Category: Military (Page 3 of 3)

Things were heating up in 1972. Most American troops had left and the NVA were getting bolder. When I got to Vietnam in October of 1970 there were 500,000 American troops in the country. Now there were 5,000… not a lot of people to watch your back.

Not too far away the NVA had advanced to the My Chanh river during their Easter offensive. I was hanging around with some Time and Life guys, who were on their way up to the river to cover the story. Our side of the river was covered by Arvns (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), the other side was manned by how many? Who could know, you never saw them. Could have just been one guy banging away with an old Maxim gun.

Then things got started… a couple of Cobra’s made a run at the other bank from behind us. A rocket fell short, blowing up a couple of Vietnamese Marines to my right. A smoking shell splinter flew past my head and lodged in a nearby tree. I dug it out, the threaded portion burning a pattern into my hand. That was my good luck charm for the rest of the war.

The old Maxim was still methodically chugging along, when a F-4 came screaming out of the sun. Funny how they look like they’re heading right for you! The other bank exploded in a wave of Napalm. I’d had enough sightseeing. I held my rifle over my head and fired 2 shots at the opposite bank.. then split.

The South Vietnamese held the line at that river till ’75. Without our backing, the end was inevitable.

greg

October.. It’s still hot as can be… just got off the plane.. walked into a wall of air so thick you can feel it pressing on you… I was waiting in the replacement hooch for a ride upcountry to our Darrs unit.

Some guy in faded fatigues and a 3 day growth on his chin drove up in a M151A jeep. He was our ride. Our fatigues were bright green, as opposed to his, faded, rotted around the collar.. and stained where you sweat. This guy looked like he’d been here for a hundred years, tho in reality he was just finishing up his one year tour.

“You guys going to Hue?”… We nodded yes, and got in the jeep. “Those guns loaded? This ain’t exactly Disneyland, you know…” Now I was freaked out. He took off while we scrambled through our duffel bags looking for our bandoliers…

I heard a machine gun empty next to my head! Both of us new guys were out of the jeep before we knew what hit us… I was laying on my back, looking up at the sun wondering what the hell happened… when the old guy came into view over me… smiling… “We’re never gonna get back if you guys keep falling out of the jeep!” That son of a bitch aimed his M-16 at the sky and empied a clip while we were scrambling for ammo..

A year later… I had to go down to Phu Bai to pick a up new guy for our Darrs unit. I had a 3 day growth of beard and my fatigues were practically rotted off me. This kid looked like he was in grade school… “That gun loaded?…”

greg

My main job in Vietnam (MOS) was 98C20, or Traffic Analyst. This was a cushy job back at some main base (usually) analyzing intercepted enemy radio traffic. We did well in this endeavor, mainly because we could read their traffic, but they had no hope of intercepting ours.

The downside to this job was we had dittys (guys who did the intercepting and typed it up) who had to be a lot closer to the bad guys than the analysts really needed to. But someone had to go out to the firebases and pick up this traffic. (No computer networks in those days..) So one day late in ’71 I went out to Firebase Carroll to pick up the days traffic.

FB Carroll was real close to the DMZ. The guys out there were constantly probed by the bad guys. They ultimately lost the fight when overrun in Easter of ’72. We landed during a quiet period (I thought..) and walked down the small road from the chopper pad to the intercept bunkers. (The helicopter lifted off while waiting for us, not usually a good sign…)

There was a lot of commotion in the main area of the firebase… 2 Americans were face to face about 20 feet apart ready to draw their weapons! One was a young guy, long hair, chains, obviously a doper, the other was the First Sergeant, ready to draw his service ’45. I to this day don’t know what they were arguing about, but luckily some officer intervened before somebody got killed. The doper had an M-16, easily outgunning the !st shirt, but I still would have bet on the old guy.

I gathered up my traffic, and signalled for the helicopter, headed home and ended another uneventful day in the ‘nam…

greg

G.I.’s have decorated everything in their travels around the world, the ‘Kilroy was here’ figure showed up all over Europe during WWII.

The same thing happened in Vietnam. I was forever scribbling on the wall of our hooch.. (a hooch is usually some kind of temporary building they housed you in.. which inevitably became permanent.) Below is a pic of my hooch sometime in 1971, and it must have been early because of the home calendar on the wall. (We used these to count down the year most of us were there, I needed one and a half..)

Then of course, hooch art became semi official by adding logo’s to different services. Below is the vietnam version of the Seabees logo..

And then there is Tank Art!

You can click on the pics to make them bigger… hopefully..

greg