COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

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Showing : Vietnam Videos

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  Dana Averill - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Was it worth it? Dana Averill is not sure if Vietnam was but he's proud of his tour and feels that no one who was there should feel ashamed of what he did. He had good leadership and good buddies there and now he has the reunions.

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  John Bates - Marines +8 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  John Bates had just recovered from a gunshot wound but the NVA wasn't done with him yet. When he was on a listening post, he saw them creeping toward his position and readied a hand grenade. Before he left Vietnam he would have two more Purple Hearts.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Saddle up! The Marines were used to helicopters but this time they were ordered to board trucks. Hue City was under siege as the Tet Offensive raged across the entire country. Lee Riley recalls that they were under fire the minute they got there and it didn't let up for months.

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  Bill Gessner - Navy +9 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 9th Marines (Attached)

  The fighting was hard. One company was ambushed and the other two were having a hard time breaking through to support it. Corpsman Bill Gessner was in the thick of the fight and as he was treating a wounded Marine, a hand grenade came into the hole and wounded him and killed two others.

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  Terry Caskey - Army +10 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  There was water everywhere which meant that there were mosquitos everywhere which meant that Terry Caskey had malaria four times in Vietnam. His day at the hospital could be mundane or it could be terrible. He recalls a terrible day when a chopper full of dead and wounded Marines landed at the hospital.

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  Bernardo Lopez - Marines +11 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  He was already dog tired from staying awake to keep an eye on his untrustworthy ARVN allies. Bernardo Lopez and his fellow Marines were told to gear up and head to Hue. The Tet Offensive was on. The combat there was intense but there was also some strangeness to the proceedings, like the Vietnamese girl who asked him an odd question and the TV cameraman who wanted a good shot. Part 1 of 4.

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  Terry Caskey - Army +10 Total Videos

  22nd Surgical Hospital

  There was a mortar attack going on when medic and operating room technician Terry Caskey arrived in Phu Bai. He was assigned to a field hospital where the flow of casualties and the enemy attacks were relentless. He could watch the rockets fire off from a nearby hilltop and track the contrail right into his compound. And as he ended an epic shift in the operating room, he emerged covered in blood. It was too much for a twenty year old to bear.

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  Fred Behrens - Army +10 Total Videos

  Eagle Dust Off

  At first light, downed Dust Off pilot Fred Behrens found himself in even more trouble. He took three rounds from a Cobra gunship and one from a sniper. He had already been shot while still in his chopper. The next day, the Rangers he had set out to evacuate took off and he was nearly hit with more friendly fire from a Phantom jet. Finally he saw the right uniforms heading toward him. Part 2 of 3.

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  Freddie Owens - Army +11 Total Videos

  A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  After the column was devastated by an NVA ambush, wounded Americans were scattered in the darkness. After his captain heard one such group calling for help on the radio, Freddie Owens joined a patrol to find them, guided by a gunshot every few minutes. Once there, medic Daniel Torres volunteered to stay with those who couldn't move and protected them through the night with medicine and a machine gun.

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  Joe McDonald - Army +5 Total Videos

  A Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Division

  The RPG that severed Joe McDonald’s foot didn’t kill him. The machine gun fire that hit him as he still tried to help others didn’t kill him. The grenade taped to his hand might have killed him if the VC had found his hiding place.

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  Fred Behrens - Army +10 Total Videos

  Eagle Dust Off

  Word back at the Eagle Dust Off base was that Fred Behrens was dead. Shot down and hit with five bullets, he survived two nights in the bush and was airlifted out when he was found by some Rangers. It was a long recovery with sometimes indifferent treatment by the Army. Part 3 of 3.

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  Stuart Jamison - Army +9 Total Videos

  9th Infantry Division (ARVN)

  Stuart Jamison recalls observing the reality and immediacy of death as his unit assaults a Viet Cong company during Phase II of the Tet Offensive.

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  Laurie Druyor - Navy +4 Total Videos

  USS Sanctuary

  One night, while Laurie was eating dinner, the USS Sanctuary got a call about a plane crash. She vividly remembers the patients coming aboard, and the aftermath of this incident, including one boy who was MIA. As difficult as this experience was, it was nothing compared to the Tet Offensive. New wounded were coming in constantly, and trying to care for all of them at once was emotionally exhausting. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, the Military Heritage Museum- https://freedomisntfree.org/.)

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  George Forrest - Army +11 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment

  They were hunkered down after fierce fighting when the call came from "Ghost 4-6." It was a group of wounded men who had pulled themselves together after the ill fated march to LZ Albany and were lost in the dark. George Forrest sent a patrol to find them, and in an incredible act of bravery, medic Daniel Torres stayed through the night with them and saved many men. Captain Forrest still had to write a gut-wrenching letter to the mother of a missing soldier. Part 3 of 4.

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  Tommy Clack - Army +8 Total Videos

  C Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

  In a letter home, Tommy Clack expressed his worry that something bad was going to happen and it did when his unit engaged the NVA near the Cambodian border. He saw the enemy soldier stand and fire the RPG that changed his life forever.

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  LtGen Ron Christmas - Marines +16 Total Videos

  H Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division

  As Marine Captain Ron Christmas fought to regain the city of Hue, he found the enemy adept at concealment and surprise. Every soldier in a spider hole was armed with a rifle and a RPG launcher. His action during this time earned him the Navy Cross.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  No problem. Lee Riley didn't mind at all that he had to go to Vietnam. He was a true Marine. Just tell me where to go. But when he got there, the first thing that happened was very troubling.

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  Dana Averill - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Within a week of arriving in Vietnam, Dana Averill's unit lost several Marines KIA. He wasn't feeling good about the math considering he was going to be there for a year. What did I get myself into? But that smoothed out as he got acclimated.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  It was a war every day. For Lee Riley and the other Marines in his unit, there was no let up in the fighting. The battle for Hue City was long and brutal but at least Gen. Westmoreland removed the restrictions under which they were operating.

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  Dana Averill - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  All he knew about Vietnam was from John Wayne in The Green Berets but he knew he wanted some excitement in his life. Dana Averill enlisted in the Marines in 1968 and he got his wish.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Lee Riley is still not back from Vietnam. When he returned, he went straight to the VA and told them he was not the same person who left. Besides the PTSD there was the Agent Orange, the Camp Lejeune water and a slew of related health issues. But the reunions of his unit give him something to hold on to.

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  Dana Averill - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Dana Averill was wounded twice in Vietnam. He describes those incidents in which he received shrapnel from land mines. They were traumatic, not because of what happened to him but because of what happened to the other Marines who were wounded. (Caution: Graphic Material)

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Lee Riley was a poor kid from a large family when he joined the Marines. Some of his older brothers had served in other branches but it was the Marines for him because he thought they were so cool. It wasn't cool what a particular sergeant did to him at boot camp.

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  John Bates - Marines +8 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  He really wanted to be a Marine but John Bates went off to college to prove to his folks that he was not college material, at least not yet. Sure enough, it wasn't long before he was standing on the yellow footprints in San Diego.

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  Dana Averill - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  There was very little down time. You were always on patrol or setting up an ambush or on guard. When Dana Averill did have a breather, nothing was so sweet as some mail from back home.

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  John Bates - Marines +8 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  John Bates was recuperating from a wound in Da Nang and he was tired of the place. He managed to scrounge some boots and some pants but he couldn't come up with a shirt. Undaunted, he set out to rejoin his unit.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Why would you extend for another six months in Vietnam? Lee Riley did and his reasoning may surprise you. They made an MP out of him for that period and it suited him just fine. He ran into a Vietnamese boy who explained to him exactly why America would fail in Vietnam and it had the ring of truth.

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  Mary Ann McMinn - Army +3 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  She thought it wasn't fair that the men had to go to Vietnam and the women did not, so Mary Ann McMinn joined the training program for Army nurses. That was a big help for her family struggling to pay for her university education. When the time came at the end of her training, she volunteered to go.

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  Dana Averill - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Dana Averill was in the rear waiting to go home and he felt guilty. His guys were still out there. When he got home, he was very fortunate to not experience the vitriol from anti-war protestors directed at some servicemen returning from Vietnam. He did have a smart mouth buddy whose greeting teed him off.

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  John Bates - Marines +8 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Looking back, John Bates recalls the leaders who inspired him and the hard lesson learned from the war in Vietnam. Basically, don't send us somewhere and then tie our hands.