Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

A Kim | 5th Marine Regiment

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

Frank Francois III - Army +7 Total Videos

57th Transportation Battalion

There was a clique in the Transportation Corps, says Frank Francois III. The old boy network determined which officers would be on the track for promotions, and they had decreed that there would only be one black general at a time in the Corps. However, his boss, Hank Del Mar, was having none of it.
Ernest Banasau - Army +17 Total Videos

A Company, 4th Infantry Division

Banasau's team uncovers a clever diversion plotted by the enemy. He and fellow GIs are narrowly spared from friendly fire.
Marshall Carter - Marines +16 Total Videos

1st Marine Division

The raid on a Viet Cong conclave had gone well but there was still resistance and Captain Marshall Carter started thinking about extraction from the battlefield. Before he could go, however, he had to personally rescue a wounded Marine and then had to linger after the others had gone to direct supporting fire. Part 3 of 5.
Charlie McMahon - Marines +6 Total Videos

Combined Action Program, Hotel 6

Charlie McMahon reflects on the struggles of Vietnam vets returning to hostile war sentiment in the US. He volunteers with the VA, helping younger vets returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ron Mastin - Air Force +6 Total Videos

11th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron

At the Hanoi Hilton, Ron Mastin's first roommate was Robbie Risner, commander of an F-105 unit and an early shootdown in the war. Risner was one of the most mistreated prisoners due to his intransigence and his leadership. When he refused to follow a script for a meeting with Japanese officials, he lost his roommate and Mastin was moved to another cell.
Pat Richardson - Army +8 Total Videos

128th Assault Helicopter Company

Pat Richardson's helicopter was blown up at Phu Loi, but he wasn't in it and it wasn't the enemy that blew it up. While it was up on the rack for maintenance, from out of nowhere a rocket screamed in and it erupted in a huge fireball. As the men on the base scrambled for cover, it became clear that it wasn't Charlie shooting at them.
Craig Leyda - Army +3 Total Videos

9th Cavalry Regiment

Craig Leyda, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, recalls a playful dog which led him to enemy headquarters.
Frank Cox - Marines +23 Total Videos

F Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division

Frank Cox had a friend from Marine officer's basic school named James Egan. Egan, a talented and popular officer from Notre Dame, disappeared when his reconnaissance patrol was attacked and has never been found to this day. Fortunately, the talent was deep in that unit.
Bob Atkinson - Marines +17 Total Videos

K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment

The physical trials of Marine boot camp were not the first trials Bob Atkinson had faced. Poverty and an abusive, alcoholic father made the screaming drill instructors and the accidental injury just another link in a long painful chain.
LTG Larry Jordan - Army +11 Total Videos

Multiple Units

He knows men who are haunted by their Vietnam experience, but for a 23 year old 1st Lieutenant, it was an adventure. Larry Jordan went on to have a 35 year career in the Army and he applied lessons learned there.
Michael Richey - Army +6 Total Videos

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

Richey describes coming home as a difficult experience. Colonel Fulton wrote that Vietnam soldiers were as brave as anyone but were under-appreciated. Richey could not agree more. While in the hospital at Fort Knox, Richey told his parents to come by themselves to pick him up. The following events understandably overwhelmed him.
Frank Cox - Marines +23 Total Videos

Echo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division

It was New Year's Eve, ours not theirs. Before the night was over, Frank Cox had tackled a belligerent Marine who was hacked off at the infantry camped nearby, and placed his own battalion commander under a watch after confiscating his sidearm.
Owen Ditchfield - Army +13 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

For his second tour in Vietnam, Owen Ditchfield was assigned to the 101st Airborne in the A Shau Valley. Arriving just after the battle at Hamburger Hill, he was leading a patrol in the same area when the unit was pinned down by multiple enemy gun emplacements. A relief platoon ran into the same fire from the bunkers, but then Gordon Roberts stood up and charged the first position. Before it was over, four enemy positions were taken out and Roberts would deserve the Medal Of Honor.
Bill Cunningham - Marines +24 Total Videos

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 263 (HMM 263)

Bill Cunningham was in command of a Marine helicopter squadron in Vietnam, and he was lucky to have a competent and respected sergeant major on his team. He recalls the time the man defused a tense situation involving an intoxicated Marine and an M-16.
Fred Mills - Army +8 Total Videos

Air Ambulance Unit, 498th Medical Command

Helicopter pilot Fred Mills was "really busy" flying medical evacuations in Vietnam. When trees prevented a landing, he dropped a chainsaw to troops, and he used a map with no borders to evacuate from Cambodia. It was "the dirty part of the war."
Dennis Haines - Army +15 Total Videos

C Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 199th Light Infantry Brigade

Dennis Haines had done the reconnaissance on a village at the Mekong River, so he manned the listening post overnight as his unit prepared a cordon operation. He thought he saw movement in a doorway, then a muzzle flash as he took two rounds to the head.
Rob Doll - Army +5 Total Videos

U.S. Army, 1st Cavalry

Rob describes the relationship he had with his father before the war, and how he took his fathers advice.
Chuck Officer - Navy +8 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Marines

Chuck Officer remembers his time at Navy OCS training. Coming from the Marines, he had an easy time switching over his skills to Officer Candidate School.
Terry Sater - Navy +9 Total Videos

River Assault Squadron 13

Accompanied by the 9th Infantry, several firefights are described resulting in the loss of close friends.
David Brown - Army +6 Total Videos

4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade

There was no radio contact with the 2nd battalion on Hill 875 and losing contact with an American unit could only mean really bad news. To get there and find out what was happening, David Brown's unit had to walk in, a long trek through more dead bodies than he had ever seen. The answer to what had happened was very unsettling, and he was even more unsettled when he heard something huge crashing through the trees.
Tom Reilly - Army +7 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 199th Light Infantry Brigade

Tom Reilly was nearly killed in Vietnam seven times. Once, an RPG landed in a pond next to him and sizzled like a giant Alka Seltzer in the water. His friend, Dennis Haines, was not so lucky when three snipers opened up.
Fred Mills - Army +8 Total Videos

Air Ambulance Group, 57th Medical Detachment, 44th Medical Group.

While on his 2nd Vietnam tour, Fred Mills was picked to be the Aviation Officer for the Surgeon General. From there, he moved to the Pentagon and a civilian outreach program that resulted in widespread use of civilian air ambulance operations.
Omer McCants - Army +8 Total Videos

162nd Assault Helicopter Company, 13th Combat Aviation Battalion

Helicopter pilot Omer McCants relates a few tales of missions that got a little intense. He narrowly missed setting down in a Viet Cong base and on another mission, he struggled to take off while heavily overloaded. Then there was acting as a bait ship to draw fire on a type of mission they called "Firefly."
Andrew Robbins - Army +8 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

When Andrew Robbins returned from the stockade, it was almost all new faces in his company. He managed to get transferred to a ground radar company where he was impressed by the new technology. The action in the area had been building up to the battle of Hamburger Hill, during which the bad leadership and poor decision making among the brass at the top continued. Part 5 of 5.
Neville Kirby - Army +5 Total Videos

22nd Surgical Hospital

While she was over in Vietnam, Neville Kirby's (22nd Surgical Hospital) duties as a nurse varied with her location and the unit she was with. She remembers how sirens would go off if the hospital she was working at was at risk, and how everyone was given a certain amount of time to take shelter. She also recalls some memorable patients of hers; one that lost an arm and another that lost one of his legs.
Doug Garner - Army +8 Total Videos

Company A, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division

Doug Garner shares the painful memories of returning home after proudly serving in the Vietnam War, only to be told that he may not want to wear his uniform in public.
Larry Jennings - Army +9 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division

The NVA was a trained army, but the Viet Cong were ordinary people including women, children and the elderly. Larry Jennings was constantly on edge as he rode by the rice paddies, wondering which one of the workers out there would suddenly fire on him. He spent some time off in Saigon, which had it's own problems.
Jerry Sinn - Army +6 Total Videos

Reconnaissance Platoon, Engineer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division

It was the most incredible Tunnel Rat mission he had in Vietnam. Jerry Sinn recalls flying into a hot landing zone and having a terrific firefight before his team even got to the tunnel. Then they discovered they were right in the middle of a Viet Cong bunker complex. Before it was over, he was wounded and one of his team had earned a Silver Star.
Paul Jacobs - Navy +8 Total Videos

USS Kirk (FF-1087)

The sailors of the USS Kirk knew that one of the Vietnamese women they had saved during the chaotic exodus of refugees had named a baby after the ship. Captain Paul Jacobs tracked her down and she came to the ship's crew reunion, along with Richard Armitage, a civilian official at the time who took charge of the largest rescue operation.
Michael Marshall - Marines +7 Total Videos

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

He was used to discipline, so Marine boot camp wasn't so bad for Michael Marshall. When the drill instructor asked if anyone was unhappy and wanted to go to the Army, he thought surely no one would step forward.