My Experience In Combat In The Vietnam War

We were there to assist the South Vietnamese People who were trying to save their country from the invasion of the Communist North Vietnam that was attempting to unify the entire country under communist rule. The South Vietnamese people did not want to live under communism.

We flew many missions in support of the South Vietnamese Army (The ARVINs Army Of South Vietnam).

The ARVIN RANGERS (LRRPs) – Some Brave Soldiers

We did a few operations with the Rangers that sure gained my respect. They were LRRP (Long Range Recon Patrol and I think Airborne also).

We flew some night insertion missions with the Rangers that were intel gathering missions. The ARVIN Rangers were dressed up in typical “Viet Cong” dress and weapons ) –

Who Were The VIET CONG?

(Viet Cong (VC) (The communist guerrilla forces in South Vietnam, NLF. Viet Minh Shortened term for the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for the Independence of Vietnam), the organization established by Ho Chi Minh in 1941 to gain independence for Vietnam from France).

The Ranger’s mission was to find and go into the Viet Cong camps and gain info (they were spies).

Our mission was to insert the Rangers into areas of the jungle were there were suspected enemy encampments.

We would arrive over these areas at 03:00 hours with no position lights on the Huey (a bit dangerous), and insert the Rangers down by rope because the hardwood trees could be 75 feet high.

We would return 3 nights later at the same time to pick them up. That in itself was very scary because we never knew if it was going to be our ARVIN Ranger or an enemy Viet Cong coming up.

We found that we got very few of our guys back returning (were they captured or killed?) So those missions were soon discontinued.

From My Perspective In Summation

In my tour and one half I never saw anything like you saw in the movies “Apocalypse Now” or “Platoon”. Now I must admit, we were first in and it could have happened later after I left.

The war was fought under pretty strict rules of engagement when I was there. Usually we would need to receive enemy fire to return fire. That led to more than a few bullet holes in our Hueys. As I stated before, that was when I was there.

 A Different View Of The Vietnam War

In closing, we Soldiers and Marines gave our all, and many gave their lives, for what? To be spit on when we returned to the good old USA?

We won the hard fought battle of Tet, and then had the rug pulled out from under us by a bunch of Dirtbag Politicians back home in Washington D.C.

Unfortunatly, over the years wars have become driven by a political agenda, and those doing the fighting are at the mercy of a bunch of dirtbag politicians back in Washington D.C. that are only driven by money that they can get from the Military Industrial Complex.