Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

A Kim | 5th Marine Regiment

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

Robin Bartlett - Army +11 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment

Robin Bartlett was a new platoon leader in Vietnam and he had a sergeant who had just arrived fresh from the NCO course. The man had no experience but he wanted to be a squad leader and was frustrated when he didn't get the job. His reckless ways would lead to a tragic outcome.
Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

In his opinion, it was safer in the field than at the fire base. At the base, your position is fixed and they can find you. Gary Cantwell was staying at the base because of a sprained ankle and he experienced getting overrun by a large enemy force. He hung in there and was decorated for his actions during this battle.
Walter Beardslee - Army +9 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

Tensions between the South Vietnamese soldiers and the Montagnards, who comprised the local irregular unit, came to a head when a personal dispute escalated to an all out battle between the two groups. Walter Beardslee and the rest of the Americans in camp wondered if they would get caught up in the fight.
Robin Bartlett - Army +11 Total Videos

Multiple Units

Robin Bartlett went from the heat of Vietnam to the cold of Alaska where he was in charge of the HQ company at a mechanized unit. He immediately found out that the vehicles were all junk. For his next assignment, he was told he was going to Vietnamese language school and was returning to Vietnam as an advisor. Uh, no.
Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

He was a country boy, working on a farm in upstate New York since he was six years old. Then, Gary Cantwell was taken by the draft in 1968 shortly after high school. Designated as infantry, he got a good taste of the conditions in Vietnam when he went down to Tigerland at Fort Polk.
Don Bowman - Army +10 Total Videos

Multiple Units

In high school, Don Bowman saw a catalog from West Point sitting on another boy's desk. Can I look at that? Sure but you won't get in, came the reply. As it turned out, Don did but the other guy didn't.
Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

When you get there your name is Cherry or FNG. Fortunately, for Gary Cantwell, when he got to Vietnam he was taken under the wing of a good squad leader. In his first firefight, he had to flank an NVA bunker and drop a hand grenade into the opening. He pulled it off and settled in to the war. Later, as a team leader, he saw firsthand what could happen if you didn't secure your grenades.
David Ray - Marines +9 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 7th Marines

The radioman was wounded and evacuated for awhile. He was David Ray's best friend and foxhole buddy who decided one day that the M-16 was too much to carry with the radio and got a .45 instead.
Robin Bartlett - Army +11 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment

He was in it, now. Robin Bartlett arrived in Vietnam as an untested platoon leader. He attributes his survival to three things. First, you listen to your experienced NCOs. Second, you don't do stupid stuff. Third, you listen to your point man. The unit operated near the Laotian border and tried to stop the infiltration of the NVA.
Walter Beardslee - Army +9 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

His mom wanted him to go to West Point but Walter Beardslee's congressman already had an appointment lined up. He set off for college, twice, and flamed out, twice. When he got back after a road trip with some buddies, his mom delivered an ultimatum.
Philip Rivers - Marines +6 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

Your buddies are everything. Philip "Buddy" Rivers gives a shout out to his closest friends that he served with in Vietnam, many of whom he stayed in touch with after the war. (Caution: strong language)
Manuel Vigil - Marines +4 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment

When he returned to the States from Vietnam, they asked Manuel Vigil if he wanted to re-enlist. The challenge of being a Marine was something he could handle but the prospect of doing it everyday for years to come was just too much to think about.
Robin Bartlett - Army +11 Total Videos

14th Military History Detachment

When it was time to leave the field and take a staff job, platoon leader Robin Bartlett got orders for a unit no one seemed to know about, the 14th MHD. When he got to the division base camp and found them, he looked around and saw cots, fans, a television and a fridge stocked with Cokes and beer. This was definitely going to beat life in the bush.
Walter Beardslee - Army +9 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

When he got home from Vietnam, Walter Beardslee was talked into staying on for another year but they wouldn't tell him where he would be stationed. He took the gamble and it worked out well for him.
John Cahill - Army +9 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment

The tough streets of Boston were where John Cahill came of age. His uncle was a paratrooper so when he enlisted in 1965, that was his chosen path. He learned there that you don't laugh at another soldier who's having a problem.
Dennis Eakin - Army +7 Total Videos

176th Aviation Company, 14th Combat Aviation Battalion, Americal Division

The heat and the humidity were overwhelming when Dennis Eakin got off the plane in Vietnam. He had to make his own way to Chu Lai where the choppers were. He was an Army pilot but the Marines had a large aviation operation there which meant that he had security and a nice officers club.
Chuck Traviolia - Marines +8 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 7th Marines

Chuck Traviolia and his fellow Marines were sent to an R&R at China Beach but they couldn't enjoy it because they were simultaneously prepping for a big operation. When it kicked off, they found themselves pinned down by heavy machine gun fire so they called in some air support. When they did get into the enemy bunkers, they were amazed at what they found.
Jon Wallenius - Army +12 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment

Near the end of his Vietnam tour, they made Jon Wallenius a lifeguard at a little beach on a river that no one came to. Then he was sent home early, where he tried in vain to get a room at a fancy hotel in San Fransisco. He did alright for himself at the hotel bar, though.
Don Cope - Air Force +5 Total Videos

Multiple Units

Don Cope loved everything about ROTC when he was in high school so it was natural that he join the service when his college ambitions were derailed. It was in the Air Force that he found his career calling in aircraft maintenance.
Philip Rivers - Marines +6 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

Philip Rivers went to Vietnam as an empty headed eighteen year old but he has learned a thing or two about that war and he draws parallels to the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Caution: strong language)
Jon Wallenius - Army +12 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment

The Battle of Bong Son had already kicked off when they got a message. When the supply chopper comes in, the next man up for R&R can fly back with it. That man was Jon Wallenius and he hit the jackpot with a trip to Japan.
Don Bowman - Army +10 Total Videos

Multiple Units

Don Bowman noticed that the awards and decorations were going almost exclusively to officers. He began surveying the troops after a battle to find out which lower ranking soldiers had done something extraordinary. After the war, he did his part to correct the miserable general condition and morale problems that had developed.
David Ray - Marines +9 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 7th Marines

David Ray was in the jungle for his entire tour. He never saw a city, rarely had a shower. The base camp where he went to rest was often under fire. The lady from the Red Cross had a hard time relating to this.
Jon Wallenius - Army +12 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment

Was Vietnam a useless war? Not really. To Jon Wallenius it was a part of stopping Communism. While there, he saw a lot of men rise to the occasion and demonstrate true leadership. Much less often, he saw cowardice.
Mary Ann McMinn - Army +3 Total Videos

95th Evacuation Hospital

When Army nurse Mary Ann McMinn got to the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang, she found a close knit team of doctors, nurses and Navy Corpsmen. She was well trained but had never seen an amputee so, naturally, she was assigned to an orthopedic ward full of amputees. One of her main tasks was weening the patients off the addictive painkillers.
David Ray - Marines +9 Total Videos

3rd Battalion, 7th Marines

His homecoming was easy. Not only was David Ray not yelled at or spit on, he came to regard those stories as a kind of urban legend. The worst time he had was an encounter with a World War II vet.
Manuel Vigil - Marines +4 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment

His first squad leader was court martialed for shooting up more than he should have in a village. Manuel Vigil would never have that problem because he liked the Vietnamese people and got along with them really well.
Robin Bartlett - Army +11 Total Videos

Multiple Units

It was the family business. His grandfather went to West Point. His father went to West Point. His brother went to West Point. Robin Bartlett turned down that opportunity but he still followed the military tradition with ROTC and then a commission in the Army. He decided to challenge himself by volunteering for Airborne and Ranger training.
Manning Stahl - Army +7 Total Videos

5th Battalion, 22nd Field Artillery

At the fire base in Kon Tum, the VC would fire rockets from the top of the mountain next to the base. Manning Stahl recalls how coordinated artillery took care of that problem. It was there that he saw the most macabre sight he would see over there and it was also there that the artilleryman nearly killed someone that he could see.
Walter Beardslee - Army +9 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

As the Civil Affairs officer for his Special Forces team, Walter Beardslee was in charge of helping the villagers near his camp. He coordinated the delivery of food and building supplies sent out from Da Nang. In addition to that, like all members of the team, he went out on surveillance patrols to gather any intelligence they could discover.