RON THIBEDEAU • VIETNAM WAR
Ronald Thibedeau, 78
Gloucester, MA
Born: 4/12/1947
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Service: US Army
Unit: Marine Maintenance Activity, Vietnam
Rank: E-4 Corporal
Dates of Service: 1967-1969
“I was one of the lucky ones to be there for Tet,” Ronald Thibedeau says of his time in Vietnam from 1967- January 1969. For a guy who was declared 4F at his first physical, in 1966, for being nearly blind in one eye, he probably shouldn’t have been there at all. He was called in for a second physical in 1967 and declared 1Y (only eligible in times of war and VN technically wasn’t a war). At his third physical, a sergeant asked how many fingers he was holding up and when Ron answered correctly, he was magically declared 1A, fit for miliary duty, and a short while later, he found himself at Fort Dix for training. He shot expert with the M-14 and M-6 rifles as well as the .45 Colt sidearm – not bad for not having perfect vision.
He wanted any assignment that would put him near water and was sent to become an amphibian engineer. Then it was off to Vietnam as part of MMAVN (Marine Maintenance Activity Vietnam) in Cam Ranh Bay. His unit wasn’t technically authorized to be in Vietnam, so his unit always had Vietnamese minders in tow. He would be assigned TDY (temporary duty) for the 458th Transportation Company that operated heavily-armed PBRs (Patrol Boats) running river patrols and transporting Special Forces teams. His job was to make sure the boat worked. “I never saw anyone get killed and only one wounded. We never broke down while we were out.”
Born and raised in Gloucester, his mother Mary was a fish cutter and his father Elmer worked for Clarence Birdseye first as his gardener and then at the Birdseye plant in refrigeration. Ron had a sister, Collette who passed away in 2021. He graduated from Gloucester High School in 1966 and married his high school sweetheart, Julie Selig, in February 1967, thinking that his 4F status at the time meant he wouldn’t be drafted. The Army had other plans.
On his return from Vietnam, he got a job at Gloucester Engineering. He worked his way from being an assembler, to the machine shop, took night classes to learn programming and became a manufacturing engineer. He worked for Gloucester Engineering for 38 years before being laid off. He worked as a VP at Kenco and then Spincraft in Billerica, retiring for good in 2009. Julie was a hairdresser and now too is retired. The couple have two sons, David (Ronald Jr.) and Scott and three grandchildren. They’ve been married now for 57 years.