Post

[hornet32]

People get off your ass and post something INTERESTING FOR A CHANGE I'm tired of carrying the load .

[Swampy]

I'm always posting, and I hope they are interesting. But I'll be back soon, and I'll begin again. And thanks for posting - perhaps you can bring some of your fellow vets here, to give us more traffic.

[hornet32]

Swampy its very hard to brings vets to a military forum that's anything but military , I've suggested to a few but they were not interested , I belong to a Vietnam Vet forum and a Civil war forum both are military oriented , I'm a little different as other matters interest me to a point .

[Sir John]

Wot did you do in the Civil War daddy?

[hornet32]

The ACW to many is the most interesting war that took place in the U.S. by the U.S. for the U.S. besides just being armed mobs fighting each other , Robert E.Lee was a blunt object wearing a velvet glove who was given more credit then was due .

[jerryfmcompushaft]

I'm curious, Tet...what do the folks in the Vietnam forum discuss? We used to have a lot of RVN vets here but they all dropped off over the years. And even when they were here, the most discussed military subject was "Why not cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail?"

[Sir John]

It seems to me that this Forum has evolved from a 'Military' one to a 'Current Affairs' one over the past 5 years or so.

Trying to make it back to Military is not attracting ex military people to it, and no effort is being made to expand what it is, and has become. Maybe Swampy could expand his FB thing into a 'Military and Current Affairs' group?

Maybe even a change of name to that form here?

Just a thought.


SJ

[hornet32]

In the Vietnam Vet forum the discussion is what unit you were in what year you were there where were you stationed what did you do , how did you view the events there , what battles did you participate in , the most interesting time periods were '65-'66 - '67-'68-'69 .

[hornet32]

Might try " U.S. Military and Political Events " Forum .

[jerryfmcompushaft]

Nov 10, 2013 15:06:12 GMT -5 hornet32 said:

In the Vietnam Vet forum the discussion is what unit you were in what year you were there where were you stationed what did you do , how did you view the events there , what battles did you participate in , the most interesting time periods were '65-'66 - '67-'68-'69 .

Sounds like either a history forum or a "what did you do in the war Daddy? forum" but maybe I'm wrong. Do you have a link?

[Swampy]

Why not cut the HCM Trail? Because those so-called Whiz Kids wanted to fight the war by theory and numbers, not in terms of reality and fighting to win.

[hornet32]

Jerry try veitnamveteran.com , it is pretty much open for all , with a number of forums and chats the other forum I'm in is a closed shop for veterans of military aviation VN .

[jerryfmcompushaft]

Nov 11, 2013 8:32:53 GMT -5 hornet32 said:

Jerry try veitnamveteran.com , it is pretty much open for all , with a number of forums and chats the other forum I'm in is a closed shop for veterans of military aviation VN .

This is what I got:

Sorry, this web site is not available. Please contact the web site owner for assistance.

Doesn't seem to be very active.....

[hornet32]

vietnamveteran.com . I put a e in front of the I , a simple err , DFC SOCIETY.com you might find interesting .

[jerryfmcompushaft]

Nov 11, 2013 9:03:12 GMT -5 hornet32 said:

vietnamveteran.com . I put a e in front of the I , a simple err , DFC SOCIETY.com you might find interesting .

I did correct your spelling and got the "not available" message pasted above. Will now try the other site....

But since you seem to want to discuss what RVN was like, I'll start the discussion by giving some of the highlights of my first tour. I already talked about my arrival in Saigon and spending my first night on a balcony in a commandeered hotel watching flares and tracers off on the outskirts of Saigon.

A typical day, after we had organized and equipped the G3 shop was - Up at 0300 to be driven to work at Hq 1st Sig Bde from Cholon by a contract Vietnamese civilian - collect reports from all communications sites in Vietnam and prepare the maps and charts for the General's briefing at 0800.

Breakfast in the mess hall after the briefing consisted of 6 to 8 eggs on burned toast and bacon (since we were the only folks in the mess hall at that time, we got preferred service) at the cost of $0.35 per meal.

Back to the office to handle the day's normal work which was a mixture of nearly anything to do with operating a signal brigade - Allocating assets, directing the installation of new circuits and facilities, planning for the expansion of troops in country, rerouting circuits around failure points, anticipating the need for added comm based on planned combat operations, etc. This usually meant being in the office until about 2100 each night.

Since all the mess halls and officer's clubs were closed before we got off work, dinner at night was usually in a whore house in Saigon, or none at all. (I weighed 130 pounds when I left Vietnam a year later - I now weigh 200)

Midway through my first tour, I was reassigned to a newly organized small section based on Tan Son Nhut airbase, the name of which I can no longer remember. There were three of us - two Majors and a Sp5 draftsman - who were responsible for keeping track of communications circuit reliability and fixing anything that began to deteriorate based on real time reports of the system operators. For the most part, this was a better assignment in that we worked in a newly constructed, air conditioned building and, when in the office, got to quit at a normal time each day.

When something went wrong that could not be fixed by talking with the distant operators we would saddle up and go to the site in trouble and help with the fix. This meant I got to see a lot of Vietnam by road, air and on foot.

At the end of my tour, I flew commercial back to San Francisco and all the way I kept thinking about a plate of pancakes and eggs when we landed. We landed sometime around midnight and the terminal was pretty much deserted. I found a pay phone and tried to call home but the phone number I had carried in my wallet for a year actually connected me with some guy who did not know me and was not very happy at being awakened at that time of the night by some jerk in San Francisco.

I gave up on that and went looking for my eggs and pancakes. The first taxi on line refused to take me because I was in uniform, but the second one did take me to an all night restaurant where I was able to get breakfast.

I met my wife in Kansas city the next day where we had a big steak, a large salad (I had not seen lettuce for a year) and took in a ball game before heading for home. When we got there, a telegram was waiting asking that I cut my leave short and report to my next assignment early because the guy I was to replace had to leave early. Two days later I was on a bus heading for Ft. Ritchie, Md and the AJCC, while my family checked out of quarters and made it across country to join me a couple of weeks later.

Highlights of my second tour will follow, if you treat me right.....