War Stories

[Dennis1209]

I’ve noticed an increase in the number of military veterans here on TGO. First, on behalf of my family, and myself, we sincerely thank you for your service to our country.

As veterans we all have many memorable experiences we will never forget, be it from boot camp, cooped up in a submarine, mess hall, missing our loved ones or combat experiences. We have many things in common, two being; defending our country and our personal accounts of our military service.

We have differences in our service also… In my day we didn’t have the sophisticated technology and equipment the military deploys today. I spent a year in a tropical jungle environment and many of you served in an arid sandy environment, mountainous, hot, cold, above / below water, in the air, etc.

I would really like to hear some of your experiences you’re never going to forget. There are those horror experiences as military veterans that are best kept inside one’s self and not even spoken about to your spouse, so I request we keep it light. I’ll go first.

After forty-one years, many memories have faded like an old newspaper but here’s one still fresh in my memory.

August 21, 1971 (my birthday) – Shortly after midnight PST, on my non-adjusted watch, we landed in RVN and it was time to exit the Seaboard World Boeing 707, I was exhausted after a thirty-two hour trip from Travis, AFB. We had stopped in Alaska and Okinawa, Japan for fuel and maintenance.

While getting my few personal items from the overhead storage compartment and preparing to de-board the plane, many thoughts were racing through my head. The first was a sigh of relief the plane made the trip.

At nineteen years old (more on that later), I had just completed advanced individual training (AIT) at Ft. Eustis, VA. My military occupational skill (MOS) was 67N20, aviation mechanic. In short, I knew just enough to get myself into trouble. But I digress.

While boarding the Boeing 707 (the first American jet liner if memory serves), its appearance was something out of a Stephen King novel. Massive swaths of paint were peeling from the fuselage, wings and tail sections. The aft section of the plane was encrusted completely in soot from jet fuel exhaust and probably never washed from the day it was built.

Standing in line in the aisle of the plane slowly making my way to the exit I’m thinking how ironic this is landing in this hostile foreign country on my birthday, or is it my birthday?

For the prior two days before the flight departed we got very little sleep due to all the paper work and processing required before we departed. Add to that the nervous tension and anticipation of actually going to a combat environment with the unknown and not getting a wink of sleep during the flight. I wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree.

Shuffling down the aisle in a fog I’m wondering what time it is here or if there’s a day change, is it my birthday now, yesterday or tomorrow. Let’s think about this Specialist Dennis1209 for a moment, it’s shortly after midnight PST, that’s California time, wait a minute, is it actually just after midnight or noon in California right now? I finally decided it’s not worth the effort to waste precious brain cells on the matter and continued to Zombie my way to the front exit door.

I finally made it to the exit door when it hit me both literally and figuratively right upside the kisser!

Forget about all the stories you’ve heard about CHARLIE… This country is going to get you first! Here it is pitch black outside just getting off the plane and I’m thinking, “don’t pass out from lack of oxygenâ€. I’ve never had such heat and humidity sap my body so hard! I’m going to have to drink the air I think I’m breathing!

Another 24 hours of in country processing, swallowing red and white chalky horse malaria pills with the continued sleep deprivation, and I recognized myself as one of the cast members the other night on “The Walking Deadâ€.

Never did figure out if I landed in RVN on my birthday, as there were more pressing issues a nineteen year old had on his mind?

In the next episode of "War Stories". "Depends have not been ininvented yet"!

Edited October 19, 2012 by Dennis1209

[maroonandwhite]

Thanks for sharing. I love these old war stories.

[Dennis1209]

Another day in paradise!

The CQ runner awakens me at 4:00 A.M. as usual for our workday. Our days last anywhere between 10 hours and around the clock, depending on what’s happening.

Our company, the 117^th Assault Helicopter Company, consists of basically five platoons; one platoon maintenance, three platoons helicopter slicks, and one platoon guns. The mission of slicks are basically to deliver troops, supplies and equipment to landing zones (LZ’s) in the bush. The mission of guns is to support our ground troops in combat and engage the enemy where found.

Depending on the particular helicopter gunship, the armament varied but, all our UH-1C Huey gun ships always had a pilot, co-pilot, crew chief and door gunner, and the crew chief and gunner always had a M-60 machine gun in their lap supported by an elastic luggage strap from the ceiling. The gun ship I was assigned that day had two mini guns and two rocket pods with eight rockets each.

Every newbie by company policy was required to spend his first thirty days in maintenance before he could volunteer for guns or slicks. I was freshly out of maintenance on only my third or fourth mission for the day in the gun platoon.

As an enlisted man / newbie door gunner, I was lowest in the pecking order, rightfully so. Before a hot breakfast, the crew chief and gunner goes to the aircraft to make ready and load armaments and do any preventive maintenance needed, then goes to mess for possibly the only hot meal of the day, and gets issued two “C†ration meals.

And speaking of “C†rations! I’ve watched Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel many times and seen him put things down his throat that would gag a maggot. He’s probably got more sense than to try the “C†ration canned ham and eggs!

After a standard Army mess breakfast of powdered eggs, imitation bacon, mush, toast and powdered milk gagged down, we attended the daily mission briefing and got assigned our mission. A little history and background is in order first. When I arrived in RVN, the AH-1 Cobra gun ship was becoming most requested for missions due to it’s superior armament. Our UH-1C Huey’s were relegated to less critical missions and backup.

The standard morning mission briefings always included our specific assignments, intelligence of known enemy locations, friendly ARVN locations and know anti-aircraft weapons locations, and any communicated friendly activity in route or at our intended destination.

One thing I wasn’t especially fond of this morning was the intelligence that Charlie had an abundance of heat seeking missiles normally reserved for fighters, B-52’s and reconnaissance aircraft. Now they had spares and were shooting down helicopters with them. Bummer!

So… We received our mission, fly to the Tay Ninh airport and wait for a mission and further instruction, so off we go into the wild blue yonder, flying low into the sky.

Most of the time we flew nap of the earth (NOE), meaning we flew just feet above the jungle / earth to reduce the chance of getting shot down. On this particular day we were doing just that. I must say if it were not for people shooting at you, it’s a great way to see the country!

We’re flying NOE and maybe two-thirds the way to our destination, in unison all four of us were on the internal intercom and asking, “what the Hâ€! Then, at the speed of sound it hit us…

Not four nautical miles in front of us were dozens of bright flashes, jungle, dust, dirt and debris flying sky high then comes the explosions and concussions. The pilot was so shaken I think he did a sharp 360 turn to get the hell out of Dodge! It was a B-52 air strike!

The four of us, me, myself, my shadow and my reflection are still here to tell you. The noise and concussions of those bombs (I assume 500 pounders?) are unbelievable at probably just four miles away! I remember thinking at least I don’t have to throw away my underwear so Mom doesn’t see it. With no earth or trees to buff or absorb any of the blast, it was surreal.

Communications and lack off between our military forces and ARVN’S resulted in us running into the path of artillery and air strikes on several occasions.

Flying along and hearing artillery shells whiz by and not being able to see them or know where they’re coming from or going is another experience.

[Sam1]

Thanks for sharing. I love these old war stories.

+1, especially the old WWII and Korean War stories. Those guys had testes made of titanium!

[Dennis1209]

+1, especially the old WWII and Korean War stories. Those guys had testes made of titanium!

You got that right! That's why they are aptly referred to as "the greatest generation". My meager one year jungle vacation was nothing compared to what they did.

[E4 No More]

Does it have to be a war story?

In the spring of 1983 I was stationed in 29 Palms, CA as an 0811, Artilleryman. We were out in the field for a combined arms exercise with the Army. Since my battery was a 175mm self-propelled gun unit that looked similar to a Russian artillery piece, we were tasked with representing a Russian artillery unit for the exercise. For whatever reason, our 6 guns were split into 4 and 2, and I was on one of the 2 guns.

Our main group of 4 guns was a couple of miles up the road from our position at the time that the second gun in my group broke down, so we had stopped to help fix it. The two guns were separated by about 150 yards or better, and I was walking over to help the other crew when I heard the roar of a jet engine. We had been told that it was possible that we would be gassed, and I heard a SSGT yell GAS! GAS! GAS!

I stopped, turned to look back, and to my left front I saw an A-6 Intruder coming in front of me left to right with fire coming out of his right engine. As it got directly above and in front of me it turned on its side a blew up. I was in the open with no place to go, and felt the heat on my face. All I could do was stand there and hope that I lived. One of the drop tanks landed to my right by just a few yards, and the other landed to my front. Fortunately for me, the plane had come from El Toro, and the drop tanks were empty - otherwise I would be dead. The only piece of plane that came close to hitting me was a 5 or 6 inch section of computer motherboard material. The plane crashed to my right just a bit past the other gun.The LT that was with us yelled at us to get into the truck so that we could do...whatever... at the site of the crash. I never got into a truck as fast as I did that day. I hit the tongue of the water bull with my left foot while on the run and lept into the back of the truck.

We were instructed to look for survivors, (yeah, right), and I could see that the cockpit was up the side of a mountin. That same mountain had one of the engine turbines hit near its base and powder granite as it slide/skipped up the mountainside. So I ran up to the cockpit to find nothing: the crew had ejected.

What happened? The plane was coming off a bombing run when it sucked a foreign object into the right engine which caused it to come unglued. Gun number 6 up ahead had its tube standing as erect as possible for whatever reason when the plane flew over it missing by around 6 feet. That would put the plane roughly around 50 feet in the air when it passed. We believe that the pilot and bombardier saw us ahead and held off ejecting or else they would have come right down on my position. That delay caused them to eject into the side of a granite hill that was somewhat behind me when the plane turned on its side. The investigators said that the plane was going too fast for ejection anyways, and that the force of the wind at that speed would have killed them.

An Army one-star was flying around with a Marine Major in a Huey, and they landed at the site. I was instructed to retrieve the crew's helmets in an attempt to identify them since they were not only wind-blasted so badly that their flightsuits were blown off of them, but they were both decapitated in one form or another from hitting the granite hillside. The only thing that survived the crash was the life raft that had inflated. Fortunately for me, both of their helmets were empty.

To this day that crew are heros to me, for I believe that they sacrificed themselves to spare my life and the lives of my brother Marines that day. The investigators told me that they could have nosed-up the plane to eject backwards, (thus slowing their speed down to a survivable speed), before ejecting, but clearly held off in doing so for us.

The sad thing is, the base ignored it like nothing ever happened.

[Patton]

A event I think about everyday occurred in 2005 in Afghanistan when I was a E-4 with three yrs under my belt. My squad and I were on our usual boring patrol and I was the gunner in the last vehicle of our three vehicle patrol. As we patrolled around a river bed I was focused on four grown men with ak's slung over their shoulder. This was something we saw all the time but their eye contact was different and I got a funny vibe. These men actually had about 60 sheep and goats they were herding so they looked like maybe they actually had a purpose. As we drove a few more minutes we came across a squad of Marines that obviously looked like they had been out for days, obviously some hard working Rifleman. Since we came across the Marines I didn't speak to anyone in my truck about the local nationals seaming sketchy. As we went on and stopped a hour later I mentioned to one of the guys in the other trucks about how the guys with AK's and sheep seamed like turds. My buddy said he got the same funny vibe. We get a call across the radio and the Squad Leader calls the TOC to get the message that the Marines on foot sent a 3 man team up to the top of a mountain to look for some lost NVG's when the were ambushed and killed. The other Marines raced to the top and got into a firefight before killing the insurgents. I frequently think about how my squad in our heavily armed and armored gun trucks could have been the ones to scrap with the insurgents instead.

[Sam1]

Does it have to be a war story?

Will follow that up with a "training accident" - don't much care to talk about Bosnia/Macedonia, cause even though people were getting shot and stepping on mines, it was never considered a war.

Back in '97-98 sometime, doing a convoy in Korea either late at night or early in the morning (no idea, it was just dark) down the streets and some drunk guy drove head on into the tank in front of us. Turned his car into a convertible, mushed the steering column into the guy's chest. He was a goner'... But our brilliant company commander didn't want to have a death listed on his watch so they wanted to say he was alive when he was thrown in the ambulance. This moron had soldiers with tanker's bars (about a 6 foot long pry bar) jamming it into the dead guy's torso to try and pry the steering wheel out of him so they could put him on a stretcher. Not sure what the difference was if he was pronounced dead in the car or in the ambulance, but they sure as hell worked hard to get him out of that mangled up mess and in the meat wagon.

It may be hard to detect from that statement, but I don't really have compassion for drunk drivers.

[Caster]

August 6, 1945

Fertilizer salesman, Nagasaki Japan.

Sharing a bamboo duplex with a diesel fuel distributor, stacking 40lb bags of ammonium nitrate, up to my ass in geisha girls, diesel fumes, and all the tempura shrimp I could eat. We's on our way to some sumo wrestlin' matches in Tokyo when I looked in the rear view mirror of the Toyota and seen a big ass flash. I said "Damn Mookie, did you leave the stove on!?"

Seriously, thanks to all our veterans. I appreciate each and every one of you.

[Guest AmericanWorkMule]

It isn't an experience of mine but it was a good book my WWII Vet Grand Dad had me read.

“The men digging in on both sides of me cursed the stench and the mud. I began moving the heavy, sticky clay mud with my entrenching shovel to shape out the extent of the foxhole before digging deeper. Each shovelful had to be knocked off the spade, because it stuck like glue. I was thoroughly exhausted and thought my strength wouldn’t last from one sticky shovelful to the next.

Kneeling on the mud, I had dug the hole no more than six or eight inches deep when the odor of rotting flesh got worse. There was nothing to do but continue to dig, so I closed up my mouth and inhaled with short shallow breaths. Another spadeful of soil out of the hole released a mass of wriggling maggots that came welling up as though those beneath were pushing them out. I cursed and told the NCO as he came by what a mess I was digging into.

‘You heard him, he said put the holes five yards apart.’

In disgust, I drove the spade into the soil, scooped out the insects, and threw them down the front of the ridge. The next stroke of the spade unearthed buttons and scraps of cloth from a Japanese army jacket in the mud—and another mass of maggots. I kept on doggedly. With the next thrust, metal hit the breastbone of a rotting Japanese corpse. I gazed down in horror and disbelief as the metal scraped a clean track through the mud along the dirty whitish bone and cartilage with ribs attached. The shoved skidded into the rotting abdomen with a squishing sound. The odor nearly overwhelmed me as I rocked back on my heels.

I began choking and gagging as I yelled in desperation, ‘I can’t dig in here! There’s a dead Nip here!’

The NCO came over, looked down at my problem and at me, and growled, ‘You heard him; he said put the holes five yards apart.’

(With the Old Breed, pp. 301-302)â€

― Eugene B. Sledge

[Patton]

Just thought I would mention that 10yrs ago today I kissed momma and my girlfriend good bye and left for Basic Training at Leonard Wood. It's hard to believe 10 yrs have went by already.