By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
An author with ties to Hays has just released another book in concert with other servicemen from his officer candidate school at Fort Benning.
The book titled "The Benning Anvil: Memoirs of Infantry OCS Graduates Before, During and After their Forging" was compiled by Darrell S. Mudd, who was a 1961 graduate of St. Joe's Military Academy, the predecessor to Thomas More Prep-Marian in Hays.
The book, which was self-published through Amazon KDP, was released this week.
Mudd, 76, a resident of Estes Park, Colo., and 12 of his peers offer their memories and views of serving in the military during the Vietnam War as well as the turbulent times in American in the 1960s.
"These are not only the memories of the contributors about the time we were classmates in the 1960s, but what was going on in the world during that time of the Cold War in Europe and the cold war that turned hot in Vietnam," Mudd said.
The book is an expansion of a book that is now out of print, "The Boys of Chattahoochee."
Mudd said this book is not your usual compilation of military combat stories.
Mudd served as captain for a mobile advisory team in Vietnam. He trained civilians, who had been armed with World War II-era weapons on the use and care of those weapons.
He also served as an intelligence adviser in south Vietnam's Quảng Ngãi province. He interviewed prisoners, gave intelligence briefings and coordinated with the CIA and Phoenix.
Mudd was also on the front lines of the Cold War, serving in Germany from 1967 to '69.
Mudd writes of his own experiences in the military as well as trips he took back to Germany and Vietnam.
Mudd traveled to Vietnam in 2009 and said he found a country that was still ideologically very split. Mudd visited Hanoi, Saigon and Da Nang.
"I was just amazed at the people how friendly they were down south in the southern part of Vietnam," Mudd said. "They became more friendly to me when they found out that I was a veteran of the war.
"I was really surprised. I thought they would have a lot of animosity toward a veteran who fought in that Vietnam War, which they call the American War, not the Vietnam War."
However, the residents of Hanoi were more reluctant to talk about the war, he said.
He said some conditions in the country were worse in 2009 than they were during the war. Highway 1, the main highway through the country, was in great disrepair, and metropolitan areas were plagued by smog.
Mudd said he thought, in the south especially, Communism is slowly giving way to a free-enterprise system. However, he said he had to be careful mentioning names in his blog during his 2009 trip for fear of potential retribution from party members on the local residents.
"It is going to be tough breaking that governing system, but I saw people who were going to change it slowly but surely," he said.
Mudd was never able to locate any of the Vietnamese he worked with during the war. He said traveling in the south, he saw few older faces.
"It makes sense, because when America sat back and let Communism take over in the south, hundreds and thousands of people were incarcerated, never heard of, and then the boat people," Mudd said. "It makes sense that there wouldn't be many older people left in the southern part of Vietnam."
Despite feelings at home America should not be involved in Vietnam, Mudd said he has always thought otherwise.
"I saw just the opposite when I was in Germany," Mudd said. "It was what Communism was all about. There was an iron curtain that was not built to protect Communism from NATO, but it was built to keep their own citizens from escaping Communism.
"I thought, 'My lord, there is something wrong with this governing system that we call Communism.'"
Mudd was critical of the U.S. pullout from Vietnam and the politics that surrounded it.
"Sen. [William] Fulbright — his comment sticks in my mind. I just can't forget. ..." Mudd said. "He made the comment during the fall of Saigon that he would be more concerned about losing a football game to Texas. ...
"He could have cared less about the friends we left behind in Vietnam."
He called watching U.S. helicopters overloaded with people flying off roof tops hideous. He added the crisis of the boat people who fled the country was even worse.
"I don't have a lot of respect or good feelings about the 1960s," he said. "I don't think much good came of it. Sadly, I think some of those mindsets are still in place today."
Mudd said he thought the book would be a good read for a high school or college-age person.
"I think a young reader interested in that period of time would get a lot of information out of it from me and my trip back to Vietnam, and the stories that these individuals have."
"The Benning Anvil" is available in both ebook and paperback. It is book No. 7 for Mudd. He also wrote "The Flippers," which was about a rock band in Hays in the 1950s, and a book on former TMP coach Al Billinger, "The Legend: Alvin 'Al' Billinger."
You can learn more about Mudd and his other books by visiting his author's page on Amazon.
For his next book, Mudd is returning to a piece of historical fiction he has been working on for several years based on the Mudd family immigration to America.