Michael Clancey was born in November 1946 in Detroit, Michigan. His father joined the Marines during World War 2, although he was exempt because he was married and had a child. They ended up divorcing during the war, and he later met Clancey's mother. His father was assigned to the 6th Defense Battalion in the Pacific, and was on Wake Island at the time that the war was ending. This was when he received a letter from his wife saying she wanted a divorce. He was given leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to try to sort things out with his wife, but it did not work out. He then met his future wife, Clancey's mother, on his way back to Wake Island and they later got together in Michigan. Clancey's father did not talk very much about his wartime experiences, except with fellow veterans. His mother also served in the Marine Corps during the war and enjoyed talking about it, it was a highlight of her life. She joined in Toledo, Ohio where she grew up, just six months after graduating high school. She completed boot camp at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina] then traveled by train to MCRD, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] for radio telegraph school. She was then assigned to Hawaii for the remainder of World War 2. Clancey grew up in a new neighborhood that was full of veterans. They shared fun stories, but not really many stories about combat. He learned about World War 2 and the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] in school. He also had a neighbor who served during the Korean War.

Michael Clancey did duck and cover drills in school and at home as a child because of the nuclear threat. He always enjoyed going into the cellar. They would cover their heads with pots and pans. Communism was the ultimate bad next to Nazism, and socialism was seen as nearly as bad as communism. Communism is what we were fighting in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. Clancey could not wait until he was old enough to join the Marines. He was convinced by a teacher to hold off for a little while and try college before enlisting. He made a deal with a friend that they would go to college, and if either one got drafted, the other would enlist. Clancey had a 2-S deferment because he was in college [Annotator’s Note: those who were actively studying were exempt from the draft], but his friend, Mike, did not and was soon drafted. Clancey's plan had changed in the mean time and he wanted to join the Marine Aviation Cadet Program to become an aviator which required two years of college. But when Mike got drafted, Clancey decided to forego the aviation program and enlist. His father was upset at learning the news and tried to get him out of it.

Michael Clancey followed the news of the Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. There was so much turmoil in the country at the time, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy [Annotator's Note: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States; assassinated 22 November 1963]. Clancey and his friends had watched so many movies about World War 2 and the Korean War that their outlooks were romanticized. Their lives being at risk seemed remote. He felt it was his duty as an American to serve. He was sworn in with a two year enlistment. A friend of his was killed while serving as a door gunner in a helicopter. His friend Mike saw the worst of Vietnam, but made it back home. Clancey knew nothing about Vietnam as a country before he went over to serve.

Michael Clancey completed boot camp at MCRD San Diego [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in San Diego, California]. Both of his parents also went through there when they served in the Marines during World War 2. Boot camp was traumatic for Clancey. Even though he had been prepped for it, he was shocked. They were yelled at and their egos ripped to pieces. They were not allowed to go to the restroom, it all seemed cruel and unusual to Clancey. He thought the drill instructors were psychopaths. [Annotator's Note: Clancey laughs.] Once he got to Vietnam, he realized they needed that training, it was all for good reason. There was physical hitting and punching during training, even some fatal injuries when some instructors went too far and faced court martial. Clancey trained on an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] left over from World War 2. Then they qualified with the M14 [Annotator's Note: United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62mm, M14] and M16 [Annotator's Note: Rifle, Caliber 5.56mm, M16]. The M16 looked great, but they learned in Vietnam that they were faulty and would jam, sometimes at the worst moment. They also had grenade launchers [Annotator's Note: M79 grenade launcher] and the M60 machine gun [Annotator's Note: Machine Gun, Caliber 7.62 mm, M60]. Clancey did fire direction control and forward observer work in the artillery, he was not an infantryman. Clancey volunteered to be a forward observer and trained in the Da Nang area of Vietnam. He went back and forth between the two roles or forward observer and fire direction control. The latter involved a lot of mathematics. Clancey was serving with Whiskey Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marines [Annotator's Note: 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division] in Vietnam. He did fire direction control on 155s [Annotator's Note: M53/M55 155 mm self propelled howitzer] during the Hue City battle [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hue, 31 January to 2 March 1968; Hue, Vietnam]. He also spent a lot of time in convoys. He was a lance corporal at the time.

Michael Clancey deployed from the United States on Saint Patrick's Day of 1967. His parents lived near Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] from where Clancy was to be shipped out. He saw them holding banners for him on the freeway on his way out. They flew into Hawaii to pick up more people, then went on to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. They flew low over Iwo Jima which was meaningful to Marines [Annotator's Note: due to the World War 2 Battle of Iwo Jima; 19 February to 26 March 1945; Iwo Jima, Japan]. Clancey felt proud. After a few days in Okinawa, they went to Vietnam. They were not given training on Vietnamese language, history, or culture, but did learn a lot about guerrilla warfare, fighting with rifle butts and hand-to-hand combat. These were horrid things, but they needed to know them to survive. The country was beautiful as they were flying in. Clancey ended up serving with Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marines [Annotator’s Note: Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division] in an area that was not populated.

Michael Clancey and Greg Dust [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] once went together to fill a water buffalo [Annotator's Note: a large water dispenser] for their unit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division]. A fire fight started near them so they took their rifles out of the truck. There was a lull then they saw allied Vietnamese troops screaming at and slapping Viet Cong [Annotator’s Note: South Vietnamese supporters of the communist National Liberation Front in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War] soldiers. Clancey does not know what happened, but the two Viet Cong were shot in the head. Clancey was upset and wanted to kill the man who shot them in the head. He believed in the Geneva Convention [Annotator's Note: standards for humanitarian treatment in war]. They just dumped the bodies on the side of the road. Clancey complained about it to one of his officers, but nothing was done. The bodies remained there for weeks, it was terrible, but such is war. He learned that the hard way. Clancey was once assigned to an amtrack [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as amtrack or alligator] unit as part of a forward observation team when another amtrack hit a mine and two men were killed. Friends of his would go out on patrol and come back with bad stories. Many bad things happened once the Tet Offensive [Annotator's Note: The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, 31 January to 23 September 1968] started. Two convoys that Clancey was assigned to were ambushed. For one, he had spun off to take ammunition and food to a forward observation post, and was still there when the convoy was ambushed. It was one of the worst things that happened during Vietnam. These ambushes were not uncommon in and around Hue [Annotator's Note: Hue, Vietnam].

Michael Clancey felt anger about the ambushes carried out on American convoys [Annotator's Note: in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. He wanted revenge. He was assigned to Whiskey Battery [Annotator's Note: Whiskey Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division] near Hue City [Annotator's Note: Hue, Vietnam], and then assigned to the 155s [Annotator's Note: M53/M55 155mm self propelled howitzer] a little ways out of town. They fired on the citadel [Annotator's Note: the Imperial City of Hue was a walled enclosure and UNESCO World Heritage Site]. They had to wait several days for approval to fire on the citadel because it was a historical location. They planned a T.O.T., or time-on-target, fire mission there which ended up being a huge success, though it was not reported that way. The media reported Hue as a loss, but it was not. The North Vietnamese were killing civilians execution style in large numbers. They were relatively aware of the unpopularity of the war at home while serving in Vietnam. Even the Stars and Stripes [Annotator's Note: United States military newspaper] reported on some of the protests going on at home. After the war when Clancey was studying business law in college, he was asking for donations for a war memorial that was going to be built on campus. One of his fellow students was very against this and Clancey had to defend himself. As the My Lai Massacre [Annotator's Note: Mỹ Lai Massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by United States troops on 16 March 1968.] had happened around this time, Clancey could understand being against the war, but not being against the men who had served there, like himself. His professor stood up for Clancey. He and a friend were asked to not talk about the war while they were at a bar, which upset him. He and his fellow veterans had gone over to serve their country, and Clancey loved the Vietnamese people. He did not understand people who called him and other veterans "baby killers".

Michael Clancey was initially wary of the Vietnamese population, because he did not know who was working with the enemy or not. He would sometimes go to Marble Mountain [Annotator's Note: a cluster of hills south of Da Nang, Vietnam] where they had a forward observation post that needed to be resupplied. To get there, they would have to go through a small village at the bottom. Clancey would buy their beer, even though he was not supposed to. Some villages sympathized with the enemy which cost the lives of Marines. Napalm was dropped on those villages who collaborated with the enemy. Clancey had mixed feelings toward the enemy [Annotator's Note: the Viet Cong, South Vietnamese supporters of the communist National Liberation Front in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War]. On the one hand, he hated them. But when he put it into perspective, he realized that they were young people like him, and unlike him, Vietnam was their country. He could understand that they wanted him and the US Army to go home. Clancey was fighting communism, which to him was a justifiable and honorable thing to do, though he admits not everyone fought honorably, such as Lieutenant Calley at My Lai [Annotator's Note: The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by United States troops on 16 March 1968, under the command of US Army Second Lieutenant William Laws Calley, Jr.]. Clancey feels that too many decisions of the war were made by legislators based on public opinion, and not on the reality of the war on the ground. Clancey spent a total of 39 years in the military by the time he retired.

Michael Clancey participated in memorial services when Marines were killed [Annotator's Note: while serving in the Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. Clancey attended Saint Mary's Parochial School, a Catholic school, near Detroit, Michigan for a while. For a period of time he was agnostic, and after Vietnam considered himself an atheist. Foxhole religion is a real thing. Clancey was in a hole taking cover near Phu Bai [Annotator's Note: Phu Bai, Vietnam]. They started praying the Our Father and the rosary. Clancey felt some bloodlust after a cumulation of events, especially the ambushes on convoys. This did not mean he wanted to fire indiscriminately on the enemy, but he would not think twice about firing on them. During the Battle of Hue [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hue, 31 January to 2 March 1968; Hue, Vietnam], Clancey spent basically two weeks in a hole in the ground. During that time, one of their guns blew up and killed a few Marines. It made Clancey angry at the enemy, even though they had nothing to do with the faulty gun. Going home and back to school was tough. Clancey felt he should not be there, that he should be back in Vietnam. When he met his daughter's mother on campus everything changed, and he became a more serious student. The flight home was exciting, the emotions were something else.

Michael Clancey was awarded the Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is an award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy] for wounds received at the end of his tour, in the Hue City fighting [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hue, 31 January to 2 March 1968; Hue, Vietnam], along with campaign medals and other awards for postwar service. Clancey's high school later began raising funds for a memorial to those who died during the Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. He was reading the names and recognized one. He had no idea that someone he knew had been killed there until he was in his 60s. The man had been with Clancey the day he was sworn into the Marine Corps. He was killed in a CH-46 helicopter [Annotator's Note: Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight] when it crashed. When comparing Vietnam to World War 2, the biggest difference is that in World War 2, we won. Post-traumatic stress [Annotator's Note: post traumatic stress disorder; a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event either experienced or witnessed] was a big problem after Vietnam. Clancey has kept busy to stop from thinking about it. He was in the inactive Reserves for a while, and later went back in as an infantryman with an Army National Guard unit. He realized he did not feel the same, that he was not having as many thoughts about the past. He also served as legal officer of Marine Air Group 42 (MAG-42), so he associated the sound of helicopters, which used to trigger bad memories, with things other than just Vietnam. But other veterans do not have that same experience.

Michael Clancey thinks that the Vietnam War should be taught, but with the proper perspective. He hopes the focus will not be only on negative events like the My Lai Massacre [Annotator's Note: The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by United States troops on 16 March 1968.] It should be explained that they were fighting communism, which students do not have to accept, but simply consider the context. Clancey wrote to his father [Annotator's Note: a veteran of World War 2] about the prisoner incident [Annotator's Note: Clancey witnessed Viet Cong prisoners shot in the head by Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or ARVN, forces which disturbed him]. His father responded that Clancey had already seen more war than he had during the Second World War. After a while, Clancey stopped reporting back to his parents what he was seeing because he did not want his parents, especially his mother, to know how bad it was and to worry about him. After returning home, Clancey felt that no one wanted to talk about the war and would change the subject if it ever came up. Clancey was working in the reserve police department and studying for law school finals when all of a sudden he had a panic attack, thinking his work was all for nothing and that everyone was going to die. It was not a normal state of mind for him. He called his mother in the middle of the night and she talked him through it. She was always willing to talk about it, having been a Marine herself [Annotator's Note: during World War 2]. Clancey just hoped that people understand the soldiers were there [Annotator's Note: in Vietnam] doing their duty and serving their country, they had no diabolical intentions. Clancey visited the Vietnam Memorial [Annotator's Note: Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C] and it was very emotional reading all the names. He was grateful that it was built. The Marine Corps means everything to him. Besides his family, it is the most important thing to him. Clancey made several friends in boot camp and would bring them home on the weekends. His parents loved having them there, they essentially became family and would visit Clancey's parents even when he was not there.