Royal Hill Served In The U.S. Army From 1966 To 1968

Royal Tauno Hill is an Alaska Native born in Sitka.  He has spent most of his life in Hoonah.  Mr. Hill was a Spec 5 and served from May, 1966 to July, 1968.  He was drafted into the service out of high school in Hoonah.  In Viet Nam he started out as a Field Radio Repairman.  He then became a radio operator.  When his radio got shot multiple times, he asked to do something else.  “Something else” was his becoming an M60 machine gun operator for his company. 

“Then they tried to make me a tunnel rat because I was smaller.  I didn’t realize the extent of my claustrophobia until I got down in those holes and I was more scared of those things collapsing around me than I was about encountering something down there. 

“There were many bad things that happened but I volunteered for it so I don’t fault anybody, I don’t even fault my enemy because he was a good soldier, he was trained well and he did what he had to do.  I did what I had to do and I survived.

“My father, even though he was a white man, said ‘Son, you’re going to come up against discrimination, but don’t be like that yourself.  Your mother was the same way.’”