USMC Vietnam 1965-66. I think about those individual's we lost. Both of my sons are named after two of those individual's.

Several friends and one cousin were Vietnam vets.

Special thanks to the two whom are still here and the ones whom have passed I still remember them.

I spent a couple years involved in the prison ministry in a church I used to attend. My partner was a Vietnam Vet, he rarely talked about it. We spent hours together at at time driving back and forth and one day he said he and a friend went in as mechanics. They were getting close to the end of their time and "wanted to see combat" so they volunteered for the LRP's. They kept getting turned down but, due to lack of volunteers, got accepted. All he said was that the decision to join the LRP's was the worst decision of his life.

Through the FFL business I have a customer that was a helicopter pilot that supported the special forces missions. He has told me a few stories about flying in and out but nothing too detailed.

At my USAF retirement ceremony in 2011, I was the last serving Vietnam Vet in my organization. My service spanned 41 years active and reserve. I did 3 tours in SEA. There were still a number of WWII and Korean War vets still serving. I wish I had spent more time with them hearing their stories.

When I was in a civilian PD in the 70's most of the officers were vets. We felt a brotherhood. By 2000 most of the vets were retired and gone. When I was mobilized on 9/11, most of the young agents I supervised were not even born when the Vietnam War ended. I was fond of telling them I was older than their Dads. Iraq and Afghanistan vets were respectful but looked at me like I was from another planet.

It was a different era, and a different military that is hard to explain to those who were not there. I suppose that is true of all war generations in our history.

Oh, by the way, f@#k Jane Fonda, there is a special place waiting in Hell for that traitor.

quote:

Oh, by the way, f@#k Jane Fonda, there is a special place waiting in Hell for that traitor.

As time went on it became increasingly obvious that we weren't going "win" as defined in WWII for example.

While protests became increasingly larger and common, the way she went about it was the problem. Probably because her real intention was to bring attention to her narcissistic self.
Being against a war, I got that. that's her right in a free country.
Visiting the enemy and supporting them? No way. You couldn't have protested in North Vietnam and they weren't the good guys.

Vietnam Vet and 21 years in the Army. 1965-1967 Infantry Scout, 2nd Battalion 2nd Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. 1970-1971 Scout/Operations Sergeant 1st Battalion 77th Armor 1st Brigade 5th Infantry Division (Mech)

MY WAR STORY: Most of my 1st tour, I didn't wear underwear, thereby preventing crotch rot. ONE MORE: The M-16 without a forward assist sucked.

Born in Pennsylvania
Raised in Arizona
Grew up in Vietnam

The surface wounds heal.
The scars fade.
The recollections diminish.
The internal wounds never heal or fade.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
<snip> Oh, by the way, f@#k Jane Fonda, there is a special place waiting in Hell for that traitor.

I remember reading her ‘explanation’ some years ago. Obviously it’s bullshit and she made it up (or someone wrote her a script), but absolutely no one was as self-aware about such perceptions in the early 1970’s as she likes to pretend.

From article in Time Magazine

Here is my best, honest recollection of what took place. Someone (I don’t remember who) leads me toward the gun, and I sit down, still laughing, still applauding. It all has nothing to do with where I am sitting. I hardly even think about where I am sitting. The cameras flash. I get up, and as I start to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what has just happened hits me. Oh, my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes! I plead with him, “You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.” I am assured it will be taken care of. I don’t know what else to do. It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it.

If she were honest (which in an odd way I might respect), it would read like this:

Here is my best, honest recollection of what took place. Someone (I don’t remember who) leads me toward the gun, and I sit down, still laughing, still applauding. It all has nothing to do with where I am sitting. I hardly even think about where I am sitting. The cameras flash. I get up, and as I start to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what has just happened hits me. Oh, my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes! I plead with him, “You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.” I am assured it will be taken care of. I don’t know what else to do. It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it.

12131 ... Thank you for sharing sir.

Even if Fonda’s explanation of why she was photographed posing with the antiaircraft gun and her supposed belated recognition of how bad the photos would make her look had been totally accurate and sincere, there were at least two problems that support the general perception many of us have about the incident.

First and foremost, her visiting North Vietnam provided aid and comfort to an active combat enemy in time of war. That was the only reason the North invited her and was why she accepted. It wasn’t an unthinking, “Come and sit here,” situation but one that had the obvious overall purpose of supporting the North’s actions in waging an unprovoked aggressive war against its neighbor.

Plus there was no legitimate justification for someone like her to go there and be shown around the country. A representative of the Red Cross, a US diplomat or even national legislator? Perhaps the responsibilities of one of those people could be stretched to justify such a visit if invited or permitted to visit, but a movie actor?

Second, the supposed regret she had about one of her actions there wasn’t because she had willingly posed and yukked it up with members of the enemy’s armed forces at the antiaircraft site, but rather that it had been documented and she realized how bad it would reflect on her if the photographs were published. It wasn’t, “I made a horrible mistake and shouldn’t have been there,” but rather, “OMG, I might be found out.” The problem, of course, with the I shouldn’t have gone there; I wasn’t thinking mea culpa admission is that it could have been applied to the entire trip. She or her advisors probably realized that, and weren’t willing to repudiate and apologize for all of her traitorous actions.

Yes, Fonda, it’s no doubt true that you paid an unpleasant price for your time in the political spotlight. The only thing that was unfortunate was that all the rest of your ilk didn’t suffer similarly.

Much like a criminal or politician, caught in the act and then saying I'm sorry.
They aren't sorry for the deed, just sorry they got caught.

Mbinky

If this has been mentioned or discussed before I apologize.

I kept wondering where I saw the picture of SSG Fitts prior to you posting it here in the discussion.

It was on the cover of the book:

Pucker Factor Stories of MACVSOG Vol.2: Veterans stories in their own words.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...36-bc70-d63a1791406f

I was Ordnance Supply 76Y30 in the 11th Infantry Brigade.

I issued Lt. Calley his M16 in late 1967.

quote:

Oh, by the way, f@#k Jane Fonda, there is a special place waiting in Hell for that traitor.

Quite a long time ago Jim Webb (former SecNav, former Marine Grunt) was in San Diego pushing his book, 'Fields of Fire'. The radio interviewer for some reason told Webb that Hanoi Jane was in town to speak to some group and then asked Webb if he intended to hear her.

There was this great, momentary break in their conversation then Webb said he wouldn't cross the street to watch her cut her own throat.

The book's good too.

As posted earlier my brother served in 65-66. We grew up in a small rural NC town. When he left for training at Fort Gordan in Georgia there were two others from our hometown. They all made it back. Later we lost another young man. He was a friend of the family. MIA body not found. Way too many like Glen. May he RIP.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:


Oh, by the way, f@#k Jane Fonda, there is a special place waiting in Hell for that traitor.

To this very day, I would still have no qualms about putting a large bore round between her running lights!! I was there when she was "visiting".

When I was in high school in the early 80’s my buddies neighbor was a nam vet and some weekends he would have us over for some beers and he would tell us nam stories that some seemed BS. Well one night I got my beer balls on and called him out saying he was makin shyt up. He went up to his room and got a photo album of his nam days and dropped it on my lap and said look thru this. Let me tell you he was 100% honest about some of the things he did there. I almost shit my self looking at those pics. True gore. But I respected him no less and maybe more afterwards

An acquaintance of mine (who shall remain nameless) was Military Intelligence with MAC-SOG and told me he was present when some VC types fell out of helicopters.
I am sure he was exaggerating a bit!

One day my son, at that time a college boy, said:

"Hey Dad, I want to know if something like this could have happened in Viet Nam..."

I said "Yes."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask?"

"Doesn't matter." I Said

Every scarce once in awhile he mentions that to me.

A friend of mine that I used to work with was with the US Army Special Forces in Vietnam. He only told one Vietnam story. He was in an area that had some ROK troops. A man from a village that was friendly to American forces came to see them very angry and distraught. He said his daughter had been assaulted and raped by an ROK soldier. The Americans went to see the local ROK commanding officer. He conducted an investigation and concluded that the story was true. The offending ROK soldier was brought to the village. As my friend tells it, the ROK soldier wound up as a KIA. No retribution was visited on the village by the Koreans or Americans. As my friend tells it, while he was there the village remained friendly with the Americans (and Koreans).

My Father served in Vietnam as a SeaBee building any and everything you could imagine. He has more stories than I can remember.


He was amazed by how the locals would use everything the soldiers disposed of. He was telling me that they would cut off the tops and bottoms of beer cans, cut the side and flatten the aluminum out so they could use them for roofing shingles. It got to the point where the locals would trade amongst themselves so they could do their roof with the same branded beer cans.


Another one was when they got a temp CO and he was a real hardass. He forbid the men to swim in the river because they might catch some disease or whatnot. It's hot, humid and these guys are doing manual labor. Well they had this mutt that hung around camp and the guys would toss the dog in the river so they could jump in and "rescue it." It got to the point where the dog liked swimming in the river and would jump in by itself. Needless to say it still got rescued.


Him and his buddies had a social club where they sold beer to the Marines. When they got down to 3 pallets of beer, they only sold to the Navy guys. Well the Marines come into camp ready to get their drink on and there's a pallet left so no sales to the Marines. Tired after a long day of humping it the Marines are agitated that they can't drink. My Dad tells them not to worry, they're expecting a delivery that night. Keep in mind there's a curfew and all the roads are on lockdown. Well, not all of them. In the distance they could hear the faint sound of a diesel engine taking the dirt roads that most people don't know are there. After a while the truck reaches camp and the Marines line up to buy their beer. My Dad tells them that they (the Navy guys) have to unload the truck and stock it before they start selling. The Marines offered to help and my Dad says he's never seen a truck unloaded faster in his life.



99% of his stories were like those. The 1% came randomly one day when we were talking about photography (my Dad is a great photographer) and I asked him how he got into it. His best friend in Vietnam was into photography and got him into it. One night their camp was mortared by friendly fire and his friend was killed. My Dad wasn't in the bunk because he had to take a piss.


Speaking of that mortar strike there was a guy who was a really talented cartoonist and he would draw up a captioned 1 liner cartoons every couple of days describing the comedy/irony of their situations. It would get posted so all the guys could get a good laugh and my Dad collected every single one of them (with the blessing of the artist). They were going to make a book out of it and mass produce it so other battalions could enjoy the humor but they were destroyed in that mortar strike. I don't know if the cartoonist was killed during that strike but my Dad never talked about the 1 liner cartoons after that story and I didn't ask.


My Dad was shocked by the poverty the locals lived in. He was down by the water feeding the fish with stale hot dog buns that were moldy and the local kids were watching from afar. One of them eventually approached my Dad and asked if he could have one. My Dad thought he wanted to feed the fish so he gave him a couple. The boy started eating the bun, moldy and all, and once the others saw they came running over like pigeons. He had a couple sacks of hot dog buns and they were gone in minutes.