Guide to the Michael J. Carley (Class of 1962) oral history and papers relating to the Vietnam War, 1964-2014

John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Published in 2016

Collection Overview

Title:	Michael J. Carley (Class of 1962) oral history and papers relating to the Vietnam War
Date range:	1964-2014
Creator:	Carley, Michael John, 1939-1967
Extent:	0.25 Linear feet
Abstract:	This collection contains biographical information about Michael John Carley (Brown University Class of 1962), who was killed in action (KIA 670227) while copiloting a helicopter mission in the Vietnam War. Carley had flown 320 missions, entitling him to 16 Air Medals. A large part of the collection is in the form of an oral history and other recollections by his widow, Connie Worthington (Brown University/Pembroke Class of 1968). Worthington talks about their days as students at Brown University, Carley’s pilot training, his experiences in Vietnam and his memorial services, as part of the Vietnam Oral History Collections. There are also recollections about Mike Carley from his U.S.M.C. comrades from military-related sources and from a reunion with Connie, son Michael Carley, Jr. and the surviving members of Mike Carley's [Sr.] squadron. Includes a published book by Mike's brother, Richard Carley, titled "Growing up on the farm: a Sharon Mountain story" which includes historical recollections of the town of Sharon, Connecticut, and a remembrance of Mike.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number:	AMS.1U.C13

Scope & content

This collection contains biographical information about Michael “Mike” John Carley (1940-1967) (Brown University Class of 1962), who was killed in action (KIA 670227) while copiloting a helicopter mission in the Vietnam War. Carley had flown 320 missions, entitling him to 16 Air Medals (20 missions/Air Medal). A large part of the collection is in the form of an oral history and other recollections by his widow, Connie Worthington (Brown University/Pembroke Class of 1968). Worthington talks about their days at Brown University, Carley’s pilot training, his experiences in Vietnam and his memorial services, as part of the Vietnam Oral History Collections. There are also recollections about Mike Carley from his U.S.M.C. comrades from military-related sources and from a reunion with Connie, son Michael Carley, Jr. and the surviving members of Mike Carley's [Sr.] squadron. It also includes a published book by Mike's brother, Richard Carley, titled "Growing up on the farm: a Sharon Mountain story" which contains historical recollections of the town of Sharon, Connecticut, and a remembrance of Mike.

Series 1. Oral history: This series contains the audio recording, typed transcription and an edited typed transcription of the interview conducted by Professor Elizabeth Taylor of Connie Worthington, widow of Mike Carley, on July 13, 2010 as part of the Brown Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project. The interview begins with Connie Worthington describing how she met Mike Carley (circa 1963) in Rhode Island. Recollections in the interview include Mike's friendships with Alpha Delta Phi fraternity brothers and others, family relationships and history, and their wedding. Connie briefly touches on Officers Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia where Mike received his 2nd Lieutenant rank then recalls experiences of traveling south to Pensacola, Florida for helicopter training. This was in the summer of 1964, where they, as "Yankee" Northerners, felt discrimination from the locals and sensed the locals' aversion to differences like religion and skin color.

Mike Carley is sent to Ky Ha, South Vietnam (near Chu Lai, in QUang tTin Province, I Corps, South Vietnam), Connie recounts their conversations of the danger he was facing and her Rhode Island and Brown experiences with their son, living with her parents, and their R&R in Honolulu three weeks before he was killed. Connie shares some war stories she heard from Mike and describes letters written by Mike and some photographs of an airstrike she used to have. She describes being notified of his death by the Marines, the way she and others grieve, and the effect of his death and how becoming a Vietnam widow has shaped her life. She wanted their son, Michael Jr., to know his father's friends and family and now that he is an adult he maintains those relationships including attending reunions and arranging meetings. In a specially arranged meeting, Connie and Michael Jr. hear eyewitness accounts of Mike's death. Through Mike's surviving veteran friends, called the Ugly Angels, Michael Jr. becomes involved in the Veterans for Peace.

Connie ends the interview describing her involvement in the Junior League, and her writings and feelings about the war protests of the time. She expresses the parallels to and her sympathies with the families involved with the current wars (Afghanistan, Iraq).

Series 2. Articles: This includes text from articles and websites about Mike Carley: Article from Brown Alumni Monthly about the "Brown Club" in Ky Ha, Republic of Viet Nam (sent to Brown by Carley weeks before his death); postings from the Ugly Angels and the USMC Combat Helicopter Association about the death of Mike Carley; and writings about Vietnam Moratorium protest and civil rights by Connie Worthington.

Series 3. Photographs: Includes photographs of Mike and Connie Carley's wedding party (b&w), an aerial view of Ky Ha Vietnam (color) where Mike was stationed during his time in Vietnam, and a photo of Mike in a transport plane (color). Military portraits of Mike are in the collection as digital objects only. Photographs downloaded from the Pop-A-Smoke (USMC Combat Helicopter Association) website (www.popasmoke.com) include images of Mike and several of the Ky Ha installations and related areas and military experiences of the “Ugly Angels,” HMM-362.

Series 4. Memorials: This series contains programs for the Commencement Morning Worship and Alumni Memorial for Mike Carley and correspondence from Chaplin Charles Baldwin. The service program lists the deceased members of the Class of 1947 and also honors by name and class, "those Brown men who have given their lives during the Vietnam conflict."

Series 5. Supporting Materials: This series contains follow-up email communications among the interview participants for clarification of terms referenced and to arrange for copies of the materials shared during the interview. It also includes an exchange with squadron mate David Taylor who relays his perspectives on the history of some of the names and provides visual identification of aircraft used in the 1st Marine Corps aviation unit in Vietnam. Mike's brother, Richard Carley contributed his book "Growing up on the farm: a Sharon Mountain story" which includes historical recollections of farming in the town of Sharon, Connecticut, circa 1942-2010 and a remembrance of Mike.

Access Points

Subject Names

• Baldwin, Charles
• Duphiney, Randall W.
• Fix, Ronald E., 1942-2006
• Gurney, George
• Maloney , William R.
• Milmine, Charles E.
• Steinsieck, Robert T.
• Taylor, David E.
• Taylor, Elizabeth S. (Beth)
• Turner, James D.
• Worthington, Connie

Subject Organizations

• Alpha Delta Phi. Brunonian Chapter (Brown University).
• Brown University--Commencement.
• Brown University--Students
• Brown University. Class of 1966.
• Brown University. Naval ROTC.
• Junior League of Providence.
• United States. Marine Corps. Uniforms.
• United States. Marine Corps.
• United States. Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 362.
• Veterans for Peace, Inc.
• Vietnam Veterans Archive (Brown University).

Subject Topics

• Air pilots, Military
• Armed Forces -- Officers
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century
• farms
• Farms, Small
• Flight training
• Marines--Medals, badges, decorations, etc.
• Memorial service programs
• Military helicopters
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Aerial operations, American
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Casualties
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movements--United States

Geographical Names

• Camp Lejeune (N.C.)
• Da Nang (Vietnam)
• Khé Sanh (Vietnam)
• Ky Ha Marine Air Facility
• Marine Corps Base Quantico (Va.)
• Naval Air Station Pensacola (Fla.)
• Quang Nam, Vietnam
• Quang Tri (Vietnam : Province)
• Sharon (Conn.)

Occupations

• Military officers
• Officers, Military and naval

Document Types

• Color photographs

Subject Topics

• Military

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into 5 series.

• Series 1. Oral history
• Series 2. Articles
• Series 3. Photographs
• Series 4. Memorials
• Series 5. Supporting Materials

Biographical Note

First Lieutenant Michael “Mike” John Carley (1940-1967), United States Marine Corps, attended boarding schools in Western Connecticut, winning scholarships to attend first the Indian Mountain School, then Hotchkiss School. At Hotchkiss, Mike became close with classmates Charlie Milmine and George Gurney. During his sophomore year of high school, he earned his pilot’s license. Senior year, Mike accepted a Naval ROTC scholarship to attend Brown University in the fall of 1958, along with these two best friends. In the summer of 1963, preparing for his last semester at Brown, he met Connie Worthington. On their first date, Mike took her flying.

By January of 1964, when Mike finally completed his degree in Sociology, Connie and Mike were engaged to be married. After graduation, Mike was required to attend Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia to fulfill his NROTC contract. The couple married on June 6, 1964 at St. Sebastian’s Church, on the East Side of Providence. Mike then reported to the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. The couple lodged in a small, two-story apartment complex just outside the base while Mike completed basic flight training on the T-28 aircraft before opting into the helicopter track. The Carleys had moved to the eastern panhandle at the beginning of Freedom Summer, the June 1964 civil rights campaign to register Black voters in staunchly-exclusionist Mississippi. Even in the insular communities formed around military bases, life on the Emerald Coast was difficult for Connie and Mike. Connie remembers “a Rebel (brand) gas station refused to serve us because we had Connecticut plates on the car. Some of our friends, who were Northerners, got Florida plates rather than be identified as ‘Yankees’ during a very tense time.” In the fall of 1964, after Mike had made first lieutenant at Pensacola, the Carleys headed east to a small auxiliary base in Milton, Florida for air carrier training.

On November 7, 1964 in a civilian hospital in Avalon Beach, Mike Jr. was born. Though the baby was born a little early, the Carleys had to admit he was conceived before their wedding. “It was unacceptable in those days,” Connie explains, “but everyone was very kind. And my mother got over it.” As the couple moved from base to base to continue Mike’s training over the next 18 months, the Carleys learned to keep their Connecticut plates out of sight and stay quiet about his Catholicism and her occasional visits to the Quaker meetinghouse in Pensacola. From Milton, the Carleys moved to another naval auxiliary base in Pace, Florida before transferring to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. They would remain there from the spring of 1965 until June 1966, when Mike received orders for deployment to Ky Ha, I Corps, South Vietnam as an H-34 helicopter pilot in the “Ugly Angels,” HMM-362. With a month off before he was scheduled to deploy, Mike, Connie, and 18-month-old Mike Jr. headed back to the Chepachet, Rhode Island cabin where they had spent their wedding night.

Connie remembers having “lots of discussions, and ‘what if’ conversations” with Mike. An entire year had passed since the fall of Saigon, and everyone understood that Mike might not make it home. She and Mike were pragmatic, deciding that if something happened to Mike in the service, she’d go back to school, get her degree, and rely on her parents’ help to raise Mike Jr. The frank talk allowed them to relax and enjoy what would be their last weeks together in Rhode Island. In June of 1966, Mike flew to Camp Pendleton to prepare for deployment to Vietnam. At Ky Ha, Mike was known for spit-shining his flight boots and keeping a meticulous bunk. (His ironic nom de guerre: “Pig Pen.”)

Connie would get to see Mike one last time, for a Hawaiian R&R at the end of January 1967. “I was really worried about the R&R,” she admits, “Because I had been on a college campus that was mobilizing against the war, and he had been in a war zone. And I was afraid that we might have grown apart somehow.” She was relieved, though, to find that nothing had changed between her and Mike: “The minute we got together, it was still the same old, same old. I mean, it was just wonderful that we’d had such totally different experiences, which we talked about, but it was just great.”

Correspondence from “The Brown Club of Ky Ha” in January 1967 provided by Carley to Brown Alumni Magazine (published February 1967) noted that Carley had flown 320 missions, entitling him to 16 Air Medals (20 missions/Air Medal). On February 27, 1967, Mike was killed in action while copiloting a transport mission. Mike was shot through the windscreen and pilot Hippert was shot in the leg, but made his emergency landing. Other team members rescued Hippert and the remaining crew and organized a reaction force to recover Mike’s body. An hour later, a reconnaissance team recovered Mike’s body from where it hung in the straps. The funeral was held in Mike’s hometown of Sharon, Connecticut. Later there was a packed memorial service in Brown’s Manning Chapel, attended by Mike and Connie’s friends from Providence. Charlie Milmine and George Gurney came, along with Connie’s Rhode Island family.

Mike’s death marked a turning point in Connie’s political and personal life. “It became a different war after his death,” she reflects and she became involved with antiwar protests at Brown. She also faced economic adversity as a single mother.

In February of 1990, Connie and 26-year-old Mike Jr. travelled to Southern California to meet three Ugly Angels who had been at Ky Ha with Mike Sr. and who still felt guilty that Mike’s body had been left in the wrecked helicopter while he and the others were extracted. The meeting brought a sense of resolution for Mike Sr.’s team of Angels as much as for Connie and Mike Jr. “It was amazing,” Connie says. At the same time, “I don’t think anything really closes. I mean, I forget the dates, I forget the names, but I—as I said, it’s a part of who I am.” Connie and her husband, a Brown professor, continue to make their home in Rhode Island. “I couldn’t ask for a better partner in life. But I will always be a Vietnam widow. It always defines me.”

While Connie has remarried, she and Mike Jr. have remained close with the Carleys. Though he never enlisted, Mike Jr., who lives with Asperger’s syndrome, has travelled with American Veterans (AMVETS) and Veterans for Peace to complete postwar service projects in Iraq, Cuba, and Bosnia. Now in his 50s, Mike Jr., in addition to the Carleys has kept in touch with some of his father’s Marine Corps friends, even attending Ugly Angels reunions.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Use of the materials:	Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. Researchers should note that compliance with copyright law is their responsibility. Researchers must determine the owners of the literary rights and obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Preferred citation:	Michael J. Carley (Class of 1962) oral history and papers relating to the Vietnam War, MS-1U-C13, Brown University Library.
Contact information:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts Box A Brown University Providence, RI 02912 Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148 Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	Gift of Connie Worthington in 2012.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Finding aid prepared by Barbara Ambos.
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2016-02-04
Descriptive rules:	Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Related material:

Part of the Vietnam Veterans Archive (Brown University).See also the oral history of Connie Worthington, the widow of Michael Carley, created in 2015 which is part of the Christine Dunlap Farnham Oral History collection (OH.1S.2013.0002) in the Brown University Archives.

Inventory

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