Will Raymond

| The stairwell to the Thurston wrestling room, their mantra on the stairs. 

Led by a coach filled with passion and decorated with trophies, Mike Simons and his Thurston Colts wrestling team are making waves in their corner of the country. Simon, a now perennial “Wrestling Coach of the Year,” is dedicated to the craft of instilling the values of a Thurston wrestler in all his athletes. While fostering international relationships at the same time, creating unique experiences for his athletes. 

| Coach Simons’ back to back to back coach of the year of awards, ‘20-’23, among his sea of hardware 

“We’ve had really good community support, we’ve had good admin involved with supporting our program. I think it takes a whole community to have a long-standing program,” Simons said. “If this was before school, we’d probably have 15 to 20 kids here from the wrestling team in the room right now. Lunch time time, there’s kids in here working on homework and looking at wrestling magazines or going through the rule book or just hanging out or watching wrestling videos. And it’s been pretty cool to be a part of that. So it’s almost more like a family.” 
Simons has spent the last 22 years at Thurston as their wrestling coach, social studies teacher and cultural exchange director. 

“When I took over as the cultural exchange director, going back to the wrestling lifestyle, I’m pretty motivated. I don’t like to fail. So I planned on countries that we didn’t have contact with. And I just, through email, started reaching out on websites, and I’d get contacted by federations in other countries and then with social media, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, I’ve been able to make contacts and stay in contact,” Simons said. 

International wrestling has also played a huge part in the community. Simons has hosted international wrestling trips giving his top wrestlers unique opportunities. He has created a pipeline of borderless wrestlers and opportunities for his own students to experience outside cultures, bringing outside communities into his own.

“I’ve had three different Russian teams that have come through, and you know, they stay with families in the community and compete at schools. We show them what Oregon is all about,” Simons said.

Treated well everywhere they go, including Russia and South Africa. The Thurston Colts have experienced the same community in other countries that drives their own program.

“We train with them a lot. We’d go to their clubs, we’d stay in their houses, live their culture and compete against them,” Simons said. 

Walking into coach Simon's classroom a row of tournament trophies fill a wooden shelf above the outside wall. The other two are filled with souvenirs from his many international wrestling trips. A zebra skin from South Africa, traditional South African masks, and a couple of ushankas (Russian ear flap hats) on top of wrestling trophies were the standouts. Next to the ushankas, a poster of Colby Covington, UFC champion and Thurston alum who wrestled under Simons. On the other end is a wall entirely filled with plaques reading “Coach of the Year,” but Simons attributes the program's success to the community. 
“I grew up in Albany, so about an hour from here, and I attended Oregon State University for four years,” Simons said. 

Before coming to Thurston, Simons coached at Newberg High School in Newberg Oregon. 
“If you look at like, probably the last ten years of Six-A level state championships, they probably won half of the at least, if not more,” Simons said. 
Simons admitted that wrestling wasn’t always his favorite sport. 

“I feel like when I really focused on it, I gradually got better each year, and then won a state championship as a senior in high school,” Simons said. “I just continued to get better.”

Simons attributes his journey as a wrestler to his coaching ability. 

“I think that’s why I’ve been somewhat successful as a coach, because I’ve been able to relate to the kids, especially the ones that aren’t very good when they start,” Simons said. 

Simons’ Father, Lamont Simons, was also a decorated wrestling coach who now resides in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for his achievements. Right next to him is Bruce Glenn, who had a large influence on Coach Simons. The two took coaching jobs at South and West Albany high school at the same time. Fostering a rival between their sons, naturally. 

“My best friend was Bruce’s son who wrestled at West Albany. Scott Glenn was a three time state champ. He’s one of those guys that was good right away, unlike me” Simons said.

 
Scott Glenn was an all state wrestler at Iowa and eventually transferred to the University of Oregon. He and Simons grew up as close family friends. Glenn, who wrestled on scholarship for Iowa, would eventually transfer to the University of Oregon where he would win All American in 1991. 

“I remember writing him a letter when I was at Iowa… and just encouraged him to be confident his senior year,” said Glenn. 

For Simons the wrestling bloodline runs deep, and it has always been the community that has empowered him. 
“I would sit in his corner, he would sit in my corner. We were always cheering each other on," said Glenn

. 
While Glenn would go on to wrestle at University of Oregon, Simons would continue the traditions of being crosstown rivals wrestling at Oregon State University.

| Local Lebanon news page of Lamont Simons and Bruce Glenn Wrestling Hall of Fame Inductions, hung in Simons classroom. 

At OSU, Simons wrestled under Dale Thomas, a tenured coach for the Beavers, member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Thomas holds a dual meet record of 616-168-13, the NCAA record for wins in a coaching career.
“That was probably the biggest influence, besides my father, on wrestling,” Simons said.
 His senior year, Simons would Wrestle under Mark Johnson, an Olympian and previous Iowa coach. Simons would go on to be an assistant coach for Johnson at OSU the following year. 

“I wanted to be a multiple time All American and all that. You know, none of that happened for me. I had knee injuries and, you know, I could make excuses and all that, but I think I’m the coach I am and the person I am because of those experiences,” Simons said. 

Simons is a very relatable person even with all his achievements, he gave some insight on how to grapple with not feeling fulfilled in reaching one's full potential. 

“I’ve kind of used it as motivation to get better, that chapter of my life was done as a competitor. Now I got the chance to be the best I can be at the next chapter, and my chapter right now is coaching,” Simons said. 

This is something Simons shares with his students and athletes as well. 

“My job is to get better every day. And I tell my kids I want them to work hard. I want to learn from them,” Simons said. “And I’m a lifelong learner with the sport of wrestling, and I like to see what these kids learn.” 

The program isn’t even advertised as wrestling, but rather a cross fit type of training. Simons has gotten creative in his recruiting tactics because he wants to make an impact on as many students as possible, a reflection of his coaching mindset. 

“I feel like the sports programs are supported really well. And every other program at the school,  which is a big deal to me, band, theater, all of our clubs, this community is really behind supporting the youth,” Simons said. “But we haven’t always been a powerhouse in wrestling, but we’ve still been supported. And sometimes the years where you don’t have the best team, the community really rallies behind you because they know that we’ll build it back.” 

Coach Simons tries to get as many kids into the wrestling program as he can, because he doesn’t define being a good coach by the amount of trophies or wins. Rather he measures his success by how many kids he can get to stick with something difficult. 

“I feel like I’ve made a difference in their life, and I’m setting them up with good work ethic. Because if you can make it through our Thurston wrestling program for four years, you’ve learned how to work hard,” Simons said. 

The lessons learned in wrestling are easily applicable to life, a large part of Simons’ coaching mentality. 

“Wrestling teaches you to work through tough situations, and when you’re beat up not feeling good, and you still have to get out of bed and put out your best effort,” Simons said. 

A large part of Simons program is the international teams he has brought to Thurston highschool. The list includes Germany, Russia, Japan and South Africa. Simons has a long list of connections in the wrestling world, however he built a name for himself, and it was through his personal outreach he was able to bring international wrestling teams to Thurston. 

Simons carries himself with humility, and has created a pipeline of international wrestlers and opportunities for his own students to experience outside cultures and bring outside communities into his own.
It seems that Simons has become a mosaic of the great wrestlers he was surrounded by as a player, pulling from his own father, Dale Thomas and coach Bruce Glenn. 

Simons and the Colts now look forward to the ‘24-’25 wrestling season which is fast approaching. With seven of nine returning girls state placers off a state championship team. 

“We always have a diamond in the rough, I don’t know who it is yet, but I always get one girl who’s a freshman,” Simons said.

As for the boys, they have nine out of 11 state placers coming back as well as a returning state champion, whose sister also wrestled and won a state title under Simons. 

“I always tell our kids, when you step on the mat, I hope somebody sees you and knows that they’re wrestling a Thurston Wrestler, and they know they better be ready, because my kids wrestle hard,” Simons said. 

 For this interview I had the unique and special opportunity to have a discussion with my first cousin once removed Nick Raymond. Why I was so glad to have the opportunity to speak with Nick is because he was a Green Beret in Vietnam, which means he experienced the Vietnam war in a way that not many people who served did. Nick emphasized that he was not a regular grunt in the rice patties, but rather doing more specialized work. Nick was not only a Green Beret in Vietnam but also in Cambodia and later in Bosnia, Afghanistan and the drug war in South America. For this project I will also be pulling from two sources “America, the Vietnam War and the World” (Daum) and “The Vietnam War and Postmodernity” (Bibby) which will provide insight to the true American mission as well as how U.S. involvement was perceived because of misconstrued media. I would also like to note that I’ll be sticking closely to the wording Nick used in my interview, due to his parlance being nothing short of mesmerizing. 

Nick was born in 1950 in Fairfax, Virginia, and began his military career at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington City, VA. According to Nick he was “not a particularly good student at VMI, it was very clear that I was not going to make general officer.” But Nick has always had a knack for “the outdoor military experience” which is why he “sought out the more elite units.” While he did say that VMI gave him a leg up in the military he made it apparent that back in the 1960’s and 1970’s the specialized units of the military had to be “mentally and physically tough.” To Nick he saw it as a bit of a personal challenge, he wanted “to see if I could make it,” and of course he did which is when they “Sent my ass to the Vietnam war.” I wanted to know what Nickwas doing there specifically but of course I had to ask about day one, and it’s nothing short of what the media presents, brutality being one not misrepresented. Nick said when he flew into Vietnam the “airfield was taking rounds, that's a welcome to Vietnam. Hadn’t even landed and shit was blowing up.” Nick had entered the war late some time in late 1971 through 1973, Nick landed so late in fact that “the Fifth Special Forces had already gone home and the remaining Green Berets were dealt out to a bunch of different programs across the country.” Nicks late arrival was key to an American show of power “an early withdraw from the war, so the argument went, would cause allies elsewhere in Asia and around the world to lose faith in the reliability of Americas commitments and would embolden adversaries in Moscow and Beijing to pursue aggressive designs all over the globe” (Daum 175). The American mission in Vietnam was not to take power in the country but rather to repel enemy communist forces. When Nick arrived at his debrief he was put in a room and he “would’ve gone to the 101st Airborne or the First Air Cav, which were the last two combat units actually fighting there. Some guy in the back raised his hand and asked what was the Individual Training Group? The sergeant said, ``That's the old Special Forces you don’t wanna go there, they're crazy``.” To Nick he had hit the jackpot in terms of what he wanted to do, signaled by the cash register sound he made, Nick also enforced the fact that he was “no ordinary grunt in the rice paddies,” and that his experience in the war was quite unique. 

He entered the Green Beret’s as a “ brand new lieutenant, pretty well trained, physically tough.” This time frame was in the downswing of the war, and Nick was working with a native group named the Cham, a tribe indigenous to Cambodia. Working with indigenous people was a part of the U.S. plan, and a large part of what the Green Beret’s do to this day. The U.S. had “fought for its independence against the nation and government which had created loose associations of colonies in the first place” (Daum 65). Nick was a part of this U.S. mission which was to unify and support groups of indigenous people, “Vietnam did not rebel against Americancontrol; rather, the United States tried to interpose itself in the course of a determined Vietnamese independence movement” (Daum 66). How Nick experienced this was with the Cham, out on the border of Cambodia “indicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail.” The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran from South to North Vietnam and was used by communist led North Vietnamese parties to send supplies to people who supported communism in the South. The reason for working with the Cham was that their land stood right across the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but what's interesting is that the Cham were technically Cambodian so “they couldn't have cared less they didn’t know communist from confederate and all they wanted to do was tend to their land.” This speaks to the Vietnam War and the struggles colonist Vietnam had faced for centuries before, at its core Vietnam was a civil war. Two sides sponsored by different foreign powers pushing their own agenda, and the U.S. goal was to support groups resisting foreign communist power. The Green Beret’s were there to do specifically that, they would “train the tribesmen, equip and lead them on combat patrols and reconnaissance patrols along the border.” Nick was also able to provide insight on the way the Vietnamese were able to continue using the Ho Chi Minh Trail, that it wasn’t “one trail it was a network and they'd switch on and off.” 

While the U.S. had its main goal of repulsing Communist led forces in Vietnam and Nick had his mission of intersecting the trail. For the most part the Special Forces “were very independent, besides the general assignment of intercepting the trail was left up to us.” Now as I said before Nick’s experience was quite different from most, the experience of a Green Beret was unique in the way that they didn't have someone telling them to do. They had a general mission but because the task at hand was so difficult it required the specialization of the Green Berets - they had to decide where was the most effective place to patrol, gain reconnaissance on enemy positions and movements, trying to figure out when supply convoys would be moving through and things of that nature that a normal soldier wouldn’t be able to do. For the Green Berets assimilation in to the tribe was the largest part oftheir mission and having that resource in Vietnam was important because it was the Chams “jungle, nobody came into their jungle without them knowing it. They were just phenomenal.” Having people who knew the Jungle was important for the Green Berets because while they were specialized they were still in unknown enemy territory. “We didn't teach them anything about being in the jungle, we had the radios and the Arc Lights but they would go out and find the enemy and report back to us.” This is part of the reasoning for the Special Forces relations with native tribes, they offered information which was not previously had and would work to the benefit of the U.S. warfighters. While Nick and the Beret’s were the ones training and supplying, it was the Cham who were giving the Beret’s information which led to the decisions of what to do next. For the Cham “they lived on and in the Jungle a great deal of their livelihood depended on the jungle,” which is why they were so open to help from U.S. forces as they were the ones trying to help protect that land.

 One of the main issues that the U.S. faced during the war was gaining support from other Western countries such as France to support the war in Vietnam. This resulted in the More Flags campaign which saw the U.S. claiming commitment to the war in hopes of getting other countries who were weary of the war to do the same. “Boosting the morale of the South Vietnamese had from the start been a key rationale behind the effort to get allies to commit manpower to the conflict.” (Daum 191) But the U.S. also had to worry about the willingness of the South Vietnamese to fight with them, “War-weariness and apathy among the South Vietnamese were a constant source of concern to U.S. officials” (Daum 191). This is why the Green Beret’s involvement was so critical in the U.S. mission, being able to build a tight bond with the many small groups that made up Vietnam would pose as a strong foothold for the American agenda. What the Beret’s were doing was essentially a war fueled grass roots campaign. While the U.S. was trying to fight communism they also understood that the most effective way to do so was by implementing the people who had a large stake in the war. Theway Nick and the Beret’s embodied this part of the mission was one through their leadership of the people but what was also pivotal was supplying the Cham. They would supply the Cham through “helicopter resupply into the base camp. Because they were physically very small people, in the beginning we gave them the thirty caliber version of the M1 Garande and after a while we gave them the M16s which were light enough to carry with the ammo. In addition they used crossbows, which at close range in the jungle can be devastating and can be very demoralizing for the enemy, to come across Nguyen with a crossbow bolt through his forehead.” At this point it should be clear that the Cham were not some uncivilized group of people but rather very capable and very good at what they did, it was the U.S. support that was given to them which allowed them to be more proficient in the mission. It was the localized support of people like the Cham that counteracted weariness of the South Vietnamese among other factors, as the U.S. was showing their commitment. The relationship with the Cham and other tribes was very important but it is clear they welcomed the help as the Green Beret’s were “treated as honored guests. You know how you come to a new corporation and they give you a coffee cup or a baseball hat, well these guys gave me a wife.” Nick was married at the time and was a bit put off by the situation but was told they’d chop his head off if he didn’t accept as it would be a deadly insult to decline. But this again reinforces the point that the experience and mission of the Green Beret’s was to fully assimilate, and that South Vietnamese forces were welcoming of U.S. involvement. Although he came to have an interesting relationship with this woman as her husband had died in the war, which meant she had become an active contributing member of the tribe contrary to the traditional role that women played in the Cham society, Nick was relieved to find out she served as what we’ll call an assistant. The physical presence of the U.S. was very important in their mission as “most friendly governments would continue to offer tepid rhetorical support for America’s mission in Vietnam but rule out meaningful assistance to the cause.” (Daum 192) Nick also never met any resistance to the American influence, as he puts it “They realized that only because of American power wouldthey survive.” Nick was kind enough to offer me an anecdote on what the Beret’s were really getting into as boots on the ground who were assimilating with native people. He said he was once at a banquet where the main course was a monkey in the middle of the table with its brain exposed, from which people were eating the brain of the monkey, and he said “that's the kind of thing Green Beret’s find themselves doing that the First Infantry division does not. You have to live and blend in the way they do.” But what did the Cham think about the war? Well “they couldn't have cared less, they were surrounded by enemies with Cambodia on one side and Communist Vietnamese on the other, they couldn't tell a communist from a confederate.” 

“The overwhelming proportion of what has been written and recorded about the Vietnam War has been about America’s war in Vietnam. Given the size, the significance, and the cost of America's commitment this is understandable” (Daum 221). Nick had some interesting perspectives on the size and scale of War that the United States decided to take on and he didn't agree with it. “I objected to going in, in the first place with large American troops, I think that was the mistake. When the Marines and First Infantry landed on the ground from then it was going to be a morass.” Although he also stated that he “had no objection to Special Unit Forces or backing them up with massive air power, I thought the deployment of heavy American ground combat troops was a mistake.” This is to say that Nick believes we could have gotten the job done in Vietnam solely through specialized forces and I'm inclined to agree. The size of which the war was waged was simply too large, and unless you invade from North Vietnam, which the U.S. did not, there's no way out and you are landlocked. 

I also wanted to get Nick's perspective on the Anti War movement, as he had given me perspective on all other facets of the war. He said that he “freely believes in people's right to object, and I think people were right to object to a war because it was bad. I only objected to people who left for Canada, and the amnesty they were given.” Nick also wanted to make itclear that he is far from a right wing nutcase and that the people should have the right to use their voice. But as someone who was so deeply involved in the military “it was difficult to watch things that were going on back home even though it didn't affect us and what we were doing.” Nick is a very aware person and he recognized that most of America’s attacks that were waged on a large scale were ineffective, but he knew the work he was doing was proficient in making a difference. This is why it was discouraging to him to see the pushback from Americans as they did not have the full story. The general population had no knowledge of what the Green Beret’s were doing as it was classified at the time, and much of the media following the war created a false narrative of what it was all about. “The idealizing tendency of modernist aestheticism is echoed more frequently in Vietnam literature, however, by comments scattered through oral histories that suggest a casual, if sometimes calculated, awareness on the speaker's part that authenticity depends on narrative persona and point of view as much as on lived experience” (Bibby 19). We often see portrayal of Vietnam in the media as overly romanticized and unrealistic but “The aesthetic traditions of high culture were largely inaccessible and irrelevant to the lower classes from which most Vietnam combat units were composed - and to the mass culture from which imagery about the Vietnam war has come” (Bibby 19). This is to say that the image that has been created by the media doesn’t matter to Vietnam veterans as they already had the lived experience of fighting in the war, but what did matter is the inaccurate way Vietnam was depicted as it created a disconnect from the reality of the situation. “Traditional symbols and themes have been replaced by less complex motifs borrowed from… simplistic stereotypes, that populate the media” (Bibby 19). This means in the eyes of an average citizen the Vietnam war was fought “instead of a holy war or a defense of the free world, the Vietnam war was fought according to a script from the Saturday matinees” (Bibby 19). Take Born on the Fourth of July for example a movie about two Vietnam War veterans in a movie where the “baby killer identity was entrenched in U.S. popular culture” (Bibby 53). But as we have learned from Nicks interview, the U.S. was indeed not there to kill babies but rather to oppose the threatof The Soviet Union and The People's Republic of China which would have grown in Vietnam if it had gone unchecked. “The film in general… [is] rife with such abuse of memory, incoherent bodies, horror movie flashbacks” (Bibby 53). Nick of course had an interesting perspective on life after the war as well and his return from the war, “it was very quick you were out of Vietnam and then you went through, out processing then you're standing in San Francisco surrounded by nut jobs less than 48 hours within pulling the trigger, it was a very abrupt return.” But he also made it clear that it wasn’t like how the media presented it, and that he “didn’t have night terrors or anything of the sort.” Nick reflected on what he did when he got home from Vietnam “besides the obvious with my wife I took a few weeks off, I didn't have a head trip or nightmares,” he went to work for a bank and his transition back into society was smooth. 

While Nick is by no means the ordinary soldier from Vietnam his perspective on the war is very important and very unique. Nick was able to provide a perspective which is contrary to that of what is believed and seen in modern media, Nick and his work in Vietnam were the true embodiment of the American mission in Vietnam. It is important we understand our history correctly as it is our history on which American policies are built on. If we perceive our history as something it is not, we will be perpetuating policies and values which we don’t truly support.

 Citations

Daum, Andreas. Gardner, Lloyd. Mausbach Wilfred. America, The Vietnam War and the World; Comparative and International perspectives. Publications of the German Historical Institute, 2003. 

Bibby, Mchael. The Vietnam War and Postmodernity. University of Massachusetts Press. 

All quotes provided without citation are from the interview with Nick Raymond and me.