A Day Late…
I rarely check in to FB, thus I missed this post yesterday on the Lt General Hal Moore page.
I didn’t get there until January 1966 so Ia Drang was already history of a sort. From off-shore the battles were simply lights in the nighttime sky on occasion. That and listening to some aircrew member our chopper had picked up talking about where he’d been when he got shot down.
I’ve watched the movie as I suspect many here have. Some of us share the Vietnam Service Award, but the only memories we can actually share are those of coming home.
I could stretch this out, but with Jonn’s indulgence I’ll leave this fairly short.
History ignored has a funny way of repeating itself so reminders serve a purpose for those few who pay attention.
Category: Geezer Alert!
History ignored has a way of repeating itself….
You got that right, Zero.
THANK YOU ZERO AND EVERYONE WHO EVER SERVED. I watched the movie with Gibson as SM HAL MOORE. We were humbled and grateful. This is only the second movie I have watched about Vietnam and our brothers and fathers.
I still haven’t seen Band of Brothers, Deer Hunter or any other war movie. It’s not that I am scared, grossed out, etc. I just can’t handle our military personnel dying. My crew said that I should watch all the movies and get a better understanding. I pulled out the box of papers I started writing about my fathers stories, they never knew I wrote. Each read it and then said we understand. They heard their Opas stories that he wanted them to know, the funny thing about how they tricked, blew up bridges, etc. “WAR IS NOT GOOD FOR CHILDREN OR EVERY LIVING THING” one of the signs I carried in Frisco along with “BRING OUR FATHERS AND BROTHERS HOME”. I hate that I was too young to do anything except to see our guys who left or came home with hugs at the airport. I hated the losers who spit and yelled the most horrible things to those that came home, but even worse to the ones leaving. I wish I could go back in time and be able to stop every war. I wish SSGT James M RAY FROM RHODE ISLAND WOULD COME HOME.
All I can do is thank those who did, pray the others who are serving and wait for Jimmy to come home. GOD BLESS AMERICA
Ninth Cav!
Actualy, I meant 7th. But…. 3rd Brigade!!
In the movie, as you see the artillery firing (it’s about a 5 second scene)….that’s me on the last gun, pulling the string 🙂
We used live 105mm HE ammo, because we talked Mr Wallace into NOT using big smoky blanks, as nearly every Vet knows what real ammo smoke and cannon recoil looks like.
It took us 2 months to find operable M101’s, and enough parts to repair all of them. One came from the Twenty Nine Palms impact area. Two were salute guns, that we had to carefully grind out the weld marks that prevented them from firing live ammo. We used firing pins from M75 pack Howitzers, and tires stolen from a museum jeep. We test fired them all at Camp Roberts Ca., using a 100′ lanyard, as we all hid behind a massive oak tree 😀
Good ol’ Camp Bob! My AG on the 81mm mortar base gun left part of his hand and his index finger out there one night in a wicked live fire incident.
You’re Old Manchu?
So am I, Co A 4Bn (‘Th Inf Rgt, Ft Wainwright Alaska. 1974-76.
I fought the cold war up there…
I lost…
It’s still cold as hell up there…
The Hawk will getcha rookie !!!
Should be 9’th Inf Rgt…
Yes sir. I was 2/9 Infantry. 7th Division (Light). 1989 – 1992.
My AG was one of the best on the 81mm. A freak hang round (that loosed itself) during a large fire for effect at night got him though. Split second timing.
Spent a lot of time down there in the 70’s when I was with the 6/80th FA since we couldn’t do any live fire at Ft. Ord. We had a mixed Bn of three Btry of 155A2’s and one Btry of M110 8″. Always a fun time. Once we had the guns laid out nearly 180° from the impact area and a chaplain in a jeep nearly caught the first round on his way from garrison to the field. Another time we lost a howitzer being sling loaded under a Chinook when it chafed through the sling on approach to the LZ. I never knew a tube could bend that way. We were our own worst enemies… And to think we had silver bullets back then, too! I was a 13E back then with slipsticks, firing tables, RDP’s, and the world’s largest rarely functioning calculator the FADAC.
Good times! We were live firing once and had a 105mm arty short round about 100m in front of our mortar tubes. “Check Fire” was all I heard from the FDC for the next 30 seconds. Lol.
I hate to take issue with a true hero like LTG Moore, but the good General is a bit off here – historically speaking.
The US direct ground war in Vietnam started nearly 4 months prior to 29 July 1965. In March 1965, US Marine Corps ground combat units went ashore at Da Nang to provide area defense for installations in the Da Nang area. Further, the 1st Air Cav wasn’t the first US Army ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. The 173rd Airborne was deployed in May 1965. It was deployed from Okinawa, so it didn’t get anywhere near as much press as did deployments from CONUS.
July 1965 does, however, mark the point at which LBJ began his massive increase of US combat forces in Vietnam. So in that respect, it was a major change in the nature of that war.
Prior to that point, my recollection is that total US forces in Vietnam numbered well under 90,000 – I’m pretty sure that McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty gives the number, but I’ve temporarily mislaid my copy and can’t give a more precise figure – with most at that point being air, logistical, and other support troops. That itself was a large increase from the end of 1964, when US troop levels in Vietnam were substantially less than 24,000.
By the end of 1965, US forces had more than doubled from their July level, numbering 184,300 – and now included large numbers of US ground combat forces. US forces in Vietnam more than doubled again in 1966; added another 100,000 in 1967; and numbered 536,000+ at the end of 1968.
LBJ engineered his 1965 escalation of the war largely without consulting Congress or the American public. So if there is any one individual who is primarily responsible for the “US War in Vietnam” from 1965-1973, that would be LBJ. McNamara merely executed and enabled what the POTUS ordered.
The common canard is that LBJ got us into the war… believe in point of fact Mr. Truman started us out sending advisers to the French Indochina conflict as early as I believe 1949. LBJ sure as hell escalated it, though.
Picky point – REB – Mel Gibson played Colonel Moore. Sergeant Major Plumley was played by Sam Elliott.
Horsedung. LBJ is responsible for getting the US into a major war in Vietnam.
Prior to 1965, we could have walked away. We had only a relative handful of troops (<24,000) deployed in the entire country. Many were support and aviation; the rest were advisors (who nontheless often got shot at). Casualties to that point had been exceptionally low.
LBJ changed that in 1965. By the end of 1965, we had nearly 185,000 total troops - including, as I recall, multiple combat divisions - deployed. At that point, we were now decisively engaged, in terms of both troops and national prestige. Walking away was no longer an option.
I stand by my statement. LBJ is responsible for what is considered the US "Vietnam War" from 1965-1973. LBJ decides to walk away - and until LBJ decided to ramp things up in 1965, the US still could have - the Vietnam War as we commonly know it doesn't freaking happen.
I always thought the small boat attack on the USS Turner Joy was considered the catalyst for full scale operations.
Not really. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (really 2 separate “attacks”, the 2nd of which – the attack on the USS TURNER JOY – almost certainly never happened) was used by the LBJ administration to engineer what was later termed a “functional declaration of war” (but not a legal one from Congress). However, while the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave LBJ the legal authority to deploy forces and conduct military operations in Vietnam, it did not lead to either a major US buildup or a massive increase in hostilities for nearly a year.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred in August 1964 – immediately before a US presidential election. LBJ ordered a few limited bombing attacks to “look tough”, and trump Goldwater on the issue. Then he shut down aerial operations against the North, and lay low until after the election – so that he could show “restraint”. Air operations weren’t resumed until Feb 1965. And there was also no massive introduction of US ground forces at that time.
If you want an event to consider a catalyst, the mortar attack on the US airfield at Camp Holloway (vic Pleiku) in Feb 1965 would be a better choice. That caused Johnson to order air operations against North Vietnam beginning less than 12 hours later – during a visit by Soviet Premier Kosygin to North Vietnam.
Kosygin was kinda p!ssed at the US bombing North Vietnam while he was there. He signed an agreement to provide military support to North Vietnam about 2 months later (which included SAM systems, other ADA systems, and radars). The US also started increasing forces bound for South Vietnam in the aftermath of the Camp Holloway attacks; the USMC elements deployed to protect US facilities in the Da Nang area arrived about 1 month afterwards.