Vietnam and Desert Storm pics and stories

[NAM VET]

OK, second six months, posted way south, south of Camau, as a district senior advisor, being just a CPT though myself. Here is my body guard squad. Unlike in my first province, where the local's were just drunks and lazy worthless troops, these guys were tuff and ruthless as any soldiers anywhere. Utterly fearless, and usually came back in the morning after an ambush patrol proudly swinging the heads of the VC they had caught in the night. I trusted them literally with my life. The one with the XM 203, ie, with the 40 mm grenade launcher on his M16 (second from left) was X VC, who had decided to come over when his whole VC patrol was wiped out by a chopper gunship.

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and for the aviation enthusiasts on the forum, here is your picture of the day. F4 Phantom coming back in at Tan San Nhut, up by Saigon. I think Phantoms are the most beautiful fighter jets ever flown. And even today, are a very, very fast jet.

[j mccormick]

Thanks for posting more pictures, I hope you keep them coming. Agree with you that the F4 Phantom is a mean looking plane, one of my favorites too.

Joe

[NAM VET]

as previously mentioned, for my second six months, was posted way way south, to a District Team, in An Xuyen province. Dropped off by chopper, to find the Major and NCO in the process of tearing down and then moving their "hootch" to inside a nearby newly constructed defensive position. The local's had decided to dig up a mud berm, with the compound's defenders and their families living in incredibly squalid bunkers all along the berm, each with a firing port. Moat inside and out. Us US guys moved into half of a metal shed, with a raised plywood floor. We build a "home" inside the shed, used wood and burlap bags to make it relatively mosquito (but not rat) proof, with a raised shower and piss tube at one end. Here is my second home. By the way, the Major soon took ill, was sent home, and I became the District Senior Advisor.
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The inside of the camp had all sorts of barb wire running this way and that so if we were over-run, the Bad Guys if they did not know the paths thru the interior, would not be able to run amok thru the inside of the camp. Note the residences of the Vietnamese defenders.

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the outer moat was not rinsed by any tides, so it was incredibly stagnant, full of dead animals, and our compound had it's latrine just outside the wire, it was really really polluted. The local kids swam in it, and washed their clothes and cookware in it. The two of us used rainwater, carried up to the 55 gallon barrels on the roof of our "on-suite" bathroom. In the dry season, we would run up-river in our Boston Whaler, and bring back brackish water out of a village well. We did not waste our water.


and lets see if I can find another aircraft picture. A 37 Dragonfly, were used first by the US as jet trainers, then given to the VNAF to use as tactical aircraft for close air support. This is up at Tan San Nhut, near Saigon.

[T. Highway]

Hal,

I just saw one of those Dragonfly aircraft in an airshow about a month ago. I was surprised how small it and a Russian MIG was. http://www.g741.org/PHPBB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8031

Bert