Minnehaha Springs — Daniel R. Knight was 22 years old on November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. On that day of national tragedy, Knight received a notice in the mail, informing him he would be inducted into the Army.

From 1948 until 1973, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means. A lottery draft replaced the "oldest men first" draft in 1969.

In 1963, less than 20,000 American servicemen were stationed in Vietnam. After becoming President, Lyndon B. Johnson reversed JFK's drawdown and changed the U.S. goal from supporting South Vietnamese forces to defeat of communist forces.

By the end of 1965, more than 184,000 U.S troops served in South Vietnam;  by 1968, more than half a million.

Knight served in South Vietnam in 1963-1964 as the troop escalation began, and provided interesting perspectives on the early phase of the war.

Before starting basic training, Knight was required to take an aptitude test.

"I was placed into the Signal Corps because, when you first go in, even before you start basic training, they administer a battery of tests of one type or another," he said. "There was one test where you had to do Morse code. I don't even think the Army used Morse code at the time, but the test involved trying to make messages in Morse code. I did good enough -  two-and-a-half words a minute - and anybody who did well on that test was automatically stuck into the Signal Corps."

Although he suffered from asthma, Knight never thought to avoid the service due to the condition. Knight completed basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and excelled at his Signal Corps training at Fort Gordon, Georgia.

"I did quite well," he said. "I was the top graduate in my company and I was also the honor graduate for that entire segment of the Signal Corps school."

The school commander, Major Carl Sands, Jr., presented Knight with an honor graduate certificate and a plaque at the graduation ceremony. Knight still has an official Army photograph of the event.

The young man soon found himself working as a switchboard operator at My Tho, South Vietnam, south of Saigon, on a small base at a former Catholic monastery. He replaced an operator who had been injured in a bomb blast.

"He was injured in a bomb explosion," he said. "The Viet Cong were great for having homemade bombs. IEDs are not something new. The Viet Cong did it in the early 60s. They packed a bicycle frame full of plastic explosive and leaned it against a juice stand, where he got it. He was totally deafened in one side, so he was sent back to the States."

Communications is vital to military operations and Knight had high-ranking officials on his network.

"I was assigned to a small 12-line switchboard in the back room of the mess hall at MAC-V [Military Advisory Command-Vietnam] Support Command," he said. "I had the commanding general of Support Command, Jumping Joe Stilwell, on my switchboard. Why they had this little 12-line jobbie, I don't know."

Knight was in Vietnam during the Gulf of Tonkin incident and said most of his comrades thought it was a trumped-up effort to escalate the war.

"Not too long into August of 1964, they had the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident, which we used as an excuse to really start building up and really start fighting a war in Vietnam," he said. "At that time, we were there, technically, under the U.N. auspices as advisors.

"They told us when we left the States, 'you might as well send your civvies [civilian clothes] home, you're not going to be able to go off-base unless you're in uniform.' When we got there, it was the exact opposite. We were not allowed to leave Ton Son Nhut air base unless you had civvies on because they didn't want counted how many people were there. We were already over the authorized number of uniformed personnel we were allowed to have under the U.N. cease fire."

Knight was not at a switchboard, but on guard duty at his compound for the entire month of August 1964. South Vietnamese police helped with security, but U.S. troops did not trust the local police whatsoever, according to Knight.

"We had the Vietnamese police force, the national police force," he said. "We always called them the white mice. They wore all white uniforms and they were quite timid. The first sign of trouble - they disappeared."

Knight and his wife, Caroline, now enjoy a peaceful life at their Minnehaha Springs home.

Knight was the latest county vet to participate in the Veterans History Project. The entire interview has been submitted and will soon be posted on the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project website at www.loc.gov/vets/.

Liz Gay, of Marlinton, and PCHS students have interviewed veterans for the project in the past. Audio and video interviews of wartime veterans  and civilians in support of military operations are being collected and submitted to the Library of Congress, for inclusion in a permanent, national collection.

Anyone who knows a veteran interested in participating in the Veterans History Project should call Geoff Hamill at 304-799-4973.