Duane Traynor, Vietnam Veteran, U.S. Air Force
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DUANE TRAYNOR
By Missy Klatt
Duane Traynor from rural Glenwood City served in the Vietnam Crisis, as it was called when he served. Traynor grew up around Spring Valley and Woodville and graduated from Baldwin-Woodville High School in 1968. He moved to the Glenwood City area with his wife, Cindy and son, Jacob in 2004. Traynor also has three children from a previous marriage.
Traynor volunteered for the draft. Basically he took the place of his older brother. “I volunteered for the draft for the purpose of my older brother was expecting a child and I was afraid his number would come up. So I went to the recruiting officer and asked could I enlist for my older brother whose number might come up. The draft was going really strong at that time.”
However, there was actually a bit of a penalty with this noble gesture as Traynor explained the recruiting officer told him that if his number came up, he would have to pull an extra term. Basically adding two more years to the three years he volunteered for. Fortunately his number never came up.
Although Traynor comes from a family of naval men, his dad and uncles, on his dad’s side, all served in the U.S. Navy, he signed up for the Air Force with the hope that he would get sent to Germany or someplace else. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and Traynor found himself in the thick of fighting in Vietnam. His younger brother enlisted in the Navy about a year after Traynor volunteered.
Traynor served in the Air Force from December 1, 1969 to February 10, 1972.
He did eight weeks of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX and then ten weeks of advanced training (AT) at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. This is where they evaluated your skills and put in you in different categories, Traynor explained. They discovered that he was good at reading maps and directions, so they put him in the orientating group with his job being titled “Squadron Orientator”. Sheppard is also where they were taught to jump out of planes with all sorts of simulated weather and wind conditions. They would also set off fire crackers and cheery bombs to simulate gun fire, etc.
Traynor was in Vietnam for 18 months, the first 12 in Da Nang where he was a paratrooper. He served the next six months in Den Tu. In his squadron, Traynor stated that there were 12 people; two ammunition specialists, two explosive specialists, a topography/wildlife expert, the orientator, a medic, and recon people. He said for the most part there were two in every position in case one got hurt. That is except the medic, they were in short supply as not many medics wanted to jump out of planes and perhaps get injured on the jump itself because they didn’t think they were trained well enough for making jumps.
Most of the jumps they made were in the early evening and they needed to make their way to the pickup point before daybreak. Their squadron cleared the way for advancing units on the ground. Traynor noted that they all ran into some fighting, but he didn’t go into details. He stated that, that was part of the job and they were trained in hand to hand combat in two different categories.
Part of Traynor’s job was to map the route from where they were dropped off to where their extraction point was located.
When asked what the worst thing about being over in Vietnam was, Traynor replied when they got stranded or when they were there on time for extraction and their ride wasn’t. Those were hard times as they had to stay in hiding till their ride got there. He goes on to say that a lot of time they were under fire when they came in, which was also usually the reason why they were late.
Another unpleasant memory was when they had to go in and do clean-up after a guerrilla raid.
During his 18-month tour in Vietnam, Traynor was jumping out of a plane at least two times a week. The clean-up jobs were in-between their scheduled twice weekly jumps.
After Traynor returned from Vietnam he taught orientating at Sheppard. He used his own maps that he drew while over in Vietnam because they were more up to date than those that they had at the base at that time. Traynor mentioned that he had his CO’s permission to use his own maps. He goes on to say that most of the maps that they had were speculated from air views and previous forces. He also noted that terrain is always changing, especially after a monsoon. “So to get an accurate reading, you had to make your own maps.”
For Traynor the best thing about being in the service was getting discharged. Unfortunately like many veterans Traynor suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly called PTSD, which at the time wasn’t a diagnosis. Traynor spent time in therapy and still today has the occasional “nightmare”. For the most part though he has learned to put it behind him.
Traynor states “in my opinion first they program you to do this and then they do this [therapy] to unprogram you. And sometimes unprogramming takes longer than programming.”
Unfortunately during the Vietnam era there was a lot of controversy about even being in the war and soldiers weren’t respected as they are now. Traynor experienced some of this first hand. When he first returned, he flew into Texas which he said wasn’t bad.
However, when he returned home to Wisconsin he first had to fly into California. “When I left Sheppard I was told not to wear my uniform, I wasn’t very smart, and I did.” The ‘flower children’ and protesters had signs up ‘baby killers’, called him names, and spit on him.
Traynor was so upset that when he got home he got rid of all his military memorabilia, uniform, etc. He regrets it now. So we have no photo of Traynor from his military days.
Duane is currently a member of the American Legion Post 87 in Rice Lake, WI.