Veteran's Corner - Allen Cochrane

LACROSSE – Local veteran Allen Cochrane joined the Marines in March of 1966, and was active until 1969 leaving with the title of Sergeant.

"I went to boot camp in the middle of July 1966," Cochrane said, noting that boot camp was only 8 weeks long when it's normally 18 to 32 weeks.

"We were losing Marines in Vietnam so fast," he said, "So the drill instructor said listen closely you might be able to stay alive, because you're all going to go to Vietnam."

Cochrane explained that his younger brother by two years had gone into the marines the year before, and Cochrane had wanted to go into the Navy.

"I wanted to be in Nuclear Submarines, but Dad wanted me to go to medical school, because he was a doctor," Cochrane said.

He explained that one night a friend of his came by his place and said let's go join the Marine Corps your brothers in.

"I said let's think about that," Cochrane said, adding that they then decided to go drinking.

"I woke up first thing in the morning, and we were in Spokane," he said, adding that they were in front of the recruiting station.

The two men went to the front door, Cochrane explained, the Marine first sergeant asked what they wanted, and they responded to join the Marine Corps. When asked if they'd been drinking they said yes most of the night, and the Sergeant gave them tickets for a free breakfast to go down the street, drink a lot of coffee, and come back around 10:30 or 11 a.m. to see if they wanted them in the Marines.

"Of course they wanted us," Cochrane said, adding that they both had a little college education and were warm bodies.

They did a written test, and a physical test, Cochrane explained, adding that he had tried to deceive the doctors so that they didn't realize he had no arches in his feet.

"I would have never had to go to the service," he said, adding that when the doctor pointed out he was curling his toes to make it look like he had arches in his feet he had to admit it. The doctor asked if he really wanted to go in the Marines Corps or the service, and he said yes he did.

Cochrane's friend had a trick knee, he explained, but they needed bodies so the doctor said they'd take them but they'd both be sorry in boot camp, "and we were," Cochrane said.

After a 120 day delay before boot camp, Cochrane spent eight weeks in a boot camp in San Diego then got sent to stations for further training after that.

When Cochrane first went in he had signed up for four different things, he explained, adding that once you signed your name the Marine Corps you belonged to them, and they could make you do whatever they wanted

"They also made sure that we understood that if you can't go to work for any reason other than near death that they could court martial you, because you belonged to them," he said, adding that he had hoped he'd get into the Engineers, Artillery, or the infantry.

He would be sent to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina first, where he spent two hours before he was sent to a different school for teletyping.

"Nobody used teletype anymore, so I got myself kicked out," he said, noting that they sent him back to Camp Lejeune where he was put in Radio Relay at a communications company.

"I went to Vietnam in 1967, got there in July, and was put in a radio relay company," he explained.

Cochrane explained that working in Radio Relay they were loaned out to everybody, so they were attached to a variety of different places and units.

"Everyone from Marine Corps outfits to the first calvary of the Army, the Korean Marines from Korea, about anybody that needed some kind of communications," he said.

Working in Radio Relay he would set up what looked like a TV antenna, and people would run their communication telephone lines to the radio, he explained, another radio somewhere else would have a similar radio to communicate. This would make it to where they didn't have to have telephone lines between different fire bases or landing zones.

While he was stationed with the Korean Marines south of Da Nang, Vietnam for a while he was the only one in the unit with a military driver's license, he explained.

"When I first got to Vietnam my commander said, well since you have a little bit of college and a driver's license, military one, you're going to teach Driver's Ed to kids that have never driven before," Cochrane said, explaining that his first rule the commander gave him was that if a student ran over somebody he was not supposed to let them stop.

This was because the national police would have gotten involved and it would have cost the United States a lot of money to buy him out of jail, he noted.

Cochrane explained that he taught that for a month or so before he was loaned to different teams, and was able to see I Corps. Where he was just south from Chu Lai to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

At the time they were spraying Agent Orange, he explained, a herbicide they used to kill the jungle

When he first saw them spraying it there was no controversy about Agent Orange.

"I thought they were spraying for mosquitos and stuff, and then somebody told me no they're spraying to try and kill the jungle, but nobody ever put it together that this stuff could be dangerous," he said, adding that they drank the water that had Agent Orange in it, crawled in the dirt, lived in the dirt, breathed the dirt.

"Just everybody was exposed in some way, although in different measures to Agent Orange," he said.

Cochrane wanted to join the service, because his father was a doctor in WWII, "they trained him to go to the Pacific but then they sent him to Germany," he said.

"I had a couple uncles that had served during WWII," Cochrane said about his family that served. He added he also had a relative who was in the military who was an Army helicopter pilot killed in Vietnam, and an uncle and an aunt who served during WWII. She was a nurse, and he was a psychiatrist. He also had a female cousin who joined the Army as a nurse in Vietnam where she met her husband, an Army officer.

Cochrane loves living in the Palouse, and said that joining the military is a great way to learn discipline.

"If you go to a combat zone then ... your values will be discarded or broken because the military's main job is killing other human beings," Cochrane said, he added that in order for it to be alright in your mind they have to dehumanize other human beings. His advice is to get help as soon as you get back, because you won't come back the same.