Has anyone in here experienced the vietnam war? How did you feel throughout the experience and do you beleive that it was a continuation of the cold war?
2007-10-09 10:46:28 · 7 answers · asked by . . . . 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
I was in 'Nam for two tours in '66 and '67 in the Highlands with the Hmong. We fought with old weapons, the Hmong fought with spears, you name it. I was there for two years.
How did I feel, I was scared to death, I was 18 years old. This was the first time I was away from home. I never saw a tree this high in my life and didn't know what a temp over 100 was like.
I was wounded twice and had to stay there. Instead of being taken back, we had to fight our way all the way back to friendly lines, every mile getting shot at. How do I feel.
They shot at you, when I got home, I was spit on, I was called names. We were brought to an empty hanger and given civilian clothes to wear and told not to tell anyone where we were. We couldn't shoot back at home.
That's what made me sick, I thought we were doing a job for our country but, our country didn't even want to recognize us. I grew up fast and angry. I moved into the woods away from people and didn't come out for thirty years. Some of us didn't get out benefits for over twenty years.
2007-10-09 11:09:15 · answer #1 · answered by cowboydoc 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
By "experienced the Vietnam war" do you mean fought in it? Then no, not me. Do you mean was I an adult exposed to the Vietnam war? Yes, I was. In fact, I lived in the Hash-bury from 1965 til 1967, right in the midst of things. It was a hell of a time for the US. Things were much, much different then. Cold war? We didn't think about the cold war. We didn't have a clue what the war was about. In fact, there were song lyrics: "One, two, three, four...What are we fighting for?" We baby boomers were just coming of age, and we were, most of us, not nearly as savvy as young people today. I lament our generation, really I do. Had we been a bit more sophisticated; had we known how to organize, we were the largest voting block ever to hit the USA. We could have changed the world, and we didn't know how. Now, I worry that we are all too jaded and tired to try again. Did I know anyone who went to Vietnam? Yes I did. I just never knew anybody who came back.
2007-10-09 18:02:13 · answer #2 · answered by claudiacake 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Cold War was after WWII. It was a continuation of the cold war just as was the Korean war and all the fighting over in the arab countries before the eventual fall of the Soviets.
2007-10-09 17:50:15 · answer #3 · answered by allthatsolid 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i wasnt in 'the nam', but 2 of my co-workers were.
1 was a door gunner of a huey for 1 tour, '67-68. he said the amount of fire the choppers would attract when coming into a hot LZ was incredible. the phrase 'hell on earth' would be an understatement. the vc were getting ingenious in coming up different ways to take down a chopper; from waiting at the last moment and ambushing with rpg's, to rigging up claymore-type homemade mines triggered by the chopper's rotor wash. they would shoot at practically everything on sight....anyone could have been a vc.
the other was a grunt in the '65-'66 tour. he said at first, unless u were shot at, u didnt shoot.....that practice soon became non-existant. napalm was used extensively to burn out jungle. his patrols often found vc/nva in spider holes dead after some napalm strikes; the napalm sucked out all the oxygen, and suffocated them in the spider holes.
both of these guys thought the way the war was handled was a complete clusterf--k. alvin saw many of his buddies choppers ripped to pieces in under a minute by nva/vc fire.
gary on the other hand, to this day, he cant handle the 4th of july fireworks show. it takes him back to being under artillery and morter fire. the 'grand finale' he said, caused a flashback of what it was like to be in the vicinity of an artillery strike; and in the nam, artillery was often called in 'danger close' in support of friendlies. arty was so close, a mistake could cause a round to land on top of friendlies.
2007-10-09 20:08:04 · answer #4 · answered by buck and dot 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
At the time I was in the service '67 to '71 I went to Viet Nam 3 and a half times. Last time was only for a few months. We didn't worry about that stuff, we just wanted to survive to come home in one piece.
2007-10-09 17:50:46 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Cold War was after Nam.
Those chanks gained everythang and we gained nothing from the war
2007-10-09 17:48:49 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
that is not anything we thought about we just wanted to get out of there alive
2007-10-09 17:57:04 · answer #7 · answered by ektdeul50 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋