Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

A Kim | 5th Marine Regiment

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

Larry Taylor - Army +8 Total Videos

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

The first thing that he noticed was the heat. Larry Taylor was assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry, and while he was getting used to the steamy climate, he made his way to Camp Evans in northern South Vietnam. There wasn't a lot of contact, but there were a lot of booby traps.
Phil Mayrand - Army +9 Total Videos

F Co., 75th Infantry Regiment (Ranger), 25th Infantry Division

His extensive training, resulting in bodily injury as well as a debilitating illness, held him back a few weeks, but as he assumed, he'd be on his way to Vietnam. Phil Mayrand describes the conditions of his departure and the foreboding welcome he received there. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, The Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas.- https://theveteransmuseum.org/)
LTG (Ret) Quinn Becker - Army +9 Total Videos

15th Medical Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Quinn Becker was the medical battalion commander but he was also a surgeon. He describes a heart wrenching experience in the operating room regarding a man he had sent to the field earlier in the day. A lot of the injuries treated there in Vietnam were caused by booby traps and there were also a lot of gunshot wounds through extremities.
Andy Boyko - Marines +10 Total Videos

I Co., 3rd Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment

Andy Boyko's experience as a Marine made a lasting impact on not only him, but on some of the men he served with. He reflects on the legacy of the Vietnam War, and the Vietnam veterans. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, The Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas.- https://theveteransmuseum.org/)
Don Zimmer - Army +10 Total Videos

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

Years after the Vietnam war, Don Zimmer answered the phone and the voice on the other end led to something he had desired for a long time, reunion with other veterans.
Sue Stohr - Army +8 Total Videos

3rd Field Hospital, 44th Medical Brigade

The Tet Offensive was a real test for the staff at the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon. Army nurse Sue Stohr was just a month away from rotating home and this last month proved to be very hectic as the wounded poured in. She never left the hospital compound during this time because of fighting in the city. There were no infantry stationed in Saigon and troops had to be rushed in to secure many important locations.
Frank Heiny - Army +10 Total Videos

15th Public Information Detachment, 25th Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade

Not every assignment was about the soldiers, some were about the Vietnamese people they had been sent to protect. Frank Heiny remembers some of the other stories from his time in Vietnam and the effect of what he witnessed there.
Mike Devine - Army +11 Total Videos

Multiple Units

It was an unpopular war, but the mood of the country following his return from Vietnam did not prevent Mike Devine from pursuing a career in the Army. For thirty years, he served in a variety of commands all over the world and never regretted one bit of it.
Tom Seybold - Army +5 Total Videos

582nd Aviation Company, 57th Medical Detachment

Once he arrived in Vietnam, Seybold was ordered to go down to Can Tho. There his job mainly consisted of flying support missions for advisers from the ARVN. As he spent more time there, he noticed how much he disliked being in the Army and wanted to transfer somewhere else. Later on, it was discovered that he had never graduated high school and so he was forced to get his GED through the University of Maryland.
Tony Nadal - Army +16 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment

Tony Nadal is most proud of his time commanding A Company of the 1-7 Cav. The battalion was full of first rate officers because, back when the Army and the Air Force were dueling over who would control the helicopters, the Army wanted to make sure they bested the other branch. They wanted full control of the emerging air mobile concept.
Mike Kenney - Army +8 Total Videos

11th Armored Cavalry Regiment

Mike Kenney was an aviator, but he'd not yet had any military pilot training. He started Airborne school after his basic infantry officer course but, a couple of weeks in, the orders came and he was to report to basic helicopter training. He started on smaller aircraft, then moved on to the Huey, the real workhorse of Vietnam.
David Kirk - Army +3 Total Videos

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

Kirk remembers a close call that he had, as well as a few other mishaps during his missions, such as trouble with his radio.
LTG (Ret) John Le Moyne - Army +15 Total Videos

4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment

Six months after John Le Moyne had battled entire regiments of the NVA in the Tay Ninh area, there were only isolated small groups operating. The war had changed. As a new company commander, he had a lot of questions and he was fortunate to have superiors who were patient.
Jack Swickard - Army +12 Total Videos

118th Assault Helicopter Company

It was a memorable arrival at Mineral Wells for Jack Swickard, who checked into a hotel that turned out to not be a hotel. Once flight school began, he was at the mercy of higher ranking individuals who liked to make him snap to attention.
John Waller - Army

Air Defense Artillery

He was a mathematics major, but John Waller was also an ROTC cadet, and this led to a commission as a new 2nd Lieutenant. The Air Defense Artillery School at Fort Bliss was a lucky assignment for him, though he would have gladly gone to Vietnam if that was his fate. His real goal was to be a math teacher.
Quincy Collins - Air Force +18 Total Videos

80th Tactical Fighter Squadron

Collins talks about his crazy interview with General Frank Everest, and how he got the job almost instantly because of how well they connected. Around this time, his first son was born. After the General retired, he went to chief of staff school at Maxwell Air Force Base.
Mike DiRocco - Army +4 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

During his second tour in Vietnam, Mike DiRocco would be performing many of the same duties, but this time they would be focusing on preparing the people to defend themselves as the Americans prepared to withdraw from Southeast Asia. He wouldn’t leave the country unscathed, though. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, The Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas.- https://theveteransmuseum.org/)
Ollie Maier - Air Force +7 Total Videos

604th Air Commando Squadron

Sadly, at one point Maier lost his flight lead from another mission, named Ron Bond. He talks about how this happened even though he wasn't there to witness it, as well as another mission he flew with Ron when he was still on active duty that was also during the heat of the Tet Offensive.
Zach Johnson - Marines +10 Total Videos

1st Force Reconnaissance Company

Zach Johnson was working as liaison in the regimental combat operations center when he got word of a recon team in contact. They had a prisoner and needed extraction, but the weather had grounded all the helicopters. He secured permission to take off, but when the crew asked if he was coming along, he hesitated. He only had a week to go before rotating out.
Mike Leonard - Air Force +14 Total Videos

21st Tactical Air Support Squadron

On his first tour of Vietnam, pilot Mike Leonard lived in relative luxury in Saigon, enjoying barbecues and water skiing. His second tour was shaping up to be very different. This time he was flying a Cessna Bird Dog as a forward air controller at a forward operating base.
Richard Dorsey - Army +10 Total Videos

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

He was raised by his mother and sisters, so the Army was quite a change for Rich Dorsey. He had a good drill instructor who tried to help mold his men after breaking them down.
Tom Agnew - Army +4 Total Videos

571st Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance)

Something good can still come out of a bad war. Modern EMS was borne from lessons learned in Vietnam by combat medics such as Tom Agnew. He passed on those lessons while training emergency medical personnel in his postwar career. First he had to deal with protestors and a tendency to hit the deck when he heard a loud noise.
Bruce Hojnacki - Army +9 Total Videos

504th Military Police Battalion

It was only twenty miles or so from the DMZ. The province of Quang Tri was where newly arrived MP Bruce Hojnacki landed once he got to Vietnam. Among his duties were raiding the local houses of ill repute and manning the guard bunkers at the Marine base.
Hubert Yoshida - Marines +8 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment

He fully intended to stay in the Marine Corps after his tour in Vietnam but he resigned his commission when he realized the toll it takes on the family at home. He went on to a successful career, still haunted by certain memories from the war.
John Johnson - Army +5 Total Videos

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

When his unit moved further south from the demilitarized zone, John Johnson saw a lot more action. Right away he was involved in an all day firefight which nearly got his platoon wiped out. Poor decision making by his platoon leader led them into it and timely leadership from an unlikely source got them out of it.
Mike Devine - Army +11 Total Videos

25th Infantry Division

It was a dangerous business being an infantry platoon leader in the Vietnam highlands. Mike Devine knew that the enemy would target him because he was always next to the radio operator's tall antenna. He was very close to his RTO and this led to the toughest moment he had to live through during the war.
Bill Knowlton - Army +11 Total Videos

5th Special Forces Group

Coming out of Officer Candidate School, Bill Knowlton would be assigned to the Special Forces which had already done a lot of work in Vietnam. In fact, some members had already done multiple tours there, and he recalls the tragic story of one who was trying to go back to support his comrades. After another long stint of training, he’d get his orders to Vietnam. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, The Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas.- https://theveteransmuseum.org/)
Jesse Tamayo - Army +5 Total Videos

Company C, 1st Medical Battalion

Before Jesse Tamayo was ever in the Army, his father had served before him in WWII. When it was his turn, Tamayo went into the Army and trained to be a medic for the fight in Vietnam. Tamayo believes it was his father's hard parenting style that really motivated him to sign up for the Army, and he is forever grateful for that.
Lee Ellis - Air Force +23 Total Videos

390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366th Tactical Fighter Wing

Ellis talks about the civilian interactions he had that were a little more pleasant, as well as the constant communist propaganda broadcasts he was constantly exposed to from the North Vietnamese Army. He had his first interrogation at a halfway house (Part 1 of 2).
Sar Phouthasack +12 Total Videos

Royal Lao Army, Special Guerrilla Unit (SGU)

Sar Phouthasack has some pointed words for those considering an overseas war. He should know. He lost his home country Laos to the communists during one.