Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

A Kim | 5th Marine Regiment

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

Steve Long - Marines +24 Total Videos

Marine Light Helicopter Squadron 167 (HML-167)

Steve Long had settled into the routine at Marble Mountain. The helicopters were kept flying and he was getting kind of salty. One day his friend told him that Bob Hope was doing a show in Da Nang. You want to go?
Al Stiles - Navy +16 Total Videos

USS Manley (DD-940)

During the second deployment of the USS Manley to Vietnam, the destroyer was called on to use its guns to breach the wall in the old city of Hue without harming the palace within. Two other ships had failed, but Al Stiles directed the fire that accomplished the mission. The Manley was getting a reputation as the go-to destroyer for precise fire.
Marvin Cole - Army +10 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Marvin Cole's mother wrote him and said he needed to come home and talk his brother out of joining the military. When his brother joined the Army anyway, she told him to enlist as well and take care of him. The brother was in for three years and Marvin stayed for thirty five.
Ron and Judie Richtsmeier - Army +9 Total Videos

119th Assault Helicopter Company, 18th Surgical Hospital

They met in Vietnam, but Ron and Judie each took some interesting turns in their journeys to that war torn country. Ron was a paratrooper who decided that the pilot of the plane had a better job, so he went to flight school. Judie was on a two year enlistment as a nurse when she decided to stay on because because of her empathy for the war casualties she was treating.
Rick Goddard - Air Force +8 Total Videos

31st Tactical Fighter Wing, 309th Tactical Fighter Squadron

Rick Goddard graduated from the University of Utah as the Vietnam War came into full swing. He’d always had an interest in aviation and the Air Force gave him the opportunity to start flying fighters, more specifically the F-100.
Mike DiRocco - Army +4 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

Being embedded into the deep jungles of Southeast Asia, Mike DiRocco and a dozen other Americans were tasked with defeating the Viet Cong with the help of the native tribes of Montagnards. To assist them, they were supplied using the CIA’s clandestine airline, Air America. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, The Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas.- https://theveteransmuseum.org/)
Gary Lawrence - Navy +11 Total Videos

SEAL Team One

The instructors could make you quit if they wanted to, at least that was what Gary Lawrence observed during Navy SEAL training. Once you made it through the basic program, there were additional schools to learn the skills needed for special operations. This included both land warfare and diving.
Jack Jeter - Army +9 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Division

After leaving the Army, Vietnam war veteran Jack Jeter got fulfillment from an old hobby, racing motorcycles. He built a successful business and was getting on with his life when he got a strange phone call. It was time to reconnect. (Caution: strong language.)
Frank Heiny - Army +10 Total Videos

15th Public Information Detachment, 25th Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade

Although his MOS didn’t require him to be on the front lines of battle, that didn’t stop the front lines from coming to Frank Heiny. He recalls one instance where the tunnels underneath Cu Chi opened up for a Viet Cong night attack where he needed more than a camera to shoot.
Bill Pearson - Army +11 Total Videos

199th Light Infantry Brigade

After the war, Bill Pearson served as a JROTC instructor and he always got the question, "Did you ever kill anybody?" He would then relate a story about a dead Viet Cong, who had a letter from his fiance in his pocket.
Steve Long - Marines +24 Total Videos

Multiple Units

Steve Long's time as an avionics technician in the Marines influenced his post Vietnam career in a very positive way. He finished his basic college courses in New York and then went to Georgia Tech for the engineering degree.
Frank Heiny - Army +10 Total Videos

15th Public Information Detachment, 25th Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade

Frank Heiny describes his last days in Vietnam, from an experience with an inconvenient water buffalo to a less than welcoming homecoming. His time in the war definitely had an impact on him, so much so he didn’t use a camera in the decade that followed.
Gary Lawrence - Navy +11 Total Videos

SEAL Team One

There were a lot of interesting operations for Navy SEAL Gary Lawrence once he got to Vietnam. A big one was the weapons factory they were made aware of by a defector. It was too big to destroy or empty out with the infiltration team so an air strike was called in.
MajGen Larry S. Taylor +15 Total Videos

Air America

Did he have to keep a low profile in Thailand as a civilian working for Air America? Larry Taylor says no, he just went about his day. He had a Thai girlfriend and enjoyed dinners with her family.
Bob Havens - Navy +9 Total Videos

Observation Squadron 67 (VO-67)

His father didn't talk about it much, but Bob Havens knew his Navy experience in the South Pacific was a big part of his life. Perhaps as a tribute to his father, who had passed away by then, Bob impulsively enlisted in the Navy on a lunch break.
Dave Oliver - Air Force +11 Total Videos

37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron

Helicopter pilot Dave Oliver was decorated in Vietnam but some things he heard from higher ups while there, and that he heard in documentaries later on, convinced him that the leadership had been badly flawed.
Carol and Stanley Rosenberg - Army +9 Total Videos

85th Evacuation Hospital

Carol Rosenberg was the only female in her group in transit to Vietnam. She was very young, too, and the strange and exotic place was overwhelming. Stanley Rosenberg experienced the same disorientation until a nearby B-52 strike focused his attention.
Lee Ellis - Air Force +23 Total Videos

390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366th Tactical Fighter Wing

Despite what he originally thought, Lee Ellis was told many years later by an outside witness that his plane was in fact not shot down, and instead an electrical fuse blew up the bombs on the wing of his plane which made it seem like he was shot. He describes the details of how he got captured and sent to a POW Camp (Part 3 of 3).
Bruce Hojnacki - Army +9 Total Videos

504th Military Police Battalion

MP Bruce Hojnacki was at a base near the DMZ. He rode convoy security and overnighted at various fire bases. At one, he was staring out from a bunker talking to a Marine when he saw something that astounded him. (Caution: strong language.)
Bill Brezina - Army +5 Total Videos

95th Evacuation Hospital

Bill Brezina remembers the different types of soldiers that you'd come across while in Vietnam. Substance abuse was pretty common there and it soon became a problem.
Sammy Davis - Army +9 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 4th Artillery Regiment, 9th Infantry Division

Sammy Davis had made a big impression in boot camp, so big that the drill instructor pulled him aside and told him he had a lot of potential. After artillery training, he was off to Vietnam, where he experienced a memorable first night.
Doug Moore - Army +4 Total Videos

57th Medical Detachment

Doug Moore grew up in Arkansas with no family history of being in the military. While in college he was enrolled in the ROTC program and went to training as soon as he graduated. He went to flight school at Fort Rucker, then to Fort Wolters for helicopter training, and was instructed to go to Vietnam shortly after. His trip over to the foreign country was incredibly rough for a number of reasons, and it turned into a month's worth of time getting there.
Gene McCandless - Marines +11 Total Videos

3rd Amtrac Battalion, 1st Marine Division

It was precise. Amtrac crewman Gene McCandless watched the artillery called in by his commander silence the VC fire from the other riverbank. At the same time, another Marine was firing away on a machine gun that was bootlegged off a helicopter. Don't ask. Part 2 of 2.
Steve Long - Marines +24 Total Videos

Marine Light Helicopter Squadron 167 (HML-167)

Returning from Vietnam was not traumatic for Steve Long. No protestors and a loving family to meet him. He had a year to go on his enlistment and, by luck, he got a good post. He declined all entreaties to stay in the Marines, not the least of which was their final pitch.
Quincy Collins - Air Force +18 Total Videos

80th Tactical Fighter Squadron

Colonel Quincy Collins was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina. His father was in the furniture business and had three separate locations across the country before becoming a member of the Civil Air Patrol during WWII. Collins wound up going to The Citadel for school since he had some connections there through music departments.
Bill Gessner - Navy +9 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 9th Marines (Attached)

Navy Corpsman Bill Gessner was treating wounded in the field near Camp Evans when the call came, evacuate the company by helicopter back to Camp Evans. The entire battalion was being airlifted to Khe Sanh, where he would spend the next 77 days in intense fighting and artillery barrages.
Steve Long - Marines +24 Total Videos

Multiple Units

He was an indifferent student until an assistant principle suggested he get involved with the International Relations Club. He saw something in Steve Long and challenged him to do more.
Mike Devine - Army +11 Total Videos

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

Mike Devine had a second tour of Vietnam, this time as a logistical advisor to the Army of South Vietnam. He was based down in the delta, which was completely different from his first tour in the central highlands.
Bob Hyatt - Army +9 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

Bob Hyatt was an advisor to a large Vietnamese unit comprised of different, distinct groups who all had competing interests. The camp was between Saigon and the Cambodian border where there were lots of booby traps, but not much heavy combat. The Viet Cong were not eager for a big fight.
Steve Long - Marines +24 Total Videos

Multiple Units

Marine Steve Long was visiting family before he shipped out to Vietnam. His grandmother introduced him to a friend, who had a son in the Marine Corps. When he found out who it was, he could hardly believe it.