Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

A Kim | 5th Marine Regiment

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

Bill Camper - Army +13 Total Videos

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

In the tense concluding days of the Vietnam War, ARVN advisor Bill Camper was with a unit holding bridges at Quang Tri when he went out to check on suspected enemy activity. He was unconcerned about the artillery rounds passing overhead because the enemy's Russian rounds had no air burst capability. Then a round hit a tree above him.
Gilbert Howland - Army +16 Total Videos

1st Infantry Division

Gilbert Howland moved from an ARVN advisor position to become operations sergeant at a 1st Infantry Division unit with large artillery pieces. He was in the command post, but he dodged the Viet Cong rockets along with everyone else. During the Tet Offensive, a few infiltrators made it into the base, but the damage was limited. (This interview made possible with the support of DAVID W. MARQUEZ.)
Brian West - Marines +5 Total Videos

HMM 363

Brian West and his company had a few different ways to pass the time in between missions. Keeping spirits high was essential to staying sane while abroad.
Bob King - Army +1 Video

199th Helicopter Unit

Bob King, a Huey UH1 pilot, describes the time he crash-landed in the Vietnam jungle after taking enemy fire during a rescue mission.
John Reed - Army +8 Total Videos

101st Airborne Division

In his early years, John Reed had a bit of a difficult time with his family. His brother was very aggressive, but luckily that showed Reed how to stick up for himself at a very young age. His father was also at war while he was growing up, so he had a bit of exposure to the nature of the military before joining himself.
Chuck Officer - Marines +8 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Marines

Chuck Officer remembers his motivations growing up wanting to serve his country. A pride for his country drove his desire to want to serve and protect the values he had learned growing up.
David Harrington - Army +6 Total Videos

47th Infantry Division

David Harrington describes the harrowing experience that flying in & out of Vietnam via chopper was every time. Facing enemy artillery fire and, at times, total darkness called for precision and focus from every member of the platoon.
Grady Birdsong - Marines +8 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 27th Marines, 5th Marine Division

Grady Birdsong feels conflicted about the way the war was run back in Washington and regrets the decisions that were made to have the war be lost. He hopes future generations will be sure to learn from history.
Mike Paque - Army +13 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

You didn't move at night unless you had to. Mike Paque took patrols out and they always made a secure position at night. He only had two disciplinary problems during his time as a platoon leader. One guy wanted to play his radio on patrol, but the other one had a bigger problem
Ted Cummings - Army +9 Total Videos

1st Special Forces Group

Remaining a strong relationship the native Montagnards, the native people of Vietnam, was essential to the success of the division. While patrolling in South Vietnam, Cummings' division came into contact with some NVA soldiers, which confirmed to them for the first time that enemy soldiers had made it that far south.
Bill Crossley - Army +15 Total Videos

Provisional Artillery Group, I Field Force

There was high tech warfare in Vietnam. Sensors revealed that there were trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and there was even an advanced airborne radar that found ground traffic. Bill Crossley reveals the low tech tactic they had to use to pick up slow moving ox carts.
Ed Zielinski - Army +7 Total Videos

129th Assault Helicopter Company, 1st Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade

The officers club for the helicopter pilots was one of the best in Vietnam, says Ed Zielinski. If only he could have figured out how the Korean officers were cheating at dice. There was another kind of wildlife there, elephants, which could also be enemy trucks, deer and wild pig, which you could barbecue, and monkeys, which you better not shoot if Ed was around.
Ben Knisely - Army +5 Total Videos

498th Medical Company, Air Ambulance

Knisely talks about the specific flight crew positions on medevac missions, and recounts the entire story of getting shot down and losing consciousness during one of his rescue missions.
Joe Ponds - Army +5 Total Videos

13th Combat Aviation Battalion, 121st Assault Helicopter Company,

Growing up in poverty, Joe Ponds had a strong family unit during his formative years. Because his grandmother was blind, she taught him lessons on observation that were later valuable to him in Vietnam.
Grady Birdsong - Marines +8 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 27th Marines, 5th Marine Division

Off the coast of Hue City, Grady Birdsong and his battalion set up to siege the beach, but fortunately nothing ended up happening. Once they got to a temporary basecamp, they began to prepare for a more legitimate field of defense.
Ernest Washington - Marines +7 Total Videos

1st Marine Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

Ernest Washington was fortunate to leave Vietnam and serve as an MP in Japan and an instructor at Quantico. After his discharge, he became a veterans advocate and started an organization to help veterans with problems adjusting to civilian life.
Jim Lawrence - Army +12 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry

Jim Lawrence grew up in the segregated South with a passive acceptance of the situation. But in Vietnam, where it was life or death every minute, there was no place for racial animus. As he was being evacuated with a serious wound from the battlefield, something happened which changed his outlook forever.
Pat Richardson - Army +8 Total Videos

128th Assault Helicopter Company

He was at artillery school manhandling howitzers in the mud. That all ended when Pat Richardson went to a briefing from an aviation officer signing up men for flight school. No mud up there. It meant two more years of service, but he still jumped at the chance.
Sammy Davis - Army +9 Total Videos

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

When the producers of the movie Forrest Gump decided to use film footage of Sammy Davis receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor, he became known as the real Forrest Gump. This was a great way to introduce himself to students as he traveled the country speaking at schools.
Hugh Bell - Army +6 Total Videos

A Company, 25th Aviation Battalion, 25th Infantry Division

Helicopter pilot Hugh Bell operated in the III Corps area of Vietnam during his first tour, finishing up as the pilot of the command and control aircraft for the brigade commander. He recalls a flight to a gruesome ambush site and then recounts the tale of a drunken emergency mission.
Stan Marcieski - Army +6 Total Videos

45th Medical Company

Before getting settled in his company, Stan Marcieski was hastily brought on a mission over the jungle to try to help out a company that had been ambushed by NVA forces. After they had some issues with the plane, they had to think quickly to be able to save some casualties.
Bill Camper - Army +13 Total Videos

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

He had been a civilian advisor, but Bill Camper was reassigned to Hue to advise an ARVN regiment. This made life simpler, just find the enemy and engage him. In his first large operation, the relief of an overrun forward base, victory was achieved, but with a high cost in lives. For three days, they had to wait in the jungle with the bodies of their fallen comrades.
Michael Richey - Army +6 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division

After being told to clean their ammunition their first time out in the field, Richey's company decided to instead use up all their ammo in free fire zones. When John St. Peters joined Richey's company as a replacement, he was not used to this particular procedure.
Bob Atkinson - Marines +17 Total Videos

K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment

As a mortarman, Bob Atkinson stayed close to the nucleus of the platoon, with the officer and the radioman. This was a little safer than being a grunt. When automatic weapons fire greeted them in a village, he listened as an artillery support call went out. "That's my country on the other end and they will get us out." It didn't quite work out that way.
Mike Morris - Army +11 Total Videos

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

The base camp at Cu Chi was a huge sprawling complex that was home to many American units and to someone else as well. Underneath it was a Viet Cong tunnel system almost as large as the base itself. The men who went in after them were known as tunnel rats and it only took one turn at that to convince Mike Morris that this wasn't the job for him.
Aaron Watkins - Army +8 Total Videos

179th Assault Helicopter Company

He was from Memphis and he went to Tuskegee University determined to fly. Aaron Watkins was already familiar with military life through ROTC and he suggested a flight program for the Army cadets to go with the Air Force program. The chief instructor was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen.
Chuck Officer - Marines +8 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Marines

Chuck Officer remembers going through inspections during his Marine training. One particularly fiery company commander gave his squad trouble, a lesson they never forgot.
Bill Cunningham - Marines +24 Total Videos

Multiple Units

After his combat tours in Vietnam, Marine aviator Bill Cunningham served in several assignments that gave him a lot of chances to travel. In Africa, he helped manage drought and famine relief as part of a relief operation and, back home, he made readiness inspections of Marine air units.
Frank Aiken - Army +4 Total Videos

Headquarters Battery, XXIV Corps Field Artillery

Back in a Stateside assignment after his first tour in Vietnam, Frank Aiken knew it wouldn't be long before he was sent there again. He was a veteran sergeant and they were sorely needed. In a headquarters battery the second time instead of a firing battery, he saw much less combat. The snakes were just as poisonous, however, and the rats just as aggressive. And latrine duty is eternal.
Laurie Druyor - Navy +4 Total Videos

USS Sanctuary

Laurie Druyor grew up in Methuen, Massachusetts. Her dad was a mechanic and her brother was in the Navy before her, so joining herself didn't seem like a bad idea. After joining, she began her orientation for the Navy Medical Corps and went to Great Lakes Naval Hospital. When it came time to choose where she wanted to go, she chose Vietnam. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, the Military Heritage Museum- https://freedomisntfree.org/.)