Librarian Tells High Schoolers About Time Spent In Vietnam

Ann Kelsey was a librarian in one of the most dangerous places in the world – Vietnam from 1969 to 1970.

Kelsey, who now lives outside Morristown in northern New Jersey, made the more than hour-long trip to Pennsbury High School on Monday to talk to student thespians preparing to head to the Pennsylvania Thespian Conference in York County to perform “A Piece Of My Heart,” a stage show that highlights women who served with the military.

Kelsey told the students how she worked as a civilian librarian with the U.S. Army Special Services in Vietnam after graduating from University of California in mid-1960. She spoke of her experiences, why she joined as a civilian contractor and of her visits to Vietnam in recent years.

Only a few years older than many of the high school students who listened to her Monday, Kelsey signed up for her civilian job as a librarian. Within weeks, she was shipping off to Vietnam during the height of the war that ended up costing the lives of 58,000 American soldiers.

One of her most vivid memories was when Viet Cong commandos swam across the Cam Ranh Bay and blew up the ammunition storage facility on the base where she was working. She said she’ll never forget the explosion and the sounds that followed after.

“To this day, I can’t see fireworks. I can’t hear fireworks,” she said. “I hate New Years Eve and July 4th.”

She told the student thespians about helicoptering around Vietnam to get from place to place during her roughly year-long deployment.

“Your job there was to be perky, happy and smiling. You had to do it even if you spent the night in a bunker with three inches of water and rats because you were being mortared,” Kelsey recalled.

“It was my job to help these guys,” she said, noting the library wasn’t just a place to relax and find a book. “The books would mold, so it was the only air conditioned building on base, and that it was a nice place to cool off.”

The closest she came to death was when a bullet shot through a trailer she was in one afternoon. She figured it wasn’t the Viet Cong so she ran outside and dug up the bullet from the dirt outside. With the bullet in hand, she went to the commanders and advised them tell the U.S. troop doing target practice not to fire toward her trailer, she told the students with a chuckle.

Being a civilian contractor, Kelsey used her time off to travel and visited Hong Kong and Thailand, which offered her new experiences.

Growing up in a California town whose main industry was related to a large air command base helped spur Kelsey to volunteer to head to Vietnam as a contractor. Seeing the disrespect given to soldiers returning home from Vietnam during her time at college helped her make her choice.

Returning stateside after resigning from her post in Vietnam, Kelsey moved to the East Coast and didn’t speak of her time in east Asia. She said she felt like a “square peg in a round hole” when she returned.

“No one wanted to hear about Vietnam.”

It wasn’t until the 1990s that she began to tell her story and even returned to the country.

“There I was doing ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’ and no one had a clue I did a year in Vietnam,” she said, referencing her time as a children’s librarian shortly after returning stateside.

Responding to a question from a student, Kelsey recalled Siagon in 1992 looking exactly how she remembered it in 1969. In the years since, the country has progressed and was barely recognizable when she visited last in 2010.

Over the decades, Kelsey kept in touch with families in Vietnam and those who immigrated to the United States.

The year spent in Vietnam during the war left a lasting impression, Kelsey recalled.

“The whole point of me being there was to bring a touch of home to the combat zone.”