Ronny Ymbras shows a portion of the photos he took while with the 82nd Airborne division during Jump School prior to going to Vietnam with the 101st. He also talks about his experiences of being part of the Paratrooper brotherhood.
TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
okay good evening
welcome to lz bunker tonight we’re gonna
have a kind of a varied show a lot of
pictures of video and some other things
so hopefully here we go we have a little
situations going on
and matt doesn’t have the video
[Music]
okay matt you gotta put that video up
oh here’s our pictures jerry fortenberry
headquarters headquarters company 15th
engineer battalion 9th infantry division
there you go
i guess that’s jerry’s a tall guy next
picture skip penner
doctor central highlands june july 1968
e company first of the 506th infantry
101st airborne division
okay drive on trooper
next tom neubauer september 68
visited my hooch maids home just outside
of canto airfield
this was her neighbor peeking through
their adjoining wall
nice cardboard box for a wall i love it
okay dennis lawlen christmas 1967. they
would probably ban him throughout the
area by the looks of the terrain
they chopped us out of a bunch of beer
out into the moon
boonies just after 875 and before ted
875 was rough in november there of 67.
uh company d first of the 12th infantry
4th infantry division
that’s some canopy you got there dennis
okay next one from matthew r bot
five rar 10th platoon d company
the australian army okay you kiwis
nice to have you here 1966.
nice picture there guys
what is it five are a our
fifth royal army regiment or something
like that
i’ll try to make it out thank you thank
you for that picture
[Music]
good evening you know welcome to lz
bunker
today we have a different kind of show
we’re going to show you a video and some
things about jump school
and my paratrooper experience
all right baby hallelujah
[ __ ]
[ __ ] all right we got it baby
hallelujah here we go
hallelujah sister okay what an
experience that was
it was my first first jumped in 47 years
did five practice jumps in florida so in
the springtime
in the florida winter which is very nice
and uh prepared for that and after that
moved on to uh
there was some experience jimmy wilson
was there with me he’s my job buddy
and tom mcmillan atomic mullin sorry
he’s uh
not a jump buddy we jumped a few times
together
and uh then we all went to normandy for
a reenactment jump in that same year
in june so here we go we’re going to do
a vietnam timeline
and uh okay november
18 1964. it was a
largest air assault of the war thus far
116
united states and south vietnamese
aircraft
flew 1100 south vietnamese troops into
bin dwang
and tainan province to attack what is to
be believed the major communist
stronghold
they but they only made light contact
not too good
on the the intelligence report okay
uh november 18 1964 the number one song
was baby love by the supremes baby love
my baby love okay november 18
1969 60 south vietnamese troops were
killed
or wounded when they clashed with enemy
forces in the mekong delta
this was the first major battle after
the united states ninth
infantry division was withdrawn
and that’s that that’s the timeline
and now we want to do some pictures so
what’s up matt
here we go paratrooper experience this
is that fort bragg
hope air force base that was one of the
rusty pfc with my m14 on the under my
left arm there
hands on the reserve chute and your
bag full of goodies underneath next
picture
okay we always want to be proud
paratrooper
that’s next to our gold buddy there uh
that was in jump school area
got the boots bloused got the starch in
the shirt
and uh i was going to the 82nd so
there you go this was at the jumpscare i
got held over for a couple of
three weeks okay next picture
that’s my brother this is my inspiration
for my airborne career
i saw a picture of him his name is tom
he was a rigger
with the 509th infantry
airborne infantry in in germany mainz
and we spotted
and he uh
inspired me i saw a picture of him in
paris with his class a uniform on his
spit shine boots and his
cap with his glider patch on there i
said that’s for me
i want to go to paris i went to the
paris of the orient which they called
saigon
not really but into uh vietnam so there
you go next picture
this was an accident my brother had he
got caught out the door with the
uh with the oh yeah yay
the cord we hooked up to
pull out the chute and it got caught
around his neck
not too nice huh look at that that’s
crazy
next oh there’s a jump picture from fort
bragg
not supposed to have those cameras in
our little ammo pouches but you know
what i mean
it’s got to sneak on the internet this
is june 1967
wow 50 53 years ago okay
i think that was lz normandy that was
one of the biggest ones there
there’s a 250 foot tower in april of 67
this is a jump school they have one of
those at coney island too
and they’re still there next
there you go 34 foot towers
got the patches of the airborne units up
there 101st
173rd and notice a little building there
with the red cross on it just in case
something happened that’s funny okay
next picture
there’s a 34 foot tower my friend frank
oh boy frank never made it home
but about a month ago stepped out of
mine and
never made it back he was from a
california hawaiian guy we had to
what a great soldier and a great guy too
next picture frank laika that was
here we go we jumped out of 119’s
believe it or not
you thought the thing was going to fall
apart what a rattle trap it was but this
was taken over my shoulder
with the riser there in the
interesting picture see the
plane above us was empty already all
those bags hanging around
there you go classical t10
shoot nice picture typical airport
great great picture june 1967 that was
that foot
brag okay there’s a pop smoke thing down
here
to uh guide us in uh this is that jump
school
uh yeah you can see which way the wind
is blowing this way you could
just try to steer you shoot the way
you’re supposed to go
next picture there you go
tower training committee the black hats
a career for men of determination
and courage okay what we’re determined
to do though
okay next question oh my gosh here you
go everybody had one of those
i haven’t seen that picture in a while
oh
that was my number 614 huh that’s a jump
school you got a picture to send home to
mom
there you go next picture
oh doing little exercises ftx is out
there with the 82nd
even though i was assigned to the motor
pool i still had to
carry a 3.5 around with us
we used to call it the bazooka though as
we did in world war ii in korea
and there you go ready to go
next picture there you go in the motor
pool
fixing those three quarter ton trucks
one of my buddies there kathy
c-a-t-h-e-y that was his last name from
tennessee
okay nice t-shirts and jump boots
oh this is the same eric lease and uh
in our trip to normandy this paratrooper
got stuck up there he was still in that
movie from
the longest day the red buttons
played that part and he’s uh stuck up
there on the tower and went deaf because
of
the bells were ringing for hours and
hours whenever next
okay here’s mr vince miranda the saint
of the airborne
on the first guy invented airborne beer
sings those paratrooper songs like
nobody else this is at the uh
last formal uh i’m
first airborne division association uh
best stone banquet
remembrance weekend up at west point
at the hotel player what a great time we
have there next
oh there’s my license plates in my car
the license plate 82nd for seven months
101st for
about about seven months as well no what
are we talking about 17 months
and uh you know welcome home got that
little license plate which is pretty
cool and so we named the company after
that does the books that we publish next
[Music]
sound off anybody wants to send any
questions
in you guess at the bottom of the there
you go
marie kendamer
rehear roll call for us okay what’s
go ahead marie what’s the roll call am i
supposed to do it
i don’t know next is there another one
kilo 19.
all right good nice picture there what
is that a little bit of a battleship or
destroyer what
what do you got there cruiser good
evening
kilo 19. thank you
okay i guess that’s the end of the
comments
okay matt you ready for a video
matteo
okay
