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LIBERTY — As a youngster, Chuck Phillipson was a Boy Scout and the Scout motto is “Be prepared.”

Little did the Liberty resident know that in a few short years, he would be joining another group that would prepare him, but this time, instead of acquiring merit badges it was for deployment to Vietnam.

“I was 19 and I had been working at GM for not even a year when I got my letter that I had been drafted,” Phillipson said.

He was originally from western Pennsylvania, so that is where his letter was sent.

“My dad called me and said that I got a letter. He asked me if he should open it. I said, ‘Go ahead.’ At that time, everyone expected a (draft) letter at some point,” he said.

Because he had to inform his employer that he would be leaving, Phillipson had to get the draft notice from his dad.

“We met halfway, about an hour-and-a-half from each other. I had to let GM know that I would be leaving in six days. They were very accommodating. They said that I would have my job when I came back,” Phillipson said.

He retired from the automaker’s paint shop after 36 years.

His basic training took place at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.

“I was there for eight weeks. They tell you when to go to sleep, when to get up. They are yelling in your face. They break you down to build you up so you can take orders,” Phillipson said.

His next orders were at Fort Knox in Kentucky for advanced training for another eight weeks. He trained in an armored personnel carrier, which is a small tank, to be either a driver or a crewman.

“At the end of that training, my commander said, ‘I have two sets of orders for you. In one hand, you go straight to Vietnam. In the other, you go to NCO (Non-commissioned Officer) school for 12 weeks, also at Fort Knox.’ I chose NCO training and I came out of there and I was already a sergeant in seven months,” he said.

From there, he went to Fort Hood in Texas for three months, which Phillipson referred to as on-the-job training as a sergeant. He knew from there his orders would be for Vietnam.

Although he had been training in the southern states of South Carolina, Kentucky and Texas, it did not prepare him for the weather in Vietnam.

“I agree with what a lot of people have said, ‘When you get off the plane, you think the whole place is on fire.’ The heat is so intense. It is like a blast furnace. It was 100 degrees with 99% humidity,” he said.

Phillipson wondered how he was going to survive this for a year, but he did.

“People aren’t going to kill you. It will be the climate, the bugs or the snakes,” he said.

When he got to Vietnam in March 1970, he was stationed in Chu Lai and traveled in small armored tanks.

“I was there for three weeks and I became a platoon sergeant at 19 in charge of four squads. I was part of Company F, 8th Cavalry,” he said. “The Army had other ideas. They needed me elsewhere. They moved me to an aviation unit and I did the rest of my tour there,” he said. Phillipson moved to the 123rd Combat Aviation Unit and worked in helicopters.

“I was in tech supply on the helicopter, and toward the end I ran the door gunner. I was the only one with a driver’s license in my company, so I took a truck and brought ammunition to fire bases or outposts,” he said.

While bringing the ammunition, he was shot at by the Viet Cong.

During his time in Vietnam, he came in contact with a superior who would become well-known years later for leading Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

“I met (Norman) Schwarzkopf, he was a lieutenant colonel then. I was there for about six months and I was told I had to qualify on an M14 rifle. I went to a firebase about 5 miles away and they had an M14 for me to shoot. I had to check in with the commanding officer to let him know I was there. I went in and I said, ‘This is Sergeant Phillipson reporting. I have to shoot an M14.’ He was laughing. I didn’t know who he was. He was in charge of the whole battalion. It wasn’t until way later when I heard his name that I knew that that was the guy I met on that hilltop in Vietnam,” he said.

Gen. Schwarzkopf later became known as “Stormin’ Norman” when he led the invasion into the Middle East. He died in 2012 at the age of 78.

In 1971, after a year in the Army, Phillipson went back to his job at General Motors.

“We landed at night to avoid the mass protests. We had 12 hours of debriefing and within five days, I went from the rice paddies of Vietnam to my home,” he said.

At his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, he found out the local American Legion was giving away $300 as a gift to those who served in Vietnam. He went there with his dad.

“The guy in charge was my former Scout leader. He told me ‘I’ll give you the $300, but Vietnam wasn’t really a war.’ My dad blew up, ‘Why would he say that?’ There were a lot of things happening to people coming back from Vietnam,” he said.

Phillipson decided that he still wanted to serve in some capacity after his return to Ohio.

“I volunteered for the Honor Guard in Trumbull County. I did the gun salute. You could do six funerals during the week and sometimes two on a Saturday,” Phillipson said.

He participated in more than 1,000 funerals, but decided after a time he could not do it anymore.

Phillipson is proud of the time he spent serving his country, but he is also very humble about it.

“I didn’t do anything different than anybody else was doing. Everybody that was there should have gotten the Bronze Star, all those guys who were with me.”