Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2015 i Vietnam

Troopers on April Cover ID’ed It is always a pleasure to see photos of the Bravo Troop Blues (April 2015). I had the honor of flying these fine men into and out of combat in 1967, often four or five assaults a day. In the cover photograph (above) are, to the best of my recollection: Spc. 4 Jim Williams, in the hole; Lt. Ted Chilcote, holding Williams’ arm; Sgt. Wilkerson, grabbing Williams’ hand; Spc. 4 Dhein, holding Wilkerson’s web gear; and Manley, the radio telephone operator. I am sending another photo (inset) from the series by Howard Breedlove. It includes two more of the Blues: Thien, our interpreter, and Dennis Keenan, killed on May 27, 1967. Some of us in Bravo Troop are still in touch and would love to…

The United States will spend $10 million to remove land mines in the heavily contaminated Quang Tri region, according to Thanh Nien News. Quang Tri was the northernmost province of South Vietnam. Since 1993, up to $80 million in U.S. aid has been sent through American nongovernmental agencies to help remove land mines and unexploded ordnance in Vietnam. Unexploded ordnance killed 38,849 people and injured 65,852 between 1975 and 2007, says the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs. In Quang Tri some 8,000 people have been killed or injured by mines since the war ended in 1975. In related news, the United States has provided $12 million to clear mines in Laos, up from $2 million a decade ago, The New York Times reports. The increased funding is…

It is difficult to exaggerate the bond that endures between the Vietnam Veteran and the UH-1 Huey helicopter. The Huey has largely escaped a classification as a “war machine,” approaching instead, that of a living being in possession of a soul, easily eclipsing its status as an icon, and justly being considered a fellow veteran. It is understandable if we think this way, knowing it was the men who endowed her with life. “Nowhere To Run” is therefore a dedication to these men. Huey door gunners and crew chiefs were the stuff of legends, young men shouldered with responsibilties beyond their years. We remember the sleepless nights of ground crew and mechanics, unseen hands and minds that made flight look effortless. And the pilots were their own class, perfect blends…

In May 1968 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces approaching Saigon from the south moved into positions near a Y-shaped bridge that funneled two prongs of traffic across a canal and merged them into one road leading to the center of the city. The U.S. Embassy was a mere 10 to 15 blocks from the crossing. I was a first lieutenant, the leader of a scout platoon that had been ordered to take and hold the bridge. If the enemy got by us and into downtown Saigon, the ensuing street fight in an area densely packed with buildings and people would have been extremely difficult and very deadly. The Y-Bridge was quite a detour from my unit’s original mission on May 6, 1968. My scout platoon, part of Headquarters Company,…

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the claims of Navy veterans who are seeking benefits for exposure to the deadly chemical Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, in her March 11 ruling, said the Agent Orange Act of 1991 left decisions on benefits to the Department of Veterans Affairs and shielded those decisions from judicial review, reported Courthouse News Service. Under the law, veterans who served in Vietnam and developed certain health problems can receive Agent Orange benefits without proving they were exposed to the herbicide, which was sprayed by aircraft across much of South Vietnam to kill vegetation that the Viet Cong could use for food or cover as they were conducting ambushes on U.S. troops.…

A new exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., showcases the journalists who were at the front lines of the first televised war. “Reporting Vietnam,” which opened May 22 in commemoration of the war’s 50th anniversary and closes on Sept. 12, 2016, also looks at the clashes between mainstream and counterculture publications, confronting a lingering question: Did the press lose the war? The displays include news footage, Pulitzer Prize–winning photographs, articles from newspapers and magazines and the songs of war protesters. There are also films on the war years. I certainly am as concerned about seeing the defeat of communism as anybody else, but we won’t defeat communism by guns, bombs or gases, but by making democracy work. —Martin Luther King Jr. in a speech July 2, 1965, at a…

On May 10, 1968, a small group of men dressed as South Vietnamese militia approached the M2 .50-caliber machine gun position guarding the northern perimeter of the Kham Duc Special Forces camp. The sentries, believing the group to be a returning patrol, waved the men forward. Suddenly, two of them tossed satchel charges and grenades at the sand-bagged position while others gunned down the sentries. The intruders ran toward the machine gun post, firing at it, as North Vietnamese Army units rushed forward. With that machine gun destroyed, the NVA troops targeted the camp’s other machine guns with mortars, recoilless rifles, rocket propelled grenades and their own machine guns. The NVA believed that only tanks posed a greater tactical threat to their forces than the M2 “Ma Deuce.” And targeting…

NAVAL SHIPS, AIRCRAFT AND CREWS take on a softened hue in the works of the Navy Combat Art Program, founded in 1941 by Griffith Bailey Coale, a well-known muralist who argued that artists should be present at the scene of history-making events. He was commissioned a lieutenant commander and, along with other uniformed artists, chronicled World War II. The art program was revived with two military artists in the Korean War, but in the Vietnam era most acquisitions came from civilian artists via a Navy art cooperation program. The Navy’s collection consists of some 4,500 works by more than 180 artists. It is part of the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, housed at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Many of the pieces can be viewed online as part…

July 1 Viet Cong forces attack the air base at Da Nang about 1:30 a.m. with mortars and commandos who break through the base’s defenses. Six aircraft are destroyed or severely damaged. An Air Force sergeant is killed. July 24 A Soviet-made surface-to-air missile launched from North Vietnam hits a U.S. aircraft for the first time. The SAM downs an Air Force F-4 Phantom II fighterbomber (see “Wild Weasels,” pg. 34). The pilot ejects and is taken prisoner. The other crew member is killed. July 27 About 45 to 50 Air Force F-105 Thunderchiefs make the first strike against SAMs, targeting two sites. Four F-105s are shot down by anti-aircraft fire; two are destroyed in a collision. Later evidence indicates one site was a fake set up as a trap;…

A veterans group formed to educate the public about the costs of war has castigated Monsanto Co., which made the dangerous defoliant Agent Orange, for its growing interest in Vietnam’s agriculture industry, reported Voice of America News. Monsanto, co-sponsor of a conference on sustainable agriculture earlier this year in Ho Chi Min City, has said it is helping farmers increase crop yields as the global population increases. For example, the company shows farmers that adding corn to the crop rotation on rice fields can improve productivity on limited cropland. But Veterans for Peace, a St. Louis-based organization, argues that Monsanto should first do something to benefit Vietnamese people harmed by Agent Orange sprayed during the Vietnam War. Monsanto was one of several companies that produced Agent Orange, which can cause…

Tens of thousands of American veterans have never forgotten the tropical sights and smells of Da Nang they experienced stepping off their flights at the air base there during the war. Now they are sensing them again at a more peaceful time, when medals will be awarded not for valor in combat but for victory in a 26-mile race. The Da Nang Marathon/Half Marathon and 5K fun run, in its third year and scheduled for August 30, has been attracting veterans like former sailor Dennis Zaborac, who served at the nearby naval patrol base in Hoi An in 1971. When he heard about the marathon, Zaborac said he thought, “Why as a Vietnam vet would I want to go back?” After all, “the last time I ran in Vietnam it…

The Vietnam War produced many instances of extraordinary valor that are not nationally known and may never have a book or movie based on them, perhaps because, unfortunately, the war was so controversial and didn’t end well. While Vietnam magazine is dedicated to a thorough examination of the war—including the controversies and tragedies that dogged it—we also want to highlight the often unheralded soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whose bravery should not be overlooked just because they served in a war that lost public support. They did what their nation’s elected leaders asked them to do. Our cover story (pg. 26) follows a Green Beret sergeant as he leads a platoon hunting for a Viet Cong camp. When enemy troops in strongly fortified bunkers and trenches killed and wounded many…