No Country for Old Hippies (Dan Carlin)

[Smitty-48]

My dad did multiple tours in Vietnam as a green beret.
I WISH some motherfucker tried to spit on him.
Would’ve been the shortest, most violent incident, ever to occur at an airport.

What was/is his assessment of the war overall?

Where did he operate? II Corps Central Highlands, MACV - SOG with the Montagnards?

[DBTrek]

Where did he operate? II Corps Central Highlands, MACV - SOG with the Montagnards?

This.
I got an email from him once when I asked about his service (another Green Beret wanted to get him to join some special forces association). Here’s what he wrote:

MACV SOG – Military Assistance Command Studies and Observation Group

These were the hunter/killer recon teams that operated off the map. There were some groups in each of the
Four corps, there were three Command and Control units CCN (north), CCC (central) and CCS (South) and some special units or the ‘projects’ : Project Delta, Project sigma, Hatchet teams etc.

I never was assigned to any SOG groups. I was never off the map, although I might have been on the wrong side of it once or twice. Ours was only local AO activity and border surveillance.

... though he has some stories about training Montagnards and coming back to his A-camp after it was hit that are a lot more interesting than that paragraph.

[Smitty-48]

We had one guy in my regiment back in the 80's who had served in Vietnam.

He was Canadian, but he joined the US Army to fight in Vietnam first, then came home and joined the Canadian Army.

He wasn't a GB, but he did the in country Recondo course which the GB's ran.

Then he was assigned to a special reconnaissance platoon within the conventional force, a Recondo platoon basically.

He had some wicked Vietnam stories. Not sob stories, putting beat downs on the Viet Cong stories.

[DBTrek]

My dads stories involve putting the beat down on enemies and hostile friendlies when appropriate.
Make for great stories.

Launching white phos at colonel dipshit who was hovering over their LZ because he wanted to “watch the operators in action”.

[Smitty-48]

Where did he operate? II Corps Central Highlands, MACV - SOG with the Montagnards?

This.
I got an email from him once when I asked about his service (another Green Beret wanted to get him to join some special forces association). Here’s what he wrote:

MACV SOG – Military Assistance Command Studies and Observation Group

These were the hunter/killer recon teams that operated off the map. There were some groups in each of the
Four corps, there were three Command and Control units CCN (north), CCC (central) and CCS (South) and some special units or the ‘projects’ : Project Delta, Project sigma, Hatchet teams etc.

I never was assigned to any SOG groups. I was never off the map, although I might have been on the wrong side of it once or twice. Ours was only local AO activity and border surveillance.

... though he has some stories about training Montagnards and coming back to his A-camp after it was hit that are a lot more interesting than that paragraph.

I recall one Vietnam vet who said as bad as Vietnam was, it was still awesome, because they were "living the history of the world"

That's what your Da did. He lived the legend.

[Smitty-48]

My dads stories involve putting the beat down on enemies and hostile friendlies when appropriate.
Make for great stories.

Launching white phos at colonel dipshit who was hovering over their LZ because he wanted to “watch the operators in action”.

The way our guy told it, the problem the chain of command had was a lack of aggression.

Units would do Search & Destroy, but without alacrity.

So they hand pick agressive guys and send them on the Recondo course with the Green Berets.

Then they would come back to their divisions and do Search & Destroy with max stealth and aggression.

He said that was safer. Being in an elite unit was the best way to avoid becoming a causality.

[DBTrek]

That's what your Da did. He lived the legend.

Yeah - Great grandad lost a lung to German mustard gas in WWI, grandad served in the pacific theater in WW2, and Dad was a Green Beret in Vietnam.

Me ... I joined the army and did a year on the Korean DMZ. Which makes me the AstroTurf, post-modernist version of my warrior clan, I guess. Dammit. Too young for the first Iraq war, was half way through college for the second.
Ah well.
/shrug

[Smitty-48]

That's what your Da did. He lived the legend.

Yeah - Great grandad lost a lung to German mustard gas in WWI, grandad served in the pacific theater in WW2, and Dad was a Green Beret in Vietnam.

Me ... I joined the army and did a year on the Korean DMZ. Which makes me the AstroTurf, post-modernist version of my warrior clan, I guess. Dammit. Too young for the first Iraq war, was half way through college for the second.
Ah well.
/shrug

I'm satisfied that I did my part in the Cold War, even tho we were not fighting a shooting war.

I believe that we were a necessary component of staving off the Third World War by blocking the route to the Rhine through the Fulda Gap.

I thought it was pretty fuckin' cool actually.

[DBTrek]

He said that was safer. Being in an elite unit was the best way to avoid becoming a causality.

My dad said the same thing many times. He joined out of a sense of patriotism, and went shake-n-bake special forces so his ass wouldn’t get killed.

His cousin joined around the same time as a machine-gunner for the USMC. The war messed him up pretty bad. Dude saw some shit, did some shit. He probably should’ve gone SF instead.

[Smitty-48]

His cousin joined around the same time as a machine-gunner for the USMC. The war messed him up pretty bad. Dude saw some shit, did some shit. He probably should’ve gone SF instead.

I Corps on Route 9? Con Thien? Khe Sanh? Fighting in the DMZ?