A question for any Vietnam Army or Marine vet

[JimR]

JT1, first of all, thanks for the kind words. I wonder if your Math teacher was a Medevac chopper pilot, or troop transport or what. Some of the bravest men in Vietnam were Medevac chopper pilots. More times than not, they were called to evacuate wounded soldiers when the firefight was still raging on. It was a very dangerous situation for them. If you have anything else you want to know, please ask.

Hemi426, I hope you get your ride in a Huey, but I bet they won't let you dangle your legs over the side.

Greenaccord, I thank you for taking the time to listen to an aging veteran.

Crinkles, I never got the opportunity to see Australians firsthand, but the consensus was that they were excellent soldiers with stellar reputations. The same goes for the Koreans who also fought alongside American troops.

 

[expat]

I had an uncle that was in the British Commandos (later SAS) in WWII. After the war he emigrated to Australia where he served as a Major in the Australian SAS during Vietnam.
He came to visit several times (when I had moved to Canada).
He would talk about WWII, but never Vietnam.

 

[Hemi426]

I used to work with an Army Vietnam Vet. He was around the Australians and he used to say "Lord, those guys could put away the beer like you wouldn't believe".

 

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted By: XS650
Nicked, thank you for removing that.

Onion, if you aren't willing to let people discuss this topic without injecting politics into it, stay out of the topic.

All, Unfortunately some good posts got quarantined along with the political one. Sorry about that. The way the system works is that posts in response to the offending post automatically get quarantined along with the offending post. The moderators generally aren't going to spend much if any time digging the good posts back out of quarantine.


No problem, it was extraneous detail that doesn't need to be rehashed and I'm sorry I went into it. Thanks to the veterans of the Vietnam War, who suffered in a very difficult conflict, and a tumultuous time in this country's history that they did not create..

*And thanks to JimR for sharing his experiences with us. I know it must be somewhat difficult, hopefully a bit liberating, to do. But I find it all fascinating...

 

[Hemi426]

Hi Jim, hope you have been doing well. I've recently learned that the NVA regiments would blow bugles to rally their troops on an attack. Did you ever come across this situation or were your combat experiences limited to skirmishes with the enemy? Thanks in advance.

 

[JimR]

Hello Chris (Hemi426), I have been doing well as of late. I am surprised to see a reopening of this conversation, but I am glad you did it. I hope others have something they want to talk about regarding anything to do with Vietnam.

To answer your question, in our battles with the NVA, I have never heard them using bugles during an attack. They relied on the element of surprise and the concealing of their exact positions. I would think that a bugle would undermine that.

What they did do to put a scare into us and keep us alert all night was to taunt us with broken English death threats. When we were in the jungle overnight in our foxholes, you would hear in broken English, "GI die tonight", over and over again. It was eery and quite unsettling. They were close enough for us to hear them, but there was no way we could see them. The last thing you wanted to do was fire your weapon in the direction of the voice, thereby giving away your exact position. Sometimes they would fire mortars at us, followed by a ground attack. Other times they would verbally taunt us and do nothing else. They almost always disappeared before the sun came up.

I hope you got that helicopter ride!

Best regards,

Jim

 

[JHZR2]

Wow, just read this whole thread. Jim, thank you so much both for your service and for sharing the stories. I don't have any specific questions, but sure love reading what you write. I do hope that perhaps this thread remains constantly "growing" with you and other folks willing to share telling us of experiences that come to mind.

Thanks again!

 

[JimR]

JHZR2, thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it. Allow me to tell you how I became a machine gunner. Up until then I carried the M-16 rifle and did not want to be a machine gunner.

We were assigned a mission to secure a village and protect it for a few days from hostile forces. It was a beautiful place situated on a lagoon near the Batangan Peninsula. We secured the village and then settled in to mingle with the villagers. A veteran soldier that I looked up to was our machine gunner up to this point. For some unknown reason, he took it upon himself to go fishing with hand grenades. I guess the idea was to pull the pin on a grenade and throw it into the lagoon. When it exploded underwater, it stunned or killed the fish and they would rise to the surface to be collected by the villagers. Unfortunately, and to our horror, when he pulled the pin on a grenade and started to throw it, it exploded prematurely. Instead of the usual 3-5 second delay, it went off immediately. The resulting blast cut him to ribbons and he died instantaneously. The Army classified the death as "Non hostile, accidental". That is how I became a machine gunner.

Thanks for listening, I have since written a tribute to him under his name on the Vietnam virtual wall.

 

[Tempest]

Thank you for your service. I've been to the real memorial in DC and it is a very moving place. I highly recommend people go and appreciate the sacrifices many people have made for liberty.

Machine gunners usually attract the most "attention" from the enemy so I'm glad you are here to talk to us.

 

[onion]

I would've been the first over the border to Canada.