Military Experiences, Funny, Sad, or just plain interesting

[Wayne64]

Since I'm starting this thread I'll give everyone a reading assignment to get a small feel for what was part of being a Mechanized Infantryman in Vietnam. I'm no writer and was asked by a young lady to write a war story. She thought she would get a blood and gore story and I probably disappointed her in that department. My unit published the story in our broadly circulated newsletter. Here is a link to my story and it is a true one. Click on short story, it's a PDF.
http://crayonmedia.com/wayne/Vietnam/

Now for another link, this is my units website I was in Bravo company
http://www.bobcat.ws/

TopTiger, I will put some thoughts into a word Doc. and post it here later. Bravos big ambush day was Aug. 19th 1968, but we were involved in many convoy ambushes. Including one where we watched three truck drivers marched into the rubber plantation by the NVA, A truly F-ed up story that ended years later to my great surprise. BTW the mini gun I'm holding in one of the VN pics I traded for from a AV. unit, only had to give a dozen AKs ha ha

[Gerry]

Wayne,
Great story. Love hearing the non fighting side of war also

[Cal_Gary]

Well I get a lot of questions pertaining to "did you serve in "Nam"? when I'm speaking with our older vets. I did not, being just a year or two too young when the conflict ended, but ended up enlisting in 1976 in the Army for 4 years, then doing a second stint from '83 to '88. Funny story: convincing a zero type of platoon member that he could crawl an M715 thru a huge shell hole at Ft. Irwin in 1977. He high-centered it on the lip and we had to get our M201 to drag it off....
Gary

[toptiger]

Wayne, re " Bravos big ambush day was Aug. 19th 1968, but we were involved in many convoy ambushes. Including one where we watched three truck drivers marched into the rubber plantation by the NVA, A truly F-ed up story that ended years later to my great surprise. BTW the mini gun I'm holding in one of the VN pics I traded for from a AV. unit, only had to give a dozen AKs ha ha"

Imagine what a minigun today would cost! We would trade lots of stuff for LRP rations.
I once landed next to a South VN Army APC and traded a case of Cs for some cans of .50 incendiary rounds which they were allowed to use. I flew a special mission ship from time to time, called Smokey which left a big smoke screen around an LZ so the slicks could land more safely. This ship had a .50 BMG mounted on a base plate bolted to the floor inside the ship and we carried an extra gunner just for it. I got to see what that round does to someone.

I'll look forward to your story. Hard to understand how we took it all so casually back in 68-69, but we were young, fearless and naive.
I would no more do a medevac or hover around a loaded C model Huey looking for bad guys today than I would jump off a roof, my old man's risk reward analysis would not permit it. I guess that is why all wars are fought by 18 year old kids.

Are you bitter yet? For years I didn't let it get to me, but with the waste of our young soldiers' lives going on in Afganistan It all came back.

BTW, Wayne, Congratulations on the PH and CIB, among the very few that really mattered in the end. RESPECT

[Wayne64]

Well I get a lot of questions pertaining to "did you serve in "Nam"? when I'm speaking with our older vets. I did not, being just a year or two too young when the conflict ended, but ended up enlisting in 1976 in the Army for 4 years, then doing a second stint from '83 to '88. Funny story: convincing a zero type of platoon member that he could crawl an M715 thru a huge shell hole at Ft. Irwin in 1977. He high-centered it on the lip and we had to get our M201 to drag it off....
Gary

Gary the mental picture of that is funny. You know the old story, "never volunteer for anything in the service". I did once and it worked out as in basic we were asked who could drive stick shift? Most could of course but they dummied up, I raised my hand and thats how I ended up with the military drivers license. The real benefit was that I never got KP and during long marches I drove the water truck. One thing no one ever mentioned was to be careful when driving on sloped terrain. Yup, half a tank of water on board and it sloshed to one side just a little to much and the truck was on it's side. In AIT I was driving a M151A1 in LA. at Fort Polk. Two jeeps driving with NPTs on black ice, I was number two and what does the first jeep hit? Well of course he couldn't stop and ran over a wild piglet. He got away clean but momma Sow decided to attack my jeep. That Sow hit my jeep so hard I did a side drift about 4 feet. I was glad my shorts were OD.

[Wayne64]

[quote="toptiger]
I once landed next to a South VN Army APC and traded a case of Cs for some cans of .50 incendiary rounds which they were allowed to use. I flew a special mission ship from time to time, called Smokey which left a big smoke screen around an LZ so the slicks could land more safely. This ship had a .50 BMG mounted on a base plate bolted to the floor inside the ship and we carried an extra gunner just for it. I got to see what that round does to someone.

Are you bitter yet? For years I didn't let it get to me, but with the waste of our young soldiers' lives going on in Afganistan It all came back[/quote]

Well TopTiger, To bad we couldn't get those rounds either for the .50. I did shoot some on the bunker line at Cu Chi as H & I into the Ho Bo woods and was really impressed. Just the length of service of the M2 shows it's worth. The following picture is of an officers Tokerev that was on his right hip, I hit him in the left hip with a .50 round. I had to straighten the lower frame so I could get out the live rounds so I could bring it back.

Another quick story on the .50 power. Our guns were about 8 plus feet off the ground. One day we stumbled upon to real eagle flight trap in a clearing near the rubber. Four .51 machine guns in holes that would have destroyed a flight of Hueys. Chinese gunners BTW. So instead of copters we roll up with our tracks. They couldn't depress their barrels enough to use the 51s so it was strictly small arms and RPGs. Bottom line is our 50s were punching though the edges of the holes (maybe 18" of dirt] and they died in their holes. They lost 42 in about 20 mins. We had two injured one from a hot 50 shell casing that went down his flak jacket and the other injured was the feelings of the BN. Major in a Loach that out 1st Lt. cursed out about the crappy M16s we had to fight with. We hated that Major as he would always yell at us to wear shirts. He couldn't be made to understand we would rather not have fabric mixed in with woulds. I've rambled on enough but I will answer your bitter question, and you might be surprised by my take on the subject.

[Tim Powell]

THANK YOU ALL.

[Cal_Gary]

Hey Wayne, I bolo'ed that driving test in Basic! Hard to believe- I just couldn't get that close shift pattern down-I recall it was a big International stake-bed. I heard about that one for a while....
Gary

[Wayne64]

Here is another story, vehicle related since we love OD transportation. I was sort of the relief driver on my squads M113, even when I made squad leader I still at times had to take over the laterals. The M113 was actually easier to drive than a 5 ton once you got the hang of the steering and braking. With it's great automatic tranny and the Detroit diesel I felt it was the most fun out of all the motor pool had to offer. So this story is about "Tracking". Tracking is where a really good driver on an unimproved road road could lay his tracks within an inch or two (or less) of the track you were following at 35-40 mph. The driver who could do this made his fellow warriors happy and worth bragging about. This all had to do with pressure type mines, not command detonated. Of course driving point was much like walking point so that was a crap shoot. Some of us actually affixed a sighting stick to the left front to aid in the tracking. Blow is a picture of a Chi-Com mine a copter pilot saw being planted. If you read my story "Little Joe" he is holding the mine we dug up.



P.S. Posted this and saw I finally got my rocker, 43 years later