Snubby in Vietnam

[SF VET]

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

 

[SF VET]

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

 

[SF VET]

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

 

[SF VET]

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

 

[SF VET]

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.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

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.

 

[18robert]

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

 

[SF VET]

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

 

[HorizontalMike]

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

 

[HorizontalMike]

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

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

 

[SF VET]

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.

 

[ron_c]

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).

 

[LoboGunLeather]

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

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.

 

[SF VET]

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

 

[LoboGunLeather]

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.

 

[llowry61]

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.

 

[SF VET]

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

 

[LoboGunLeather]

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.

 

[18robert]

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.

 

[Sistema1927]

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.