Veteran recalls service in Vietnam

Nov. 10—Don Schreiner not only served in the Army in Special Forces during the Vietnam War, he also served in the Air Force as a radio operator.

Schreiner, who is now 80 and lives in Sanford, recalled growing up in Nebraska and attending school in a one room schoolhouse through the eighth grade. In high school, he interviewed with a recruiter and joined the National Guard. His Army and Air Force careers led him to pursue and MBA, and his business dealings brought him eventually to Sanford, where he worked for Trion Inc. for more than two decades.

"The recruiter talked me into joining the National Guard while I was still in high school," Schreiner said. "I learned to march — and I kind of liked the idea of a uniform. In that age, it was different. I liked it, so I joined up and the day after I graduated, I went right on to active duty.

Schreiner then served in the Army from 1961-64.

"I signed up to be a helicopter mechanic," he said. "The Hueys hadn't come out yet. They had old H-34s, H-19s — old helicopters. I want to school down in Fort Rucker, Alabama. I went through the first session, and then they called us back to Fort Riley, Kansas because Vietnam was getting active. They said, 'The rest of your training is going to have to be on the job training.' "

While at Fort Riley, Schreiner learned about Special Forces.

"I thought that sounded pretty neat," he said. "I applied to go into Special Forces."

At first, he was turned down because he didn't have a security clearance. He applied and was turned down because he didn't have a birth certificate. His mother had to get records and was turned down again, because he wasn't "jump qualified."I was one rejection after another," he said. "So I applied jump school and went to Fort Benning for jump school. When I got out of there, they sent me to the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. As soon as I got there, I applied for Special Forces training group again. It took several months, but I finally got accepted. While I was at the 101st, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened and I was on alert for that."

Schreiner then trained as a radio operator, learning morse code and the technology for the "jungle radios" as he called them

"You throw a wire up in a tree and cut the wire to the length of the frequency," he said. "You send in the blind and go somewhere else and receive in the blind. It wasn't a two-way conversation. You send and run, you receive and run. It was unconventional warfare."

He was assigned to the 7th Special Forces at Fort Bragg and said he enjoyed it. He met his wife, Kay and proposed right before he got out for the first time. His goal was to go to college.

"My plan to go to college didn't work out — I didn't have the GI Bill — at that time, they hadn't activated it for Vietnam veterans, so I went into the Air Force.

"I didn't turn 21 until I got out of the Army," Schreiner said. "I went down to Andrews Air Force Base — where the president's plane is kept. I was a supervisor at the aeronautical station there. I got to go on Air Force One. (Lyndon Johnson was the president then. He wasn't on the plane when I was."

Schreiner was then elected for an "isolated tour" in Saudi Arabia as a radio operator, but then was sent to the Philippines. It was 1965. His wife, joined him. Their son was born there. While in the Philippines, he was sent to Vietnam.

"I was attached to the 196th Light Infantry Brigade," he said. "The whole mission for the Air Force people there that I went on was to provide communications between the aircraft and the Army. I had a radio Jeep with all kinds of radios on it and I had a trailer and we'd go out in the field and I'd have a 55-gallon drum of gasoline and the trailer that I could run the Jeep off of. I would communicated with the aircraft and they would come over at low altitude and we would have flares or smoke for the pilots to see and they would drop ammo, water, fuel and all kinds of different things. It was interesting to do that."

After finishing that assignment in Vietnam, he returned to Clark Air Force Base as was there until November 1967.

"When I was first in the Philippines, I was working in a paper job," Schreiner said. "I did not like it all — just shuffling papers. I'd been in Special Forces and I liked stuff going on. One day a major walked in the office there and he said, 'Hey Sarge, how would you like to get back on jump status?' I said, 'Yes sir!" In a couple of days, I had orders and they put me in the direct air support flight. It was a bunch of radio operators and pilots."

On the ground, Schreiner would help direct air strikes and support the missions. He was in Air Commandoes until his discharge in 1968.

"After I got out, they had the GI Bill, so I went to the University of Nebraska," he said. "I got a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and went to work for the Trane Company in Clarksville, Tennessee, right outside Fort Campbell.

"They had an agreement with the University of Tennessee and classes were taught in Clarksville," he said. "They had an MBA program. I went through that program. Then I came to work at Trion."

Schreiner also served in the Army Reserves and the National Guard. He served in a tank division when he moved to Sanford.

"I enjoyed the service," he said. "It's one of those things — you get two prior servicemen together and you always have something to talk about."

Schreiner is a member of the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans and American Legion, where he was the commander.

"I've been involved quite a bit, and still am," he said. "I'm a Senior Vice for the DAV, a Junior Vice for the VFW — I'm still involved."

Schreiner said each year when Veterans Day rolls around, he has many memories of his time serving and his comrades.

"It's like a family," he concluded.