Torie Hutchinson
The Corsair
The Vietnam War had a huge impact on America. Almost every American was affected by the war in some way. The Vietnam War even affected colleges. Pensacola State College professor Bill Clover experienced the war’s impact on teaching.
When Pensacola State College student Tiffany Miller was asked what an average school day is like she replied, “Wake up, go to class, and certain days work.” That was not the same for the average student during the Vietnam War. According to Bill Clover, “many of them didn’t have jobs like they do now.”
Clover has been teaching at Pensacola State College since 1966, when it was known as Pensacola Junior College. Clover started teaching during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War started in 1954 and continued until 1975.
During this time, many of his students were married to people serving in the military.
“A lot of students’ husbands were navigators, pilots for B-52s, jet pilots and helicopter pilots being trained here,” Clover said. “Pretty much all aircraft and Navy pilots were being trained here.”
With many students being married to members of the military, many teachers experienced first-hand the tragedies war can bring to the spouses of the ones serving.
“Three navigators, husbands of students were killed; the reason I knew that is because in the door would be one of the security people from the junior college, maybe the vice president and maybe a military sergeant or somebody. Sometimes if they knew there was a death they would send a chaplain from main side out here for people,” Clover said.
During the Vietnam War, when the death of students’ loved ones happened, many teachers did not know what to expect. Some teachers did not know how or when the student would be told if a situation did occur. Clover learned first-hand what it was like toward the beginning of his teaching career.
“The first time it happened I had no idea what was going on. When the vice president comes down and you haven’t been teaching very long you notice that. My class stopped working and I asked, ‘May I help you? What do you need?’ ‘We need to know do you have a student in your class.’ They would give me the name and I would be like, ‘Yeah she’s sitting right here.’
“The chaplain would go over and say something to her. She would burst into tears and the chaplain would comfort her and they would leave the room. So I was left with a class filled with people wondering what happened. Come to find out later, her husband was killed.”
Knowing that a person you see daily just found out the tragic news can startle anybody, especially in Clover’s situation.
“People that were in my class were about my age. They were college students so I knew a lot of these people,” he said.
Some teachers and former students still feel the pain from the Vietnam War.
“It still hurts me,” Clover said.