No problem, Ron.
Anytime.
Looking forward to doing business with you again soon.
Joe.

" But the area around the gun is open and clear of everything. Powder is always stored covered from the direct sunlight (bunkers are prefered). There will not be any trash close to the gun no matter whatkind it is."

When the focus switched to desert warfare, this changed. Two tarps were folded to create shelters for the powder containers and the projos. We always put projos to the right and powder canisters to the left (oriented to the direction of the carriage) They were usually laid out about 15 feet behind the trails and slightly to each side. Behind that would be a powder pit. Debris was invariably thrown there, along with excess powder bags if you weren't firing full loads. One of the canisters would always be open - with a powder thermometer inside to take periodic checks of powder temp to relay to fired direction to integrate into their firing data. Projos were liked up with their noses facing the powder canisters. One or two were always standing upright in the process of installing the fuses. The rest would have a plug with a ring on top for lifitng with a winch until they were ready to have the fuse installed.

Hi Gary,
That's a great piece of info. Thanks for your input, my friend.
Joe.

arty and armor always makes a man out of you! If your not doing the game plan your humping rounds and and cleaning the breech and anything else. Guys in armor seem to always be going over their equipment as well. You just get used to it, and nobody ever has to tell Joe to fuse up a hundred rounds, as he knows it has to be done. But as bad as it seems it gets much harder when the rainy seasons rolls in. You learn to shoot in the rain, and do everything else in the rain. But the single worst part is restocking ammo. Rounds get slippery, and I'd swear they gain another 25 pounds. You cannot get dry, and after a week or so everything is damp at best. I've seen it so muddy that they'd go back to the rear and snatch everybody they could lay their hands on to help carry ammo to the parapits (I've seen more than one Major with a 98lb. jo on his shoulders). One time we had a platoon brought in from the 196th infantry to help us get rounds to the guns when they had a platoon surrounded up on the ridge. New guys whined and cried about doing it till they over heard what was happening on the fire push! Top more than once took a hand full of whiners over to the FDC bunker and made them listen to what and why we had to get the job done. I always wondered if Charlie respected that when he was watching us from the Hiep Duc Ridge Line.
glt

Do you think you were being watched all the time from Hiep Duc?
Joe.

I'd say 24/7! Sometimes we'd spot them, and fire them up with a fifty or the 57mm recoiless rifle. SF guys would often start fires with WP to make them move (then we'd really fire them up). After awhile you sorta develope a sixth sense, and 90% of the time your spot on. You find your self looking around all the time to see what's out there, and what's behind you. Still the Vietnamese are true masters of camoflauge, and often would just sorta come out of the wood work right in front of you. I always respected Charlie for that. I always hated going to new places as you have to relearn the system all over again. Yet the scarriest place for me was back in the rear. I was never comfortable allowing somebody I didn't know handle the security for my presence.
gary

How far away was the enemies ridgeline from your positions?
Joe.

2000 yards max. If they moved in from the south they'd be about 500 yards before you knew it. The north was even closer at maybe 400 yards or less. East was scarey, as they they could be at your back door and you'd never know it. We had a couple SF patrols ambushed at less than 200 meters outside the wire heading northeast. The problem with the Hiep Duc Ridge line was that it was the high ground, and we were in a valley. When were operated in the middle of the Que Son Valley we could see them moving at about three hundred yards out on a regular basis. Melon was even closer as they regularly got within a hundred fifty yards. I think a lot of it was wether or not they took a serious interest in your infringment of their turff. We did a lot of OP's with the 196th and 101st, and Charlie took an interst in his personal dislike for those guys (or was it vise versa?). You knew that if you went someplace with the 101st you wasn't gonna get a lot of sleep! You just planned for it in advance. Those guys were like a magnet, and they'd probe you in broad daylight to let them know they were not at all happy with their new neighbors. Yet some other units we OP'd with seemed to be a vacation.

The only R&R Charlie got was when the political officer gave him an extra chunk of monkey meat in his rice bowl, or we sent him to meet Buddah. But even then I always loved him like I loved my ex mother inlaw
gary

Wow! Sounds like real fun & games then!
Joe.

Joe,
Vietnam was no different than Europe or Korea, other than the weather and style of combat. There was the neighbors and yourself. You fought like cats and dogs till somebody died, or else tired of getting their rear ends kicked. The blood was the same color, and the screams sound exactly the same. Weapons are different, but do exactly the samething.

A 19 year old kid dosn't know anybetter, and he just slugs thru it. Older guys do know the difference, but the younger ones don't trust older guys, and vise versa. A kid is opened up like a can opener in any war, and the first thing he does is beg for his Mother (sic). I can't tell you why, but when they know they have about two and a half minutes they all do it. I wonder if Charlie did that as well? I was a very naive young man even though I was a couple years older than most of us were. I was considered to be old at the age of 22 rapidly headed for 23, while the majority were not old enough to buy a drink back home. Yet that kid's blood is just as red as the guy like me. I hate that thought! I grew in a somewhat mixed race neighborhood, and had friends that were black and white. We never understood riots and discrimination between races as we grew up (my Dad would have kicked our butts if he ever knew had that kinda thoughts in our minds). There are no raciests in the bush ever! Yet in the Spring of 1968 I learned about the word "hate." Was introduced to racism in a very profound way. I just stayed away from it as it was foriegn to me. It started to show it's face in my Company, and the new First Sargent took care of the problem with an extremely firm hand. 68 was the first time I ever saw a corpse that was not in a casket. The images are still fresh in my mind this very day as I hit the keys on the keyboard. I learned that this new game was for keeps, and we were not headed to the pub when it cooled down.

I remember once heading over to the runway at Da Nang AFB for a ride out into the middle of nowhere. We drove past these two or three buildings where they stored caskets ready for shipping. The were loading about a half dozen of them in a very crude and rough way. I wanted to go over there and give them a real good A$$ whooping! The First Sargent just stopped and yelled at them as I was off loading the 3/4 ton armed for bear. Then I saw that all the slots in the buildings were full! We both helped them load all the caskets while Top gave them a piece of his mind (I was ready to shoot). I hate those three guys to this very minute; as I lost all respect for them in about fifteen seconds. I told one kid that any one of those bodies in there was worth a hundred times more than his life, and that I'd kill him if I ever saw him doing that again. Top assured him that he wouldn't stop me. But that was the turning point in my military carear. I knew I had to get outta there in one piece no matter what. We left the place with tears in our eyes, and never drove past that spot again. I hate the word Da Nang as it always reminds me of that place.

I probably should never write this, but it came to mind, and it's about the sametime of year. So if it bothers anyone, I'm sorry
gary

Gary,
I see death, pain & suffering through my line of work, too, & you are right. It is not easy to deal with.
However, I've never had anybody try to kill me...deliberately, anyway! Trying to survive through a year of war, especially one which is unpopular at home, must have been extremely difficult on all who served. My hat definitely comes off to all of you.
Thankyou, Gary, for sharing these sobering thoughts with us.
Joe.

Joe, I am not trying to hijack your forum, but I ran across this picture and my curiosity is killing me.



Can anyone please explain

Hi Alex,
No, dont worry, you're not hi-jacking my thread.
Wow, what a great picture! When I first saw it I thought it was a circus act or some sort of blow up thingy!
But looking at it again I think that it is, in my opinion, some kind of ballistic test. I'm probably wrong, so can anyone else help?
Joe.

Believe it or not, its a howitzer suppressor. Europe does not have the benefit of large open expanses where no one lives like the United States to build firing ranges. I believe you can see the cross on the side indicating that its a German M109. That picture has been floating around the internet for some time now.

Hi Joe,
So, being a howitzer suppressor does that mean the crew fire live rounds into it? Is it used for firing drill practice?
Joe.

It looks like that new silencer for the 155's to me......totally stealthy....allows you to shoot in urban areas without waking up the sleeping babies!

Semper Fi,
Dave

Joe,
what if I told you that the kids out there on the border never knew what the folks at home felt about that war? The only newspapers we read were months old, and it was a rare thing to hear anything like that in your mail. There are no Dan Rathers and Peter Arnnet's out on the Lao border. They know better than that, and besides they knew they were not welcome. You find your self out there hearing rumors and half truths on an hourly basis. After awhile you'll sorta get a strong feeling about what's going on in your own inner circle, and learn to misstrust anybody back in the rear. You envelope yourself inside your family (they guys in your platoon or company), and setup barriers between yourself and the outsiders. Yet when an infantry platoon wonders in your way you open your arms to them, but never get close to them because people have a habit of all of a suddenly leaving via Medivac and never being seen or heard from again. Everything in your stash is everybody's for the asking. If you got cookies; everybody got cookies. If I had a couple bottles of Canadian Club; everybody had a drink. Doughnut Dollies don't come out for a visit, but you hear of rumors that a base camp twenty minutes (by air) east of you has them drop by once a month. (Charlie didn't need Doughnut Dollies either)The Colonel comes out every few days, and the more you see him the more you develope a bad taste in your mouth for him and his XO. Guys in transit tell you about a USO show, and you ask "what's a USO show anyway? (Charlie don't allow USO shows anyway). So in the end the only recreation you have is getting drunk with Randy and really making the Chief Of Smoke mad as all get out. Randy got shot up on Lurch, and was gone for a few weeks. I felt very lonely without him, and Fred only drank warm beer and jabber in German when he was counting stars. Randy got tagged again when we lost five guys out of my squad in about ten seconds, but he was back in a week or two. While he was back in the rear getting fat Fred got tagged in the foot, and they sent him back to the states for a complete overhaul. Then there were three of us with no gun, and a bad outlook. Honneycut got us thru those tough times, but he couldn't put those four other guys back together this time. News don't broadcast much in the jungle. Wonder if Charlie listened to Walter Conkite, as nobody else did?

I met Bob Hope in Can Rhon Bay when I was an FNG setting up chairs (FNG's never get to see USO shows anyway). A week later I was stuck doing exactly the same detail when Bob waked in on us again! He asked me if we hadn't met before? A year later I was on a drunk with some friends of mine who were headed home (I wasn't), and was sent to the Bob Hope Show. I was scared to death! Had to get outta that place as soon as he left the stage, but Bob remembered my face again! I took a personal interest in that man, and would have followed him thru the gates of Hades as long as I didn't have to set in a crowd of REMF's again. Bob should have been President, as he had more common sense than 99.9% of the others. The next morning I geared up (shotgun, three 7.62 belts, and my pretty 1911a1) with a half dozen new tee shirts and a dozen pairs of sox wrapped around three bottles of burbon, and headed back out to my world. Ever notice how those guys back in the rear always had clean clothes and got fat? Honneycut had a real good weight loss program if anybody's interested. And lastly I was pretty much insulted recently by the accusations that the kids in the bush were dope heads. Where is the store you goto to buy a dime bag in the boonies? If a guy was a dope head, he was gone! Charlie was the only guy that had a place to get the stuff.
gary

looks to me like it would have been just as well to shoot white smoke rounds instead of HE. But of course you would get to hear hear the crack of an exploding HE round down range would you. I wonder how they do the main gun from a tank? That silencer would have had to have been fifty feet long! Actually the solution to this silencer thing is some of the new ideas in the pipeline right now that don't use gun powder.
gary

Makes perfect sense, I'm working in Germany right now and there seems to be a small town every 300 meters!

It works just like a sound suppressor for a pistol or a rifle. There is a range, but to spare nearby populated areas the noise, its rigged up with these devices. At least this is what I've been led to understand. I would imagine they use a relatively small charge as well.

Hi fellas,
Okay, I get it. A very "stealthy" silencer. Yeah, us folks in the old world are packed in together pretty tight. You guys in the States have got so much room & are more spread out. I wish it was like that here!
All the very best to you fellas & thanks for your help.
Joe.

here's some food for thought! When I was training on M107's down at Ft Sill we used to go out on the extreme far end of the base, and shoot strait over the town of Lawton into the far end of the impact range one the other side of the town. Always wondered what they'd have said if they knew what was going on!

We once went thru a spell out at Thien Phouc, and decided to experiment with out H&I's. We were shooting about thirty targets several times over till we'd start to see daylight. Randy and I came up with the grand scheme of things to use the fuse canister around the fuses (there were four or five of us with nobody in charge). So the fuse sets inside this open ended can thing thats about the size of a coke can, but shorter. We load up about 25 rounds like that, and start to shoot about ten at night. The rounds were crossing at least two friendly positions on the way out to do nothing but explode. They just screamed like a woman all the way down range. One MACV site went to their under ground bunkers and hunkered in all night while we shot over them! The next day they dropped by to ask us how many rockets we'd caught as they heard them all night long. We never admited a thing. But did recieve a visit from Honneycutt over our actions the night before. He actually thought it was funny, but never again.
gary

Oh dear, oh dear,
Boys will be boys the world over!!! LOL
Joe.

we were always kinda jealous of those guys anyway, as they had cots and air mattresses! But we had something they didn't have for about three hours; a bath tub!
gary

Actually Gary, you've brought something up that I was going to ask. How often did you bathe? Were there proper showers in your fire base? If not, how long would you have to go without one?
Joe.