By Jill Fennema –

In 1966, the conflict in Vietnam was really starting to heat up. Young men knew that they would eventually be drafted. So rather than being forced into the infantry, they enlisted in other branches.

Rodney Spronk enlisted in the navy in 1966. His brother Verlyn had enlisted earlier. They were two of four children born to Bernard and Maggie (Pool) Spronk of Edgerton.

Rod was still in high school when he and a group of boys – including Don Kooiman Don De Kam, Virgil De Jongh, Al Bloemendaal, and Daryl Hanenburg, skipped school one day to go to Sioux Falls to make inquiries into joining the United States Navy.

“If you didn’t go to college, you were going to get drafted,” Rod said. “I wasn’t too excited to sit in a foxhole somewhere.”

He enlisted right after graduation and served in the reserves for one year before going into active duty in 1967. His first day of services was August 1, 1966.

Verlyn was already married. He worked at a shoe store in downtown Sioux Falls at the time. He and his wife were expecting their first child. On the day that Verlyn and Rod left for basic training, the milk cows left the farm, too. Bernard, who was a World War II veteran, and Maggie didn’t want to milk cows without the boys.

Rod, along with Don De Kam, attended basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station by Chicago, Ill.

“It was brutal,” Rod recalls. “You can’t do a thing right in their mind. They break you down and then build you back up.”

Not only was basic training difficult, Rod was exposed to a lot of different types of people he had not met before – that was an eye opener for him. He especially remembers some of the boys from the Bronx – they had a whole way of talking that he could not comprehend.

After basic training, he spent four months in San Diego where he learned to be a ship fitter. He learned plumbing and welding and the skills necessary to work on ships. It was close to Christmas 1967 when they finished their schooling. Don De Kam was sent to Hawaii and Rod went to the east coast where he was assigned to work on an oiler – a ship that would fuel other ships out in the ocean. The ship was named the U.S.S. Neosho and it was in the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia.

When Rod wasn’t busy welding, he would often be in the kitchen helping make meals. He would get up at 3:30 a.m. to help cook eggs. “I was the egg cracker,” Rod said.   “I got really good at it.” He could crack two eggs in each hand at a time. And the cook didn’t care if there were a few shells in the eggs.

One time, Rod was doing some welding work on the ship, about 20 feet up in the air. The top of his boot was a little loose, and a piece of slag dripped off into his boot. He had to hold onto the ship with one hand and his other hand was full of tools he could not drop. The slag burned through his socks and several layers of flesh while he came down.

Needless to say, the burn was very bad. He spent about two months in the hospital and went through skin grafting to heal the wound.

It was during that time that Rod decided to apply for “brother duty,” so that he could serve in the same unit as Verlyn. The United States government tried to prevent family members from serving together so that if tragedy took many from a unit, one family would not be deprived of multiple members.

In order to be in the same unit as Verlyn, Rod had to have a letter from several people saying it was okay for him to serve with his brother, including his parents and his pastor. After being approved, Rod came home for a few days.

There were a lot of protests going on regarding the war and those protesting were often unkind to soldiers. Rod remembers being told not to go home in his uniform – it was better if people didn’t know he was a soldier when he traveled. In Norfolk, there were people with lawn signs that said “Dogs and sailors keep off the lawn.”

Rod as a young navy seaman, getting ready to board a plane at the Sioux Falls Airport.

Rod Spronk (right) with Daryl Hanenburg (left) and Virg De Jongh. These three were part of a group of young men who all enlisted in military service during the Vietnam War.

Rod in San Diego, Calif, in 1968 a few months before he was discharged from active duty.

The navy shipfitter class that Rod Spronk graduated with December 1, 1967. Rod is third from right in the second row from the back.