Vietnam Trivia

[MillRatUSMC]

"Remington Raiders"...a sea story here;
One day I was send to 1st Marine Divison Headquarters to give them a report from my company.
I spied a "Remington Raider" all stressed out.
I asked "What he problem?"
They answered "He the clerk that handles all the KIA's record books."
No wonder he was stressed out, because he knew the real figures of our losses.
So we must not sound off on "Remington Raiders" unless you have walked in their boots...

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

PS All this talk about "Remington Raiders" awoke that memory from a long time in my past, we try to forget, but they're always there...
"The Vietnamese knew that our bodies were leaving, but our minds would always be back in the time we served in Vietnam."

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by radio relay
Ah yes, you dumb Grunts are just too much bad a$$es... LOL

I got several without p-38's. Deal with it...

SF

That's cause we took them out of the boxes you got and sold them to the pogues, in Da Nang.

LMAO

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by MillRatUSMC
"So we must not sound off on "Remington Raiders" unless you have walked in their boots...

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

We kidded with them then, and even today.


Anyone of us could have served in the rear and that would have been fine for me, if I would have had that opportunity.



Don't know which is worst. Shooting back at the enemy as they shot at us, or being trained to do so, as we all were, serving a full tour of duty and never getting the opportunity to shoot at the enemy.

I know I felt guilt, for being in the rear at times, doing something, while the company was out on an operation, or the platoon out on a patrol.

I can imagine what it might have been for some, then again who got my beer rations?



Semper Fi

Cook

[Sgted]

Yeah......beer rations.
In early (May) '66 when I arrived in Chu Lai there were ration cards for beer (and electronics, etc).
2 beers per day.
In my area (HqBn, Serv Co, Motor-T) our enlisted club was a tent with 2 large electric coolers that did not hold enough beer.
If you were late you drank warm San Miguel, Kirin, Ashai, Pabst or (if you were lucky) Bud.

I was in the rear for my entire 19 month tour in 'Nam. (I extended).
I only heard stories about the guys who were in the thick of it and concentrated on staying ready for my batism into combat which I thought would happen anytime. But that did not happen.
I fired my rifle once.
In Chu Lai.
At a sand dune on the beach.
At a target I could not see.
With no enemy killed.

In July '67, when the Da Nang airfield was hit I was sure we were going to be attacked.
But that did not happen.
Occasionally, a grunt unit would pass through 1st Mar Div Headquarters, stop at our EM club and give us blow by blow details of some of the horror they witnessed.
Friends they lost.
Situations and conditions that we in the rear could not identify with.
Where you wound up "in country" was a crap shoot I guess.
I was a 3531 (motor Vehicle Operator) but there were Marines in the boonies that drove a truck, patrolled the rice paddies, went out on S&D missions or Operations.
Above all, I knew I was an 0311 first and foremost and feared loosing my ability to use my rifle effectively. 99.9% of the time I was in Vietnam I just carried it around.

What invisible force kept me so safe while others just like me suffered unspeakable horror ?.
That thought has bothered me since I left Vietnam.

[namgrunt]

I met a LCpl motor T driver while in hospital at Great Lakes. He was one tough cookie. He was driving a fuel tanker on a convoy between bases, when he struck a mine. He was 3rd degree burned over most of his body. His finger nails were a permanent black where they hadn't burned off. Life for him consisted one long series of skin grafts where good skin still remained. I lost count of how many times he went downstairs to surgery.
He never gave up trying to get better. I used to sneak him pizzas from the Rathskeller EM club near the hospital. The nurses never caught me sneaking the pies, nor him scarfing them down. I wish I recalled his name. He was one gutsy S.O.B. He was still on ward when I was transferred to Marine Barracks to serve out the last four months of active duty.

[radio relay]

Serving anywhere wasn't an "opportunity". It was an order. If you joined (as opposed to being drafted in) the Marine Corps, it was a decision to put yourself on the line for your country. Once you were in, you did what you were told. If they said 0300 at the end of bootcamp, then you went Grunt. If they said something else, then you did that.

Don't try to "imagine" anything! If you think it's something to be ashamed of, to be any other mos than 0300, or that anybody runs around wishing they had been a Grunt "hero", or that somehow those us with different jobs and missions were less a Marine, then get a clue!

Trust me, it gets real damned old putting up with Grunts who think they were the only ones who had tough duty, or saw combat, and go parading around claiming to be the "real" Marines, etc etc. It ain't "teasing", Marine! It's disrespect pure and simple!

If you had ever tried to "sell" a john wayne to me, I'd have shove it up your a$$. Now that would have been funny

SF

[namgrunt]

Radio Relay

Who are you addressing with your generalities on 03's?
I was 0311. Have you read any comments by me denigrating other MOS groups? I worked as a radioman for a short while, but that didn't make me a comm expert, and I become an AR man when that assignment changed.

I have not made noise about your MOS. Why do you crap on mine? Respect is a two-way street, Marine.

[Sparrowhawk]

You got a problem, with grunts and recon?

I have nothing but respect for ALL Marines that served, in Nam or duty back state side. We all did our duties, regardless of our MOS. That's the way I see it.

If you think its all bad Ass Grunt stuff I have posted then you got a problem with my history and the platoon I served with.

We did our tour and it was not bad ass as you call it. Ah, we had some people that would think they were bad asses, but they didn't last long in the field.

It was pain and sorrow, fear and doing what needed to be done, or the Marine next to you wasn't going to make it home.

The worst fear in Nam had nothing to do with the enemy. It was the fear of not doing your job when it needed to be done and letting a fellow Marine down.

Yes some pogues or REMF's as you prefer to be called (never used 'REMF's" or knew what it meant in Nam) in the rear had hot showers, and beer rations that's the way it was. I would have gladly traded MOS, and would have done their job. But, I did the job I was suppose to do with the MOS I was given.

I was trained to fire an M60 and that's what I did. I did it in Combat against the NVA/VC that was trying to kill me or another Marine. We went on search and destroy missions, looking for enemy that was trying to drop rockets or mortar rounds on our compounds, where ever they were. That was my job, to find them and to destroy them.

I did my job and I had to rely on others to do their job, or I didn't get ammo or C-rats, or illumination rounds, or artillery or my pay check and yes when I got medevacked I and about 6 other grunts stood in line at 1st med hospital in Da Nang and we took turns flushing the water toilet for the longest time because we hadn't seen one in months.

Never went to Dog Patch, and each case of C-rats had about 1/2 dozen P-38's in them. If you didn't get a P-38 it’s because someone else didn't do their job.

Yesterday I gave a P-38 to a Marine that just got back from Iraq, he had never seen one.

He told me some unit members in Iraq are allowed to have cell phones to call home (excuse me, honey, I'm going to have to put you on hold, sorry about that, just had to shoot at a rag head. Now, where we we...).

They have email available to them. Is their war different from ours? Yes, but it’s still the same when it comes to doing what the Corps has trained them to do. In the rear or walking point.

To communicate with folks back home, we wrote "Free" up on the upper right hand corner of what ever was available to seal and send home a note. Someone in the rear made sure my letter got home and I got the letter from home.




Cook

[Sparrowhawk]

I guess that was one of the bennies of serving in the Republic of Viet Nam.

you wrote "FREE" and the letter was mailed home without cost to you.

Don't remember if we had to pay for any packages we would want to send home, guess I never sent one home.

[radio relay]

Yeah, I admit it. I have a chip on my shoulder for Grunts and Recon. Especially, when they start throwing the "poge" reference around, and joking about how they did this or that to someone who wasn't of the same mos.

I'm not right, and I know it. I appologize for getting a little pi$$y.

BTW, I "prefer", Marine. Just like you.

I'll crawl back into my hole for awhile

SF

[Sgted]

I have a great deal of respect for the the guys who were in the thick of it. Those men are truely a special "Band of Brothers".
On the surface, I can be part of that segment of Vietnam Vets. But, down deep inside at a certain point I am unable to connect.
I've seen the film footage and I've talked to many men who witnessed the real meaning of war but you have to live it to honestly understand it.
There are times when I know I must stand aside.
However, we were all part of a team of Marines that made the system work.
I am not ashamed of my role in Vietnam.
Like so many other Marines who lived to tell, I have survivor guilt.
But I am still part of that Band of Brothers.

[Sgted]

DaNang Vietnam.
May 1967.
Freedom Hill.

Who is onstage ???

[Toby M]

Sgted; Thank you for putting it so eloquently. I have had the same feelings for years! I served proudly for both my country and Corps but didn't feel like I had contributed equally because I wasn't in a combat related role. I feel better now, knowing that there are others who have felt the same way. As you said, we are all brothers...

[Sgted]

Welcome Home !!
AND
Semper Fi

[MillRatUSMC]

Could it be Martha Rye and some musicans?
Hard to tell at this distant.

May of 1967, I was part of Golf 2/1 out in the bush patroling the rocket belt.
Sad to say in July of 1967, they hit several areas with rockets.
That when my buddy Laamie got injured and treated, but he doesn't remember much about how he got injured and who treat the injury to the head.
He made a lot of process in clearing it up...

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo