After 40 years I have decided to share my memories of the Army and Vietnam. Some of those memories are as vivid today as they were 40 years ago. To this day some of those memories still give me chills and bring raw emotions to the surface. Hopefully you will find my stories of my experiences, my photos and my war memrobilia interesting. Please comment and subscribe. It is going to be an interesting experience, this blog.
This picture was taken of me in a foxhole on “Hamburger Hill”. READ ME FIRST Welcome to Vietnam 68-69. This website chronicles my experiences during my tour of duty in Vietnam, as well as photographs of Vietnam and the men I served with in the 101st Airborne Division. I was deployed to Vietnam from mid Oct of 1968 and [read more...]
My draft notice arrived in the mail on a cold Idaho winter day at the beginning of 1968. During the Army induction process that spring, they sat us all down in a classroom to fill out paper work and listen to one of the induction center officers go over everything. At some point while we were sitting in [read more...]
We were stationed on a firebase overlooking the A Shau Valley on time. The top of the firebase was bare with not a lot of protection from the elements. On this particular day it was a mostly clear day with just a few clouds in the sky, not a bad day except the wind was [read more...]
I still vividly remeber the first time I saw the Rakkasan’s symbol. It was outside the battalion headquarters at Camp Evans. I came around the corner of the building and saw it standing there. It was in stark contrast to the olive drab, the Vietnam dirt and the gray brown wood of the buildings. I pretty much [read more...]
As my squad readied weapons and gear we were given final instructions by our squad leader, Sgt Dunn. He told us that our squad would be one of the first ones to be dropped at the LZ, which the buzz was about it being “HOT”. Sgt Dunn checked and made sure we had enough ammo, and that every [read more...]
Another air-assault into the jungles of Vietnam. Usually when we were dropped at an LZ the pilots would touch the skids of the helicopters on the ground. Occasionally we would be dropped at an LZ that was either covered with bushes and other large plants. Or, on rare occasions the LZ would be consider “hot”. An [read more...]
Jack Schmitz at one of the 101st Airborne fire-bases near the A Shau Valley I took this picture of Jack Schmitz as he took a smoke break. We were on a fire-base near the A Shau Valley. I’m not sure which fire-base it was but there was trucks and heavy equipment there. You can see one [read more...]
