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Can anyone tell me how to get into the Members area of the webpage. I have sent several messages using the “Contact” selection, but have had no response. Thanks.
none other than…… But at least we (usually) had carte blanche to blow in place. Or maybe we also just took carte blanche as the best way to deal with it. I can also remember SR and I riding APC’s out to blow stray 500 pounders. Always a fuse on that and no way we could run fast enough for those…..even 40 years ago.
LT,
Gee Russ, let me guess! Could that have been ” by the book” Gardner??
Maybe you remember this Shortround…….There was a time when our squad was demo and we came across an old pinnaple grenade/trip wire booby trap. But we were out of fuse cord, so I did the old blasting cap rolled inside the C4; make the other end a pencil, light the C4 pencil end and run like hell. Our CO at the time tried to give me an Art 15 for deviating from procedure. Not hard to guess who that CO was for many of you.
R.I.P Staff Sgt Farley
Short Round, I don’t know why they didn’t blow it in place….I guess that’s not the current procedure. ….His tour was up in 2 weeks…..Also just read in the newspaper that his father was a Nam combat vet.
bill–any idea why they just didn`t clear the area and blow the sucker in place–sure a lot safer than messing with a bomb–worked for us–
sure a bummer losing guys when there are other options–and like you say–multiple tours just ain`t right. r.i.p. derek
A good friend of my daughter and her fiance was just killed in Afghanistan yesterday. Staff Sgt. Derek Farley was in an EOD outfit and was killed trying to defuse a bomb. He was 24 years old. He already had a Purple Heart for a previous wound. ….It makes me sick to think of all these kids getting rotated back into combat situations year after year. The only people benefiting from these wars are the merchants who sell the weapons planes etc. We don’t even have a way to vote against it… R.I.P Derek
LT,
Forgive me for my “bad” thoughts. These thoughts happen more than they should. Reason I spend so much time at church, why people pray for me, & my wife keeps popping me on the back of my head.
Bill Beckum shame on you! A man of the cloth inferring that I meant something other than a heartfelt admiration and respect for all whom I served with. I enjoy spending time with the distaff side also.
LT,
Any particuliar guy get your hear racing???????? That is OK it is 2010!
howdy brothers; yahoo.com has posted alot of sites and references to PTSD. causes medications lifestyles the info is abundant
howdy brothers; yahoo.com has posted alot of sites and references to PTSD. causes medications lifestyles the info is abundant
Good Lord Guys! I think my heart rate has been climbing in anticipation of meeting up with my comrades in Wabasha in one month.
Adverse public opinion here at home will lose any war. What many of us had to do and the things we saw is why we have our problems (ptsd) but (right or wrong) the public’s view of us and the war at that time took a big toll, and merits a lot of the blame.
Clay:
I’ll agree with that. There was much shameful about the whole episode and the Congress of that day deserves our scorn for cutting off military aid just at the point when it was so critical. So too do Nixon and Kissinger for forcing Thieu to accept a cease fire which left the NVA in the south. The die was cast right then.
But, in fairness to them, they were only reflecting the will of our people at that time. We as a nation had grown weary of the whole thing and just wanted it to end. The fighting and dying had gone on too long with too little to show for it and without any prospect of it changing for years to come. No democracy will sustain perpetual war, including ours. Evidence of the truth of that statement can be seen right now in Iraq and Afghanistan where we’re already searching for the exit door for the same reasons.
When and how did we forget how to win wars? Every military adventure we’ve been involved in since WWII has foundered because we’ve somehow redefined victory as something other than crushing the enemy as quickly as possible. The only excpetions were Grenada and Panama, which were too brief, and the Gulf War. Even there, the victory was incomplete as it left Saddam Hussien in power. (By the way, according to Colin Powell’s autobiography, the ground war was ended after 100 hours because he had flown over the “Highway of Death,” and told Pres. Bush that it wouldn’t look good on TV.)
With leadership like that, all I can say is, “God help us all.”
Sorry I didn’t make myself clear. My problem/grudge with the way the South Vietnamese collapsed was with the US Congress and how they broke our word on providing supplies to the ARVN’s. We had made them totally dependent on that. I thought it was pretty amazing they had fought as well as they did after being dependent on us for “boots on the ground.”
Congress set a pretty despicable standard after being trained by the LBJ/McNamara administration on no coherent direction and leaving the troops holding the bag. The senior brass conducted itself shamefully also.
Clay:
Against whom do you hold that grudge? The Vietnamese? Why? They’re not the ones who did that to us. It was our senior officers who put their careers above our lives and our own people who turned their backs on us.
The Vietnamese were only continuing the fight for independence they started against their French masters. After they’d defeated them, we created South Vietnam out of whole cloth and insisted the southerner’s fight for us and a succession of corrupt governments in Saigon, most of which we installed. So far as most Vietnamese could see, they were only exchanging one foreign master for another and we were the tools of their oppression, not the liberator’s we thought we were told we were.
Just a reminder that the Wabasha reunion for our company is just a little over a month away. There is a button above with the information if you haven’t seen it yet. There are several of us showing up on Monday to do a little fishing with our host Fred Passe.
Clay,
No you don’t! We have strong personal memories we will always carry. Lot of WWII vets still carry strong feelings against Germany & Japan. I don’t carry a grudge anymore because it was harming me in a lot of ways. It will get better I hope for you Clay.
I too remember when Tam Ky and the bigger cities started going down like dominoes. I thought at the time “the ARVN’s hung on a few years longer than I would have ever expected”. Since then I’ve learned that the US Congress refused to finance further key munitions for them making the fall to the North inevitable and, when the final collapse began, rapid. Its amazing to me that US tourists are welcome in either part of Viet Nam today. I must hold a grudge longer than the average bear.
I remember hearing on the radio that Tam Ky had fallen to the North Vietnamese during their final invasion in 1975. I was driving at the time and had to pull over and process that information.
We have a very large map of North & South Vietnam on the wall at our Vet Center. It has Tam Ky on it. I look at the villages west of it & Highway 1 with all of you in mind.
bit of follow up–nick received the medal for action on 26 aug of 68–we know 26 aug of 70.
nicks action was stated as west of tam ky–familiar to a bunch of us
didn`t see it mentioned here–nick bacon –americal div.–4/21–11nth brigade–and medal of honor recipient died last month. met nick yrs back in az and at a couple americal reunions–really decent guy, for being a grunt–
Leonard Wood-basic, Ord- infantry AIT, Benning-NCO School and Airborne, Polk- OJT infantry AIT, Lewis to ship out to Nam then back through Oakland
Bill, I don’t need a dog and I eat and sleep just fine. No conciense I guess. My wife says I snore but I’ve never heard myself so I’m not sure about that.
Jim,
Are you “Infantry” or someone else?
Terry,
My old dog and I have a lot in common. We would rather sit than stand and lay down rather than sit. Feed us and let us sleep. We even snore in harmony together.
Jim,
With all those stops you must have a young Rambo or totally confused.
Bill, why sure we got passes every weekend in AIT, right after our 5 mile run Saturday morning with all our gear on our backs. Oh, did I mention that was after the last man finished? Ahhhh! such sweet memories! I personally refuse to run 5 feet unless it’sto jump into the fishing boat or the beer garden at the count fair.
Guess I was like horse poop before Nam, Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Ord, Fort Benning, Fort Polk, Fort Lewis.