Past memories

[reeb]

PACKO::

Did you by any chance keep on going on the site and see the video after the "sapper" attack ??

Sure would like to know, cause when that happened I just left CRB and came back to the USA.

I bet that was real scarry cause CRB being a Convalence (sp) center, something like MASH.

Just wondering ......

enough....

reeb....

[DMZ-LT]

Welcome Home and Welcome here Mushroom !

[Bill Farnie]

What my Homie DMZ-LT said Mushroom

[exlrrp]

Dang, I sure am getting jealous reading you guys posts, you had a lot of stuff we didn't.
Barracks....mamasans....shiny boots....brass....these were nonexistent in the units I was in (1st Bde 101st and E co lrrps/20th Inf) We didn't have any beds to make, nor floors to sweep. All the barracks I saw in the 101st were someone else's!
Hell we were lucky to get enough food, went hungry a lot, nemmine all that REMF stuff.
Well, its esy to see why we lost the war.....Every Vietnamese hoochgirl, mamasan, shitburner and sandbagfiller were under VC control---we know that now. Talk about completely unsecure!!! I think it was racist of hell of us not to realiize that thosedumb looking old mamasans were actually extremely able spies. we know now--and our leaders should have known then---that every Vietnamese civilan working for the US was under VC control and a lot of the ARVN also.

We never had Vietnamese hoochgirls, mamasans or whetever. They brought us out clean new clothes every month or so whether we needed them or not. Like I said, we figured we were lucky just to get resupply, and mail occasionally.

Y'know, this has a whole lot to do with my disilusionment about the war--I went there thinking we'd win but left knowing we wouldn't. When I came off the line from the 101st after 6 months and saw how people were living in the rear, only then did I realize that MOST of the US soldiers in Vietnam were living large. It was really only the grunts and people up close who were paying the price. You could see there waqs tons of stuff just laying around, everything imaginable---while the troops in the field were writing home on C-ration toilet paper.
And then I got pissed off.....and hella cynical.

I can't imagine a kind of war where you go out and fight by day and come back to a comfortable place at night, its not an 8-5 job no matter how much they want to pretend it is. Not infantry warfare anyway. If youre not willing to put up with the discomfort, youre not trying very hard to win the war.

Stay good
James

[exlrrp]

Originally Posted by splummer

When I first got to my unit in Quihon, [Phu Tie] we had hoothch girls, [laundry polish boots, sweep floors, make beds] good food and a club. I think we only paid the girls 3 or 4 dollars a month. I though it was like in the movies about the British Army in India with servents etc. The only thing is that I was out in convoys most of the time and didn't get to stay in the base camp much. The 8th group convoys went mostly to Ankhe and Plieko from Quihon, [120 or 130 miles on QL 19.] That road through the central highlands and mountain passes was the most dangerous, in my opinion, that I had been on. When we moved to Hue, the living was pretty primative. I wondered where the girls were.

Splum
We patrolled along that road when I was a lrrp, around MangYang Pass, trying to locate the mortar and reckless rifles they'd shoot the trucks off the road with. They called that section the Shooting Gallery.

We also rode convoys through there as convoy guards--when they sent us somewhere, they'd try get double duty out of us as convoy guards. This was up at the end of the Green line for you Cav troopers of that era.

When friscokid Tom and I went back there in '03 we went down through here, it was spooky---lot of ghosts in Mangyang Pass. I always had this sorta fantasy that some day I'd come down there in a limo one day, throwing piasters and MPC out the window. Well, we made it in an air conditioned van, eh Tommy? You could see once again that they could see everything we were doing.... Geez it was like a big amphitheater...and every patrol that went out there got into a fight. They owned that place the whole war,we used to trip over their commo wire....and f Charlie's stringing commo wire around, you know HE thinks he owns the place.

Did you ever get to the Anh Khe Sin City? it was my favorite

Here's yr boy standing up on the top of Mangyang pass, '03

stay good
James

[Packo]

It was the 2nd most scary part of my tour. We were all wounded, lying in beds, and had no weapons. I was in traction. Luckily I had sneeked my combat knife into bed with me because I didn't like the layout of the place. Way too insecure. I was able to cut my ropes and me and another guy had to help a guy with a full body cast out of the ward. Also too many VC working in the hospital.....as James so aptley put it. We didn't have LN's or anything else at the LZ's I live on or on the Korean Base Camp. Korean Army knew what they were and if you were Vietnamese, you stayed the hell away from Koreans. I hated that 6th CC and was happy as hell to get out of there alive. If you notice in the film, the same SOB's that attacked the place were fixing it the next day. I believe that. I think I watched the whole thing. Not sure what part your talking about.

James.....bet you didn't have that bright red shirt on when going through Mang Yang in the 60's. Also, I couldn't agree more about what they had in the rear. When the Korean's would convoy into Cam Rahn to get their supplies, I'd be with them to liason and get shit for me. I would walk around the yards and see stuff we could never get just lying around, a bunch broken open and rotting. Found a whole case of S&W .38 Specials labled for the Air Force lying there open with some missing. I picked up one, thought about it, then thought about X amount of years at LBJ or Leavenworth and put it back in the case.

Pack

[exlrrp]

Originally Posted by Packo

It was the 2nd most scary part of my tour. We were all wounded, lying in beds, and had no weapons. I was in traction. Luckily I had sneeked my combat knife into bed with me because I didn't like the layout of the place. Way too insecure. I was able to cut my ropes and me and another guy had to help a guy with a full body cast out of the ward. Also too many VC working in the hospital.....as James so aptley put it. We didn't have LN's or anything else at the LZ's I live on or on the Korean Base Camp. Korean Army knew what they were and if you were Vietnamese, you stayed the hell away from Koreans. I hated that 6th CC and was happy as hell to get out of there alive. If you notice in the film, the same SOB's that attacked the place were fixing it the next day. I believe that. I think I watched the whole thing. Not sure what part your talking about.

James.....bet you didn't have that bright red shirt on when going through Mang Yang in the 60's. Also, I couldn't agree more about what they had in the rear. When the Korean's would convoy into Cam Rahn to get their supplies, I'd be with them to liason and get shit for me. I would walk around the yards and see stuff we could never get just lying around, a bunch broken open and rotting. Found a whole case of S&W .38 Specials labled for the Air Force lying there open with some missing. I picked up one, thought about it, then thought about X amount of years at LBJ or Leavenworth and put it back in the case.

Pack

Dang, Pack!
A lrrp would have taken em all and passed em out to his buddies. LBJ and Leavenworth held no fear for people who , always outnumbered, went out in the field to take on Charlies A Team to earn that phat $65 month combat pay every clerk typist got. They gotta catch you first and the Army is to law enforcement what the Army is to dentistry.

I mind the time, back in Bragg, when one day I was leading a detail in the Central Supply Warehouse. There was a whole mountain of fur lined flop ear pile caps there and we were going out to the field in winter. The only person who had a warm pile cap in that company was----you guessed it---the CO.

I marched the detail up to the pile caps, orders them to pick up a case apiece and just walked out the door, saluting sharply as we left. You can get away with ANYTHING in the Army if you act like you know what youre doing and its easy enough to do an OOOPS if busted.....darn, Lt Smith just told me to pick them up, sorry must have got the wrong ones. I passed em all out to the company, just gave em away, just a little freelanced Socialism in action.
We were the only company in the field with furlined pile caps. I don't regret it a bit and only wish I'd done more things like it.

As for liberating things in the Nam, the standard expression was---what are they going to do? put us in the infantry and send us to Vietnam?

Stay good
james

PS, if you ever see a picture of a lrrp in a jeeop, its a better than even odds it was a stolen jeep. They picked lrrps for their agressiveness and initiative---what did they expect?

PPS---if you ever go to Vietnam and try to cross the street, youre going to want to be wearing somthing bright red also!

[Packo]

I hear you buddy....and wish now I would have had it all over to do again, but it was one of those, "just my luck" things. We stole other shit from the Depot, like jungle fatigues, LRRP rations, stuff we needed but could not get, but a weapon? Thought that could put me away. Your right, though, what would they do, put me in the Infantry, again? Also, the MACV Col. loved me. Nothing would have happened, probably, and I could have just done the dumb bit, which worked in many other cases.

I get the red shirt and traffic over there. No wonder! I saw you and Tom's film.

Take care!

ABU!

Pack