1CAV'S Thoughts And Experience

[Arrow]

Found and reposted for those that have not read them and for those that wish to read them again. An early Christmas present to all of you that might want to download and save in your documents. Something that I meant to put to disk and thought they were lost. But there is a God and two good people that love us enough to do everthing they can to preserve our history.

1CAVCCO15MED THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCE
Author arrow

BECAUSE HE TAUGHT ME SO MUCH THOUGH READING HIS WRITING I WANTED IT HERE WHERE IT BELONGS, WHERE IT WILL BE RESPECTED, AND PRESERVED...IT'S MY WAY OF SAYING THANK YOU TO A GREAT TEACHER...

Travis
Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED
Posted on 5/30/01 00:50 AM

I was there but my knowlege about the war was very provincial. I know the truth of my experience but I have learned over the last year or so much more and have had a lot of my questions by guys on this site. Nobody saw all the war. It varied from place to place and time to time. It is a very complex tapestry. Every generalization can be disputed and at the same time be fact somewhere. It is not an easy subject. That is the reason this site exists. I should hope that these posts will not be merely erased but at some point become organized into an oral history. It may be that future historians will find these posts very valuable. I think that is the true purpose of this site, not necessarily to argue old points of view. The history of the Vietnam War has yet to be written. We vets recognize that what we saw and did is not known in the general culture of the present. It may be that the definitive history cannot be written until all the people involved are dead due to the implacable positions of the various factions.

Subject 1968
Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED
Posted on 6/3/01 02:44 AM

There was more turmoil and change in that one year than some centuries. Many good books were written from many perspectives. If you want ones about the antiwar movement, Norman Mailer wrote two, "Miami and the Seige of Chicago" and "The Armies of the Night". I have tried to read books of varying perspectives and have read many. However, none cover some of the things discussed on these sites. The scope of the political views of the vets here cover the range and there are some heated discusslions about politics. In spite of that we are all brothers and we fill in the blanks in our knowlege about what happened over there. Each had his own war and it was local to time and location. Narrow minded is when you have preconcieved notions about things and will hold to that no matter what you hear otherwise. It is hard to tell someone they are wrong when they were there and saw it. That is not the same as saying they are narrow minded. Even so, all of us have learned from each other. Some day when we are dead and you are old you can proudly say what you know about the war you learned directly form the source or you can say you were young and close minded and lost a wonderful opportunity. When I got back from the war in 1969 I worked in a nursing home used by the Veteran's Administration for an overflow. In it were about seven Spanish-American War vets. I am probably the only Vietnam Vet that swapped war stories with Spanish-American War vets. The youngest one was 96. We learned that we had a lot in common. One difference was we had these jungle fatigues and they had wool uniforms even in the tropics. We griped about the food and about the sorry supply system. They had canned beef they called embalmed beef and it sometimes poisoned them. It is one of my most precious memories. Don't pass up this opportunity to learn.

History
Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED
Posted on 6/6/01 1:26 PM

Is not the most empirical of sciences. As a social science it has a tendency to have scholars with various viewpoints. The only things that tie them together are what emprical data that is available. I think it is very akin to journalism with the who, what, why, when and where. We are immersed in our own history in the making with all its doubts, confusion and controversey. Each generation has it's own prejudices that are not even recognized because they are universal. I am reminded of a program I saw on the History Channel a couple of years ago. It was about the burning of witches in the 1400's and 1500's. The narrator made a comment. He said at that time there was no doubt among anyone that Satan walked the earth and recruited women to serve him. It was also universally believed that the only way to save their souls was to get them to confess and burn them at the stake. If they did not they would burn forever in Hell. In their minds burning witches was an act of mercy. Then he said taken in that context, what witches are we burning now?

For what it is worth
Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED
Posted on 5/25/01 6:31 PM

I was never in love with that war. Until about a year and a half ago I didn't even mention the war much less talk to other vets. I am not trying to justify my youth or make a fantasy world about how great we all were. I just want to know the truth. I am sure several here could tell you my posts have not always been the most gung ho on the site by any means. What is important is that the truth be known because a lot of guys gave their heart and soul, blood and life in this war. It is long over and it is time to lay it to rest in a historical sense. This country is still amazingly polarized on the war a third of a century after it is over. It was neither a glorious victory nor an ignoble retreat. In the long grinding wheel of history which grinds up the fallacies of the day, the truth will come out and it is time to set aside al this factionalism.


Subject 15th Med
Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED
Posted on 12/3/00 00:41 AM

It was a batallion of Medics assigned to the Cav. Each Division had and probably still has this. These are not the field medics but further back. Each combat battalion had an aid station with a Dr. and some medics. The brigade level had a Medical company from the 15th Med Bat. We were where the Medevac choppers came from. First Cav Medevacs were armed with machine guns unlike Dustoff which was not. Dustoff was assigned to the Hospitals. Medevac would go out and pick up the wounded from the battle site often under fire and firing back. Then they would take them to us, Charlie Company. We had a treatment bunker and also a hospital ward. We were similar to a MASH unit except we were smaller and had no women or RNs. We did no real surgery except chest tubes and trachs and the occasional open heart massage. We also intubated and did CPR. We did have three or four surgeons but their job was to sort the wounded so that the big hospitals woud not be overwhelmed as much. Dustoff would carry the wounded from us to the hospitals, We truly did triage, a much abused term these days. Triage is dividing the wounded into three groups, those so lightly wounded they coud wait or we could treat them, those that would die without immediate surgery and those so badly wounded they were not going to make it. In times of overload to the hospitals we only sent the middle group. We had kind of an emergency room in our treatment bunker though you would not recognize it as such. We used very little sterile technique just clean, all casualties got O Negative blood except for some A pos. We wrapped wounds with pressure bandages, splinted fractures and gave them antibiotics and tetanus shots. We treated for shock with fluids and blood. Thought we were attached to the Third Brigade of the Cav, there was a lot going on where we were and we also supported a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, some of the Second Brigade of the Cav, the 11th Armored Cav Regiment and a battalion or two of the 82nd Airborne. We also supported all the arty and engineer units and the like. Quon Loi and the Cav were in III Corps area then and we sat astraddle the major infiltration route to Saigon, Long Binh and Bien Hoa. We suported all these units with four stretchers in our treatment bunker. We could really turn them out. The worst I remember was 167 wounded and killed in an eight hour period. We were under an ground assault most of that time and some of them walked or crawled to us. We worked so fast that the blood started getting ankle deep in the bunker. I can remember looking down and seeing it slowly turning into this huge clot. For some reason that was what horrified me the most. We had to break out cases of hydrogen peroxide and pour it on the blood and sweep the foam out the door in order to stand. We had to do this several times. That night I held twenty-two guys hands while they died. We enlisted our cooks as shot givers and sent some of them to the body tent where we had the expectants-that is what we called the ones we couldn't help but weren't dead yet. Their job was to give them morphine if they woke up in pain. After they died they just moved them behind a curtain. After all the wounded were taken care of we would start getting in the dead. Medical helicopters didn't bring them to us, rather slicks which were regular Hueys. Then we turned into Graves Registration. We identified the dead, gave a cause of death which sometimes was hard to do since there was so much wrong with them and then put them in the body bags. Then we went to our tents or to eat. I rmember looking down at my hands and seeing them covered in brains while I was eating and not having enough emotion left to get troubled by it. I went on eating. I'm sorry I can't seem to keep the personal horror stories out of this but it would not be a true description of what we did with out it. We were damn good and were were all quite insane by the time it was over.

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More to follow as I find them...they were soldiers once and young...lest we forget...arrow>>>>>>>

exlrrp

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 44
From: Richmond CA

Posted: 2001-08-24 09:25
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Arrow

Thanks for posting these great posts--I didn't catch most of em

Thanks, fred, I love yr stuff, too

James
_________________
"And gentleman in England now abed, shall think themseves accurst they were not here, And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks that fought with us upon St Crispins Day...HenryV, Shakespeare


Sgt_Tropo

Joined: Aug 23, 2001
Posts: 5
From: Houston, TX (Space City)
Posted: 2001-08-24 13:24
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1cav-med,
your last line of the last post reminded me a bumper sticker I saw a few days ago. It read, "I'm out of my mind, but please feel free to leave a message."
Thanks for sharing your posts. Your last one really hit home. I'm a volunteer Emergency Medical Technical (EMT) and I have seen somem pretty gruesome messes, but your post about the 167 wounded and the rising blood on the floor really got to me. I thank God that I didn't have to see or experience what you described.
Be well and have peace in knowing you did your best in the worst of times.
_________________
Bob F. Sgt Tropo Vietnam Vet 1969 - 1971 1st Sig Brig/43rd Sig Bat/362 Sig Co


Gimpy

Joined: Aug 23, 2001
Posts: 15
From: "Jawga"

Posted: 2001-08-24 17:42
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Arrow,

Thanks for saving these and re-posting them on this forum. Just as the last time I saw some of them, the tears began to flow again.

Fred (1CAV) is one of the most eloquent and forcefully honest folks I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I sincerely hope you all have the opportunity to meet him in person some day. He truly is a "GEM"! Thank God we've got him around to keep all our petty differences in perspective.


_________________
Gimpy RIVERENE**MUD-GRUNT "I ain't no fortunate son"


bernbenjamin

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 19
From: New York living in San Diego, Ca USA

Posted: 2001-08-24 21:01
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....thank you arrow.....

frisco-kid

Joined: Aug 23, 2001
Posts: 12
From: S.F. Bay Area

Posted: 2001-08-25 01:25
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Thanks for bringing these over here, Arrow.

Doc, I did 15mos. as a grunt and 7mos. on a gun jeep, escorting tanker truck convoys. Wouldn't have traded you jobs if you put a gun to my head. Welcome Home, Bro. I wish you nothing but peace.
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PROUD TO BE A PARATROOPER! Tom


phuloi

Joined: Aug 24, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Sequim,Wa.

Posted: 2001-08-25 02:04
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Arrow Thanks for posting Cavdoc`s eloquent words.Perhaps in the future,upon opening this time capsulated site,generations yet to be born will have a clearer understanding of who we are.
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May your path be forever straight and your sage pouch always full. Peace,Griz


MORTARDUDE

2001-08-25 09:48
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Thanks Arrow for reposting these. It is truly due to dedicated Docs like Fred and the ones on line with us that more of us didn't wind up on THE WALL !!!

MORTARDUDE

Joined: Aug 23, 2001
Posts: 16
From: Bartlett, TN. C.S.A.

Posted: 2001-08-25 09:50
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that is me above ( anonymous )
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Larry 81MM + 4.2" MORTARDUDE B Co. 2/22(M) 25TH INF DIV. ( 1970 )MECHBORNE - "The future's uncertain and the end is always near...Let it roll baby, roll.. -- The Doors / Jim Morrison -- Feb 1970


arrow

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 76 Posted: 2001-08-26 04:40
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Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED

Posted on 7/11/00 01:06 AM

Anyone that served is my brother. Tell him welcome home.


Subject Gulf War Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED

Posted on 6/6/00 11:04 AM

The day the local Reserve units came home from Saudi there was a big parade that went right in front of where I worked. All day people asked me if I would be going out to welcome them back. I kept saying, " No, I'm exempt." I was plainly resenting the treatment these people were receiving compared to what I got. But when it came time I was out there with the rest of them and I was so glad I was. I could see the pain in their eyes and realized we are all the same. They were more grateful for the Vietnam guys being there than anyone.

David

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 87
From: San Diego, CA.

Posted: 2001-08-26 19:04
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There is no greater honor for a veteran then to be recognized by his fellow veterans, for there is no man alive that could understand were he has been and truly appreciate what that means except a fellow veteran. Thank you to all of the Vietnam veterans who served and to all those same veterans who came to cheer us as we made it back home. You as well as the veterans still with us from other conflicts, will always have the highest place of honor in my heart.

1CAVCCO15MED

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 21
From: Limestone, Tn.

Posted: 2001-08-26 21:56
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I am flattered beyond words that you folks would honor me so. It means so much to me. Fred

Anonymous
Unregistered User Posted: 2001-08-27 00:23
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Fred, trying to log in three different damn times to say hello, and congratulate you, BUT , and each fuggin time it keeps puting me in as annnnnom... glad to see that things got better, I'm just pissed after spending 25 minutes trying to post as myself, and getting no where, after jumping through hoops last week trying to get in, now it tells me i'm not registered. sorry I'm not in a better mood. thought the bugs were worked out here... as you can tell my stress levels are mighty high now so i'm just gonna sign off as (I) can't sign in to sign off........would have liked to say something nicer, thanks for being there,... Curtis.........PS DAVID what is wrongg uuuuuuurrrrgggggg

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I wrote this long ago. It is true.

"Bluebird"

Out of the blood red streets of Harlem, Land of junkie, pimp and whor A child was born a special child Benbow was the name he bore. A special child but lightly touches down upon the ground, But like a bluebird seems more of sky than earth The cruelty of Harlem made you fly but higher, Singing of the brotherhood of man. Some said you were slow but your mother knew Your heart felt so much more than your mind would ever know. When you grew old enough to kill, The army took you out of Harlem, Out of the world, To a hellish place called Vietnam, To us your friends, the medics, the body baggers, the meat sorters. And we were all insane. For we yet lived in our proud young flesh And wallowed in the sinfulness, the wretchedness, Of wholeness and wellness, As the dead and dying Assaulted us, condemned us. Why do you yet live? Why are you there and we here? You want to help me? Take my place! Our perfect bodies held inside A wretched, rotten, cringing soul. And we could not fight them. And we could but love them. And hold their hands as the died. And forever live inside a life we did not own. Holding ghosts we could not let go, Lest we forget! Lest we forget, Benbow. You were our clerk, You sang joyously, mindlessly, crazily. But we were all insane. We called you Bluebird, Mr. Soul. At times you took us far away, Gave us innocence for a while. And we could forget our bloody hands, Our brain-specked boots. But you couldn't sing very well. Then one day the sergeant came. He said too many field medics had been killed. Some of us would have to go. They sent you, the clerk, the dummy? A month went by, We got your men that died of little wounds. Then one day you came to us, Fell to the ground and cried. Broken. Destroyed. You begged us plese to teach you how To stop the holes. We tried. We tried but you just cried. Your mind was just too small. We left you crying. Later that day we found you in a hole. Morphines lay empty on the ground. My mouth to yours I tried to breathe but you were stiff and still and small. Your cousin came, he cried like a little boy. What would he tell your mother? Fourteen years have passed. I could not think till now Of how you died to save your brothers. I wish your mother knew. The end.

I don't know how to space this like a poem so I hope you all can figure it out. Evans Benbow is on the Wall. When you go there, tell him he is not forgotten. Remember the song I am every day people? It's a Toyota commercial now. That is what he sang alll the time. Listen to the words.

Subject

Pain

Posted by1CAVCCO15MED

Posted on

8/20/00 3:01:22 PM

Our first sgt. stood over the body and called him a coward. This is the same sgt. that was decorated by the army for staggering around drunk during a mortar attack, telling us to stay in our bunkers until it was over. Arcom with a V. Holland and I did the same job at the same place: Quon Loi. His reaction was rage, mine was grief. It has taken me till now to realize what happened to me was as valid as anything else. There was no comeradeship like the grunts had. There was certainly no honor. We are as much a part of that place as any heroic, gung ho story.


SubjectThank you

Posted by1CAVCCO15MED

8/23/00 1048 PM

I wrote that in the late 70's. I never knew what to do with it so I would get it out and read it every once in a while. I really didn't feel it was appropriate to send to his family because of me calling him a dummy. I'm going to post something on the Wall site but I don't have it clear in my mind yet as to what to say. I'm not sure they would even want someone to say on that site that he was a suicide, whatever the reason. He was a sorry medic when he got sent to the field. We could tell his work because he really didn't have a clue. I am not sure he even had medic training. He was our admitting clerk. I think that is a separate MOS.
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1CAV I could have spaced it like a poem because I surely do know how. It was, however, all I could do to post it here as the words again broke my heart. They were more than I could bear to read but I read them each one again my friend to show that I had some courage if only to myself. Knowing that it will never be the courage that you and the others have that lived through the hell called the Vietnam War. arrow>>>>>>>
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Saw the people standin' thousand years in chains Somebody said it's different now, look, it's just the same...Pharoahs spin the message, round and round the truth..They could have saved a million people How can I tell you? ccr

Sp4LittleJohn

Joined: Aug 22, 2001
Posts: 26
From: Fayetteville, Ga.

Posted: 2001-08-28 08:45
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I sit here trying to think of something that I can say to you Fred to somehow lighten your load. I can find nothing. I hear you call yourself a ?REMF? and wonder in astonishment how you can possibly say that. I think of some "Top Shirt" calling Benbow a coward and think to myself how shallow the Sergeants mind was at that time. I can picture ol? Sarge at the wall today, looking at Benbows name ? and remembering a fallen hero. How many people are able to go to the Wall today that would not be able to go if you weren?t ever there for them while they were in your care? How many people right here on this site have you been there for?
Did any of us think of honor while we were in Vietnam? Probably not. But do we honor those who served today? Only the fool among us does not.

The wall for us is about one thing, reflection. We can look into it and see our soul, our youth, our naivety. But we don?t need some black granite slab to see. Daily, we see it all over again, we beat ourselves, for what? It does not go away, it does not die, we wake up with it, we go to sleep with it, it sits at the table with us, it does not go away! And you know what? It?s going to be there tomorrow all over again.

Today we go to the wall and see 58,000 heroes, but you can go to the wall and see Benbow. Look closely my friend, look at the reflection for in that reflection is another hero, YOU.
_________________
Pain is only temporary. Pride is forever.


1CAVCCO15MED

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 21
From: Limestone, Tn.

Posted: 2001-08-28 14:51
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Please, John, don't hang a hero on me. I was nowhere near the hero. I spent my last couple of months in Vietnam convinced that the enemy was after me personally, hiding in bunkers and hitting the dirt to rockets and mortars that only I could hear. Heroes are like you and James and Dennis, even Gary Holland. I was just some crazy guy at the rear.


xgrunt

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 25
From: Tallassee Alabama

Posted: 2001-08-28 16:24
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Cav, I was a stone cold grunt. I saw some brave dudes but the only heros I have from that war all have the nickname "DOC". Don't be so hard on yourself bro. We ALL served in our own way and in our own places. Welcome Home Brother.
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The Road goes on forever and the party never ends.


Sp4LittleJohn

Joined: Aug 22, 2001
Posts: 26
From: Fayetteville, Ga.

Posted: 2001-08-28 17:08
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Thanks for the back up grunt. And Fred, I really don't think that there are a whole lot of CMH winners out there that think of themselves as a hero but those that watched them in action, know who the hero was. I stand by my statement to you.

In respect to my service in Vietnam, you don't get any further in the rear than in a city with an in-country R&R center, and QuiNhon had Red Beach R&R center.

Now, don't give me no crap, don't get a big head, and get back to your post troop. (sorry, sometimes I forget that most of my military life was as a Private.)
_________________
Pain is only temporary. Pride is forever.

First of all

Posted by 1CAVCCO15MED
Posted on 8/11/01 2:35:01 AM

I don't think anyone said that vets deserve a free ride no matter what the situation. Every person who served in the armed services does not deserve every service the VA can provide. What I am sying is that the dichotomy of left versus right is a fossil of the cold war perpetrated by the Democrats and Republicans to keep their power bases. To me their differences are about as profound as who gets voted off the island. The Democrats claim to be the party of the working man whole selling out to the Chinese and anyone else with enough money to buy their support. The Republicans supposedly support traditional values and patriotism while selling out to multinationals which support treaties that send all our jobs overseas. Both parties support globalism which betrays their suposedly sacred beliefs. There is no party that supports the middle class. The Democrats propose to speak for justice while becoming the most corrupt party ever to exist in America. The Republicans are supposed to be such moral patriots while selling out this country to any corporation that gives them money. The nexus of their vile cynicism is how both parties treat the very veterans that are responsible for their existance. Our politics is so simplistic that even an idiot can play. It all boils down to a one dimensional line called left versus right. Chart your beliefs on the line and then you know which party to vote for. The universe is four dimensions at least and we try to define all on a one dimensional line. Where is justice, where is patriotism? Where is the ten commandments merged with the admonition of Jesus to love you neighbor? Why can't kindness be merged with the rights of the individual? These things have become opposites only in the world of twentieth century politics. I cannot help but this country is rapily going the way of all empires due to self indulgence and cynicism.


Author 1CAVCCO15MED THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCE
Anonymous
Unregistered User Posted: 2001-08-31 17:12
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I don't know if you are my brother (relative)or not but I believe you are and I love you and I appreciate you allowing me to come by way of this email to touch a part of you that has been untouchable. I pray for healing for you and all the other "brothers" on this site. Sister Karen


1CAVCCO15MED

Joined: Aug 21, 2001
Posts: 21
From: Limestone, Tn.

Posted: 2001-09-01 01:45
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I can prove I am your real brother. I can eat fried potatoes faster than all the rest of the family put together. Love, Fred

Let me tell you about my home. I live in Limestone, Tennessee, birthplace of Davy Crockett He was born on the Nolachucky River bottom. Nolachucky is some ancient Indian language word for River of Death. Daniel Boone "Cilled a bar in 1769" about twenty miles from here and carved it in a tree. Andy Jackson fought duels and won many a horse race in Jonesborough about ten miles from here. The greatest Indian fighter of all, John Sevier, had a farm about ten miles from here down on the Nolachucky. He fought the Cherokee thirty four times and always won. They called him Chucky Jack. But my real home, my spiritual home, is about thirty miles from here. It is the Roan Mountain massif. It is made of the only igneous rock in the Southern Appalachians and is older than the dinosaurs. It is so old it remembers the ocean that existed before the Atlantic that closed up and then reopened as the Atlantic. It is named after the wild horses that used to graze upon its grassy balds and is the third highest peak in the eastern North America. I go there to see God. You don't go to God there, he comes to you. The top has grassy balds that extend for thirteen miles with a few interruptions. When you get to the top of one of the hills you can see some days for a hundred miles and on other days only ten feet as the rivers of mist rise up through the valleys until they cover the whole summit in a windy fog. On one part is a spruce fir forest that is not old but to look at it seems forever. The trees are knarled by the wind and underneath is thick moss covering all. It is here that the largest natural stand in the world of Catawba rhodedendron bloom in June covered in a riot of color. You can walk out to a cliff and the mist sometimes pours up the side of the mountain so that as you stand there looking down toward Buladean the mist comes at you at fourty miles an hour and your hat goes flying. You feel like you are falling but you are just standing there. Along the trail you can get the rarest of treats. Blackberrys and gooseberrys mature so late that often they are frostbitten as they ripen. This makes them sweeter than any other berry. No one knows why the top is bald of trees. Some say it is left over from the elk that grazed on its top now long gone. There are plants up there that grow nowhere else. One is the beautiful Gray's lilly. There are usually hawks flying overhead and once I saw a golden eagle but everyone says that can't be. The Appalachian Trail runs across its summit and the balds, crossing Yellow Mountain Gap where you can still see traces of the original wilderness road into Tennessee. It is on this trail the Overmountain Men crossed the mountains back into North Carolina and went on to defeat the British at King's Mountain. there is a shelter there, down in the valley a little way. It is an old barn now converted into a shelter and was once in a movie, The Winter People. It has the sweetest view of any shelter on the Appalachian trail, looking down into a big valley with no other trace of man. Clouds dance there in the late evening bouncing from side to side But my favorite place is Big Hump Mountain, a huge bald that juts up and the only way there is on the trail. Amazingly, there is a fence around the top. Inside that fence is something totally unexpected. Longhorn cattle. They are put there to keep the bald open and stop the encroachment of the blackberry and hawthorn which precede trees taking over the bald. It has a 360 degree view where you can on a clear day see four states. Then down a steep trail back to the world of men.

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Thanks, Sis

You folks are so precious to me. The old brain gets worse and I may not be able to write as well now but it does me some good to read them too. Fred

[DMZ-LT]

Thank both of you. Does a world of good for me to read this. What Frisco and Frank said in 2001. Peace and hugs to both of you

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by DMZ-LT Thank both of you. Does a world of good for me to read this. What Frisco and Frank said in 2001. Peace and hugs to both of you

ditto here

james

[MORTARDUDE]

There is a good book in all of our Vietnam stories from www.veterans.com to here. It does us all good to be reminded of all of them from time to time.

Welcome Home "Doc" Fred !!

Larry

[Gimpy]

Powerful stuff! Still brings tears to my eyes (damn sandstorms as Sid says). Thanks for posting these again Lil Sis.

Like Little John said...................all the "heros" I knew wore the name of "Doc", a young medic that we called "Doc" Willams sure as hell saved my life 37 years and 30 days ago in the Mekong Delta!............Fred, we are forever grateful for your words and thoughts here on this forum and elsewhere............and most of all for your service to us and our brothers and sisters..............THEN and NOW.

[Keith_Hixson]

You are one fine gentleman.

Keith

Doc Fred you will always have my utmost respect and gratitude both for what you've done and who you are.I hope you will find peace and contentment;if anyone deserves such you do.I'm told that sanity is highly over rated.

Little Sparrow-
I appreciate you takeing the time and trouble to repost these,but I'm not sure you shouldn't have given them to us in smaller doses over a longer period.Bit much to handle in one sitting.Anybody know how sandstorms get inside houses?

[frisco-kid]

Just finished re-reading all of this, and it has the same strength and impact as it had the first time around. Sitting here with "something in my eye" and a lump in my throat.

ARROW: Thanks for the "GIFT," Darlin'.

DOC FRED: You have my undying respect. Wishing you nothing but Peace in life.

[Arrow]

Doc 2/47

I am so sorry to have overwhelmed you with sad memories. The process of collection two years ago was one of searching the threads of the Vietnam War board on the history channel, disscussions, war. They were scattered there but my purpose for one thread on this sitehad to do withcontinuity for downloading and saving to disk along with not getting them scattered and lost in everyday chatter. Iam going to move the whole threadin the future tothe Veterans memorialforum as I can think of no greater memorialto other Veterans than the thoughtsand rememberancesofmy friend and brother 1CAV.

Peace to all hearts today,

Arrow>>>>>>>>