Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:13 | As Manning Stahl arrived at Quy Nhon, he was treated to the awesome sight of an F-4 buzzing the ship. He was in for some culture shock in Vietnam, like what the women would do for some K-rations and what would pass for a bathroom.
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His father had landed at Omaha Beach and he did two things for his son. He taught him to shoot and he told him to stay out of the infantry. Manning Stahl knew the Vietnam draft was coming for him so he enlisted and chose artillery.
Manning Stahl was an outstanding athlete in high school and he continued playing sports once he was in the Army. At Fort Sill before his Vietnam tour and at Fort Meade after he returned, he continued to stand out in football and track.
Manning Stahl ran into the same stewardess while flying before he went to Vietnam and after he returned. Her attitude had completely changed. The public had soured on the war and the Lt. Calley situation did not help.
At the fire base in Kon Tum, the VC would fire rockets from the top of the mountain next to the base. Manning Stahl recalls how coordinated artillery took care of that problem. It was there that he saw the most macabre sight he would see over there and it was also there that the artilleryman nearly killed someone that he could see.
Occasionally, you would get an intel target called in by an aerial observer. Manning Stahl's artillery battery let loose one lone shell which took out an NVA unit which had paused their march. They also destroyed some Russian artillery pieces this way.
It took a long time but, eventually, Vietnam veterans began to get the respect they deserved and they enjoyed the belated welcome home. Manning Stahl pays tribute to a friend from his hometown, Donald Rummel, who was killed by friendly fire and finds common ground with the soldiers dying now in Ukraine.
He had done construction work, mostly, but Manning Stahl became an insurance agent after his Vietnam tour. It was a good career and he was good at it. He has a couple of favorite songs that remind him of those days and he has vivid memories of the strangeness of that foreign land.
