Snubby in Vietnam

SF VET said:
just quick recollection here: When I left active service in Jan of '74 to begin my path of an eventual medical career, I had to process out of the army. I was in a room with about a dozen troopers also leaving active duty. A SGT gave us a health declaration form, and told us ".... now in block 17, write in your own words ....I am in perfect health, and nothing is wrong with me, then pass your forms to me."

Making it difficult for them later to claim any disability. Tricks of the trade, I guess. The only health care I chose to get at my VA is for my glasses, which are first rate, and my hearing aids, also top of the line.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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Interesting.

I ETS'd from Devens in early '76, just two years after you had left. My experience was a bit different. I had 30 days leave accumulated, so I did the go home on leave and ETS by mail thing. Before I left, I had to sign my DD-214 and an acknowledgement of the rules about having a Secret clearance. Turned in my ID card and I turned my gear into my detachment NCOIC. They cut me a check for travel pay home.

The most important thing (for them) was I had to turn my field jacket in to supply. They were obsessed with civilians not wearing field jackets and were taking everyone's. Sucked for me since it was like -5F in MA at the time and I didn't have a civilian winter coat. Stopped at store on the way out of town, bought a coat, and drove home.

I heard from the Army twice after I ETS'd. Three days after my official ETS date, when my leave was up, I got my official DD-214 in the mail. Then three years later when my inactive reserve time was up, they sent my official honorable discharge certificate to my home of record address (my parents).
 
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Early in my first six months in Kien Phong province, Delta, I hopped a ride up to Saigon for a PX run. While there, heard Bob Hope was bringing his Gold Digger Girls and his USO troup to a big outdoor theater on a US base, it may have been at the big logistical base Long Binh. So saw Bob Hope, here the little guy with his golf club on stage, telling jokes. Gomer Pyle, who had a great singing voice drove by a few feet from me.

Bob had been doing USO shows in WWII and Korea, and now was doing his patriotic part for us. I had, and still have a tremendous admiration for him and others, who did this.

Went by the PX, where there were all sorts of high end watches, mostly Seiko's, and Reel to Reel tape recorders, and stereo systems. Picked up some Kodachrome, and dropped by the Officer's Club at Tan San Nhut airbase for lunch.

In time, eating just Vietnamese food, "rich' America food became difficult for me to swallow, and had to re-acquire a taste for Stateside chow. At the O Club, I just wanted BLT sandwiches, so ordered one after another, sitting by myself. A table next to me had about 6 'chopper pilots, who were drinking too much, and being too loud with their relating of missions. I grew tired of it. I just wanted some peace and quiet and to just enjoy my BLT's. Several times I told them to pipe down. About the third time I heard a loud '...and there I was, taking fire...." I pulled out my Buck Folding hunter and flicked out the blade, and turned and said something along the lines of "... I am telling you to pipe down!" and for a few minutes it was less noisy for me.

Now days, I just can't imagine puling a knife on other US in an Officer's Club and not being pulled out by the MP's. I have come to realize that the usual customs and honorable behavior at home just fade away in the unreal experience of a war. And why troops do things that in in their peacetime, home life they would find abhorrent. People who are critical of wartime actions who have never been there just can't comprehend how, or why morally wrong things happen.

I am taking one of my wife's friends to learn to shoot her revolver today. Will load it with my reduced power handholds for her to start. And take my 28-2 too. Tomorrow meeting a friend, who has a new S&W, but can't find ammo for it. Taking some of my 38 sp loads for him. I can't imagine having a new firearm, and not having any ammo for it.

All the best, and stay safe,, SF VET
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Thank you again, SF VET for telling us about your experiences, your observations and how they affected you. You give insight to the day-to-day events and how different they were from life back in the world. People need to hear these things.

My father's generation were WWII and few of them would talk about it. One time, Mom talked Uncle Joe into telling "the kid" about his WWII experiences. It pained him. During that talk, my respect for him increased immensely. I soon understood why he didn't want to talk. Although he told me about WWII, Korea wasn't mentioned. I never even knew he was in Korea until I saw his grave marker.

My respect and thanks go out to all folks who have served, and are serving this country.
 

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I hope that Abrams tank in the picture is not the one accidentally destroyed by ‘friendly fire’But I am afraid it is. The son a good friend was killed in it. My friend a Vietnam marine and his wife had to get a US senator to investigate.Military finally admitted it was a mistake.GOD BLESS all our fallen troops.
 
Well, so far the moderators haven't closed this thread. So I'll stay aboard.

When I look at my RVN slides, it seems that in most of the home scenes, I am not wearing a top. I don't recall that it was unbearably hot and humid, at least not enough to be all miserable and sweaty. But just no need to wear a jungle fatigue top around the house. I had only what I was issued when I got in-country and my locally sewn black PJ's When I have in the past watched "war movies' of RVN, it seems like like lots of US had civies on. I wore a set of khaki's over, then folded them up and didn't put them on again until I flew home a year later. Didn't wear any skivvies, and usually when out in the field didn't button up my fly either, more ventilation that way.

I think all soldiers fret about getting their "privates" blown off. One of our compound's local troops actually did lose his "junk" to a mine. Really badd JuJu for him. One day our weekly supply chopper tossed off some steaks for us. We were so pumped and thrilled, that I had to take a picture of our dinner. We kept our M16's loaded as you can see, with a bandolier of M79 rounds hanging next to our "thumper." The Rise Shaving Cream girl is the B&W lass in the pic.

So as not to make my mom and dad worry, them being back in Lincoln, they never saw any of my slides, and I just told them I was in some sort of city police work. I did correspond with a Pan Am stewardess, and still have a pic she sent to me, although we never actually met face to face.

It was a very important year in my life. I learned a lot abourt myself, one thing being I can make myself do anything. A year ago had to walk thru a snake infested area to help two women with a problem. I hate venomous snakes.

I did take a lady friend of my wife shooting yesterday. At first her hands were shaking so bad she could scarcely hold her AirWt S&W. An hour later, she was doing double taps.

All the best and stay safe... SF VET
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SF VET said:
It was the pencil-thin green vipers I feared. The locals kept this squeezer around to keep some of the rats at bay.

SF VET
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In 1970 I was assigned to Pathfinder Detachment, 212th Combat Aviation Battalion at Marble Mountain Airfield near Da Nang (USMC facility with Army and ROK units also). One of the battalion staff officers kept a python in his hooch, took it to the officers club about once per month, the patio was cleared and a chicken (purchased locally for the purpose) was released for the python's consumption. The event usually took a two or three hours while the snake gradually worked the bird into a corner, then struck and constricted before consuming dinner. Admission was a dollar, couple of kegs of beer were provided for the entertainment, usually a few side bets and a pool on the timing of the inevitable conclusion.

Great entertainment at the time.

Lots of snakes in Vietnam. Sea snakes in the ocean (very aggressive and potentially deadly), couple of species of python, cobras, assorted vipers all over the place. The slender green critters were sometimes called "bamboo snakes", found in low vegetation where they hunted by standing up like the shoot of a plant. As I recall, they were a species of krait, capable of injecting a neurotoxin that acted very quickly to paralyze, hence the moniker "two step snake" indicating about how long you might have before falling over dying of pulmonary arrest.

In addition to trip-wires, bunji pits, and booby traps we all learned to pay very close attention to where we put our feet and hands, where we sat or knelt down, etc.

To this day, while hiking in brushy areas here in Colorado I carry a walking stick to extend ahead and allow snakes to make themselves known and give them an opportunity to leave before I blunder ahead. My home is located on the edge of a prairie extending for miles and home to countless prairie rattlesnakes, and several times per year I have to deal with one on my patio or close around the house. I DO NOT LIKE SNAKES!
 
The Bamboo vipers really were pencil thin and maybe 5 or 6 feet long. And would just lie stationary but with their heads held up looking around. Once, up where there were roads, driving a Jeep, saw one lying across the road, head up to the passenger side of the jeep, I was driving. I just closed my eyes and continued, and never looked back to see who won that encounter.

By '89, as an LTC in an EVAC hispital in the Reserves, out of Topeka, when Busch Sr announced he was sending three more divisions to liberate Kuwait I told my wife it was high time to drag out my footlocker and get ready. Sure enough, a few days later, the Hospital exec called me and our call was coming in the AM.

Our 400 man/woman Hospital, being almost half of the latter, packed up, and headed the 80 miles west to Ft Riley, where I had had my ROTC Summer Camp in '67. Nothing had changed in the 22 years since them. Our unit went thru drills and refresher training, but mostly just waited for tansportation to Saudi Arabia.

One eve, our commander, a superlative COL, just the perfect leader for all of us and our mission, told me to grab my gear and hop on a truck, as I was on our small advance party, two other officers, and about 15 Enlisted truck drivers. I only had a few minutes, drew a 1911, called my wife and was rolling to my second war in an hour.

Flew to SA in a C5A's small troop compartment on the upper deck, and arrived about Christmas. First, billeted in some tents in an incredibly dusty field.

All the best, an stay safe. SF VET.
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LoboGunLeather said:
In 1970 I was assigned to Pathfinder Detachment, 212th Combat Aviation Battalion at Marble Mountain Airfield near Da Nang (USMC facility with Army and ROK units also). One of the battalion staff officers kept a python in his hooch, took it to the officers club about once per month, the patio was cleared and a chicken (purchased locally for the purpose) was released for the python's consumption. The event usually took a two or three hours while the snake gradually worked the bird into a corner, then struck and constricted before consuming dinner. Admission was a dollar, couple of kegs of beer were provided for the entertainment, usually a few side bets and a pool on the timing of the inevitable conclusion.

Great entertainment at the time.

Lots of snakes in Vietnam. Sea snakes in the ocean (very aggressive and potentially deadly), couple of species of python, cobras, assorted vipers all over the place. The slender green critters were sometimes called "bamboo snakes", found in low vegetation where they hunted by standing up like the shoot of a plant. As I recall, they were a species of krait, capable of injecting a neurotoxin that acted very quickly to paralyze, hence the moniker "two step snake" indicating about how long you might have before falling over dying of pulmonary arrest.

In addition to trip-wires, bunji pits, and booby traps we all learned to pay very close attention to where we put our feet and hands, where we sat or knelt down, etc.

To this day, while hiking in brushy areas here in Colorado I carry a walking stick to extend ahead and allow snakes to make themselves known and give them an opportunity to leave before I blunder ahead. My home is located on the edge of a prairie extending for miles and home to countless prairie rattlesnakes, and several times per year I have to deal with one on my patio or close around the house. I DO NOT LIKE SNAKES!
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One thing I think is interesting from both your and SF_VET's stories is how really different your experience was from his. Two guys, same war, both in Vietnam at about the same time, but two way different experiences.

From your stories here and in other threads, you were a shooter. Saw lots of combat up close and personal. Lots of time in the field sleeping in the mud.

SF_VET lived an austere life in a dangerous, remote village in the middle of a combat zone, but at least from his posts, no combat.

Both really fascinating stories, but it's almost like two completely different worlds.
 
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Ziggy

That's just the way it is. Just look at Band of Brothers when Nixon tells Winters he's never fired a shot, or Saving Private Ryan when Tom Hanks reports to the CP. Guys shaving with hot water and eating roast beef sandwiches, while he's been living in the mud.

During the Gulf War my tank battalion had one of the highest unofficial, we officially didn't track it, kill rations of the war. But as a radio guy I saw almost no action.
 
Ziggy2525 said:
One thing I think is interesting from both your and SF_VET's stories is how really different your experience was from his. Two guys, same war, both in Vietnam at about the same time, but two way different experiences.

From your stories here and in other threads, you were a shooter. Saw lots of combat up close and personal. Lots of time in the field sleeping in the mud.

SF_VET lived an austere life in a dangerous, remote village in the middle of a combat zone, but at least from his posts, no combat.

Both really fascinating stories, but it's almost like two completely different worlds.
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Good observations. SF VET and I are close in age and our Vietnam experiences overlapped, but there were differences:

1. My time was in I Corps, the far northern portion of South Vietnam. The mountainous areas were less densely forested and a lot more open terrain; the coastal areas and major river valleys were more typically southeast Asia with more agriculture and population centers. There was VC activity, but most of our engagements involved actual North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces, territorial imperatives rather than insurrection/terrorist action.
SF VET's time was apparently a few hundred miles to the south, more of the open fields, paddies, scattered small villages.

2. My position was airborne infantry, pathfinders. By definition, these are combat units. Pathfinders were typically deployed to scout and secure sites for airborne or airmobile troop insertions and extractions, maintain control of incoming and outgoing troops and aircraft, some air traffic control to avoid conflicts and maintain priorities (reinforcements, resupply, medevac, etc). We also received a fair number of fast response rescue missions for downed aircraft and crews. Usually operated in 5 or 6 man teams, light weapons only (up to M60 machinegun, but frequently rifles and grenade launchers only). SF VET's position was as a MAC-V (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam) advisor, assigned to advise, assist, and liaison with South Vietnamese military units, single officers or small teams living with the allied forces we were supporting, thus totally exposed to every element of danger presented by local enemy activities.

3. I arrived in 1969 as a private first class, went home 1970 as a sergeant, then back again as a sergeant in 1971. As a relatively junior enlisted man I answered to junior officers. SF VET was a captain within a regional force dedicated to supporting overall joint operations. Thus my knowledge of plans and access to intelligence information was at a much lower level.

Much different terrain, interaction with locals, missions, and just plain focus. We were focused on hurting people and breaking things, usually in relatively brief engagements. MAC-V advisors were focused on developing and maintaining rapport and coordinating "the big picture" within their areas of responsibility.

Lots of differences. Mostly the same uniforms and equipment, but far different missions.
 
This pic just knocks me out. After about a week in the choking dust in the tents, we moved to Kohbar Towers, where the Saudi's had built this big complex for the bedouins, who refused to give up their traditional life. It was here a few years later that terrorists blew up a building, killing quite a few US troops.

Not much for me to do, shopped for some gold for my wife and daughter, and had our motor SGT show me how to drive a HUMVEE and issue me an army driver's license, soon to come in handy. Our Exec signed some papers, and our drivers came back with about a dozen trucks loaded with our hospital gear.

Our young troopers were just dying to break into our Basic Load of M16 ammo, but I just knew something bad would happen with that, so did not permit any live ammo yet. Later, when we were driving out, I permitted them to load their mags, but not to load their rifles. I wa amazed to see how they tore into the crates and then try to single load their mags. No one had ever shown them how to load stripper clips with the little gizmo that comes in the crate, and fits over the back of a mag.

Chow was provided by contract companies, rice with some sort of stew poured over it. Bottled water. I took this pic one afternoon. Note the long, long line of hundreds of troops slowly and patiently shuffling along. When I read or hear now-a-days about someone going berserk when the drive thru is slow, or gives them the wrong mustard, I just remember these troops taking their time and turn.

It was cold and wet.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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SF Vet - what type of medicine did you land on when you decided to go that route ?

Lobo - what did you do after your service to our country ?

BTW - I appreciated your very well laid out, compare and contrast of the different roles in country.

I am 59 YO and I can't wrap my head around what you, SF Vet and others went through at such a young age. My skull hadn't even hardened at 22. I know I would have been a hard to manage knucklehead because I really wasn't capable of taking anything seriously at that age. I guess I would have had to grow up fast.
 
I met some KC 135 guys that were based there during the Gulf war. They said the apartments they stayed in (built for the Beduins that refused to live there) had gold plated fixtures and fireplaces. They never could figure out what was supposed to burn in them.
OZ
 
llowry61 said:
SF Vet - what type of medicine did you land on when you decided to go that route ?

Lobo - what did you do after your service to our country ?

BTW - I appreciated your very well laid out, compare and contrast of the different roles in country.

I am 59 YO and I can't wrap my head around what you, SF Vet and others went through at such a young age. My skull hadn't even hardened at 22. I know I would have been a hard to manage knucklehead because I really wasn't capable of taking anything seriously at that age. I guess I would have had to grow up fast.
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Replied to the personal questions via PM. Thanks for your comments. Of more general interest to this discussion:

About half of Army troops of that time period were draftees, typically 18 to 23 years old (the older ones usually those who had student deferments for college), 2-year active duty commitment, and the opportunity to extend the 1-year Vietnam tour by 6 months in exchange for an early discharge. Lots of the younger guys were pursuing GI Bill education benefits so they could afford college after military service.

New officers were mostly recent ROTC college graduates, 22 to 24 years old, reserve commissions. Some were military academy graduates (regular army commissions) on a career path. A few were prior enlisted service, either OCS (officer candidate school) grads or direct commissions. In field operations and around the smaller fire and support bases we seldom saw senior personnel (officers above captain, NCOs above staff sergeant), and very few more than about 25 years old. Occasionally a field grade officer (major, lieutenant colonel, or colonel) might show up, inspection tours, command consultations, maybe nothing more than an excuse to get out of HQ for a day or two, photo op shaking hands for the reporters, eating C-rations with the boys, or passing out medals, whatever.

Many of our senior NCOs were WW2 or Korea veterans, working on retirement at 30 years or so for maximum pension. The officers (regular army and reserve) had their own social structures, and the West Point grads were known for looking after each others' career interests. Relatively little personal interaction between officers and enlisted ranks (especially junior enlisted). In addition, there were warrant officers, many with years of enlisted service and specialized training in technical fields such as aviation, engineering specialties, communications, skilled maintenance, etc (really the best of both, all the perks of being an officer but with little or no command functions).

The general wisdom in the Army was that for every soldier at the sharp end of the stick (combat arms units like infantry, artillery, combat aviation, cavalry/tanks) it takes about a dozen troops in support roles to complete any mission. All are essential, and no one in a combat theater is immune to the war. More than a few cooks, clerks, truck drivers, and supply troops were seen with combat awards (Purple Heart and combat valor awards).

By 1972 there was a RIF in progress (Reduction in Force). In the non-commissioned officer ranks the rule was "up or out", with those who had not passed promotion boards within certain time constraints facing discharge or early retirements. In the officer ranks many with reserve commissions were released from active duty (some choosing to remain as non-commissioned officers, some transferred to reserve components). Many active duty ranks were considered "temporary", with a "permanent rank" applicable in the event of a RIF. As a corporal my permanent rank was PFC, as a sergeant my permanent rank was corporal. Lots of reserve lieutenants and captains had permanent ranks of sergeant or staff sergeant.

A RIF was a tough time for lots of soldiers. Imagine committing yourself to a 20 or 30 year career and rising to (essentially) a middle-management position of some comfort and security, perhaps 12 or 15 years completed, then finding out that your slot would no longer exist. I personally knew an excellent staff sergeant who had several years service as an officer, rising to captain before the RIF, and a very good captain who had served as a lieutenant colonel in Korea after a few years of enlisted service before separating and going to college, then returning to active duty during Vietnam.

Different times. Young people put in tough situations. Occasionally "babies leading babies" could have applied.
 
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