FAC Memorial at the USAF Museum

Favorite post of the day!



 

Trying to ID the rife in the group pic. I'll have to ask him in the morning.

Ive got a few more of him with an oddball kit on a boat. He was in some out of the way places his last tour.

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Great pics, ecgRN!
Thank you for sharing them.

Bump for more....

Fantastic pictures everyone, thanks so much.

Kind'a hard to see and pretty blurry to me, but it look like the same thing as the guy on the far left is holding and I'd say that is an M-2 carbine in the Airborne configuration, which means folding stock & pistol grip.

Last chopper out 40 years ago today.


Thank you all.












 

To the ones that gave their all , We will never forget !!!!

Thanks for your Service Ed !!!!!!

Thank you - all vets - for your service and sacrifice.

Here is my Dad in Vietnam. He was an Infantry Captain Company Commander.











 
 

Ed and to all the others on here that served over there,

THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS

Another Memorial Day has arrived…………………and again I want to take the opportunity to remember those from my Unit, F/79th Aerial Field Artillery that made the ultimate sacrifice in 1972 in the fighting of the Vietnam War. These were all good, brave men who willingly chose to put duty, honor and Country first.

Rest in peace friends, may your names never be forgotten.

CW2 Charles Windler – 5 Apr. ‘72
Capt. Henry Spengler – 5 Apr. ‘72
Capt. Robert Williams – 11 May ‘72
Capt. Rodney Strobridge – 11 May ‘72
CW2 John Henn – 22 May ‘72
CW2 Ike Hosaka – 22 May ‘72
1LT Stephen Shields – 20 June ‘72
Capt. Edward Northrup – 20 June ‘72

<<<<< Me and my tube 1969, on way to RVN.
RIP my family members on panels 10 E and 11 E.

C-7 Caribou at Pleiku air base 1967

Powerful and maneuverable looking airplane.
Thanks for posting..

Cool pic.

Thanks for all those that have contributed to this thread.  I've always wondered, what tunes did you guys listen to?

Early years of US Advisors before Marines in 1965.

1965-1967?

1968-1970?

1970-1972?

 
I don't really count since I wasn't there, BUT while writing a Cholon district bar scene in the sequel to Gentle Propositions yesterday, I listened to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses". From there, YouTube took me to "When I Was Young" by the Animals, Del Shannon's "Move It On Over", and finally "Shape of Things" by the Yardbirds.


Epic inspiration for mentally putting me in a place and time I've never been to before. Timeframe in the story is now early March 1970.

I was there 6-69 to 6-70 , About the only two songs  I remember were , We Gotta Get Out Of This Place , by the Animals , and Fortunate Son , by CCR  ,  only thing we had in the field were cassette decks , and vietnam radio if you could get it tuned in , the soul brothers were always playing music when we weren't on patrol

Phu Bai, sometime in the summer of '68. No AFVN for us, despite the whole "From the Delta to the DMZ" thing. We did get to listen to Radio Peiking and Radio Moscow on the short wave.

Cook pics, Thanks to those who served.

Its probable a good thing you just eat and slept , you wouldn't have known what good music was if it hit you over the head .

Well since Ed wont post any more stories , I'll post another one if my sore old fingers will hold out ...

 This is only one of several , Friendly Fire Incidents , that happened while I was in country   , After being transferred to the 11th ACR from the 82nd AB , our company commander thought the Troop should start sending out dismounted ambush patrols ,to increase the Troops body count , so we were more than happy to set down and work out a plan for night AP's out from our Troop NDP , this was the 2nd AP that I had went on , there were 9 or 10 total of us , we took the usual claymores , handfrags , trip flares , I carried a  M60 that night with a total of 11 or 12 hundred rds , everyone in the ap carried an extra 100rd belt , one guy with the M79 , and all the rest carried M16's and a couple had grease guns , we had a 1st LT from 2nd Plt, pretty sure his name was Harris , in charge of the ap but  he was more than happy to listen to anything we former grunts had to say about setting up the ap , we also had an E6 ,named Walker that had just come from Germany , this was his first AP as well as some of the other 11th cav guys with us ....

We set out just before dark and ended up about 1200 meters North of our NDP , everyone that was on the North side of the Burm was told not to fire in our direction , we backed up into a small wooded area , set up the claymores and trip flares , and got ready for the night , I had layed all the 60 ammo on a towel and had it linked up ready to go , I had the 60 pointed north in a small clearing , we sat up in a small circle formation ,   and we had setteled in for the  night and started our one hr guard duty with our HQ calling in for Cit Reb's on the Hr ..  this had started behind me so it would take awhile to get ariund to me , I lay beside the 60 listening to the night and all its weird sounds one thinks he hears during a night AP .

I apparently nodded off for a time , and around 3am I woke to the sound of gun fire , not charlie or NVA but our own guys , they had started shooting in our direction because an RPG round had hit a tree in front of them , so thinking the fire was coming from that direction , the opened up , we were getting .50cal with tracers , 30.cal with tracers and we could hear the main guns going off on some of the Sheridan's , everyone said the shooying only lasted for less than 3 minutes , but I personally thought it was a lot longer , so many bullets had hit the ground around were we were laying there was a big dust cloud that hung over us , and you could taste it in your mouth , as I lay there next to the 60 when I first awoke , I had grabbed it an almost started to return fire when I noticed the direction all the Tracers were going , and no one else in the AP was doing any shooting , seemed like a life time after the last round had whizzed over us , I could hear the guy closet to me ask me if I had been hit or ok , I whispered I was not hit but I was not OK , I then checked on the next guy to my left , which turned out to be the new E6 from Germany ,

The morning finally came with no one getting any more sleep after our rudd awaking during the night , while we were gathering in the trip flares and claymores , we started noticing all the holes in the trees that we were laying around , also limbs hanging down from almost being cut into from all the Bullets , we just looked at each other and shook our heads because no one on the AP even had a scratch on them ..    with every thing packed up we headed straight south for our Troop NDP  , when we got to the North Burm we thanked everyone for the Fireworks display with several more colorfull words thrown in , we found out that one of the bad guys had fired  the RPG from the south side and had went across the NDP , and hit a tree on the North side which started all the fireworks that night .

My thoughts while I was laying on the ground watching the tracers going over my head , was I hope I dont get hit in the Ass ,cause thats the direction I was laying in , the ap ended with no injured except for some fragile nerves , but several cold beers later after reaching our NDP  cured all that  ..    One final note ..  this was the last dismounted AP that anyone had to go on while I was there ..

Crazy days with lots of crazy stuff going on for sure.....................................like being in the Boy Scouts, but without any adult supervision!

Thanks for posting M10Ken!

One of our guys carried a radio. It didn't always work.

I don't why he thought I could fix it.

 
Holy smokes.

My dad was stationed in Chu Lai, 67-68, Navy. Does anyone remember Foster Desselles? His nickname was Frenchy.

My cousin Ernie Ray has died of bladder and prostate cancer probably caused by Agent Orange. He was a Marine combat photographer in the Danang/Rock Pile area.

I flew up to Montana to do the things he couldn't do the week before he died. His last days were extremely hard.

What scares me is I probably had 4 times the Agent Orange exposure he had.

Thank you sir. I know we all feel the lose.

I will. And thank you all.

 
RIP, Ernie Ray. Till Valhalla.

He still looks like a man not to be messed with.

R.I.P. Ernie      

My BIL was stationed near Dak-to in 1967-68 as a front-end loader and heavy equipment operator with the US Army in the central highlands of South Vietnam at the time.
He received the Bronze Star sometime after the Tet Offensive for putting out a fire at the base ammo dump which I  understand got hit sometime latter during the Tet as it had been blown sky high the previous year in 1967 also.
I remember saying to him one time or something to the effect when he finally had told me about it I said, "Damn Mike, that must have taken a lot of balls being a sitting target on top of that thing under intense enemy fire like that."
He said, "Shit, it doesn't take a whole lot of anything knowing that if that dump went up, we were all going to go up with it anyway."
Yeah.

As a kid, the number one people I wanted to talk to were Vietnam Vets.  I would pick their brains as much as I could.

For those of you that were there, what were your experiences in talking with veterans of previous wars?

Did anyone get to talk shop with guys from The Great War, for example?  I'm sure there were plenty of WWII and Korean War vets, including your Chain of Command.

My dad was in WW2 and was stationed in Japan , he did bring several souvenirs home but as far as what he really did over there is a mystery as he never talked about it at all , I was home maybe a week from my TOD  and setting in the front porch swing ,when my dad came out of the house and handed me a cold beer , we sat there for some time without saying anything , then he asked me if I had had enough of killing for a while , my answer to him was , yes !!!

I also had several Uncles on my Mom and dads side of the family that were also in WW2 , none of them talked about it either , I was able to see some pics that one of my Uncles had taken when he was in Europe , for the most part they were pretty mild , but he also had a handfull that only someone with a strong stomach should look at ..

C ration peaches were highly prized especially after you have been in the field for several days and you have already eaten all the good stuff. In this picture I had just successfully traded something for a can of peaches.

Once we had been in the field for several days and I decided to eat my last can of peaches. It was a miserable day and we moved into night camp very late.

It was a pitch black night and I was doing every thing by feel. I prepared my peaches by putting in 4 packets of cream powder and 2 packets of sugar. This made a very tasty meal. However instead of getting sugar out of the sugar pouch I got salt out of the salt pouch.

When I tasted this mix it made me so mad I could hardly cope. Even though it was ruined I ate it anyway.