Voices of Veterans: Staff Sergeant Jimmy Burks Shares His Story of Service in the United States Army
|
|
Burks said he wasn’t sure what his job was going to be when he got to Vietnam but would soon learn he’d be an “11 Bravo, which is an Infantryman out in the field most of the time.” He said he remembers it being hot when he got there and it was in the middle of monsoon season.
When asked to elaborate on his first two weeks, Burks was candid in what it felt like to be in Vietnam, at the height of the war.
“It was scary. You didn’t know what was going to happen, if you were going to be shot at, if you had to go out into the field and shoot or whatever,” he said about those initial couple of weeks into his yearlong deployment.
Burks talked about the first time he experienced combat against the Vietnamese, eluding to how fast the fighting began saying “the next thing you know, here they come, opening fire so we got into a fire fight that lasted about 30 minutes. They pulled out, they had woundeds and dead—that was basically it.”
Burks said he remembers from that violent exchange that the Vietnamese were very good at fighting but said the north Vietnamese were even better.
Burks was asked whether he was injured or wounded—and he was—adding it was because of friendly fire and “they thought we looked like the enemy,” he said.
To listen to SSG Jimmy Burks tell his story, click the button below:
|
|
|
RELATED: Voices of Veterans: Sergeant First Class Cecil Dendy Shares His Story of Service in the U.S. Army
RELATED: Voices of Veterans: Sergeant Gerald Counts Shares His Story of Service in the U.S. Army
|
|
Veterans can email VoicesofVeterans@glo.
Voices of Veterans is a state agency’s first Veteran oral history program. It records the stories of Texas Veterans through their time in service and after returning home from combat.
The VLB records interviews with Veterans over the phone or in person. Their interviews are then permanently archived in the Office of Veterans Records at the GLO, where they join the historical documents of other Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barret Travis.
Veterans’ interviews are also available to researchers, historians, genealogists, and the public. These precious records inspire future generations and remind us of our Veterans’ sacrifices.
To listen to the over 500 archived stories of Veterans documented through the GLO’s Voices of Veterans oral history program, click the button below:
|
# # #
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D., brings a lifetime of experience to the Texas General Land Office (GLO). In 2016, she became the first Republican elected to the Texas State Senate from Travis County and the first woman to represent Texas Senate District 24. She made history again in 2022, winning a statewide election to become our state’s first female Land Commissioner.