John Henry Hartman (Class of 1964) memoir relating to the Vietnam War (AMS.1U.H13)

Biographical/Historical note

John Hartman attended Brown University on a NROTC scholarship and graduated with the Class of 1964. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United State Marine Corps the same day he received his Brown diploma. He went immediately after graduation to The Basic School (TBS) at Quantico, Virginia and graduated in December 1964. He met his wife Carol during the fall of his senior year at an event at Wheaton College. They were engaged in the spring of 1964 and married on January 3, 1965.

The Hartmans moved to Pensacola, FL in February 1965 where John attended the Marine Corps flight school. He learned to fly H-34 helicopters and graduated from flight school in February 1966. He was then assigned to the Marine Corps Air Facility in New River, North Carolina where he learned to fly H-46 helicopters and was briefly a member of the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM) 261. During 2 weeks in October 1966 he endured Survival School in Bridgeport, CA where they were taught how to survive in the wilderness.

He arrived in Vietnam in February 1967 and was assigned to the I Corps military zone - the zone that bordered North Vietnam - with Da Nang as the largest city. He became a member of the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 165 (HMM-165) which flew H-46 helicopters and was stationed in Ky Ha, Vietnam. He flew 420 missions and earned 21 Air Medals during his time with HMM-165. The H-46 helicopter they flew had a design flaw that unpredictably caused the helicopter’s fuselage to break apart during flight with catastrophic effects usually resulting in the death of everyone on board. Hartman’s HMM-165 squadron did not experience any of these sudden structural failures but it made flying dangerous missions in the H-46 helicopters even more frightening.

In September 1967, he was reassigned as an Assistant Operations Officer (Helicopter) in the Operations Section of the Wing Commanding General’s staff located at Wing headquarters in Da Nang, Vietnam. The assistant operations officers were responsible for planning, scheduling, monitoring and readjusting as needed the daily helicopter operations of the Wing throughout the I Corps military zone. On March 8, 1968 he left Vietnam and returned to Pensacola, Florida and served as a helicopter flight instructor at the Naval Air Basic Training Command. He stayed there until he was honorably discharged on December 31, 1969.

After he left the Marine Corps he went to law school and had a career as a lawyer. He lives in Newcastle, Maine.