October 3, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Navy veteran Oliver Halle reflects on his service during the Vietnam War and the family history that shaped him. His relatives resisted the Nazis before fleeing to America, and decades later, he uncovered a secret that transformed his understanding of the past. Courtesy of the Veterans History Project at the Atlanta History Center, his testimony blends the experience of Vietnam soldiers with the deeply personal impact of history and memory.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is Lee 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
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.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I grew up in a small family. My mother and
father were only children, so I had no aunt, no uncles,
no cousins. I had two brothers, my older brother, who
died in two thousand and nine he was two years older,
and my younger brother, who's almost two years younger than
I am. He still lives in New York. My father
(01:16):
and his 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
(01:36):
Brooklyn when I was a baby, So I have no
memory of where I was born whatsoever. My first memories
beginning Brooklyn, and then we moved to Staten Island when
I was seven, and that's where I grew up. Two
my father and mother built a legend around our family. Again,
(01:58):
I knew that my father and his face 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 in nineteen thirty nine.
I did know that, and he was a prominent surgeon
in New York. And the legend was that they resisted
(02:22):
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 lot of people don't know that.
(02:43):
The 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 and Vietnam,
people were being drafted. In my high school. You know,
people eat the voluntary he had went into the military,
and it was acceptable. Nobody even thought about avoiding it.
(03:05):
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 that
post World War Two. Used to see a lot of
veterans from World War Two during parades. It was always
a big deal and it was it's just what you
did that it was your turn to step up when
it came time. So there was never any dobt in
(03:27):
my mind I would go into service. And growing up
in New York and seeing the ships in New York harboard,
I was attracted to the Navy. It just it was
just there was never any dobt. 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 boats. I said,
what's a swift boat? And he described it as best
(03:50):
he could, and I said, I'm going to volunteer for that.
I said, well, you know what, I'll volunteer with 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 the swift boat bases and
(04:11):
it was the headquarters for Coastal Squadron I, 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, you
saw everybody in fatigues, and you had an army there
(04:31):
and 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 flewist down to cat
Low and the boats were already there and we were happy.
(04:53):
So we get there and I remember we were sleeping
that night in Low in some barracks, and I remember
the next morning just I guess it was before the
you know, the truth went into the Christmas truth winning
in effect. But it was my first introduction to B
(05:15):
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 shaken, you know, and it's
like ooh, I mean, you know, I hadn't experienced that
in Danang and Danang we worked in Danang. Marines operated
(05:36):
out of I Corps where we were, that's it. And
we did work somewhere the US Marines up in I
Corps along the Coudai River. This particular day, again I
don't remember why, but we were transporting Korean marines these
rocks to Hooian. I don't remember, you know what you
(05:59):
know why, Oh, I know is somebody you know, we
were given an audit, you know, take pick these rocks up,
take them to Joyan a few miles up the river.
So there was a sergeant and probably you know, maybe
ten or twelve of these Korean marines, and we had
on board. We had searched a couple of sandpans in
(06:21):
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. All I remember is we took them
on board and handcuffed them because they had done something
(06:47):
and we were going to turn them over to Navy
intelligence in Joyan. So we had these Korean Marines on
board too, and these were young Vietnamese wimmen. And I
was in the pilot house where that's where normally stayed
when we're moving. I'm in a pilot house.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
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 swift boat duty in
September of nineteen sixty nine, and everything changed. We'll hear
more of Oliver's story here on Our American Stories. Plead
(07:32):
Hibibe here the host of our American Stories. Every day
on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this
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But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
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(07:54):
a little, give a lot. Go to olamericanstories dot com
and give and we continue with our American stories. In
Oliver Halle's story, Let's return where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So I'm up in the palace. One of my uh,
you know, crew members came up to me. So mister
Halley said, we got a problem. He said, these uh
cream marines they want to rape these women. I said, well,
what he said? Yeah? He said they're eyeing them over
(08:40):
and they're pointing 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 officer, senior ranking guy,
and listed the guy there was no officer. And I'm
trying to speak to him in English. I say, you know,
(09:01):
I'm pointing to say you women, you know, touch, no touch,
you know, and you know no English, no English, no
no no touch, no touch. And the other guys, the
other enlistenment, I can see they're getting angry. Now, they're
getting anger. The sergeant is trying to you know, even
though he didn't speak English, he understood what I was
(09:22):
trying to say. Now he's getting confrontational. So I told
my crew members, I said, put the weapons on him,
put them on them. And it was it was tense.
It was very tense. They they were determined they were
going to have their way and I was determined they weren't.
(09:44):
And we made it to Hawaiian as soon and I
told the sergeant, I said, you know, 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, kakod eyeu. And so anyway, we've
got to Hawaiian And as soon as we got there,
(10:07):
I reported these you know, the sojeant and his troops
to you know, the our intelligence people, and they, you know,
reported wherever it went. 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 let that have happened.
It's just some things you just can't do, you know.
(10:27):
I mean, that's not our American values, it really isn't.
I mean, even at that age, I understood that much.
That's 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 Division eleven,
you know, down there in the Gulf of Thailand and
(10:49):
the Pacific Ocean area. And my commodore, Lieutenant Commander Bill Martin,
he called me in. I was hot wherever I was.
He called me into headquarters immediately, so I go back.
I had no idea what was going on. And he says,
he hands me a teletype, and I read this teletype
(11:15):
my heart's sake and his best I recall, I wish
I had a copy of it. It said something like
this from Commander in Chief Pacific two, you know, command
a Coastal Squadron one, Coastal Division eleven. Boom boom, subject
of presidential interest. I remember those words of presidential interest.
(11:40):
And I'm paraphrasing here. And it goes on to say,
as follows, Ruth Hallie Gorman, the mother of Lieutenant jg.
Olivi G. Halle staten 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
(12:05):
President has ordered an immediate inquiry to determine why he
isn't getting his mail. And I was flawed because I
had never complained to my mother I wasn't getting my mail.
That 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,
(12:29):
this thing went out to the entire seventh Fleet, 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, Commodode, I'm getting my mail.
I mean, I don't know where my mother's coming from.
I can't pick up a phone or call her and
(12:49):
ask her what's going on. So I remember, we responded
that 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
(13:13):
have a copy somewhere in a box. I know that
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 the president or something like that. They were
looking into why I wasn't getting my mail. Like I say,
(13:35):
it was a very embarrassing thing to me. But when
I 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 weren't getting your mail? Okay,
So I do have you know something that is very
(13:58):
critical to who I am. And back in the nineteen thirties,
my maternal grandparents had a correspondence with a woman in
Australia named Estherbuck. Estherbuck was a teacher in Australia and
(14:20):
she communicated or wrote letters. I should say. They correspondent
only by mail. And we're all of 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 the post office. I think they call
it flypaper because it was so light, and you would
(14:40):
write a letter and then you would fold it. Remember
that you would fold it over and put a stamp
on it, but it was so light, and you'd send
it by airmail because it was cheap. And back then,
if you remember, they were air mail rates versus first class,
whereas today there's no distinction. Okay, So this correspondence my father,
(15:00):
my mother's father and her mother. They were both educators,
as was my mother in New York, and they had
this correspondence. They got through the park A Penn Company.
It was just one of those professional things. And over
the years I got to know each other only by mail.
I had never spoken. So when my grandfather became too sick,
(15:22):
my mother picked up the correspondents. So we're talking probably
about the late nineteen forties, early nineteen fifties. So my
mother wrote to Estherbuck and they correspondent, you know, maybe
once a month, once every couple months. And I remember
Miss Buck, that's what I called her. She would send
us little trinkets for Christmas, that kind of thing. But
(15:43):
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 meet Miss Buck on R
and R, and I was lucky. I got two R
and rs. First swim was in June of nineteen seventy,
I went to Hong Kong and then the second one
of the commodo was really generous about that went to Sydney.
(16:07):
So my mother arranged by mail for me to meet her.
So I was pretty excited too. This is a big deal.
And the 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
(16:28):
have no idea. But when you called internationally back then,
you had to call the overseas operator. Remember that you called.
Maybe you don't be cause if you never made an
international call. It wasn't very common. It was expensive. But
you call the international operator and you'd say I'd like
the places called the Sydney Australia, and the international operator
would tell you that it might be an hour, might
(16:50):
be two, might be three, depending on the traffic before
they could get a line. So the plan was hopefully
it would all fall in the 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
(17:12):
to this business. I have is speaking business, and I
have a chapter in a book called Life Changing versus
Life Shaping Experiences. September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life
forever forever.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And you're listening to Oliver Halley, and again we want
to thank the Veterans History Project at the Atlanta History
Center for this story. And we're going to find out
what happened on that day when we come back more
of Oliver Halley's story here on our American Stories. And
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories in Oliver Halley's story.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life forever forever. I
don't know why I'm getting emotional, but I think about it.
(18:36):
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 sighed in particularly a lot
of mysteries that I never know the answers to. My
father had committed suicide on May the ninth, nineteen sixty six,
(19:00):
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 he, as I said earlier,
he had built up this sledgend. He was in this
(19:20):
German underground movement and they got into street fights and
all of that. Well, it turned 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 of this year, that he had
actually been a physician for Kuys of Wilhelm and zah
Nicholas of Russia. I didn't know that until this from
the New York And Sue has seen the sorry to
(20:02):
New York Times nineteen thirty nine when he was killed
in a car accident. So anyway, he committed suicide four
years earlier. And I'm sitting with miss Buck and she
had never married. She was a woman, probably in the
seventies at the time, and she was so excited to
(20:25):
see me. I mean oh, she was just fluttering here
and finding them. I'm so excited to finally meet somebody
from the Halle family after all these years. This is
oh so happy. Finally, you know, this is wonderful. And
I can't wait for your mother to call, you know,
I'm just so looking forward to that. And then she
(20:47):
said as follows she said, and I don't remember her
exact words. I was too stunned, and so I'm close,
but this these are not the exact words. I just
don't remember what they were. I wish I did, but
I don't. She said something like this, did your mother
(21:11):
ever reconcile with her father from marrying outside the faith?
And I looked at miss Buck and I said, miss 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.
(21:31):
She said your mother was Jewish she married your father.
But I said, my mother's not Jewish. He said, of
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
(21:54):
grew up a Methodist, but I experienced a lot of
anti Semitism. I don't care anybody you know that I
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 short. She says,
(22:15):
oh my god, I hope I didn't say anything I
shouldn't have said. And I said no, I said, I'm
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 anitas up, and Miss Buck was
so excited to finally talk to my mother. And I
(22:39):
left Vietnam I think September twenty third, so it was
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,
(23:00):
you know, about an hour a day, you know, did
administrative stuff and they cut you loose. So at the
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 till I could find
a place to live. A couple weeks later, and I'm
unpacking my sea bag and this has really been weighing
(23:24):
on my mind. And as I'm unpacking my sea bag,
I said 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
(23:45):
was very polished, very educated, very uncharacteristically. She said, as
fuck as a liar. 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,
(24:09):
and she said, please don't tell your brothers, and I
said I have to. Well, as the years went by,
I would try and talk t to my mother about this,
she shut it down. She'd act like I wasn't even
in a room. If I ch wanna change the subject,
she'd look up and talk about it. She wouldn't talk
(24:31):
about it, absolutely refused. So I never learned anything from
my mother, nothing, And she and my father had destroyed
a lot of documents, so over the years, it would
take me too long to tell, and 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
(24:52):
lot on my own through reading books, and then when
the Internet came into being, learned a little bit. And
so the bottom line 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
(25:15):
my maternal my paternal grandmother was a Lutheran. My father
was raised a Lutheran. 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 comment
(25:38):
about did your mother have a reconcile with her father,
and in fact, my mother married outside the faith even
though my father was half Jewish.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
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, well, 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 crisis for this
(26:07):
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 reality said
in and his mom, well, she just broke down and
(26:29):
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 Hally.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
So, my father and his mother were estranged. I don't
know why to this day. That's a secret that will
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. My father would write
her letters. She lived in Queens when we lived on
(28:05):
Staten 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, and it
would say return to Senda refused with check mark refused.
(28:28):
And she died in uh February nineteen fifty nine. But
I never met her and don't 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
out you, uh, there's more to your past and it's
very different than you were brought up to believe it
(28:49):
it that has a profound effect. So that's the life
changing experience. Life shaping, without question, was my time in
the Navy, and certainly in Vietnam. I went over to
Vietnam I was twenty 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
(29:13):
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 working this odd job I had had
when I was in high school just to mark time
I got into law school. I began in August of
(29:33):
nineteen seventy one at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill and went through law school knowing that my
career plan was to 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
(29:56):
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, and then you can choose
to go into management. It's not like the military. You know,
it's mandatory promotions of her eye. You know, people choose
in the FBI if they want to go into management.
And I had no interest in it. After having the
(30:20):
experience that I had a Navy, particularly in Vietnam, I
figured nothing could rival that. Nothing nothing, not even close.
And then, and I love the FBI. In 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
(30:42):
started late in life with children. I'm married to Mollie
Johnson Hally. She's from Charleston, South Carolina. She I met
her in New York. She was an FBI agent as well,
and she was chief Division Council for the FBI office
in Atlanta for most of her career. But we met
New York. And I was just short of forty one
(31:03):
when my oldest daughter, 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.
And then my son is in his fourth year of
medical school at Emory. And this is only a coincidence.
It was not planned this way. But my son, Tyler,
(31:25):
is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was
an ear nosed throat surgeon. And that's coincidence. He didn't
do it for that reason. He didn't even really know
about it until recently. So I'd like to close with this.
One of the things that my father did when we
(31:47):
lived in Brooklyn and I was a young boy, and
I remember so vividly on a lot of weekends he
would go into Manhattan and he was volunteered for Church
World In Church World Service, even to this day, I
think sponsors immigrants. And my father went down there, and
(32:14):
you can picture this, these ships coming in from Europe,
with thousands refugees coming to New York. You had organizations
(32:38):
like Church World Service sponsored these people, people who had
nowhere to go, no homes, lost families. They are a
very profound effect on me. If you read the words
(33:02):
and I know you have of Emma Lazarus on the
Statue of Liberty, give me are poor, You're wretched your
teaming masses. However, and my father and his family before
I was born, obviously coming to New York, I don't
(33:25):
imagine what they thought when they saw the Statue of Liberty.
So he volunteered his time to help refugees, and one
of 'em came to live with us for several years.
Sergei Shohakov. He was a Russian. He had been a
veterinarian and in a Russian army in Russian cavalry. I
(33:49):
I don't remember whether 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, he was
coming off the ship and people being processed. My father.
I remember the story saying, you know, he's one of mine.
(34:11):
He came with him and he 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, wonderful man. He loved
this country, what he gave him. He lost everything in
(34:32):
the war, He lost his family everything. 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
(34:56):
the Vietnam War, one of those wars 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 that's
not the point. The point was that military service was
something that came to be expected, and people in my generation,
(35:18):
not everybody. Obviously, we had 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.
(35:39):
Nobody cared. You were a 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
were 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
(36:01):
meant it was just they couldn't 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,
(36:23):
and he was that was the first. 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, oh, I
can't talk about it. I have bad memories of I
have pts, no, nothing to do with that. Nobody cared.
Nobody cared. But yeah, that was it. So I went
(36:46):
on with my life 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 of
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,
(37:08):
but I did, and I'm grateful for them. And I've
got some plans in my head for what I'm going
to do about paying it forward.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
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 our listeners, and my goodness,
what a life well lived. After serving in Vietnam, serving
(37:35):
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 is 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
do the same thing. I love what he said about Sergei.
(37:58):
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 Lee 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
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.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I grew up in a small family. My mother and
father were only children, so I had no aunt, no uncles,
no cousins. I had two brothers, my older brother, who
died in two thousand and nine he was two years older,
and my younger brother, who's almost two years younger than
I am. He still lives in New York. My father
(01:16):
and his 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
(01:36):
Brooklyn when I was a baby, So I have no
memory of where I was born whatsoever. My first memories
beginning Brooklyn, and then we moved to Staten Island when
I was seven, and that's where I grew up. Two
my father and mother built a legend around our family. Again,
(01:58):
I knew that my father and his face 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 in nineteen thirty nine.
I did know that, and he was a prominent surgeon
in New York. And the legend was that they resisted
(02:22):
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 lot of people don't know that.
(02:43):
The 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 and Vietnam,
people were being drafted. In my high school. You know,
people eat the voluntary he had went into the military,
and it was acceptable. Nobody even thought about avoiding it.
(03:05):
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 that
post World War Two. Used to see a lot of
veterans from World War Two during parades. It was always
a big deal and it was it's just what you
did that it was your turn to step up when
it came time. So there was never any dobt in
(03:27):
my mind I would go into service. And growing up
in New York and seeing the ships in New York harboard,
I was attracted to the Navy. It just it was
just there was never any dobt. 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 boats. I said,
what's a swift boat? And he described it as best
(03:50):
he could, and I said, I'm going to volunteer for that.
I said, well, you know what, I'll volunteer with 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 the swift boat bases and
(04:11):
it was the headquarters for Coastal Squadron I, 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, you
saw everybody in fatigues, and you had an army there
(04:31):
and 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 flewist down to cat
Low and the boats were already there and we were happy.
(04:53):
So we get there and I remember we were sleeping
that night in Low in some barracks, and I remember
the next morning just I guess it was before the
you know, the truth went into the Christmas truth winning
in effect. But it was my first introduction to B
(05:15):
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 shaken, you know, and it's
like ooh, I mean, you know, I hadn't experienced that
in Danang and Danang we worked in Danang. Marines operated
(05:36):
out of I Corps where we were, that's it. And
we did work somewhere the US Marines up in I
Corps along the Coudai River. This particular day, again I
don't remember why, but we were transporting Korean marines these
rocks to Hooian. I don't remember, you know what you
(05:59):
know why, Oh, I know is somebody you know, we
were given an audit, you know, take pick these rocks up,
take them to Joyan a few miles up the river.
So there was a sergeant and probably you know, maybe
ten or twelve of these Korean marines, and we had
on board. We had searched a couple of sandpans in
(06:21):
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. All I remember is we took them
on board and handcuffed them because they had done something
(06:47):
and we were going to turn them over to Navy
intelligence in Joyan. So we had these Korean Marines on
board too, and these were young Vietnamese wimmen. And I
was in the pilot house where that's where normally stayed
when we're moving. I'm in a pilot house.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
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 swift boat duty in
September of nineteen sixty nine, and everything changed. We'll hear
more of Oliver's story here on Our American Stories. Plead
(07:32):
Hibibe 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 hear. Go to
Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give
(07:54):
a little, give a lot. Go to olamericanstories dot com
and give and we continue with our American stories. In
Oliver Halle's story, Let's return where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So I'm up in the palace. One of my uh,
you know, crew members came up to me. So mister
Halley said, we got a problem. He said, these uh
cream marines they want to rape these women. I said, well,
what he said? Yeah? He said they're eyeing them over
(08:40):
and they're pointing 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 officer, senior ranking guy,
and listed the guy there was no officer. And I'm
trying to speak to him in English. I say, you know,
(09:01):
I'm pointing to say you women, you know, touch, no touch,
you know, and you know no English, no English, no
no no touch, no touch. And the other guys, the
other enlistenment, I can see they're getting angry. Now, they're
getting anger. The sergeant is trying to you know, even
though he didn't speak English, he understood what I was
(09:22):
trying to say. Now he's getting confrontational. So I told
my crew members, I said, put the weapons on him,
put them on them. And it was it was tense.
It was very tense. They they were determined they were
going to have their way and I was determined they weren't.
(09:44):
And we made it to Hawaiian as soon and I
told the sergeant, I said, you know, 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, kakod eyeu. And so anyway, we've
got to Hawaiian And as soon as we got there,
(10:07):
I reported these you know, the sojeant and his troops
to you know, the our intelligence people, and they, you know,
reported wherever it went. 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 let that have happened.
It's just some things you just can't do, you know.
(10:27):
I mean, that's not our American values, it really isn't.
I mean, even at that age, I understood that much.
That's 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 Division eleven,
you know, down there in the Gulf of Thailand and
(10:49):
the Pacific Ocean area. And my commodore, Lieutenant Commander Bill Martin,
he called me in. I was hot wherever I was.
He called me into headquarters immediately, so I go back.
I had no idea what was going on. And he says,
he hands me a teletype, and I read this teletype
(11:15):
my heart's sake and his best I recall, I wish
I had a copy of it. It said something like
this from Commander in Chief Pacific two, you know, command
a Coastal Squadron one, Coastal Division eleven. Boom boom, subject
of presidential interest. I remember those words of presidential interest.
(11:40):
And I'm paraphrasing here. And it goes on to say,
as follows, Ruth Hallie Gorman, the mother of Lieutenant jg.
Olivi G. Halle staten 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
(12:05):
President has ordered an immediate inquiry to determine why he
isn't getting his mail. And I was flawed because I
had never complained to my mother I wasn't getting my mail.
That 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,
(12:29):
this thing went out to the entire seventh Fleet, 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, Commodode, I'm getting my mail.
I mean, I don't know where my mother's coming from.
I can't pick up a phone or call her and
(12:49):
ask her what's going on. So I remember, we responded
that 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
(13:13):
have a copy somewhere in a box. I know that
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 the president or something like that. They were
looking into why I wasn't getting my mail. Like I say,
(13:35):
it was a very embarrassing thing to me. But when
I 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 weren't getting your mail? Okay,
So I do have you know something that is very
(13:58):
critical to who I am. And back in the nineteen thirties,
my maternal grandparents had a correspondence with a woman in
Australia named Estherbuck. Estherbuck was a teacher in Australia and
(14:20):
she communicated or wrote letters. I should say. They correspondent
only by mail. And we're all of 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 the post office. I think they call
it flypaper because it was so light, and you would
(14:40):
write a letter and then you would fold it. Remember
that you would fold it over and put a stamp
on it, but it was so light, and you'd send
it by airmail because it was cheap. And back then,
if you remember, they were air mail rates versus first class,
whereas today there's no distinction. Okay, So this correspondence my father,
(15:00):
my mother's father and her mother. They were both educators,
as was my mother in New York, and they had
this correspondence. They got through the park A Penn Company.
It was just one of those professional things. And over
the years I got to know each other only by mail.
I had never spoken. So when my grandfather became too sick,
(15:22):
my mother picked up the correspondents. So we're talking probably
about the late nineteen forties, early nineteen fifties. So my
mother wrote to Estherbuck and they correspondent, you know, maybe
once a month, once every couple months. And I remember
Miss Buck, that's what I called her. She would send
us little trinkets for Christmas, that kind of thing. But
(15:43):
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 meet Miss Buck on R
and R, and I was lucky. I got two R
and rs. First swim was in June of nineteen seventy,
I went to Hong Kong and then the second one
of the commodo was really generous about that went to Sydney.
(16:07):
So my mother arranged by mail for me to meet her.
So I was pretty excited too. This is a big deal.
And the 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
(16:28):
have no idea. But when you called internationally back then,
you had to call the overseas operator. Remember that you called.
Maybe you don't be cause if you never made an
international call. It wasn't very common. It was expensive. But
you call the international operator and you'd say I'd like
the places called the Sydney Australia, and the international operator
would tell you that it might be an hour, might
(16:50):
be two, might be three, depending on the traffic before
they could get a line. So the plan was hopefully
it would all fall in the 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
(17:12):
to this business. I have is speaking business, and I
have a chapter in a book called Life Changing versus
Life Shaping Experiences. September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life
forever forever.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And you're listening to Oliver Halley, and again we want
to thank the Veterans History Project at the Atlanta History
Center for this story. And we're going to find out
what happened on that day when we come back more
of Oliver Halley's story here on our American Stories. And
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories in Oliver Halley's story.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
September eighth, nineteen seventy changed my life forever forever. I
don't know why I'm getting emotional, but I think about it.
(18:36):
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 sighed in particularly a lot
of mysteries that I never know the answers to. My
father had committed suicide on May the ninth, nineteen sixty six,
(19:00):
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 he, as I said earlier,
he had built up this sledgend. He was in this
(19:20):
German underground movement and they got into street fights and
all of that. Well, it turned 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 of this year, that he had
actually been a physician for Kuys of Wilhelm and zah
Nicholas of Russia. I didn't know that until this from
the New York And Sue has seen the sorry to
(20:02):
New York Times nineteen thirty nine when he was killed
in a car accident. So anyway, he committed suicide four
years earlier. And I'm sitting with miss Buck and she
had never married. She was a woman, probably in the
seventies at the time, and she was so excited to
(20:25):
see me. I mean oh, she was just fluttering here
and finding them. I'm so excited to finally meet somebody
from the Halle family after all these years. This is
oh so happy. Finally, you know, this is wonderful. And
I can't wait for your mother to call, you know,
I'm just so looking forward to that. And then she
(20:47):
said as follows she said, and I don't remember her
exact words. I was too stunned, and so I'm close,
but this these are not the exact words. I just
don't remember what they were. I wish I did, but
I don't. She said something like this, did your mother
(21:11):
ever reconcile with her father from marrying outside the faith?
And I looked at miss Buck and I said, miss 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.
(21:31):
She said your mother was Jewish she married your father.
But I said, my mother's not Jewish. He said, of
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
(21:54):
grew up a Methodist, but I experienced a lot of
anti Semitism. I don't care anybody you know that I
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 short. She says,
(22:15):
oh my god, I hope I didn't say anything I
shouldn't have said. And I said no, I said, I'm
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 anitas up, and Miss Buck was
so excited to finally talk to my mother. And I
(22:39):
left Vietnam I think September twenty third, so it was
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,
(23:00):
you know, about an hour a day, you know, did
administrative stuff and they cut you loose. So at the
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 till I could find
a place to live. A couple weeks later, and I'm
unpacking my sea bag and this has really been weighing
(23:24):
on my mind. And as I'm unpacking my sea bag,
I said 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
(23:45):
was very polished, very educated, very uncharacteristically. She said, as
fuck as a liar. 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,
(24:09):
and she said, please don't tell your brothers, and I
said I have to. Well, as the years went by,
I would try and talk t to my mother about this,
she shut it down. She'd act like I wasn't even
in a room. If I ch wanna change the subject,
she'd look up and talk about it. She wouldn't talk
(24:31):
about it, absolutely refused. So I never learned anything from
my mother, nothing, And she and my father had destroyed
a lot of documents, so over the years, it would
take me too long to tell, and 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
(24:52):
lot on my own through reading books, and then when
the Internet came into being, learned a little bit. And
so the bottom line 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
(25:15):
my maternal my paternal grandmother was a Lutheran. My father
was raised a Lutheran. 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 comment
(25:38):
about did your mother have a reconcile with her father,
and in fact, my mother married outside the faith even
though my father was half Jewish.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
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, well, 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 crisis for this
(26:07):
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 reality said
in and his mom, well, she just broke down and
(26:29):
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 Hally.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
So, my father and his mother were estranged. I don't
know why to this day. That's a secret that will
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. My father would write
her letters. She lived in Queens when we lived on
(28:05):
Staten 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, and it
would say return to Senda refused with check mark refused.
(28:28):
And she died in uh February nineteen fifty nine. But
I never met her and don't 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
out you, uh, there's more to your past and it's
very different than you were brought up to believe it
(28:49):
it that has a profound effect. So that's the life
changing experience. Life shaping, without question, was my time in
the Navy, and certainly in Vietnam. I went over to
Vietnam I was twenty 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
(29:13):
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 working this odd job I had had
when I was in high school just to mark time
I got into law school. I began in August of
(29:33):
nineteen seventy one at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill and went through law school knowing that my
career plan was to 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
(29:56):
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, and then you can choose
to go into management. It's not like the military. You know,
it's mandatory promotions of her eye. You know, people choose
in the FBI if they want to go into management.
And I had no interest in it. After having the
(30:20):
experience that I had a Navy, particularly in Vietnam, I
figured nothing could rival that. Nothing nothing, not even close.
And then, and I love the FBI. In 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
(30:42):
started late in life with children. I'm married to Mollie
Johnson Hally. She's from Charleston, South Carolina. She I met
her in New York. She was an FBI agent as well,
and she was chief Division Council for the FBI office
in Atlanta for most of her career. But we met
New York. And I was just short of forty one
(31:03):
when my oldest daughter, 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.
And then my son is in his fourth year of
medical school at Emory. And this is only a coincidence.
It was not planned this way. But my son, Tyler,
(31:25):
is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was
an ear nosed throat surgeon. And that's coincidence. He didn't
do it for that reason. He didn't even really know
about it until recently. So I'd like to close with this.
One of the things that my father did when we
(31:47):
lived in Brooklyn and I was a young boy, and
I remember so vividly on a lot of weekends he
would go into Manhattan and he was volunteered for Church
World In Church World Service, even to this day, I
think sponsors immigrants. And my father went down there, and
(32:14):
you can picture this, these ships coming in from Europe,
with thousands refugees coming to New York. You had organizations
(32:38):
like Church World Service sponsored these people, people who had
nowhere to go, no homes, lost families. They are a
very profound effect on me. If you read the words
(33:02):
and I know you have of Emma Lazarus on the
Statue of Liberty, give me are poor, You're wretched your
teaming masses. However, and my father and his family before
I was born, obviously coming to New York, I don't
(33:25):
imagine what they thought when they saw the Statue of Liberty.
So he volunteered his time to help refugees, and one
of 'em came to live with us for several years.
Sergei Shohakov. He was a Russian. He had been a
veterinarian and in a Russian army in Russian cavalry. I
(33:49):
I don't remember whether 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, he was
coming off the ship and people being processed. My father.
I remember the story saying, you know, he's one of mine.
(34:11):
He came with him and he 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, wonderful man. He loved
this country, what he gave him. He lost everything in
(34:32):
the war, He lost his family everything. 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
(34:56):
the Vietnam War, one of those wars 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 that's
not the point. The point was that military service was
something that came to be expected, and people in my generation,
(35:18):
not everybody. Obviously, we had 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.
(35:39):
Nobody cared. You were a 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
were 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
(36:01):
meant it was just they couldn't 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,
(36:23):
and he was that was the first. 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, oh, I
can't talk about it. I have bad memories of I
have pts, no, nothing to do with that. Nobody cared.
Nobody cared. But yeah, that was it. So I went
(36:46):
on with my life 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 of
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,
(37:08):
but I did, and I'm grateful for them. And I've
got some plans in my head for what I'm going
to do about paying it forward.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
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 our listeners, and my goodness,
what a life well lived. After serving in Vietnam, serving
(37:35):
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 is 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
do the same thing. I love what he said about Sergei.
(37:58):
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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