SEARCH RESULTS

Mike Carey

---

Not long before he left Vietnam, Mike Carey had an in-country R&R at China Beach that was memorable, at least the part he can remember. He had three Purple Hearts so he got sent to Okinawa and eventually home. (3:41)

---

Mike Carey has some advice for politicians if they dispense with diplomacy and send in the Marines. Let them do their job. His favorite song from his Vietnam days is one that many veterans of that war will mention and he had some leaders there that made an impression on him. (2:47)

Mike Devine

---

It was ROTC that made Mike Devine think that the military would be a good career. At Western Kentucky University he also joined the Pershing Rifles and Scabbard and Blade. After receiving his commission, he was off to Fort Benning to begin the training of an infantry officer. (4:20)

---

Mike Devine was in the second week of jump school when his girlfriend suggested they get married, another leap into the unknown. So, when he made his final jump, he was a married man. The only problem was, his chute got tangled and he was approaching the ground pretty fast. (4:38)

---

He was looking forward to a couple of years stationed in Hawaii but, when Mike Devine got there, it was only a matter of weeks before his unit was deployed to Vietnam. After some intense mountain and jungle training, they boarded cargo planes and flew into Pleiku in the central highlands. (4:55)

---

The first order of business was to carve a base camp out of the jungle. Mike Devine was a platoon leader, newly arrived in Vietnam, and he goes over the various weapons used in his infantry outfit. Only a month after they arrived, the M16 rifle replaced the M14 that the men carried and they began jamming in the heat and humidity. (5:03)

---

It was a dangerous business being an infantry platoon leader in the Vietnam highlands. Mike Devine knew that the enemy would target him because he was always next to the radio operator's tall antenna. He was very close to his RTO and this led to the toughest moment he had to live through during the war. (7:12)

---

When they first got to Vietnam and were building a base camp, Mike Devine's unit was visited by Gen. William Westmoreland. That was good, but what was really great was when Robert Mitchum visited the base. (2:11)

---

Mike Devine was a new infantry platoon leader in Vietnam and he moved into an area of operation that was already notorious, the Ia Drang valley. It had been the site of a large battle which would one day be memorialized in the book, "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young" and subsequent movie, "We Were Soldiers." (3:58)

---

The NVA was not the only enemy in Vietnam. The elements and the wildlife were daily issues for Mike Devine, who developed an intense hatred of leeches. Then there was monsoon season and bad drinking water. (4:03)