Jeff Wisehart vaults from trainee to trainer

SEELEY LAKE – In 1965 Jeff Wisehart moved from New Mexico to San Jose, California, where he lived with his sister while attending West Valley College. He said California at that time was beautiful, though he was a bit disappointed to discover there were not 10 girls for every guy, as his buddies had assured him. But it didn't matter whether he was happy with the move or not, the Vietnam draft caught up with him.

At the induction center in Oakland, California, Wisehart was asked "Army or Navy?"

"Navy," he answered since all his siblings were in that branch of service. The inductor took a big rubber stamp and applied it to the official papers. Wisehart could clearly read the word "Army" stamped across them.

He was sent to Ft. Polk, Louisiana, for basic infantry training and then to Fort Ord, California, for advanced training as a gunner.

"Probably one of the best things that happened to me - in boot camp they gave everyone a little Gideon Bible," Wisehart said. "I still have mine. I carried it inside my uniform shirt. And I learned not to question God."

Two weeks before his 350-man company was due to ship out to replace a unit in Saigon, Wisehart was one of 11 men told to report to the first Sergeant. The Sergeant informed them they had been reassigned to "Vietnam East," which turned out to mean they were being sent back to Fort Polk to become weapons instructors.

Wisehart spent the rest of his two-year commitment training advanced infantry skills on .45 caliber pistols, M-79 grenade launchers and .50 caliber machine guns. Wisehart said all of those weapons were very loud and ultimately caused hearing loss for him. With the hearing issue also went his dream of becoming a commercial air pilot.

It might seem that hearing loss was a small price to pay for having escaped active battle in Vietnam but Wisehart was continually confronted with the knowledge that many of his buddies from high school were killed in the war as well as many of his Army comrades. In addition, he was fully aware that many of the men he was training would come back maimed or in body bags.

"Most of the men I trained with were killed," Wisehart said. "You build a lot of camaraderie. You train with them. You know where you're all going to go. And then they go and you don't. I have the utmost respect for the guys that did go. I had no choice in what I did."

The advanced training area of Fort Polk where Wisehart gave instructions was known as Tiger Land. The grounds sported signs carrying slogans like "every man a tiger" and "aggressiveness and firepower will win" and "Tiger Land: birthplace of combat infantrymen for Vietnam."

Wisehart said every man who was sent there knew his next deployment was Vietnam. Wisehart knew, as well as they did, that many of them would never make it back.

"They were sending 5,000 men a week to Vietnam," Wisehart said. "And these poor guys were being pushed so hard to get them ready for Vietnam, if you accidentally startled them they would wet their pants."

As if the heartbreaking reports of the deaths of people he knew were not enough, Wisehart, like all men in uniform at the time, had to contend with the attitude of the American public toward the unpopular war. He noted how even when he had time off and went to visit his mother, he could not escape the stigma of being a soldier.

"You had to wear your uniform to get a reduced price in traveling," Wisehart said. "And people were less than friendly. I never had anybody spit on me or call me 'baby-killer,' but when I'd take a seat at the airport, people would get up and walk away. And I'm thinking, 'Can't they understand, we didn't have any choice.' Everybody who was wearing a uniform went through that."

Wisehart added, "It was really hard for me during the first Gulf War because seeing those guys come back and getting all that [praise] – and they deserved it -- but we didn't deserve what happened to us."

Even after Wisehart got out of the military in 1967 and went back to college with support from the GI Bill, he still had to endure public censure. He said there were so many anti-war protests and discussions in his college classes. Though most veterans tried to refrain from discussing the war, in certain classes, like political science, he said he was forced to give his opinion and afterwards felt ostracized.

Nonetheless, Wiseheart said, "But I never have and never will be less than a patriot. I love my country and my heart still swells with pride over the American flag."

Wisehart persevered with his studies and earned a bachelor's degree in education with an emphasis in speech pathology. He then worked as a speech pathologist in Washington for three years before returning to college and getting two master's degrees, one in audiology and the other in speech pathology. And then he got a chance to come to Montana.

Wisehart said he wanted to come to Montana because when he was growing up in New Mexico his dad had talked about it. His father was a gunsmith and Wisehart said he and his brothers got to do a lot of hunting and learned to shoot many different rifles.

Wisehart recalled his father saying, "One of these days I'd like to take you boys to Montana. They have moose up there. And they have white-tail deer and when they run their tail goes like this [flapping up and down]."

According to Wisehart, they only had mule deer in New Mexico and the only moose he saw were in pictures, so he was excited to live and work in Montana and enjoy its larger variety of wildlife. Wisehart cycled through a number of different teaching jobs in Washington, Montana and Colorado throughout his teaching career but when it came time to retire and settle down, he chose Seeley Lake.