those professional
things and over the years they got to know each
other only by mail. I had never spoken, So when
my grandfather became too sick, my mother picked up the correspondence.
So we're talking probably about the late nineteen forties, early
nineteen fifties. So my mother wrote to Esther Buck and
(15:30):
they correspondent, you know, maybe once a month, once every
couple of months. And I remember Miss Buck, that's what
I called. She would send us little trinkets for Christmas,
that kind of thing. But again they never spoke. All
of this was by mail all these years. So now
I'm in Vietnam and it was arranged that I would
(15:54):
meet Miss Buck on R and R, and I was lucky.
I got two R and rs. First film was in
June of nineteen seventy. I went to Hong Kong, and
then the second one of the commodore was really generous
about that. I went to Sydney, so my mother arranged
by mail for me to meet her. So I was
pretty excited too. This is a big deal. And the
(16:16):
way it was going to work is I was going
to meet her at her home and then my mother
was going to call while I was there. Now, again
we're all at the same age. These young people have
no idea. But when you called internationally back then, you
had to call the overseas operator. Remember that you called.
(16:36):
Maybe you don't because if you never made an international call,
it wasn't very common. It was expensive. But you called
the international operator and you'd say, I'd like to place
its call of Sydney, Australia, and the international operator would
tell you that it might be an hour, might be two,
might be three, depending on the traffic before they could
get a line. So the plan was hopefully it would
(16:58):
all fall in a place while I was there, my
mother would be calling in. The date was September eighth,
nineteen seventy. And I've written a book, but it pertains
to this business I have is speaking business, and I
have a chapter in the book called Life Changing Versus
(17:19):
Life Shaping Experiences. September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life
forever forever. And you're listening to Oliver halle and again
we want to thank the Veteran's History Project at the
Atlanta History Center for this story. And we're going to
(17:40):
find out what happened on that day when we come
back more of Oliver Halley's story here on our American
Stories and we continue with our American stories and Oliver
(18:10):
Hallie's story. Let's pick up where we last left off.
September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life forever forever. I
don't know why I'm getting emotion little bit i'd think
(18:32):
about it. I told you earlier in this interview in
the beginning that my mother and father were only children.
I had no relatives, and my father's side, in particular,
a lot of mysteries that I never knew the answers to.
My father had committed suicide on May the ninth, nineteen
(18:58):
sixty six. I was in college. I was twenty years old.
I was a junior in college at the time. And
in that book that I wrote, I put in there
that you know he just couldn't outrun the demons that
had chased him from the Third Reich. And as I
said earlier, he had built up this legend he was
(19:19):
in this German underground movement and they got into street
fights and all of that. Well, turn out that's all true,
that part is all true. What never made sense to
me as I got older was why with a wealthy family,
Because my father came from a wealthy family. He was
an only child. His father was a very prominent surgeon.
(19:41):
And I didn't know until I sent you the story
of New York Times. I didn't know until this year,
until this year, February this year, that he had actually
been a physician for Kai's Wilhelm and Zar Nicholas of Russia.
I didn't know that until I see from the New
York Sue has seen the sorry to New York Times
(20:03):
nineteen thirty nine when he was killed in a car accident.
So anyway, eight minutes suicide, four years earlier. And I'm
sitting with miss Buck and she she had never married.
She was a woman, probably in the seventies at the time,
and she was so excited to see me. I mean, oh,
(20:27):
she was just fluttering here on flaring. Then I'm so
excited to finally meet somebody from the Halley family after
old these years. Oh so happy finally, you know, this
is wonderful. And I can't wait for your mother to called,
you know, I just so looking forward to that. And
then she said as follows she said, and I don't
(20:52):
remember her exact words. I was too stunned, and so
I'm close. But these are not the exact words. I
just don't remember what they were. Wish I did, but
I don't. She said something like this, did your mother
ever reconcile with her father for marrying outside the faith?
(21:16):
And I looked at this buck, and I said, this, Buck,
I don't understand your question. My mother and father, you know,
were Protestants. I don't know what you mean by marrying
outside the faith. And she said no, no, no, no no, no.
She said your mother was Jewish she married your father.
But I said, my mother's not Jewish. He said, of
(21:37):
course she is, and she's my head. At that moment exploded.
You know how you get shocking news, whatever the really
shocking news. That's what happened to me. It was like
that because I had experienced anti Semitism growing up. I
grew up a Methodist, but I experienced a lot of
anti Semitism. I don't care anybody you know that I
(21:59):
don't know I looked Jewish, okay, I mean there is
a stereotype, and I'm one of them. My head explored,
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So she saw
the look on my face and she stopped shure. She says,
oh my god, I hope I didn't say anything I
shouldn't have said. And I said no, I said, I'm
(22:19):
glad you did. But she didn't say another word. Well,
my mother called in and we all had a very
nice chat. Didn't bring anidas up, and Miss Buck was
so excited to finally talk to my mother. And I
left Vietnam I think September twenty three, so it was
(22:43):
a couple of weeks or so later, and got to
San Francisco and I outprocessed from active duty to the reserves.
It took I think five days. I was a treasure island,
you know, about an hour a day, you know, did
administrative stuff and they cut you loose. So at the
(23:07):
end of the week, I flew from San Francisco to
New York. A friend of mine picked me up, and
I went to my mother's house until I could find
a place to live. A couple weeks later, and I'm
unpacking my seabag, and this has really been weighing on
my mind. And as I'm unpacking my seabag, I said
(23:28):
to my mother, why didn't you tell us we were Jewish?
And she said, what where did you get that nonsense from?
Those are her words? And I said, miss Buck told
me and my mother very uncharacteristically. She was very polished,
very educated, very uncharacteristically, she said, as full as a liar.
(23:54):
She didn't talk that way. I said, no, I said,
miss Buck told the truth, and very uncharacteristically, my mother
completely broke down, I mean really broke down, crying, and
she said, please don't tell you brothers, and I said,
I have to. Well, As the years went by, I
(24:19):
would try and talk to my mother about this, she
shut it down. She acted like I wasn't even in
a room. If I want to change the subject, she
look up and talk about it. She wouldn't talk about it,
absolutely refused. So I never learned anything from my mother, nothing,
And she and my father had destroyed a lot of documents,
(24:42):
so over the years it would take me too long
to tell it. It doesn't fit in with the Vietnam
part of the story, so I'll just kind of synopsize
it real quickly. I learned a lot on my own
through reading books, and then when the Internet came into
being learned a little bit. And so the bottom line
(25:03):
is this. My grandfather on my father's side was Jewish
for sure, one hundred percent. I have the records to
support that he was Jewish. And my maternal my paternal
grandmother was a Lutheran. My father was raised a Lutheran.
(25:23):
So in the Jewish faith, you know, the bloodline carries
on the mother's side, not the father's side. So even
though my father was half Jewish, he wouldn't be recognized
as Jewish by Jewish people. So that that comment about
did your mother have a reconcile with her father? In effact,
my mother married outside the faith even though my father
(25:45):
was half Jewish. And you've been listening to Oliver Halley
and what a story he's telling, and this is just
a side story. With these side stories, will they informed
so much about all of our lives. September eighth, the
day that changed his life forever, and my goodness, why
didn't you tell us we were Jewish? What an identity
(26:05):
crisis for this young man. Also, he was learning that
everything he ever thought was true because he always thought
he was Jewish, he looked Jewish. Where did you get
that nonsense? The mom said, And my goodness, she then said,
miss Buck is a liar. And he knew then, he
knew for sure that it was true. And then the
(26:26):
reality said in and his mom, well, she just broke
down and she just started to cry, revealing her human side.
But never came clean, never told the real story. And
by the way, we learned that again and again here
on our American stories, particularly the World War two generation.
So many of them just wouldn't come clean about what happened.
Maybe it was so horrible they couldn't process it. Who
knows what the reasons are. When we come back more
(26:49):
of Oliver Halley's story, and it's a beauty here on
our American stories. And we continue here with our American stories.
(27:39):
Let's continue with Oliver Helly. So my father and his
mother were estranged. I don't know why. To this day.
That's a secret that'll go to the grave. I will
never know the answer to that. It kills me not
to know, but I'll never know. I do not know.
(28:01):
My father would write her letters. She lived in Queens
when we lived on Seaten Island. My father would write
her letters. And I still see this in my mind's eye.
They would come back unopened and there would be a stamp,
you know, this kind of stamp on the envelope, and
it would be of a hand pointing this like this,
(28:22):
and it would say return to sender refused with checkmark refused.
And she died in February nineteen fifty nine. But I
never met her, and to this day, I don't know
why they were strange. I had no idea. So that
day changed my life forever. When you find that you
(28:43):
there's more to your past and it's very different than
you were brought up to believe, that has a profound effect.
So that's the life change and experience. The life shaping,
without question, was my time in the Navy, and certainly
in Vietnam. I went over to Vietnam I was twenty
(29:04):
three years old as an officer in charge of a
swift boat. I came home I was twenty four, And
to have that kind of responsibility at that young age,
if that won't shape you. Nothing will. After Vietnam, I
spent a year trying to get into law school, but
(29:26):
working this odd job I had when I was in
high school just to mack time. I got into law school.
I began in August of nineteen seventy one at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And I went
through law school knowing that my career plan was to
(29:46):
become an FBI agent. There was never any doubt that's
what I wanted to do. I had formed that plan
years earlier when I knew I wasn't going to be
Chief Naval Operations. And I figured that out in high school.
By the way, in high school, so my career in
the FBI, you have two tracks, you know, the investigative side,
(30:07):
and then you can choose to go into management. It's
not like the military. You know, it's mandatory promotions you're
at you know, people choose in the FBI if they
want to go into management. And I had no interest
in it. After having the experience that I had a Navy,
particularly in Vietnam, I figured nothing could rival at nothing, nothing,
not even close. And then and I love the FBI.
(30:30):
My career I had twenty eight years. It was a
free ticket to a show. I loved it, but to
be kind, the best leadership I saw was in the Navy.
I started late in life with children. I'm married to
Molly Johnson Halley. She's from Charleston, South Carolina. She met
her in New York. She was an FBI agent as well,
(30:51):
and she was chief Division counsel for the FBI office
in Atlanta for most of her career. But we met
in New York. And I was just short of forty
one when my oldest daughter, of Caitlin, was born, just
short of forty two when my second daughter, Victoria was born.
They're Irish twins, the twelve days short of a year apart.
(31:14):
And then my son is in his fourth year of
medical school at Emery. And this is only a coincidence.
It was not planned this way. But my son, Tyler,
is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was
a near nose throat surgeon. And that's a coincidence. He
didn't do it for that reason. He didn't even really
(31:34):
know about it until recently. So I'd like to close
with this. One of the things that my father did
when we lived in Brooklyn and I was a young boy,
and I remember so vividly. On a lot of weekends
(31:55):
he would go into Manhattan and he was volunteered for
Church World Service. In Church World Service, even to this day,
I think sponsors immigrants. And my father went down there,
and you can picture this, these ships coming in from
(32:22):
Europe with thousands refugees coming to New York. Yeah, two
organizations like Church World Service sponsored these people, people who
(32:46):
had nowhere to go, no homes, lost families. That's a
very profound effect on me. And if you read the words,
and I know you have, of Emma Lazaris on the
(33:07):
Statue of Liberty, mere poor, You're wretched, You're teeming masses. However,
and my father and his family before I was born,
obviously coming to New York, I can only imagine what
they thought when they saw the Statue of Liberty. So
(33:30):
he volunteered his time to help refugees, and one of
them came to live with us for several years. Sergei Scholhakoff.
He was a Russian. He had been a veterinarian in
a Russian army, in Russian cavalry. I don't remember whether
(33:50):
he was captured or what happened, but either way, he
ended up in a refugee camp in Europe after the war.
He was on one of these ships and what I
remember is this was coming off the ship and people
being processed. My father. I remember the story saying, you know,
he's one of mine. He came with him and he
(34:12):
lived with us for several years, and then for health reasons,
he moved to Miami, but we stayed in touch, and
I last saw him when I was in the Navy.
A ship was in Fort Lauderdale and I called him
and I spent the night with him. A wonderful man,
a wonderful man. He loved this country what it gave him.
He lost everything in the war. I lost his family everything.
(34:36):
I think of my father and all of that, and
you say, how can you not give back? You know,
how can you not do that? This country gave my
father and his family a home when they were evicted
from This was the Vietnam War, one of those wars
(34:58):
like World War Two, that you know you're fighting to
defend your country. I can't say that it was, and
I won't, but but that's not the point. The point
was that military service was something that came to be expected,
and people in my generation, not everybody. Obviously, we had
(35:19):
a lot of people who didn't share my view, but
a lot did you know, we did our time we
came back from Vietnam, people say, well, you know, the
people spit on you or anything. No, No, I never
had that. Nobody cared when I got back. Nobody cared
(35:41):
you were Vietnam veteran. So what In law school, in
my class, we probably had ten or fifteen Vietnam veterans.
You know, we would talk case, we would probably you know,
we weren't all close friends, but we got along very well.
We could at least if there's anything about the war
it was still going on, we could talk about it.
You didn't talk about it with other people. They didn't care.
It was irrelevant. It meant, it was just they couldn't
(36:03):
relate to it. It was only when Ronald Reagan dedicated
the tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the Vietnam miss
him and I watched it on TV live. Oh my god,
that was powerful. And Ronald Reagan made it okay to
be Vietnam better, and he was. That was the first
(36:25):
it was okay. Then I could wear a T shirt,
you know, Vietnam better. I never did before that. Never.
I didn't talk about it. I didn't talk about it
because you know, I can't talk about it. I bad memories, pts, No,
nothing to do with that. Nobody cared. Nobody cared. But yeah,
that was it. So I went on with my life
(36:47):
and life was good. My FBI career was fantastic. It
was a free ticket to a show. I traveled all
over the world toward the end, you know, with the FBI.
And I was very lucky in my life. I really
was lucky. Probably I got a few lucky breaks along
the way. Didn't have to, but I did, and I'm
(37:10):
grateful for them. And I've got some plans in my
head for what I'm going to do about paying it forward.
And we're looking forward to hearing more from Oliver. What
a storyteller, What a life lived. And again a special
thanks to the folks at the Veteran's History Project at
the Atlanta History Center. And again we're always looking for
stories like this from you are listeners. And my goodness,
(37:32):
what a life well lived. After serving in Vietnam, serving
in the FBI for twenty eight years, A free ticket
to the show, he said late in life to children
like me forty one when he had his daughter, Caitlin
forty two Victoria Tyler, who was in medical school, carrying
on a family tradition. But that story of him greeting refugees,
I know that one because my immigrant grandparents made me
(37:54):
do the same thing. I love what he said about Serge.
He was a wonderful man. He loved his country. He
had lost everything in the war. Everything. He also said, Oliver,
the country gave my father and his father a home.
So true Oliver Halley's story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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