
PART I:
Vietnam shaped a generation of Americans and changed the country forever. The divisive conflict lasted well over a decade, during which more than 58,000 Americans were killed and 300,000 were wounded. The war bitterly divided the nation, bringing protests and mistrust of the government, as well as inflation and a reluctance to enter into foreign conflict for decades. It saw an end to the draft and it lowered the voting age. Soldiers returned home to name-calling instead of ticker-tape parades and many veterans struggled to make sense of the horrors of war. Despite all that, many south Alabamians bravely fought for their country and did their duty as soldiers, medics, and more. Of the approximately 2.7 million Americans who served in the war, less than 600,000 are alive today. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 2025, Mobile Bay Magazine is sharing the stories of four local veterans in four monthly installments. We honor their bravery and commitment to our country, and thank them for their service.
First Lieutenant Skeeter Morris

Skeeter Morris joined the ROTC in 1963, during his freshman year at the University of Alabama, when military training was mandatory for most male students. Recruits could opt out after two years in the program, but those who stayed received $40 a month.
“Forty dollars a month seemed a sufficient incentive,” Morris said. “I guess I was a cheap date.”
Morris, co-founder of Courtney & Morris Real Estate, was in his first year of law school at the University of Alabama in 1968, the year North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh sent 80,000 troops and Viet Cong in the Tet Offensive. It was a surprise strike on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam in January 1968. The campaign was named after Tet, the start of the Lunar New Year and the most important holiday in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive ended in April 1968 as a defeat for the communists, but many American and Vietnamese soldiers died during the campaign, reducing American public support of the war.
Back at Alabama, Morris knew the American government would respond by sending more troops to Vietnam.
“As each day passed, the likelihood grew of more people my age having a firsthand experience in Vietnam.”
The Army summoned Morris to Fort Benning where he attended infantry officer school for nearly a year. While many soldiers received orders to fight in infantry divisions, Morris was assigned to the Military Army Command, Vietnam (MACV). MACV teams were small groups of Americans alone in remote areas of Vietnam providing military advice and assistance to the South Vietnamese Ministry of Defense.
“What was I going to advise on?” Morris remarks now. “That was 1970. I had been in the service for a year and didn’t know anything about Vietnam or how to shoot and kill.”
Morris attended a Vietnamese language school near Saigon for three days before heading off to live with Vietnamese units. His small team included commissioned and non-commissioned officers plus local interpreters to help navigate the language and culture. Their first stops were the Cam Ranh Bay area, which had a large American port and air base, and Nha Trang with boulevards and architecture from the French colonial era and a large American field hospital on the South China Sea. From there, Morris’ team headed into the mountains and jungle.
“I didn’t feel any danger in the beginning. But the first time I heard gunfire, I hit the dirt,” Morris said. “It could have been miles away. My interpreter looked at me on the ground and asked, ‘What’s wrong, Lieutenant?’”
Morris’ team shadowed The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), a post-colonial army trained by the U.S. The Americans were eyes on the ground, reporting locations of rocket firings and evidence of Vietcong or North Vietnamese activity.
“We looked for where the Viet Cong fired rockets, but those were big mountains,” said Morris. “Sometimes we were so close to the other side that we could hear their radio or them talking at night. I kept thinking this was unbelievable.”
Morris rarely reported from urban or populated areas, going with the Vietnamese to places unreachable by American troops. He spent some of his time with the Montagnard people, mountain dwellers who lived simply in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The Montagnards sided with the South Vietnamese and Americans in the war.
“I went with my interpreter to the mountains, never knowing if I was in harm’s way,” Morris said. “Something could happen in a split second.”
Top One of Morris’s interpreters, Sgt. Vinh, in front of a Montagnard hut. An idyllic scene of the waters of the South China Sea lapping the shore. Bottom Morris and his platoon had just returned from a mission with Sgt. Chie. The second figure to his left was one of the interpreters. The photo was taken a day or two before he departed for R&R. Tragically, the base camp these folks had was overrun in that time frame.
The Montagnards knew Morris was there to help and set up a perimeter at night so he could sleep safely.
“They were armed with Tommy guns, like the ones in the Dick Tracy cartoons,” said Morris. “I didn’t know those guns really existed.”
Morris’ wife, Stephanie, sent him a box of dresses and coats to give to Montagnard villagers. As Morris was leaving for the last time, the tribe’s chief gave him a crossbow made from rosewood. “That crossbow is almost unbendable,” Morris said. “I saw them carrying big tigers that they killed with crossbows. There were no grocery stores: hunting and fishing is how they got their food.” There were no roads, so Morris and his interpreter left the village carrying the crossbow “on a pig trail in the middle of nowhere.”
“We shouldn’t have been doing any of this, but I was leaving the country soon and wanted to get the clothes up there.”
They were suddenly surrounded. Morris didn’t understand the dialect of the men pointing AK 47s at them as his interpreter explained what was happening. It was unclear if these were Viet Cong or just looking for prey. Morris believes many Vietcong were coerced to fight because they were hungry and desperate.
“My interpreter explained that we were there because we liked the Montagnard and were trying to help them,” Morris said. “They gave us back the crossbow and said, ‘Go on.’”
Morris still has that crossbow.
Morris stayed at the MACV compound on the South China Sea, when he wasn’t in the jungles or mountains. He describes it as a beautiful, tranquil area as the water lapped onto the shore of the compound. Morris had a little trailer to himself, just big enough for a bathroom and a bed.
Getting to know the Vietnamese in their villages gave Morris a different experience than most Americans in Vietnam. He built trust and became friends with his interpreters. He ate in local restaurants and tried foods Americans weren’t accustomed to eating, such as snakes.
“Snake was really crunchy. I needed more rice wine to get through it,” Morris said. “It was a mistake asking what I was eating because it would take a lot more rice wine.”
Morris said there was no room for condescension. He was there to help the people, and the interpreters were there to help him.
“Through the luck of the draw, I ended up with the Vietnamese people,” he said. “I accepted them, and they accepted me.”
Morris left Vietnam in 1972. He was never wounded, but had gotten used to possible violence. Back home, a thunderstorm would wake him in the middle of the night, and he would think everything was coming down on him.
“My wife says I was a little more serious after I returned home from Vietnam,” Morris said. “It was a stark contrast living in the two civilizations. But it was a lovely country with great people.”

The country and people provided such a positive experience that Morris and his wife sponsored several Vietnamese families to become U.S. citizens. One was John Dang, his interpreter who specialized in electronics and made sure they kept communicating from the field in Vietnam, even during emergencies. Dang and his wife arrived at the Mobile Airport carrying a small suitcase with everything they owned, plus the china and chopsticks they brought as gifts. Morris picked them up and immediately called a friend who owned a burglar alarm company. Dang went to work the next day, installing an alarm system at a Gayfers department store. Dang and his wife moved into a house around the corner from Morris. He graduated from Bishop State and worked for COMSAT, a global communications company, traveling the world.
“Twenty years after Vietnam, I learned Dang had a photographic memory,” Morris said. “I’ve never run across anyone else like him. He’s very humble, and we’re still friends.”
Morris says sponsoring these Vietnamese families was a reminder of what America is about. Although they didn’t finish grammar school in Vietnam, they worked hard and became a part of the middle class in the U.S.
“My family members are different people because of my experiences in Vietnam,” Morris said.
“We went back to Vietnam, and my children grew up with Vietnamese influences in our house.”
Morris knows the horror stories of Vietnam and acknowledges that his experiences are different from most.
“People on both sides are still sorting through the ashes of Vietnam and wondering why we did this,” Morris said. “But my experience is that we are all human creatures who may look, speak and eat differently, but there’s a basic thread that ties us together. I feel fortunate to have been there. Human adaptability helps you through it.”