A question for those who served during Vietnam.

[Klukie]

I am curious to know how other branches of the miltary were viewed by those who served in the army or navy? Also, how big of a role did other branches play in this conflict? Thanks for any insight.

[wakeme2008]

1. LOL you do not want to ask an Army type what we thought of the Air Farce

types..... With their Air Conditioned NCO Clubs with carpets :rofl:

With the Navy it was a little different. You had two Navies over there. The standard sit in a ship offshore and the Swiftboat Navy like Kerry served in. But back in those days even the offshore Navy was not that good for duty in Vietnam. Those ships did not have air conditioning for the most part and got hot inside per Navy types I knew at the time.

[Klukie]

3. Did guys enlist in the USAF back then.....

to avoid getting drafted into the Army?

[wakeme2008]

6. Almost 100%

but they would not guarantee your job the Army would more or less, and it was one year shorter that why I did the Army.

[Klukie]

10. Did the guys who actually went to vietnam look down...

on the troops who stayed stateside?

[TahitiNut]

12. Equal amounts of envy and disdain, I'd say.

:shrug:

[wakeme2008]

14. Not really but remember that was a long

war and most ended up there. PLUS I know a lot of Army types that volunteered to go to Nam to get out of the hell hole of Germany. Not that Germany the country was bad, but the Army treated the soldiers over there very bad.

[TahitiNut]

15. It was a choice of Mickey Mouse or Charlie.

Mickey Mouse was, for many, a LOT harder to put up with. :shrug:

[wakeme2008]

29. So right TahitiNut

and they got tired of hearing "well you could be in Nam"

[TomInTib]

8. Yeah, no kidding. What used to really piss me off was B52s

I did river patrol up north on the Qua Viet with 2nd Marine.

Those planes would come over on bombing mission and give the (I don't believe I can use that term here) "bad guys" cover in the craters.

On long-range recon, we would follow a carpet-bombing run so closely that the craters would still be smoking. Those guys would be shooting at us from the craters.
Man, I hated that crap.

[TahitiNut]

11. They'd dump their loads just northwest of us as a last resort.

If they couldn't, for some reason, hit their primary or secondary targets, they apparently had a designated ("moonscape") area not far from us to dum the bombs rather than return to Guam with them. I remember one night that my bunk bed moved more than 8 inches across the floor because of the vibrations from such a bomb dump. Pretty awesome.

[TomInTib]

17. You had to be there to even begin to grasp the power of those

bombs. I can just see you in a bunk skating across the floor. Funny how we can still laugh about that.

I remember the ground shaking so hard it felt like an earthquake. My first experience with that crap was absolutely terrifying. Because of the rolling thunder, I just knew they were hitting much closer than we thought and that we would surely die. I was such a NFG it is a wonder I ddn't start squealing like a girl. Within a few weeks, I could walk right up the tail while they were hitting out in front of us and not even think about the bombs.

God, I am glad I'm not doing that stuff anymore.

[TahitiNut]

25. That's for sure. I remember my most embarrassing "new guy" faux pas.

I was in-country less than a couple of weeks when I was awakened by the sirens and sounds of incoming. I grabbed my trousers and boots - and don't recall whether I did the "scorpion shake-out" or not. I then high-tailed it out of the hooch and went running across the open field toward the arms room. I remember seeing a round hit near the MP barracks behind me. (I think one guy got killed.) I then remember a round hitting about 50 yards from me in the open field and diving for the ground - I remember it in slow-motion, impatiently wondering why gravity was so slowed down while I was admiring (out of the side of my eye) how pretty the fireworks-like phosphors were. Truly. Bizarre. When I got to the arms room (inanely ASSuming I had to draw a weapon and ammo), a couple NCOs were hunkered down behind the sand bag wall around it. One of them said "what the fuck are you doing, asshole? trying to get killed?" They reamed my ass well and good. That was the last time I did any FNG stuff - John Wayne was a joke.

[TomInTib]

26. Here's mine..

Even though I grew up on a ranch in Texas, I have always had a fear of scorpions. Well, you know how big they were over there..

I was a pilot on a PBR and my first day I was being "briefed" (I thought so, anyway. They were just jerking me around) by the guy I was replacing. We were standing on the bow of the boat and he was going on about shit that was just scaring the piss out of me. But I was earnest and he could tell, so he finally got down to telling me the real stuff.
He was in the middle of how important it was to remain part of the situation, not worry about myself too much, but to think of the team in the present environment, and - most of all - to keep my shit together and never overreact.
That was when a scorpion about 10 inches long ran across my left foot.
I actually screamed right out loud and jumped over the side into the river.
Hit my head on the camel (bumper between boat and dock) and knocked my stupid ass out cold.

Talk about a great first impression.

[TahitiNut]

30. (lol!) Well, I have to admit that I was NEVER the first guy ...

... to jump into a sandbag bunker. They were usually slightly dug in and often damp and cooler - favored by rats and scorpions. Those nasty suckers sure didn't stimulate the sleeping entomologist in me. I was almost OCD about shaking my boots. I don't think more than a week or two went by that someone in my company didn't find one shaking out his boots.

[Faygo Kid]

2. I hear the Texas National Guard was where the "top guns" went

Not.

[TomInTib]

4. I was USN attached to the 2nd Marine

River patrol, long-range recon and target extrication in Vietnam and Laos.

To this day, I never let anyone get away with talking s**t about Marines.

The Navy's role was (except for guys like myself) largely limited to offshore ops (gun line) and, of course, the oft-times heroic work of SEABEES on construction/repair projects.

Most of my exposure to Army personnel consisted of bar fights.

As far as Air Force, I only saw them flying over my head and on R&R and in airports.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

18. and the Naval Medical Corps

navy doctors, navy nurses and navy corpsmen.

[TomInTib]

22. Oh, man, how did I leave them out?

Due to some unfortunate episodes, I was exposed to those guys more than I was to the rest of the Navy, combined.

The unsung heroes.

[BrotherBuzz]

5. This dumb draftee viewed the Marines as braggadocios

because they kept telling me they won the damn war in Vietnam, then the Navy, Air Force, and Army proceeded to lose it. :shrug:

[acmejack]

7. We went in the Navy to ride there!

I would have been scared shitless to walk point through the jungle, think about it.

You couldn't get in the Texas Air Guard on a bet, I tried! Everyone else in Texas of draft age in Texas tried too!

[misternormal]

24. I hate to bring up a sore subject... but * got in.

[TahitiNut]

9. "army or navy"??

Well, with the exception of Swift Boats and SEAL teams, service in the Navy rarely resulted in much exposure to hostile fire.

I was an Army draftee. I (and my 'peers') generally regarded Marines as a bit crazy ... with more than a little "There, but by the Grace of God ..." I doubt it was possible for any of us to serve in Viet Nam without respect for others who had their asses on the line.

That said, I generally regarded guys in the Air Farce as a bit spoiled. They had better billets and facilities, by and large, and (with some notable exceptions) faced less opposition. Likewise for the Navy. At the same time, we all made a choice - get drafted into the Army (sometimes the Marines) or 'volunteer' for another service and spend 3-4 years of your life in the military instead of just two. I guess it split evenly, but I know of no studies that would indicate how many guys enlisted in the Navy or Air Force in order to avodi being drafted into the Army.

The schism, if you could call it that, was between draftees and 'lifers' - between 'US' and 'RA' (the service number prefix that labeled us). But even that is usually overplayed. In my unit, we engaged in the (mostly good-natured) poking and prodding of one another, but we worked very well together and had one helluva lot more respect for one another than is commonly portrayed.

[TomInTib]

13. I volunteered for USN for the reason you stated and spent..

27 months in combat a couple clicks south of the line.

As they say about best-laid plans...

[UTUSN]

23. There're also supply Navy ships, LSTs, up & down the rivers

Not everybody who volunteered did it to "get out of" this or that. And besides the swiftboats, SEALs, and Seabees, these supply ships were exposed to plenty of potential damage. From rocket lauchers at the tree lines and mines in the rivers. Loaded up with pallets of cement, bulldozers, and miscellaneous, travelled down the river to unload at a small Army base, and back again, three weeks round trip at a time. LSTs that were built for D-Day were still being used. Crew of 250. Hollow insides, not unknown to break in half.

Btw, LST stands for landing ship-tank. But unofficially, "large, slow target".

[TahitiNut]

28. I obviously should've said "Brown Water Navy" instead of Swift Boats.

Clearly, the BWN shared the adrenalin rushes (and hemoglobin leaks) we all had.

[Klukie]

16. Thank you all for your insight.

I was born as the war was ending, so it is sometimes difficult to understand the differant perspectives and moods of the military and nation at that period in history.

[Coastie for Truth]

19. In the Coast Guard we got a lot of ribbing from the others

But we actually had guys killed there - right in with the Swifties - - Point Welcome was part of Coast Guard Squadron ONE, and Coast Guard Squadron ONE was under Coastal Force ONE - along with the Swifties. Total CG casualties - 7 dead and 60 wounded.

Search and rescue operations are high risk - like fire fighting --- and the Coast Guard is no safer then fire fighting.

[PsN2Wind]

20. A couple of guys I know

enlisted in other services to avoid the draft and the damn near certainty of being a grunt in VietNam. One chose the Coast Guard and ended up doing radio installations in, you guessed it, VietNam. Another went the Navy route and because of construction experience ended up in the SeaBees which ended up with him in Khe Sahn for the festivities there.
I put in for VietNam in 1963 while in the Air Force because it was pretty damn choice duty with radar techs like myself living in Saigon, drawing per diem and generally just partying until something happened on a site the VietNamese couldn't repair. Have no remorse for not getting that assignment.
Just to add on edit. I would not denigrate the service of the Navy in Nam. If you look at the guest list for the Hanoi Hilton, you'll notr that some of the longest stays there were by Navy aviators, McCain and Stockdale for instance. Even working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier during flight ops isn't nearly the fun in sounds.

[OutNow]

21. USAF proud

Second day at boot camp at Lackland in 1970 the DI asked our flight how many guys enlisted because they were 1A draft status. 75% raised their hand. I sure don't blame them. I, BTW, was not 1A and enlisted because I had a vague feeling that I was helping our country. I got over that after I talked to some of the guys at Wilford Hall hospital where I spent some time on the way back from Thailand. Joined VVAW ASAP when I got my early out medical discharge. To my brothers and sisters in IVAW from all services that just completed their march to New Orleans I say God Bless You.

Bring the Troops Home Now

[Katherine Brengle]

27. I don't know about during Vietnam, but...

I know that my hubby thinks that anyone who is military and not a Marine is crap--especially the Navy for some reason...

(I don't agree, but he's biased, lol.)