A Vietnam Thanksgiving

[zitiboy]

This is from a captain (company CO) who was in the boonies in Vietnam for a long tour.
It's approaching Thanksgiving, so I think it's timely and illuminating.

"With the exception of a fine turkey dinner delivered in mermite cans, Thanksgiving was just like all the other days. We had no celebration. Patrols, LP's and pre-planned artillery fire were conducted as usual.
War returns men's values to the basics. A good meal, a can of beer, a few hours sleep, and a letter from home were ample reward for seeing another sunrise. The death we observed and inflicted made our own lives that much more precious, but from a "we" and "they" perspective rather than in any appreciation for mankind itself.
Perhaps it was the luxuries of the world which we exchanged for the harshness of the jungle that made us so violent against the enemy. Pilots killed from the air with napalm and bombs, and they returned to air-conditioned clubs to talk of flying rather than destruction. Artillerymen scrambled to man their guns on fire missions that rained death on an unseen enemy, and they returned to half-eaten meals to complain that their food had grown cold. Infrantymen removed gold teeth, and occasionally ears or more from bodies of young men and women who surely must have thought their cause at least as just as we thought ours.
Yet I, like the others, expressed no regret nor remorse except about not being able to kill and destroy even more. I don't know why we were the way we were. The standard justification, that we were fighting for the survival of our comrades and ourselves was true. But we went beyond the means of self-protection with a blood lust that no American mother would recognise nor acknowledge in her son. I never knew a man who admitted liking the war, yet none of us ever seemed to live as intensely as when we were trying to kill our fellows on this planet."

[TennesseeRain]

the average age was 19. Many were drafted. Your beef is with the government, not the soldier.

It has nothing to do with Vietnam. If he has a beef it's with war itself.

[zitiboy]

What beef?
This captain wasn't 19, or drafted.
It's a refreshing bit of truth. Kerry is lambasted by dickheads for telling the truth. He's called a liar.
But facts are stubborn things. People often credit that saying to Lenin, but he got it from T. Jefferson, a liberal.
Lenin was intersted in revolutions.
That captain and his men spent too much time in the bush.
They did alot of nasty stuff, and came close to doing more too.

[dc1]

This is from a captain (company CO) who was in the boonies in Vietnam for a long tour.
It's approaching Thanksgiving, so I think it's timely and illuminating.

"With the exception of a fine turkey dinner delivered in mermite cans, Thanksgiving was just like all the other days. We had no celebration. Patrols, LP's and pre-planned artillery fire were conducted as usual.
War returns men's values to the basics. A good meal, a can of beer, a few hours sleep, and a letter from home were ample reward for seeing another sunrise. The death we observed and inflicted made our own lives that much more precious, but from a "we" and "they" perspective rather than in any appreciation for mankind itself.
Perhaps it was the luxuries of the world which we exchanged for the harshness of the jungle that made us so violent against the enemy. Pilots killed from the air with napalm and bombs, and they returned to air-conditioned clubs to talk of flying rather than destruction. Artillerymen scrambled to man their guns on fire missions that rained death on an unseen enemy, and they returned to half-eaten meals to complain that their food had grown cold. Infrantymen removed gold teeth, and occasionally ears or more from bodies of young men and women who surely must have thought their cause at least as just as we thought ours.
Yet I, like the others, expressed no regret nor remorse except about not being able to kill and destroy even more. I don't know why we were the way we were. The standard justification, that we were fighting for the survival of our comrades and ourselves was true. But we went beyond the means of self-protection with a blood lust that no American mother would recognise nor acknowledge in her son. I never knew a man who admitted liking the war, yet none of us ever seemed to live as intensely as when we were trying to kill our fellows on this planet."

this is the part of the above post that i have a problem with.

<Artillerymen scrambled to man their guns on fire missions that rained death on an unseen enemy, and they returned to half-eaten meals to complain that their food had grown cold.>

The years that i was in country we were we were attempting to make this bird fly [I](Combined Action Program) aka by this acronym CAPs)

We were doing pretty well with it too,we got some of the people in the hooches,and villages giving up a little intel.What CAPs was, was a combined Marine squad with a few local forces to form a village defense platoon.

Sadly CAPs started going down hill after March of 68, after My Lai.Started getting hate stares instead of smiles and waves when we drove by the hooches after My Lai.

[zitiboy]

I'm not sure local's facial expressions on drive-by's are an accurate litmus test for hearts&minds.
The average Vietnamese just wanted to farm and eat. There was no politics behind it.
Zippo their homes, and you won't be on their "to invite" list.

[Stefan Bandera]

I was in the Air Force therefore not a ground pounder nor was I an Air Policeman who did carry 16’s and yes some of them did have an “opportunity” to fire directly at an enemy. As I am writing this 40 years removed from the Vietnam experience as is everyone else as if the OP.

Us Air Force types where issued weapons only when we had to be part of a crew or to go into a remote area. I did avionics for a CARIBOU C-7 detachment and had only one occasion to actually “fly” out to a remote site and was issued a 16 and 60 rounds of ammunition – that’s all and I had to sign for that. I did not get an “opportunity” to fire my weapon. Now as side note this outfit did buy in town from the Vietnamese WW II era weapons such as Grease GUN, Tommies, MI- Carbines and some of us hand illegal side arms ranging from 357’s, 45’s 38 specials etc.

The first attack that I experienced was a sapper attack and they managed to damage a few buildings but no personnel or aircraft were hurt.

I was 21 years old and I was near the stash of the illegal weapons and was given a Grease gun. I recall that I hDt absolute hatred in my head and I was hoping that we would get a chance to kill some Charlie. Never happened!! I have to say that of course I was rooting for the APES and Army guys and Koreans to kill a few of the Cong and if the little Vietnamese was shot at in the course of chasing the sappers I was not concerned if a few of them became collaterals.
Listen guys, as I said we are talking about this forty years after the fact. We need to understand what the state of mind the young “soldiers” were in and understand that the guys on the ground were lead directly by Lieutenants and Captains who were 21 -24 years old.
I would never advocate that the Vietnamese settlement just across the ditch from our base be wiped out on purpose during our response to that attack but if it happened by accident we were not morally or personally responsible for that.

Was there cases of excess and was there that My Lai case – yes but My Lai was a rare incident and any “reasonable” excess that occurred needs to viewed from the perspective of that point in time not second guessing 40 years later.

[zitiboy]

I was in the Air Force therefore not a ground pounder nor was I an Air Policeman who did carry 16’s and yes some of them did have an “opportunity” to fire directly at an enemy. As I am writing this 40 years removed from the Vietnam experience as is everyone else as if the OP.

Us Air Force types where issued weapons only when we had to be part of a crew or to go into a remote area. I did avionics for a CARIBOU C-7 detachment and had only one occasion to actually “fly” out to a remote site and was issued a 16 and 60 rounds of ammunition – that’s all and I had to sign for that. I did not get an “opportunity” to fire my weapon. Now as side note this outfit did buy in town from the Vietnamese WW II era weapons such as Grease GUN, Tommies, MI- Carbines and some of us hand illegal side arms ranging from 357’s, 45’s 38 specials etc.

The first attack that I experienced was a sapper attack and they managed to damage a few buildings but no personnel or aircraft were hurt.

I was 21 years old and I was near the stash of the illegal weapons and was given a Grease gun. I recall that I hDt absolute hatred in my head and I was hoping that we would get a chance to kill some Charlie. Never happened!! I have to say that of course I was rooting for the APES and Army guys and Koreans to kill a few of the Cong and if the little Vietnamese was shot at in the course of chasing the sappers I was not concerned if a few of them became collaterals.
Listen guys, as I said we are talking about this forty years after the fact. We need to understand what the state of mind the young “soldiers” were in and understand that the guys on the ground were lead directly by Lieutenants and Captains who were 21 -24 years old.
I would never advocate that the Vietnamese settlement just across the ditch from our base be wiped out on purpose during our response to that attack but if it happened by accident we were not morally or personally responsible for that.

Was there cases of excess and was there that My Lai case – yes but My Lai was a rare incident and any “reasonable” excess that occurred needs to viewed from the perspective of that point in time not second guessing 40 years later.

I have to question everything you've said when you say stuff like "my lai was a rare incident".
The passage I posted was from a CC who had been in the boonies for longer than a year, the CC's were asked to rotate to the rear after 6 to 8 months rather than more like the grunts, because they were under more stress and had more responsibility. He bucked tradition and stayed longer than a year. I read this diary, like so many other first-hand accounts, and this guy almost wiped out groups of civilians, he wanted to, and probably did but didn't choose to publish it. The stories are plenty. Anyone who thinks cases of war crimes and atrocities were "rare" knows nothing about the Vietnam war. And no, there's no fucking excuse.
I knew the guys as they rotated home, and spoke with them at length.

I was in the barracks with them when they came home.....anybody who thinks "War" is "civilized" and should be fought by the "Marques De Queensberry" rules is simply not living in the real world. That isn't real is the luxuory of the armchair warrior.