Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

A Kim | 5th Marine Regiment

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

Bob Averill - Marines +12 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division

Back in 1967, Bob Averill had the chance to train with the U.S. Olympic team for the biathlon. After refocusing his sights on Vietnam, he pursued his time in the service instead of on the team.
Rick Bates - Air Force +5 Total Videos

8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron

Getting stationed in Southeast Asia, Rick Bates was asked to graduate survival school early due to a shortage in pilots. He was assigned to fly combat missions very quickly after settling into Ubon Air Force Base.
Earl Simms - Army +8 Total Videos

Civil Affairs Advisor, Nhon Trach District

It was expected in his home. His grandfather and father had served in the World Wars and Earl Simms was eager to fill that expectation. As soon as he stepped off the plane in Vietnam, the sweltering heat and the smell let him know he was in a totally new environment. And when the officer pointed to a map to show him where he would be assigned, he noticed that there was nothing but green around the man's fingertip.
Omer McCants - Army +8 Total Videos

162nd Assault Helicopter Company, 13th Combat Aviation Battalion

It was flat in the delta. You could see for miles and that made for good flying, says helicopter pilot Omer McCants. It was wet, a lot of rain. Back at the base, they hung out in the officers club, where he spent a lot of time reading and writing letters home. He was aware of the anti-war movement, but it made no difference to him.
Bob Bole - Army +5 Total Videos

95th Evacuation Hospital

Bob Bole remembers visiting the Vietnam Memorial and feeling the emotions of reflecting on wartime. Though he has mixed feelings about the United States' role in Vietnam, he is glad he had the experience.
Galen Foster - Army +11 Total Videos

196th Light Infantry Brigade

The closer the plane got to Vietnam, the more somber was the mood on board. That's what Galen Foster remembers about the flight. What he remembers about arriving is the heat and the smell, both overwhelming. He went where he was most needed, a unit that had just been hit hard, and was issued an M79 grenade launcher.
Dick Dyer - Army +12 Total Videos

Multiple Units

Dick Dyer was in college ROTC when he was offered the chance to learn to fly. The program was geared to a private pilot license but the instructor was a a World War II flying ace. This gave him an advantage when he was commissioned and sent to flight school to learn to fly helicopters.
Joe Jamison - Navy +8 Total Videos

VA-22

Flying the A-4 Skyhawk, Joe Jamison provides a very detailed account of dropping practice Nuclear weapons over California. In addition, Joe encountered many dangers while operating from an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam.
Duwayne Balk - Army +4 Total Videos

95th Evac Hospital

Getting transferred all over Vietnam allowed Duwayne Balk to see a variety of different hospital settings. This prepared him for returning home, where he worked in a civilian hospital.
Bob Averill - Marines +12 Total Videos

3rd Combined Action Group

After recovering from a firefight, Bob Averill had a revelation that made him feel that he wasn't going to be killed in Vietnam. His company got orders to rotate back to Camp Carroll and faced VC fire while sweeping a Vietnamese village.
Lester Erving - Army +2 Total Videos

U.S. Army, 1st Inf. Div., B Company

Mr. Erving describes what it was like to be a part of "Operation Junction City" in Vietnam.
Earl Simms - Army +8 Total Videos

Civil Affairs Advisor, Nhon Trach District

Earl Simms was spending the night at a fire base on his way to a new assignment in Nhon Trach when the booming started. After running right through a screen door seeking cover, the green Lieutenant was taught the difference between incoming and outgoing fire. Joining his team in the rural district, he worked with the locals to build schools and bridges and brought in doctors and dentists for them.
Paul Kaupas - Marines +7 Total Videos

1st CA Group, 3rd Marines

Paul Kaupas received a Purple Heart for taking shrapnel while in country. After spending some time in the hospital, he went back out into combat.
Bill Crossley - Army +15 Total Videos

Provisional Artillery Group, I Field Force

Using a captured VC to infiltrate fire bases while the crews watched was a great teaching method for Bill Crossley. The man would get inside every time, starting a flurry of activity as security measures were toughened. The next step was showing the artillerymen how to patrol, something that was lacking in their training. Part 2 of 2.
Michael Marshall - Marines +7 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division

Michael Marshall talks about what he learned in the Marine corps and what he thinks the legacy of Vietnam is to the nation. He laments that without ever losing a battle, the war was lost.
Tom Buchan - Army +11 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 4th Cavalry Regiment

Twenty years or so after the war ended, Tom Buchan was "walking the wall." A scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial had come to town and, as a volunteer chaplain, he was there to support anyone who needed it. He noticed a man sitting in a car nearby, just watching.
Tom Blake - Army +8 Total Videos

11th Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division

Tom Blake's first assignment was at Fort Hood, where he kept an old Volkswagen in which he shuttled returning veterans around to help them solve medical and administrative problems. He got an earful from them about Vietnam, which he was about to experience for himself. Once he got there, he kept falling into the most difficult assignments and he learned that surprises waited for him everywhere.
Richard Hauner - Army +8 Total Videos

9th Infantry Division, 15th Combat Engineers

After leaving Vietnam, Hauner and his division felt euphoric to make it home safely. For a few years after, he had some problems with PTSD that started to go away with the help of a psychiatrist.
Rick Bates - Air Force +5 Total Videos

8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron

Growing up in the Midwest in a military family, Rick Bates joined the Air Force with the desire of flying fighter jets. He had to learn quickly to prepare himself for the intensity of navigating these huge machines.
Robert Goddard - Navy +7 Total Videos

Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light)3

It was down in the delta where Robert Goddard was based in Vietnam. The Navy Sea Wolves pilot flew a Huey gunship in support of the small Navy boats operating on the rivers and the ground troops in the area. He remembers his first mission well because of something he'd never seen, tracers from an AK-47.
Mike Waugh - Army +10 Total Videos

128th Assault Helicopter Company, 11th Aviation Battalion, 12th Aviation Group

It was the defining moment of his life. Mike Waugh was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and he has some insightful observations on the way the war was fought, the reasons it was fought that way, and the legacy it holds today.
Mike Morris - Army +11 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 5th Infantry (Mechanized), 25th Infantry Division

He was in the Marine Reserves, but in training, a doctor told him he needed hernia surgery and he was out. Mike Morris still had a military obligation, though, and the draft put him in the Army as soon as he was able. He did well because of his previous experience and was sent to NCO school.
Hal Smith - Army +4 Total Videos

29th Civil Affairs

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Hal Smith saw many of his peers avoiding the war and decided to join unlike them. After training, he reported to Vietnam outside of Saigon and thought he was being assigned to Combat Assault.
Bill Patterson - Army +7 Total Videos

319th Transportation Company, 6th Transportation Battalion, 48th Transportation Group

The dangers to the truck drivers in Vietnam were mainly mines and ambushes, but their only loss was from a road accident. Driver Bill Patterson enjoyed listening to music on the Army radio station and as he listened one day to the news, he heard something that made him run to tell everyone.
Roger Hamann - Air Force +3 Total Videos

23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron

When Roger Hamann volunteers for special assignment in the US Air Force, he is sent to train in jungle survival and POW interrogation.
Omer McCants - Army +8 Total Videos

162nd Assault Helicopter Company, 13th Combat Aviation Battalion

Omer McCants was born in a little Alabama town where everyone worked in the textile mills. He decided that was not for him, worked hard, and was the first in his family to graduate high school and go on to college. ROTC attracted him and he began to think like a military man.
Paul Noyes - Army +2 Total Videos

U.S. Army, Lt. Colonel, Military Assistance Command

While on patrol, Paul's platoon is ambushed.
Aaron Watkins - Army +8 Total Videos

179th Assault Helicopter Company

After graduating from Tuskegee University and ROTC, Aaron Watkins reported to Signal Corp school, then what he anxious for, flight school. At a meet and greet, the chief instructor walked up to him and said something that unnerved him. That made him even more determined and he was recognized by his peers as someone special.
Harvey Taylor - Navy +4 Total Videos

7th Regimental Landing Team

While on leave in Quantico, Virginia, Harvey Taylor decided not to re-enlist and go back to Vietnam. When he returned home, he realized that there was a lot of disrespect for Vietnam vets back in the States. Over time, he realized that he had a lot of things repressed from the war.
LTG (Ret) Lawson W. Magruder III - Army +14 Total Videos

10th Mountain Division

It's important to have a confidant or someone's ear to listen, even if it's just a journal. Lawson Magruder had his father, who had also been a career Army officer. This was important after a great loss in his platoon.