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69092
Joined
8/16/2006
Location
Redding, CA, USA
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 9:19am
Pretty cool show all about the Vietnam war on History channel.
Part 1 just started (9pm PST) followed by Part 2 at 10pm.
Looks like there is a few more parts to this series. Figured some of you history and war buffs might be interested. Plenty of re-airs if you missed it.
Part 1 just started (9pm PST) followed by Part 2 at 10pm.
Looks like there is a few more parts to this series. Figured some of you history and war buffs might be interested. Plenty of re-airs if you missed it.
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dougie, I don't know about flashbacks but my neighbor had particular moments that he was more on the edge or jumpier than most people or his reaction was just different. Some of them came as humorous and even he got a laugh from it a couple times. I remember one time I was around 8 or 10 and I was in his building smashing aluminum cans as his son and my best friend had gotten a couple of garbage bags full the day before. He had gotten off work and got home and went to walk in the building. I didn't even know he was there but it was just bad timing. I found a milk carton in our bag,not just one of the single serve ones but one that was twice the size. I folded it up and jumped in the air and smashed it as hard as I could right as he walked into the door. It was a huge kaboom, one of the best ever from a milk carton and he launched about 10' out of the building and hit the ground with his hands to his head. He got up, brushed himself off but came over and grabbed me seemingly just as fast. He grabbed me by the shoulders and raised me over his head and he was a huge man, 6'4. He shook me a couple times, yelled God damn, set me on the ground and smacked my ass and said that was a good one as he shoved me away. I ran for the fucking hills. I guess he went in the building and seen the cans and the milk carton and realized what I was doing. About 10 min. later he came and got me and said those cans aren't going to smash themselves and said if I can make that much noise that I could use his big sledge hammer. Later on as I got older it was funny and we laughed about it.
There was also the time we just put a new top end in an 83' CR125. We got it started but it had an air leak or extra fuel or something because when we shut it off it paused for a brief second and backfired loud as hell. This also was right at the time my neighbor was walking across the yard and in an instant went sliding across the grass like he was stealing home plate. It aint funny the reason why he was like that but he was good about laughing it off. I really miss him.
I saw a WAY gnarlier show, an episode of Modern Marvels that was all about the Vietnam "tunnel rats" That was some of the craziest shit i have ever seen (partly because i am claustrophobic) but what these guys did was just totally insane, and they were interviewing a few of the guys who actually survived it. I had no clue about them and i sure learned a lot. Totally blown away and have so much respect for what those guys did. They talked about how still to this day they have gnarly "night terrors" from it. Catch that show if you can.
-and to Mark and Dougie, i feel the same way towards all of you men who have served our country, and i tip my hat to you guys. Im sure you have seen the threads i have posted about my little brother, he is now down in San Diego in his 4th week of MCT and it has been TOUGH, way tougher than bootcamp! But we sure are proud of him.
We just got his "yearbook" from Bootcamp and looking through it, sure made it all feel "real" and it blows me away what he has accomplished. My parents just went down to see him, he has a 4 day "leave" this weekend. I think he graduates from MCT the 1st week in December.
After seeing it, I now understand why enemies become guerilla fighters...Uniformed soldiers just don't have a chance against the US army and Marine ground pounders. The hill attacks that they talked about tonight were just amazing. A frontal assault is just an insane attack to even consider, but these guys did with minimal casualties and completely whooped ass in pretty much every battle.
I can understand the public dislike of the war, but to blame the average soldier is just sad, IMO....especially with the draft that they had in Vietnam. At least with Iraq and the Afgan wars, the public is supporting the soldiers and blaming the correct establishment (the government.)
These guys had some balls of fucking steel. The tunnel rats in that video are just plain insane. They shouldn't be called rats at all, IMO. They should be called tunnel fucking terminators.
Just a great series What these vets did is just amazing to me.
Crazy you guys mention "the smell" I have those same weird flashbacks of when i was in the hospital after my accident, 45 days in ICU, and every once in awhile i get weird feelings and i can actually "smell" it like i am there. Though it doesnt even compare to what you guys saw, i can fully relate to how experiencing something so tragic can stay with you for the rest of your lives.
Pit Row
Anyway we head down the road with our covered load, and when we hit highway speed the tarp started flapping between the cab and bed. I guess a grommet was slapping around between there. I looked over at my helper, and he was white as a ghost, and he said "Pull over". I thought he was sick, but when I got stopped he apologized and said "That sounded exactly like small arms fire hitting a helicopter, could we do something about that?"
I said "Don't even think about apologizing for that, relax, I'll fix it."
To this day if I see a guy getting out of a vehicle with a Viet Nam sticker I'll go shake his hand.
Had the pleasure of working with many in my job now, and the guy who seemed more upset than the rest I've talked with was an interpreter. He saw the very bad side of mankind.
Watching the show last night had to touch those that served, it showed a more personal side to the guys there.
When I was in Nam I was stationed at a place called Camp Holloway. I was up in the Central Highlands about 40 clicks from the Cambodian border. Holloway was a helicopter base. It was basically a runway (made of sheets of PSP) (perforated steel plates) as were the flight lines. At the top of the runway (it ran slightly up hill) was the main post. It wasnt big just a bunch of small barracks (plywood huts) a PX a chapel and assort admin stuff. As you came back down the runway it was lined with different companies. There were a gun ship company (hueys and cobras armed with mini guns and rocket launchers, We had a couple of small planes, then there was one company that was comprised of two of those huge sky cranes. Then came a company of Chinooks (shit hooks) also heavily armed. Then the last company down at the end of the runway was my company, the 604th. We were a Direct support deal. We fixed helicopers. We had this big hanger made of sheet metal and someone (before I got there) Im guessing a psycho company commander decided to taunt "charlie" by painting a large Bulls eye target on the roof facing the valley. That didnt inspire a high level of comfort. About 100 -200' beyond the hanger was the bunker line. A series of towers and sand bagged bunkers, lining a long wire, fence armed with claymores. Guard duty (nights on the bunker line) were handed out like KP. Everyone had to do it every few weeks. Real scary at first. Sitting there in the dark (we had lights like stree lights lighting up the wire rows and we were in the towers in the dark behind the lights) was pretty scary if you were not used to it. I kinda took to it as it was the easiest job around. For instance if a medivac helicoper was shot down and recovered we would have to work like 16hr days or longer on the flight line until she was back in the air. I had the opportunity to volunteer for permanant guard duty and I jumped at the chance. It was like only working a few hours a day. And we got good at it as we would learn every freaking bush out there. Well long story even longer (sorry bout that) The enemy for us was mostly getting hit with mortars and rockets. A few times we had sappers trying to get thru the wire and one night some son of a bitch took a shot at a few of us and I got the opportunity to feel what its like to have a 30 cal round wizz by your head in close proximity. But mostly it was a war where we didnt see the enemy we just heard him and felt him. When a mortar leaves its tube in the quiet dead of night you hear this distinct "plunk' sound. They lob mortars so there is often time for the sound to get to you before the round hits (at least thats my memory) The rockets came in fast and hard and you didnt hear them until (hopefully) they went over head. They were highly inaccurate. If you were charlie you'd want to hit the other end of the runway from where I was as you would have a better chance of getting kills due to the concentration of troops up there. And its the reason I think we had the bullseye on our building. To taunt charlie into taking a shot at us. He got real lucky one night as a rocket hit a smaller hanger that was full of expensive helicopter parts and blew it to shit. Rockets when they hit make a hell of an explosion.
Then there was as Breeeze mentioned the sounds of the helicopter blades as they pulled pitch. I was trained as a helicopter (huey) mechanic. So Id been around them both in Germany and my vacation in South East Asia. I'll never forget that sound and I even today have Cobras fly by every so often as I live in the country just inland from Camp Pendelton. What I remember vividly was that company of Shithooks next to us. If they came back from a mission and they had kills they would celebrate by making what would appear as a gun run at our runway only instead of getting shot up with mini guns they would just dive down at high speed (for a shithook) and pull pitch (twisting the rotor blades to grab more air) and that sound on a dual rotor aircraft was almost deafening. Really impressive.
But I digress. It was the sounds. When I got home there were times Id hear a car backfire Id dive for the floor. I hadnt been out a month or two and it happend to me while I was driving and I was headed for the floor on the passanger side. I coulda killed myself or someone else. Fast forward 40 years and out here in the country where they recently built a new resivoir and used explosives to remove the sides of a small mountain every afternoon. When the sound happened I would come clean outta my chair. Its as if you can learn to control the concious mind but theres shit buried in the "sub concious that is never going to go away. I think its inherent in all humans, you learn to duck or you die............ its all about self preservation.
Just had a thought I wanted to share and make this motorelated. A number of years ago I was racing at Carlsbad. Between races I stood along the fenceline watching another race. Two other old farts came up (also racers) and we started talking. Found out we were all Viet Vets. I started to laugh and asked " back when we were over there, could you guys have ever imagined at 20 years old that one day we'd be in our 50's and would be motorcycle racers?"
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