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My daughter, Kate gave birth to twin boys on Thursday afternoon. Matthew and Christopher both weighed over 6 lbs. Everyone came through the C-section with flying colors.They are my first grandchildren and they are beautiful. .
Clay: I’ll let you know if I really go. In the meantime, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a passport anyhow and there is a procedure for picking up a Vietnamese Visa at the airport of entry, but I’ll have to look into that further. I’ll make up my mind after the holidays and come back here to let everyone who may be interested in going know. It would be great if we could get a few more. Who knows? If enough want to go, we might even be able to get a group rate!
Larry, my computer has been acting up and I think it opened to when Judy was having her health problems. I responded to old news so I am sincerely happy to hear that things remain good. Re: western KS says their pheasant #’s are down 90% from the previous two years record levels. Damn drought. Gary Capshaw–I’m interested in following up on a trip back to Viet Nam. I’ll be happy to let you do more ground work. Having never been anywhere I needed a visa or passport, I’ll check into that.
Got home this morning after spend a fantastic week with Larry and Rex and the weekend
with Ben and his son. It was a special time with my fellow grunts.
Short round:
I noticed that too. Neither did they say anything about the mass graves in Hue (at least, not that I saw), but on the other hand, I didn’t see anything about My Lai either.
ben–be glad you didn`t get a rear job–i tried to leave mine in chu lai and get back to the company. gary–my opinion–the Vietnam hd thing sucked, showed the NVA coming in–in tanks-well equipped, but NO MENTION of the thousands of civilians killed on HWY 1-yet the showed the 1 VC executed in saigon, after he murdered a family.
rick perkins is back out from cleveland VA–again-with a new address.
wally–thanks for working overtime to donate to the website
La;rry,
You didn’t give the results of the hunt. Pictures of the biggest ____ forthcoming? The Packers have been a lot of fun to watch this year.
The actual hunt wasn’t very good as our year and half drought has taken its toll on all our wildlife. I have been pheasant hunting for about 50 years and I have never seen a worse year. But the other things we do at the hunt were huge success and fun as always. I shocked people with the biggest photos a couple of years ago. Nothing has shrunk any so just refer to the old photo :>).
I am just sitting here watching the Packers putting a butt kicking on the Vikings with two of my Nam brothers Rex Allen and Wally Searight and his son in law Terry Moore. Ben Buehler and his son Brett left yesterday. We have had a great time at the pheasant hunt. It was a pleasure hosting my Nam Brothers!
Oh, by the way, Thanks Wally for the nice contribution for the web site.
Bill:
Strangely, it never crossed my mind that our unit might be withdrawn before my tour was over. I can’t say why. It turned out that it would have been a pipe dream anyhow as 2/1 was the next to last battalion pulled from the bush, nearly a year after I left in August ’71.
I knew when I got there that I wouldn’t stay but 11 1/2 months because I’d already spent 5 months in Germany and my ETS date would preclude a whole year. Then, I got a 72 day early out on top of that to go to college.
Gary,
Glad you thought so! You would know better than me. I can not know what it would be like being a “grunt” during the draw down knowing I might get to go home before my 12 months or I might be one of the last KIA’s, WIA, or MIA before my unit left. I knew I was going to be there a year. My biggest dream without re-upping was to get a rear job which did not happen.
Bill:
I finally got to watch the last installment of Vietnam in HD and it wasn’t too bad. It left out a lot, which isn’t surprising given the time frame they allowed themselves, but at least they acknowledged that we were still there and still trying to carry on.
To my brothers in arms… SALUTE! A special thanks to those of you who I was priveleged to have served in combat with. You made a hellish experience bearable. Your bravery, professionalism and love for one another made my job a hell of a lot easier than it could have been. Thanks and God Bless!
Had to miss todays parade and ceremonies because my daughter-in-law got backed into while driving my wife’s car. LOL
Tomorrow, there’s another parade and I’ll ride in it with the Vietnam Veteran’s of America and 3 of my youngest grandkids. That’ll be neat. Another young one will be carrying our chapter banner with the Cub Scouts. The eldest grandkid is 22. She can bring herself to the parade. ‘-)
Happy Veterans Day to all my brothers! I was at the high school this morning for a ceremony and a breakfast with some of the students. This is about the 5th one of these I have attended and each and every one gets better. Those of you who have an Applebees nearby go and get a free meal. Thank God for all the fellowship and comradery we share. I look forward to each and every opportunity we have to get together. LOVE YOU BROTHERS!
Happy Veterans Day to all! I can’t even come close to having any idea what you guys have been through and given-up for our country, but I’m proud to have met many of you and also proud to be the son of a grunt!
Thanks for all of the comments about my new daughter and about the website, much appreciated! I stop by every so often and it’s been a few weeks with the new baby to take care of.
Happy Veterans Day to all you Grunts……….. Walk proud…..
hope all vets and brother grunts have a decent vets day. nice to have this day of recognition even though as grunts we saw enough of the costs of war. as i age i think about those costs, not just to our brother grunts, but also to their families that had to endure their costs/sacrifices also. would be nice if the current returning vets did not have any further combat assignments, but doubt the world is ready for that.
thanks again for the site-larry–brandon–sure handy on these type days.
Larry, I know you and Judy will do all you need to on your end. Obviously you’ve got a lot of people pulling for you both on their ends. Make sure Judy knows of all the sincere support. God bless.
Clay:
I am confused on your post as I have had some brothers contact me thinking we are having health problems. There is nothing happening health wise with Judy and I. I had invited you down to the hunt, I hope there wasn’t anything in my email to you that made you think otherwise. Thinks for your sincere support, Brother.
Have a great Veterans Day as we remember all Vets who served our country, gave their all, and thanks to being home. I salute my brothers.
like to wish all VETS a happy and safe day as we remember those who gave it thier all. R.I.P.
watched the vietnam episode last nite–not impressed. the saigon shooting with no explanation highly pisses me off. a grunt complaining about no resupply for 3 days during monsoons ??? then acting like catching rain water was a big deal ?? can tell that so called grunt sure wasn`t in our outfit. bet he never saw a leech. and yes–too much jumping around
Sorry, I don’t care to watch it, but I will say to my brothers to have a good Veterans Day. I am meeting 7 veteran friends of mine for breakfast in the morning then heading up to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station to hit the base exchange and see what’s there. Afterwards, we always go to a local gunshop to see what’s new. Always something. It will be good to be with people who understand the feelings. Hope you all have this opportunity.
The only I can think of that recommends the History Channel program is that they seem to plan on showing lots of reruns.
It is too bad, because it will never get easier to tell the important stories.
I wonder if there is an Outback Steakhouse in Ho Chi Minh City and if they are giving free bloomin’ onions to ex-NVA and V.C. ? If not, Sin loi, Papa san…. Happy Veterans Day to all veterans and our families who are good enough to put up with us.
Gary,
I agree! After two nights they concentrated on the major battles and not the daily life of the “grunt” and what it was like day to day humping, ca’s, snipers, and ambushes. As for me I never knew where I was other than northwest of Chu Lai and southwest of
Danang and did not care except when I heard we were going into parts of the AO which were known for heavier activity than others.
I am afraid you are going to be disappointed on the final part concerning the draw down and what it was really like being a “grunt”.
Bill:
I watched it last night too and wasn’t all that impressed with it. In the first place, it concentrated on a couple of big battles, which were not the norm, and the editing wasn’t very good. For instance, it cut from a description of two F-100’s dropping bombs to a video of two F-5’s. And, it interspersed images of Marines and Army without apparently knowing the difference. There was also combat footage from many different locations and times used to tell the story of a specific battle. That may seem like a minor gripe, but if they can’t get the footage right, how reliable is their story-telling? The narrative also relied heavily on the reminiscences of senior officers and NCO’s. That doesn’t mean their story isn’t worth telling, but so are the stories of the Privates and they seem to be left out nearly altogether. And, let’s face it….Privates and senior commanders have a far, far different outlook on combat.
I’ll watch it again tonight and tomorrow night, but so far it’s about the standard fare. I’m really interested to see how they handle the troop-withdrawl period, when I was there. Most histories of the war skip right over those of us who were still out there in the bush, still fighting the war while everyone else had forgotten about it. It’s as if nothing else was going on but the peace negotiations.
You may have heard that the History Channel is doing a three night series of two hours each night called “Vietnam HD”. It started last night 11/8. It is on at 9 pm. Our local paper said it will have the 196th in it. Last night covered the build up to the end of 1967. It is well done but I know some of you may not want to watch. My wife left the room because she said “she did not want to relive the Vietnam war because she lived it once”. Just wanted to mention this. I am still fighting my demons and trying to figure out if there was a sound reason to be there…………………..
listed wrong email last night .40 thats great i hope to review the roster and find some names i remember
Which Platoon?
Thanks Gary!
Gene I meant to say welcome home>
Bill: I’ll take a closer look at and let you know. Anybody else interested?
Mark: Customized tours are often much more expensive than if you just “winged” it and, when accommodations aren’t up to snuff, they are much harder or impossible to change.
Gene Frego: I hope you’ll come to the 70-71 group reunion next May in Wisconsin. Info will be posted here when the plans are finalized. We have found roughly 40 guys from that time period.