Famous People Who Actually Served In The Vietnam War

Millions of men were sent to fight in Vietnam during the 1960s and '70s. The war was incredibly controversial, and over 58,000 American troops died fighting that losing battle. 

Since the whole thing was such a quagmire, there are plenty of things about the Vietnam War that don't make sense. However, one of the most perplexing questions is why anyone who was starting out in their career as a professional athlete or an actor sign up to fight instead? Why would a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth do the same? Life as a soldier in the Vietnam War was notoriously terrible, even if you weren't killed or injured. Sure, some people in those categories were drafted and had no choice but to go fight or risk jail time, but those who signed up of their own free will had motivations that varied wildly.

All of these men — and they are all men, as no women who served in various non-combat roles in Vietnam appear to have gone on to become famous — would eventually have incredibly successful careers. However, their experiences in Vietnam forever changed them. Here are the famous people who actually served in the Vietnam War.

The actor Richard Chaves has been successfully working in Hollywood for decades, but he is most famous for his role as Jorge "Poncho" Ramirez in "Predator." He grew up in a military family, as his father was an officer in the Marines. So when he was assigned a low draft number, he decided to face the inevitable head-on. 

Chaves signed up with the Army in 1970 and served one tour in Vietnam. In a 1989 interview with Starlog magazine, he said, "Sometimes, you remember things you wish you didn't. You did what you were told. The war would have been over much quicker, but they wouldn't let us do it the right way. We didn't have any say."

The conflict would end up shaping the rest of Chaves' life. His acting career began when he co-wrote and starred in a play about Vietnam veterans called "Tracers." The show was a huge hit. Chaves explained, "We sat around and wrote it, based on our own experiences. Everybody came to see the play, Stanley Kubrick, Jon Voight, Oliver Stone. I've been told by these people that our play influenced all subsequent movies about Vietnam." 

Chaves would go on to star in many other Vietnam War-related shows and movies. Even when they weren't directly about the war, he could feel the weight of it. While filming "Predator," he remembers, "When we were out there in the jungle, it was just like being back in Vietnam, for the most part, both physically and emotionally."

Harris "Hurley" Haywood would eventually become a champion race car driver by winning some of the toughest events in the world, including the famous 24-hour Le Mans three times. However, just as his career was beginning, he received his draft notice. Haywood admits that his family had enough influence that they could have pulled strings to get him out of military service, but he chose to accept going to Vietnam. 

"I was drafted in 1970," Haywood told Men's Health, "and I had a very low number, so I was shipped overseas. I spent most of my tour telling everyone how I wanted to get back home and drive race cars." Despite his military service interrupting his day job, Haywood chooses to see the positives of his war service when it came to his subsequent career. He credits the situational awareness he gained from being shot at for making him a better driver. 

In an interview with the Department of Defense, he explained how war forced him to learn to rapidly adapt to changing conditions — something that also helps when driving a racecar. "[In the military,] if you get too locked into one thing, you're not going to be able to react quickly enough. That part was hugely beneficial to me on the professional side ... I think that when I came back to the States in 1971 and started racing, I had a huge advantage over my peers at that point because they didn't have that experience."

The film director Oliver Stone is famously political, an interest that led to him fighting in Vietnam. In the 1960s, Stone taught in South Vietnam for a year but decided his time in the country was not over. "I went back because I didn't feel that I knew enough. I didn't want to be a fraud," Stone told students at San Diego State University. "I felt like I had to go to this war to understand it. I had to go back. I had already seen a bit of it from the fringes, but I went right into the heart of it in '67."

Stone saw a lot of action in the war, recounting in his memoir what it was like to be under fire, sheltering from massive bombs, and seeing men die next to him. He was wounded twice during combat and received the Bronze Star with valor.

Stone's experiences would affect his work, especially his film "Platoon," which is considered by many to be one of the most accurate war movies ever made. The film's technical advisor was retired Marine Captain Dale Dye, who also acted in the movie. He and Stone were the only two Vietnam veterans on set, and it affected them both deeply. In an interview with the Department of Defense, Dye said, "We had employed actual Vietnamese refugees that we'd found in the Philippines and being surrounded by extras shrieking and conversing in Vietnamese brought us both right back to Nam."

After winning the Heisman Trophy, future Super Bowl MVP and legendary Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach served in Vietnam, putting a promising athletic career on hold by joining the Navy. That meant a four-year commitment and knowing he was almost certainly going to be sent overseas. Still, the sport he loved was never off his mind while he was deployed. "Sure, I miss football, in fact, quite a bit. But, I hope to get a chance to play service ball while in the Navy," he told Stars and Stripes in 1966. "I honestly feel I can make it. I hope to stay in good condition, although it's difficult here because there aren't any recreation facilities."

While Staubach served in Vietnam, he was not dropped into the middle of the fighting. Instead, he was in charge of logistics at a location called the "Sand Ramp." He told Sports Illustrated, "I was in effect the beachmaster there, in the Freight Terminal Division. We moved gear, all right. Fortunately, I never came under fire, and my 12-month tour of duty ended before the Tet Offensive of early '68."

While on leave in 1968, Staubach participated in the Dallas Cowboys workouts, and it was clear the team was just waiting for his time in the Navy to be up before he would get the quarterback job. While he a couple of years older than a typical recruit, his experience leading a team of men in the Navy translated well to the gridiron. 

Dennis Franz, the actor most famous for his portrayal of Detective Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue," graduated college in 1968 with a theatre degree. Instead of pursuing that career immediately, however, he signed up to fight in Vietnam. "I was curious about the military service and went into the Army," Franz told Military.com. 

It might have been innocent curiosity that got him into the situation, but it quickly became much more serious. The reality of combat profoundly affected him. Franz said, "[It] was a very traumatic, life-changing experience. ... I'm not as frivolous as I once was. I experienced death over there, and losing friends. I got as close to being shot as I care to. I could feel and hear bullets whizzing over my head, and that shakes you up quite a bit."

Like many veterans of the controversial war, Franz had mixed feelings about the whole thing, even considering going AWOL at one point. It just so happened that the Tet Offensive took place during his 11-month tour in Vietnam, which meant he saw some of the worst fighting of the entire conflict. The reality of getting shot at chased away any ethical qualms. "You just want to be out of the situation. ... And the only way to get out of it is to shoot back and make somebody stop and let me get out of it," he told Tom Snyder on "The Late Late Show" in 1997.

When future bestselling thriller author Nelson DeMille received his draft notice, it wasn't clear how bad the Vietnam War was going to get. Coming from a military family, he was fine with the idea of serving overseas for a year. The reality would be jarring.

In an interview with the American Legion, DeMille explained that even before the most intense fighting of the war began, the experience was terrible. He said, "That January before the Tet Offensive, temperatures dropped in the night into the 40s and 50s, and we had tropical clothing. It was raining. It was miserable." 

After the Tet Offensive, things would only get worse. In a single battle, DeMille lost one-third of his company. "You had no idea what you were getting into. There was a sense of unreality, in a foreign country, with people shooting at you, with no point of reference anymore. It's hard to believe what you were seeing. Dead bodies on the road and people just passing by them. It's a shock." DeMille earned the Bronze Star and was injured three times.

It is clear to see the effect his time overseas had on the author. Of his 23 books, four dealt with the war or Vietnam vets. His office was full of photos from his time as a soldier. After accepting a magazine assignment almost four decades after he left Vietnam, DeMille returned with some other veterans, an experience that he found surreal and somewhat disappointing.

Rocky Bleier, Steelers legend and four-time Super Bowl winner, is one of the many professional athletes who went to war over the years. He had already been drafted by the Steelers when the Army sent him their own draft notice. The latter overrode the former, so Bleier headed to basic training and then to Vietnam. 

In August 1969, Bleier found himself in an intense battle. By the time it was over, he had taken both a bullet and a grenade to the leg, earning both a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. On a visit to the Pentagon decades later that was documented by the Department of Defense, Bleier said, "We pray that we come back from war. We have to live with the scars, both visible and invisible. We have to live with the trauma. We have to live with what happens during that period of time." 

Bleier's scars from the battle were hard to miss. His injuries were so bad that he lost part of his foot. During his long recovery, the doctors told him to give up on playing football, but Bleier refused to listen. Not only would he play football again, but he would go on to be unbelievably successful at it, something he credits partly to his time in the Army. "I talk a lot about structure and fundamentals and what happens in changing environments. It's really those basic fundamentals that football teaches you and life teaches you. The military teaches you the same thing," Bleier told the National Guard.

Actor James Avery is most famous for playing Will Smith's Uncle Phil in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Before his acting career started, however, he rashly signed up for the Navy. In an interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Avery explained how after fighting with his mother over the restrictions she put on him, he had an idea: "... because I didn't like people giving me orders, being the brilliant 18-year-old that I was, I joined the military. Don't even ask me why. And I was in the service for four years."

While this might have been a dumb decision on the face of it, it's possible that joining the Navy saved Avery's life. In an interview shared by the Vietnam Veterans of America, Avery explained. "...I joined the Navy. It was a good thing I did because two weeks after I was in boot camp a letter came to my mother saying I was drafted into the Army. I dodged that bullet." Being in the Navy meant Avery was less likely to see combat than if he was in the Army.

There is very little information about Avery's time in the military publicly available, and there might be a reason for that. He was allegedly involved in covert operations in Laos and Cambodia, as well as during the Tet Offensive. Still, he wasn't entirely opposed to talking about his experiences. After Avery died in 2013, a producer who worked with him on a film wrote on his blog that on set, Avery would tell stories of his time in Vietnam in between takes. 

Future "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak served in Vietnam for 18 months, first as a file clerk, and then as a military DJ. He even got to say the phrase made famous by one of his predecessors, Adrian Cronauer, the person behind Robin Williams' character in "Good Morning, Vietnam"

So how did he manage to get such a sweet job in the middle of such an awful war? He told The New York Times, ”I had never actually been a D.J. But I made it sound to the Army guys like I had. I think I lied, actually.” The experience was not exactly what the Hollywood version would have you believe. When he arrived on his first day, Sajak was in for a surprise. ”The D.J. played Spanish music, did Spanish commercials and I would read the news in English,” Sajak said. ”To this day I do not know why. Then the guy, who had all these girlfriends, would leave at two. So from then on I would play records. I don't know what they were.”

In an article for the USO, Sajak said that his job evoked mixed feelings in him: "I used to feel a bit guilty about my relatively 'soft' duty. After all, I was billeted in a hotel, and there were plenty of nice restaurants around. But I always felt a little better when I met guys who came into town from the field and thanked us for bringing them a little bit of home."

Granted, Fred Smith isn't the biggest celebrity in the world. However, while his name might not be familiar, the company he founded will be — FedEx. Before starting his unbelievably successful business empire, Smith joined the Marines and did two tours in Vietnam. His service earned him two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star. 

Like most Vietnam veterans, Smith's time fighting overseas deeply affected him. Decades later, U.S. Army shared what he told an audience at the Pentagon, where he said, "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about the names of those on the Vietnam Wall."

There was at least one benefit to serving in Vietnam, however. According to Smith, his time in the service is directly responsible for his future success. When he came home from deployment, he reflected that the rigid logistical side of the military could be used to make a faster private delivery service, which led to him starting FedEx, the first overnight express delivery company. 

"Lessons learned during Vietnam played over and over in my mind when we developed the business plan," he said. "Everything that went into FedEx that made the business that it is today relates to what I learned in the Marine Corps and I've always been grateful for that education and for those I've served with."

Long before he was vice president, Al Gore was one of the least likely people you would expect to fight in Vietnam. He had just graduated from Harvard and was the son of a famous anti-war senator who was up for reelection. The younger Gore was also against the war, and had joined protests against it during his college years. Yet, he chose to join the Army.

Gore went to Vietnam as a military journalist, although he was known to take more risks than necessary near combat to interview troops. Michael Roche, his editor at the military newspaper, told The New York Times, "Anybody who knew Al Gore in Vietnam knows he could have sat on his butt and he didn't." 

While there is no question that Gore went above and beyond to talk to soldiers and get stories, there are some disagreements about just how much danger he was in during his time in Vietnam. He told the same newspaper, "The fact is, I carried a pencil and a loaded M-16 A1 outside the base camp and I worked in areas where I had to be armed" and "I wasn't shot at, but I was in areas where there was firing." 

Whatever happened, Gore said that he valued military service and that his experiences in a warzone made him feel more alive than anything else ever had.