David Blackman – U.S. Army 1967-70 / LZ Baldy and Hawk Hill, Vietnam

David Blackman – U.S. Army 1967-70

David Edward Blackman was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina and moved to California with his aunt and uncle as a teenager where David’s uncle was station at Mather Air Force Base. “It was pretty interesting until I got bored and wanted to do something, so I decided I'll join the Army. I joined to be a radio operator and a wireman. I was real stupid because I didn't realize radio operators have to go out in the jungle.”

After serving over a year in Nuremberg, Germany David received his orders for Vietnam, landing in Chu Lai and eventually being attached to the 3rd Battalion 22nd Artillery Unit. While in Vietnam David served at both LZ Baldy and Hawk Hill in support of artillery crews; guard duty, perimeter defense, maintaining concertina wire, burning garbage and human waste. “We would have to, man the hill, they call it. Do the guard duty at night, you know, keep the zappers from getting in, set up the flares and trip wires and all that, and keep everything moving.”

“I spent about eight months on Hawk Hill. The reality of life on the LZ is you know you got guys getting wounded, dying around you.” David would have several close calls and loose buddies while serving in Vietnam and like many Vietnam Veterans David’s escape was to smoke marijuana. “My last damn six months in Vietnam, I didn't even know where the hell I was most of the time. They had stuff over there; it was opium in the marijuana. They had the opium in the marijuana.” David would return torn from Vietnam with a lifelong addition to opioids.

“When I got back from Vietnam, I had to go in the V.A. Hospital and I was on morphine. They gave it to me in a pill form. I used to take them four times a day, and I was on that for about seven years. Walking around numb as hell and they had realized that they couldn't keep us on morphine all our lives, so they had to started me on methadone.” - David Edward Blackman