COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

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  Paul Curs - Air Force +15 Total Videos

  20th Tactical Air Support Squadron

  Paul Curs has been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial three times. Each one has been an emotional experience, including the time he pointed to a panel at random and got a chilling surprise.

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  Ray Porter - Marines +12 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Ray Porter tried to pass on the values he learned as a Marine to his children and grandchildren and it must have worked. They went into the military as well, including a granddaughter who flies F-18's. Looking back on a time when he was in charge of training Marines, he had someone on his staff who was quite a character, Oliver North.

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  Keith Nightingale - Army +27 Total Videos

  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

  The Vietnamese Rangers had their families living with them at the camp. The conditions were squalid so MACV advisor Keith Nightingale decided to do something about it. He went scrounging at Long Binh.

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  Tim Dunn - Marines +16 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Tim Dunn saw an ad in Leatherneck magazine about a gathering at a ship dedication. That started him on reconnecting with his Marine comrades at reunions, including one for his Scout Sniper unit. He has been back to Vietnam and reports that the people there are completely over the war and genuinely welcoming to Americans.

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  Donald Singleton - Army +12 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

  His father was a turpentine worker and he put Donald Singleton to work at an early age. The young man resented it but he learned the value of hard work. He thought about joining the military from an early age and when he saw his cousin decked out in Airborne gear, that was it. He was going Airborne.

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  Jake Jacobson - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Special Forces Group

  Jake Jacobson remembers and pays tribute to some of the good friends he knew over his many years in Special Forces. He also describes the unusual way he learned of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

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  David Samuels - Army +12 Total Videos

  135th Assault Helicopter Company, 145th Combat Aviation Battalion

  The military career of David Samuels was off to a rocky start. First, he had an altercation with the barber who was shaving his head when he arrived for basic training. Then, on a bivouac, he picked up a nasty case of poison oak, which nearly derailed his plans for flight training.

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  Howie Bachman - Army +19 Total Videos

  ARVN Advisor

  Howie Bachman had no training as an ARVN advisor but there he was, advisor to a Vietnamese armored cavalry unit. They were based in the lowlands between the mountains and the sea. Their primary vehicle was the M113 armored personnel carrier, tricked out with extra machine guns.

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  Walt Lineberger - Navy +11 Total Videos

  River Assault Division 91

  The first time he got shot at, Walt Lineberger was leading a formation of Riverine boats, one of which had a huge bladder full of napalm. As they neared a Vietnamese fishing structure, he had a hunch and went around it on the left.

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  Carol and Stanley Rosenberg - Army +9 Total Videos

  85th Evacuation Hospital

  After a particularly brutal firefight, Army doctor Stanley Rosenberg treated a ghastly burn casualty and the memory of that patient haunts him until this day. Carol Rosenberg was a nurse at that same hospital and she was troubled when she saw how a mortally wounded GI was treated when a VIP showed up.

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  Mike Devine - Army +11 Total Videos

  25th Infantry Division

  Mike Devine was in the second week of jump school when his girlfriend suggested they get married, another leap into the unknown. So, when he made his final jump, he was a married man. The only problem was, his chute got tangled and he was approaching the ground pretty fast.

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  Roland Guidry - Air Force +18 Total Videos

  350th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron

  If the photo-reconnaissance drone had a successful flight, it's program would return it to the water off Da Nang. Pilot Roland Guidry describes the recovery system for the film, which was basically the same as the one used to retrieve film from satellites. It was developed and analyzed in Saigon, then sent to the US for deeper scrutiny.

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  Bruce Hojnacki - Army +9 Total Videos

  504th Military Police Battalion

  When Bruce Hojnacki came across a deserted Montagnard village, he found an eight foot spear and a crossbow. He found out he could take them home with him but he had to make a modification to the spear.

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  David Farthing - Navy +7 Total Videos

  135th Assault Helicopter Co. (EMU)

  It was difficult to return home to Australia from Vietnam. The war was unpopular and the veterans were shunned. David Farthing was a career Navy officer and continued a very good career, but he was not immune to this sentiment.

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  Roger Lutz - Army +10 Total Videos

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

  Just as his company was getting involved in some heavy action in the Iron Triangle, medic Roger Lutz was transferred to the battalion aid station. He had been in the field for eleven months, the promised six month rotation never happened for him. After he left, his company was nearly wiped out when they inadvertently landed right in the middle of an NVA stronghold.

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  Bill Greinke - Army +18 Total Videos

  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

  His first night in the field was spent on the outskirts of a battle that had been going on for days. Bill Greinke was a new advisor to an ARVN unit that was trying to push the NVA out of a valley where they had got a foothold. The second night, he was in it. Part 3 of 5.

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  Paul Curs - Air Force +15 Total Videos

  20th Tactical Air Support Squadron

  Shortly after arriving in Vietnam, FAC pilot Paul Curs came to a sobering realization about the war. It became his goal to make sure as many of his comrades as possible went home safely. The absurdity of the war was made clear when he reported that he sighted a tank. There are no tanks there, came the reply.

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  Lucio Lopez - Marines +11 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 1st Marines

  He wouldn't wish boot camp on anybody. Lucio Lopez recalls the DI's that made his life very interesting for a few weeks. When he got to advanced training, another Marine there who had been at Khe Sanh made sure he got the map and compass skills he was going to need.

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  Bill Greinke - Army +18 Total Videos

  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

  The South Vietnamese, or ARVN, troops had good officers but the enlisted men were often criminals paroled to fight. Bill Greinke was an assistant advisor to an ARVN battalion where he and his captain coordinated the air and artillery support and intelligence gathering. Part 2 of 5.

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  Lucio Lopez - Marines +11 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 1st Marines

  Everybody loved the Navy Corpsmen. They kept the Marines patched up and fighting. When you were in the bush for months, though, it could make you want to do crazy things. That's what happened to Lucio Lopez.

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  Mike Devine - Army +11 Total Videos

  25th Infantry Division

  Mike Devine was a new infantry platoon leader in Vietnam and he moved into an area of operation that was already notorious, the Ia Drang valley. It had been the site of a large battle which would one day be memorialized in the book, "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young" and subsequent movie, "We Were Soldiers."

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  Mike Carey - Marines +7 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  The unit was in place for the night when a Marine heard something. Denied an illumination round, he was allowed to toss a grenade and he then found two dead NVA who'd been sneaking up on them. The next morning they made a security sweep of that area and Mike Carey describes the deadly ordeal that became.

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  David Samuels - Army +12 Total Videos

  135th Assault Helicopter Company, 145th Combat Aviation Battalion

  As a new co-pilot, you had to fly with a number of different pilots and they had two nicknames for the newbies. You were either a Cherry Boy or you were a Magnet Ass, depending on how much fire the aircraft took on a mission. David Samuels was flagged as a Cherry Boy, so he was much in demand. Despite that, on one mission, the ship was forced down by an RPG.

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  Mike Devine - Army +11 Total Videos

  25th Infantry Division

  The NVA was not the only enemy in Vietnam. The elements and the wildlife were daily issues for Mike Devine, who developed an intense hatred of leeches. Then there was monsoon season and bad drinking water.

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  Paul Curs - Air Force +15 Total Videos

  20th Tactical Air Support Squadron

  The Green Beret was alone and under fire in a bomb crater with FAC pilot Paul Curs circling overhead in his little Cessna. He couldn't call for fighter support because of heavy cloud cover but he had the Willy Peter white phosphorus rockets he used to mark targets. And he was a deadeye shot with them. Part 2 of 2.

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  LTG (Ret) Quinn Becker - Army +9 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  Quinn Becker's father was a country doctor and he decided that was the field for him as well. After medical school at LSU he took a regular Army commission because he was DMS, Distinguished Military Student, of the campus ROTC. Orthopedic surgery became his specialty and he began to think about an Army career.

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  Ray Porter - Marines +12 Total Videos

  3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment

  Back when he was in New Mexico, Ray Porter trained a younger friend to shoot. Years later, he was commanding a company of Marines in Vietnam and guess who showed up as his new sniper?

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  Bill Greinke +18 Total Videos

  Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)

  Bill Greinke witnessed an incredible rescue when a South Vietnamese helicopter pilot plucked a downed airman from a tree during a battle. That Vietnamese pilot was luckier than one American advisor in the area who was captured by the NVA just weeks before he was to rotate home. Part 4 of 5.

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  Sue Stohr - Army +8 Total Videos

  3rd Field Hospital, 44th Medical Brigade

  Army nurse Sue Stohr kept up with the news during her Vietnam tour so she was aware of the turmoil back home. She was not unsympathetic to the protest movement but she was not going to join it. She enjoyed the songs of Anne Murray while she was there and that's the music that takes her memory back.

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  Marshall Eubanks - Army +14 Total Videos

  18th Corps Aviation Company

  They were long days, those last few in country as Marshall Eubanks was waiting to leave Vietnam. He was ready to go home after twelve long months. When he got back to the States and his next assignment, he was surprised when he was told not to wear his uniform off base.