×

Vietnam veteran recalls Army ranger experience

The Inter-Mountain photo by Beth Henry-Vance Doug Ashby displays his Bronze Star Medal with 'V' device and a photo of him and his Army ranger team in Vietnam during an interview Friday at the Laurel Mountain Inn restaurant in Belington.

Editor’s note: This is the seventh article in The Inter-Mountain’s Unsung Heroes series, which will feature veterans in our area and share first-hand accounts of their military service. The series will publish each Monday through Veterans Day. To suggest an Unsung Hero, call 304-636-2121, ext. 120.

BELINGTON — A former Army ranger who served in Vietnam says he learned a lot during his military experience, but he would never want to go through it again.

Doug Ashby, of Belington, shared some memories during an interview Friday in Belington. Ashby graduated from Phillip Barbour High School in 1966, and he said he was the first married man in Barbour County to be drafted during that time.

He had married his high school sweetheart, Betty Joan, on Oct. 1, 1966, and he was drafted and had to report for duty Feb. 7, 1967.

“I got to see her 15 days in two years,” Ashby said of the time period when he was in the military, noting his first Christmas away from home was the hardest — for him and his family.

He spent about 15 months in Vietnam, first landing there Dec. 15, 1968.

“I got there just before Christmas. That was the loneliest Christmas I ever spent in my life.”

Ashby was a sergeant E5 in the U.S. Army’s 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, stationed at Landing Zone Oasis in central Vietnam for most of his tour.

“I pulled 85 missions in the field, and I not once had a man injured or killed,” he said, adding his group was fairly active, and all the men were fierce, well-trained fighters who became very close. “That, to me, meant more than anything.”

He said he was an assistant team leader for about five missions before becoming team leader, and he said his group of rangers mostly was assigned to reconnaissance surveillance in the central highlands. They also had special missions where they tried to find supply lines and armored equipment, and they also had sniper training.

On May 22, 1969, Ashby’s group was called out to assist another team. He said he and a staff sergeant were trying make their way to the team that needed help when they suddenly saw North Vietnamese Army troops about 100 yards away.

“That staff sergeant, he and I … were hidden pretty good in a bend in a tree. He (nudged) me and said, ‘Here they come.’ There were new NVA troops in new uniforms. He said, ‘We’re either going to sit here and get caught, or we’re going to go get them.’ So we ran like hell. He took three and I took three, and I remember the bark shooting off trees from where they were shooting at us,” Ashby said.

He said they were able to take out several enemy troops under heavy fire, before all seven of the men in his team eventually made contact with a helicopter and were able to leave the area. It turned out that they had interrupted a major NVA supply operation, where more than 100 enemy troops were coming through.

“It was well worth it,” Ashby said.

He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device for that action.

“It’s an experience that I’d never give up, but I wouldn’t want to do it again,” Ashby added. “You grow up a lot. I went over there a kid, and came back a man.”

One funny experience he shared was on his birthday, June 13, when he and his buddies were relaxing near a river.

“We were out sunning ourselves, and out stepped a tiger — a full-grown tiger,” he said. He and his buddies were so scared that one of the men shot at the tiger but just wounded it.

“I called in and said, ‘You get us the hell out of here.’ … They did, they sent in a helicopter and got us out.”

Ashby said the stuffed tiger at Elkins High School is a nice display, but it doesn’t compare at all to seeing such a large, beautiful and terrifying animal out in the wild.

He said another time, he and his team were sleeping in a tree platform in a rice paddy and woke up surrounded by about 60 wild boars.

“It was crazy,” he said, of both the wild animals and the war. “You had to be a fool not to be scared half to death.”

He noted he never lost close buddies during the Vietnam War, but he did know many young men from training and from the local area who were killed in action.

After Vietnam, he worked at a strip mine near Philippi and later spent several years as a mechanic in Virginia, New Jersey and North Carolina. At age 48, Ashby had a stroke that forced him into an early retirement.

“I’m lucky to still be alive and up walking and carrying on,” Ashby said. “I thank the good Lord every day when I get up and out of bed.”

Although he didn’t lose close friends during Vietnam, he did lose his first wife to cancer when she was just 28 years old.

“I lost my best friend. To this day, I still think that,” he said, explaining he was a “jock” and she was a cheerleader, and from the time they first started dating in 1965, they were inseparable.

Other than a sister in Oklahoma, Ashby said he doesn’t have any other family. But he has many friends in the area, and he said he enjoys gardening, deer hunting and shooting sports. He actually has grown a large cabbage patch and supplies 10-pound heads of cabbage to the Laurel Mountain Inn restaurant in Belington as well as many friends and neighbors.

Ashby also serves as president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 812 and is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion.

He said the VVA group works hard on fundraisers that provide Thanksgiving meals to anyone in need each year. He said this past holiday season, the local group supplied more than 270 meals to people in need. The group also has sent money to areas experiencing natural disasters, and the members build wheelchair ramps, help with utility bills and offer other assistance for veterans who may be down on their luck.

“That’s where my heart is,” he said. “I’m very proud of what we do. … It’s priceless.”

He also said he’s blessed to still be able to enjoy life and stay as active as he can.

“It’s been a hell of a ride. I can’t complain — life’s been good.”

— Region Editor Beth Henry-Vance can be reached at bvance@theintermountain.com

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $3.92/week.

Subscribe Today