It was February 1973. The United States was completing its involvement in the Vietnam War, and there was widespread antimilitary sentiment in this nation.
That didn’t deter Freddie Childs from joining the Marine Corps.
“Just to serve. I love this country,” the Decatur native said. “And just do my term and serve the nation. Enjoy freedom.”
Childs joined the Marines after his junior year at Decatur High School. He was 17 so he needed his mother’s permission. His father had died when he was a young child.
“She tried to talk me out of it. Sometimes we know best. I’m proud to have served, that’s for sure,” Childs said.
He went to Parris Island, South Carolina, for recruit training from March 4 through June 4, 1973. Next, he had several months of combat training at Camp Pendleton, California.
The Marines sent him to Okinawa for 13 months, from August 1974 until September 1975; and he turned 18 there. His specialty was administration. Childs spent his last year and a half in the corps at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He left the Marines as a corporal in 1977.
The Marines offered to promote him to sergeant if he would go to Hawaii for four years. “I said no thank you,” he said. “I wasn’t looking for a career, I was a journeyman.”
Childs described what it was like to be in the military in the Vietnam era.
“It was like you never knew (your deployment fate). When we went in, that’s all we heard about was Vietnam. I went to Okinawa. I thought how blessed I was not to go to Vietnam,” he said.
Childs saw the antiwar protests on television, but he didn’t witness or experience any antimilitary abuse.
Born in Leeds, he was about 6 when his family moved north to Decatur. He went to Somerville Road Elementary School, then to Decatur Junior High and finally to Decatur High. He earned his GED while serving in the Marines.
Childs worked 20 years as a machinist at Copeland Corporation in Hartselle before retiring in 2000. He worked in structural welding and industrial maintenance for various companies off and on. He was part-time assistant director at Peck Funeral Home in Hartselle from 1999 until about a year ago.
For the past five years, Childs has been driving a school bus for Hartselle city schools. He became an ordained Baptist minister in 2013 and he is in his eighth year as the pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Lacey’s Spring.
He and his wife of 45 years, Deborah, reside in Eva. They have three children – sons Rodney and Isaac and daughter Katelyn – and two grandsons, all residents of Eva.
At 66 Childs enjoys playing softball, hunting and fishing. He is in his fifth year as an outfielder/infielder with the red team in the 55-and-over Rockets league in Huntsville Senior Softball. Deborah is in her first season with the team at catcher/first base.
Childs shared his thoughts on this nation’s commemoration of 50 years since the Vietnam War.
“I think we ought to commemorate the fact that American men and women, no matter what they may have thought about the war, we were willing to go and serve our country,” he said. “The Solders were commanded to go to Vietnam, and they were willing to do it and fight for the freedom of our nation and our allies. And protect their sovereignty as well as our own, our interests as well as theirs.”
Editor’s note: This is the 381st in a series of articles about Vietnam veterans as the United States commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.
