ALBERT VIATOR • VIETNAM WAR
Albert Viator, 78
Gloucester, MA
Born: November 7, 1947
Born/Raised: Quincy, MA
Service: US Army
Rank: Spec. E-5 (Sergeant)
Unit: 4th PSYOP Group, 6th PSYOP Battalion
Albert Viator’s great-grandfather was a whaler out of New Bedford Massachusetts and his grandparents and parents were all born in Gloucester. His parents William & Grace (Nichols) Viator moved to Quincy during WWII so his father could work in the shipyard there. Gloucester would eventually reclaim Albert as her own, but it would take a couple of decades. Albert and his three siblings grew up in Quincy. He graduated from North Quincy H.S. in 1965.
Keen on becoming a filmmaker, Albert enrolled in and finished a two-year program at a school of radio, television and theatre production in Boston. Following this, he promptly enlisted in the Army. “I had always been a news junkie and felt the Vietnam War would be the biggest story of my generation. I wanted to be part of it.” After basic, and advanced infantry training, the Army enrolled him in their Defense Information School (DINFOS) for a nine-month training program in all things broadcast, film and photography related. Then he volunteered for Vietnam.
For the next year of his tour, he was part of a three-man PSYOP field team serving in III Corps. He, an interpreter and a lieutenant, would be assigned to various infantry groups going out on field operations. In addition to his M-16 and all the other equipment carried by an infantryman, he also carried a 25-lb backpack speaker used to blare messages to enemy troops to encourage them to give up. When he wasn’t going out on patrols, he would fly in helicopters and fixed wing aircraft dropping leaflets from the sky over enemy locations or villages, or he’d engage in “pacification programs” designed to win the trust of civilians and degrade support for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army.
During one “eagle flight” – a mission with multiple helicopters, he became separated from the rest of the infantry company. Alone, in the dark and in the middle of enemy held territory, he feared he would be left behind. He managed to locate a helicopter about 100 yards away preparing to take off. Sprinting through a flooded rice paddy in water above his knees and yelling not to leave him behind, he made it to the aircraft and was dragged into the helicopter, face-down on the diamond-plate floor just as it took off. “To this day, I see diamond plate, and I have to pull myself together.”
Following his in-country tour, he spent a year at Fort Gordon, Georgia making training films but not before spending some leave in Gloucester where he had often come as a child visiting family. At a VFW dance in Ipswich, he met his future wife, Lucinda Pata, who was celebrating her 21st birthday. Albert was discharged in June 1970. Instead of Quincy, he returned to Gloucester and enrolled at North Shore Community College to complete his college requirements, then transferred to Boston University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcasting and Film Production at the School of Public Communication and became a filmmaker/videographer.
Albert received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant to make the film, “Back to School to Live” – featuring the transformation of Gloucester’s Central Grammar (and other schools) into housing. His career as a freelance filmmaker sent him all over the world working for CNN, National Geographic, PBS and covering news, politics and motorsports. He taught filmmaking at Boston University and volunteered with Homes for Our Troops – a non-profit that builds homes for disabled veterans. He retired in 2013. In 2021 he published “An Accidental (PSY) Warrior” chronicling his experiences in Vietnam and his subsequent challenges with ongoing PTSD.
He and Lucinda have been married for 52 years. They have one daughter, Gabrielle Viator, and two grandchildren, Ainsley & Emery.