COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

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  Bill Crossley - Army +15 Total Videos

  Provisional Artillery Group, I Field Force

  His job was to inspect artillery fire bases for security and, right away, Bill Crossley could see the problems. After unclogging supply lines for concertina wire and teaching the gun crews at the first base how to patrol, he decided he needed a better way to get their attention. That led him to a former VC sapper named Nguyen. Part 1 of 2.

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  Bob Atkinson - Marines +17 Total Videos

  K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment

  When the door opened after landing in Da Nang, it was like opening an oven, the heat was a blast right in the face. It was that and sand fleas and combat on his first night there, remembers Bob Atkinson. He was a Marine rifleman, but then he was picked at random and told, "You're a mortarman." Never having seen, much less fired a mortar during training, he wondered, "Are we laying block and brick for these people?"

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  Bob Wylie - Navy +4 Total Videos

  Naval Support Activities, Saigon

  Though he was an air traffic controller, Bob Wylie also worked as a loadmaster and navigator. Based in the Philippines, he supervised the cargo on a circuit around the various bases in Vietnam. The aircraft also ferried troops on R&R as well as the occasional chicken coop.

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  Vis Kimenis - Army +10 Total Videos

  266th Supply and Service Battalion

  Vis Kimenis shares his memories of arriving in Bien Hoa, Vietnam in 1966, and how his lifestyle as a supply and service officer differed from his preconceived notions of deployment to the country.

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  Bill Crossley - Army +15 Total Videos

  6th Artillery Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment

  It was all peace and quiet during the Tet armistice, but Bill Crossley's artillery battery was getting a request for fire from a remote unit. They didn't know it but that was the first rumbling of the Tet Offensive. The wave of attacks across Vietnam actually relieved some frustration on the part of American forces. They had been searching in vain for enemy to engage.

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  Donald Lorentz - Army Air Corps/Air Force +4 Total Videos

  101st Airborne Division

  Donald Lorentz vividly remembers taking enemy fire from the Viet Cong in the hills surrounding their base. Forming relationships with the different nations' forces was essential to making things run smoothly.

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  Paul Jacobs - Navy +8 Total Videos

  Multiple Ships

  Why did he join the Navy? Because he got a brown envelope from the Army. Paul Jacobs was already an engineer out of Maine Maritime Academy, so he was commissioned and made Chief Engineer on his first ship, at only twenty one years old. He saw action off the coast of Vietnam on several ships providing support and Naval gunfire.

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  Ernest Washington - Marines +7 Total Videos

  1st Marine Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

  When you were pinned down by overwhelming enemy fire during a firefight in Vietnam, you called in an airstrike. Unfortunately for Marine Ernest Washington, the wrong coordinates were given and the airstrike came in right on top of his unit.

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  Bob Ballagh - Army +9 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 19th Field Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division

  Under his command in Vietnam, only one soldier was lost. Bob Ballagh felt badly about that, but was proud that was the only loss. After over one hundred air assaults, he returned home and advocated for a return to unit basis for deployments and was gratified when the Army changed the policy.

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  Michael Richey - Army +6 Total Videos

  3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division

  After being told to clean their ammunition their first time out in the field, Richey's company decided to instead use up all their ammo in free fire zones. When John St. Peters joined Richey's company as a replacement, he was not used to this particular procedure.

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  Rick Marotte - Army +6 Total Videos

  237th Medical Detachment

  As a medical evacuation pilot, Rick Marotte had relatively nice living conditions in Vietnam. He fondly recalls the hooch maids who cleaned his quarters and the barbecues on the beach during down time. He was as close as family with his fellow service men and women, and with the gregarious Australians. The Koreans, though, were too scary for socializing.

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  Doug Garner - Army +8 Total Videos

  Company A, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division

  Doug Garner describes why his company feared embarking on "Eagle Flights" in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.

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  Kenneth Moorefield - Army +12 Total Videos

  9th Infantry Division

  It had always been his wish to command an infantry company and on his second tour of Vietnam, Kenneth Moorefield was put in that position. Unfortunately, the war had changed and from the top down, a new outlook that was reluctant and defensive had taken hold.

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  John Jones - Marines +9 Total Videos

  Marine Medium Tilt Rotor Squadron 165

  John Jones recalls the time when his helicopter was rerouted to pick up a Viet Cong fighter waving a white flag. When he returned home, he knew he'd had enough of the service and he never flew again.

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  Grayson Roulston - Army +7 Total Videos

  187th Assault Helicopter Company, 1st Aviation Brigade

  After leaving Vietnam, Grayson Roulston stayed in the military on multiple different tours of duty before retiring in Germany. He stayed on staff with the military working at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to be closer to home.

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  Hugh Bell - Army +6 Total Videos

  73rd Surveillance Airplane Company

  Hugh Bell began his second Vietnam tour flying night surveillance missions over the midsection of the country, but he was then sent to Udorn air base in Thailand. His new mission area was Laos, where he was shot at constantly without result because the enemy gunners had no radar.

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  Joe Bruckner - Army +9 Total Videos

  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

  Joe Bruckner was fortunate. When he returned from Vietnam, it was to Georgia, which had a high level of support for the military, and to a loving family. He knew there were many who were not so fortunate. His war experience had made him more patriotic and less likely to complain.

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  Doug Garner - Army +8 Total Videos

  unknown Unit Information

  Doug Garner talks about his first impression of Vietnam when he arrived there in early January of 1968, and how the environment was drastically different than what he had previously trained for.

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  Kenneth Moorefield - Army +12 Total Videos

  Advisor, 21st Infantry Division, ARVN

  In Vietnam, the biggest challenge was to get the enemy to concentrate in enough numbers to be boxed in and defeated. It was an asymmetrical approach, says Kenneth Moorefield, who advised an ARVN division in the Mekong Delta. His worst days there all involved the accidental killing of civilians.

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  Ernest Washington - Marines +7 Total Videos

  1st Marine Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

  In Vietnam, Ernest Washington saw the Viet Cong a lot, mostly running away. "They weren't cowards," he says. "They were setting us up." When he was moved further North, he couldn't see the NVA regulars, but he was pinned down a lot by their accurate mortar fire.

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  Charles White, Jr. - Army Air Corps/Air Force +10 Total Videos

  1st Special Operations Squadron

  Pilot Charles White, Jr. describes a complex operation designed to free POW's in North Vietnam that failed. The prisoners were gone and another mission was planned for the Hanoi Hilton. He was slated for the possibly suicidal flight, but the go-ahead was never given, so he survived to become an instructor and pioneer the use of the internet in pilot training.

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  Earl Simms - Army +8 Total Videos

  Civil Affairs Advisor, Nhon Trach District

  He truly liked the Vietnamese people, and as a Civil Affairs advisor, Earl Simms was responsible for bringing them aid and medical care, so they liked him right back. As part of a tightly knit unit with just 12 Americans, he looked forward to his turn to do the mail run into Bien Hoa for a change of pace.

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  Charles White, Jr. - Army Air Corps/Air Force +10 Total Videos

  23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron

  Pilot Charles White, Jr. was at the top of his class and wanted to go to Vietnam, but was devastated when the Air Force decided there were enough fighter pilots and made a Forward Air Controller out of him. Based out of Thailand and flying over Laos, he targeted movement on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for air strikes.

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  Frank Aiken - Army +4 Total Videos

  Headquarters Battery, XXIV Corps Field Artillery

  Back in a Stateside assignment after his first tour in Vietnam, Frank Aiken knew it wouldn't be long before he was sent there again. He was a veteran sergeant and they were sorely needed. In a headquarters battery the second time instead of a firing battery, he saw much less combat. The snakes were just as poisonous, however, and the rats just as aggressive. And latrine duty is eternal.

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  Arthur Hurst - Army +5 Total Videos

  125th Air Traffic Control Company

  In Korea he had learned to speak a little Korean but Vietnamese was a different story and the tonal language eluded him. Army Air Traffic Controller Arthur Hurst loved working with the Montagnards on joint operations and he marveled at how they would bring along the whole family and maybe some ducks. Less pleasant are the memories of talking to doomed pilots on the radio.

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  Jim Lowe - Marines +8 Total Videos

  State Department, MACV

  During a mission in Da Nang, Lowe and his men were approaching a refinery that the Viet Cong had blown up when artillery started landing around them. It turned out to be "not-so-friendly fire."

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  Michael Richey - Army +6 Total Videos

  3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division

  Richey describes coming home as a difficult experience. Colonel Fulton wrote that Vietnam soldiers were as brave as anyone but were under-appreciated. Richey could not agree more. While in the hospital at Fort Knox, Richey told his parents to come by themselves to pick him up. The following events understandably overwhelmed him.

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  Kenneth Moorefield - Army +12 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Kenneth Moorefield, from the perspective of two combat tours followed by service in US embassies in the South and in the postwar North, says that he is still unsure about the value of the American engagement there. He is sure that the actions of the incoming administration in 1968 were deplorable, in light of facts that have emerged since then.

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  Barry McCaffrey - Army +9 Total Videos

  1st Cavalry Division

  Being a battalion commander, Barry McCaffrey had a lot of responsibility, especially when they faced a month straight of combat against the NVA. Thanks to their great air support, they won almost every firefight.

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  Allen Robinson - Navy +4 Total Videos

  USS Jamestown AGTR-3

  Allen Robinson reflects on the divisions in the country and the unpopularity of the Vietnam War. He is grateful that the incivility he felt as a returning veteran has turned to respect. And he feels blessed to have his health when so many from that war were affected by Agent Orange.