Interview, Gerald McDermott, USA

Gerald McDermott (b. 1948) was born in Ontario, Canada. He joined the United States Army on March 27, 1968, while living in Detroit, Michigan. McDermott completed basic training at Fort Knox, in Kentucky, and then attended leadership school. He became a Tactical Non-Commissioned Officer and worked with drill sargeants for nine months before being sent to Vietnam. McDermott manned a howitzer cannon in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from March 1969 to March 1970. He served a total of three years in the military and was honorably discharged from the Army in March 1971. After the war, McDermott worked as a sales representative for Murphy and Nolan, Inc. in Rochester, New York.

In this interview, McDermott identifies a sense of adventure that led him to join the United States Army even though he was a Canadian citizen. He notes that his parents did not want him to join the Army and that the only argument he ever had with his father was over his enlistment. McDermott recalls finding out about the war-related death of a good friend through a Time magazine article. He considers the year that he spent in Vietnam to be a defining period in his life and he shares that his wartime experiences left him jaded. He now volunteers to help veterans and pays his respects to the military personnel that never came home from Vietnam.