Reading my old mans Vietnam diary I can imagine the feelings

[TEB]

I had them transcribed and this sticks out jump outs at me guns up guns up screaming over the radios for platoons m-60’s I read them from time to time , when my mother gave them to me they were lined hardback notebooks with printing and paper was kind of getting on with time I had no idea they existed . A operation called big spring he was humping with the 173rd the herd.

And what jumps out at me is we caught them in the open today a entry in describing contact with the vc. Now I read these over and over at times just to get inside my old mans head. At this time I was maybe ten months old.

The call came over the radio guns up they are in the open guns up. So they had be calling for the 60’s machine guns, maybe they was to far away for 5.56 so bring on the 7.62, we were trying to raise arty get tac air we forced them into the open.

I can imagine oh yea you fuckers the morale was up with the men of 2/503 abn because they squeezed them by the neck and now they can actually see bodies dropping. Maybe laughing smoking a c-rat cigarette because you been tired scared for days making contact and they fade away.

And now your making them pay , pay the price for being tired frightened so stressed out your wired so tight looking for booby traps ambushes at night humping all day in heat , so when I was ten months old filling diapers this is what my old man was living through . I think I will donate these to the army heritage museum at Carlisle army war college. People need to understand and read these words from a generation on the personal level that suffered this shit.

[Kurt V.]

1. i never understood my dads opposition to my enlisting in 1981. i did my 4 yrs got out and he was so

glad. then told me the whole story of his time in korea. then i understood.

[demosincebirth]

7. The forgotten (police action) war.

[rampartc]

2. you don't need to go there. put that stuff down

if the old man had wanted you to know he would have talked to you.

donation to a museum or college is a great idea.

[TEB]

3. He told me the night before I left for benning

You don’t have take oath tomorrow but if you do then you have to do this all ships are burned

[monmouth4]

4. After VN was over, I was helping my husband at his restaurant cashiering. The young men, now home,

would come to the bar and you could spot them a mile away. No one bothered them because they didn't want to be bothered. Just sit, drink their beer and have their thoughts. After a few months most of them felt comfortable to talk a little and I was so appreciative for their coming out of their god-awful depression. Some drank too much but then eventually most of them saw the light and cut back or quit. Terrible days..

[DashOneBravo]

9. I respectfully disagree

It’s the Herd. You don’t get drafted in that unit.

[nocoincidences]

5. Vietnam was a special kind of Hell.

Nobody wants to acknowledge it, even now.

Yes, donate those diaries. We need to hear the men speak, who were there.

When they came back, too many were too traumatized to tell us what happened.

[blueinredohio]

6. I have a brother who was there.

To this day he doesn't talk about it.

[demosincebirth]

8. Why would they share? They were called "baby killers."

[DashOneBravo]

10. You should donate it to the Infantry Hall at Ft Benning

Last edited Sat Jul 13, 2019, 12:03 AM - Edit history (1)

Don’t judge your father too harshly. They fought against a NVA unit that put bullets in the heads of wounded Americans.

[TEB]

11. No judge

Never what I was thinking and I get it we have em in the open fuck yea I would have been oh yea fish in a barrel