Bill, what you experienced especially reference the fate of those men of the 173rd makes the term nightmarish totally inadequate.
There are innumerable accounts of GI’s and atrocities committed over the decade we were in Vietnam. There was a clear tendency to paint soldiers as “baby killers” as you may well recall. My Lai, pushing prisone…
Bill, what you experienced especially reference the fate of those men of the 173rd makes the term nightmarish totally inadequate.
There are innumerable accounts of GI’s and atrocities committed over the decade we were in Vietnam. There was a clear tendency to paint soldiers as “baby killers” as you may well recall. My Lai, pushing prisoners from choppers, free fire zones, and Tiger Force only added to the conception that we were all behaving like Nazi occupation forces, rather than the upright, chocolate bar dispensing GIs of our father’s generation.
My father, a forward observer at the Bulge, made it clear to me that Americans got more than ample “payback” against German soldiers after the Malmedy massacre who were surrendering in droves.
My command of Vietnamese was limited to typical stuff like “go away now” or “come give me a kiss” - This reminds me of an E6 in my outfit that was a polyglot who live the life of Riley while stationed in Vietnam.
Laterite clay - got caught in the shower during a 122 attack trying to get that stuff off. Being nude under fire is like some sort of bad dream made real 😂
There was a dude on our team that extended 4 times, he was fluent in Vietnamese, and I think he was up to his arse in the black market, He had a Browning 9mm with no serial number that he was gifted by a CIA friend.. The CIA had their own airline, with Hueyes, Pilotus Porters, C47's and I think, not sure Chinooks.
I had a good friend whose Vietnamese was limited to "give me a kiss please" làm ơn cho tôi một nụ hôn
Shit happens in war. And temperatures flare, especially when your friends get murdered, or worse tortured and/ormutilated.
Bleeding heart ass hats on Campus or back home, don't get it. War is not civilized and you can't expect civilized behavior, the fact that we couldn't shoot, but had to wait till we were shot (at) was bad enough.
And most troops, even the regular forces didn't want to be there.
Imagine you were drafted, found yourself surrounded in the jungle or a fire support base camp, like Khe Sanh, and fighting for your life, and back home the campus idiots and home grown Marxists demand that you be civilized.
It is one thing to be in a firefight and watching your buddies die, and to get wounded,and another thing to deal with the aftermath of.
I was supporting the Marines at Dong Ha, when a battalion that was patrolling or whatever, I don't know the orders, was caught in a valley in the DMZ, the NVA closed off the entrance and exit and then wiped them out,virtually, in a kill zone.
There were only 11 unwounded, and they were repatriated on a C-130 flight. The rest of the battalion was dead and wounded.
I and my team mate, were basically the only one's on the airfield, and we unloaded the H-19 choppers that flew in, carried the wounded to the field ambulance, along with the medics, and later carried the body bags and loaded them aboard a C-130.
There was this big black dude, built like a brick shit house, that was sitting holding his insides in, and I picked up one end of a poncho,and an arm fell out.. I went to the side of the pierced steel planking that was the ramp, puked and went back to work. my team mate Perry Kyser wanted to take pictures and our team leader slapped down the camera.
At Bong Son I saw what a bee hive round (a cannister of fleschettes) shot from the depressed barrel of a 105 mm howitzer can do to a company of NVA, a sight that you never forget.
These self obsessed, self indulgent, moralizing campus idiots, have no idea of what it is like to be under attack and have your family and friends slaughtered.
I will finish my rant with a claim that those who protest will take umbrage to.
The Chicago 7 (or 8), and the 1968 riots during the Democratic convention, had the consequence of electing Richard Milhaus Nixon.
These self righteous, self indulgent, obsessed assholes didn't stop the war, but they did discredit the Democratic party,and are responsible for the right wing extremism that follows, including Reagan and Trump.
And the fools haven't learned a thing, in their righteous outrage, and that includes Muslims and young black males, they are going to be responsible for electing Trump and his theocratic, racist, homophobic, anti immigrant thugs and they will regret their asinine stupidity, and so will you and I.
But like all stupid and immature people(Trump as an example) they want accept responsibility and will blame it on the Democrats and Biden, because the poor little things didn't get their way.
There is one thing that defines our society and that is the unwillingness to accept personal responsibility. It is always "you made me do it".
Bill, what you experienced especially reference the fate of those men of the 173rd makes the term nightmarish totally inadequate.
There are innumerable accounts of GI’s and atrocities committed over the decade we were in Vietnam. There was a clear tendency to paint soldiers as “baby killers” as you may well recall. My Lai, pushing prisoners from choppers, free fire zones, and Tiger Force only added to the conception that we were all behaving like Nazi occupation forces, rather than the upright, chocolate bar dispensing GIs of our father’s generation.
My father, a forward observer at the Bulge, made it clear to me that Americans got more than ample “payback” against German soldiers after the Malmedy massacre who were surrendering in droves.
My command of Vietnamese was limited to typical stuff like “go away now” or “come give me a kiss” - This reminds me of an E6 in my outfit that was a polyglot who live the life of Riley while stationed in Vietnam.
Laterite clay - got caught in the shower during a 122 attack trying to get that stuff off. Being nude under fire is like some sort of bad dream made real 😂
There was a dude on our team that extended 4 times, he was fluent in Vietnamese, and I think he was up to his arse in the black market, He had a Browning 9mm with no serial number that he was gifted by a CIA friend.. The CIA had their own airline, with Hueyes, Pilotus Porters, C47's and I think, not sure Chinooks.
I had a good friend whose Vietnamese was limited to "give me a kiss please" làm ơn cho tôi một nụ hôn
Shit happens in war. And temperatures flare, especially when your friends get murdered, or worse tortured and/ormutilated.
Bleeding heart ass hats on Campus or back home, don't get it. War is not civilized and you can't expect civilized behavior, the fact that we couldn't shoot, but had to wait till we were shot (at) was bad enough.
And most troops, even the regular forces didn't want to be there.
Imagine you were drafted, found yourself surrounded in the jungle or a fire support base camp, like Khe Sanh, and fighting for your life, and back home the campus idiots and home grown Marxists demand that you be civilized.
It is one thing to be in a firefight and watching your buddies die, and to get wounded,and another thing to deal with the aftermath of.
I was supporting the Marines at Dong Ha, when a battalion that was patrolling or whatever, I don't know the orders, was caught in a valley in the DMZ, the NVA closed off the entrance and exit and then wiped them out,virtually, in a kill zone.
There were only 11 unwounded, and they were repatriated on a C-130 flight. The rest of the battalion was dead and wounded.
I and my team mate, were basically the only one's on the airfield, and we unloaded the H-19 choppers that flew in, carried the wounded to the field ambulance, along with the medics, and later carried the body bags and loaded them aboard a C-130.
There was this big black dude, built like a brick shit house, that was sitting holding his insides in, and I picked up one end of a poncho,and an arm fell out.. I went to the side of the pierced steel planking that was the ramp, puked and went back to work. my team mate Perry Kyser wanted to take pictures and our team leader slapped down the camera.
At Bong Son I saw what a bee hive round (a cannister of fleschettes) shot from the depressed barrel of a 105 mm howitzer can do to a company of NVA, a sight that you never forget.
These self obsessed, self indulgent, moralizing campus idiots, have no idea of what it is like to be under attack and have your family and friends slaughtered.
I will finish my rant with a claim that those who protest will take umbrage to.
The Chicago 7 (or 8), and the 1968 riots during the Democratic convention, had the consequence of electing Richard Milhaus Nixon.
These self righteous, self indulgent, obsessed assholes didn't stop the war, but they did discredit the Democratic party,and are responsible for the right wing extremism that follows, including Reagan and Trump.
And the fools haven't learned a thing, in their righteous outrage, and that includes Muslims and young black males, they are going to be responsible for electing Trump and his theocratic, racist, homophobic, anti immigrant thugs and they will regret their asinine stupidity, and so will you and I.
But like all stupid and immature people(Trump as an example) they want accept responsibility and will blame it on the Democrats and Biden, because the poor little things didn't get their way.
There is one thing that defines our society and that is the unwillingness to accept personal responsibility. It is always "you made me do it".