COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

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  Lee Ellis - Air Force +23 Total Videos

  390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366th Tactical Fighter Wing

  Lee Ellis grew up near Athens, Georgia, and was inspired to be a pilot at a young age after climbing up in an old fighter plane in a veterans park. When the Korean War was going on, he was only 9 years old. He joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at the University of Georgia the first chance he got and went to flight school in Valdosta. He was commissioned in Southeast Asia and endured survival training before arriving in Vietnam in July of 1967.

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  Ray Fairman - Marines +10 Total Videos

  Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 (VMFA-314)

  While he was in Vietnam, Ray Fairman had a few unfortunate events happen to and near him. One of those being a destructive Vietnamese attack on the airplanes resting at his base.

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  Mike Kenney - Army +8 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  He totaled up a lot of hours flying in Vietnam, but pilot Mike Kenney wasn't done with the service. After flying for Military Intelligence during his second tour, he made a career out of that field and worked in important posts all over the world.

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  336th Assault Helicopter Company

  You got the lesser USO shows down in the Delta. Instead of Bob Hope and show girls, you got Martha Raye. Bob Stewart was a little disappointed with the lineup but the lady surprised him the next day when she helped treat the wounded.

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  Bob Havens - Navy +9 Total Videos

  Patrol Squadron 44 (VP-44)

  After a freezing boot camp at Great Lakes and photo intelligence school in Denver, Bob Havens was assigned to a patrol squadron in Maryland. The unit shadowed and tracked Russian trawlers and submarines off the East coast.

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  Dave Oliver - Air Force +11 Total Videos

  37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron

  Dave Oliver thought he was going to die right then and there before he even had a chance to pilot a helicopter. It was the unluckiest of arrival dates in Vietnam, the night the infamous Tet Offensive began. When he emerged from the bunker, he was sent to Da Nang, where his job was rescue and recovery.

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  Frank Heiny - Army +10 Total Videos

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

  Frank Heiny discusses working with the civilian media organizations in Vietnam, and having some of his work trickle out into broader publication.

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  Henry Choy - Navy +6 Total Videos

  Naval Advisory Group

  After a year of working on different buildings in Vietnam, Choy had completed his first tour. He returned home and began taking classes at the community college for his degree in animal technology. He used his extra year to get his teaching certification and wound up teaching science at his old high school. After that, he joined the National Guard, and it was around this time that he learned that he would be called to duty in Iraq.

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  Alex Ortolano - Army +7 Total Videos

  57 Medical Detachment

  Lt. Ortolano recalls many memorable Dust Off pilots during and before his time, some of which include Patrick Brady and Charles Kelly. He believes it's worth taking the time to talk about these individuals because of the sacrifices they made for the unit and for the people they saved.

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  Gen Richard B. Myers - Air Force +5 Total Videos

  13th Tactical Fighter Squadron

  Born in Kansas, Gen Myers had your typical, American childhood post-WWII. He was able to go to college, but like many schools at the time, he'd be required to join the ROTC where he'd learn to fly. With the draft ramping up and the opportunity to fly fighters, he made the choice to commit to the U.S. Air Force at the brink of the Vietnam War. (Interview conducted in partnership with the Eisenhower Foundation as part of their Ike's Soldiers program. https://eisenhowerfoundation.net & http://ikessoldiers.com)

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  BG Robert L. Stewart - Army +16 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  After an Opie from Mayberry upbringing, Bob Stewart came out of ROTC to get an Army commission. He was already a pilot, so he had his eye on becoming one in the largest air force in the world.

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  Alex Ortolano - Army +7 Total Videos

  57 Medical Detachment

  Lt. Ortolano remembers a man by the name of Michael Novosel, who was able to accomplish a lot in his time with Dust Off despite the odds of even getting into flight school going against him.

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  Lee Ellis - Air Force +23 Total Videos

  390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366th Tactical Fighter Wing

  Ellis talks about carrying rocket pods on his planes, and the fact that accidents did happen while flying like minor engine trouble but he rarely saw any. While over there he did lose some friends he was close with during their pilot training, and he explains a bit of what it's like coping with the grief while still fighting in the war zone.

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  Keith Nightingale - Army +27 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

  They tried to assign him as a MACV advisor again for his 2nd tour of Vietnam but Keith Nightingale wasn't having it. He knocked on doors and networked until he got the job he wanted as commander of a rifle company. When he got back in country, he found a scene of utter devastation at his unit's base camp in the A Shau Valley. (Caution: strong language.)

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  Al Stiles - Navy +16 Total Videos

  USS Manley (DD-940)

  While transiting the Mediterranean, the USS Manley stopped in Crete, where the crew got some liberty and a taste of the local beverage, ouzo. Al Stiles recalls the potentially embarrassing departure from the port which became an apparently graceful bit of ship handling.

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  Jim Littig - Army +14 Total Videos

  505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division

  Newly minted lieutenant Jim Littig was given a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol unit just as the 82nd Airborne prepared to deploy to Vietnam. His team was highly experienced and even included what could only be described as soldiers of fortune.

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  John Johnson - Army +5 Total Videos

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

  John Johnson had been in Vietnam about thirty minutes when he got mortared for the first time. For the first few days, he had some very unpleasant duty, then it was off to the field with the 1st Air Cavalry. As soon as he was assigned to a machine gun platoon, he was given the nickname "Snag."

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  LTG (Ret) Robert T. Clark - Army +15 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry (Airmobile), 1st Cavalry Division

  During an air assault into an area with a bunker complex, a common sense rule of landing zones was ignored. You don't keep using the same one over and over. Bob Clark was in charge of the last platoon out and this mistake cost them.

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  Bernardo Lopez - Marines +11 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Wounded twice in Vietnam, Bernardo Lopez was now in Hawaii meeting his future wife and trying to readjust. He had quit writing his mother and this caused her some distress. He had developed a bad case of avoidance but was already having a bad experience with the most likey source of help, the VA.

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  Henry Choy - Navy +6 Total Videos

  Navy Seabees

  Henry Choy applied to the Navy as a carpenter, but instead wound up going to steelworker school. He remembers the difficult tests and exercises during his basic training. Afterwards, he was sent to a mock POW camp to get used to that environment.

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  Richard Dorsey - Army +10 Total Videos

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

  There was little activity up by the DMZ, so Rich Dorsey's unit was moved further south, near the Cambodian border. This area was hot, as he found out on his first patrol which also turned out to be his first big firefight. Part 1 of 3.

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  Rick Hilton - Air Force +11 Total Videos

  497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing

  It was a memorable mission. Rick Hilton spotted two trucks, sitting ducks on the road. As he rolled in to strike, guns on either side of him opened up. It was a trap. The pilots had to fly a hundred missions to make up a tour, which led to one of them making a memorable comment during a lecture from the flight surgeon about smoking.

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  Bob Hyatt - Army +9 Total Videos

  5th Special Forces Group

  It wasn't just the Viet Cong who spread booby traps in Vietnam. Bob Hyatt describes a type of mine that sent out trip wires in multiple directions. It was advanced technology for the time but it was prone to being taken and used by the enemy.

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  Harold Sterrett - Air Force +13 Total Videos

  7th Air Force Headquarters

  Each service was responsible for a certain part of the air war in Vietnam and the inter-service politics caused a lot of stress, recalls Air Force intelligence officer Rollie Sterrett. He was the Air Force's briefing officer for Gen. William Westmoreland's daily briefings. The famous general and the young lieutenant took a liking to each other.

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  Mike Leonard - Air Force +14 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  He wanted more money. Mike Leonard had been a crew member in the back of Lockheed Constellations and, when he found out how much flight pay for pilots was, he had to become one. He was accepted and headed off to flight school.

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  Terry Caskey - Army +10 Total Videos

  Multiple Units

  In the operating rooms in Vietnam, they wore masks, of course, and when Terry Caskey met one of the nurses years later at a reunion, she recognized him by his eyes. The reunions help him cope with the memories of that time, like the case of the triple amputee whose life they saved but who was not yet safe from the enemy.

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  Bob Hyatt - Army +9 Total Videos

  5th Special Forces Group

  Bob Hyatt was in transit to Vietnam when he and his buddies decided to go out on the town in San Francisco. It was going well until a belligerent anti-war protestor accosted them outside a club. He was against the war but he had a gun.

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  Debby Moore - Army +5 Total Videos

  Army Special Services

  Debby Moore will never forget the mortar attacks she heard off in the distance. It eventually became so common that she began to easily tell the difference between incoming and outgoing mortars. When they got a new doctor, she had to help him calm down when he thought outgoing mortars were incoming. She also talks about the dangers facing women in country, which people often don't know about.

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  Richard Dorsey - Army +10 Total Videos

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

  Rich Dorsey hated the stigma that was unfairly attached to all Vietnam veterans. He found a way to help correct that impression

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  Lee Ellis - Air Force +23 Total Videos

  390th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366th Tactical Fighter Wing

  After Ellis was captured, he was put in a barn-like building. During that time the North Vietnamese had a "political pep-rally" to celebrate the capture of these American pilots, and it was the duty of their guards to make sure that they got to Hanoi.