Vietnam OR Military TRUE STORIES (Serious Or Funny)

I have gotten so many wonderful e-mails over the past few months.... and a lot of them have some GREAT STORIES about each person's experiences. SOME have been humorous..... SOME have been enlightening...... and SOME have been sad..... but without a doubt..... ALL have been a JOY to read.

I am starting this thread for JUST THAT REASON. Have a STORY? Let's hear it and make it available for ALL TO ENJOY and READ!

Dave

[edit on 6/1/2006 by Dave Rabbit]

When I was at Tech School in Biloxi, Mississippi (1967).... I was so gung ho. I became a GREEN ROPE (whoopee), became the squadron Guide On Carrier and thought I was hot crap.

The Base Commander (and this is probably where I got the itch to give crap to authority) was throwing some big shindig for the Officers and their wives on the base, but also for some big Naval types that were to visit. The party was to honor the naval folks. Anyway, they needed some volunteers to wear dress blues with white shirts and serve punch, escort the ladies to their tables.... basically all the kiss buttocks stuff to make everyone feel FIRST CLASS.

I got assigned, in the back of this huge facility, to be the punch server. They had this live military band like an orchestra. Anyway, the band gets to a point where they are taking a break..... and folks begin to start talking at their tables... and the noise level gets up there a bit. As I am serving punch, I hear the guy on stage say that they needed a volunteer to move the piano..... so, being a gung ho trooper.... I raised my hand and proceeded down to the stairs that led to the stage. As I was walking down to the stage, the officers and wives started to applaud me. I thought to myself "Why are they applauding me to move the piano". Anyway, I shrugged it off with a wave to the crowd and went up on stage. As I am bending over to grab the piano bench to begin moving it..... the guy on the microphone puts his hand over it and says to me "What are you going to play kid and what is your name?". Needless to say..... I was petrified.... my Squadron Commander was there, the Base Commander was there, several Admirals and big time brass were there. So, with just the slightest bit of hesitation.... I go over to the guy on the microphone and say "Sir, I don't know how to play the piano, I thought you wanted someone to MOVE the piano". Well, with that... the guy bursts out in laughter. After a minute or two for him to catch his breath.... he then tells the ENTIRE AUDIENCE my dilemma. To this day I can still hear the ROAR of the CROWD. As I slithered off the stage in embarrassment, I thought it couldn't get any worse.

The next morning as we mustered for assembly to march to class, the Squadron Commander addresses our group and informs them that "Rabbit" had really been the life of the party the previous night. Now, in addition to every Officer and Wife in the entire Southern Hemisphere knowing, now ALL my FRIENDS now know.

When I left Keesler for Lowry a few months later, I thought the embarrassment of that night would be gone forever. I am having a 3.2 beer (yeah... 3.2 right outside of the base) and I hear some guy telling some other guys about some dumb buttocks at his last base who embarrassed the entire squadron with thinking he was to MOVE instead of PLAY the piano. No, I didn't go up to the guy and introduce myself.

TRUE STORY!

Dave

The Day I Flew Naked!
By
Edd Hogeboom

cavalier44.my100megs.com...

It was probably September '69 or so. I was off flight status due to recovering from injuries involving a round through my OH-6A engine while hovering at about 150' above ground, over triple canopy, having just located our LRRP Team that had been compromised earlier in the day.

It was probably around 8:30 or a quarter to eleven or so in Phouc Vinh, hard to remember now. I was walking back from the "showers" when the "Down Bird" alarm went off. I started to run toward my hooch to get my gear. My back muscles began telling me a fast walk was all I was going to get that morning!

I hit the door to my hooch, grabbed my helmet, my "chicken plate with my shoulder holster attached," and my .45 cal. Greaser. I was half way to the flight line when I lost one of my "flip-flops" and my towel that had been wrapped around my waist fell off. I got to my LOH and my crew was loading the back and hoping for a pilot. Until that point in time, I don't think I really gave any thought to the fact that I wasn't wearing anything but a single "flip-flop."

My Observer was the only person to acknowledge my lack of a flight suit with a quick, "You flying that way today, Chief?" "Yeah, let's get it off the ground," I responded.

I'd already taken my morning dose of muscle relaxers given to me by our Green Beret Flight Surgeon, so I don't recall my back muscles cramping up too much at that point. We cranked and pulled pitch and I started looking for a Cobra that hadn't linked to a little bird yet. When none were available I was told by ATC that all extra aircraft were cleared to LZ Buttons, so off we went.

Once we got to Buttons I was able to pick up a Cobra to fly with -- sorry I don't remember who the "Snake" crew was. We headed out and found our "down bird." The Crew Chief and Observer had already been evac'd. Three or four ARVN's were standing around the downed LOH and one appeared to be going through our pilot's pockets. I told my Crew Chief to put down an M-60 perimeter around our pilot. The ARVN's "moved out smartly." I stayed on station with our pilot, who was still in "the straps of his Bird." We had already been told that he had checked out to "The Big Six in the sky," so there was nothing more we could do but say a prayer and wait for Med-Evac to return with their body bag.

We finally got back to LZ Buttons and we needed to refuel before the flight back to Phouc Vinh. I got clearance and hovered over to "gasoline alley" and put it down on an empty refueling pad. My Crew Chief commenced refueling while we were still "hot." My observer was dozing or lost in thought none of us ever liked a "down bird" mission where we didn't bring them all back alive and relatively OK. I was filling out my log when a Huey did a straight in landing at the refueling line just to our left. I guess he was trying to impress someone with his flying expertise. I knew immediately that he was going to rock my little bird with his rotor wash. I dropped the "Green Book" in my lap (OUCH!) and grabbed the controls and went on "hot mike" to warn my crew. I kept my rotor mast from slapping and had a few unkind thoughts about the "yahoo" driving the slick.

Once he was on the ground, I went back to my log. About a minute later, my Observer hits me on my left shoulder and points to the bay of the Huey that had just landed. Having just gotten to the ground, aided by one of the slick's crew members, were two "Donut Dollies." They were stooped over trying to avoid decapitation, I'm sure, and carefully picking their way across the muddy refueling area. The one behind was the first to look up and straight into our cockpit. She froze where she stood, like a deer caught in the headlights! She reached forward and caught her partner's arm and pointed straight at me. Her mouth kept opening and closing as she held onto her partner's arm. I hit the mike button and said, "Gentlemen, I think a hand salute is in order!"

And that we did, my crew dressed smartly in their new Nomex flight suits and acoustic helmets and I in my "chicken plate" and helmet, presented our snappiest hand salutes and smiled. The lead "Dolly" finally grabbed her partner by the sleeve and dragged her on by. The second one's mouth was still opening and closing and she was still staring into our cockpit as her partner pulled her towards the tents.

I've often wondered over the years, if some grandmother is telling her grandchildren about the day she saw a helicopter pilot "fly naked" in South Vietnam. Hey, just another day in the AO!

Although I touched on this on the "82 Year Old Woman Thread" in response to a post, after thinking about it.... I decided it really needed to go HERE too. So forgive the duplication.

Hey LTL.... thanks for the post. I quoted part of what you said because the investigative book by Larry Lembcke called "The Spitting Image" which was part of the video interviews of "Sir! No Sir!"

www.amazon.com...

factually shows that the spitting BS story was a "Hollywood" concoction that dated back to before "Rambo". Unfortunately, like ALL myths ..... became widespread and MYTH became FACT. It just DID NOT HAPPEN!

My friend's father was spit on in LA in 1969, while wearing his uniform for his trip home to Pittsburgh. He told me to his face. He was a marine, a drill sargent, and an honest, quiet man, and he would not have lied to me.

Either an honest man lied, or the book is somewhat inaccurate, as the author could not have been everywhere at once.

My comments were in reference to what was constantly PUBLICLY being said about Hippies meeting the planes when the troops arrived home and so forth, and THAT is what the book dispels. First off, military planes DID NOT ARRIVE at civilian airports... so there is NO WAY IN HELL that civilians, much less Hippie Girls (I WISH) would be allowed on a military installation.

Now... since you have brought it up... "I" was spat on myself.... not in military uniform.... but at a party I went to after I was discharged. When I was in Saigon, I had purchased a U. S. Air Force Ring with "Saigon 1970-71" on the crest along with a dragon and "U. S. Air Force"..... basically like a Senior Ring. Anyway, I am sitting on a couch hitting up on this good looking chick sitting next to me..... she notices my ring and asks me what college I graduated from..... I told her "University Of Saigon". She then asks me if I had been in Vietnam.... which, of course, I tell her "Three Tours". Then she stands up in front of me, with me still being on the couch, and tosses her drink in my face and does, in fact, spit on me and calls me a baby killer. Well...... even though to this day I am proud that I have NEVER struck a woman.... EVER, on that particular evening.... I stood up and SLAPPED THE "BENCH" as hard as I could.... and told her where she could place future comments like those on returning Vets. I then thanked the hosts for having me and walked out the door leaving everyone who was at the party standing there with their mouths open.

So, I have no doubt about your story. Again, the book as described above has to do with the MYTH of the RETURNING VET at the AIRPORT...... NOT individual incidents.

By the way...... in thinking back to that time..... it is QUITE POSSIBLE that if the ALCOHOL had not been flowing as it was for several hours BEFORE the incident... it might not have happened at all. My experience has always been that PEOPLE act their DUMBEST when DRUNK.

Thanks for your post!

Dave

All right, I'm taking the bait.

Back in 99, I went to Keesler for tech school. While in tech school, I got into a lot of trouble, and it seemed that I was having a hard time in "adjusting" to the military lifestyle. I can't remember what I did to get into trouble, but I ended having to pull a 12 hour as a door guard. I worked from 4pm to 4am. Upon getting to room I went to straight to bed and passed out. When I woke up, I noticed that it was very quiet which was odd cause my bay just happpened to be the noisiest. When I walk into the hallway, I thought I was going to die of shock. There was blood all over the walls. I decided to wait around until someone woke up so that I could get the story behind the blood. I had a car in tech school so I was hardly around on the weekends, but I just had to know what happened. As people started to wake up, I would get bits and pieces. What happened was, two people snuck in a bottle of Jack each, and everyone decided to get drunk. Which is a huge no-no. Well, we had these twins that were fresh out basic in our bay, and they both just happened to have shot glasses. As the night went on, being the drunken idiots that they were, they decided to wrestle. Well, things got out of hand and one of the twins got his head smashed into the wall, and it split his right eyebrow open. Well, they butterfly stitched it with a bandaid. When the twins woke up, I got a better look at the damage, and it was not pretty. I convinced the kid to let me take him to hospital to get it stitched before it got infected. He didn't want to go to the hospital because he was afraid he would get into trouble. While everyone else was at the GI party, I took the kid to the hospital, and I felt like a complete retard telling the hurse that he split his eyebrow by slipping in the shower.

I have another tech school story. It was a saturday night, and I wanted to drink. I went across the street to "Club BDU", and had a few drinks. When I got back to my bay, everyone decided that it would be a good idea if I threw up before going to bed so that I wasn't as hung over. We're all the bathroom, and they've got drinking water. They wanted me to gag myself, but I couldn't it. So we started to do jumping jacks. After about 50 or so we stopped and started to do push-ups. Lord did that work. I threw up all right. I threw up everywhere in the bathroom except I completely missed the toilet. I course I had to clean it up all by myself when it wasn't my idea to throw up.

One night up in the areas north of Da Nang during a monsoon night where I was assigned to the MACV SOG beenies that were up there doing the jobs. I was given the name of "monkey killer". I carried that name around for years. Anyway, on that night I was setting in the perimeter doing a guard watch along with a whole bunch of other guys and I saw movement in the bush. Since we knew charlie was in this area and pretty strong we were all wired tight. Anyway, I was watching the brush line when all the trip flares started going off all over the place. It looked to me that there were about a thousand NVA coming right at us. I started setting off claymores and lighting the trenches and firing an M-60 machine gun like there was no tomorrow. All the other guys were coming out of the bunkers and were firing as well. We suddenly realized that these were baboons and we had probably fired off about 50 claymores and several thousand rounds of ammo before it was figured out. But I carried that monikor around for the last 35 years.

lilwolf, that's an awesome story.

I was given the name Taco during tech school. Thank God it didn't follow me around.

Back in 99, I went to Keesler for tech school

Nirvana....

Keesler..... 99, Darn. 32 years apart..... well, after Katrina.... don't think there was much left of OUR old base.

Did they still yell "PING" when you arrived from basic?

Dave

[edit on 6/7/2006 by Dave Rabbit]

On a more serious note. To show that there is a little sanity in the middle of total insanity this is a serious and good ending story.
One day down near the Ashau valley during 1971 we were going to be crossing into the valley area from the north side. But in doing so we came under some very intense fire from an NVA unit that was in the area. After about 25 or 30 minutes of serious fire coming from everywhere we (both sides) hunkered down for the duration of what ever was going to happen. I was a ranger medic assigned to a green beenie unit and I had no idea ( being cherry) what was going on with all this. There was a rice paddy that seperated us from each other.
All of a sudden right in the middle of this insanity a woman that was seriously pregnant comes walking out onto the dike in the middle. Now how this woman did not get hit with a bullet is totally beyond me. I had 5 wounded men and here she comes and decides that it is now "BABY TIME" . She just laid down on the dike and everything just stopped. Totally wierd and scary at the same time. The Captain said a white flag had been raised on a stick across the paddy so he had a soldier raise one on our side. The captain told me to get my bag and follow him. I remember saying a few choice words that equaled "you are nuts". Then he and I started out to where this woman was at. When we got there the North Vietnamese officer and his field doctor walked up and in fluent english said we need to stop. So, the NV doctor and I delivered a baby. That doctor was educated at UCLA med school. The woman promptly got up and walked off with her little new born son. My captain and his counterpart (their officer ) agreed that "this day is special - let there be no more shooting. We each that doctor and I patched up my soldiers and I helped him patch up theirs. Both sides backed into the bush and not another shot was fired that day. It taught me that in the middle of an insane assylum there can and was a little bit of kindness and sanity.

Wow..... what a GREAT STORY! I bet there are HUNDREDS more... just like them out there. THAT is what this THREAD is all about. HUMANITY..... in it's purist form. Thanks lilwolf!

(Salute)

Dave

lilwolf, another great story. Humanity at it's finest. It's not to see that at times like that opposing forces can stop for moment to appreciate a special occasion.

rabbit, from what I understand keesler was not hit as hard as the rest of biloxi and ocean springs. The base is still standing, and it was up and running a few months after katrina.

When I was going through they were trying to stop people from yelling "PING." Of course no one listened though. I just thought it was so funny that some of these people took it so seriously. People also sang the Smurfs song as you walked to your dorm for the first time. They also yelled "pop tart" at all of the IMers, personnel and admin troops.

....... and for THOSE of you that want to know the signifcance of the word "Ping" that Nirvana and I are talking about..... when you came to Tech School from Basic Training.... your HAIR was just starting to grow..... so when you arrived at the squadron you were assigned to.... THOSE that had been there awhile would YELL...... "PING" numerous times..... Ping... being individual HAIRS that were beginning to SPROUT OUT!

Nirvana will have to explain the other stuff... which was NOT my generation.

Dave

I would like to add in some newer stuff to PING. It may have been different when you were in. PING was an acronymn for "Person In Need of Guidance." There were a few requirements you had to met to get out of being a "PINGer." You had to be in third phase (I have no idea if you had phases when you went through), you had to smoke, you had to drink, and the most important, you had to have sex. All this was to break you out of the no smoking, no drinking and no sex mentality of basic training. The reason they sang the smurfs song upon your arrival was because we had to report to tech school in our dress blues. Pop tarts were trainees that were in tech school for a short amount of time. The IMers, personel, and admin troops were in tech school on average of about 5 to 10 weeks. Everyone else was there for months. I was there for 8 months

From my father.

Not sure what year it was, but a B-52 was on a check flight with an Instructor Pilot (IP), doing a refueling mission. During the refueling, the boom of the KC-97 wound up in the cockpit of the B-52. The IP ejected without a word, the copilot pulled the handle, but his seat malfunctioned and wouldn't fire. The boom of the -97 was shoved up through the fuselage of the plane, severing all the control cables. The crew couldn't jump because the crew chief had a bad back and couldn't jump. Fortunately for them the boom acted as a second tail, allowing them to fly the plane. Both planes landed safely, and the IP was brought up on charges of abandoning the aircraft.

The IG was questioning the tail gunner of the B-52, trying to make a case against the IP. He asked him "Did you hear him say eject before he ejected." "No." they'd ask more questions, and then "Did you see the bail out light before he ejected?" "No." So after a couple of hours of this, the IG says "Did you hear anyone say eject before he ejected?" The tail gunner looked him right in the eye and said "Hell no! The dumb SOB didn't even say bye before he left!" So the IP beat the charges, but never flew again, and the tail gunner was brought up on insubordunation charges.

Hey Zaphod58....

Tell you dad (if he is still with us) ... GREAT STORY. When I was stationed at Barksdale AFB in early 1968, which was SAC 2nd Air Force Headquarters for a few months before volunteering for my first Vietnam tour, we had KC-135's and B-52's out the kazoo. I had heard more than one story from Crew Chiefs about mishaps during IN FLIGHT refueling both in hostile and non hostile environments.

Thanks for the contribution.

Dave

My father has told me many stories through the years. Some of them have blown my mind, and others have made me laugh.

When he was in Thailand, during Vietnam, a maintenance tech was walking around a B-52 doing a check of the airplane (a D model IIRC). As he walked around the tail, he heard a noise over his head. He looked up to see the tail gun tracking him. He took off running, and heard *BOOM*BOOM*BOOM*BOOM*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK* (Up until the B-52H, they used a quad 50 cal for the tail gun.) They went out later and looked and found four bullet holes along the path he ran along. Someone had disarmed the gun, and forgot the four that were chambered. He was a short timer, so that night he walked into the Squadron Commanders office, and told him "Sir, I've got 8 days and a wake up, and I just got shot at by a BUFF. I'm not going back on that ramp until I'm walking up the stairs to get on that plane going home." And sure enough, he didn't.


Then there was the time someone clipped a ground clip to the flare dispenser door to ground it, and it fired all 100 magnesium flares. Lit the ramp up like it was noon, and caused serious damage to the ramp, and several planes.

[edit on 6/11/2006 by Zaphod58]

I was stationed in Germany from 93-96. We did a field exercise in November up in Hohenzfeld, in a farmers field. It first was freezing rain when we arrived and I got hypothermia. The field was muddy and even our wrecker got stuck in the mud which came up almost to my waist.

There were a number of interesting things that happened. Tempers were short, the asskissing threshhold was high as the brass from 32nd AADCOM were coming down to check everything out. Our XO, who should have won medals for his his tireless dedication to brown-nosing (it was often said when anyone with a rank of full bird or higher showed up at our site, he had his head so far up their butts that if they made a sudden about-face, his neck would snap in half) made us pull rocks from a nearby quarry to create pathways from the tents, the mess area, and the CP. Im sure the farmer was quite pleased that we put all those rocks in that he spent the better half of his life removing.

We had our revenge, however. There were portapotties nearby, and the XO thinking himself too good to use the bushes used them frequently. We followed him to one, then when he was in, used 100 mile an hour tape to seal him in, then used a cargo strap to secure the portapotty. We then got our large parts truck with the crane on the back to lift and top the portapotty. Despite his later frenzied attempts to find the culrpits, uncluding mass punishment, no one talked. Everyone felt it was worth it.

Launcher platoon, which was pissing me off because they kept leaving the generator power switches on and thus draining the batteries, recieved punishment by myself and a couple others. Their tent had an old heater, which I was responsible for fixing and maintaining. During routine maintainence, I slipped a block of limburger cheese into their heating duct, then turned it back on. the stench was so foul that many of the launcher dawgs prefered to brave the freezing temps outisde the tent.

Towards the end of the exercise, we were treated to a heated arguement between two female LTs, one of whom was an iron woman (she scored 100 on her PT tests by the MALE standards). the arguement continued, and the two LT proceeded to duke it out in the mud. There is nothing quite like watching one female officer body slam another in mud that swallowed a humvee whole.

Other memories of note:

Hog-tieing the Orderly Room NCOIC, the freak snowstorm that blew off two of the three tents, being on guard duty and finding my fellow guard in the foxhole with a dirty magazine "getting in touch with his manhood", and of course, the band of little german kids, ages 5-9 who were puffing away on Marlboros and trading us bottles of beer, schnapps, and vodka for our MREs and spare gear.

On a more serious note, my father was able to meet someone that was flying B-52s a couple of years ago that was able to finally tell him what happened to one of their missing crews. This guy was right behind them in formation over Hanoi. As far as I know the plane just went missing and they never found anything of the crew. He was able to tell us that they were over Hanoi, and when they opened the bomb bay, getting ready to drop, they took a SAM hit straight to the bomb bay. He said he flew through the explosion.

There are a few people that are still listed as MIA that my father knew. One is a tail gunner. The guy that was supposed to fly the mission broke his leg a couple of days before the flight, and that's the only member of the crew never found.

There is also another side of these Readers Digest type of military moments:

__________________________7 ft______________________________


( Anyone & Everyone____Who Creates )

( Produces or Distributes )
( Weapons Of Mass Destruction )

( ought to spend Every Christmas )

Believe it or not..... until tonight (June 13, 2006) I had never seen the Nick Berg video. I saw it tonight as I was looking through ATS on my nightly exploration of my new home. I downloaded it to a file I keep on my computer of "Military Oriented" stuff. I watched the entire video from start to finish only once.... but watched the actual killing several times. As I am watching this horrific sight..... I have a flashback to something that happened in Vietnam..... not a beheading, although knowing some of the ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) and some of their tactics... that was possible during VC interrogations..... no, this flashback is of a High School friend of mine who was Army and in Vietnam when I was doing my tour at Phan Rang (1969-70). Charles (my friend) and I became best buds in High School. He JOINED the Army.... I JOINED the Air Force. As luck would have it I guess, his first assignment in Vietnam was at the same time of my 2nd tour. Through our parents, who were good friends, we found each other and started writing. Charles would send me photos of VC they had killed on S & D (Search and Destroy) missions. He even sent me photos, holding up VC ears that they had cut off of the bodies. One of the members of his unit even had made a necklace of VC ears that he wore around his neck. These things were done to SEND A MESSAGE to other VC. Of course, the VC would do the same to some of our troops. One of the most graphic and horrific things I ever saw (and this gets to the Nick Berg video) was during one of the convoys I went on from Phan Rang to Cam Ranh Bay. On this particular day, the convoy stopped along the roadside as there was a body hanging from an erected pole off the road. We all got out and went over. We found an American GI hanging there by his testicles. His throat had been slashed and there were cuts all over his body. It was evident, even for those of us who were not use to this sight on a daily basis, that his death was NOT a quick one.

As I watched the Nick Berg video... I remembered this...... WHY? Because like the Vietnam memory....... I tried to understand HOW IT FELT to be MUTILATED while you were still ALIVE. I cannot imagine a more terrible way to die than how Nick Berg did..... it makes the Vietnam memory pale by comparison. Oh.... and Charles.... he was killed in action a few weeks later I was to find out. His unit was ambushed by VC. His body was mutilated to such a degree that his parents had to have a closed casket service (which my parents attended and told me about in a letter). The saying "Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword" came true in Charles's case.

To all of those families and loved ones who have lost someone you love.... my HEART really goes out to you.

Peace!

Dave