We asked a few questions this week in the Vietnam Veterans Photo Club and the Fallen Never Forgotten pages on Facebook and we got some good comments and answers from you all.
Subjects include: monsoon season, dustoff pilots, the Dong Ha bridge and the road conditions during the Vietnam War
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TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors
good evening this is veterans live show
live from fort campbell kentucky
i’m your host ronnie embrace i serve
with the hundred first airborne division
in vietnam in 1967 and 1968.
we are here at fort campbell for the
awarding of the air assault badge
for us troopers of the 101st airborne
division that served in vietnam
so with that said today’s episode will
be a little different
this week we posted a few questions in
the vietnam veterans photo club
and we are going to share your answers
to those questions
so lock and load troops let’s put the
first question up on the screen
okay so let’s sound off what are your
memories of monsoon season
steve zawateki i got there just after
the rain
stayed six months and was gone thanks
thank goodness i left before it started
again you’re not kidding man
it was a muddy muddy place and cold and
damp
comment the question joe peter’s been
there done that
rained like a cow pissing on a flat rock
okay joe i have to ask you where you’re
from for that kind of uh
statement uh can you put it give us a
note somewhere
sounds like you’re from the midwest or
somewhere down south
that’s a good point though it sure did
thank you
next question or comment robert smith
one minute the road was a river and the
next morning it would be
back to being a road yep
you’re right interesting
next question okay charlie creep i hope
that’s correct
uh pronounced correctly i can remember
the mountain season
would be out when we would get incoming
fire would have to go jump in a bunker
and barked all night would be full of
water
he would be able up to your neck and
water and it was miserable
okay charlie sounds like a leftover
bad memory there you go thank you
from curtis daniel at that point in time
we didn’t really care
he was miserable at night cool and wet
always dreaded
setting up our ambush at night just
learned to deal with it amen curtis
i got to say something about that in my
experience there
we didn’t see the sun for seven weeks
that’s
no sorry six weeks 42 days uh
it didn’t rain every day but it was
foggy or misty but always cloudy
and it rained 90 of the time and
trying to set up that little poncho
cover at night
in the in the jungle was it was no fun
especially if you moved and all the
water ran down your back man it was like
hello
not good okay thank you next comment
question philip tops i remember
that i no longer cared if i was wet or
not because
there it is yep you’re right my man
next question a comment robert
councillor show of hands who else you
see for
to heat your food and help dry out your
socks and boots
everything else was too wet to burn and
smoke
would give you a position away amen to
that
good comment so far bob whitmere 23
inches of rain in 24 hours full by
october 69.
very interesting that’s a lot of water
man
okay for mike lin’s in northern icar it
was cold
rain never stopping for days and the red
clay would stick to everything
went to sleep wet they woke up wet
thank you mike you’re right i remember
that as well
okay jerry barnes thank you at times you
could almost set your watch by the rains
as i now recall that 4 15 comes
horizontal rain
and wind soaking everything and turning
things green with mold
you got used to it that’s true jerry
thank you
okay terry told out on ambush during
monsoon
we pulled off a trail out to an
embankment i was laying on my back with
my poncho on when a snake rolled up
my back on the outside of my poncho
another one of my ptsd experiences
amen oh my goodness
you must have had a heart attack bro
thank you i hope you’re okay
uh kenneth howland i remember well those
days when it rains and rain
and rain and rain and rain
i guess it rained kenny there you go
good for you
all right jerry polk to this day i don’t
run in the rain
i just walk my normal pace i got used to
being wet
that reminds me uh my wife
uh at the time i was in the garden
outside it was pouring rain
and like for a few hours and this was
maybe 10 years ago
and uh she comes outside she goes what
are you doing i said what do you mean
i’m gardening
she goes don’t you it’s raining out so i
said yeah so
yeah after a while man it just didn’t
bother you next question thank you jerry
or statement john curtis we had been wet
for a month
spent the night on the firebase dried
out my socks which was amazing
then back into the rain the next day
eating coal sea rations under a poncho
was priceless yes very good john i got
another comment of my own here
i can remember getting resupplied out in
the rice paddies all day or over weeks
all the time and here comes the hot chow
ui so we got resupply got some mail some
ammo whatever replacements and
hot chocolate change and they gave us
dry socks
took them off 20 minutes later we’re
back in a wet rice paddy
oh my goodness the army’s great next
okay
what do you think about those amazing
dust-off pilots
that’s a great question man james gurley
those guys did much more than they got
credit for real heroes all
many of our friends and fellow
combatants would not be on the wall
would be on the wall sorry if not for
them respect and admiration is well
deserved amen to that james
that’s the best comment i heard about
those guys in a long time
thank you raymond griffin they came in
at night to help my
help me bullets flying thank you god for
them
yeah oh i get it they came in the night
to help me
bullets flying thank you god for them
amen you got it
and it was crazy crazy those guys
nighttime weather no canopies who knows
what was going on him
hot lz’s everything vern roberts senior
thank you
true heroes with unbelievable skills and
testicular fortitude
amen there rob vernon thank you very
good thank you
okay dean astin they stayed a lot of
lives landing in hot league
great job of flying amen quite
courageous man
unbelievable
brian roman i believe that we lost many
helicopters and crew members but these
heroes just kept flying in
and pulling american euros out of harm’s
way god bless these warriors
amen to that i think there was a final
count of about
12 000 helicopters shot down
in vietnam that’s crazy
but those guys in and out hot lz’s bad
weather
bad terrain with the hoist and all that
stuff
we’ve had a couple of chopper pilots on
the show before and
and there is one was phil marshall and
if you go go back and look at that uh
show with the
extraordinary skills that these guys had
and the intestinal fortitude is right
okay next please gene ratcliffe
when you fly dust off you can write a
book on your daily duties
and you are involved with all aspects of
war you can’t be afraid until your
mission is complete
or you yourself will become a casualty
save those lives and hope and pray
she stays in the air until you make it
back to base
excellent points really thank you gene
okay clifton estes i must say that after
serving as a dust-off medic
i was absolutely amazed of the ability
of the pilot’s
flying skills i do believe that he could
dodge bullets
it was if they had a special sense god
bless them all cliff
estes 237 dust off
okay marilyn gieter these guys are
amazing
i’m in awe of how they could get in and
out of such dangerous areas
respect so true thank you marilyn
okay sound off how many of you have been
to
or heard stories about the dong ha
bridge
up in icor thereby uh way in crank tree
in crankthree province
oh ronnie ambrose that’s me been there
many times after the
defense have started uh mostly for
recreational swimming and bathing
and guard duty and rocket attacks from
the vc and nva
with b company first to the 502nd 101st
airborne division
we would have uh guard we’d like to have
guards
on both sides of the bridges at night
and then also uh
we were at camp eagle lz sally lz jane
or for highway 1 up there so uh we then
we ran a lot of operations into the
villages just uh west of
east of the uh the mountains there in
nicore
next point please david davis
i was there went across
of times on the duster oh by the way
dave what’s a duster that’s like a uh
some kind of mechanical machine like a
the plow or something or what did it do
what did the duster do
maybe you could write us in real quick
with that next
amber is this this producer of the show
this is an incredible story i found on
the website
it is impossible to describe john
ripley’s most famous action in a single
headline
this marine dangled from the donghae
bridge for some three hours
as north vietnamese soldiers took pot
chats at him he took his time attaching
500 pounds of explosives to the bridge
single-handedly halting an advance of 20
000
communists during the easter offensive
talk about that thank you john ripley
thank you matt for that
story there okay and the last one
sound off how you would describe the
roads in vietnam
during the war
okay dwayne blagg hey man hey dwayne how
you doing
that’s our uh what do you call those
guys
cb guy nice seeing you on the program
there again
dwayne if they weren’t asphalt they were
seasons
they were seasons mud or dust right
there you got there you go
robert guzman mind and scary there you
go it’s another
one
raymond mark mancini they had rhodes
[Laughter]
what kind of apple were you in raymond
write us in
you’re in uh if you’re uh if you’re in
the infantry
yeah you walked on some roads up there
but only highway one was like a road i
guess
the rest were like trails and cattle
paths or something
okay next one
what rules p williams thank you not in
our definition
you guys are too much all right next one
ted lard or laird going up to birmingham
fire support base
the mud was over the tires of the deuce
and a half pushing it was no picnic
oh my goodness well hopefully when you
got to the firebase you had a picnic
okay next one
richard devos the roads in vietnam are
mostly without bridges at least in my ao
interesting were you like in the
lowlands with the uh
rice paddies yeah possibly
okay next one please thank you richard
i did hassan omar no road to 101st
we traveled via euis from base camp to
tcp
and from there on foot yeah we did some
road patrols i’ll throw some pictures up
next week about that
and especially in the monsoon season
next thomas diamond
there was an old beat up road on the way
to the marketplace near the z
made of brick where was the z at
okay what road was that do you think
thank you thomas
okay ian gordon red clay slippery in the
rain
rounded with gullies i guess that’s
rounded
okay interesting with the clay you’re
right
next last one picture or comment
ben rhodes there was was no roads in the
boonies yeah you’re absolutely right bro
hey your name is rhodes were you you
were in the boone he said you know that
there were no roads in the boonies
very good ben get the play okay
that’s it well thank you very much for
uh contributing tonight gentlemen
uh we’re here at fort campbell for uh
honorary uh for the
presentation of the honorary aerosol
badge
uh for troopers 101 division and the
first capture
got the award so uh thank you very much
for
uh calling us back in uncle sam and the
commanding generals of those two
uh divisions as well as the department
of the army
so back to fort campbell here in the b
and b it should be fun
seeing some of the old buddies from 50
years ago could you imagine that
50 something years ago unbelievable
remember those kids we’re gonna do a
kids show soon
so man a lot of a lot of you guys got a
lot of pictures of kids it should be fun
to see that
remember some of them were five and ten
but now they’re 55 and 65 years old
unbelievable well i guess that’s it for
tonight
thank you for watching and sending in
your comments and your pictures
see you again next week with another
edition of the veterans live show
good night god bless you and welcome
home
