Glen Talsma graduated from Southwest MN Christian High School in May 1968.

A lottery drawing – the first since 1942 – was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This event determined the order of call for induction for 1970 for young men born between January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950. 

Using this lottery system was a change from the “draft the oldest man first” method, which had been the determining method for deciding order of the draft or “conscription.” According to history.com, there were 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates placed in a large glass container and drawn by hand to assign order-of-call numbers to all men within the 18-26 age range specified in Selective Service law.

When the birthdays were drawn, his birthday was the 63rd number and the Selective Service said that all those birthdays chosen 150th or less would be drafted – it seemed certain that he would be drafted soon.

A couple of weeks later, Glen talked to a soldier from Chandler who was home on medical leave after being wounded in Vietnam.

“He said, ‘Stay out of the army. They will give you army boots and an M16 and send you to Vietnam.’” So rather than be drafted into the army, Glen opted to volunteer for the navy.

At that time, the U.S. Navy was offering a program where a soldier could spend two years active and three years in the reserves, so Glen signed up for that program. In April 1971, he left southwest Minnesota and went to Great Lakes Naval Base in north Chicago.

They sent him to school there for “machinist-mate,” where he learned the propulsion equipment on a ship. From there he went to air conditioning and refrigeration school in San Diego, Calif. After being educated in those two areas, his next orders were to go to the AFS 7 San Jose ship, which was a combat supply ship.

This was a new ship, and was already on its maiden deployment. The AFS 7 San Jose ship was a 580 foot long and 80 foot wide military supply ship. It had a crew of 400 to 450 persons. Glen had to catch a plane and fly oversees to join the ship. He flew out of Travis AFB by San Francisco.

He and about 300 other military men were ready to fly off the base when they were informed that the plane needed repairs. Their flight was delayed a day, and the next day they flew to Honolulu, where they refueled.

They took off again, but only a short time after they were in the air, the pilot announced that there was a problem and they would be making an emergency landing.  Glen was seated behind the wing and watched the pilot dump all their fuel into the ocean!

They were able to safely land again in Honolulu. The plane was repaired and a day later they were back on their way. Their first stop was Wake Island, where there is a naval base. It was a major military base during World War II. From there, they flew to the Philippine Islands, where Glen’s ship was in Subic Bay.

They arrived there at 4 a.m. and two hours later, Glen recalls they left the port and headed for Vietnam, loaded with food, supplies, and spare parts that the military would need.

His duties on the ship included keeping the air conditioning and refrigeration units running. They carried a lot of perishable food, so keeping those systems running was critical. He also operated a forklift on the ship.

The cargo was stored on pallets that were then put in nets and carried to many other ships via two chinook helicopters, or were attached to cables and ferried from the San Jose ship to the other ships. They also unload a lot of cargo at various ports in Vietnam. His work took him to Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Guam.

One of the advantages of being on a supply ship was that after 30 to 45 days, they would have to go back to port to reload. Some places they would pick up fresh fruits and veggies and frozen fish. The spare parts for equipment they would get in the Philippines.

In some of the countries, they got some extra time for R&R. One day you were on duty and two days you were off. On their days off, they could take bus trips to see various sites. One place that Glen remembers very well was a bus tour to Nagasaki, Japan, to the site of where the second atomic bomb was dropped.

The ship’s crew getting cargo ready to be transferred.

Glen with his refrigeration crew.

Glen operated a forklift as part of his duties with the U.S. Navy.

They went to a museum downtown in a Peace Park, where relics of the war were left as a remembrance. There was a group of older Japanese people there and he and his fellow sailers could feel the animosity from them. “I could understand it, but we could sure tell that they were not friendly towards us American sailers,” Glen recalls.