Jerome Whiteman
Era: Vietnam
Military Branch: Army
Jerome Whiteman
Mr. Whiteman is from the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe.
He was drafted in 1968 and saw combat in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne.
The following is from an interview at a Veterans Pow-Wow at Grand Portage.
“Back at that time, in that life, I was a soldier, basically a robot, a piece of meat. I was trained to follow orders, which I did. When something happened, when we’d get incoming rounds, we’d react. Fear? Yes. But we reacted nonetheless. The fear came later. And the anger. And the disgust of human life. How useless, I thought at the time, how useless that they were wasting lives. It doesn’t matter which side of the issue you were on. Lives were being wasted – for what? A piece of land that belongs to all of us.”
“I’ve got to live for tomorrow. I want to see another sunrise.”
