| Thread Summary |
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| Kham Duc seems to be the biggest story never told. That was an interesting read, but as far as accuracy I couldn't say. Also ten men can witness an event and you'll get ten versions of what happened. You guys were real lucky to not have casualties. Besides getting shot at, you had stuff falling out of the sky. Still wishing the stuff in that post was more complete as far as names of everyone in the OPs-not just the casualties. It seems 2 men got out of OP1 with a radio and did some note worthy things themselves. I asked about the injuries to the man from OP3 that you guys helped because my uncle never got any serious injuries. When I was a child he told me that he got hit on the head one night and they gave him a medal for it. Don't know the details, but that could have happened anywhere in VN. Good job you guys did getting the men off that gunship. I'm sure they appreciated the help. Sorry I didn't post sooner, I have a really messed up back and had a severe headache the last few days ... |
| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 12th, 2014, 5:21pm |
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| Sam, I just spent the last 2 hours reading all of what you posted in that link about Kham Duc. Much of it I don't remember and some I didn't remember the way it was told there. I found out not long ago that the Kham Duc evacuation was the biggest operation of the war. There were over 600 aircraft assigned to that operation. I don't remember the SF's being there until the end. Some got on the aircraft that lifted us into Kham Duc. I thought they all got out but I was mistaken. I was on the last 130 out of there I guess. Alpha 2/1 took a lot of casualities. We didn't suffer any to my knowledge. The gunship that went down on the side of the runway came right into our cp. Everyone was running trying to get out of the way. We were the ones who got the crew out. We took every M60 machine gun off all the helicopters we could find. We came out with twice as many as we came in there with. The man tha ... |
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| Yeah my info may not be totally accurate. I was looking at a diagram that's on another site, it might have been accurate for a few minutes! Check the link that I put in post 33 above and you'll see a fairly good timeline of the battle if you're interested. Quite a few pictures and some diagrams also. You might see some one you know. That's all I had to go by, you probably know if its really accurate or not. What kind of injuries did the man from the OP have? Do you recall? Looks like he came from OP3. Good job on the crawling...You gotta avoid the .50. You guys were some of the last ones out? Sam |
| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 12th, 2014, 1:15am |
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Sam, I thought D 2/1 was opposite us on the runway. After 46 years, who knows. I don't think anyone was tied in to us down the runway. They would have been in range of our .50 cal and recoiless rifle on the op that got overrun. I believe A 1/46 was first ones they tried to get out on the 130. A mortar round hit next to the plane blowing a tire and he stopped the aircraft. He went back up the runway unloaded and flew it out empty. I think the pilot was awarded the DFC. One guy got off the op at the end of the runway and we went down to get him. They opened up on us with the .50 cal. We threw the guy on a 2 1/2 truck which took off leaving 3 of us down there taking heavy fire. We probably crawed about 150 meters in a ditch to get out of range before we were safe. Lots of memories from that day!!!
Carl Fryman
C 2/1 1967-1968 |
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| Carl, I see one diagram showing C & D 2/1 on the east side of the runway toward the southern end and it looks like A 1/46 was on the west side directly opposite of where you were with A2/1 and B2/1 at the NW and NE section of the runway. With you facing east, your right flank tied into A1/46 at the southern tip of the runway...Does the sound right? Most of the damaged aircraft ended up at the northern end of the runway. I think. As for the dud bomb, did you guys deal with many of those, I mean was it a common job? I've got more questions about the training you guys got when you first got in country, before you went into the field the first time but I'll save those for later. If I ask something you guys don't want to answer, just ignore it, I wont be offended. Sam |
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| Hey Bob, nice to meet you. I'm not sure of date of manufacture for my weapon, but most of ours were colts. I understood other companies were licensed to manufacture M16s and was really surprised to have the weirdo in my unit. We had a few different makes but I only remember mine. It had the closed flash suppressor on it and I never had a problem with live 5.56 rounds. Blanks w/ the blank adapter were iffy sometimes tho. Now let me tell you something you might not know. I was in a local guard unit for over 10 years and we usually went to Camp Shelby Ms. to qualify. One year all the ranges were booked or something and we HAD to qualify. They booked the local police range for us and it wasn't rated for rifles- only pistols. They gave us a funky bolt with a U-Joint in the middle (you could shake it and it would flop about 15 degrees) and a different magazine-and- a box of .22 cal long rifle (rimfire) ammo. The worst experience any of us ever had. We used gallons of lsa oil that day and got ... |
| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 11th, 2014, 5:15pm |
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Sam, I was in C 2/1. I got to the company on the 17th of Nov 67. At Kham Duc, C2/1 along with B2/1 were on, I guess, the east side of the runway. Most of the action was on the west side looking toward Laos. Delta and Alpha were on that side. I'm not sure where A 1/46 was. E 2/1 was manning the op's. We arrived there on the 10th of May and run out on the 12th. Saw things on the 12th I never saw in my whole tour of duty. The C130 your uncle referred to, was the worst air disaster in history at that point in time. There is a Kham Duc group run by Bill and Ann Schneider. They have had reunions but I was unable to go and also printed a newsletter.
The dud bomb story happened in the mountains off LZ Ross. We put a blasting cap in the C4 attached it to the bomb with the fuse. When the CO said they were clear, we lit the fuse and ran. They didn't tell us about any waterfall. They told us to tie our packs on ... |
| Posted by: Bob Kotch |
Date Posted: March 11th, 2014, 4:52pm |
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| Sam, that M16 you had sounds like an odd one to me. Never heard of it. How did it function for you? I had an early M16 made by Colt. It had the open spline flash suppressor, which was great for cutting the wire on cases of C rats. It worked fine for me and I carried it everywhere, every day. |
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| Carl I didn't realize that you were in 2/1. I read "Through The Valley" (yes I have that book, bought after I found out my uncle was in the 196th) and thought you were in another unit...My mistake. What part of Kham Duc were you put into? I've read about the fight there and seen quite a few pics of the place and would like to know. I know that was a pretty rough fight for everyone involved. I'm glad you made it through. That place should have been evac'd as soon as Ngok Tavak was over run. As far as the dud bomb, I'm assuming you used the charge to set it off? I know the VC/NVA would salvage it if they could to use against us. I know nothing about unexploded bombs and other duds. I bet you hurried up that rope. |
| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 11th, 2014, 1:18am |
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Sam, I was at Kham Duc. That was a C130 that you mentioned that all the locals got on that was shot down. Your uncle was definitely at Kham Duc. We were trying to get out of that place; a place we never should have been in the first place. 27 great men lost their lives there .
In response to Frenchie's remark about rope, we used it once to get up a waterfall. We had put a 5 minute fuse and a 2 pound block of C4 on a dud 500 lb bomb. The rest of the company was waiting at the top of the waterfall for us. We didn't know that the waterfall was there so we left our packs at the bottom just so we could get to the top safely. The only time we used rope. |
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| Another question from my curious little mind. I had a M16A1 assigned to me and carried it often. Mine was manufactured by the Hydrastatic division of GM. I think they made automatic transmissions. Did any one else have a weirdo weapon like this or did you frontline guys have mainly Colts? |
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| That dude was lucky he only lost his gear. I was in a local guard unit and we went to Korea 3 times total. On my first trip we made a "river" crossing. It was really just a large stream but the bridge wasnt rated for our deuce and a half so we drove slowly through the stream. Turns out that about a hundred yards downstream it was washday and the mama sans got mad at us for stirring up all the mud. We didn't know they were there until they started yelling at us. I felt sorry for them because I knew we were messing up their hard work. Thats the closest to a river crossing I ever had. I spent one trip on a ROK radar site and one trip on a ROK AA site and one trip at Camp Humphries. |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 10th, 2014, 9:54pm |
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That river crossing was interesting.....it was an accident waiting to happen....during that period , we had extensive rain and i was watching and over a period of hours in the area i could see the water level actually rise...we had never done a water crossing with ropes before. In fact i cant recall ANY water crossing by chopper either. The guy that did it was
a small 3rd Platoon Puerto Rican man....they told me he barely had time to pull the quick release straps on his Alice pack. I dont see how he was going to make it across no matter what....the river was wide and the current was very swift due to the increase water from the rain. The other problem was that the rope STRETCHED and it didnt take long before he was under water. |
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I agree that there SHOULD be a movie about Kham Duc. For lots of reasons. I bet if people were told it was true, they'd never believe it. So much stuff there. If you haven't read this, you might want to. Its a thread at armchair general forums that go into some real detail about the Kham Duc actions including some events leading up to it. The poster did a great deal of research before he posted. Some of the stuff is in the wiki also, but more detail and pictures. Hope this link works for you.
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117587&highlight=kham
Some of the people there are vets and really know what they are talking about. In fact, I'm signed up here because of Jack Krohn (a 196er).
You know, now that you said "river crossing", most of the river crossing stories I've ever heard involved some poor private damn near drowning. Guess some lessons don't get around enough to keep em from happening over and over! S ... |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 10th, 2014, 6:31pm |
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Sam ...no ropes...the ONLY time i saw a rope was the one time it was decided we would cross a river (deeeeep) with a swift current ...they had a guy attempt to go across with the rope and the "plan" was to anchor the rope and have the company maneuver their way to cross the river.....welllllll, the guy almost drowned...managed to save himself but jettisoned his pack and that was the end of the low tech crossing.....they found a chopper to ferry us across....i know we all saw the lesson in AIT where they said never to use established trails....we always did so no need for ropes and it was never that steep where the rope would be used...paddies and dikes and jungle you got it..and plenty of hills around the valley.
you probably know the story but here is the info about Kham Duc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kham_Duc i dont know why a movie has not been made of it yet!!! it would be a hell of an action movie.
...we missed it but we were told were were gonn ... |
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Hey Frenchie, I took your advice and posted on the guestbook. I'd looked at those posts often and hesitated to join in for some reason. Your asking questions thread gave me an excuse to jump in here, so thank you. I thought everyone did the burn barrel thing. Never thought people would volunteer to do it. Guess it makes sense if you don't want hump all that weight. Something you didn't say you carried was rope. Wasn't there some terrain that you guys had to go through that was so steep that someone had to have rope? Or was this a rare thing? Watching movies you only see rice paddies and jungle, but looking at pictures says there are LOTS of mountains.
Carlfryman: If my uncle was at Kham Duc...Wow. While I don't know for sure, that could explain a couple of memories I heard as a child. One was that he survived a bunker explosion, and another about a aircraft (I heard it was a helicopter) that was supposed to extract/evacuate them that was rushed and boarded by others. ... |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 10th, 2014, 1:58pm |
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Sam:
I dont think ive seen you post about your uncle BOBBY VICKERS at the
http://www.196th.org/ site ....post something there....they have a lot more traffic.
Post under the GUESTBOOK tab
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| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 10th, 2014, 3:12am |
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Yes Sam, Echo Company was recon, so there's a good chance that he was with E 2/1. I wish that your uncle was still alive to talk about his experience at Kham Duc and how he made it through that. Sam, if you have questions, ask. Some may want nothing to do with it, and others like me and Frenchie will try to answer them for you.
Carl Fryman
C /21 1967-1968 |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 9th, 2014, 11:50pm |
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Nah, dont worry about the hijack thing....im happy to see posts here ...im doing the hijacking....lol...sometimes its lonely on this forum...thank youuuu for posting.
Sam, trust me when i tell you i had NO trouble falling asleep when it was my turn...the hard part was pulling guard duty 2-3 times during the night...usually twice...what i tell my son (he is mid 30s) is that war is NOT a video game (Call of Duty etc) you dont get an extra life if you die...no bonus points....to others i define what we did in the following manner: WEEKS of nothing, Minutes of Terror!!! and what did i do? I was a walking target for a year and we are ALL survivors and sometimes we ran into them by accident and all hell would break lose.
Funny you mention the burn barrel , i never did it...some volunteered so that they would not have to go down the hill patrolling (Hill 445)...we talk about the short steep hills, i have an online album he has seen i think...and most of what i try to convey is a ... |
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Carlfryman Thanks for that info on the snoopy. I'm going to explore the 2/1 angle and maybe find his old unit. Werent most E companies Reconn?
Frenchie: Didn't mean to hijack this thread. Thanks for the essays you posted . I would never think to have some of those items and really liked you telling about the average day. I was thinking if I was the new guy on night guard, my eyes would be so big you wouldn't be able to see my face! Yeah I'd be nervous. As far as people asking you questions, for you it's your son asking. I think it should be easier to talk to him than a stranger. Your son probably cares for you a lot and I doubt anything you tell him will change the way he feels about you. Ease into it. Tell about the burn barrel detail and the first time you had to take a dump with everyone around. Tell him how steep the hills were that you climbed. Eventually you could get lots off of your chest comfortably. We are a different generation from the idiots that "welcome ... |
| Posted by: Jim Gray |
Date Posted: March 9th, 2014, 10:11pm |
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| Frenchie. A quick story about flack jackets. We were on a search and destroy. As we came up a small hill we took fire from a 50 Cal. After a few air strikes the 50 Cal was not silenced. So we went across a shallow stream into an area with brush and some hooches. A re-supply chopper was coming in with a few new men and C rats. As the chopper got real close the 50 Cal opened fire. A round ricocheted off of a hooch and hit a 2nd LT in the flack jacket. The Lt was bruised and also found the round . Talk about lucky! |
| Posted by: Jim Gray |
Date Posted: March 9th, 2014, 8:31pm |
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Frenchie. NO one had it easy.
It was rough humping all of that weight. Never want to do it again. Hell, i doubt if i could carry all that now.
I still do a lot of walking. Probably 3 miles a day. |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 9th, 2014, 3:07pm |
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two in the rifle (taped w/electrical tape?) i saw that with a few men but coudlnt get an y tape...i cant imagine us carrying 4 ammo pouches...we had two. Jim some guys such as our Platoon sgt carried i dare say MAYBE 10 magazines at most....and a minimal amount of C Rats (i liked to eat)...no extra socks...the radio guys didnt carry M690 ammo and i have no idea how much regular ammo they carried..im sure they had spare battery (guessing)
We had one old timer who wore a flak jacket..i stole one on Baldy but once it started warming up in March i get rid of it......i have no idea how much our pack weighed but i do know we all helped each other up after getting re supplied....and we ate as much as possible to lighten our load......looks like we had it "easy" :) |
| Posted by: Jim Gray |
Date Posted: March 9th, 2014, 10:11am |
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Frenchie. Seems you were "light" on ammo. Most of us carried 2 in the rifle, 4 ammo pouches - each with 4 mags, 4-5 bandoleers which i think each had 5 or 6 mags, no heat tabs but we carried C-4 for heat ( no blasting caps )
We carried everything else that you listed also. I did carry an extra pair of socks.
At one time i carried all of that and also carried the PRC 25 with an extra battery.
I also think that when we were re-supplied we got 4 days of C-Rations. ( 1 case )
I think that it totaled from 90 to 120 pounds depending on food carried.
No matter it was quite a load. Oh we also had to wear a flack jacket. |
| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 8th, 2014, 6:13pm |
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Sam,
Several of the 2/1 firebases had the Snoopy painted on the rocks in memory of LT Ransbottom who was KIA at Kham Duc on 12 May 1968. His call sign was Snoopy 6. He was with E 2/1. We lost much of E 2/1 at Kham Duc. They manned the OP's and were overrun in the early morning hours of 12 May. The LZ you may be referring to is LZ Ross or maybe Baldy. Your uncle and I had to have crossed paths at sometime because I arrived in country on 6 November 1967 and left 3 November 1968. If he was in 2/1 then I'm sure we may have crossed path at sometime. I would love to see the photos when you get them. |
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Thanks for sharing those.
I, for one, would welcome such essays, letters or whatever from anyone who has them to post.
Or yet to write and then post. |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 7th, 2014, 11:04pm |
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| Thanks Sam.....i am confident someone here knows your uncle.....since you re having a hard time getting the pictures...it may not be possible for you to get a copy of the DD214 which may have a lot more information. |
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Frenchy- Thanks for posting these here. I was a signal soldier myself (peacetime) so our routine and bring along stuff was different. My equipment was mounted on a deuce and a half. Your posts were both very interesting to me.
Carlfryman- My uncles name was Bobby Vickers. He may have been known as Vick. The things I know are that he was a lrrp in the 196th. I don't know if he was in a line company or recon platoon or even which regiment he was in. I understand lrrps may have answered to brigade but I don't know for sure. He went to Ft Benning and was possibly a shake and bake E-5. Arrived in country Nov 67 and came home Nov 68. I have been trying to get his pictures from VN from a relative that has them, but they arent as interested as I am so they aren't in a hurry to dig them out. I want to post them because I know a name may not ring a bell, but the faces might. I did post in the looking for section about a year ago, but no replies. Since you guys are looking at ... |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 7th, 2014, 6:31pm |
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Frenchie:
I would be interested in reading your essays.
Not sure how their length would fit here, but if Admin doesn't object, it would be the best place. |
Plenty of space here for sure.......but here is what i wrote about our daily routine as grunts at the time i wrote this i called it TYPICAL DAY IN THE BUSH .... I just recalled i posted this a while back (months) .......this was OUR experience.....yours may vary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assuming nothing too exciting happened during the previous day or night.....here is a typical day out there...
Wake up at daylight or earlier.
Breakfast ....usually instant coffee heated with Heating Tablets or C-4 (we were ahead of the microwave back then)...and something out of the C rats...i forget what it was...maybe canned fruits. After that "br ... |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 7th, 2014, 5:49pm |
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Thanks for the vote of confidence....
I enjoy posting here ...The Guestbook has rigid limitations
I was an M-16 guy most of the time i was there and here is my list of
what i carried in the boonies
3 days worth of C-rats
Personal Hygiene items (comb, razor,toothbrush,toothpaste, TP etc),
Infantryman's towel
Writing supplies
Camera gear and film
2 smoke grenades 2 hand grenades
Claymore mine and/or tripflare (i forget )
Poncho./ poncho liner
Entrenching tool and / or machete
100 belted rounds of M60 ammo
Web gear: pistol belt/ammo pouches and rucksack, canteen cups(4)
14-16 (i forget) Magazines of M-16 ammo.(many carried a lot less)
4 quarts of water
I didnt carry the air mattress...
Heat Tabs and water purification pills (I never used them - i never
got sick)
I did have a radio (until the batteries died and that was it)
Dont recall having extra socks etc..did have a pull-over in the winter
mo ... |
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Frenchie:
I would be interested in reading your essays.
Not sure how their length would fit here, but if Admin doesn't object, it would be the best place. |
| Posted by: carlfryman |
Date Posted: March 7th, 2014, 4:59pm |
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Frenchie,
Go ahead and post both essays. I'm interested even if some others aren't.
Sam,
Do you know your know which unit and company your uncle was with? Need to post your uncles name that may ring a bell with someone here. Name and unit!
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| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: March 7th, 2014, 12:50am |
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Sam ...thank you for your post...youre right in many ways...
First some vets NEVER want to talk about it...for whatever reason..some feel that its in the past and needs to stay there....i have a couple vnam vet friends i located over the years and we dont communicate because thats the way they want it...they never told me a thing....in one case i called one day to stay in touch and nothing more and i was told not to call any more because they didnt know that person ..i sent another one christmas cards and mention th e "olden" days that bonds us and i can tell he is not interested in dredging up the past so i dont mention anything to him but keep in mind that is our bond...we were groundpounders in the same platoon....he led us...
not all of us can cope with our past..some do it better than others...many simply cant.......the new./old saying is IT IS WHAT IT IS ...is very true.......
Speaking for myself i can tell you youre welcome to email me and ask me anything but ... |
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| I'm one of those guys that wants to ask questions. I hesitate to do so because I know that not all VN Vets WANT to talk about their real experiences. My family made me think that this was a taboo topic to bring up because my uncle served with the 196th for all of 1968 and didn't want to talk about it and that idea has stayed with me most of my life, so I never asked questions out of consideration for his feelings.. Now I'm very interested in history and in particular, the experiences of the average infantry soldier in VN, but its difficult to know if its ok to broach the subject with a vet. Most of us younger guys (I'm 49) know the politics of what got us into VN, and we don't judge you by your experiences. You may think some of us were never interested, but some of us curious people have wanted to hear your experiences for a long time but were afraid to bring it up. My uncle passed away 10 yrs ago and I'm very sorry that I never asked him for his experiences. So please understand that ... |
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shoot! history repeats itself, especially our involvement in any war. You don't need to rehash the start of VN, the same circumstances occured with the Bushes and the current wars and our adherence to weapons of mass destruction myth :-)
And Fletch your daughter is very astute. Most of us were 11Bs so how can we sit around talking or glorifying how we killed people? The soldiers fighting today are mostly long range fighting. Very few firefight engagements. The insurgents weapon of choice are cell phone bombs set off from who knows where. there chances of being blown up are astronomical to their chances of taking a bullet. |
| Posted by: Frenchie |
Date Posted: January 9th, 2014, 6:02pm |
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A movie very much ignored but entertaining as well as informative is a Burt Lancaster movie called GO THELL THE SPARTANS
i am aware its just a movie but it will give you an idea how it snowballed into the mess we were in. |
| Posted by: Bob Kotch |
Date Posted: January 9th, 2014, 5:48pm |
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| Thanks Fletch. Knowing the history of our early involvement and the political situation over there before we were boots on the ground should put things in better perspective. Thanks again for the info. |
| Posted by: Fletchw2zero |
Date Posted: January 7th, 2014, 11:06pm |
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The United States In Vietnam. An analysis in depth of the history of America's involvement in Vietnam. By George McTurnan Kahin & John W. Lewis. Copyright 1967. 66-21593
It has some very interesting info regarding the fustercluck that described the political situation there. |
| Posted by: Bob Kotch |
Date Posted: January 7th, 2014, 6:47pm |
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| You are right about opinions and about the history of VN and the war, both with the French and then us. It was all ignored by the media back then and we knew nothing about it. I sure didn't know any thing about it. Those people were at war for more than 20 continuous years with France and us. In VN today, the war with us is called the American war. I've read a few books over the last 6 or 7 years about the history of VN and the war. What's the name of the book you refer to? I would like to see if I can find it. |
| Posted by: Fletchw2zero |
Date Posted: January 6th, 2014, 7:25pm |
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I have been able to start talking about the camping trip the last couple of years to people who are genuinely interested.
However, part of the reluctance I had was due to my own ignorance of the history surrounding the war. Opinions being like assholes and we have one of one and many others to spare... I have done a lot of reading and buying books that deal with history of VN, history of the war and recently a late sixties book that really dug into the post WW2 intel in VN. It was heavily documented and completely ignored at the time. It helped with a lot of the questions of our involvement and who the factions were in the war as it developed before we got more directly involved. |
