I got shot on a mission with 45 days left. Though I flew only about 1/2 dozen missions as a Huey door gunner, I was initially told to sit on my flak jacket I always did so (personal protection first). The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the South never recovered. I put the M60s bipod legs down, lifted the weapon and positioned it on the ground outside the streambed facing the NVA. But I made it back in one piece. We had been carrying machine guns for over seven months. It may not have worked for some other wars, but they were pretty helpful. No trees or anything on the ground. Theres 58,276. Back home he returned to hairdressing and got a job at Kenneth Salon in New York City working with top models and fashion magazine editors. Carrying a dead man some 300 yards through thick jungle in 100-degree heat was extraordinarily difficult. The casualty rate in the current war today is a fraction. If my memory is correct, only the 1st Cab flew wiith doorgunners. Diaphragm _____ 3. happened. aND, mAY GOD BLESS AMERICA!!! Interesting reading. Still shaken, I grabbed the gun and crawled to the left inside the streambed. To my right, Piambino had poked his head out of the trench to fire his M16 rifle. No. He pulled the company into a perimeter and dispatched 4th Platoon to recon the trail to the west, while 1st Platoon performed a similar mission to the east-southeast. The machine gun was also mounted in the UH-1 Huey helicopter and other Army aircraft. Much smaller income differentials in life expectancy, 0.2 to 3.6 life-years smaller for Veterans in 2010-17 are estimated. If you were an administrative officer or clerk in an air-conditioned trailer in Saigon, your war might be a lot like peacetime duty. 85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful transitions to civilian life. 1 Gun was on my hip with the safety off, ready to rock and roll. Welcome home. Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. For example, life expectancy of male and female Veterans with household incomes less than $20,000, at respectively. Lt lost a finger, same time. I applaud the courage and difficult and all so dangerous job of Roger Herforth when he served as an RTO for the Hawk Recon Platoon of the 101st airborne division in Vietnam.. However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous. I DISAGREETHE ENEMY WOULD SHOOT THE GUY NEXT TO THE RTO-KNOWING HE WAS THE COMMANDER. is sharing facts, thats truly good, keep up writing. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. If it was your day to get hit or die, it happened. Vietnam War Facts, Stats and Myths - US Wings His comparison to a FB was that if we were fired on we returned fire and requested assistance when needed. That means you lose five RTOs in 5 seconds. He served as a sergeant with the Big Red One in Lai Khe, Vietnam. I remember we were always short of replacements throughout 1968 because of the high Kia & wounded rate we suffered at that time ! I was a 2nd Lt. Infantry platoon Leader. Ed, I was in a Grunt Platoon in Vietnam 70-71. Before I became a team leader on ambush and recon I was in command of the scout jeep for the 25th ID resupply convoy from January 1968 to June 15, 1968 and I found the resupply convoys a lot more dangerous because the enemy always knew where it would be and when. I am 81 now and survived the encounter by terminated the sniper. You seen the enemy you shots him and vice versa. I was also told that the Radio did put a target on my back. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. Cause-specific . The key may be the word initial since we became more savvy with successive combats and had improved survivability. Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. The blasts from the AMMO, really lit up the whole area. Despite initial victories by the Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those forces. That same day, I along with 3/4 others was transported to Long Bhin Post. Your Dad and I had the same job. I for one commend you for your courage and thank you for your service to your country. Great information. Both served in A 2/18 1st Infantry Division For some reason, the written word of this article was somehow deleted and lost. By mid-April 1967 I was pleading with the captain to get a replacement gunner for my M60 in 4th Platoon. In Vietnam, 1 in 400 of the wounded died of their . From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. On Sun, Mar 8, 2020 at 4:00 PM CherriesWriter Vietnam War website wrote: > pdoggbiker posted: A friend recently sent me the link to an article > claiming that the life expectancy of a radio operator in the Vietnam War > was only 5 seconds. Address: 561 E Hines Hill Road Hudson, Ohio 44236 Phone: 1-800-650-0659 / 330-655-5050 Fax: 330-653-3750 Email: [emailprotected], Retail Store Hours: Monday-Friday: 9am - 5pm EST Saturdays: 10am -3pm (Oct-Jan) Sundays: Closed. hbbd```b`` ,&Iw sA '#o Phi Pow B.Sc (econ) in Economic History & Economics (college minor), London School of Economics and Political Science Author has 212 answers and 234.6K answer views 2 y Originally Answered: What soldier had the shortest life expectancy? Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. However, it was the discretion of the individual crewmen if they wanted to carry personal weapons or not. Over 600 Navy FMF Hospital Corpsmen were killed in Vietnam. My dad died of cancer at 52. Lived too tell about it. I spent 10 1/2 months in the jungles of Vietnam. A dense mass of elephant grass hung over the riverbank, and he ducked under it. Suddenly, I heard my name shouted from the Company B command group. Staying alive was kinda of important. And I know what youre going to say, Because the American cs! Bullcrap!!!! Also: for years I have read those life-expectancy numbers never really understanding them, but also noting that they wildly vary. After about 30 minutes, the four enemy soldiers got up and left the area. I told by RTO that i could carry my own radio, When he agreed he was humping ammo. Vietnam War soldiers endured many hardships and faced many problems. As a point of reference, Patterson explained that combat troops in World War II, on average, spent 36 days in a combat environment; the average infantryman in Vietnam spent 245 days in constant. 1 Gun more than I did. my left and saw this rice paddie farmer and his ox and I was trying to motion him to get down he just looks at me and starts We are a woman-owned small business and Veteran-owned incorporated in Ohio. 79% had a high school education or better. As far as I knew that was done in the whole battalion in 1968 . This Battle changed his life and his future, had it not been for his actions, every man on this FSB Gold would have died. 1 Gun and I survived our first firefight. hmK#1+yNvA General Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike (a professor at the University of California, Berkeley), a major military defeat for the VC and NVA. Sure, its softer than it was before, but the training they go through is intense, something a loser who spends his time on the computer all day attacking people he doesnt know anything about and all the facts CANNOT do. Originally I went to the 543d TC. I didnt make a move without that gun beside me. Although we do tend to bomb a lot, thats only half of what we do. There must have been a real mathematician to come up with those calculations. The first thing my platoon sgt. BS but ia a way you are correct. Michael Doolittle..I was with 1/8 inf, 1st Brigade, and that day, March 22nd was also our darkest day. I kept the radio because I understood the power of having the first communication with the support mechanisms of the military. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Deltoid muscle _____ 2. What was the average life expectancy of a soldier in battle on - Quora Like you, I carried a PRC-25 for about 5 months and never got hit. His best friend is 86 and still alive. Correct. What unit lost the most soldiers in Vietnam? well i have been army infantry for 12 years with 2 deployments, and still going strong. 1 Gun kept a lot of enemy heads down. Our home base was Quang Tri fire Base, But I spent about 6 months out at Mai Loc with the rig. The Australian Vietnam veteran study assessed the postservice mortality of 19 205 Vietnam veterans and 25 677 non-Vietnam veterans through 1981. They were not randomly selected but simply the best at doing it. Work Plz. I carried the proc 26 radio after I was asked by my field 1st ( E 7 ) if I would for my platoon . 10 1/2 months in the bush. For his actions, he was awarded the Congressional Medal if Honor. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star in 1974. How many soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam? - 2023 Information presented by SFC (Ret) David Hack. They were great patriots fighting for their families and their homeland. Fact: Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in Vietnam, the average age of an infantryman (MOS 11B) serving in Vietnam to be 19 years old is a myth, it is actually 22. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between 95 and 00. They were also in a circular formation. Vietnam War the helicopters that came in to transport soldiers were the hardest hit with mass casualties . My good friend who was a RTO was killed. I was wasting ammo and didnt even have a target! I felt the same way jumping off the chopper with my m-60, 300. rounds of ammo,grenades,sandbags and six canteens of water. They were a great bunch. The U.S. Army Infantryman Vietnam Pocket Manual Review - HistoryNet We (Americans) had nothing to do with controlling VNAF, according to Lieutenant General (Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding General of TRAC at that time. If anything went wrong, I could easily kill some of our soldiers. Most of us have memories of these kind of experiences. Soldiers also act in the mobilization of vehicles, weaponry, troops, and more. No. Thats my experience. In the last 5 years the symptoms of PTSD and AO are starting getting worse in me. I had yet to fire a shot with No. According to the American War Library, as of February 28, 2019, it is estimated that approximately 610,000 Americans who served in land forces during the Vietnam War or in air missions over Vietnam between 1954 and 1975 are still alive to this day. At Fort Lewis, every recruit learned to operate various weapons. The Vietnam War was the turning point for Communism. Never knew they had life expectancy stats. Explore the Life of a U.S. Infantryman in Vietnam. I, in turn, would take an M16 rifle, which felt like a feather in comparison. Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia, a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war.. Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison sentences while Communists who did so received commendations. The Vietnamese pilot who dropped the napalm in error is currently living in the United States. They used the callsign MEDIVAC and were armed. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. endstream endobj 4315 0 obj <>/Metadata 89 0 R/Pages 4312 0 R/StructTreeRoot 120 0 R/Type/Catalog>> endobj 4316 0 obj <>/MediaBox[0 0 612 792]/Parent 4312 0 R/Resources<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI]/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Tabs/S/Type/Page>> endobj 4317 0 obj <>stream Over the next two months, we exchanged fire with groups of the NVA. My first tour was as an advisor to the VN Abn. 6 Answers They say Kali Ma Theyre referencing this scene from the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: What is the life expectancy of an army infantry soldier? Many were killed or wounded ! 1 Gun. Certainly got my attention. hb```8fB cBLd2>Tb jz1@E; aK6Tmc.Nn"&gn7hj'wm,h d6p4u0`&88:,TMV& y@ b=e>a&^ >{2b`ZHE3psn QZ Both served in A 2/18 1st Infantry Division. DeLong was later killed attempting to escape from a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp in Cambodia. In all that time, the Tet 1968 fighting in Saigon was the only time the unit fought a pitched urban battlevery unusual during the war. Dap, Hope this helps. I am proud to have fought alongside of them. I was sitting on the ground one day trying to dry out my gear and better configure my ruck when my squad leader came walking over to me and said, Gow, youve got the radio. As he turned and walked away! 2) by my research, medics suffered 93% casualties with about 33% deaths. Army Infantrymen (11B) are the main land combat force, and known as "Eleven Bravo.". I am one lucky SOB. Radiomen in the Vietnam War faced a 5-second life expectancy My second tour was as the S3 for LTC Anthony Herbertone of Americas greatest leaders and WARRIORS OF ALL TIME. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. At this time- senior Army leadership ordered us all to read the Geneva Convention to our troops because of the My Lai debachle. It was one of my most memorable tours in the Navy I later went to a carrier and was bored silly because I had about 1% of the responsibilities I had as an O-2. Thank You General Vessey for the almost 53 years I have lived since that day. Rarely do we examine war through the unique bond between a man and his weaponin this case the M60 machine gun. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. Nervous, I set up my gun on the hill and loaded a new hundred-round belt. To cut the Ho Chi Minh Traila week after the mission endedthe trail was booming with business from the north.. Of the eight who remained, seven were wounded. Different type units, different locations, different opinions on dangers. How Many Vietnam War Veterans Are Still Alive? ), special forces, combat support, engineering, medics, and vehicle assault weapons. Four platoons in a rifle company. Got hit inside 15 minutes, first ambush we walked up too. I sure feel for all you guys that went outside the wire. As a Huey door gunner, when we left the ground on a mission, I always thought that this mission would be my last! Enemy fire greeted as us as soon as we landed near the village. Some of my men didnt. Photo above is of Stanley Kober with RTO, John Scheur. He then said that they were generally on patrol moving through their area, both attacking and being attacked depending if the VC knew their location. We had one RTO killed because he was too close to a 2ND Lt, same thing happened to another RTO. They run into the fire to help the wounded and many get wounded or killed. Answer (1 of 12): It heavily depends. I would suspect that stating with any accuracy the life span of a grunt like me, or any other MOS, would be pretty much pure speculation. I was a cmbt engr demolition specialist carried a 45 auto and an M70 grenade launcher in addition to the C-4 and Det Cord. Anyway I was wondering about the RTOs in a grunt platoon, was that their MOS or were they 11B that carried a PRC ? I applaud your courage as I know an RTOs job is essential, difficult (carrying the weight of his radio transmitter, his rifle, his ammo, and his rucksack), and dangerous as the enemy surely wanted to knock out any communications for support. of what was usually 5 or 6 going in and many times the leads would find traps, punji pits or the VC waiting. Fighters and planes dont make up the Army, thats the Air Force. Was it left behind on some forgotten battlefield? Prayers for all. We can all hold our heads high and be proud of our service. We ambushed and got ambushed, firebase got attacked who carried what or did what had no bearing. I was still pondering the move to 4th Platoon when U.S. Air Force jets screamed over the treetops with canisters of napalm. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. Completa las oraciones con la forma correcta del presente de subjuntivo de los verbos entre parntesis.? It didnt matter who you were or where you were. Ever since that fateful day in 1967, I have often wondered what became of my beloved M60. I prayed I would not have to fire over the heads of the 4th Platoon troops entering the draw to retrieve our dead. The next morning, the blasting could still be, heard. Although the percent that died is similar to other wars, amputations or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in World War II. What was the average life expectancy of a soldier in Vietnam? The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand stayed free of Communism because of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam. He said fighting was especially deadly in the war-torn city of Bakhmut, dubbed "the meat . Ive always considered myself damn lucky to make it out alive. Eventually I found a spot where the bed leveled off and began firing on the NVA. Mech. Seattle, Washington(WA), 98106. It was just part of the job. Also , it I might add that the, Government big wigs, have a quota [percentage]of a lot of the Military equipment etc that had a certain amount of time to function until it was disable, blow up, wrecked, junk, etc. The jungle seemed to want No. I look over to Soldier,this is a wardont forget that, and anytime we are in a fight we will be toughest SOBs in the fight!! The Davis Station in Saigon was named for him. US Wings recently added to OTEXA's Made in U.S.A. Or is it on display in a Hanoi museum so curious citizens of that city can inspect a weapon captured from American imperialists? Im laying behind a rice paddie dike.I put my whole body as far down in the muck while the bullets were over my head. Over 900,000 patients were airlifted (nearly half were American). Found NVA bunker complex. Surrounded by an enemy battalion, our hopelessly outnumbered platoon waged a desperate battle for survival. There were no Americans involved in any capacity. In January 1967, the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, was airlifted to Pleiku province in the Central Highlands. Expenditures for a body in a combat zone? PDF Mortality Rates and Life Expectancy of Veterans - Veterans Affairs 2 tour Nam Vet, The Navys First Vietnamese Admiral Saw His Family Killed by an Infamous Viet CongGuerrilla, The Navy's First Vietnamese Admiral Saw His Family Killed by an Infamous Viet Cong Guerrilla, A Day in the Life of an Infantry Point Man in Vietnam, The Story behind the famous Saigon Execution Photo. Then the tempo changed suddenly and violently. While traveling through the boonies the first few men were usually always shot first. In a strange country scared shitless .I was a minesweeper.My first time out on a mission they put me on the drag line fifty yards from the road which was route 1, Then all hell broke lose I do remember when I got short I thought about it a lot more. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. I was told my life expectancy was about 45 secs during a fire fight because of the weapons and demo I carried. Ordered to reinforce the unit, the Company B commander put our four platoons abreast of each other, and we marched west. NFS. The TOTAL number of CIB and CMB awarded would give you the answer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was more or less next man up . Moving west down the trail, 4th Platoon exchanged fire with a single NVA soldier, then a handful and finally a group of about 10-15 around noon. I've never heard about the life expectancy of 6 weeks (even with a short google search). I couldnt disagree. I have a fried Who is killed in Vietnam six months before I got there cause of death was other how would I find out since his parents are long gone, Do a search for his name n Coffeltdatabase.org, Sir, would you mind me translating this into Spanish and getting it posted in our blog? Great reading. 0 Fortunately, it was recorded on Spotify and can be listened to here: Thank you for both articles: (1)Going up river to port and (2) the flight from Italy back to Nam. We were in2dBn 503d . Name the major nerves that serve the following body areas? Startled, I quickly pointed my M60 at them. The article was interesting. 2 Gun.. The average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier during the height of the battle was just 24 hours. MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions. Soldiers from 2nd Platoon, Company C, 87th Infantry Regiment, walk on patrol north of the Long . Me, a vehicle mechanic with Btry E, 41st Arty Quads 1970. Shortly before 11 a.m. on May 18, the point squad in Company Bs 2nd Platoon spotted three NVA soldiers walking on a trail near the Cambodian border and attempted to capture them, but the NVA dashed off into the jungle. They were located, next to us, in/on Long Bhin Post. I was never hit by enemy fire even though they had multiple opportunities after that I was an rto for the company commander and I have to say both jobs were not fun. Mi hermana se sorprende N-F C-F Cl-F F-F 2 Answers C-F is the most polar.