Vietnam and Desert Storm pics and stories
Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 12:43 pm
since there seems to be some interest in my pictures and stories of my two wars, with the moderator's permission I will begin to put them in this sub-forum. I graduated from Nebraska in '65 as a 2nd Lt via ROTC, with a commission in the regular army, infantry. Two days later, I reported into Ft. Benning to begin infantry officer basic, followed by airborne and then ranger school, graduating from these, and was posted to Schweinfurt, Germany in late Dec, '69. By early '71, I was headed to Vietnam via Benning and the advisor/Vietnamese language course, to IV Corps, which was the Mekong Delta. After in processing in Saigon, hopped a ride via C7A Caribou to my first six months in Kien Phong Province, in the middle of the Delta, which was part of the Plain of Reeds, which extended into Cambodia. I was a MAT (Mobil Advisory Team) chief, which meant I and one SGT would chopper out to some Vietnamese outpost where we would try to teach mostly how to call in air support. We were out usually a week at a time, then back to our Province HQ, which had about 40 US troops. After six months of this, the usual thing, by then a CPT, was for field officers to come into some HQ and be a Staff Weenie, with an air conditioned billet, and office hours. But I was beginning to think about a post army career, and decided I could save a lot of money by staying out in the field, so was then sent way south, to be a District Senior Advisor, normally a Major's post. This was to south of Camau, along side the U Minh forest, a bad place. I spent the next six months there with one and some times two SGT's. I would go out with the Vietnamese, and stay in radio contact with my home for whatever help I might need. After that six months, I returned stateside back to Bragg, where I took over a 14 man Special Forces A Team, and had that duty with further worldwide adventures until early '73, when i left active duty, using my GI bill to ultimately become a pediatrician, and eventually a flight surgeon, and was Chief of Staff of the busiest field hospital in the Desert Storm war.
So, this is what it was like....
Visiting the guys at Kien Van, another District Team. The three US there lived in the hut in the back of the picture, and a local troop is netting small fish to dry, in the incredibly polluted pond, note the pig sty and the latrine dumping right into the pond. Us US guys never ate that sort of thing. This compound had a bamboo viper living in the vine covered latrine attached to the US home. Had to keep a close eye out for moving vines when using the one-hole there. Later this compound was over-run by VC, and the several US there only lived because they retreated to their inner concrete bunker, and just held the trigger down on their M60 and ran a 4000 round belt thru in one long burst. It only lasted a few minutes, and the US were pretty much deaf thereafter.
[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
Here is the inside of Kien Van, with two friends cleaning their weapons, note the later lifesaving M60. Soon after this picture, the CPT was sent out on a river patrol and was ambushed with friendly KIA, and he came storming back to the hut to find the Major in an intimate position with the hootch-maid. The CPT was only kept from killing the US Major by Toyota (the US SGT, who was Mexican-American, but called Toyota, go figure). The Major was immediately sent back to the states.
[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
So, this is what it was like....
Visiting the guys at Kien Van, another District Team. The three US there lived in the hut in the back of the picture, and a local troop is netting small fish to dry, in the incredibly polluted pond, note the pig sty and the latrine dumping right into the pond. Us US guys never ate that sort of thing. This compound had a bamboo viper living in the vine covered latrine attached to the US home. Had to keep a close eye out for moving vines when using the one-hole there. Later this compound was over-run by VC, and the several US there only lived because they retreated to their inner concrete bunker, and just held the trigger down on their M60 and ran a 4000 round belt thru in one long burst. It only lasted a few minutes, and the US were pretty much deaf thereafter.
[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
Here is the inside of Kien Van, with two friends cleaning their weapons, note the later lifesaving M60. Soon after this picture, the CPT was sent out on a river patrol and was ambushed with friendly KIA, and he came storming back to the hut to find the Major in an intimate position with the hootch-maid. The CPT was only kept from killing the US Major by Toyota (the US SGT, who was Mexican-American, but called Toyota, go figure). The Major was immediately sent back to the states.
[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]