Carbines in Vietnam

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Dave,

Know the feeling brother, welcome home. Those two words mean a lot to most of us. I wasn't drafted, volunteered. Even with all the stigma people put on us for going, I am proud to have served my country.

Guys read about it and think, wow, get to shoot some cool weapons. And we did. But I wonder if most really understand. It's not romantic or glorious. You get to shoot these cool weapons because someone is shooting back at you. A lot of medical breakthroughs come from patching up the guts of young men. A large percentage of medals were awarded posthumously. You live in filth. Eat cold out of a can. Feet soaked and rotting. Wet and cold one season, then hot and humid the next. You give blood once a week because of shortages. You come home and have medical issues, nightmares. There isn't much good about being in a war zone. It's not like the movies. Some stuff is just better left unsaid.

Jim

My personal experience would make a lot of people uncomfortable to hear. Our latrine was an eight foot X six foot wooden box with six holes cut in the top. When you sat down, your *** was touching someone else's. 500 men used it, there was no provision for washing. The shower was so putrid that the showerheads were removed because they would clog from all of the dead skin and soap residue as they pumped up the same white colored water, over and over again. People were getting sick with hepatitis and there were warning signs all over saying "Do not drink, do not brush your teeth". We sometimes went for days with no water. We lived in rat infested tents raised up on wooden floors, the rats were the size of housecats and finally died of bubonic plague in the spring of 66 along with 35K Viets. But that was our base camp, we had it good compared to the Infantry, they slept on the ground and ate out of cans for weeks at a time.

My initial location when I arrived was Camp Alpha in Saigon. It was made for 600 men, there were over 2000 in it when I arrived. You would stand in line for a half hour to use a falling apart paper cup and get a drink of hot clorox water out of a lister bag. It was like a German prison camp, packed full of soldiers. A few days before I got there, the VC dropped mortar rounds into that place, it was so packed there was no place to hide. Thank God I got out of there in two days and went North up to II Corps.

The whole experience was a filthy dirty camping trip with guns. And we had it made compared to the Infantry.

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[Hercules Powder]

One thing about Vietnam........It killed a lot that survived.

'68-'69 Infantry

[Amsdorf]

I honor and thank God for all the men who served in Vietnam. I was born in 1962 and lived in Pensacola, Florida growing up and saw a LOT of shot up aircraft coming in for repairs. We were very pro-miliary and I remember wearing a POW-MIA bracelet for years.

A person contacted me on Facebook who I've gotten to know and he is aware of my interest in historic firearms. He told me he was an advisor in Vietnam in the early 1960s and the team of South Vietnamese he was advising presented him with a "Chinese carbine" which, in his words, they took from a NVA soldier who "didn't need it anymore" and handed it to him, John. John sent me pictures today and it is a quite nice looking Mosin M44!

Can't wait to hear the whole story and details about his experience getting it.

[frankderrico]

Herc, you got that right.
A friend that served there gave me a call on New Years eve back in the '80's. It was unusual in that I had moved to Wis. in the late '70's and hadn't had much contact with him except for some weddings or funerals for a few years. He always seemed messed up by his expriance there. Drafted and didn't want to go.
We talked for awhile and then he said good by in a strange way. I found out later that he called all the old guys that night and then took his own life.

Very sad and tragic.....Frank

[Hercules Powder]

Herc, you got that right.
A friend that served there gave me a call on New Years eve back in the '80's. It was unusual in that I had moved to Wis. in the late '70's and hadn't had much contact with him except for some weddings or funerals for a few years. He always seemed messed up by his expriance there. Drafted and didn't want to go.
We talked for awhile and then he said good by in a strange way. I found out later that he called all the old guys that night and then took his own life.

Very sad and tragic.....Frank

And people wonder why there are so many homeless vets.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

I don't think Herc is just talking about suicide. Though we know there have been many who struggled like that. Guys have and are passing because of complications from wounds, agent orange related diseases are now at 14, plus guilt and mental issues (PTSD).

Each war has it's own concerns. How horrible was WW1 with mustard gas and chlorine. Nasty tissue eaters.

Herc, you got that right.
A friend that served there gave me a call on New Years eve back in the '80's. It was unusual in that I had moved to Wis. in the late '70's and hadn't had much contact with him except for some weddings or funerals for a few years. He always seemed messed up by his expriance there. Drafted and didn't want to go.
We talked for awhile and then he said good by in a strange way. I found out later that he called all the old guys that night and then took his own life.

Very sad and tragic.....Frank

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I'm sure others here have probably seen the same documentary about WWI and the shell shock cases where men went completely insane. There was one vet who had just passed away in the 1990's and he shook violently and uncontrollably his entire lifetime.

There are horrors in all wars that vets carry with them their entire lives. The big difference about Vietnam vets and vets from all other U.S. wars is how horrible they were treated after they returned home in the late 60's and 70's. I think it's one of the most despicable and tragic things I've known in my lifetime. Completely and utterly despicable that a whole part of the American society would behave like they did.

It's just unimaginable to me and I was just a kid at that time but remember it vividly. It's only been relatively just recently that Vietnam vets have been treated with the honor they deserved 40 years ago.

[Hercules Powder]

There are horrors in all wars that vets carry with them their entire lives. The big difference about Vietnam vets and vets from all other U.S. wars is how horrible they were treated after they returned home in the late 60's and 70's. I think it's one of the most despicable and tragic things I've known in my lifetime. Completely and utterly despicable that a whole part of the American society would behave like they did.

I was wounded bad enough to be sent back to the states, but not bad enough to be discharged. After a few weeks in a hospital in Japan and a week at home I had to report to Ft Meade MD and was assigned to riot control around DC. Talk about insult to injury….. that really sucked. But, the whole Vietnam experience made a lot of us feel worthless any way….. that never goes away.

[imarangemaster]

I enlisted in 1974. I had thought of doing it earlier, but my older brother, an O-3 who had served in Vietnam two tours, talked me out of it. When I was in MP school at Ft Gordon, they were looking for MP volunteers for Saigon, etc. I was married by then and had a kid already. My wife vetoed it this time. The closet I came was Oakland army Base guarding crap returning, including some long, silver, boxes of remains, non-viewable. Thanks to all you who served. I have my own nightmares from 20+ years of law enforcement, getting shot at, and of stuffing body bags from doing homicide and coroner investigations, and child rape investigations. The things people do to each other (including war) is beyond belief.

[firstflabn]

Though it only began to become clear with the fall of the Soviet Union, VN started the demise of their empire. We tried to throw it away with the postwar defense cutbacks, but that movie actor guy saw the inherent weakness in totalitarianism and resumed the pressure. It's harder to see the effects of a holding action, but even if VN was only that, it was an essential element. Maybe it was as Churchill said about the Battle of Britain (paraphrasing): it's not the end, or even the beginning of the end; but it may have been the end of the beginning.

After VN, the USSR never had another major victory. Without our efforts there, it may have taken another generation or more. As most in western Europe don't appreciate what US WWII GIs did for them, many here fail to give credit to our VN vets.

Guess this is my way of saying thanks.