HERB WHITE • VIETNAM WAR
Herb White - 79
Gloucester, MA
Born: 8/8/1946
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Service: US Army
Rank: Spec. 4
325th Signal Detachment
Dates of Service: 1965-1967
“I got drafted at 19, in Vietnam before I as 20, and out of the Army the day before I was 21. I couldn’t even drink.” Thusly, Herb White outlines the irony of being under 21 in the military – charged with risking one’s life, but unable, legally, to have a beer on the way.
Herb was born in 1946 to Herb and Mary White and lived mostly on Granite Street growing up. His father was a housepainter. The oldest of four boys, he graduated from Gloucester High School in 1964 and was drafted in 1965.
Sent to the Mekong Delta to a base in Sok Trang with the 325th Signal Detachment he repaired and installed radio equipment in helicopters that had been shot up. “You do what you gotta do. What choice do you have? I did what I was told to do and I got through it.”
Herb returned home in 1967 and started a life-long career in construction. In 1970 he married his wife Sandra (Sandy). They have two daughters, Janelle and Alison, and five grandchildren. Married for 45 years, Sandy died in 2015. He now spends his time hunting and fishing.
A dozen years ago he joined a PTSD group for veterans, “we got home and we weren’t too popular. We were fighting for our country, but we were losing lives over there.”