Andy Anczer: The Chicago Gangsters

By Al Konieczka, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

While he now lives in Texas, in 1966, Andy was living in Oak Lawn, IL with his mother and stepfather. His stepfather, Francis X. Downey was actually a member of the Illinois State House of Representatives from 1957 to 1965. Andy’s older sister lived and worked in New York. When Andy graduated high school, he began working as a laborer for the State of Illinois until he received his draft notice in January, 1966. He soon realized he had been drafted directly into the Marine Corps.

Andy performed his Basic Training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California. While attending Boot Camp in San Diego, his platoon had three drill instructors, one of which was R. Lee Ermey. Ermey, as Andy referred to him, later achieved fame for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. While Andy has seen the movie, he said that Ermey wasn’t anything like the role he played in the movie. “There was never any physical contact, but he had a way of making you shake just by the sound of his voice and the way he looked at you! Ermey was a corporal at the time I was in San Diego, and while he could scare you and make you shake, he also made you proud to be in the Marine Corps.”

Andy credits Ermey’s tough nature with making him a Private First Class (PFC) right out of Boot Camp. “I was at the rifle range one day trying to get lighter fluid for my lighter and I had left one of my buttons unbuttoned. When Ermey saw that, he came over to me and said ‘Sit in the chair!’ What that meant was you’re in a position like you’re sitting in a chair, up against the wall, but without a chair. After a few minutes your legs would start burning. I started praying and saying my Hail Mary’s and Ermey said, ‘Are you swearing at me?’ I said no, I’m praying, and Ermey started laughing and said, ‘Get out of here.’ I crawled out of there and never did get my lighter fluid.” From that day on, Ermey always kept his eye on Andy. Towards the end of Boot Camp, Andy was called into the Quonset hut of the three drill instructors and was told he was being promoted to PFC. Andy considered it to be a great honor. While Ermey was only about 6 months older than Andy, Andy had tremendous respect for Ermey, as well as the other two drill instructors in his platoon. Andy laughed and said, “Ermey always called us the Chicago gangsters because about 1/3 of our platoon, maybe more, were from Chicago – because we all got drafted at the same time. Ermey had a great drill instructor voice. There wasn’t a man in our platoon who didn’t have great respect for him and our other two drill instructors.” 

After Boot Camp, Andy then went off to the Infantry Training Regiment (ITR) for four weeks at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. Andy had been drafted into the Marine Corps with his best friend from the neighborhood named Terry O’Connor. They served in the same platoon throughout Boot Camp and were only separated after Boot Camp when Andy went into infantry training and Terry was sent for machine gun training. After 4-5 weeks of ITR, Andy received 30 days of leave and then headed off to Vietnam.

When Andy got to Vietnam, he landed at Chu Lai Air Base. Andy was one of about 30-40 men in a tent when a lieutenant or captain came in and asked for volunteers for reconnaissance. Andy laughed and remembered, ”Nobody volunteered for recon so they asked all men with an MOS of 0311 to stand up. Of course I was a 0311, and stood up. At that point we knew we had all just volunteered for recon. We had no choice – that was it!” Before their squad ever went off on their first patrol, they were provided with training for rappelling from a helicopter and rappelling up and down the side of a mountain.

An average week for Andy consisted of a helicopter drop at a particular area where they would perform recon for 4-5 days and then get picked up by helicopter at a predetermined landing zone and taken back to base camp. Once back from a patrol, they would have a full day off and then a day or two of mess duty or guard duty before heading off on another recon patrol. They went out on recon patrols in the mornings, afternoons or evenings, depending on the availability of the helicopters.

The barracks at base camp were simple wooden structures with metal and canvas coverings. The men slept on cots, but had personal items inside the barracks to make it feel as close to home as possible. Andy said, “I had three dressers in my section of the barracks and made my own little blocked off area and guys would come in and sit there. My sister would send me packages with small bottles of vodka and Tang and I would make screwdrivers for the guys in my squad.”

When back out on patrol, the men carried enough food, water and ammo for their 4-5 days on recon and the packs weighed 75-100 pounds. All of the men in the squad had to be in great shape while hiking up and down the mountainous terrain around Chu Lai. Andy recalled a close call on his very first recon patrol. “I had to jump out of a helicopter at a lower altitude than we were expecting and I dropped my rifle into a rice paddy and the first 5 inches of my rifle barrel went into this mud pack. If I would have had to fire that weapon, it would have blown up in my hands. You can’t just stop when you land, you have to move immediately. I was hoping we didn’t run into the enemy, because I couldn’t fire my weapon.”

Andy’s recon squad was simply tasked with going out and finding the enemy. They were not to engage the enemy, they were simply to find the enemy locations and relay that information back to base camp so the infantry soldiers could take over from there. Andy recalled, “We had it much better than the infantry soldiers. Those guys, we called them grunts, were out for maybe 20-30 days and sometimes longer. They had it rough. I have a lot of respect for those guys because they didn’t have the greatest life compared to what we had. We were mostly on higher ground in the hills looking down, where the infantry were the ones walking through the rice paddies and the mud.”

When Andy first started on recon, he wasn’t the fire team leader, but he always wanted to be the point man. He was on the point team his entire time in Vietnam. He always wanted to be the first guy when out on recon. There were no soldiers injured or killed in Andy’s squad during his time in Vietnam. He is very proud of that fact. There were close calls though as Andy recalled, “After our very last patrol, we were picked up by two helicopters and suddenly our squad was under fire from a couple of 50 caliber machine guns. I was thinking to myself, I’m finally going home and now I’m going to be killed in this helicopter. But luckily, we survived the attack.”

When Andy got home from Vietnam, he flew to Chicago for a 30 day leave. He then headed to Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he served as an instructor for 5 months to complete his service in the Marine Corps. Andy was a hand and arm signal instructor teaching young soldiers coming out of Boot Camp. Hand and arm signals are used when soldiers are spread far apart and need to communicate with one another without making noise. He served as an instructor until the time he was finally discharged from the Marine Corps in January of 1968.

After the Marine Corps, Andy joined the Chicago Police Department and served as a police officer for 32 years – 20 of those years as a street sergeant. Andy was able to take advantage of the GI Bill to purchase his first home. He met his wife Judy when she was a bartender, but she quit that job when they got married and went back to school and obtained 6 or 7 different licenses to work with insurance and annuity investments. Andy and Judy were married on April 10, 1976 and have two daughters and 5 grandchildren. Andy lost his wife to cancer about 35 years after they were married. Before her passing, Andy and Judy traveled twice to Washington D.C. to visit the Vietnam War Memorial. There were two members of Andy’s squad that were killed after Andy left Vietnam. Andy and Judy found the names of those soldiers on the Memorial Wall and Andy said it was a very emotional thing to see.

Andy loves his life, and the weather, in Texas. He enjoys traveling and golfs 4-5 times per week and is very thankful for his time in the Marine Corps and is looking forward to his Honor Flight Chicago trip!

Andy, thank you so much for your years of dedicated and courageous service. Enjoy your well-deserved trip to Washington D.C.!