Fighting in a war that seemingly tore a nation apart at home, Ben Gaston was literally front and center in the Vietnam War. The Greenville native had begun his collegiate studies at Mississippi State University when the war was heating up. He and his roommate weren’t much for the serious side of college and they both decided to join the Army. Gaston volunteered for the draft in 1969 and packed up for Fort Bragg, North Carolina and was trained as an Infantryman.
“Back then, once you finished training that put you on a plane to Vietnam,” Gaston said.
He served for one year in an Infantryman Unit that ran the Central Highlands.
“We called it the Free Fire Zone because there were no friendlies up in there. We’d go out on platoon or squad size missions,” he said. “Our basic mission was search and destroy. We’d look for their supply depots and destroy them and of course, we had fire fights.”
In May of that same year, then US President Richard Nixon had decided the war would extend to Cambodia.
“The first guys went in the day before our unit went in but unfortunately they were waiting on us when we got there so we had a pretty good firefight,” Gaston explained.
His duties included standing watch at night and also going on ambushes at night.
“We didn’t have conflict every day but when we did it was usually pretty good,” he said. “I was young enough and thought I was invincible. So did the rest of the guys. Everything we had in the world, we carried on our backs. Your personal items (soap, towel, hand cloth ad such) were in a M16 ammo can and the rest was ammo and food.”
Gaston served as a radio operator for three months and a machine gunner for three months and walked point for about six months.
“When you walked point, you rotated. You didn’t do that every day. It was actually the safest place sometimes. They (enemy) would let the first squad go through and then they’d open up.”
In all of his frontline action, Gaston was never wounded and called it “God’s will and luck. There were lots of young men who didn’t make it. Sometimes we didn’t even know who they were because they hadn’t been with the unit long enough for us to know them. The difference between Vietnam and these later wars, we were replacements for people who had been killed. We didn’t go over as a unit and weren’t trained together. Now they train together and go over as a unit.”
Being on patrol and on the front lines, Gaston’s unit didn’t have mail call to keep a close contact with his friends and family back home.
“The only contact you had was by letters and in the field you just didn’t have time to write. Actually, I think that was better on the families. These guys today go out on a mission and come back to the barracks and connect to families on the Internet and I think that makes families worry more.”
Gaston’s unit would go on patrol for 60 days at a time and then come in and restock and go out for another 60 days. After his one year fighting, he came home to Fort Hood and served for six months in the armored division. He was an E5 Sergeant when his two-year commitment ended.
Once home, Gaston enjoyed some simple pleasures he hadn’t had in quite some time.
“I appreciated the simple things like a good glass of water, a shower, a bed – you’d be surprised how humble you get when you go through something like that,” he said.
Once home after serving his two-year commitment, Ben married Scott Sherry a week after getting back to the Delta. He had postponed getting married because he didn’t want her to feel obligated to him if he came back severely injured like many before him had.
“She had graduated from Ole Miss and was a teacher. We had put it off till I got back,” he said.
After the war he would come home and finish his degree in Chemistry at Delta State University. But after being out of the Army for a year, Gaston re-upped – this time with the National Guard as an enlisted man and later on as a direct commission.
“I spent 40 years in the National Guard and retired as a Major General – the highest rank you can get in the state. We did a lot of training and I mobilized for Iraq in 2005 but I had a health condition that kept me from going,” Gaston said. “Most of our work was done in the state with major disasters like (Hurricane) Katrina.”
He noted that “in the Guard, I got to build a lot of long-lasting friendships with some people that really wanted to do the right thing.”
Looking back over his military service, Gaston was appreciative of the leadership skills he was taught. His work career began in Cleveland as a chemist but lacking business skills, he went back to school at Delta State and got his MBA and a Master’s in Chemistry and one in Strategic Studies.
“I came to Indianola in 1981 and worked for the old Lewis Grocery Company (then Super Valu) in Risk Management and then I cultivated my career with them as a General Manager,” he said.
He later worked for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and was tasked with building up the Disaster Reservist Force from 14 members.
“We drove it up to 400 members and I had done my task so I came back to Indianola,” he said. “Once back here, I had an opportunity to work for Families First and we did a lot of great work in the community until they had their welfare scandal and had to shut down.”
He then ran for County Supervisor and was just re-elected for his second term.
“I love it. I really do,” he said. “Once you retire you get mighty bored and this keeps you active. I know more about the roads in Sunflower County than I ever thought I would (laughing.)”
Gaston has kept up with many of his National Guard buddies but it’s harder to keep up with his Vietnam platoon.
“We came in one at a time and we left one at a time so it’s hard to keep up with any of them. But with the National Guard, we have an association meeting every year and I’ve got a lot of close friends in the Guard.”
The Army veteran is also a member of the American Legion Post #2 in Indianola. Looking back over his career, he’s appreciative of the opportunity.
“In the long run, the military was good to me.”
