I GOT TO NAM IN '67. POSTED TO MAG-13 GROUP GUARD FOR MY TOUR. WAS PLATOON SGT FOR 1ST PLATOON. SGT LARRY LEE WAS PLT. COMMANDER, NOT ENOUGH OFFICERS TO FILL SLOTS. SGT ANDY MASK WAS ALSO IN 1ST PLT. WE HAD THE BUNKER LINE FROM NORTH END OF RUNWAY TO THE DITCH AT SOUTH END. REMEMBER THE NEW CLUB BURNIING DOWN?ALSO LATER ,THE ROCKET HIT HUT AREA, 1 KIA IN HUT 1 WIA. OTHER ROCKETS HITTING HOT PAD, LOST (2) F1's. SAW MANY CLOSE CALLS WITH AIRCRAFT TAKING OFF & LANDINGS. ANYONE REMEMBER THE F1 CRASH CLOSE TO THE BEACH ROAD, VERY BAD. THE BUNKER LINE COULD GET VERY STRANGE AT NIGHT. OUR DUTY DRIVER WAS RETURNING FROM A BUNKER COFFEE RUN, SAW MOVEMENT IN BUNKER THAT HE KNEW TO BE EMPTY. MADE CHALLENGE CALLS, SAW MORE MOVEMENT BUT NO ANSWER, FIRED ON THE BUNKER. FOUND SMALL TIGER CUB, 25-30 LB. NEVER DID SEE THE MOTHER. LARGE SNAKES WOULD GO INTO BUNKERS DURING THE DAY (TO KEEP COOL ?) SOMETIMES WOULD STILL BE THERE IN THE EVENING WHEN GUARDS WENT IN. ANYONE ON THIS SITE THAT WAS THERE '67-'68 DROP A LINE.
Category: Vietnam
C-Bag Gone Missing
On my way in-country thru Camp Hansen, packing my c-bag for storage and never saw it again.
TET 1968
Heading over to 3-gun detached L 4/11 from Hill 148. Just off Phi Bai airstrip
1st Lt. Richard Braley
Monkey Mountain Moments 69-70 MACS-4 “Vice Squad ch-77, mode-3 code 23, Echo-Charlie 214 your pigeon
I got to DaNang via staging in Pendleton and through Okinawa. With a history of pneumonia already from the tear gas chamber at ITR in '67, my '69 arrival in Vietnam after the staging area training's own tear gas choral emsemble had my lungs blowing dark green chunkies. The Corpsman at the 2 day transition/gear storage shenanigans on Okinawa shrugged, handed me two 1000 mg Bayer aspirin, and quipped, "Can't help you here, kiddo. Go die in Danang… NEXT Marine!" I actually laughed. You had to be there to see the insanity and chaos… revisited on the way home 2 tours later. The Navy really is way-cool. My uncle was a Sailor in WWII. Besides, they're actually our mom. We're fed, clothed, taken to "after school games" and church. "She" also pimp-slaps our butts when naughty. If you were REALLY crazy, you were "grounded" in your room… at Portsmouth Naval Prison, NH. When I got to my unit after a day in the Danang runway transit barracks, with the self-cleaning and debugging screens from insects compliments to the chameleons skittering about all night, the MACS-4 "Doc" up on Monkey Mountain (Son Tra) scowled at the minute flecks of blood in my green chunked sputum sample, and hissed, "He said WHAT?" Our unit "limo," a '48 canvas topped weapons carrier, tossed me into the DaNang Navy Hospital down by Marble Mountain.
Our 4 Generations
We are 4 Generations Marine Strong.
PFC Donald Carson….Korea
L/Cpl Greg Sims……….VietNam
Cpl. Brad Sims…………Perian Gulf
L/Cpl Scott Nokes…….Afghanistan (2x)
As a Life Member of the Marine Corps League, I displayed my Espirit De Corps with my MCL, New Jersey Plate. Now I am in Kentucky, I continue to show my pride, with my adopted state's Marine Plate.
Looking for Sgt Clinton from the story about “BABE” the dog
I read the story about Babe on this site. I remember "BABE" & Sgt Clinton. I am Cpl. Clarence Mann who in Vietnam I served with Sgt. Clinton who saved my life during an attack on Dong Ha. I was the Marine that drove Sgt Clinton in to town one night where he jumped off the back of the truck. If you read this please contact me at email:
M14
This isn't as much a story as a request. Why don't y'all have more merchandise with the M14 on it? A t-shirt or something. I know that today everyone loves the M16. I trained with the M14 at Parris Island, carried it on a Med Cruise, fired it in the Dominican Republic, and staked my life on it in Nam. When I was in Nam you couldn't give me an M16. Far as I was concerned, back then they were a p.o.s. My 14 never failed to fire and would punch through almost anything. I know that they were, and are, being used in the "sand box", or at least the firing mechanism. The barrel and gas plug profile is unmistakeable. At five hundred yards, with iron sights I could put one in your chest 9 out of 10 times. And I 'm not the best shooter around. It never seemed too heavy while I was shooting at the Cong or the rebels in Dominican Republic.
Flaming Rats
Here is another rat story. While my platoon was in Hoi An, we had squad tents to sleep in. Due to the fact there wer so many pallets laying around ,we started to put them in the tents to keep our gear and cots out of the mud. This was a perfect place for the rats. They got so bad we started having a weekly rat round up. Due to the fact we were Amtrackers, sometimes known as tractor rats, we had access to gas and oil, not to mention oil cans that could squirt a nice stream of oil. One fireteam of men would drive the rats out of the tent and an ambush team would burn them as they ran out. We had good ole Zippos. We would strike the lighters and squirt a stream of gas and oil accross the flame. A really great small flame thrower. One way to have some fun and get rid of rats.
KING RAT
Speaking of RATS as big as CATS…
Our Counter-Mortar Radar (CMR-11th Marines) was deployed with 2nd
Battalion, 1st Marines at a firebase near Monkey Mountain north of
DaNang, South Viet Nam during January of 1969. I was a Corporal of
Marines, MOS 5931, Ground Radar Technician. The tent I was in
housed eight Marines. We slept on canvas folding cots above hollow
wood pallet flooring. Our few amenities included a small
refrigerator. We had a generator to power the radar so we snaked a
couple of cables over to our tent for lights and to keep the adult
beverages cold.
Christmas Eve An Hoa VietNam 1968
I had been in An Hoa since Sept., I was with 1st Dental Co. We had old French buildings for our clinic and quarters. The local Vietnamies wall builders had just finished a real nice sand bag wall behind our building that protected us and seperated us from two large gas bags and one large LZ. Christmas eve around 10 or 11 pm flares of all sizes started to light up the night, there were so many it was almost like day time. I was standing on top of the wall taping on my recorder the events as the happend. It was a site to see. My luck, no snipers were out, he would not have had a hard time seeing me. Next day, I was told the Gen. had a fit , some 5,000 lbs worth of flares went up in smoke, not to mention how easy a target we made of our selves. It was said that heads rolled. Also I could have gotten killed by the flare casing falling all around me… what a night.