Knoxville in the Vietnam Era
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About this ebook
William Edward Hooper
Images of America: Knoxville in the Vietnam Era is author Ed Hooper�s third book for Arcadia Publishing. He is a longtime journalist and Knoxville resident who has covered East Tennessee and the South throughout his career as a general assignment and military affairs reporter.
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Knoxville in the Vietnam Era - William Edward Hooper
Guard.
INTRODUCTION
The years from 1961 to 1975 were a complicated stretch of time where everything seemed to change in Knoxville. A booming economy, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s hydroelectric dam projects, and the continued development of Oak Ridge increased Knoxville’s population tremendously, and social issues dominated current events.
In the forefront of it all, however, was the ongoing conflict in Southeast Asia and a war unlike any other. The headlines and analysis of newspapers in wars past gave way to the immediacy of television, and the Vietnam War became one fought in living rooms across the nation. With Americans two generations away from World War II, people who could never imagine the horrors of war suddenly viewed it in living color from the comfort of their own homes, and the effect was unpredictably powerful.
The government contractors headquartered in Knoxville and the longstanding military tradition of East Tennessee made the region a vital resource of products and personnel to the U.S. military. The city center, which had been creeping westward for a generation, suddenly stopped crawling and started racing west as interstates eased passage into Oak Ridge and to the supporting industries that sprang up to service the government village.
Longtime family farms gave way to subdivisions, and while hundreds of homes were filling the gaps between the city and Oak Ridge, a period of urban decay was launched in the once-pristine downtown section of Knoxville. With the opening of West Town Mall in 1972, a new way of shopping was born, and the busy streets of downtown Knoxville started falling silent for the first time in more than 100 years.
Small businesses and family dwellings began disappearing, and the city found itself economically anchoring to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT), and government offices—fighting to keep the downtown section alive and prevent brown fields
from overtaking what was once the industrial heartbeat of the Tennessee Valley. West Knox County suddenly became the fastest growing section in the region. From Papermill Road to Cedar Bluff, new business and industries starting springing up and the population in the area boomed.
The epic of the Vietnam War was always in the forefront of the American psyche, but it has to be remembered there were only three television networks and a handful of radio stations with news departments. Newscasts were short and information about the war in Vietnam limited. Social issues at home were the dominant conversation and competed for newscasts and ink space, not to mention the ongoing cold war between the United States and the USSR, Communism’s appearance on the United States’ doorstep in Latin America, and an anti-military movement that was in full force stateside, spurring distrust of the U.S. armed forces.
The distrust of the military found a home on college campuses across the nation and in East Tennessee. It became an attitude that bled into everyday society, and when the war ended, those men and women became the first American soldiers to return home from a war front with no victory celebrations, no ticker tape, not even a welcome home.
There were no heroes in their ranks as far as anyone was concerned. In fact, many of the soldiers were spit upon, accused of crimes they did not commit, and stripped of the pride and honor befitting a returning warrior. Those who had dodged the war, fled to Canada, or outright refused to go, however, were deemed heroes by the new standards. Yet the men and women who courageously served in Vietnam defined an entire generation of Americans and for good reason. More than three million people served in the Vietnam War, the United States spent $120 billion to fight it, and the casualty rate during that time period was incredible. More than 58,000 soldiers were killed, 2,000 went missing, and 300,000 were wounded.
There were so many great stories and discoveries that fell through the cracks of the nation in the Vietnam era, especially here in East Tennessee. This is a sample of those stories.
One
ABOVE TOP SECRET
James Thomas (Tom) Davis was your stereotypical East Tennessean who spent his time growing up hunting and fishing. With the Big South Fork as a playground, Davis was never far from his rifle or fishing rod throughout his youth, and when not working at his father’s drugstore, you could find him prowling in the rolling hills.
He went to Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville and married his high school sweetheart, and the couple worked to build a home. In 1959, with a year to go in college, Davis and his brother both quit school to join the U.S. Army under the buddy system
that allowed them to go through basic training together.
After training at Fort Jackson, Tom Davis was transferred by U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command to