If you read the book before the movie came out,....good on ya, but

[Rougarou]

Joe Galloway has passed

 

The book I'm referring to is We Were Soldiers Once,....and Young

[RogerC60]

Thanks, this book has been on the edges of my to-read radar, but now I added the audiobook to my next-in-line checkouts list.

[BrianT]

10 hours ago, RogerC60 said:

Thanks, this book has been on the edges of my to-read radar, but now I added the audiobook to my next-in-line checkouts list.

Book way better than the movie, like usual.  Read it years before the movie came out and was glad I did.  You won't be disappointed.  Nice view into how Air Cav started.

[big-t]

Luck was on my side back then.I was in the 11th armored cav stationed at FT Meade MD.The year before that in kaiserslautern Germany I was in the 3rd Armored Cav,mostly doing duty along East/west German border.We should have known something was up when the complete unit traded places with the 11th cav in the states.No equipment moved,just personnel.Hmmm! Months after that  my name came up on orders to Korea.On the departure date being an E-5, entitled me to sign out at Midnight.12;01 I was out the door, on my way home to spend as much time as possible with the wife before leaving.3 months later on I found out at 6:00 am on the departure morning all transfer orders had been canceled and the complete unit was turned into a Air-Cav unit and sent to Viet-nam.had I waited till morning before leaving I probably wouldn't be typing this today

i think about that often and wonder how many of my friends were not as lucky.....

[roadscholar]

I was also the beneficiary of lucky timing/college deferment and a high draft lottery number and feel the same way, likely woudn't have made it back from Vietnam. I knew a guy that was a conscientious objector, another buddy dropped a bowling ball on his foot to stay out then later joined the Marines. Greg Allman (he and Duane lived down the street) shot himself to stay out. At the time it wasn't seen as unpatriotic or even frowned upon, but what it actually was, bad politics when a lot of good people were dying needlessly.

 

 

[Rougarou]

Here's your numbers

91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served [Westmoreland]

74% said they would serve again even knowing the outcome [Westmoreland]

 

58k dead over ten years,.......that's good odds.    Read A Life in a Year  The American Infantryman in Vietnam  The author gives pretty good insight as to how often he saw firefights.

 

Your chances of surviving Vietnam were good.  The percentage of casualties in Vietnam were similar to other wars, although the survival rate was much better due to mobility of helos. 

 

I don't think anyone can say with any certainty that had they went to Vietnam (or any combat zone) that they would not have made it back.

[TEWKS]

1 hour ago, Rougarou said:

I don't think anyone can say with any certainty that had they went to Vietnam (or any combat zone) that they would not have made it back

Not to rebut. 

Robert E. Spires a neighborhood kid told my dad he wasn’t going to make it back from Vietnam. He was right. (he and his brother Ricky use to work odd jobs for my father as young teens)

 

His Marine brother Ricky came back minus one leg. I drive by this picture spot several times a day and I often look at where they stood. I was about four years old when this was snapped. The neighbor in the house behind them is still there. Mrs. D, she’s 94 years old. 

[Skywagon]

Thanks for the book reminder.  Will be on my list soon.  Two in front of it.  I didn't realize he was from Refugio.  I pass through that small town at least a couple of times a month on my way to go fishing.  I'll see if I can find a memorial.  If so, will take pictures and post up.

[roadscholar]

4 hours ago, Rougarou said:

Here's your numbers

91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served [Westmoreland]

74% said they would serve again even knowing the outcome [Westmoreland]

 

58k dead over ten years,.......that's good odds.    Read A Life in a Year  The American Infantryman in Vietnam  The author gives pretty good insight as to how often he saw firefights.

 

Your chances of surviving Vietnam were good.  The percentage of casualties in Vietnam were similar to other wars, although the survival rate was much better due to mobility of helos. 

 

I don't think anyone can say with any certainty that had they went to Vietnam (or any combat zone) that they would not have made it back.

 

91% and 74% of the ones that made it back, sure they did/would, ask the ones that didn’t if they’d do it again. Hindsight is easy, foresight not so much.

 

Similar to what other wars, WWII? Different technology and reasons for fighting, one was for all the marbles, the other very little, an ideology at best. We fought WWII with everything we had, we fought Vietnam with one hand tied behind our back, apples and oranges. 

 

Certainty, nothing is certain but thru the eyes of a 19yo in 1967 the prospects certainly didn’t look good. 

 

 

[Rougarou]

8 hours ago, TEWKS said:

Not to rebut. 

Robert E. Spires a neighborhood kid told my dad he wasn’t going to make it back from Vietnam. He was right. (he and his brother Ricky use to work odd jobs for my father as young teens)

 

His Marine brother Ricky came back minus one leg. I drive by this picture spot several times a day and I often look at where they stood. I was about four years old when this was snapped. The neighbor in the house behind them is still there. Mrs. D, she’s 94 years old. 

 

Sorry Pat, but that wasn't a certainty, that was a statement of a young guy going to war making a call on what he's seen on the TV set.  I've known a few folks that have gone into the throws of Fallujah, none that went had ever said they weren't going to come back, but many didn't. 

 

7 hours ago, roadscholar said:

 

91% and 74% of the ones that made it back, sure they did/would, ask the ones that didn’t if they’d do it again. Hindsight is easy, foresight not so much.

 

Similar to what other wars, WWII? Different technology and reasons for fighting, one was for all the marbles, the other very little, an ideology at best. We fought WWII with everything we had, we fought Vietnam with one hand tied behind our back, apples and oranges. 

 

Certainty, nothing is certain but thru the eyes of a 19yo in 1967 the prospects certainly didn’t look good. 

 

 

 

No, its not apples and oranges, read the books on the battles, not the politics involved.  Firefights are not one hand behind your back, no matter the political problems of the war.  I was comparing that casualty rates were similar to other wars, not the political agenda.

 

Vietnam was the first media war, where the war was on your doorstep daily.  And, as the media goes, you were going to see the worst of the issues in the field.  So yes, a 19yo may see it as bleak when all he sees is the negativity of it.   

 

Would you have rather served in WWII?

"In Vietnam, the figure was one death for every 58 who deployed, and in both World War I and World War II it was around one per 40. During the Civil War it was one per 5."

(It appears that your chances of survival in Vietnam were quite better than WWII and WWI)

 

Less  3% died overall in Vietnam,                    if people can predict a 3% occurrence, please, I want to know specifically who these folks are 'cause I want them working as meteorologist.   Don't let the sensationalism of the media tell the story of what really happened and the real numbers.  Books by those that were there that cover the period they were there give a clearer picture.  Books about specific battles, (TET Offensive/Hue City, Khe Sanh, Ia Drang) were about battles, not the overall picture of life there.  Even if you were drafted,....there's no guarantee that you would be an 11B or 03 type, you could have been a REMF.

[mickeym3]

100% of the politicians who sent and kept our troops there escaped unscathed...

 

 

[TEWKS]

Sad but Interesting facts there.
 

I think the worst place to have been recorded in the history of that war was here. 

 

The Last Two 

I understand you have to continue the fight till you’re told to stop, but, It was way over at that point.

[mickeym3]

"They did not know even the simple things: a sense of victory, or satisfaction, or necessary sacrifice. They did not know the feeling of taking a place and keeping it, securing a village and then raising the flag and calling it a victory. No sense of order or momentum. No front, no rear, no trenches laid out in neat parallels. No Patton rushing for the Rhine, no beachheads to storm and win and hold for the duration. They did not have targets. They did not have a cause. They did not know if it was a war of ideology or economics or hegemony or spite. On a given day, they did not know where they were in Quang Ngai or how being there might influence larger outcomes. They did not know the names of most villages. They did not know which villages were critical. They did not know strategies. They did not know the terms of the war, its architecture, the rules of fair play. When they took prisoners, which was rare, they did not know the questions to ask, whether to release a suspect or beat on him. They did not know how to feel. Whether, when seeing a dead Vietnamese, to be happy or sad or relieved; whether, in times of quiet, to be apprehensive or content; whether to engage the enemy or elude him. They did not know how to feel when they saw villages burning. Revenge? Loss? Peace of mind or anguish? They did not know.

They knew the old myths about Quang Ngai -- tales passed down from old-timer to newcomer -- but they did not know which stories to believe.  
Magic, mystery, ghosts and incense, whispers in the dark, strange tongues and strange smells, uncertainties never articulated in war stories, emotion squandered on ignorance.  

They did not know good from evil."

 

This passage from one of Tim O'Brien's books on the war.

[TEWKS]

Wow, I was just about to say get that shit to the printer, pronto!  

[roadscholar]

8 hours ago, Rougarou said:

No, its not apples and oranges, read the books on the battles, not the politics involved.  Firefights are not one hand behind your back, no matter the political problems of the war.  I was comparing that casualty rates were similar to other wars, not the political agenda.

 

Missed the point, I wasn't referring to firefights or battles but the big picture of the war. By one hand behind the back I meant by then we had the ability to level Hanoi if desired, what the consequences or ramifications would've been who knows but it wouldn't have cost those 58,000 American lives.

 

8 hours ago, Rougarou said:

Vietnam was the first media war, where the war was on your doorstep daily.  And, as the media goes, you were going to see the worst of the issues in the field.  So yes, a 19yo may see it as bleak when all he sees is the negativity of it.   

 

Sorry don't see it that way, they were just standing there filming a war even tho I'm sure some of the less gruesome scenes were left on the editing room floor, after all it was an unpopular war back home but at the same time there was nothing good about it.  

 

8 hours ago, Rougarou said:

Would you have rather served in WWII?

"In Vietnam, the figure was one death for every 58 who deployed, and in both World War I and World War II it was around one per 40. During the Civil War it was one per 5."

(It appears that your chances of survival in Vietnam were quite better than WWII and WWI)

 

Back to the original point, with every successive war the advance in technology is huge so ground fighting casualties should drop significantly for each. There were no P-51's in the Civil War and there were no drones, laser guided, or cruise missiles in Vietnam but we still fought like it was WWII with ground troops instead of unleashing all the tech available. And that's where politics come in as it always does, evidently you can't have a war without it, for good or bad it's how this country is run.

 

If anyone's interested in how we got into Vietnam and why we stayed so long this is pretty enlightening..

 

https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/content/Vietnam 

 

  

[Rougarou]

1 hour ago, roadscholar said:

I was also the beneficiary of lucky timing/college deferment and a high draft lottery number and feel the same way, likely woudn't have made it back from Vietnam.  

 

Your original point was that you "may have not made it back", keep the whole political spectrum out of it and concentrate on the battles that were fought and your original reply to "likely not making it back", which I ws replying to-not the political issues of the war.  And of Vietnam, your likelihood of survival was 97%, you have no guarantee of knowing if you would have been infantry or intelligence or administration.  To say that you likely wouldn't make it back from Vietnam would be akin to Pat saying he won't make it out of a house fire, or a logger saying they won't make it out of the forest, you simply do not know and cannot predict that issue.

 

 

 

 

[Hosstage]

Whether I had a 97% chance of coming out alive or not, I'm so glad I never had to go.

For those that did, very few came out undamaged. I have all the respect and honor I can give. 

[Rougarou]

7 hours ago, Hosstage said:

 

 

For those that did, very few came out undamaged. I have all the respect and honor I can give. 

 

PTSD affects many combat vets.......used to be referred to as shell shock or being "cowardly",....many advances have been made, but PTSD still exist, it's just how to cope with it.