00:00 Hello, this is Melissa, Hale-Spencer, the editor of The Altamont Enterprise and across the table from me this morning is Ed Ackroyd and our readers are very familiar with Ed Ackroyd. I went through just to print out a few token articles and I've got this sheet in my hand and is a tireless, tireless advocate for veterans. We've done stories on him getting a special plaque made for the local young men who died in service and so couldn't be members of the vfw. We have stories on him advocating for a tax break and the town of Knox where he lives for veterans and came through with a full top amount that could be given. We have stories of him advocating for the same thing at the Berne Knox Westerlo schools. We have pictures of him saluting and various ceremonies and just really being an all round bulldog of an advocate for veterans. So welcome Ed.

Thank you.

Um, I just like to start by hearing a little about yourself because I really don't know much about you. Outside of the things I've just mentioned, can you tell me a little about your family growing up? Was it a family with a military history?

01:31 Uh, no, not at all. I'm the closest I had anybody that was in the military would be an uncle of mine who was in World War Two. And that was it.

01:43 So what made you, you served yourself. Tell us about your own military service and how it, how it is that you came to do that?

01:53 To be quite honest with you, I became bored in high school. And where were you? In high school.

01:58 Okay. How old were you when you became bored? In High School?

02:03 17. Okay. And I decided that I was going to leave school and joined the military, which I did. Oh Wow. One at 17, one for training in Fort Dix and an Aberdeen, Maryland, and then Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was then assigned to Germany, which I got to travel around Europe for a year and a half and loved it.

02:28 So you got to see the world part. Exactly. Yeah. Tell us a little about those travels. Have you ever been out of the country before?

02:36 No, I had not. I had not

02:38 town. Boy, you're really a boy at 17. I was. Tell us what you saw and what, what it meant to you.

02:46 Um, I got to travel along the Rhine River. I've got to Heidelberg castles all over the place. The interesting thing about the castles, they all had their own wine cellars, which was quite enjoyable.

03:03 You got to sample some of this one will definitely,

03:06 definitely in Europe. I was in a transportation outfit and we got to travel to the ports up in Belgium and Holland. That was quite interesting. Yeah. So what was that like? A lot of fun. Yeah. Just, just seeing the sites that you only see in pictures and in movies and stuff like that. So you got to see him personally.

03:30 And did you get to intersect with any of the locals? Are you pretty much with your army buddy?

03:35 No, you were, you were. We were out in the open with, with the locals. Normally when you're in a different country for a while you, you understand the language, you get to learn the language. So I could speak, I got to speak German kinda really well. I could understand it fairly well.

03:57 So you completed your education in a much more interesting way than most high school. Definitely. So definitely so. So, so what happened after that? After that we were

04:10 uh, there was a time where it was what it was part of the draft period and they were trying to cut back on troops being newly assigned to Vietnam, so they are using there the troops that were available. So there was in my company that I think there was 14 of us ended up with orders for Vietnam. And what year was this? This was late 19, 69 and got orders for there and ended up in Vietnam for most of the year in [inaudible] 70 and [inaudible] 71 right in the thick of it. And actually there was there and I just want to, we went into Cambodia also. So was in Cambodia also.

04:49 And so tell us about your experiences there

04:53 again. Interesting. I was assigned to live around a psychological operations in Vietnam. What does that mean? What do you do in that? What that does is that you are trying to pacify the Vietnamese and made that, make them beyond the south Vietnamese side. Okay. You were, you were actually, uh, we, how do we say this? We aside, they wore. Okay. A normal trash talking about this as far as explaining that the leaflets the to what they call oily fluids for the Vietnamese in surrender. We got information on nose and printed, I believe lips and they dropped him from planes. So you could either make up leaflets or you were dropping them from the planes or helicopters. You were showing movies to Vietnamese villages and children and, and just, it was a pacification program. Did you feel like it was working? No, no, no, not at. Yeah. So that must have felt kind of futile. You? Yeah. You came to a realization when you were there, you were there for a year trying to get out of there alive and go home.

06:08 Yeah. The numbers of people that didn't get out alive is rather stunning.

06:15 How do I say this nicely towards where you were wasted for the people who didn't survive?

06:24 Yeah. Well that's really a telling word, isn't it? No. Wasted. Wasted life. Wasted dreams. Hopes. So one of the things that I think I'm right on is you were subjected to Agent Orange when you were there. Is that, so just could you describe. It's a defoliant and it has long lasting effects, not just on the crops. It was meant to kill to um, interrupt the food chain and to clear the vegetation, but it also has effects on bodies. And can you just tell us a little about that

07:04 prime example of it? Um, yeah, it was the spring of it and you could see if any. Do you use any weed killer? Anybody uses weed killers around here. Okay. It, the sun hits it and it just curls up to the weeds and kills him. Okay. Agent Orange was a the same thing, but highly. The chemical reaction to it was quicker. You could almost, when they sprayed, you could almost see it, believe it just crumbling right down in there. Unfortunately people were sprayed. And the most common thing there was, and they were spraying for mosquitoes. It was a joke.

07:47 Oh Gosh. But it's kind of black humor, I guess you got into black humor when you were in this horrible situation.

07:54 So the, the effects of it didn't come until mostly the laughter. Everybody got home. The first thing that really hit you was what they call it, coral acne. I used to have that. What is that? It's as you have say, a teenager, you have acne. This is coral is based on the sunlight and the chemicals that were hitting you because we barely have wear shorts. Shirts are getting a lot of time because it was hot, hot and show the chemicals or you were either rushing against it are on you. You didn't know it, but it was on you and the sun hits it and it acts like acne on your skin, but big, big block.

08:39 So your skin just erupted with these

08:43 which stores will have act and they weren't. It didn't hurt or anything, but it was just that when I got back and I went to A. I wouldn't want a son. I used to have to have a shirt on all the time when I come, when I first come home and I went to my regular doctor and I said, okay, I've got a problem here. He says, oh, that's chloral acne says here, use a heavier sunscreen on you. And we're a shirt. Oh, okay. Never taught in Vietnam. Is that part of that? And it says not, you know, don't worry about it. Okay. And I didn't worry about it. They're just, you know, use heavier sunscreen and wore shirts.

09:21 That was up until the point when the cancer came. And I had a buddy of mine actually who I met up with Thompson Lake camp grounds. Uh, he lived in Guilderland and we became friends up to campsite and then we lost track of each other and I was walking into a church one time in Vietnam and he shit head, yeah, who's calling me? What's going on? And it was him who we ran into each other in Vietnam. He was the first one to get cancer of where we were at that I knew. Okay. He got it and got rid of it. Got It.

10:07 I'll just say I had cancer and I ended up with the salmon has and I, I, uh, I cured my cancer. Okay. Or did you go to the Va for treatment? No, I didn't. Sometimes you go to bay, sometimes you don't. I, you know, there was somebody who got good treat. They're getting better. Okay. But, but there was times where you've got good treatment times where he didn't. So I had my own private doctors take care of it. At this point your doctors recognize there was a connection to agent orange or were they still telling you? They were actually the one doctor when he, when he found out we're doing a test, some blood tests and he said, well, you got something that I want to look at it. He said, I'm going to do some more tests the next time that you came in in six months.

10:57 I said, okay, and you mentioned a couple of things. So there's a list of, of cancers that, that Agent Orange produced. And I said, well, I said, okay. I said I want to take a look at us. And I got some friends of mine who had cancer from, from Vietnam. He looked at me, says, you were in Vietnam? I said, yes. He says, okay, he's here next week and we're all for the test versus waiting six months and when 20 pound a cancers. So how old were you at this point? Oh, I was in my forties. Okay. So it takes, it takes that long to have that effect on not being a medical person. Some, some acted quicker, some didn't, some took longer. Okay. That was with the cancer. The next was the, uh, my heart. I ended up with a, with a heart attack at a young age. Oh my gosh. I'm not supposed to lived through that.

11:54 Oh my goodness, I didn't, I didn't know this. Um, how old are you now?

12:00 Actually, I'll be 68 tomorrow.

12:01 Oh Wow. You're young looking. Sixty eight. So the heart attack came at what point after the cancer?

12:11 Yes. Yes. I'm a year or two and I'm had to sit down and pick out the big style, but it's probably a year or two afterwards and had a heart attack. The only had to flow when I was having it, but ended up with triple bypass and some work on a valve and at that point the government still had not designated the heart or heart problems as being a problem with Agent Orange to the Va. I filed a complaint and as did a whole bunch of other people and they finally came through and he okayed it as a disability from, from agent orange. At one poInt with the, uh, with the cancer I was listed as 60 percent disabled. And then when the heart came through with that, I'm 100 percent disabled now.

13:05 But yet you're so able to, he will continue to function. How do you do that?

13:11 He just go. I mean, it's like a. I don't want to lay down and die. I've got a lot of life to live yet. I've got children, I've got grandchildren. I got great grandchildren.

13:24 Oh my gosh, that's exciting. Well here's a really tough question and I hesitate to ask it, but I was reading up on agent orange and one of the things that I found most troubling actually horrible was the idea that it could also affect your genes. It isn't just the person that was exposed and has these miserable things, cancer, heart attack, it can affect the genes that go into the next generation. Has that happened in your family at all or your kids and grandkids? All right. Not that I have seen.

13:56 Okay. And, and I, I warn other veterans to look for those because I have one son who was born before I went to Vietnam. I'm not worried about him and the other two sons that I have were born after I came home from Vietnam. So I have to watch them and I have a grandson also. My daughter, it really doesn't. Somehow it doesn't affect women. It affects men more so than, than uh, than women. So we're watching them their tests once they hit in the 40 range and I have one son over when I was before. So I once on just just over 40 now that I'll be after him to get more tests than, than normal per se.

14:38 Jeff, for a whole different layer of worry. It's hard to have it affect them. What you pass on to future generations.

14:48 Yeah. There's some, there's some conversations now going on in the town I live with over land and what they're going to do with land and stuff like that. And they don't want to commercial. They want to commercial and people are worried about what type of commercial. Yes. Businesses may go on knocking and saying, oh, the contaminations. And I'm sitting back saying, folks, you have no idea.

15:08 They really do have an idea of what contamination can do. Yes. Yeah. Gosh. Well we left you in Vietnam because we followed this very interesting journey with the agent orange. But tell us about when you finished your service there. I know there was such a different mentality because there was very active war protests and people who, um, unfortunately my way of thinking kind of conflated the soldiers with the war. And did you have, when you came home, did you feel welcomed or did you feel disrespected or what? What was. What was your experience there?

15:51 definitely different than what it is now. Okay. You were called names at airports, walked away from.

16:02 That happened to you personally? Yes. Yes.

16:06 Any veteran, what you would normally do as you see many veterans now and their uniforms or their fatigue on the airports and walking around to whatever. Normally what you did when I got out, you would wear your uniform to get an airline ticket because you were getting reduced rates because you were in the service. What you had to be in your uniform to get the reduced rate. As soon as you got your ticket, you went into the men's room or wherever, changed clothes and gotten civilian clothes.

16:36 Isn't that something? Well, so is this part of what inspired. I guess I should just ask an open ended question. What inspired you through all these years to advocate for veterans? What? What motivates you there?

16:52 It was some experiences that I had that some veterans that I ran across didn't know about a weren't sure how to file for you. I have things I have not tried to file for, so

17:06 it's a very difficult bureaucratic sort of system to get the benefits thAt you're entitled to is that,

17:13 I won't say difficult. It's a matter of who's filling out of paperwork. It's like anything else. Okay. You have people that are good at what they do and some people who were fair, what they do. So I happened to, when I was following my paperwork, filing a gentleman who was excellent at filling up the scripts in the paperwork and followed me through when it worked out well. So.

17:36 So thAt started you on your path and trying to help people with that kind of way

17:40 in a way? Yeah. I don't, you know, I help out a little bit but not as much as some other people also. So,

17:46 but I mean in terms of this advocating locally, like I have here, this article we did on, um, he was early a boy. I don't know how else Glenn Gilbert, you know, you went to this trouble, I guess you would call the national headquarters for the vfw and found that people who had died in any way honored and you went out and kind of advocated for thIs and just tell us a little about that and what motivated that.

18:16 Here's what I did. We were, um, I was a member of the post seven, oh, six to hear an ultima and we're in a meeting one time and advocating for new members to come in and stuff like that. And I said, well, I've got a problem. I said, I've got a friend who I knew from, from schooling and also he used to work for my father, this glen, this is black. I said, can I have him as a member? Can we join a member that is deceased? He was killed in action. Here we go with politics. We checked it through both the post and myself and the ruling come down that because he could not sign the application, he could not join the vfw said, okay, I got a slight problem with this. So the uh, the commander at the time, it was dennis here said, okay, let's see what we can do, what else we could do. I said, all right, let me, uh, let me look at what we can do. And I said, okay, let's make a plaque. So he put the plaque together and I said he can't be the only one that got killed in action. So we went through the area and found out a young gentleman that were killed in action and they are named on the plaque also and as each and nowadays as unfortunately if someone does get killed in action, they are added to the plaque.

19:42 So there's a place in their home town or where they're from. Exactly. Organization

19:48 a black that we never want to fill. But, but it's there. Yeah.

19:52 So now what got you interested in advocating for the tax breaks and you really went about it. I remember one berne knox west or low board meetings. You had a whole slew of veterans there until, you know, look, the board members in the eye, what, what got you interested in that?

20:12 Yeah, it's actually, as I used to explain to the board members, both the town and the school, it's an earned right when we were going into the server here saying, okay, you get tax breaks, you get medical treatment, you know, basically for the rest of your life, and I look it up and I said, well we don't, we don't have any tax breaks and here's what we can. I checked into it and I said here's what we can have available to us. So me and another gentleman started pursuing the school district and finally, how do I say, I don't want to say one, but we got almost our full capacity of the rights to that

21:00 sure wasn't such a cash strapped district with such a small population. It would be trAnsferring the burden to other people.

21:08 As I get a break, it goes onto somebody else. I have, I have a certain amount of land that I get that, that is farmed and my tax break for my farm exemption was higher than my veteran's exemption and I found that a little bit misleading.

21:28 Yeah, I can see. Well, and another thing, I think you took advantage of the program where, um, if you left to serve, which you certainly did, that you could get your high school diploma at a later date and you, you got your high school diploma from berne knox western low, I forget what year it was, but um, daughter recently. So tell us what that experience was like. Interesting.

21:52 It was, I was actually on the school board at the time and steve, she already was the superIntendent at the time and we had a veteran that was getting a diploma at that time. He was a veteran and getting a diploma because he had left school and go into the service. So as we're giving it to him and I said to steve, I said, I can get one of those to use as well, bringing your discharge and you know, I'll make one up. Let's, we'll see. I say maybe next year. He goes, what I wanted to do, I explain it, I said I waited the year because it was a rotating basis on who will become the president of the board. So we waited until the time when I was actually president of the board and he brought a diploma, so I got to sign my own diploma as the president of the school board. I don't know of anybody else who has done that.

22:44 No, I don't either. That's pretty cool. I'd forgotten that detail. Well, um, so as you look Back now with the perspective of how many decades? Probably four or five. Okay. Your Vietnam experience, what look, what are your thoughts? What would you like people to know about, about that service? Especially with its horrible lasting effects for you is. I understand that you're facing surgery next month again too. Is that right?

23:20 Yes, I am. I'm not sure that that's related to

23:24 what. What are your thoughts as you take that long look back?

23:30 I was at a, at a gathering, basically a dinner at the local american legion posts, elder merck post here on altima, and it was all a gentleman who was from out of the area. He's actually from broad alban and we're sitting there talking and there was a group of people rah, rah ron and stuff like that. And kind of trying to build up fan. I have everybody's veterans the way it is now. In other words, very everybody has happened to see the veterans were. It wasn't that way when we got back from Vietnam and he was a Vietnam veteran also and he looked at me and he turned around and goes, you know, it's too late. And I said, well yeah, it's late. That treatment that you got 40 and 50 years ago. Okay. Never leaves you. Right. Is it nice to see the veterans welcomed and treated nicely? Not yet. It's fantastic. Okay. And he's, he's true. He was true to a certain extent where yeah, it's too late and that hurt stole their.

24:35 So tell us about that hurt. How do you deal with that hurt?

24:40 You forget it. You bombed. So you forget it. You bypass it, right? I'll give it two or three indices. One I got when I got discharged. Okay. At first in California, and I wore my uniform all the way back. I Had a, a flight from oakland to chicago, guaranteed. And I was on standby from chicago to albany. I get to chicago and I had been off for a couple days ago. I'm getting discharged, I'm going home, I'm happy, you know, everything else. So I've been here for a couple days, are up for a couple of days time for a beer and I walked into one of the wings and o'hara and I walked into a bar and I'm in uniform and loaded with metals, both you and sort of bartenders. So let me have a beer. You looked at me the whole day. I'd never give it a thought. It said 20 because I had gone in early. I'm chicago or Illinois was always 21. Oh my goodness. I can't serve you and I have been all over the world. I've drank all over.

25:43 Well done many different things that have been fighting and certainly a man and then not to be able to. Yeah,

25:52 we uh, we were having quite a, quite a discussion about it, I'll put it that way. And the chicago police came in, kind of calmed us down. Yeah, we got heavy. I was a little more violent in those days and put me on the planet was no longer stand by on the plane, on the plane albany, so which was fine. That worked. So they got up in the air. I can have a beer. I got to. I got to albany and I said, well I need a car now. It's february. I'm tagged like there's no tomorrow from from being an agent and I forget. I walk into what used to be marsh hallmans chevrolet where depaul is now. I looked around and is there as his file. I've got cash money from being discharged and stuff like marco when it's okay. I don't remember car number such and such.

26:41 How much you want for it because I ain't got time to wheel and deal. How much you want for it. I got to go find a job, gives me a price. I said, all right, I'll take it. It looks at me, said the whole day you. You'd give it a thought so 20. At that time you needed to be 21 to sign a contract to buy a car. You could buy one privately, but you could not buy a car from a dealer unless you were 21. We need your parents' signature. We had a discussion about that. Albany police came and said, son, you can't be doing this. I said, okay, I'm hot. I'm mad, upset. I'm going to hitchhike, catch a bus, do whatever I have to do to get down and schenectady and witnesses. Sam stratton, I enraged, moldy cane. I got halfway up to west gate shopping center, walking, just trying to calm myself down and I got thinking, ed, you're not even old enough to vote yet. Turn around and go home.

27:36 Gosh, that is not a happy story. So did you say you had an anger management problem when you got out of the service on police in chicago? Police in albany, just. Was it sucH a transition? I think a lot of soldiers go through to be in a place where you're fearing for your life every day and then suddenly you're back home with no transitional help, huh?

28:04 I won't say it was anger management, but I will say it's reactionary. You're. You're more reactionary. You were trained to react? Yeah. Okay. Not to situations. Boom. This happened. You react to it this way.

28:18 Right. So, well you mentioned in the chicago story you had a couple of metals. Tell us about those. What were they for?

28:25 just your normal, you know, Vietnam service, Vietnam, this one, purple heart for some shrapnel that, that got me and, and,

28:34 and where can you describe that and how that event unfolded?

28:40 Yeah, we were my real home base camp versus a firebases was next to any airport and they were trying to hit the runway with some rockets and we were along the runway or just off of it and a rocket fell short and I caught some shrapnel off the rocket. It's all going to. Where did it hit you? But in my leg.

29:04 Well, I'm glad you made it home safely and I wonder if you have any advice for our listeners. We're closing down our half hour. That went too quickly. Just either about service to the country or about the need to respect that. Whatever closing thoughts are important to you. I'll just leave it there.

29:24 I'll say this in that. In the service to young people or middle aged people, whatever the service is a great training area. Okay. Probably, I forget the exact number, but it's probably 80 or 85 percent of the people in the services are there for support for the actual fighting people and it's a great education. Okay. Well you're in their colleges or whether you're just going for trAining, whatever it is. It's a great education for a job when you get out of the service or to stay in the service with,

29:55 but it comes with a really heavy burden. You might get killed and you have to kill rights. That's something

30:02 kill going down the road and the car. I guess

30:07 you had another thought I interrupted and I forgot what it was.

30:12 It was. No, it was a great training area. Oh the uh, the other thought was for the people who have not looked for the services that are available to them when they do get out of the service. Okay. There are servers officers at the va hospital. There are service officers at the vfw here locally and also any national vfw or american legion. There are also service officers there that will help with any problems and guide along the way. Okay. I'll give you one quick instance. I've got a motor home that needed to be towed to a tow truck driver showed up and we're going through things. We got talking and he was of my age and got talking about how he had cancer or one portion and how he has cancer or another area in his body and I asked him, I said, were you in the service? Says, yeah. I said, where'd you go? Was in said, bingo. I said, let's go. And I'm still, we're still making arrangements for him to get down to va to get treated.

31:20 I hadn't realized the connection. Not at all. That's the thing, you know, getting out the word on that is I was reading up on agent orange. I mean, it's a lifetime effect on you. It's just insidious because it isn't something like getting shrapnel or you know, your hip and you know you need to fix the wound and it heals and hope you're better at something that's.

31:47 This can go on. I guess we talked to earlier, both of my sons and, and possibly my grandchildren. I don't know.

31:54 It could be because after the effects were known there were un united nation, um, direct is on that kind of warfare. I mean, do you have any thoughts on current warfare and the kinds of things

32:08 that young people are experiencing now? How do you control a war? You really can't control a war people or you're in a warrior there either you're there to train somebody to kill somebody or in when a certain objective or you're there to support somebody to do that. Yeah. Mom

32:28 was the start of thIs first kind of war that we have now where civilians are in the crossfire. It's not like you're out in the separate battlefield and here you were with a aspect trying to convince the civilians. It, it just, it doesn't seem as clean to an outside observer is like having soldiers in the battlefield fighting each other to be in the midst of, well, yes or no, because civilians got got in a, I don't want to say in the way you were affected through any war

33:04 world war, I mean the bombings of cities and stuff. You have your civilians there that, that's.

33:12 Well, when you look back at Vietnam now, I mean, did you feel even when you were there as the protests were going on, that it was the right fight or did it feel as you said like you want to just to get out and not be wasted? You really didn't. You really didn't

33:28 get involved that much into politics. It wasn't. It was you were there for, per job. That's it. Oh, here. Here was your duty and you did your duty and, and go home. When kent state happened while we were going into Cambodia, it was pictures in the stars and stripe magazine, which is the, basically the military magazine or a newspaper. And I remember seeing the, uh, the, uh, one young lady, her knees over, a gentleman who got killed, okay. And looking up with their hands up and we're going, what the heck is going on in the country? Why? You know, we're, we're fighting here. Why are they, why are they shooting people at home? What's going on? We didn't know.

34:11 That must've been chilling. It was confusing. I keep trying to close out this interview, but you have so many fascinating things to say. We're over our time work. Let's have the actual final word from ed ackroyd. Wow. What can I say final? I have a salesman from way back. I keep On going and going. Well, you're good. No, I hope

34:37 so. People get some, get some, some enjoyment out of this, this conversation and maybe some experiences or some facts by all means. Let me, let me give you one other thing. We have banners going up next year and in town of max,

34:54 hometown hero, banner jessen, and they'd been going around different places and stuff like that to get certain roads named in honor of those who had been killed. I guess I have a permanent remember, what do those batters do? How does he manage shirt bird? Just a realization for the, again, for the community that

35:10 here's, here's the veterans that were in that grew up in a town or lived in a town at one time and we're kind of trying to figure out, okay, let's see how many veterans we actually have in the talent and I'm going to say next. Okay, so I called the tax assessor and said who? How many are taking a tax exemption as veterans? He said 122. Nobody had an idea.

35:33 That's a lot per small toWns. The towns are equal around. I'm not sure

35:38 what is something that can be found out. Just just drew exemption. It's probably many people who are not taking exemptions, who are also veterans now. These are people that can be reached out, that can be part of the vfw organization, the american legion organization all the way down through and if they need help, don't need help, whatever. Or they can help other people. That'd be a great, great portion of helping the community. so it's kind of a band of brothers and sisters. Yes, there's a great between both organizations, there's a great amount that they do for the community, not just themselves, but for the community. Uh, there's donations monetary wise, both for communities and veterans organization that are done monthly that many people don't even realize what's going on. We do now. Thank you. Add ackroyd. I salute you. Thank you.