In high school, I took a writer’s workshop class, and we were assigned to interview a person and write about their life.
I have known Coach Anderson since I was a mere sixth grader at Nativity Prep Academy. He would volunteer at my school multiple times a week and teach STEP and basketball. After I graduated, my brother started his journey at Nativity and joined basketball. I was already fond of Coach Anderson and his dedication, but I got to know him a lot better as I attended all the basketball games for my brother.
I asked Coach if he would want to be interviewed by me, and he was more than willing.
He told me, he was aware he would be drafted into the army, so he enlisted himself at 17 to have more of a choice of what his role would be. By the age of 18, he was in Vietnam. Like many others, he was serving right out of high school.
While serving, as a Black man, he was treated like a “second-hand person”. The biggest issue was not getting the rank he rightfully deserved. Often, officials would promote white soldiers over a soldier that was a minority with more accomplishments.
Coach Anderson served as MOS 0341, also known as a mortarman. He would carry a fire mortar and was told where the enemy villages were. Some of the villages weren’t enemies, some were just villages of people who got caught up in the middle of the war. Due to wrong intel, innocent people were hurt and killed.
He says he clearly remembers when there was “not active warfare” and the soldiers were just resting in their bases, some kids from the neighboring villages would approach the soldiers, asking for chocolate or food.
Well, there was an instance where a kid came up and asked for chocolate, and the American soldiers welcomed him. He was wrapped with bombs under his clothes. The little kid blew up and so did the base. That made some soldiers very paranoid. Every time a child would come nearby, they would scream “GI-Chocolate” and shoot the kid immediately, even if the kid did not mean to cause any harm.
“When you kill somebody your soul hurts, it’s a struggle when you come back home because in here you are still hurting”
Regarding the kids that were hurt in Vietnam, and the kids he works with at Nativity Prep. Academy, he says, “My soul was so broken about what I had to do and the kids I hurt- and the kids the other veterans hurt. By working with kids at Nativity, it’s my way of giving back to the kids I took from.”