My photographic "expertise" before I was posted to RVN was with a mid-grade Instamatic. Had that little square flash that rotated with each shot, no adjustments at all with any parameters of photography. As I have mentioned, I bought an Olympus Pen F, a small half frame SLR, and could not understand how it supposedly took 72 pictures on a 36 frame roll of Kodak. I soon sold it and bought at the PX a small semi-automatic Ricoh, had a choice of three shutter speeds, and three focus ranges.

When I look back at this grainy pic, probably shot on Ectachrome 160, a pretty low resolution slide film, I kinda like it. This is up at another advisory compound at My An, with one Major, the one who played John Denver's song' "..All most heaven, West VA..." endlessly. These are his three Vietnamese army interpreters, playing Monopoly. They were relentless capitalists, and I am sure if in some other non-war country, would have been quite wealthy.

They joked that they liked American food, but an hour after a meal, where hungry again.

The grainy, somber mood of this pic has grown on me, I no longer see it as a throw-away. I must have propped up my Ricoh and held it as steady as I could, as I don't think I yet had my Asahi (Honeywell in the US) SLR.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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I have posted pics of this trooper before. He had what I recall was an XM203, a forerunner of the M16's with a 40 mm grenade launcher. He sometimes had a silencer screwed onto the muzzle. I think back then a high velocity round could not really be "silenced", perhaps at most just suppressed. I had among my own weapons a "silenced" Swedish K, a 9mm SMG. It really was "silenced", the only sound when firing was the clattering of the bolt. But a 9mm is pretty close to a sub-sonic round.


He had been a VC, and after the rest of his patrol was killed by a chopper gunship, he decided it behoved him to "come over." He was completely trusted by the local command, and was often in our US "hootch" with his wife. With so many awful shootings of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq by supposedly friendly forces, I am pretty sure I would have been much more cautious had I thought our ExVC might do the same to me. In many ways, I think at that early time in my army career I was quire naive.

This pic with my Pentax, as usual our waterlogged Whaler was overloaded, and if both 40 horse Johnsons were working it would just plow thru the water. I don't know what the Coast Guard rated capacity of our Whaler was, but for sure it wasn't so packed as we plowed up and down the Song Ong Doc river. If I needed to run up to HQ in Camau, I would go with just several of us, and while my Whaler still would not get up on a plane, it at least went faster.

Our trooper has a 30 rd magazine, which I never had. Many of the local troops had homemade arm-long magazines, riveted out of scrap sheet metal, which looked cool but never worked.

It seemed to me that both VC and local Vietnamse troops changed sides almost willy-nilly. Sometimes whole local units would walk away to the "Dark Side" with their weapons. But when caught it went badly for them. I chose to not be there on those operations.

I sometimes wonder happened to this trooper when the North Vietnamese won. If lucky, maybe just to a rehaniliation camp, but I fear he would have been singled out for more extreme retribution.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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Again, our Trooper talking with SFC Tom C, out in our Whaler. Note the trooper at the edge of the pic, on his radio. Like I mentioned previously, the Vietnamese RTO's never shut up on their radios. They talked constantly, the worst radio security you could imagine. I often wondered how they possibly could talk so much. Especially since the local Chuck had plenty of captured US radios and would be listening in. No wonder the local troops were always asking me to get them more batteries. I should have rationed them.

Same for other supplies they needed me to get thru my US channels. Once, they asked me to get them more grenades, so when a chopper dropped off a crate, and I opened them up, and found they were Korean War vintage "pinapple' grenades; I didn't want to be anywhere near them. So per their request, gave them to the local chaps, who promptly took them down to the river and used them for fishing. Toss a grenade in, boom, collect fish for dinner. Maybe they didn't trust them either. Sigh....

Tom, if somehow you find these pics, I hope you have had a great life. You were a first rate NCO. One of the best...

Stay safe, and all the best, SF VET
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I lived in our compound, the one I have posted pictures of previously. But just down the raised road a few hundred yards was a very small market, and the non-combatants and their families lived there. I wasn't there much, but did "shop" there often for our meals. Usually CO, (in Vietnamese, CO is the word for a young unmarried woman, sort of like our Miss...) our widowed Vietnamese cook did that for us. I don't know how many families lived there with their shops, but not likely more than 20 or 30. It was a market place, not much fishing done by the locals. Much of my diet was rice with soy sauce, which by the way I still really like. We would buy our soy sauce out of rusty cans or grimy jugs, a few cents per quart. Likely strong enough to kill whatever bacterial were in it.

Sometimes the local troops would be inquisitive of what my military pay was, as they got "room and board" and only maybe five bucks a month. Nothing really. I didn't tell them anything, as my income with my CPT's pay plus $150 a month combat pay was incomprehensible to them. It costs me maybe ten bucks a month for my own living expenses.

This is the local market. I didn't eat anything off their little grills, as there was no refrigeration at all, not even ice. Any meat, which would have been duck, or maybe some sort of fish or shrimp, would have to be consumed before it was too full of fly eggs. The only ice was used in beer. And the ice was from up at Camau, and full of bits of this and that which would float or sink as the ice melted. I often drank my beer 33 at room temp. At the end of the walkway is a resupply barge, probably off loading items paid for by US money, onto the black market.

The market: All the best, and stay safe. SF VET
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As I previously mentioned, my first six months I was a MAT leader, in Kien Phong Province, middle of the Mekong Delta, aka IV Corps, RNV being divided into I thru IV corps. I Corps was up along the DMZ, II Corps below that with the Central Highlands, as I recall, III Corps mostly west of Saigon, where there was a lot of interaction with failed operations like Lam Song, a big fiasco into Cambodia. I think this was the OP that was originally denied as having US support. Lots of action in Tay Ninh there before I was posted to RVN. I had a fellow SF A Team leader later at Bragg, who told me how frightful it was to encounter NV tanks, actually I think PT 76's, sort of a tracked amphibious vehicle. He told me he told his interpreter to look out of their foxhole and the interpreter fell back into his arms shot thru the forehead.

Anyway, I got to RVN in October, I can't recall the precise date and as a MAT leader, I would chopper out to some local post in the Plain of Reeds, for a week or so. This pic is just before New Year's Eve, 1971, about to hop in a jeep to zip out to the helipad, with my accompanying SGT, the body builder chap. I thought he and I deserved to celebrate New Year's Eve, so tossed this bottle of cheap champagne into our kit, and away we went. I don't actually recall drinking it.

My 6 monhs as a MAT leader contributed nothing to the War effort. I never had any instructions on my mission, nor ever was debriefed upon my return, and was never tasked to write an After Action Report. Just a sort of "go out and figure out something to do, we don't care anymore."

Once, riding back from the helipad, got back to our compound in Cau Lanh, and found my issue .45 had somehow fallen out of my worn out holster. In a near panic ran back to the jeep and found it under the seat.

This pic with my primitive Ricoh, not my later Pentax.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET.
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It surprised me to see photos of 30-round M16 magazines from 1971. My time in Vietnam included parts of 1969, 1970, and most of 1971, all with Army combat units. Never saw anything but the 20-round magazines. At that time I would have been reluctant to trust the 30-round mags because we had enough trouble with the 20-rounders when loaded to full capacity. Many of us loaded only 18 rounds to avoid feeding failures we believed to be caused by higher mag spring pressures when fully loaded.

Carrying those 30-round mags might have been a problem for most US troops because we were still using the old magazine pouches designed for two M14 magazines, but would hold three of the 20-round M16 mags.

I was trained to load my 20-round mags with the first shot being a tracer, then 4 ball, tracer, 4 ball, tracer, 4 ball, then 3 tracers. The final three rounds provided a clear signal that it was time for another magazine (a handy reminder during a firefight).

RE: suppressed Swedish K (and later S&W Model 76 copy), the factory suppressor took the place of the ventilated barrel shroud/handguard and enclosed nearly the entire length of the barrel. The barrels were made with small holes along the length to progressively vent the propellant gases into the baffled canister of the suppressor. Since much of the gas volume was released before the bullet left the muzzle there was a greatly reduced amount of blast released from the muzzle, most was contained within the suppressor and bled off more slowly. This also reduced muzzle velocity significantly, so even standard velocity ammunition was effectively reduced to subsonic levels, thus no supersonic "crack" from the bullet passing through the air.

That type of suppressor is called an integral suppressor, essentially a long sleeve around the barrel that functions as part of the weapon. Much more efficient than any muzzle-mounted "can" type suppressor.

Years after returning from Vietnam I used the S&W Model 76 with integral suppressor quite a bit (as indicated above, the S&W 76 was little more than a copy of the Carl Gustav Model 45 "Swedish K"). With short bursts there was very little noise, and the sound of the bolt cycling could be clearly heard. With longer bursts the pressure within the suppressor increased and the noise of each shot became noticeably louder.

My understanding is that the Swedish government shut down exports of the Carl Gustav SMGs to US forces because of resistance to US involvement in Vietnam. US Special Forces wanted the Swedish K and Smith & Wesson responded with a close copy of the design. Probably very few, if any, of the S&Ws made it to Vietnam, but S&W continued to offer the Model 76 for LE sales and NFA dealers. The Model 76 was still in the S&W LE catalog until the early or mid-1980s, as I recall.

During that time period S&W was owned by the Bangor Punta Company, and the major shareholders included the Kennedy family. I remember a report of Senator Ted Kennedy's privately employed bodyguards being detained in Washington DC while armed with S&W Model 76 SMGs. Of course, Mr. Kennedy had lost two brothers to political assassinations (JFK and Bobby) so he was probably concerned with his personal safety during those troubled times of the 1970s.

Apparently SF Vet's posts contain bits and pieces that stimulate my ramblings. Hopefully I'm not boring everyone with too much trivia.

$ 150 a month for combat pay ?? when i was there in 64 we only got $ 50 bucks,damn inflation !

even worse, for officers, jump pay was $100 a month, for enlisted, $50. I was not on jump status my year "in-country." My housing allowance, which was non-taxable, was about $150 or so, far as I can remember. It went to my soon-to-be Ex wife, plus I added $125 in child support. My base pay as an O3 was $323 a month.

the army double paid me every month there, and I would hitch-hike up to Saigon every couple of months, and write the army a check for the mistaken pay at the pay office. When I returned to Bragg after my year, in-processed and at the finance office, the clerk there told me I owned the army a year's pay back. I told him I would be back in a few minutes, went back to my BOQ room, and retrieved my canceled checks, and when I showed him my proof, he shrugged and said, "...ok, you are good to go.."

I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I had not kept my cancelled checks. Maybe get something from my stateside bank?

Cancelled checks were useful, because I had to be on my wife's account for her to cash my support checks. So when we had our divorce hearing, I had a months of her handwritten checks from the bank and laid them out for the judge to see where she was paying for her boyfriend's rent and repairs to his motorcycle and other of his expenses. Out of my combat pay.

She cannot refute this, as she died of a brain tumor four years ago.

All the best, and stay safe. SF VET

My recollections say ... roughly $75 CB (E-4) in 1973 of the coast, throwing sticks and stones...

BOY! Do I appreciate that! After the fact of course...

My recollection about "hazardous pay" was wrong, I just looked up the pay rates for 1971, officer and enlisted pay was $65.

All the best, and stay safe, SF VET.

In '67 - '68, "hazardous duty pay" for Enlisted was $55/month and I believe for Officers was $110/month. I was with 1st Brigade, 101st Abn Div and Jump Pay for Enlisted was $55/month and again, I think, Officers $110/month for Jump Pay.

1st Brigade stayed on Jump Status as an Airborne Brigade, even thought we never make any jumps in Viet Nam, we were still paid for Jump Status. 2nd and 3rd Brigade, 101st came over in Dec. of '67 and they were taken off Jump Status and became Air Assault or Air Mobile (helicopters), don't remember now. I have no idea if they were paid for anything else except for "hazardous duty pay".

Around about August of '67, we started getting replacements that were Non Airborne Personnel (legs).

During my second all-expenses paid vacation in sunny Southeast Asia I was put on automatic deposit, my pay was routed to Bank of America, San Francisco branch. Thought that would be easier for my wife and baby. First month, checks bounced all over the place, rent, utilities, groceries, everything. No deposit at the bank.

Payroll office reported everything was fine, deposit sent, obviously a bank error.

Second month and my wife was frantic, no money, collection agencies hounding her about bounced checks, worried about being arrested (a very real possibility in those days). Army payroll office looked into it, found no problem, deposit made and acknowledged by the bank. SOL, GI.

I couldn't even draw a "casual pay" partial because the records were clear, deposits had been made to my bank account.

Finally, after 4 months of frantic worry but very little I could do from 10,000 miles away with limited access to even a telephone, the problem was identified. A number had been transposed in the bank routing codes and my pay was being sent to Bank of America, Sydney, Australia instead of San Francisco. Finally got everything taken care of, required a credit union loan to cover all the bad check fees and other nonsense. Took another year to get everything paid off.

Base pay for a Sergeant E-5 in 1971 was $248.75 per month. Combat pay $65.00. Overseas pay $30.00. Family separation allowance $17.00. Family quarters allowance $105.00. Jump pay $55.00. The pathfinders remained on jump status even after the 101st Airborne Division became "air mobile", but the only parachute jumps I made in Vietnam were while qualifying for the Republic of Vietnam parachutist badge (for some reason they loved to pin stuff on our uniforms, take plenty of photographs).

No income tax while serving in a combat zone. Deductions for social security continued. I carried the maximum Servicemens Group Life Insurance policy of $10,000, which seemed like a huge amount of money at the time.

For those who could afford it, the PX offered new cars for delivery upon return to the States, easy monthly payments! A new Camaro, Mustang, Barracuda, whatever turned your crank could be had and delivered right to you in San Francisco or Seattle just as soon as you got home. IIRC, a new Ford Mustang was about $2400 for GI's purchasing through the PX program.

While in Vietnam we could purchase American cigarettes for $1.90 per carton, or most brands of liquor for about $1.80 per quart (not a fifth, a full quart), and beer was $2.40 per case. All tax-free, of course. Every GI had a ration card allowing purchase of 4 cartons of cigarettes, and either 4 cases of beer or 4 quarts of liquor per month. Needless to say, a great deal of trading went on between non-smokers and non-drinkers. Every C-ration meal included a 4-pack of cigarettes (Winston, Marlboro, Kool, Pall Mall, maybe a couple of others).

US currency was generally forbidden. We were paid in "MPC", military payment certificates, and that is all we were allowed to have. Every few months, without advance notice, there would be a MPC conversion day, all old currency turned in and new bills issued. The problems of black market activity, narcotics, and gambling required control of the money supply, or that was a part of the plan anyway.

More rambling going on.

This at my second six months, way south in the Delta. The Vietnamese officers often had parties, usually for some promotion or the like. This is one of the metal buildings in our compound. Lots of beer and liquor, they liked French booze, from the long 'French heritage in RVN. Mostly duck and rice, maybe sometimes a bit of pork from up in Camau, as there were no pigs in this compound nor in the little market down the road. Ducks need no care or feeing, they just hatch and paddle about eating what was floating on the surface of ponds. Chickens have to be fed, hence, no chickens. Once, I was sucking on some sort of spoon-like item, then realized it was the top bill of a duck's head.

Their rice wine was a very potent clear, tasteless high alcohol drink, pronounced Basidae, or something like that. Once, on an op, we had lots of toasts at some village celebrartion, and I got drunk. They had to carry me back to the compound, not easy for soldiers much smaller than I. When SFC Tom saw them carrying me into the compound, he thought I had been shot. A medic came to give me an injection, but I was able to refuse his rusty needle and Lord knows what was in his syringe. I slept it off.

All cultures have "manners", and they ate by putting their small bowls up to their mouth, and then flicking their food into their mouth. But only three flicks, it was bad manners to flick four times. And when eating with a host, always leave some food in your bowl, thus showing appreciation for being offered more than one could eat.

I like this shot down the table, probably 125 sec with my Pentax. I liked Vietnamese food, it is very different than the "Chinese" food we have here in the States.

Shot an IDPA Classifier today, stupidly missed a head shot. Nice to put my index finger on a 1911's trigger.

All the best, and stay safe, SF VET
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Yes, when invited to eat with Vietnamese the guest should know that his bowl will be refilled as soon as it is emptied, and the host will be embarrassed seriously if the food runs out before the guest is completely satisfied. Also, if in a family setting, no one else will eat until the guest has been taken care of, so the wives and children may go hungry because of our lack of consideration.

Always leave a small portion in the bowl, smile politely, and sit back in a contented posture to assure your hosts that they have performed their duties of hospitality. Belching and farting are optional, but not particularly objectionable!

Thank you, Sergeant Tranh and family! Some very pleasant meals in your home.

I want to thank all of you for sharing your your personal experiences.

I am only 59 and grew up with all of the turmoil over the war, but no real exposure to it, other than my dads younger brother being drafted and scared to death that he was headed to RVN. He didn't end up there.

Thanks to all of you for your service and the sacrifice of your families as well.

As I recall, there were pretty frequent "dinners" with the local officers. Maybe if they had had more austere living arrangements they might have been more interested in getting out to pursue the local Bad Guys. Who doesn't prefer wineing and dining to mucking about in the heat chasing an illusive foe? This is another likely promotion party. Three leaves on a collar is a Vietnamese Captain. I am drinking some beer out of a can, maybe a Bud or something a chopper dropped off? Must have had several as my top is drenched with beer.

The VN officer at the far end of the table is the LTC, the District Chief. The fat VN Major behind the chap in the white top was Major Bey. Worthless. He had a wife and a girlfriend, and was careful to be sure they did not come down from Camau at the same time for a conjugal visit. But once his wife arrived before his girlfriend had left, and there was quire a row between the two women. Served him right. Never saw him do anything remotely military. By then I had from the PACEX catalogue a small flash, a Kako Elite unit. Primitive but worked ok. The local's really liked the small bottles of Maggi sauce, that and Nuc Mam were at every meal.

Hanging over my head is a small almost toy-like French 9 mm SMG. Was like a kid's squirt gun, the barrel even aimed down from the line of sight of the receiver, as if to compensate for full auto muzzle rise.

On the right of the table is the US Major who came down to replace me, I being a CPT in a Major's slot. I had been left to myself since my arrival in-countrhy almost a year before, this "by the book" major was not welcomed by me. I had been doing my own thing for 11 months, and now I actually had to work "under" some ranking officer. The first thing he did was to say I could not waterski on the river whenever I could get our Johnson's running. The local villagers would come out to watch me; I had fun. But in retrospect, I should have been more willing to accept the new Major's decisions. I think I had "gone native" to a small degree. I think I was about a month or so of leaving RVN.

Just visible next to the US Major is another US; I can't recall anything about his duty or reason for being there. Maybe SFC Tom was also soon to DROS home, and he was Tom's replacement.

With several more years on my active army commitment, I had by then begun to plan my next career. More on that in another post.

All the best, and stay safe. SF VET
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What SF Vet referred to as "nuc mam" I knew as "nuoc mam", a very common Vietnamese condiment served with just about everything. It is made from the generally inedible portions of fish (head, entrails, etc), placed into an earthenware container, then buried for several weeks. I'm sure there were regional variations, perhaps other ingredients, but basically a mushy sludge of decomposed fish. The smell would knock me down from 50 feet upwind, probably further downwind.

Another interesting memory is that the Vietnamese could tell when Americans were in the area because of our body smells, and many of us learned to detect Vietnamese by scent. I attribute that to the differences in our dietary habits. Both cultures generally emphasize cleanliness and good grooming, but everything that goes into our mouths eventually exudes from our pores.

Things that Americans would never think of eating were quite acceptable to Vietnamese. A case of ribs or steaks that had started turning green and fuzzy would be thrown out at a GI mess hall, then promptly be scavenged by local Vietnamese for feeding their families. Our trash barrels and mess hall slops were routinely gone through by locals, and nothing ever went to waste when there were Vietnamese (troops or civilians) around.

I find it necessary to again say that I am not being critical of Asians in general, or Vietnamese in particular, only commenting on the many differences in our cultures and habits. Other examples I recall are the habit of Vietnamese men walking together or in groups, frequently holding hands, men and women routinely stopping in plain view along streets or roads to perform excretory functions, and many things Americans might consider normal being perceived as grave insults by Vietnamese (hand motions or signaling by hand, touching Vietnamese people on their shoulders or patting on the shoulder or back, many others).

Today's rambling, done for now.

i remember having some arvin on my plane eating nuc mam, i'd go back to the open door ( in flight ) to get a breath of air.

Speaking of nuoc mam, my NCOIC at one assignment was a SSG who had been a rifted Warrant Officer Vietnam chopper pilot. He told some tall tales, not sure if all were true, but one was pretty funny.

He said that he was transporting rations for some ARVN troops, and it included a big earthenware jar of nuoc mam. Somehow it was upset, and spilled all over the back end of the Huey. He said that the stench was intolerable, but they finally competed their mission, returned to base, and hosed out the chopper.

He thought that was the end of it, but a few days later there were holes in the belly of the bird where the pungent sauce had eaten away at it. Like I said, not sure if this was true or not, but if so, think about what the stuff does to your belly.

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Only a cold warrior

There are pot holes, and then there are potholes. I was up in Camau, the capital of the Mekong Delta area, and checked out a jeep, this I think a 151 variant, to run some sore of errand. Don't recall for what, but went down this city street and was just splashing thru shallow puddles, when the driver's side of my jeep just sank down to the axles. Couldn't chug out with 4 wheel drive, or perhaps that part of the drivetrain had been removed or was inoperable. Maybe removed by the local VN mechanics and traded for something on the local Black Market. So before I walked back to the US compound to arrange a tow out, turned around and shot this pic. Just a typical city street, trash, muck, debris, smells, kids everywhere; and the occasional deep pot hole. I was pretty used to all this sort of thing, so just another day at the office for me.

For several years I have been restoring a '52 Army M37, basically an army 3/4 pick-up truck. This past fall, took, my 6 year old grandson out four-wheeling, and managed to sink hub deep in mud, and had to use my front 200# winch to pull us out. It barely worked, so completely rebuilt it. Was a beast to make it fully functional again.

Anyway, all the best, and stay safe.... SF VET
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One of the first things I noticed about the Vietnamese in general, male or female was their unique smell. I was in the Danang area and knew that they ate Nuoc Mam and was told once that they would not eat rice without it, no sauce...no eat. I tried it and found that just a few drops was all that was needed to give your rice a fishy flavor. Our Papa-san told me it was made by putting a small crock in the earth, place a larger crock with a hole in the bottom on top, fill with scrap fish and salt, cover and bury for a month or so. Not at all different from a kind of caviar made by native tribes that was salted and buried, known by old timers as Siwash Caviar. I also liked the local food and preferred it to Korean War vintage C-rats, I never got sick eating Vietnamese food but did get a serious case of food poisoning eating some pork cooked in tomato sauce that our mechanic/cook had rustled up, I got their after it had cooled and sat in the galley...closest I ever came to thinking I was going to croak from eating.
I forgot to mention that the other thing that gave them a unique smell was that ridiculus smelling tobacco they smoked, I don't think the beetle-nut helped either.

Would not have been surprised if that jeep had been stripped clean down to the frame by the time you got back with the tow.

__________________
Only a cold warrior

This is a chopper view of my compound deep in the Delta. My home was in the left side of the nearest and left metal building. Two 105 batteries on my side of the compound, another in a far corner. The Song Ong Doc (literally, River Mr. Doc) curves around my compound, with a shallow canal where we would pole our Whaler out to deep enough water to start our Johnson's. A small hut next to our Whaler for this and that. Always lots of rats in our supply hut. Two helipads, lots of wire all over the place. In the distant haze is the South China Sea. Once, a fire control officer from a US Destroyer dropped by to see how their fire support was doing, they could shoot something called RAP, a rocket assisted projectile for much longer range. I gave him a captured VC or NVA flag to take back to his ship as a measure of our comradeship. All of these fields were fallow and not farmed.

The South Vietnamese national flag was broad red and yellow bands, and a derogatory comment was '...what isn't yellow is Red...."

Sometimes our radio would pick up bounced FAC conversations from up north, when the US first began to have controlled "smart bombs", I think somehow using a TV for precision guiding. The conversation would have excited pilots blowing up NV armored vehicles working their way south. Like "... look at that xxxx burn!"

I was a sure sign of a war soon to change.

Like when the Bad Guys finally had small shoulder fired surface ro air missiles. Where as before our choppers flew maybe a thousand feet up, they immediately flew Nap Of the Earth, so they could overfly an enemy site in seconds, before becoming a target.


Time for me seemed to pass quickly, and soon , or so it seemed, a chopper came by to pick me up to come back to the "Land of the Round Eyed Girls"... I had a new plan for my life and career.

All the best, and stay safe. SF VET
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Please keep your stories coming and this thread alive. Brings back lots of memories SF VET. Small correction for your last post ... not two 105 batteries but rather two 105 howitzers. A RVN 105 battery contained 6 howitzers or guns. And again, a great thread sir. Thanks for your service to our Nation.

[IMG][/IMG]Yes, and here is a 105 in recoil, sending US Tax dollars down range. This at Me An, was over-run soon after this shot, I suspect these troops had little time left....

SF VET

and this is what an aimer sees looking thru his sight. I don't know what these grids and markers mean, someone else can maybe explain.

Once, at my second post further south, one of the guns fired some interdiction, or more likely just wanted to train or even use up some ammo for the brass cases. There weren't supposed to be any non-combatants or friendlies out that way, but later in the day, a dad brought in his teen son, who had had his foot blown off by our overly enthusiastic gun team. Looked the sad lad over, and sent him up to Camau. Wherever he is now, I hope he has a useful prothesis.

Just one of those incidents....

All the best, and stay safe.... SF VET
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Those empty shells were made into beautiful vases by Vietnamese artists. Reshaped into a flared vase, hand carved in floral patterns or themes (tigers, elephants, nature scenes), and highly polished brass. Lots of those went home with GIs.

At Dong Ha the 105 howitzers were placed all around the compound to provide artillery fire in any direction, as well as direct fire with fleschette rounds (like a big shotgun, about 4" bore, shooting finned nails by the 10-lb. box). The artillery was inside the perimeter, so our defensive bunkers were in front of and below the guns. The concussion was deafening, the air was compressed in a shock wave that hit like a truck, and they seldom took the time to alert us that a fire mission was going to happen before opening up right over our heads. Day or night made no difference, when a fire mission was called in the cannon-cockers went to work and the grunts on the line hunkered down to try and retain a little bit of our natural hearing abilities.

Also a helicopter refueling and re-arming point in the compound. Huey and Cobra gunships roaring in at all hours for gas and rockets. Big rubber fuel bladders that were a prime target for NVA rocket attacks. The NVA were pretty slick about setting up their rockets, set to fire on a battery-powered switch when the water in a can evaporated to a point that the circuit was closed, so our counter-battery fires hit nothing but empty real estate. I remember a story about a Vietnamese mosquito setting down on the slick pad one night and the guys had two pods of rockets mounted and a couple hundred pounds of JP-4 loaded before they noticed it wasn't a helicopter (probably a slight exaggeration, but the skeeters were large and aggressive critters).

Daily patrols around the outside of the perimeter for a few clicks. Occasional night ambush patrols around the area when signs of activity were found (we also had noise and motion sensors around the area).

I remember one night very clearly. Unusually heavy and extended rocket barrage, hunkered down in the bunkers, monitoring the starlight scopes in case of a ground attack. Something clicked in my head, and my thought was WHY DIDN'T I JOIN THE COAST GUARD?

On the LCU I worked on we used to haul 150 ton of 155 howitzer pusher charges, the canister that contains the powder bags. One of the guys looked up the cost of each one and said it was $500. per shot, just the powder...I called b.s. but it wouldn't suprise me when you find out stuff about whose family owned stock in what munition company or in LBJ's case who wife's family owned the company that carried the stuff over.

I imagine that each 155 round, all in, costs a bit more than the stimulus checks they are sending out right now.

__________________
Only a cold warrior

Well, we should care enough to send the very best, don't you think?

U.S ARMY VIETNAM WAR ERA FLECHETTES 1960'S BEEHIVE ROUND 105MM APERS-T M546

Also nicknamed "nail rounds". I first experienced these rounds learning to fire them out of 105MM artillery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Wonder if they would work in 12 guage ?

I began to develop a real affection for the children in my compound. They always seemed to be happy, and surly had no concept of a different life, with safety and hygiene and toys. I wrote my mom and dad, and had them send me a bag of plastic kids' jewelry, rings and bracelets and necklaces and the like. When I gave them out, the little girls were just happy as can be, as none of them had ever had any sort of "jewelry" before. As is typical in cultures where there are scarce aids to motherhood, the older children, always the girls of course, did much of the care of their younger sibs.

I shot this pic of three of the children in the compound. I am sure I made the oatmeal cookies, as Co, our housekeeper and cook, would never had had any idea of making oatmeal cookies. Rice cookies, I am sure, but she had surely never even heard of oatmeal. The boy on the right is her son, she was a war widow. The other two youngsters are Cambodian, their father was a dedicated soldier, but couldn't been over five feet tall. I have blacked out a Playboy centerfold on the door frame.

My briefing charts are against the far wall, with our covered tactical map. There wouldn't have been any need to conceal it, as Chuck probably knew more about our Friendly Outposts than we did. Our mascot, the black cat, is on the chair cushion, before Pop, our handyman, at him.

All the best, and stay safe..... SF VET
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Don't you know that you can get in trouble leaving guns out with children?

Two M16's and an M79, right out there in the open.....

__________________
Only a cold warrior

Yes, they were made and used but were notorious for "blood trails" and not body count as I understand.

A version of the fleschettes was loaded in 12-gauge shotgun shells during our involvement in Vietnam.

Another use was in the 40mm grenade launcher M79.

105mm howitzer ammunition intended for direct fire applications, close defense uses.

2.75" anti-personnel rockets fired from aircraft used fleschettes.

Probably others.

I grew to really like being at the distant end of any command interest or direction or even authority. A versatile, adaptable officer can succeed in both field and staff positions, but too much independence early in one's career can hinder development of such traits. I declined a staff position after my first six months as a MAT leader, with nobody interested in what I was trying to accomplish, and requested another field assignment for my second six months "in-country." I am not sure I would have thrived in some comfortable staff position. Every now and then, a little excitement keeps life interesting.

Apparently, another CPT, who had done a 6 month extension on his tour was leaving a district further south, in An Xuyen Province, the southernmost province In South Vietnam. So he left about the day I arrived, with an experienced Major in charge. We set about building our "hootch", in a newly built compound a few hundred yards for the old one next to a very small village, or hamlet on the river. Within a month, the Major went home for some R&R but developed some illness, so did not return, so HQ up in Camau just let me stay on. Which was fine with me.

Every now and then, some sort of stateside care package would be dropped off by our weekly supply chopper. One day, we got model car boxes, and set about putting them together. When I was growing up, I really got into models, although not cars, mostly ships and airplanes. Here, SFC Tom is looking over his kit, and the Winston smoker out of the picture to the right was another SGT posted for awhile to us. I never smoked, and I don't recall that Tom did either. I have no recollection if we finished or what happened to our car models. We kept our rifles loaded and chambered.

Time passed quickly for me.

All the best, and stay safe.... SF VET
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My section sgt when I was at Ft Polk had been with the 5th ID up on the DMZ. He said one night they were attacked and fired off evrything they had available, the next morning they went out to do an assessment and found a few bodies that had been hit by fleshette rounds.

Fort Polk is located exactly 188 miles slightly southwest of where I grew up in very southern Arkansas. The jets practicing for Vietnam would come over my High School cut on their afterburners and it would drown out the teachers and rattle every window in the school with the roar from their engines. I graduated High School in 1967.

Remember the 60s Vietnam inspired music!

Your handyman ate the cat?

I would have been pissed.

__________________
BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

It was very un-officer like of you to share your booty from home (the car models) with mere NCO's, but as a former NCO I salute you.

__________________
Only a cold warrior

Thank you for your service. I was almost there towards the end--my draft number was 125 the year they called 119--turned 18 in '71. I have close friends who were there. A couple of them are on the Wall.

Attached Images

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This is early in my first six months, based out of Cau Lanh, in the middle of the Delta, up against the Cambodian Border. At the edge of the Plain of Reeds, a vast area of flat, featureless, wet reeds, with water maybe a few feet to ten feet or more. One couldn't see how deep it was just by looking down from a boat or 'chopper. I was there in the Rainy Season, so I don't know what it was like in the "dry" season.

this is the SGT who was a pistol guy, always wearing about 5 or more handguns all over him. He had the great eagle tattoo on his chest, and every evening would take off his top and the local troops would come and admire his art. Many of the local troops had crude self-tattoos, a popular one was to have "kill VC" on their left hand, in the web between the thumb and index finger. I thought about it, but never did any tattoos, besides, if worse comes to worse, how does one explain that to a captor.

He was the body builder, with about 60 pounds of barbells in his ruck, and would toss it to the local troops catching our gear when we hopped off our chopper. Note his M16 has a 30 round mag, I never had had any, only 20 round mags. We always traveled "locked and loaded."

We would stay out about a week or so, trying to teach how to call in and direct air strikes, but it was a peaceful area, and the troops there had no interest in warfighting, just napping and drinking.

I suspect this is shot with my early simple Ricoh camera, but still has pretty good resolution. I have my ruck and our PRC 77 radio but don't see my own rifle, so was just carrying my issue 1911.

A tiny hamlet, along a canal of sorts, this is where the Jesuit priest lived, the one I gave a M3 .45 Grease Gun to when he showed me his revolver. After wondering what happened to him, I found out about a decade ago he returned and went on to a long and very productive life of missionary work.

This is the hamlet where I first had to come to an acceptance of the terrible things that happen to people, especially children. The place where the little girl had been shot in the chest, and no one would help her.

All the best, and stay safe. SF VET.
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Perhaps like most kids, when I was growing up, for as far back as I could remember, I wanted to be like my dad, a career Naval Aviator since the late '30's. I took the Naval ROTC physical when I finished HS in '65, and found out that I am color-blind, and was thus never eligible to even be a "line" officer in the navy, much less an Aviator. I was pretty down about it, but talked with the father of one of my HS friends, whose dad had just returned from Vietnam as commander of all SF in Vietnam. He told me that I should become army Special Forces, and when I replied that being in the Special Services sounded like a great alternative, he chided me with "...Special Services rents canoes, Special Forces actually fight."

As I have mentioned previously, I called my wife and mother of our 3 year old son from Travis AFB just before boarding a jet to Vietnam, and she informed of her affair with an Army doctor, and would be now living with him. Totally, totally surprising me.

Ever since graduating from HS, my career plans had exclusively focused on an Army career. Putting my wife out of my mind, I think in retrospect something important for me to come home from my first war, as I saw the terrible things that happen to non-combatents, the first vague idea that some sort of medical career was in my future began to percolate in my mind. But I had been an English major in college, and an absolutely miserable student of the required chemistry and math courses.

The military had several programs for service members in Vietnam, one, the "Big Ten" was a savings program with 10% interest, a good deal at the time. Sending an allotment and my Hostile Fire pay to my "wife" did not leave me anything left over for my participation in the "Big Ten" program.

But the Army had a program of free college courses, out of all places, Nebraska. I felt I somehow had to learn science courses, esp chemistry, if I was ever going to be some sort of medical person. So I started a chem course, and my remote instructor was non other than the one back in Lincoln who had generously passed me with a D in his class. I carried my chem text in a plastic bag, and used my 6 inch metal slide rule to learn how to do the problems.

When I had some down time, I would get out my text and my slide rule, and the local troops, never having seen such a tool, would ask me what it was for. I told them it foretold the future, and they would ask questions like how many sons they would have and how long they would live.

I made up some number of sons, and would manipulate my little Pickett and reply to their inquiry as to their life span, with "... not good, not much life left."

My long path to eventually becoming Flash Qualified SF and an Army Flight surgeon and service in Desert Storm is for another time.

Was out to a SC State rifle range yesterday, shooting my 105 grain hand loads in my Belgium Browning 243. Accurate.

So stay safe, and all the best..... SF VET

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While I was in the Army I found a lot of educational opportunities available at little or no expense. At that time the overall program was under the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) with undergraduate and graduate level courses available through several colleges and universities, as well as many disciplines and fields of study. USAFI also had arrangements for college credits to be granted by accredited universities for many of the Army's training schools.

Most of the coursework was by independent study, textbooks and necessary materials sent to the student, testing done at post Education Centers with proctors monitoring the exams. Specific issues might require mail correspondence with a faculty member, which was a bit cumbersome but some of us made it work.

By a combination of correspondence, independent study, and challenge (testing out of individual courses) I was able to complete almost 3 full years of college coursework in a couple of years spare time work. Another advantage of working through USAFI was that completed coursework was reported to the personnel records offices so the individual's service records quickly reflected achievements (quite helpful at promotion boards).

I knew several guys in aircraft maintenance positions that completed FAA certifications as Airframe & Power Plant mechanics, a very good career field. Transportation maintenance guys had a quick route to several certification programs (diesel, heavy equipment, etc). Trained and experienced heavy truck drivers could walk out of the Army and right into some good driving jobs. Trained firefighters also transitioned easily to civilian departments. Communications and electronics technicians were usually very well trained, so in big demand. Military Police personnel had little difficulty finding civilian employment. Engineering specialties offered lots of great opportunities, as did Supply and logistics personnel.

Rough times, but also lots of opportunities for those working to get ahead in life. Especially valuable to many of us who entered the Army at 17 or 18 years of age with relatively little employment history or job skills.

I just saw today is RVn vets day? Would have slipped right past if it had not be posted. Must not amount to much or the major news networks would have made a big deal of it. My little village has the distinction of suffering the biggest loss percentage wise to the Vietnam War. They even brought the traveling Wall here once and set it up on the football field.
I haven’t been watching TV the last couple months, think I’ll turn it on tonight and see if it’s mentioned on network news. Maybe not since the military is now on short list of problems.

My first six months were about in the center of the Delta, with assignments with one SGT to chopper out to this or that location. Often to some remote Vietnamese outpost and other times to a US District team, where a Major would be assigned with one or two US enlisted and several Vietnamese interpreters. The middle of the Delta was filled with roads, but often the only way around was by water. Lots of small "rivers" or more accurately canals with hamlets and villages lining the banks. The local's, usually women, would fill up some 20 or so foot long sampan, and have some motor man in the stern either poling or paddling or sometimes motoring up or downstream. It was amazing how these small narrow sampans would be packed with women and cargo, sitting with the gunnels literally at the water's height. Maybe an inch of freeboard. If we powered by in our Whalers, WE would slow down as much as we could to make our wake as small as possible, but sometimes the sampan would make for the canal's bank trying to avoid being swamped. Didn't always make it.

This is the US Major at I think Me An, as usual trying to get one of the 40 hp Johnson's running again. This is the Major who was from West VA, and who played John Denver's song "Almost home, West Va..." endlessly, over and over.

When I went much further south after six months, and had my own Whaler with twin Johnson's, I too got pretty good at fiddling with them trying to get both to run. Sometimes I too had dead engines, and had to beg a tow from some passing sampan.

I grew up mowing yards, so had a pretty good understanding of carbs and needle jets and filters. But the Vietnamese mechanics up in Province would use metric fasteners on SAE fittings, so parts were always vibrating off. Or strip the threads on this and that.

Here, a typical mid Delta canal.

All the best, and stay safe.... SF VEWT
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like I said, sometimes both of my motors would just die, and I would wave some passing sampan over to tow me. They sure weren't going to refuse, after all, I had weapons leaning against the gunnels. Of course, I had lots of supplied Vietnamese Dong to pay them. This pic in my own much more rural district, with no hamlets or farms along the banks. Much flatter, and few trees on the banks. My map case on the front seat. I still have it with the grease pencil markings from the day I DEROS'ed . Kinda sketchy...

I am noting as I look back on my pictures, that it seems just about always when I am at my own compound or hootch, or just our somewhere, I have my top off. I don't recall being overheated or sweltering, but I guess it was just more comfortable.

Kinda vulnerable drifting with the river current, just waiting and waiting and waiting.

All the best, and stay safe. SF VET
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the operations of the Vietnamese troops tended to be "blocking" sorts of rather ponderous operations. They often stopped for lunch, usually at some poor very rural farmer just trying to make a living between two warring factions. The local VC were an onerous force to contend with, confiscating the farmers rice and livestock, and making threats of this or that. When the local troops would search their hootches it wasn't uncommon to find small homemade flags of both the VC and the "official" government. I had some VC flags, but lost them along with my TR8 and other relics from my first war in a garage fire at my Quarters at Bragg when I was back as a staff physician in '84.

I know it looks like I am afraid of getting some mud on my hands, but those who travel in such muck know that holding one's hands and arms up and out helps with balance. At least, that is my story, and I'm sticking to it. I have my water and PRC77, and am wearing my issue 1911. Hot tropical mud really smells bad. Sometimes it was too muddy even for the leeches.

Stay safe, and all the best. "Two Vaccination" SF VET!
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