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i always wondered who went out at dusk to clean up all the nearby water buffalo manure in some areas we were in. now i know. thanks 2nd platoon for making sure we didn`t have to step in that stuff. sure wish you guys would have washed your hands after using some of those “droppings” for nite camoflague
SR,
I never picked up water buffalo shit, but burned plenty of human shit,
My wife forced me to go to see my grand kids in Florida.
All’s quiet on the western front, looks like everywhere else too!
I took Larry to the airport this morning after he spent a week with me. We had a wonderful time and got to visit some of our brothers. Hopefuly we convinced them to go to the reunion.
Larry, I am pleased that you got to see Fred Mayorga. By the way, I was in 1st. platoon, and I assure you that your pig analysis isn’t appreciated. Wise guy!! Tooch
Just stated a fact, no analysis needed :>)
Happy Easter to you and your family!
For more than 2000 years, the scoffers and critics can’t explain that empty tomb.
Happy Easter!
Wally and I got to visit with Fred Mayorga the other day. We had a great visit. Fred had not seen anyone since he saw Short Round, Wally and Tony shortly after they got back from Nam. Fred is retired, but does some handy man work from time to time. I think he told me he retired after 38 years of working for GM. Fred is going to try and make to this year’s reunion. Fred only lives about 40 miles from Wally’s.
Hey Chuck,
I know you did but just like the silver dollar hoards the government had for years they could have them hidden away in a vault in Hershey PA!
LT
I have already tried and was shot down by the manufacturer. Sorry buddy.
Hey Chuck,
Maybe you can get an insider to get you some John Wayne bars at Hershey. I bet they have a vault somewhere full of them just as “fresh” as the day they were made 40-50 years ago. Happy Easter to you all!
Wally and I got to see Anthony “Horse” Cikovic. He said he got his nick name because all he talked about was horses. I told him I thought he got that nick name for another reason and he said no, I wished that’s why I got the nick name. Horse worked for Alcoa for a couple of decades until they closed the plant. He now works for Hershey in Hershey, PA. He makes Kit Kat bars. We had a great visit.
Horse and Wally were together in 1st platoon. In looking at the different platoon’s photos all of us came to the conclusion that 1st platoon were pigs. Every night logger photo, the 1st platoon’s photo showed a lot of trash all over the place. 2nd Platoon always had a tidy camp ground. We saw one photo that Lucky Rodgers was holding up that said “Keep your battle ground clean”. It must have been directed to 1st platoon.
We had a great visit. More later.
I traveled to PA Monday and Wally Searight picked me up at the airport. We first went and saw Bob Sabo an ole 2nd platoon guy we served with. We had a great get together. Bob worked in the mines after he got out of Nam and when they started closing all the mines because of all the gas and oil fields, he went to work for the post office. He walked and delivered mail for 24 years. He is now retired and enjoying life. He has had some interesting times in the army. He took basic training with Rocky Blier. Rocky also ended up in the 196th and I think he was in 3/21. He was also in Hiep Duc when we went there to rescue another 4/31 unit and had some guys killed including my squad leader Duck Detwiler. Rocky was wounded in this battle and got to go home.
Bob was in the field from May,1969 until we think January, 1970 where he lost hearing in his right ear and went back and took a job in supply. Bob looks good and is getting along pretty well for and ole fart.
More on our travels soon.
Larry,
Rocky was in 4/31st. I read his book several years back.
LT
You’re half way there….
Hey Chuck,
Oddly enough I do drive a Rinkin(Aviator). k
LT
Happy Birthday…….
Guys with eye patches look cool……. Especially if they drive a Rinkin……..
LT, happy BD, Bill, is your cataracts joke politically correct? If not, who cares? Good one!
Bill,
Oh………………………….that hurt! No More
Happy Birthday, LT…….I hope the surgery is successful and the recovery period not too bad……I won’t say “Keep your chin up”….because you better not…..OK….a joke to amuse you….A guy goes to a Chinese eye doctor and he says “Doc, you got to help me…I got cataracts”. The Chinese eye doctor says ” Oh that nothing. I got two Rinkin Continentals”.
(Groan….)
Gary,
You are allowed to get up to eat and do your bodily functions but you must keep your head down at all times. The problem eye is the one I had the detached retina operated on years ago. The detached retina followed cataract surgery by about 2 weeks or so. I lost 1/3 of my vision field temporarily. When I saw the retinal specialist and he told me I had a detached retina I asked him what my options were. His answer: surgery or go blind! Not much of a choice! 69 years old today and feeling it!
Yeah, not much of a choice.
Thank goodness we’re old and getting ready to die.
LT: That sounds like the cure is worse than the disease! If you lie on your stomach for two weeks, how the hell do you pee or crap?
I may be looking at that myself in the not too distant future. Within the past 3 or 4 months, I’ve had “floaters” pull off little pieces of the retina in both eyes. So far, they’ve either healed themselves or responded to laser treatment. Sooner or later, one of them will pull off a piece big enough to require surgery or, worse, allow fluid to get behind the retina and cause me to go permanently blind.
Old age is getting to be a real adventure,…..ain’t it?
Thank you Dr. Beckum!
LT,
Remember these are your “golden years”. I have a hole in my head according to Kay which what smarts I had fell out. Too late to plug. Just don’t move your shoulder in the wrong direction. That will be $125 for my long distance office call.
I don’t know where the smiley face came from, it is supposed to be dinner.
Happy Brithday to Ty Harper! I believe he is a young man of 65. Tomorrow I will celebrate my :Dinner for Two” birthday! I keep coming up with new ailments everytime I turn arounjd. I have developed a hole in the back of my eye that I will probably need surgery on. It is a very unique surgery where they inject a gas bubble into the eye that pushes agains the back of the eye to flatten out the hole but the bad part is you have to lie on your stomach for 2 weeks or more. Some folks get a massage table to lie on. A couple of days ago I did something to my shoulder which is now causing a lot of pain when I move it in the wrong direction. It is hell getting old but still better than the other option! We just lost 2 Korean War vets from our VFW/American Legion in the last two weeks. Hope all can keep it together so we can party in Escanaba in late July!
It happen more than we will ever know. For you Ben you have made a good friend out of a possible tragic story.
Friendly Fire: In a firefight, we were in a treeline with fire coming from the next treeline. Lt Harper called for air support. Two Cobras appeared and lined up on our treeline and commenced firing. I thought we were goners, but their run was just short of us.
Early January, 1970, while on patrol, Second Platoon opened up on us. Their platoon leader was gone the next day.
At the end of my tour I was stationed on OP Legionaire (Hill 251). One day my metal sensor down the trail went off. I fired arty on that spot. Radio came alive with Recon calling for a cease fire. I missed them, but always felt bad about the incident. A few years ago I had the opportunity to meet Doss Kornegay, their platoon leader and apologize. Doss said they found the sensor and thought it was a booby trap. They set some C-4 with a fuse and backed off the trail at a right angle about a 100 yards when the arty hit the trail. If they had not seen it there would have been casualties. How lucky can you get! Doss has told the story many times. Little did he know he would someday meet the man that called the artillery. Doss and I have become good friends. I just got back from a month with him in South Texas, had some good times. How lucky can you get!
Perhaps the most difficult statistic of the Vietnam Condlict to accept is the number of friendly fire casualties. 1/3 is certainly possible if not too low.
Consider that the US had over 500,000 soldiers, marines and sailors in the country at a time.
These personnel were recently, sometimes hastily, trained and in the course of the war shot off millions of tons of explosives and chemicals in the form of bombs, artllery and smaller arms. This total is claimed to be more than was expended in all other wars combined.
Mistakes of judgement, carelessness, arrogance and plain stupidity were common,
Just plain old accidents happened all the time.
Then consider the huge pressure at all levels of command not to admit, let alone publcize, these events.
I think it is likely that no casualty was ever mistakenly attributed to friendly fire.
I personally saw many that should have been and were not.
As with Gary’s gunship, many more were close calls.
It is probably not useful to spend much time worrying about this, but it is also not good, for those of us who lived anyway, to deny it.
As for mosquitos, we felt a huge relief from them on moving from Tay Ninh to Chu Lai.
Friendly Fire. I have one exception to the thought that “it is likely that no casualty was ever mistakenly attributed to friendly fire.”
On November 21, 1967, we were in hill country west of Tam Ky and east of Tien Phouc and we stopped for the noon break. We took seating positions on the ground, some of us taking advantage of the seating possibilities presented by a set of graves. The graves were approximately an 8 foot oval, with a central mound and a surrounding berm, with a headstone at one end. It was much more comfortable than sitting on the flat ground. Part way through the meal, we came under small arms fire. I saw the enemy’s rifle flashes on the adjoining hill, and returned fire with my M16. The rifle flashes stopped. Smitty, our M60 Machine Gunner, was hit. I went to him, and found an entrance wound in the shoulder, with the bullet coming from the side and continuing to his lungs. The 3rd Platoon medic, who we called Doc, was there right away, and told me it looked bad and to make sure that the Medevac would have Oxygen. I radioed the request for a Dust-off. The platoon continued to return fire, and the Artillery Forward Observer who travelled with our company directed artillery fire. After about ½ hour, the firefight died down, and the Dust-off came. In addition to Smitty, the 2nd platoon sergeant, MSGT Don Cumbie was also loaded on the Dust-off; he had been killed by our own artillery as we tried to adjust it on the enemy. I think this is because the hill was located between us and the artillery, so they were targeting a position on the far side of a hill. A slight increase in elevation would cause the round to go a long way down the hill, and that is where MSGT Cumbie was. This was my first episode of effective enemy fire, and of friendly fire. The after action report says that both men were killed by “misadventureâ€, the official term for friendly fire, but in Smitty’s case, this was not true.
Even with this one exception, I totally agree with Jim’s post.
LT. I had a similar experience, but it was on my crotch. When I looked down, there was a huge blood spot on my pants where he’d dropped off. I just knew I didn’t have a dick left.
Let’s face it….leeches were NOT a part of our everyday existence before Vietnam. How on earth did we ever adjust to that? LOL
I remember one day I felt something on my behind so I put my hand back there and when I brought it around it was all bloody. I thought I had been shot and didn’t know it. Only a leech who had his fill and dropped off. I saw a guy soak up two bandages one day and it kept on coming. Heard of a guy who got one up the penis. Brothers hated them as bad as snakes!