The CDC Vietnam Experience Study Mortality Assessment showed that during the first 5 years after discharge, deaths from suicide were 1.7 times more likely among Vietnam veterans than non-Vietnam veterans. The Vietnam War was the first American war in which Black and White troops were not formally segregated, and even saw significant growth in the number of African Americans engaged in battlefield combat, [1] though some de facto segregation still occurred. Non-divisional aeromedical evacuation units went by the callsign DUSTOFF. As we approached the battle, we heard intense firing. I saw aircraft loaded with troops explode in mid-air. Total fantasy. I was told my life expectancy was about 45 secs during a fire fight because of the weapons and demo I carried. I watched in horror as four NVA soldiers ambled through the branches of a downed tree that partially concealed us. Some 23% of Vietnam vets had fathers with professional, managerial The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. I was a 2LT on Hamburger Hill and had 4 RTOs over a 7 day period (excluding the times I ended up carrying my own radio). We flew north, then made a stop, in Cam Rahn Bay. They were also in a circular formation. well I wonder how long your going to last lieutenant? We fought to an agreed stalemate. Interesting, I carried a Prick 25, for 2 months. Now we know. There were no Americans involved in any capacity. From Cam Rahn, we kept flying north to, a Landing Zone near QUANG TRI. We had 5 kias and roughly 50 wounded in our company so about one in three got hit. BUT WE MUST ALSO BE COGNIZANT OF OUR REQUIREMENT TO BE COMPASSIONATE HUMAN BEINGS. Thats my experience. I was already lugging around a 24-pound weapon, 300 rounds of ammo and a pack that weighed a good 45 pounds. 97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged. 10-4. The man with the carbine immediately dropped it, and the two VC surrendered. Welcome home brothers and sisters. I always found life expectancy numbers interesting in that I could never find any supporting information that could be validated. Fact: Mortality studies show that 9,000 is a better estimate. Both served in A 2/18 1st Infantry Division. It is Honor in the Valley of Tears. The Bn & Company I was assigned to, was on the last row of Bldgs. 75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled. I quit trying to make sense of all the numbers that have been generated about Vietnam. He was wounded and suffered permanent disability shortly before his tour was up. To my surprise, I qualified as an expert with the M60 machine gun, nicknamed the pig because of the size, weight and sound of the weapon. Just published my book The Last Goodbye by John Fratangelo, available on line on Barnes and Noble and Amazon Prime Books, Getting great reviews. Point, slack and compass. Screaming Eagles! Our home base was Quang Tri fire Base, But I spent about 6 months out at Mai Loc with the rig. When we reached Company A, we placed our dead in the center of the two-company perimeter. I want to know what the life expectancy of a us infantry army soldier is. How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous. Re: Helicopter Crews (Medevac & Dustoff): To my knowledge, only the 1st Cav Medevac had M60s for protection. A much better approach would be/have been: of all the combat-casualties, what was their The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. Some unfortunately also came home with physical scars. Your article was quite interesting. C Co, 1st-12th 66-67. It had a crew of 4 (forward gunner, the coxswain (steering and driving) and the two aft gunners. Roger Loves you too, Im sure. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Address: 9241 13th Ave SW He was killed in an ambush along with three others. Walked point way to many times but never had contact. This is not Vietnam where a machine gunner's life expectancy was short because you had an entire army shooting at them. 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. We were told in training that the life expectancy of a machine gunner was about seven seconds from the moment the first round was fired. The 4th Platoon survivors stayed put for the night. NFS. The Kb of pyridine, C5H5N, is 1.5 x 10-9. Like most inexperienced gunners, he underestimated the power of the pig and failed to keep the barrel down when firing. After a quick lesson, DeLong became the new owner of 4th Platoons No.1 Gun. He served as a sergeant with the Big Red One in Lai Khe, Vietnam. Take out the power center, youve got the edge. I wasnt aware that they kept life expectancy statistics. It was a chaotic nightmare. We observed the rules of the Geneva Convention while the bad guys had no interest in doing so. What was the average life expectancy for soldiers during World War 2 The battalion was sending us to a village with a small river running through it. Mech. 17 photos showing the life of an elite US Army Ranger The Kb of pyridine, C5H5N, is 1.5 x 10-9. Of the . 11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old. The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of Americas commitment in Vietnam. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. Because if only 1 RTO fought for say only 10 or 15 minutes before being killed, that would up the AVG for the total war! And I know what youre going to say, Because the American cs! Bullcrap!!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of He said fighting was especially deadly in the war-torn city of Bakhmut, dubbed "the meat . I was an O5C-20 in Vietnam. I spent 10 1/2 months in the jungles of Vietnam. Grab some friends and go outside. My good friend who was a RTO was killed. Lowering my gun, I turned around and noticed two VC sitting in the doorway of the hut, staring at me. Interesting but something is missing. Sorry,I was one of your Brothers in Arms that helped talk you out of enlisting for another year in Vietnam. 1 Gun was on my hip with the safety off, ready to rock and roll. But it was my jobso I tried not to think about it much. . I was a REMF but Ive heard of 05Cs that were stuck out in the boonies on a firebase. 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. They were all up there scanning the terrain and looking for signs. Before he was drafted Renza had worked as a hairdresser for women in his hometown of Peekskill, New York. Done ranting. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Were talking averages, obviously so, an RTO, with an expectancy of 5 seconds (!) I would carry when on ambush. We all gotta die sometime, Red. SSgt Barnes, Platoon, its nothing to really concern yourself with, on a long enough time line everyones survival rate is 0%. We walked the mountains and rice patties all thru Tu Thien Province. 1 Gun, I jumped into a small dry streambed with Domke, my assistant gunner. .. Many were killed or wounded ! If you were an administrative officer or clerk in an air-conditioned trailer in Saigon, your war might be a lot like peacetime duty. The Statistics in the Combat Area Casualty File (CACF 11/93) show an average age of death much higher than that of news reports. Then we all, loaded on C-147 cargo planes. Army Infantrymen (11B) are the main land combat force, and known as "Eleven Bravo.". Both served in A 2/18 1st Infantry Division For some reason, the written word of this article was somehow deleted and lost. My dog and I walked point my whole tour in Vietnam. What were the life expectancies of soldiers during the Vietnam War? The average age of the men killed: 23.1 years. Which soldier had the shortest life-expectancy? - Quora They were a great bunch. Nixon Presidential Papers. In Company A, 22 men had been killedadded to the seven killed in Company B. Every single . John Doever Good article. 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.. (many of the Soviet casualties were POWs, though). year old Marine thinking this is my last day on earth. 4 Paul Domke, who carried extra belts of ammo and fed them into the gun. The 4th Platoons single machine gun crewthe platoon had entered the fight short a gunhad been killed in the fighting, and I was to be moved there. 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.. Although we do tend to bomb a lot, thats only half of what we do. The first thing my platoon sgt. If there was anything to this life expectancy of a few minutes then myself and many of my friends that are still alive today would be a long time dead. 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995 (census figures). (LogOut/ The dead were placed on ponchos. the life expectancy of a LT in Vietnam in major combat was 16 minutes. Approximately 70% of those killed in Vietnam were volunteers. Day in the life of a Vietnam Soldier | History 118: US History Since 1877 Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. In the hands of a well-trained machine gunner, the M60 was a devastating weaponso feared by our opponents that they usually aimed their first shots at the machine gunners, who were often in positions exposed to enemy fire. We took fire all the time and responded. As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. See also: Population I was to have that experience two more times before it was over. Most of us have memories of these kind of experiences. The earliest casualty record contains a date of death of . We were about 700 yards east of Company A when it was ambushed by an NVA battalion. estimated education differentials in life expectancy for Veterans in 2011-14 are close to those of U. S. population in 1979-89. We do have infantry (why do you think we have that MOS? However, it was the discretion of the individual crewmen if they wanted to carry personal weapons or not. Wortman, another RTO never made it back to The World. Appx: 6 months in, all of the 543d TC joined forces with the 572d TC. Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations and torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the American media and their undying support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the United States. Ambushed on October 4th,1967. I was a helicopter pilot endstream endobj startxref 1: physical position (in the field / column) Love you Wortman!!!! My second tour was as the S3 for LTC Anthony Herbertone of Americas greatest leaders and WARRIORS OF ALL TIME. Videos, Film, Music, and Movies about VN War, Author interview War & Life: Discussions with a Veteran, A Chat Between Three Veterans [live video with author], Lest We Forget Meet the Authors & Book Signing April 4th: Cherries and Donut Dolly, Interview with author John Podlaski in Examiner Magazine, American Heroes Radio interviews author of Cherries A Vietnam War Novel, Cherries Author Interviewed on British Website, U.K. Blogspot posts interviews author, John Podlaski, More Book Reviews and author interviews about Cherries, Les Scates, U.S. Army (Ret.) If youre a foreigner, I respect what you think, but make sure you read ALL your facts, and dont come to rash conclusion until you know everything from BOTH sides. If anything went wrong, I could easily kill some of our soldiers. Soldiers from 2nd Platoon, Company C, 87th Infantry Regiment, walk on patrol north of the Long . both tours. %PDF-1.5 % Some Brothers said why spend another year in this hellhole???? Hats off to them. Umm..maybe its because we also learn from experience. They kept coming up the hill bringing more bodies to me until all seven had been found. In our spare time we did medevacs and medcaps for the local communities and when required inserted SEALs . 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. After about 30 minutes, the four enemy soldiers got up and left the area. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. If youre American (which you probably are), I could give a f***. My 31-months in-country was in three Direct Support US Army aviation units, 15TC BN, First Cav, 335TH, Americal and 17TH Cav 101ST ABD65-71In the last battle I was directly involved, LAM SON 719, into Laos, cost army aviation units over 600-helicopters shot down or battle damagedthe NVA were waiting for our SECRET mission in early 71I was glad to go home at battles end, in March 71 , almost unscathed, I was TDY for my absurd third tourTo the point, many ARVN Rangers, airborne and their other best died in Lam Son 719US Army Infantry were forbidden entry to Laos in 71.. the ARVN were massacredand many US Army pilots and crew mambers were KIA & WIAeven MIA. Like you, I carried a PRC-25 for about 5 months and never got hit. 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. 'No. 1 Gun': An M60 Machine Gunner in Vietnam Tells His Story - HistoryNet 15 May he was killed by friendly fire, and a host of us were WIA, myself included. 2 Gun.. 58,148 were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.7 million who served. (You can unsubscribe anytime), The US Wings website is ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliant and adheres to their standards for accessibility of the internet so people with disabilities can surf the web more easily & efficiently. The average life expectancy of a Soviet soldier during the height of the battle was just 24 hours. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between 95 and 00. Proudly holding my M60 over my head, I screamed at the top of my lungs, No. The early days of May 1970, I arrived at the Airport, next to Saigon. Anxiously extending the bipod legs on the M60, I added a 100-round belt to the one I already had in the gun. https://www.historynet.com/no-1-gun-an-m60-machine-gunner-in-vietnam-tells-his-story/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. DeLong was later killed attempting to escape from a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp in Cambodia. Arthur Parker and Spc. I couldnt disagree. No. No. We can all hold our heads high and be proud of our service. Hi, the whole thing is going nicely here and ofcourse every one Gotta say I think you hit it on the nose. The Regiment traces its lineage back to World War II. I was an M-60 machine gunner for a battalion recon platoon in 1967, for the First Infantry Division, Known as The Black Scarf Battalion. I was a 2nd Lt. Infantry platoon Leader. Robert Sholly, standing with Platoon Sgt. For his actions, he was awarded the Congressional Medal if Honor. Was I lucky ? three, he believes he is doing what his country wants him to dojust like you So you better damn well treat him with the compassion you want for you!! They have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age groups. If it was your day to get hit or die, it happened. Everyone in the company hit the dirt. We soon learned that the NVA troops were very different from the local guerrillas we had fought around Tuy Hoa. I am proud to have fought alongside of them. We are a woman-owned small business and Veteran-owned incorporated in Ohio. Combatants on both sides faced physical challenges posed by the climate, terrain and wildlife of the country. It was an honor indeed to serve with some of the finest soldiers I have ever met. Fact: The domino theory was accurate. My shit got weak and a sniper popped three rounds in my young ass. Thank You Roger!!! Half of the company hopped off the Huey on one side of the river, and the rest exited on the other side. Id love to see the casualties listed by Corps ? We were like sitting Ducks. Tumbling end over end, the canisters exploded in a white-hot fireball. Was Billeted near an Army medevac Unit and was offered a chance to lay on my stomach with an M16 and door gun for them I decided not a good Idea. Some were constantly exposed to combat, some not so often. I put the M60s bipod legs down, lifted the weapon and positioned it on the ground outside the streambed facing the NVA. I was lucky too but VN never left me. Some gave all. Forget the statistics, we all had a job to do, we went where we were told. 99% of infantry men will currently live to die of natural causes. The oldest man killed was 62 years old. The NVA had wedged a blocking force between our company and Company A, preventing us from advancing any farther. What Was It Like To Hump The Boonies in Vietnam? 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 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. Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old. In my tour everyone had the same chance of getting shot. Startled, I quickly pointed my M60 at them. It was always quick/quick, load the bodies in and get the hell out. I was still pondering the move to 4th Platoon when U.S. Air Force jets screamed over the treetops with canisters of napalm. We had one RTO killed because he was too close to a 2ND Lt, same thing happened to another RTO. 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. Suddenly, I heard my name shouted from the Company B command group. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. A soldier or Marine in Vietnam had a 98% chance of survival if he was evacuated within the first hour of being injured the best odds in the history of American warfare up to that time. I always was told that the life expectancy of a LT was 14 seconds in INITIAL combat versus 9 seconds for an RTO. 1 Gun. The average life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is four hours, a Marine said. It doesnt make any sense statistically/mathematically it is impossible. The planes doing the bombing near the village were VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of South Vietnamese troops on the ground. 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. 2023 CherriesWriter - Vietnam War website, RTO, John Scheur. Id had a premonition, and asked the LT to let me trade off to become the AG. This article appeared in the October 2021 issue of Vietnam magazine. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. When I was assigned to the M60 in advanced individual training, I decided that if I had to be a gunner I would learn everything there was to know about the weapon. The Republic of Vietnam lost 1,018 aircraft and helicopters from January 1964 to September 1973. . In the few firefights and skirmishes we had with local VC, the gun always performed well. Data based on the latest United Nations Population Division estimates. Totally bogus. I told by RTO that i could carry my own radio, When he agreed he was humping ammo. During this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. 58,148 were killed in Vietnam, 75,000 severely disabled, 23,214 were 100% disabled, 5,283 lost limbs and 1,081 sustained multiple amputations. If you look at all of the things the radio operators were tasked with, it becomes abundantly clear why commo guys weren't expected to last long. Also, it would mean the killed RTOs died within seconds of the fight (it doesnt distinguish between ambush or regular fight, eg. Thank You for your courageous service as an RTO with the legendary Hawk Recon Platoon. First thing we did was, Set up a complete circular perimeter. The other group of aeromedical evacuation were divisional, i.e. Deltoid muscle _____ 2. Staying alive was kinda of important. As I was running to the rivers edge, ready to unload on the VC hiding in the elephant grass, I ran past a grass hut and never bothered to clear it. I packed my own radio and got a Thank you from his Mom. The average age of the 58,148 US Servicemembers killed in Vietnam was . How Many Vietnam War Veterans Are Still Alive? PLEASE HELP!!! 1 Gun and I now faced a new and more formidable foethe North Vietnamese Army. As of April 14, 2017, there are 1,611 Americans still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War across Vietnam (1,258), Laos(297), Cambodia(49), and China(7). My dad died of cancer at 52. Different strokes for different folks in war fer sure. Suddenly I realized that my platoon sergeant was screaming at me to stop firing. If it had been up to me, I would have awarded my gun the CIB too. I never thought of it that way before but have many times since. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Here is an 18 Sholly injured an ankle, and 1st Lt. Cary Allen took command of Company B. The Bronze Star was awarded to ALL that were awarded the CIB in WWII because the Infantry accounted for over 70% of the casualties in WWLL BUT NOT 70% )F ALL THE INFANTRY !!! If the NVA shot at the group retrieving the bodies, I was to fire over the heads of the grunts and engage the enemy. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. 1 Gun kept a lot of enemy heads down. ), special forces, combat support, engineering, medics, and vehicle assault weapons. Remember he wanted to reenlist for one more year in Vietnam. AS LEADERS IN AMERICAS SERVICES WE MUST BE PROFICIENT AND READY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR MISSIONS- We wanted a break. Its just (bad) luck, fate, randomness theres no right or wrong, no justice or fairness, no reasoning. A documentary about our company and our 1st Sgt was made. For some reason, the written word of this article was somehow deleted and lost. You were a Great RTO. I personally believe and agree with previous posts that when its your time, not much you can do. The body felt as though it weighed considerably more than it looked. I also earned a Combat Infantryman Badge, signifying that I had been actively engaged in combat. Bloody May 1968 Mini TET. 4329 0 obj <>stream We were expecting, an attack.

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