FACEBOOK
TWITTER
GORDON DUFF: VIETNAM, DECADES OF LIARS BLACKEN THE NAMES OF REAL HEROES
HOW MANY REAL PHONIES WERE IN VIETNAM?
HOW MANY WEAR MEDALS AWARDED BY THEMSELVES?
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Today, my good friend and fellow editor, Jim W. Dean of Heritage TV in Atlanta sent me an article on Vietnam by James Webb, a Marine with a Navy Cross, Silver Star and Bronze Star.
I read the article. I am flabbergasted. The best thing I can say is I hope someone else wrote it. It is offensive and simply insane.
Here is an excerpt.
We had been told while training that Marine officers in the rifle companies had an 85 percent probability of being killed or wounded, and the experience of “Dying Delta,” as our company was known, bore that out.
Of the officers in the bush when I arrived, our company commander was wounded, the weapons platoon commander wounded, the first platoon commander was killed, the second platoon commander was wounded
twice, and I, commanding the third platoons fared no better.Two of my original three-squad leaders were killed, and the third shot in the stomach. My platoon sergeant was severely wounded, as was my right
guide. By the time I left, my platoon I had gone through six radio operators, five of them casualties.
Another quote I don’t entirely understand.
The Greatest Generation ? Think about it they fought a unpopular war, came Home were spit on, called names, their Fathers Generation had nothing to do with them and yet though it all these so called no good cry babies who could not win a war (Thanks to their Fathers and Mothers Generation) fought the biggest war of their life and is still fighting it today.
Draft Dodger Sylvester Stallone as Vietnam Veteran John Rambo
Every time I hear about “airport spitters” I think of draft dodger Sylvester Stallone playing Rambo, the whining crybaby of movie fame. Whoever wrote and directed that must really have hated America.
Every time I hear the airport spitter myth I know I am being played. For those of you who know nothing about PTSD, spitting on a combat veteran is a form of suicide.
Pointing an empty shotgun at a SWAT team is considered safe and sensible in comparison.
I was a Marine grunt in Vietnam. I served with 2nd squad, 2nd platoon of BLT 1/26, a Marine Special Landing Team.
I won’t call myself a hero, in fact no real Marine would, it is considered an insult to call a Marine a hero, always has been. Let’s talk about “Dying Delta.” That would be Delta Company, 1/26.
We also had a unit called “The Walking Dead” which was 1st Bn, 9th Marines. Frankly, these were just names people made up. I can talk a bit about Delta though. Back during the summer of 69, Delta Company was set up on a perimeter a couple of clicks inland between Hoi An and Chu Lai.
We were operating, supposedly, with the Korean Marines. In truth, they were living on ships and we were fighting. This is how Americans buy their allies. This was war like TV, bayonet charges, death every day, continual combat.
The French Were Gone - Now it was Our Turn
Delta had been surrounded by a large force of North Vietnamese Army troops, maybe numbering in the thousands. This was like the movie Zulu, for those familiar with such things.
The area had once been French, half destroyed villages here and there and abandoned plantations, even hedge rows like in Normandy, except temperatures well over 100 degrees with stifling humidity.
Delta had sent out a patrol that had gotten past a hedge row and was ambushed. Our squad was called in to get them.
We had three Amtracks, huge lumbering vehicles that picked us up and brought us to the other side of the hedge row, where we could hear the wounded on the other side.
This was a wild ride, several kilometers cross country, but I am getting ahead of myself.
The night before, our unit had been attacked for hours. I had dug into the soft sand so deep that Harris and I, Lance Corporal Eddie Lee Harris, could have been accused of trying to get back home.
Our position was eventually overrun, with Harris and I spending some time hiding out from the North Vietnamese, still in our hole. We pulled sand over us and waited for our guys to come back. We laughed about it in the morning.
I remember it raining then, I took out my poncho, tied it between trees and filled a canteen with rain water. Water and ammunition, run out of either one, you are dead.
Marine 'Amtrak Service' - to the Front Lines
We got a radio message to prepare to move out immediately. We waiting for the Amtracks to pick us up.
We were told “dying Delta” was in trouble and we had to save them. We had just barely saved ourselves.
It was called a “suicide mission.” Drama. Marines do alot of drama. The unfunny part was burning our mail, our photographs, making sure we had nothing to identify us.
There was an ominous feeling about this.
The “tracks” ran over trees as we careened through old buildings, through swamps. We sat on top of the tracks, old .30 caliber Browning machine-guns with sandbags holding down the tripods on each. More sand bags gave us cover.
This was a fascinating run, lots to see and we weren’t walking. We climbed off the tracks, sand, cactus, and what I will call “hedge rows” but really embankments separating fields, maybe 8 feet tall with bike paths on them.
I had Bill Eckard behind me and Ed Harris next to him when I hit the top of the berm to go across and get the wounded. I could see two or three of the Delta guys on the ground ahead maybe 30 feet.
They weren’t moving. I stopped abruptly when several anti-aircraft rounds came past me, they had a big gun out there. It was like having a bus nearly hit you.
A Navy corpsman ran up next to me, meaning to head over the berm and down to what we hoped were wounded. The next thing I remember was him being hit and coming apart.
RPG - Durable...Lightweight and Very Effective
A couple of months ago, I went over this with Bill Eckard, who is also one of our staff writers. Bill says he was hit by an RPG, a rocket propelled grenade.
I lost a little chunk of time then and remember nothing between then and several minutes later, or what I guess was “minutes.”
This wasn’t one of our corpsmen but this was a Medal of Honor guy by any standards. I am still waiting for my “idiot standing next to him” award.
We then drew back down along the “safe” side of the berm, spread out and talked about how to deal with this.
We knew we had one heavy weapon or more in front and maybe another to the right, maybe out 80 to 200 metres and were taking small arms fire from almost everywhere.. The answer?
Harris took a fire team around to flank the guns, hit them from the left while we fixed bayonets, waited for Harris to get into place and went over the top, right out of World War I. This may have been America’s last bayonet charge, or at least I hope so.
Soviet DShKM 12.7mm (51-Caliber) Heavy Machine Gun is a gas-operated, belt-fed, air-cooled, fully automatic-only weapon, firing from open-bolt position.
After advancing successfully, we turned back to get the wounded and dead. We were under heavy fire with one man getting hit in the abdomen in the process.
I picked him up and carried him back while I could see Harris continuing to advance on the gun crew from the left flank. He was a total maniac, a frightening son of a bitch. We were best friends, still are.
Harris left Vietnam without any personal decorations although I saw him earn three Medals of Honor there.
Eckard has a Silver Star and a handful of Purple Hearts for which he paid dearly, losing both legs and part of an arm. He writes for us also and is as tough as he ever was, maybe more so.
He spent 34 years fighting the VA, retiring as Director of the Prosthetics Division. I am proud of him, much more for that than Vietnam.
The guy I was carrying had stopped moving, moaning. He was dying, though his wound looked so small. Human life isn’t always appreciated as it should be, something I remember thinking at the time.
I got to the side of an Amtrack and, with some help, we got him on board. He was a KIA as were others lined up on the ground.
War is funny, anyone who tells you they remember everything is a liar. I remember seeing journalists show up, Life Magazine, taking photographs of the dead and wounded.
Reality Combat Roulette
Then things went very wrong. We could see people, “indigenous forces” or whoever, coming out of a treeline. We flanked them, now they flanked us. Everyone, and I don’t remember who “everyone” was, pulled back except the rear guard, us.
I remember turning, firing occasionally, really at nothing. I remember how hard it is to reload an M-16 or to clear a jam when being shot at in the open. Shaking hands were part of the problem.
Out in the Open With the 'Experimental' Rifle
When I got my weapon functioning, I turned around and noted that my associates had managed to put 200 meters between themselves and me in what I imagined was two seconds.
I suspect I was fumbling with my “failed” experimental assault rifle a bit too long.
How do you describe being shot at?
It really doesn’t seem that personal, it isn’t “at” anything, its simply metal stuff flying around everywhere like mosquitoes but bigger, some of it very big, very fast and capable of hitting you anywhere, not like in cowboy movies.
You get hit and parts come off. I had seen that. There is a feeling of vulnerability that is hard to describe, at least to someone that hasn’t “been there.”
There was a cemetery about 30 yards away, French with large monuments, angels, weird stuff like that. Who would want to be buried in such a miserable place?
Experiencing Heaven and Hell - At the Same Time
By that time, I was genuinely frightened, things weren’t looking good for me at all. The air seemed to have lost all its oxygen.
Time was stopping and I felt like I was turning into lead.
I ran, though I swear it was slow motion, to the cover of the cemetery, not much cover but better than nothing.
I laid down on a grave, behind a tombstone, maybe made of aging concrete. Chunks of it were flying off as it was being hit.
I remember flattening out, holding my head sideways, arms out, trying to be invisible, sink into the ground if possible. It was easy to tell they had a heavy weapon.
This was a .51 caliber anti-aircraft gun. Remembering the difference, when a half pound of lead heads past you, that part is easy. We use this kind of weapons on others all the time now. They are quite devastating.
Vladimirov KPV-14.5 Heavy Machine Gun on Kharanin-Designed Wheeled Mount
I would like to say I was firing back, changing magazines. I don’t remember doing that. Assume I was, it sounds better. What I remember next is looking up and seeing an Amtrack a few feet away, looking over me. The driver crawled out the hatch, no shirt, no helmet, just an M-14.
Marine Amtrack
He stood on top of the track at least 8 feet in the air above me, assumed the “off hand” position, the perfect rifle firing stance, and began putting fire on the enemy gun crew, fire I could tell was dead on.
This was the day’s third Medal of Honor, another one not awarded. Years ago I actually heard from this guy.
He thought nothing of it but wondered who it was he was saving.
“We did this kind of thing all the time,” not every day but often, too often. This is the job.
I remember him writing, “You guys did all the hard stuff, I was just a driver.”
When reading James Webb’s story I get angry. The highest ranking person at that action died. It was the Navy corpsman killed next to me. He was an E-5.
There wasn’t a single officer in that action or so many others, endless others in Vietnam. I went six months without ever seeing an officer. Our units were run by Lance Corporals and occasionally Corporals.
It wasn’t always that way and it wasn’t true of all units but it was true of most units. Webb’s story is simply self serving.
This, quality of command, was a discussion question from 1993 to 1999 on AOL’s Military History section.
Hundreds of Vietnam veterans participated with many giving accounts of great officers, particularly early in the war and many, most, indicating that officers and staff NCO’s had become oblivious and showed poor morale, something we saw with some consistency.
It Took a Month of Patroling to be Able to Really Do It
As Marines, we seldom went out in units larger than a squad with typical squad strength down to as little as five men eventually.
We had an officer with us once, out to get his “bronze star” patrol, the once in a tour day in the field, a casual walk to the safest local village we could find.
He threw up from the heat, couldn’t keep up. We made sure he couldn’t keep up, actually. Harris still laughs about this.
If you didn’t go out every day, there was no way you could stay up with a combat unit that was out 7 days a week. We didn’t enjoy dragging tourists around with us.
For us, it didn’t matter, platoon or company, our officers and NCOs were back at our firebase, one we visited only rarely. I saw our platoon sergeant in the field once, trussed up with a helmet, flak jacket and camouflage blouse, sleeves rolled down. He had never worn any of it before and looked like a clown.
These stories about brave officers leading men in combat are quite humorous.
I think of the HBO series, Band of Brothers, the story of Easy Company, 505 PIR, 101st Airborne, in World War II. We never had an officer like Lt. Winter.
Maybe Webb was like Winter but if he was, I couldn’t imagine he would have written something so utterly divorced from reality. I thank Tom Hanks and Steven Spieberg for their fine effort.
We could call the problem morale or corruption. It goes further, much further.
When the units food was sold for drugs and sex or for cash, a routine that went on every day in Vietnam, our officers were silent. When men lost, not 20% of body weight but 40%, malnutrition, malaria or combat wounds never treated, of our officers said nothing.
They would simply assign patrols to areas they had never been and knew nothing of, unaware of the war, the enemy or anything relevant to their jobs.
Why Did the Officers Abandon Their Men in Action ?
We would roll our eyes back in our heads, take off and fight the war, knowing nobody cared, nobody wanted to know and that a separate little world that involved driving back into DaNang in jeeps, visiting “the club,” taking in movies and eating specially secured food existed parallel to ours.
This was a world of polished jeeps and helicopters, fine china, sterling silver, teenage prostitutes carefully screened for “cleanliness,” a world of ignorance, corruption and incompetence.
Imagine not knowing the name of your platoon commander because you never met him or her? They could have been women for all we knew.
I am reminded of the scene from Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen gets off his boat and heads ashore, a unit is under attack near a bridge.
He stops a soldier, “Son, who is in command here?” The response, “I thought you were?”
Bernard Fall - KIA, 1967 - by Bouncing Betty Mine
French author Bernard Fall wrote a book called Two Vietnams. I had actually read Falls books before going to Vietnam, which made one of us.
Fall had no idea how far America would take the concept, though. We had two Vietnams. Real Marines, Army and Vietnamese, the farmers, the Viet Cong, the NVA, we lived in one of them.
The other Vietnam? There was a huge underworld of clubs, swimming pools, black market, visiting congressmen being treated to the perversion of the day.
Medals by the thousand were given to people who hadn’t spent a minute in combat or who were removed from command for incompetence.
Bernard Fall - The French Debacle in Indochina
Our rare and occasional ventures into the rear made us sick.
We were looked at like freaks, walking skeletons with long hair, wearing rags and openly hostile and disrespectful to those who were used to something different.
We were no longer “with the program.”
American soldiers sacrificed, gave their lives, their health, all, not just for nothing but to be dishonored by a pack of professional liars who have spent every moment of the last four decades patting themselves on the back for their heroics.
There were two Vietnams. There are also two kinds of vets. Alot of us came back and never got “with the program.” It seemed like the honorable way of dealing with dishonor.
What kind of officer wouldn’t notice that the turkey dinners for Thanksgiving and Christmas had been sold at DaNangs black market, called “Three Corners,” and men, even in the “rear echelon” were fed fatty liverwurst and stale bread, not just stale but moldy?
In the field, it was canned garbage, a decade over the expiration date. The officers got turkey with all the trimmings, the men got nothing. Nobody said a word. The only war our leaders were trained for was “class war.”
If you would like to know the primary concern among command personnel in Vietnam, I will tell you. It was “staying alive.” The reason? Hate. Marines hated their senior NCOs, many of them at least.
Some, I admit, were exceptional people, combat vets from World War II and Korea.
One of my favorites, Master Sergeant Miller W. Scott, from Tennessee, the picture perfect Marine, tough as hell. Scott would reluctantly sit with me and complain about what the Marine Corps had become.
A Tall and Skinny Gordon Duff in Vietnam - Combat Patrol Diet Was 400 Calories a Day - Regular Ration Consumption Caused Vomiting
It was his job to get me to accept a commission, something I had been refusing. Scott, a combat vet from Korea, hated being surrounded by racists, drunks and some seriously fat people, our senior staff NCOs.
He knew how much money they were making, selling our food, our equipment and maybe our weapons.
The military, in Vietnam, was ruled by a Mafia of NCO’s, a group that started out running drugs through the enlisted clubs in Germany, who carried their “infrastructure” to Vietnam.
Eventually Marines caught on, using the term “Marine” blasphemously.
Many Marine bases had special high security compounds for the officers and staff NCOs to live in, protected from their own troops.
We will never know how many were murdered by their own men but minimally ten times more than reported.
A “fragging” death quickly became a “mortar attack.” A claymore mine under a bed was called a “rocket attack.”
Many bases saw more combat inside the wire than out with gunfire regularly erupting between African American troops and senior NCOs from regions of the country where virtual slavery was still practiced openly.
Undercover CID operatives were infiltrated into units, drug dogs were brought out to remote firebases and “good ole southern boy” NCOs would creep around at night or hide in the bushes trying to catch “brothers” smoking marijuana. It had become a “juicer versus doper” war.
The Double Shift Duff Squad - Combat Patrols During the Day - Then Night Ambushes
Rear areas became a battleground of aging drunks against cooks, radio operators and clerks while combat troops were permanently kept in the field out of fear they would join the “insurrection” against “whitey.”
Many officers and NCO’s thought combat troops were Viet Cong sympathizers or members of terrorist groups like the White Panthers or Weathermen. They were right.
In order to feel safe, units were kept in the field 30 days a month, resupplied by jeep or helicopter with perimeter security handled by cooks, radio operators and clerks, often moving from typewriter to hand to hand combat.
Combat operations had become impossible with open warfare between black and white, urban and rural, educated and “professional military” overshadowing anything else going on.
If this isn’t the way you heard it told, its time you started paying attention to different people.
The real Marines were my friends, some “grunts,” some aircraft mechanics, two good friends running a water purification facility, driving trucks, working and fighting.
In the middle of writing this, I just finished reading General Stanley McChrystal’s final report on Afghanistan, released only by a newspaper in Britain. It reports what I and so many others, have been writing about all along, the total failure of American efforts to support Karzai.
However, this detailed and intelligently written report makes no mention of the $65 billion drug business in Iraq closely tied to the Karzai regime.
McChrystal talks about massive corruption, remember, this is corruption in his own command, but does so only in a passing shot. Why didn’t he jail the thousands involved when he was there? Why can’t he see an opium poppy?
Are Americans simply looking away or, as in Vietnam, are many taking part? What are we covering up?
But, compared to the stories from Vietnam, the “whitewash” and baloney, this McChrystal report is a breath of fresh air and honesty. It is also “too little, too late.”
Washington Showing His Sick and Starving Troops to McCain-Kerry Congressional Committee of its Day
America has abandoned troops before. Valley Forge was the start but isn’t and won’t be the finish.
When Senators McCain and Kerry, “heroes” of Vietnam fought to block efforts to return recover our POWs from Vietnam, their corruption, so blatant, was never reported and only rewarded, never punished.
We put medals on our trash, put it in congress or promote it to the highest levels of the Pentagon.
Lying about Vietnam is part of why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan now. The scum rose to the top because we stopped valuing the truth.
If you wonder why we can fight a ten year war, one we have done so much worse in than Vietnam, spent a hundred times as much money and yet hear nothing about it, think of the heavily decorated officers building careers for themselves, perhaps even heading on to the senate.
How can there be nobody at all, military, congress or the press, telling the truth about what is going on? Why is everyone telling the same lies? Who has that kind of power? Can drug money control, not only our military but press as well?
I can still picture Vietnam, seeing a Marine rifle squad heading across the rice paddies in the distance, into the hills. Behind them, miles behind, lay the city of DaNang. I will always remember being a part of one of those squads. I remember sitting out in the hills, looking back toward the city in the distance.
End of Runway Attacks to Crank up Mission Stats
One day we sat four hours, watching the air base. Planes took off, one after another, looped around a mile off the end of the runway and dropped bombs in an empty field.
This went on endlessly, with pilots flying “sorties” or “bombing missions” against “enemy targets.”
We had one empty hillside burned black from constant bombing. Nothing had ever been there but thousands of tons of bombs, napalm, had been dropped on it.
It was close, safe, convenient. I wonder how many generals had “made their bones” bombing that blackened rock?
If you have seen photographs of Vietnam with fields looking cratered like the moon, this field off the end of the runway was the place. The unexploded bombs left here would be picked up by the Viet Cong and used for booby traps or, as they are called now, IEDs.
No Enemy Here
These bombs killed many of my friends and one nearly got me. The Air Force delivered endless tons of high explosives to our enemies like this.
Naval gunfire was the same way. Aging, left over ammunition, unexploded, defective until wired as booby traps, could be found everywhere.
Most American casualties came from weapons made from defective American munitions.
So much of the war was “pretend.” Army units were sent into hopeless attacks, flown into enemy strongholds because it fit a news cycle or a VIP needed entertainment.
All that was needed to “sex up” any disaster was a typewriter. You could spread casualties out over weeks, add hundreds of imaginary killed enemy and a bungling coward just earned a Silver Star for killing off a dozen Americans.
The lessons the military learned in Vietnam, lie often, lie big, have been generously applied to the War on Terror. Israel has built a culture out of this practice.
We had our two Vietnams. One involved a war, one we fought with no food, defective weapons, no fire support, no air support, hopelessly outnumbered while the other Vietnam partied on.
Tens of thousands of our “leaders” lived in such comfort and excess in Vietnam it is a wonder they would ever leave. Keeping Max Cleland, a real soldier, out of government was important. We remember that one too.
A Marine - Multi Tasking in Hue
We had two Vietnams. One involved good and decent people who fought with honor, cared for their friends, showed decency and humanity every day, soldiers who are almost all gone, killed in war or dead or dying as veterans.
The others? We know who you are. You have gotten away with decades of deception. You were bunglers, cowards and thieves. You are not forgiven. You fill our golf courses, yacht basins, “bankster” investment firms.
For four decades I have run into phony veterans, guys with no military service but a wealth of war stories, gleaned from the imaginary world of movie and TV baloney.
The numbers? Maybe 4-500. In 2004, during Rolling Thunder, Henry Sullivan, an Army medic and I polled one group of “Vietnam Veterans” while on the yearly motorcycle run to Washington DC.
In a room of 200, there were three Vietnam vets. Henry and I were two of them.
People who were, to Henry and I, “vet groupies” were being continually thanked for their service by kind people donating food and drink to what they thought were Vietnam combat vets decked out in ribbons, medals and “biker gang” regalia.
This week, President Obama, in response to what can only be described as “bizarre” policies by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the handling of, not only medical care for veterans but disability compensation processing for PTSD victims, announced he was “loosening” policy restrictions.
His new “policy” is nothing new. He is, in fact, requiring Veterans Affairs, to comply with its own rules as they have existed for decades, rules they have never complied with. All of this, of course, is to give recently returning veterans, whose “meltdown” is now a national disgrace, a better chance at survival.
Mr. President, this isn’t quite good enough, not by a long shot.
Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs arrives at the World War II Memorial in Washington
A flurry of questions have come in about this new ruling, almost every one from a Vietnam veteran denied disability though diagnosed with PTSD.
The stories read like so many we have seen for decades, missing files, lost documents, appeals denied for incomprehensible reasons, compensation exams that resembled inquisitions.
For every recent returning vet claiming PTSD, and we have nearly 400,000, we have 3 Vietnam vets whose claims were wrongly denied and whose children were denied educational benefits, families that lived in poverty for decades.
Just because America abused and neglected Vietnam veterans for decades and got away with it, doesn’t mean we have forgotten.
Most of the children are adults. Most of the Vietnam veterans who filed claims are dead. With 711,000 “Vietnam survivors” out of 2.9 million, (2009 figure) the problem seems to be correcting itself, as members of our government would like to think.
Those who could have done something about it, the senators, the highly decorated rear eschelon “Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon,” the real “heroes” of every war, were then and continue to be silent, almost to a one.
Never in the history of warfare have so many owed so much and done so little to deserve it. Why do you think we are holding up combat operation in Afghanistan? When we destroy our veterans, we kill our military.
In Vietnam, as with Afghanistan, we sent an army to a hopeless war led by the most corrupt leadership in America’s history.
In Vietnam, a generation of Americans was systematically destroyed, with the best and brightest of the generation “doing time” in Vietnam, combat units, while “bottom feeders” sat in Saigon and DaNang.
Those shirkers an “no accounts” have given us the America we have today, broke, addicted to propaganda and fear, obsessed with safety, a generation ducking responsibility and leadership, borrowing from tomorrow to steal today.
The Wheeler Dealers Always Win
The number of members of congress who ducked Vietnam through imaginary illness, special arrangements for “safe” National Guard units or simply deferment after deferment created a list of “chickenhawks” that became a national shame.
Those that ducked service in Vietnam were the first to push for war after war for the children of those who fought.
Who would have imagined this or have believed they could have gotten away with it?
There is a great national movement to forget Vietnam, pay off our current abused “volunteer army” that ten years of war has utterly destroyed and cover up the sins of the past. President Obama believes that fixing a problem 40 years late is enough. I don’t agree.
Every vet who was denied 30 or 40 plus years of help, whose kids went without health care, clothing, food, college money or a stable home environment is owed.
American KIAs - Finally Going Home
This is a debt, a real debt that we can put a price tag on. We may not be able to pay the vets, bring them back from the dead, but we can reimburse their children for the suffering our crimes have caused.
We now have a generation of “collateral damage,” victims of Vietnam and government duplicity, now raising families of their own. With Vietnam, we started a chain reaction of bitterness, poverty and despair that must be addressed.
We pay for that first, before we buy another weapon, no more aircraft carriers, useless transport aircraft, unusable bombers or new military golf courses.
Only when we recognize the real cost of war will we understand how to live in peace and security.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=39927
Posted by Gordon Duff on Jul 13 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Vietnam War, WarZone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
COMMENTS
To post, we ask that you login using Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail in the box below.Don't have a social network account? Register and Login direct with VT and post.
Before you post, read our Comment Policy - Feedback
The worst experience I had returning home from overseas was when I opened a door for a young lady dressed in hippie attire.Her response was,”I can open my own f*****g door”.Needless to say I was flabbergasted.The old chivalrous white knight image was forever destroyed by that callous behavior.
Somehow I missed Viet Nam and not because I tried to avoid it.I finally received orders in 1973 but was diverted to Korea at the Oakland Army Terminal.I sold my boat,my car and my home in preparation.Was I pissed off.So I don’t sport a chest full of combat ribbons.My EIB looks mighty puny compared to a CIB but I earned my medal with pride.
I was an SFC and spoke with returning soldiers constantly and over a couple of beers most corroborated Mr.Duff’s recollections.The part that particularly hit home was the racial tension and I never understood that until today.I was filled with the official EEO rhetoric and preached the main line but somehow I was met with hatred in the eyes and voices of many of the black soldiers.I understand now.
My eyes were beginning to be opened in the 70s of the government’s false portrayal of the Viet Nam War.I remember well a concert that was supposedly to be held in the Monterrey County Fairgrounds.The star was none other than Joan Baez who along with Jane Fonda was seen as a traitor for their actions with North Vietnam.That concert was cancelled by officials,more than likely the Fort Ord Commanding General.Joan found a vacant field and held a free event.People were sitting on blankets as far as the eyes could see.A blue haze wafted over the scene,heavy and oppressing.But that concert was a culmination of the unrest of the American people over this war and chills of wonder went down my spine as I realized that we had been had.I still consider this the moment of change in the direction of the rest of my life.
Thank you for publishing this reminder of what history is not what some revisionist tells us to believe.
Columbus did not discover America in spite of what the books teach our children.
Racial incidents did not occur in the field – to my memory. Racial incidents were the province of “the rear”. Mud Marines and Line Grunts could not afford the “luxury” of racial incidents.
Dale R. Suiter
Ammo Co. 1st FSR
2nd GAG Q-6 & Q3
H&S 81′s 3/9 & 1/3
A wonderful article. Sort of made me cry (again). Thank you for sharing. I’m so sorry for what you and your friends went through. One day I might share a part of my own insignifcant contribution to “that mess”. In the meantime, I need to stick with Yogi the Bare, i.e., Yogi X. He’s color-blind. He’s race-blind. He’s apolitical. He’s a safe place.
I actually got a call, followed by a letter than another call from the DVA. They have reopened my ancient claim under the new rules (I guess I didn’t die soon enough). My long lost military records “magically” showed up. I cynically assume they want some blue-eyed guys to throw on the trash heap again, you know, to keep the “political numbers” balanced to buy votes.
I don’t know if I’d publish this comment if I were a site editor. But my decades old headache from being blown up, and unfortunately surviving, doesn’t allow me to be politically correct much of the time.
Thanks again. Semper Fi and Gary Owen, Tom D. First Cav
I remember comming home and going back to work in the cast iron foundry I worked at before enlisting and working for several years and finally deciding to use my GI Bill bennies and enroled at Kent State.Came out of a lecture hall one day and found myself in the middle of an anti-war demonstration. It was the infamous day of the Kent State shootings. I had to leave to get back to my job on the after noon shift. Heard all about it on the radio as I was driving to work.
Gordon you get more real as time goes by. You need to post more about the real Vietnam. It brings back the history we tried so hard to forget. Tom I wish you well even if your are gettin what you deserve as an after thought by the powers that be to buy votes.
Thanks to both of you. Semper FI. Paul 9th MAB
Why doesn’t everyone just thank the 9 percent who acually were in combat in Viet Nam and tell the rest they are sorry MFs who ate better and lived safe to go to hell where they belong. Those sorry cocks-kers what were they doing there. Why weren’t they killed like they deserve to be, may God end they’re lives right now. Everyone that was there and not in the bush…commit suicide..now.
I’ll just bet, as some have already been trying, you’ll start, if you haven’t already, saying the same thing about many of this generations in-country vets of not one but two theaters and multiple tours, and why because not everyone goes outside the wire, so it’ll make you feel better!! If in a theater of occupation nothing is as comfortable as you want to make it out to be as those occupied pick the times and places, and bombings etc. go anywhere, that’s Guerilla Insurgent Warfare, and they also fund their insurgencies in their countries with what is bought or paid for!!
RANDY:
For someone to slam the shit out of soldiers that were in not in combat, you have done a injustice to all that have to stay to get the ammo and other supplies to you. If I wanted to I could have said to save your sorry asses. By doing that I would be lowering my self down to your standard, and damn sure I will not go that far. Are you sure that you did not get a bad bite in the jungle? Something made you in to a sad state to say what you did. I would never say that to the help that we got from the rear in Korea. In fact there is a special section at the Korea War memorial just for them. If you go down don’t spit on them as there may be a Korean vet there to knock the shit out of you. If you was in Nam, you should hang your head in shame. Even if not the same shame. Is there others on here that feel as I do about this post from Randy? That is the way it is in my opinion. SEEVIEW. PS—A proud Korean Vet with two Purple Hearts.
Nick
One of the little games in Vietnam….guys would come in from a week in the bush….and have to burn shitters, string wire….for the guys in the rear…who would be tanning…eating hot chow…
then..after a few hours..head out again
the game was..to get us to hate each other
ok..a war story….was with 1/5 as a REMF…when guys came in after an operation…including friends. they were refused food. i was bn op chief…went to the xo and was…more than a bit firm…
kitchen reopened…men fed. ok, i was a ‘privileged character’ in the corps..but standing up for what is right is always proper…and few did it
g
That was sarcasm, I was in the rear. That’s how I feel others who had it bad feel about us in the rear. I don’t even like to tell people I was there now. I used to be proud to be a Marine that was stationed in Nam, now I feel guilty because I got there too late. Just venting, so for now I’ll cry two tears in a bucket and F it.
That was sarcasm, I was in the rear. That’s how I feel others who had it bad feel about us. I used to be pround to be a Marine Viet Nam vet. Now I am almost ashame to admit it. But I was just venting. So for now I’ll cry two tears in a bucket and F it. A hundred years from now Viet Nam will have as much impact as the Civil War does today, it’s a shame, but true.
Randy:You really showed your colors here.Are you aware that only 10% of the Armed Forces are designated as combat troops?The other 90% are in support of those who are actually doing the fighting.It is these rear echelon troops that supply the vehicles,parts,ammo,food,clothing,fresh water,medical and any number of needs.
It is even planned out how to reduce those 10% front line numbers of the enemy.It takes two front line troops to evacuate every wounded soldier, further weakening the lines.I remember this being pounded into my head.It is better to wound the enemy than kill them for that purpose.I went to OCS in 66 to prepare for being a Platoon Leader in the newly forming 9th Inf.Div.My wife’s grandparents were in East Germany which prevented me from getting a security clearance.I came close to graduating,21 weeks out of 23 completed.At the time it broke my heart but as the Army Times kept publishing the names of the KIA,I grew evermore grateful.
Look I apologize If I pissed anybody off, really. I’m sorry I didn’t die or suffer too much. I was a high school drop out who was lost and joined on a buddy plan. I know others suffered miseriably for one or more tours. But I never heard of a wannabe, I never lied what I did or what I saw. I have buddy’s from my hometown that were burnt up, wounded, and have died since coming back. I’m from a small town who knows who went to Nam. I have always had them thank me for serving my counrty and I always thanked them. I have suffered more than a year, my father was a Marine in WWII and Korean war. He abused us and my mother. I went to bed hungry and crying, alcohol was more important than us. I’m just wondering all the vets that are in all the parades are they combat vets? Do they rate to be in a parade? Can they join the freedom riders at our vets funerals? Can they welcome todays vets home at the airports? Are they all liars and not heros?
Randy…We all have baggage from the Bravo Sierra REMFs dished out to us when we cam in for standdown, but as a combat vet (Cav Scout MOS 11Delta), but our asses would have really been in a sling had they not been supporting us from the rear. And if they had not been there, we would have no rear to go for standdown at, and Charlie would have massacred us 9% had the 91% not been in the rear giving us a place to retreat to. My problem was with all the officers and lifers in the rear that after the firefight we in the bush go into was over, would fly out on a chopper, step off in shinny boots and starched jungle fatigues with a clod beer in hand, and take each other’s picture standing beside OUR body count. Then they would fly back to the rear, pin medals on each other while we in the bush that achieved that body count got no medals. But I understand how you feel, and I have mixed emotions that REMFs can now claim PTSD. I mean if the Firebase got hit hard and serious casualties occurred, then it was combat for SOME, but not all. Usually it was learned by most the next morning that the wire was penetrated on the other side of the base while they slept through it all. But still there is no comparison to being in the bush day and night for weeks between standowns that no RMF will ever understand. However I DO understand you are still angry. I will be angry about most of it till the day I die.
“If you ain’t cav……….” You walked more than I did. But I rode around on a RPG magnet and ran over mines a lot.
Cav,
The support you mention wasn’t Marine Corps. If support meant air, artillery (the arty guys were there but nobody to clear fire missions….nothing except report our positions to the local VC)..no supplies…nothing.
There was no rear support. We lived on our own.
g
G…My rear was Dong Ha in northern I corps, Quang Tri Province, 70-71. All the Marines were well to my south at Da Nang where the birds came from when we called in air support. It was all Army up there after the Marines redeployed south to Da Nang prior to me arriving in country. The first Marine I saw was when I was sent to Da Nang out of Operation Lam Son 719 from Khe Sanh to see a Marine eye doctor for my eyes. But we all know that my AO was FIRST secured by Marines, so I am not taking away anything from the USMC. I am just trying to point out that there is a reason for the rear, and I was damn glad we had it. The average for fragings was about 2 officers and/or senior NCO’s per month back there in our rear. Hell, I was back there on a 3 day standdown as the only white guy smoking a joint with several “Soul Brothers” in a hooch and someone threw a frag in with us! I got two lacerations 4 inches long on my left arm from that frag, and NO, I did not get or ask for a PH for it either. I felt safer in the bush. At least there were no race wars in the bush and we quickly got rid of the hard drug users too. I know about those race wars and lifer vs the enlightened wars too. Hell, I joined the Army at 17, volunteered for Nam and they sent me at 18. But I am from the south and we were not given the truth. I was 18 and 19 in Nam. What did I know except I soon learned I was dumb-ass for ever joining or volunteering. But in retrospect; I can thank it for my 100% SC today in this time when so many can not find work or health care. I respect what you did to the max! At least I got to choose a MOS where I did get to ride when not on dismounted RIF. Peaches and Pound cake all around for all my Marine BIAs! Welcome Home!
Don’t mean nuttin’; ain’t nuttin but a thang!”
Cav,
Recognize the rap. I remember when we pulled 3rd mardiv south..maybe september of 69. I was surprised…friends with the 3rd on heroin…something we hadn’t seen. We did less fragging and lots of gas grenades. I don’t feel right unless i get a whiff of tear gas.
g
“At least there were no race wars in the bush and we quickly got rid of the hard drug users too”
Thank you Cav Scout. That was my experience also. And I was there long before you.
T. First Cav Vet.
Look man, I’m just mad because others are mad at the ones who had it easy. The lifers hated us too. We were a different generation. As as the WWII/Korean vets of the VFW who would not accept us. They considers Nam as a conflict not a war. Please do not argue about this, look it up. I am finished with this Sh!t,I think. I really like Gordy he is a real Marine in my eyes. I love talking sh!t to him because he can talk sh!t back.
It appears that only 9% are (The Real Vets) and they flew, sailed, drove, and even saved themselves and only those in the bush have any idea what the real Vietnam was like or about. This to me is kind of sad in april 75 37 secetarys from the embaseay were killed trying to carry out babys from sigon on a transport plane. Tens of thousands died and none of them ever spent one day and night in the bush and while we should all admire those that did for many it was our job to get you home. In the end many had no home or country, no wall or reconintion, and other than the 90% of support troops zero support. Should we abandon hope for them and thire childern just because the war is over as the goverment says? Learning from a tour of duty is just the begining of you mission not repeating past mestakes the lesson every Vetern made a differance good or bad.
I recall returning to “the rear” once in a very great while. We always “felt different” from the Marines who lived and worked on major bases. None of us, however wished the guys in “the rear” any injury. During TET 68 I was in a CAP unit, Q-3 at the mouth of Elephant Valley. The 1st FSR fielded a lot of support Marines. They fought hard as Marines do. Selling these guys short is not cool. In the 1960′s Marines had their MOS picked for them.
You are off base and out of line.
Dale R. Suiter
RVN 67-68 and part of 1969.
2311/0311
Dale,
We were being played against each other. I have a dozen experiences we shoudl share.
I suggest we write it up together
g
Another myth as far as I am concerned is the length of time in Vietnam. Over the years I have read in newspaper reports how some former GIs or Marine served 3 or more tours in Vietnam. Somehow this is supposed to make you a bigger and more deserving Veteran.
A little over a year ago in April Quantico Virginia the 2nd Mb 4th Marines had a memorial put up for the. I was with echo 2nd Bn 4th Marines almost 5 months before I was wounded spending the best part of the next year in a US Nay hospital until I was discharged because of my wounds.
Second Battalion 4th Marines I am guessing had at least 200% turn over in a little over a year because of casualties. Few of these Marines served even one tour in Vietnam. Honestly and in fact to have been with 2/4 during this time without a PH was very rare. Although I do know a gunny who did not have a PH.
During my time with 2/4 two Marines won the Congressional Medal of Honors, both posthumously, Foster and Barker. Neither one of these guys as far I know served one tour in Vietnam. CPL JR Smith a bunk/rack mate in Hawaii and 1/27 Marines was with 3/26 for only a month or so before he was killed. This is true for a Large part of the names etched on the Vietnam veterans memorial.
Archie,
I had one friend extend to be a squad leader. Everyone else took REMF billets. No sane person would do more than one tour in a grunt unit….there was no glory…it was closer to being in prison. Grunts were treated like total shit.
Excellent post.
g
“For four decades I have run into phony veterans….” As Gordon points out, that class includes MACV and MI types who took a slick into the field or drove down the road so they could get their picture taken at a “turkey shoot,” or whatever other units called a phony, staged barrage of weapons fire. This is understandable and pardonable, in my view. After all, who can admit he watched movies and ate ice cream with dinner in a combat zone?
But that business of “airport spitters” always struck me, too, as contrived, just one more bogus story in the media/Hollywood/therapeutic/academic cabal’s attempt to effeminize us in the public’s mind by generalizing outliers, most of which were sheer fabrications to begin with. There’s a very unhealthy element in this emasculated society, most notably among our chattering elites, who seemingly need to justify their own lack of virility by denigrating combat vets. They do this by inverting true manhood demonstrated under fire, portraying us as “guys” just like themselves who are “man enough” to cry like women or turn and run. Worse yet is that patronizing tone or insincere flattery toward Vietnam combat vets, intended to add insult to the imputation of emotional weakness.
Any society, like ours, which elevates those least capable and willing to defend it to power is doomed. To prove my point, imagine a country where the likes of a Joe Lieberman or a Lindsey Graham, or some noisome old cow, has the power to send real men to die in battle. No, that’s too absurd to even imagine.
Dan,
Yes, you got it entirely. You could have written this.
g
Well I will tell you that when we landed in Oakland to be sent home we were spit on in the airport and because fighting was a result we were loaded on a plane and sent to McCord AFB Washington and given our steak dinner and we flew out of SEATAC airport.
This was Jan of 72. I was not a grunt just a radio operator on artillery FB Sally.
I flew back and forth 6 times, in and out of vietnam
so..you are telling me hippy vans filled short term airport parking and groups of them waited around airports?
I have been doing this for 17 years…running these reports down
OK…can’t call a vet a liar…so
write the whole thing up…how many…what you did…who kept you from beating their asses…all of it
not kidding
we deserve to know
2 years ago a security agent for one of those “foreign countries” grabbed my arm in an airport…
before i was done, he needed to change his underwear
g
In a way, I agree with Tom. I NEVER got spit on. I came back by ship. Caught a mil bus to S.F. I walked (make that limped) into the airport to catch a flight to SEATAC. (Seattle, Tacoma). It was weird. People looked at me with wide eyes and scattered, almost running away. I kept checking my armpits for B.O.
Later, I heard some guys say spit, some say no spit. I reached several conclusions, probably wrong, that if the military man looked intimidated (REMF?) they stood a better chance of being spit on. If they had that wild-ass look in their eyes, the crowd scattered. I think you guys all know that “wild-ass” look.
I learned in my later years, to have an impassive look. NEVER talk about S.E. Asia. It was an economically undesirable thing to do. Sad.
T.
Gordo:
Looks like you’ve been reading some of Col. David Hackworth’s web articles and books. Nice to see a gyrene unafraid to speak the ugly truths about then and now.
McChrystal will at the very least write a book, it won’t surprise me if he is fetted by some state political machine to run for Senate.
At least he saw the end of his career and didn’t stay with the policies that
make AFGN another deja vu from the ‘Nam.
Kudoes all around for your veracity and accuracy !
Keep sharing!
Even if you think Stalone dodged the draft, he has medical conditions that are a DQ.
Once again, you start to tell lies and spread rumors without doing your homework…
“He may have been considered medically unfit:
“Unfortunately, the intern clamped too hard and severed a facial nerve, giving Sly a drooping eyelid and lips, as well as a speech impediment.”
http://www.readhim.com/Stallone.html
Bell’s Palsy (which is what this is) is grounds for awarding VA disability if it’s the result of military service, so presumably it’s enough to keep someone out in the first place. ”
BTW, do you have the exact dates he was instructing at that American College in Switzerland?
jerimiah, hate to burst your bubble; Sly didn’t even have the courage to watch me, a 165lb female, dead-lift 315 at the Central Y in Honolulu (1984).
The entertainer he was with, someone I knew fairly well, said, “You trying to intimidate my friend, K___?” Sly made a b-line to the “back-room” he was so flustered! All the “local boys” had a good laugh!
I wonder what Sly would have done if I’d been maxing-out…405 deads.
I probably wouldn’t be too excited either by looking at a 165lb woman dead lift 315 pounds.Maybe a pint of ale at closing time would be OK.
Which is it, Larry; do you not like women? Or, do you not like strong women?
radio orperator, frist move i saw was i belive around 1946 call G.I. JOE then when i was 18 i inlist inf, base then airborn,befor i new it SF, then CAV Inf, and last MTN school after 18yr was told i was done, in the 80th they were cleaning house i left then my wife left me when i got sick hit in the head the VA, gotme 30% after 9yr went to 70% then a year later 100% had a stoke, few years later heart att, right now doing good you know who your friends are when you get sick, the VA and your buddys we never forget what we went thu, god bless you all
Thank you for your service Rocco. Keep healthy.
T. First Cav — Gary Owen!
rocco: What a great surprise to hear someone praise the VA on here. Most of the Nam vets and a few others slam the shit out of the VA. No wonder why things look so bad for the VA. It is only a small minority that do the bitching, but it makes the complete system sound bad. I wonder if some bring on their own problems. My opinion, SEEVIEW
Nick
Your opinion is a novel one but not based in reality. Service officer for 17 years….find your ideas odd.
g
G — I find most of the VA medical staff competent. Of course, I live near one of the largest medical centers in the world. The bureacracy? Even the medical staff has grumbling problems with them.
T.
Tom,
We track how regional VA’s do. Some are monstrosities, many in fact. g
Dear Gordon and any other Viet Nam vets,
When I was in college, one of my good friends lost the lottery. He was brilliant, gentle and very honorable. The night that he got his number and found out that he had to go to Viet Nam, we got together and gave him a going away party. Before we had to mourn him, the war ended, but he was lucky. I saw too many of the decent young men that I knew being sent off to that war. I saw them coming back very disillusioned with what went on there. Until Gordon’s article, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that went on. This article corroborated my worst suspicions about war in general.
I wanted to cry at these knowledge that these young men were starved by their own chain of command. That they were sent into death by those who claimed to be their leaders. I did not miss the suggestion that the political personnel who showed up never saw where they were sending other people’s sons and daughters–only the nimble flanks of some poor Vietnamese teenager pimped out to them. I am completely disgusted with the parasitic nature of the system that now sits athwart our nation’s every policy. The term “national security” has been used to justify some of the most egregious abuses of law, liberty and morals conceivable. The irony is that most of the things hidden under this rubric have more to do with the job security of the scumbags involved than with the security of this nation.
My heart is breaking over the lives destroyed, the limbs lost and the souls twisted by the evil called war. Not one of the wars in my lifetime had anything to do with protecting this country. Worst of all is the treatment that those needlessly hurt have endured. Whenever anybody lays their life on the line, that creates a debt of honor. Those debts are not being paid by this country. The money that should go to making our warriors whole is going into the pockets of those who started the wars in the first place. THIS HAS TO STOP.
While I am glad that my friend was spared, I am sorry torn over those whose lives were destroyed by these ridiculous exercises in the aggrandisement of banksters and industrialists. If the military rank and file refused to serve in the current illegal wars, I would back them up without question. I have read enough on these pages to feel that their reaction is justified.
Gordon, this was another superb piece even if it was very difficult to read.
MK
Gordon, thank you for sharing a part of yourself with all of us.
I don’t think I’ll share my stories. But I and both my brothers served and one of them finally ended up putting his .45 to his head in 1998. The VA fucked him Over. I’ve been on and off prozac. But WWII was no different. Dad went in on Omaha and fought at the Bulge, ended in Prague, got two Purple Hearts and exited the Army after five years an E-2. I guess there was no room for a promotion for a Greek. Dad suffered PTSS his whole life. To be polite we said he was excentric, except he was not rich. He became a male nurse to try to “make up for all those I killed” he said. Maybe.
I would just like to remind you that many of those on the other end of our M-16s should have got Medals of Honor. The difference? they were fighting the good fight. Am I bitter? You bet your ass I am.
I think many Vietnam combat veterans kept quiet because they did not want to be confused with all the media generated types like Rambo.
MK Over the years I have known many successful Vietnam Veterans. Not all Vietnam combat veterans are poor. I am but not all. They were/are many successful that is if you call making money and owning things that seem so important in the American culture like nice cars and magnificent homes.
On the inside there was pain and disillusionment, emptiness and loneliness. Loneliness most Americans do not know past those unlucky women who have been raped and cannot share their pain out of fear they will not be understood and shunned.
The culture created after World War Two SAID THOSE WHO SAW THE WORST NEVER TALKED ABOUT WAR.
I used to believe this. Now what I think it was those that were never there in wars combat created this thinking not wanting to hear the truth about the violence of killing. Americans might look at dead bodies of car crashes, but not about what war does. So this isolation continued in their lives ultimately causing heart attacks and immune deficiency problems and slowly killing them/us.
I hope before we all die the nations learns something from us.
I like to read Gordon’s views although my experience was somewhat different. I served as an RTO with D Troop 3rd Squadron 5th (Air) Cavalry, (commonly but unofficially know as “Lighthorse”) from September 1968-September 1969, first with the 9th Infantry Division and then when the 9th got pulled out with D Troop under the umbrella of the 1st Aviation Brigade, all in the Mekong Delta (IV Corp). The terrain in the Delta did not support tracked vehicles and HQ, A, B,and C 3/5 were in I Corp. D Troop performed numerous roles during my tour one of which was OPCON to infantry battalions as close ground support. Unlike Gordon I did not spend weeks humping in the field; since we were a helicopter unit I usually was flown to one spot or another where I set up (alone)what we called “forward observer” with a couple of PRC 25 radios, that is to say the troop choppers were working outside of the base radio range and needed someone close enough to stay in contact with. In D Troop everyone, officers and enlisted alike, regardless of MOS was encouraged, but not required, to fly as crew so it was not unusual for someone who was not a regular crewman to find themselves in a shoot out or medivac or a combination. Some people did this only once and that was enough for them, no stigma was attached to not wanting to fly into danger; they went back to repairing chopper engines or rearming or whatever their MOS called for. As I said I was a radio operator, or a rear echelon puke as described here by some, and did not earn a CIB. I did leave the service as a sergeant E-5, earn a Basic Aircraft Crewman’s Badge along with an Air Medal, and a couple of other individual awards (none with V device and no PH’s) and 3/5 Cavalry was awarded unit awards, but I guess all of that just makes me more of a fake and shit head REMF if I display them, at least according to someone like Randy. Unlike Gordon I’m only partially disabled, service related but O% compensated for Sensorineural hearing loss (probably listening to Armed Forces Radio turned up too loud) and 50% for PTSD, probably because I was only a lowly Radio Operator. I agree that statistically the Vietnam war was a snake with a little head and a big tail, but I would like to refer the reader to the comments former grunt Joe Galloway used in speaking of A Troop 3/17 (Air) Cavalry and believe he could have been speaking of D 3/5 when he called them God’s Own Lunatics. One last thing, I came home in 1968 ETS from Fort Ord in California, flew home military standby to Michigan in uniform. I never had a harsh word spoken to me by anyone. One fella, a veteran of another war, even stopped me at Detroit Metro and shook my hand. Having said that, I do know one fella, a scout pilot, who tells a story about being harassed when he came home. He says the group of protesters, for lack of a better term, were on the other side of a chain link fence, but that he felt hatred for them and even though he was a career soldier and warrant officer he would have taken some regrettable action if they were closer and had thrown something at him. I have another D Trooper whom I know quite well who returned home in March of 69 tell me at a D Troop reunion a couple of years ago that he didn’t want to fly stand by, and even though he was in uniform bought a full priced ticket on a major airline. He said he was very hungry and waited with anticipation as the air line served meals only to be told by a flight crew person “there was no food on the plane for you” he said he was stunned and looked around him at the other passengers who either ignored the situation or were openly derisive. I have no reason to believe either of these men was telling me anything other than the truth as they have nothing to gain by doing otherwise. Just my two Piasters. I would like to welcome home all Vietnam veterans, the small minority fitted with the steel sack, and the other 90% as well.
Steve,
My last trip into Metro was August of 70, in uniform. There weren’t any hippies in Detroit, a few down on 8th street near wayne and a few posers in Royal Joke. Blue collar town, lots of marines from Detroit. We spent 6 years at AOL with Ted Guy and Dave Hackworth, comparing war stories. No two people saw the same Vietnam..that’s why we did it. However, we also debunked tons of bull in the process. Everyone’s version, if told true, is true. Half the time I felt it was all on TV when I was there….some of it so bizarre.
What I write is true about where and when I wuz…and no more.
g
Gordon,
I apologize if I came across as too critical, I think Randy’s comments caused some PTSD rage. I know for sure no two people saw the same thing, I just started attending reunions a couple of years ago and met up with people I flew with forty years ago. Boy was that an experience the first year when I would bring up something I (hoped) I remembered and had other troopers add to enhance, and sometimes correct, parts of my story by telling how they had seen the same events. My grown children attended with me and it turned out we really turned the reunion on it’s head. It appears most people didn’t think to bring their adult children to reunions. This year more guys brought their kids and I mean to tell you were the kids ever surprised to learn some of the stunts their old man pulled when he was in Vietnam! Nothing like having one of your peers tell about something you’ve always thought was not a big deal and never talked about to get the kids eyebrows on the ceiling. I did learn that war stories need to begin by saying “TINS”, if you want to be taken seriously, otherwise some bull is okay. I really do enjoy reading your candid stuff and wish I could have shared some of your experience interacting with people like David Hackworth who was in the Delta with the 9th at the same time I was there. Ted Guy I’m not familiar with, but I’ll look him up, sounds like an interesting guy, (no pun intended). I actually wound up getting a couple of degrees from Wayne State so I guess I turned into a commie liberal for awhile! LOL. Looking forward to reading your next piece.
Steve,
PTSD rage is allowed, without it I wouldn’t write anything. I went to Wayne, EE then to MSU in history then U of M then…
Lots of hiding out in school, over a decade of it.
Ted Guy will be worth looking up. Hack and Eagle are both gone.
g
Steve I’m happy you are happy. I am too. Read all my comments.
signed,
Mr. F-ing Happy
For those that can quietly appreciate the sacrifices endured of a true combat vet and then have to listen to those that rant on as to what they never experienced take the time to read “Stolen Valor” by B.J. Burkett.
Sad but true.
Years after coming home I got involved in veterans issues.
I started out in The Vietnam Brotherhood of Florida.
Recently I found a new and improved Article-99 Non-Service Connected.
->Personality Disorder>>>
The ‘test’ is given AFTER returning from combat…!
A Co. 1/7th Cav Nam 67-68 I-Core
A Co. Vietnam Brotherhood
The war is not over.
Welcome Home…
Nick,
I was exhibiting symptoms of PTSD when I had a fellow vet recommend I read Stolen Valor. Some of the brazen fraud Jug Burkett uncovered was quite startling. I’ve been told his work in exposing those fraudulent claims was instrumental in shaming the VA into more rigorously checking military records to weed out phonies. I’m good friends with the owner and curator of Michigan’s Own Military and Space Museum in Frankenmuth, Mi, Stan Bozich. I was about half way through SV when I happened to ask Stan if he had read it, he said “Hell, I’m in it!” Stan is a real stickler for getting military records verifying the service of people whose uniforms and other artifacts appear in his museum and even he was almost fooled by one phony “Green Beret” who had cleverly falsified documents . After reading SV I wondered if the guy who recommended I read it was trying to tell me I was merely full of crap since my reading of Burkett led me to believe he (Burkett)feels the whole PTSD concept is one created and perpetuated by health care professionals for their benefit. Wasn’t the case though, my friend just thought (correctly)that SV was worth a read and wanted me to realize that a legitimate claim should eventually be granted compensation, it just might take awhile because of the rigorous verification process instituted as a result of previous laxity. In my case, the VA adjuster received “credible evidence” seven months after requesting records from the National Archives relating to the two “Stressor” letters I wrote in support of the claim. If I understand the recent change in requirements, a DD214 might now be all the “proof” needed. I wonder what Burkett would have to say about that?
Steve,
Burkette took payoffs to attack real vets when “politics” dicatated it. He is the least credible individual in the world with a highly suspect record himself.
g
Gordon,
I didn’t know that. So, he seeded his book with stories such as the Sly Stallone and Brian Dennehy stories, then mixed in other “politically corrected” stories which are inaccurate? Hmmm . . . The only reference I had to fall back on is Stan Bozich who requested (and received) help from Burkett’s camp in finding a pseudo Green Beret’s supposed military records. In this case the phony GB had actual orders for his medals, but a search revealed that the order numbers were medals awarded to other people. I know how you feel about the current push to put things right on the PTSD claim front.
Sorry about this rambling, but I wired this morning. I was sitting up at 2:00 am thinking of your having hid in school for a decade, trying to decide if I should reply and if it would sound like horse crap if I did. I finally crept into my office (wife is sensitive to my prowling the house in the middle of the night)and looked at the dates on my diplomas. Starting with a certificate from Macomb CC in 76, Associate from MCC in 87, BTGS in 89 (WSU), MA in 92 (WSU) and giving up on a Ph.D dissertation to wind up ABD in 04 (WSU) I guess I spent some time hiding in schools as well. All that while working as a pipefitter.
One last thing, it is a novel and I don’t know if you have time to read non-fiction, but I recently read Matterhorn by Karl Malentes. As a spoiled rotten Army Air Cav puke who served in the Delta I only possess vicarious knowledge of the type of terrain and military action in the Northern Corps but I liked the book.
Steve
steve
burkett is a total POS, “pot calling the kettle black”
has his nose up the asses of more phonies than anyone i have run into
i went abd in 76
got sick of school
got mba in the 90s
more expensive schools though
g
Okay, I bow to your authority on Burkett. I don’t have a small fraction of your experience in that arena. I worked for a company who paid my tuition so money wasn’t an object. I had young kids and worked all the OT available so I needed a commuter school close to Downriver. I liked it most of the time, but I made a huge mistake on the dissertation front doing survey based research and couldn’t get enough data, finally just quit. Thanks for taking the time to reply, I can only imagine how busy you are. I, on the other hand, have lots of free time and not much interesting to fill it . Having said that I’ll go aggravate someone else for awhile. Keep up the excellence in reporting, it is very refreshing.
You know Steve, in the world we live in now reaching out to people you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to reach is no longer the norm. If Burkett took the time and rose beyond the research to write such a eye opening account of the travesty of the “perpetual misconceptionalists (sic)of the truth” (liars)you might want to try & google him (find out where he is and what he’s up to)and get his opinion, hey you never know. Plus you have a much stronger handle and having the opportunity the know Stan Bozic, could hold water in getting a reaction. I would, I’d try, should I be able to help I’d be only to glad to. You know reflecting back, all those that made a difference, know in their hearts and feel a pulse in their veins that they did what was right at the time never ever having to exploit the specifics. If you care to relate with those that experienced the horror well that’s one thing, can’t bullshit those that know, but when you hear loud mouths toot their horns to anyone that would listen, most often they have spent too much time in guilt for not committing and they therefore justify their non-experiences by trying to convince not only themselves but naive bystanders how great they are. Kinda sad, suppose the only justification is to expose them for what they really are then avoid them, they’re just not worth it.
Lost my Dad a year ago March, one tough Marine, 4 battle stars, last one earned on Iwo and he never spoke much about what he did or what him and his buddies experienced in the South Pacific. Later on of course he talked at length, glad he did, I was amazed at the stories. Of all his attributes I’d say his greatest was the ability to listen, so now I do mostly that. I’m glad I don’t have to toot any horns, and I’m sure you don’t either!
I hear what you’re saying Nick. Everyone has a viewpoint, some with better vantage than others. As I’ve said I do have time to spare so if I have an interest I should spend some of it poking around to see what pops out. Stan Bozich is an authority on most things military, he’s been collecting Michigan veterans military related items for over fifty years and has the most unique museum of its kind in the US, perhaps the world. That’s how we met in fact, he was as he puts it “begging and pleading” for my family to allow him to hold my uniforms and other artifacts in the museum. Once that was accomplished I became part of his extended family. To start with I’ll see if I can catch him away from the museum and ask him what he thinks about SV and Jug Burkett although I think I already know. Stan is like Gordon in that he doesn’t pull any verbal punches he forms strong beliefs and has no problem with expressing them.
Steve-
Sounds like this country, at least our generation needs more Stans (Gordon too, of course) that needs to see and keep the record straight.
You know, you might want to consider some type of donation to his museum, I believe present and future veterans need to see things and put perspective to tangible assets as opposed to pictures and written words.
Besides, think it would be an honor myself to be asked. I’m sure in the end you’ll know what to do.
I’ve read the rebuttals (comments) from Gordon regarding the credibility of Mr. Burkett and not having anyway to substantiate his perspective I can only say that at least somewhat wrote a book that did some exposing to the travesty that happens to this day. When I read it at least it gave me a perspective that I already assumed to be out there. Remember for everyone that is exposed there’s probably thousands that aren’t. So like I previously mentioned, I pretty much listen, am getting better at seeing phonies for what they are and just staying as productive as I can. There’s a lot of things that life can throw at you, why people try to take advantage of others naivety and ignorance is nothing new, suppose it’ll be the case with this new bunch of vets coming back from Afgan & Iraq.
World keeps turning and so we carry on. I continue to believe in the good in people, a power greater than me (and not my wife) and as you, pay taxes!
Nick, Delta Engineers, 1st Engr. Bn; 3rd Brg; 1st Inf. Div.
[...] GORDON DUFF: VIETNAM, DECADES OF LIARS BLACKEN THE NAMES OF REAL HEROES : Veterans Today [...]
HELLO FELLOW VETS
AS A VIETNAM VET USMC RANDY IS A RARE VET THAT WOULD KNOCK A VET NO MATTER HE WAS OVER THERE.WE WERE ALL YOUNG KIDS.WHO UNDERSTOOD NOT LONG AFTER GETTING IN COUNTRY WE ARE ALL FUCKED.I WAS AT DANANG FOR MOST OF MY TOUR 19 MONTHS AFTER
EXTENDING.WENT TO KHE SANH FOR A VERY SHORT TIME BEFORE SHIT HIT THE FAN.WE ALL KNOW YOU COULD OF GOT KILLED IF YOU WERE A COOK SEABEE OR ON HILL 881
GO IN PEACE BROTHERS
I don’t think I am rare. I was a REMF according to the real heros.
I was an AF air traffic controller at Camn Ranh Bay, RVN and F4s were taking off and asked to be vectored to the drop zone 18.5 miles in thr Sea where they droped most of their bombs, I read in the New Yorker Mag where a Navy Pilot reported the Navt has 2 or 3 carriers on Yankee Station doing the same thing, They drops many bombs in the ocean, putting many pilots in danger, many were killed, shot down, etc. It put many people to work making bombs,airplanes. and Helos. Evertime we lost a Huey, Lady Bird made more money
Hey, let’s be Marines regarding this. Yes, stand for one another whether we were
in the field or in secured areas. I was a grunt with F-2/7 and “participated” in
OP Foster until I got hit on 21Nov1967. I was lucky, very lucky. When I returned
to 2/7 after spending time at 1st Med and Cahm Rahn Bay I DID NOT want to go back out and trust my luck again. I was scared shitless (as Stills said at Woodstock!),
and knew there was a good chance that the next time I wouldn’t luck out. Yes, I did
feel a little guilty about that once I got “home” and was discharged. And that guilt
lasted a long, long time. It took a ton of counseling to come to grips with that whole ordeal, and also with the fact that Nam was a political “conflict” that took
58,000+ lives for basically nothing. Same shit is happening now in Afghanistan, and
previously in Iraq. Lives lost for what ? To satisfy the wealthy, to pacify our so-called friends in these and other countries and whatever other reasons our government has to get “involved”. “We are all just another brick in the wall”.
SEMPER FI……
that was the best article i`ve read about the nam. i was in the i`st inf div. and things there were pretty much the same as what you are talkin about. at last, some honesty and no bullshit truth. things in the field are a hell of a lot different that what is commonly accepted. thank you.