Guide to the Barry F. Kowalski (Class of 1966) oral history and papers relating to the Vietnam War, 1967-2014

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:	Barry F. Kowalski (Class of 1966) oral history and papers relating to the Vietnam War
Date range:	1967-2014
Creator:	Kowalski, Barry Frank
Extent:	1.25 Linear feet
Abstract:	This collection is primarily information from the interview of Barry Kowalski, Class of 1966 by Professor Beth Taylor of Brown University for the Vietnam Veterans Archive collection. The interview was by telephone, on February 21, 2011. The interview draws on Barry Kowalski’s recollections of his years at Brown (1962 to 1966, graduating with a B.A. in Political Science), and his military training and experiences in Vietnam. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the fall of 1966, and attended the Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia before receiving his commission. He wanted a non-combat position as a transport, communications, or supply officer—Military Operations Specialists (MOS), but he and his whole class were given commissions as infantry officers. He was in Vietnam from November 1967 - Summer 1968. Barry was stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. for his second and final year of service. There are some recollections about his return to the United States during the war era. In 1973, Barry earned his JD from Catholic University Law School. Since 1980, he has been a lawyer for the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. He has helped prosecute cases including the Rodney King beating and the last Department of Justice investigation of the Martin Luther King Assassination.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number:	AMS.1U.K5

Scope & content

Series 1. Oral History contains an oral history interview of Barry F. Kowalski by Professor Beth Taylor, Taylor's notes from her interview, and background information on Kowalski.

Series 2. Correspondence contains related emails in which points from the interview are clarified and arrangements are made for Barry F. Kowalski to donate objects related to his military service.

Series 3. Photographs contains images of Kowalski's experiences in Vietnam during the war.

Series 4. Publications includes articles detailing Kowalski's role as one of four federal prosecutors in the 1993 Rodney G. King civil rights trial. The articles offer insights into Kowalski's successful career as a civil rights lawyer following his service in Vietnam.

Series 5. Museum Objects includes items from his United States Marine Corps dress whites uniform, his jungle boots, a North Vietnamese Army helmet, and a United States Marine Corps military field map of Vietnam.

Correction: Frederic Read Chesebrough (1942-1967) was Class of 1964. He was known as "Derek" to peers and was President of Psi Upsilon. His last name has been misspelled as "Derek Chesborough" in Barry Kowalski's (1966) and James Gardner (1965) oral histories and profiles.

Access Points

Subject Names

• Fisher, Roger, 1922-2012
• Gumbleton, Thomas J.
• Lipset, Seymour Martin
• Miller, Howard B.
• Mydans, Seth
• Newton, Jim, 1963-
• Ostrow, Ronald J.
• Taylor, Elizabeth S. (Beth)
• Bacon, John Michael Wood
• Bacon, Vicki Puckett
• Calley, William Laws, Jr., 1943-
• Chesebrough, Frederic Read, 1942-1967
• Eschenfeld, George
• Higgins, Duncan
• King, Rodney, 1965-2012
• McGovern, George S., (George Stanley), 1922-2012
• Nixon, Richard M., (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
• Puckett, Michael O.
• Taylor, David E.
• Van Zelfden, Alan

Subject Organizations

• WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.).
• Brown University--Societies, etc.
• Brown University. Class of 1966.
• Ku Klux Klan (1915- ).
• Psi Upsilon Fraternity.
• Sanctuary (Ship).
• United States. Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division.
• United States. Marine Corps. Marine Regiment, 3rd. Battalion, 3rd. Lima Company.
• United States. Marine Corps. Uniforms.
• United States. Marine Corps.
• Vietnam Veterans Archive (Brown University).

Subject Topics

• African Americans--Civil rights
• African Americans--Crimes against--California
• American Lawyers and Judges
• Boots
• Broadcast journalism
• Draft--United States
• Hats
• Lawyers--United States--Biography
• Marines--Medals, badges, decorations, etc.
• Military orders
• My Lai Massacre, Vietnam, 1968
• Neo-Nazism
• Police--Complaints against--California
• Torture--United States
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Casualties
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Civilian war casualties
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Defenses
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Desertion, Military
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Military intelligence
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Prisoners and prisons
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movements--United States
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Reconnaissance operations, American
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Social aspects

Geographical Names

• Cam Lo (Vietnam)
• Camp Lejeune (N.C.)
• Con Thiên Mountain (Vietnam)
• Khé Sanh (Vietnam)
• Marine Corps Base Quantico (Va.)
• Quang Tri (Vietnam : Province)
• Vietnam (Republic)
• Vietnam Demilitarized Zone (Vietnam)

Occupations

• Lawyers
• Military officers
• Officers, Military and naval

Document Types

• Maps
• medals
• military maps

Subject Topics

• Military

Arrangement

• Series 1. Oral history
• Series 2. Correspondence (emails)
• Series 3. Photographs
• Series 4. Publications
• Series 5. Museum Objects related to Barry F. Kowalski

Biographical/Historical note

Barry Frank Kowalski (b. 1944, August 26) is the son of Frank Kowalski, a liberal Democratic former United States Representative from Connecticut, and Helen Amelia Kowalski. He attended high school in the Washington D.C. and northern Virginia area, and participated in track in field. He specifically wanted to attend an Ivy League school and enrolled at Brown in 1962 (Class of 1966). His recollections of Brown are more of the social life than the academic life. His dorm was next to the Psi Upsilon fraternity. He and his roommate, Duncan Higgins became friends with some of the “Psi U’s” and ended up becoming a “Psi U” where Derek Chesebrough (a Brown personality and friend who was killed in Vietnam) was its president.

In the summer between his Junior and Senior years, he worked for Hubert Humphrey, Vice President of the United States in Humphrey’s office on Capitol Hill. Kowalski felt increasingly sure he wanted a career in politics after Brown. After graduating he went back to work for Humphrey.

While Barry had always supported the military, he was very much opposed to the Vietnam War from its beginning. The combination of a discomfort with the draft, disinterest in graduate school, and desire to carry on his family’s tradition of military service led Barry to join the Marines in August 1966. He attended the Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia before receiving his commission. He wanted a non-combat position as a transport, communications, or supply officer—Military Operations Specialists (MOS), reasoning that if he trained as a marine officer and then requested an MOS position, in all likelihood he would get it. His training ended in April 1967, he was married in June and he and his wife lived together in the DC area. He then learned he and his whole OCS class were given commissions as infantry officers. Going into battle had never been part of Barry’s philosophy, and the news was devastating. Barry seriously considered fleeing to Canada with his wife. After reflection on this, he felt it was easier to be sent off to war than take a principled position, desert and become an exile in another country.

He was in Vietnam in November 1967. He remembers the flight to Vietnam. He was 22 years old, unsupportive of the war, and afraid of dying. He felt that his lack of commitment to the war would compromise his ability to be an infantry officer, but was forced to accept he had no other option. In November of 1967, Barry was stationed along the DMZ in what was known as the Leatherneck Square (the countryside of Con Thein, Gio Linh, Alpha 3, and Cam Lo Bridge). He was a Lieutenant of the 3rd Platoon in Lima Company—of the 3rd Battalion—the 3rd Marines in command of 40 men. He found himself in the situation of simultaneously giving orders to kill people and giving orders to try to keep people alive.

Occasionally his platoon would retreat to combat rear -- where the division and regimental headquarters were -- for a few days of rest and recuperation (R and R). Most often they were in a firebase out in the field or on patrol. During Barry’s period of service, lieutenants were especially vulnerable. Of the twenty-plus lieutenants in his battalion, Barry was the only one who wasn’t killed or wounded. Barry was promoted to Executive Officer, the second in command after the company commander. “In a combat situation the executive officer really has nothing to do, no command responsibility,” Barry explains. “You only take over if something happens to the company commander and your main job is to take care of the casualties.”

Barry’s platoon was outside the reach of the Tet Offensive in January 1968. He was on the DMZ in constant combat but far from the targeted population centers. He did not learn of the Tet Offensive and the fall of Hue and Saigon until he went to Hawaii on R and R, meeting his wife there. Then, after six months in combat, Barry got sick and was sent to the hospital ship “Sanctuary” for a month. During that time, his wife gave birth to a daughter, Kelly, on Father’s day 1968. After recovering, he returned to the field as an advisor to the Revolutionary Development Cadre, a counter-Vietcong effort to politicize the countryside. He advised a Vietnamese major in charge of 1500 people. Barry survived his tour and in the summer of 1968 was stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. for his second and final year of service. He still had doubts about the war and would take his position against the war in arguments at parties where someone would be defending it. Eventually Barry learned to carry Army applications. “I would pull it out and hand it to the guy and say, ‘You think the war is so great? Join up.’ And then you would hear somebody’s college they had to finish, or his wife, or his family obligation or some damn thing—excuse that he had for not going and I would look him in the eye and tell him that he was a coward. If he felt that way he ought to be over there fighting, not making someone else go fight the war for him. And that’s why I went, to be able to say that.”

In 1970, after finishing his service contract and preparing to begin law school, he and his first wife divorced. In the fall of 1972, Barry worked as Co-Director of Veterans for [George] McGovern during his 1972 Presidential campaign against Richard Nixon. Barry had intended to go into politics, but working on the McGovern campaign disillusioned him.

In 1973, Barry earned his J.D. from Catholic University Law School and was offered a high-paying job at a large law firm. Since 1980, he has been a lawyer for the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. He prosecutes federal crimes where someone has, in the course of the crime, interfered with the constitutional rights of another person. He has helped prosecute some very high profile cases including the Rodney King beating and the last Department of Justice investigation of the Martin Luther King Assassination. Barry enjoys his three daughters (Kelly, from his first marriage, and two daughters from his second marriage, ages 9 and 14 at time of the 2011 interview). “If I hadn’t gone into the Marine Corps I would have been a hippie,” Barry says. “I am a very unconventional lawyer. I am a lawyer who prosecutes criminal civil rights cases. I don’t prosecute drug dealers and bank robbers, violent crime and corporate crime. I prosecute those who violate the United States Constitution and commit crimes in the course of it. So that’s a rather hippie-like kind of lawyer I guess, right?...although I do it in a grey suit.”

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:	Barry F. Kowalski (Class of 1966) oral history and papers relating to the Vietnam War, AMS-1U-K5, 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 Barry Frank Kowalski in 2012.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Finding aid prepared by Barbara Ambos.
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2016-01-13
Descriptive rules:	Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Related material:

Part of the Vietnam Veterans Archive (Brown University). Barry's class in training was written about in "The boys of '67 : Charlie Company's war in Vietnam" / Andrew A. Wiest [ ISBN: 9781780962023; 9781780968940 (e-pub)]; Oxford, UK ; Long Island City, NY : Osprey Pub., 2012.

Inventory

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