Behind the Wall:
Ronnie Mays “Willie” Remembers So Many Lives…
By Mary Lynn Heath
By the way he holds his baby granddaughter, looks at his wife, speaks proudly of his two grown sons—Ryan and Mike both graduates of Piedmont High and of OU—and by the way he remembers his mom, Ronnie Mays communicates that life is precious. By the way he serves his church, cheers his baseball and T-ball-playing granddaughters and cares for his house, his garden and his memory books, it’s clear that Ronnie cherishes life.
But it’s not just his life and his families’ lives that are precious to Ronnie. It seems all life is precious to him -- especially the other life with whom he is: in conversation; driving behind; or exchanging money with at a cashier’s desk. A retired firefighter, the lives he has carried from burning buildings and cars are precious to him. He deeply cares for the firefighters who served beside him. And the lives he touched in Vietnam are precious to him still.
It’s easy to see how in 1969 men would want to serve under Sgt. Mays. Ronnie smiles a lot. Not just when something is funny, but almost constantly. His inner joy causes his eyebrows to rise along with the pitch of his voice, just slightly, and his lateral mouth pushing up two apple cheeks. His voice, seasoned with an Oklahoma drawl, is slow to speak angrily and quick to encourage.
“I got to know all the men in my platoon…,” Ronnie remembers. “…about 35 or so at a time.” Ronnie explains that in a platoon there should be 45 men but there was always someone in the infirmary with malaria, or wounded, on emergency leave, or on R and R (rest and relaxation). A “Black Scarf,” Ronnie was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry of 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam. He was called “Willie” after the National League Baseball MVP, Willie Mays.
Some of the men in “Willie’s” platoon were from Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cuba fighting in Vietnam for American citizenship. “If a man fought in an American war he was granted citizenship when he came home,” Ronnie explains. “I got to know all about their wives, their girlfriends their parents, their likes, their dislikes – their good jokes and bad ones…” Ronnie says. “We would talk around the fire and have some good times.”
With three years of college, Ronnie, a tall athletic Southeastern Oklahoma Soper High School graduate was serving on the OKC Fire Department at the NW 23rd St. station. His roommate, also a firefighter, brought the letter to the fire station where Ronnie was on duty. At 24, Ronnie was surprised about the draft notice, but never contested it. His 25th birthday would be spent at basic training.
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In 1967 when Ronnie was drafted, he wasn’t married but many of his men were. “You could be drafted if you were married. Some from up north were even drafted with kids,” Ronnie tells.
Ronnie recalls his basic training buddies Peblo Sanchez, of Corpus Christi, Texas and Johnny Kingery from Seiling, Oklahoma. Both of these friends were married. “At times we would joke about skipping camp and going AWOL to Canada,” Ronnie says. None of them did. With damp eyes Ronnie tells that Peblo was killed while he was under fire in Vietnam. He said he saw Johnny later as the assistant coach of the OU girls’ basketball team. With a whispered drop in tone, Ronnie adds that he had one leg shorter than the other. Unable to finish the sentence, he pauses before confirming that the leg injury happened while serving in Vietnam.
One of the places Ronnie and his platoon fought was on the French Michelin rubber plantation in Dau Tieng, Vietnam. At that time the latex sap from the rubber trees in Vietnam produced about 75 percent of the tires used in Paris. (http://www.artnet.com/galleries/Exhibitions.asp?gid=1162&cid=131654) Before 1946 the French had colonized much of Vietnam and many of their most enterprising companies had operations there—Michelin Tires included. Ronnie had a man in his platoon, Pvt. Pierre Lamaire, whose mother was French and reared him to learn her native language. “He helped us in communicating with the locals since the Vietnamese and the French share many words,” Ronnie says.
Ronnie tells that the plantation rubber trees would be in a straight line any way you looked, for as far as you could see. In mortar raids the shrapnel would fall on the trees and sound like rain. “In fire fights we would stand behind the trees for protection,” Ronnie says. Ronnie and his good friend Sgt. Tom Szlucha enjoyed John D. McDonald novels. “Sometimes Szlucha and I would read a John D. McDonald book behind one of the big rubber trees until it was our turn to shoot. It would get our minds off the war and what we were doing.”
Fire fights were a regular event for Ronnie and his platoon. These were often held during the monsoon season—December through February.
“It would rain at ten, twelve, three and five, and then rain all night!” Ronnie tells. In addition, many soldiers endured bamboo poisoning -- which caused cuts to infect, jungle rot -- foot fungus, and most serious, malaria.
The mission for Ronnie and his platoon was to keep the North Vietnamese Army from taking the Vinh Airport. One of his captains, Captain LeGrice, would give his orders and say something like, “The name of the game today is contact.”
Ronnie would go back to his men and say, “The name of the game today is stayin’ alive!”
When Ronnie finished his tour of duty in August of 1969 he had earned two Bronze Stars and one with “valor,” which identifies the award as resulting from an act of combat heroism. Ronnie says one of the reasons he did not have a “hard time” coming back from Vietnam is because his firefighting job in Oklahoma City awaited him. On his days off from the fire station, Ronnie would drive a mobile coronary unit for St. Anthony Hospital. That is where he met his wife Marita. “She was training at St. Anthony in her last year of nursing school,” Ronnie tells proudly. Marita and he married May 23, 1970.
Ronnie has made it a point to see the Washington DC Vietnam Wall and regularly reunions with Vietnam Vets from his 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry of 1st Infantry Division, also called the “Big Red One.” He is glad the Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall is coming to Piedmont over the 4th of July holiday this year. He says it is a way to make sure, “…we honor those who fought; those who didn’t want to go and fought anyway; and especially to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice -- the real heroes. It might not be closure but it will be good to know that loved ones are remembered.”
Ronnie is serving as chairman of the Ground Site Committee for the Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall event and needs more volunteers from the community. He asks anyone wishing to join this committee to please call him directly at (405) 373-1786, or you may email him at: ronniemays@att.net
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Note:
During this summer’s 4th of July holiday weekend, July 2-5, the Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall will be open 24 hours a day at Stout Field in Piedmont—free to all. To volunteer to help host the Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall during the 4th of July weekend in Piedmont please contact Brooke Kuns: brookek@piedmont-ok.gov at Piedmont City Hall at 373-2621. For updates on The Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall visit our Piedmont community website: www.piedmontok.org