Robert J. Hopkins

Robert “Bob” Hopkins was born in Philadelphia and moved to Bradley Beach, NJ with his family as a child.  Although his father, due to polio, did not serve in World War II, his grandfather had served in the military; so, such service was looked on as part of a normal life and expected of him when he grew up.

Hopkins went to St. Rose High School in Belmar, and then to Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, where he enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and majored in Sociology.

ROTC members usually went to summer camp between their junior and senior years of college, but Hopkins attended the camp after graduation, an option offered to him since he worked in the summers. After finishing summer camp, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army’s Artillery branch in 1967.

In November 1967, Hopkins was sent to the Artillery Branch School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma for his Officer Basic Course. He noted that his family ‘tradition of discipline and responsibility” helped prepare him for military service, yet it still took some adjustment.

Following Branch School, Hopkins was assigned to a Field Artillery unit stationed at Fort Irwin, California, a post out in the desert, which he described as extremely hot, with the temperature over 100 degrees on most days. He served there for six months before being sent to Panama to attend “Jungle School,” conducted by Army Special Forces personnel.  While Hopkins was taking the course, there was a revolution in Panama, which made things a little dicey.

Part of the jungle curriculum was traveling from “Point A” to “Point B” through the jungle, which involved crossing rivers and swinging on ropes. On completion of the three-week course, Hopkins went home for several days leave, and then he left for California to board a plane to Vietnam. His plane went to Alaska first, and then on to Vietnam, landing at night at “the busiest airport in the world,” Tan Son Nhut, with the sight of flares and explosions in the distance. After landing, he traveled by bus with chicken wire-covered windows to intercept grenades to Long Binh, a large base near Saigon used for channeling replacements and supplies to forward units. They were transported via jeep to Cu Chi, headquarters of the 25th Division. Along the way, he saw some dead VC enemy, killed the previous evening, lying beside the road.

At Cu Chi, Hopkins was assigned to Battery C of the 13th Artillery, where he was assigned to the Fire Direction Center bunker. There, firing orders were established and forwarded to the guns, and ‘laying in the guns’ when the battery moved to a new location to fully cover the potential target terrain.

Battery C traveled to several locations during operations to be able to support the infantry.  One of these was Fire Base Meade, southwest of Cu Chi, among the bases near Tay Ninh. The battery was armed with 155 mm guns, which fired a shell weighing around 98 pounds.

Hopkins wrote several letters to his family during his time in Vietnam; he brought these to the interview and read several for the taping.  Initially, he reported all that was going on, then realized it might disturb his mother.  (Vietnam veteran Joseph Bilby, who had served in the same area, returned from war and was dating his future wife, Hopkins’ sister’s best friend from high school, also downplayed the danger to Hopkins’ mother, but she was a perceptive lady and sensed otherwise.)

Hopkins recalled a prisoner exchange in which the North Vietnamese Army exchanged three captured American soldiers near Tay Ninh in December of 1968, a rare occasion at this stage of the war.

Hopkins said that life was not easy manning artillery fire bases in the area, but the gunners lived a lot better than the “grunts” or infantrymen out in the jungle. He and his men had cots in their bunkers; although, they had to endure rocket barrages, the worst of which occurred in January 1969. 

There were a number of dangers for artillerymen, however, especially when they were on operations where they had to move frequently. They had to erect barriers for potential infantry assaults or, more frequently, rocket attacks. On one occasion Hopkins left the bunker to repair some equipment damaged during a rocket attack and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal with “V” device for valor.