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Barry Hirschberg

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The missions were Search and Destroy. Barry Hirschberg was part of the Mobile Riverine infantry and they would be dropped off by boat for these missions and get picked up a few days later. You were wet all the time and there were leeches to contend with. (5:59)

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C-rations were the usual meal but Barry Hirschberg had hot food brought to the field every now and then. For him the field meant jungle and rice paddies in the Mekong Delta. There were three things that scared him in Vietnam, two of them had to do with the Viet Cong but the third was an insect. (5:33)

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As in other wars, the grunts in Vietnam in some ways viewed their enemies as less than human. There was always a pejorative term and, to be successful in combat, you had to see it as it's either him or me. That's just war. But as Vietnam was beginning to wind down, the brass began to play games with a new statistic, the body count. (7:17)

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Talk about lucky! Not only was the 9th Infantry the first unit scheduled to go home, but the last month of his tour, Barry Hirschberg was made company armorer. That meant he didn't have to go out in the field. (4:26)

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It was a nice reel-to-reel tape recorder. Barry Hirschberg had bartered for it as his unit was scrambling to leave Vietnam. It never made it to the States and it took him a while as well. First they sent him to Schofield Barracks where he did a lot of weed whacking. When he did get home he had to remove his uniform to keep from getting hassled in his own country. (7:12)

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For Barry Hirschberg, Vietnam wasn't a war but an era, part of the vibrant mosaic of the Sixties. A musician himself, it was the music of the Sixties that, in his mind, would always be the best music there is. When he thinks about his days in Vietnam, he has empathy for anyone there whose life he may have affected. (7:04)

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When Barry Hirschberg was asked to lay a wreath at a Veterans Day commemoration, He wondered if he would be asked to speak. Just in case, he wrote a poem. (2:54)

Barry Howard

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Barry Howard just missed an appointment to West Point, "Thank the Lord!" Instead he went to the Naval Academy where he got in trouble more than once with pal John McCain. Then it was on to pilot training in yet another branch, the Air Force. (6:49)

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Fighter pilot Barry Howard finally got the assignment in Vietnam he wanted, flying out of Udorn in Thailand. After receiving a DFC for blowing up an ammo tunnel, he went on to receive a Silver Star & Bronze Star (pinned on him by Admiral John S. McCain, Jr.) for disabling some 37mm guns that were causing trouble for reconnaissance aircraft. (10:23)

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If you punch a colonel, it's handy to have the chaplain standing there. That was fighter pilot Barry Howard's experience at his base in Thailand, where he also amused himself by baiting the general's twin sons to fight. Not so funny are the memories of smoke in the cockpit. (5:24)