what do you remember most about Nam ? heat,humidity,buggs,food,people,blood,tears,killing,FEAR!?
403300
my dad was in Nam. i am old enough to remember the way he was before he went. he was never the same. i also remember how he was treated when he returned. i remember how many American died. a sad day in human history. i hope it never happens again. but knowing human nature it will.
1000620
I've had a lot of "best memories". I don't think I could go back and pull out just one of them. I wouldn't say this memory is better than that memory. I can give you a worst memory though. the day my daddy died.
657881
I remember bit and parts too. One thing that does stand out is this: We were living in a small town. I have 3 older sisters and 2 older brothers, basically I am the youngest of 6. Anyway. My oldest brother had to go down to Dairy Queen (probably about 1971) and was going to get us all ice cream cones. Well, as far as I was concerned he was taking too long, so I slipped away and went looking for him. I got all the way down to Dairy queen (5 block away) and he wasn't there-took a different way home-So I asked the guy behind the counter if my brother had been there and he said yes and that I just missed him. He must have noticed I was sad because he gave me a free vanilla ice cream cone. In the mean time everyone was looking for me. So I walked back home and when I got into my front yard everyone came running out happy that I was back and I dropped my ice cream cone on the lawn. I cried. My mom wiped my tears and she said that is ok honey, we have one in the freezer waiting for you. Happy ending.\n\nThis incident has always reminded me of a song called the "Ice cream cone song". Ask your parents or grandparents about it.
492988
When I travel to a new place I like to check out the historical areas, sometimes including old cemeteries. Once my husband and I, while visiting in Savannah, GA, got locked in an old military cemetery. Spooky!
992788
*shudder*\nI'm really trying to forget. I mean, what was wrong with me back then?
539908
I had it once in Nam when I was under heavy fire from the Vietcong
577038
A time of remembrance for me... of young faces I once knew a lifetime ago who are no longer here and of a lot that are. Faces of my beloved family who fought in WW2 and Korea who have crossed over to a place where no more internal battles are fought and no more sadness felt for those they once knew and lost. Places no one will ever remember, that is, no one but those who were there. Battles, large and small, in war and within ones-self, that do not rate a mention in history but definitely helped write it. Sounds of long ago but were only yesterday this morning. Survivors guilt but deep inside.... glad it wasn't me. Reading citations and asking myself," Did I really do that"? Looking for lost loves and lost youth knowing that you will find neither. Memories, some good...some bad. Touching the scars on my body from shrapnel and on my chest from a 7.62. Looking at that rifle that I brought home with me that put that bullet there and remembering the young Vietnamese that once held it that I killed almost at the same time as he shot me. Looking into a mirror and then at a picture on a wall and wondering where did that kid disappear to? Still feeling the pride that I felt then and feeling pride in those who wear, or have worn, the uniform of today ( Do you ever really take it off?) Looking at my sons face, my daughters faces, my grandchildren's faces, and whispering a prayer that they will never forget me or others like me who sacrificed so much so other people may seek freedom and have rights and when necessary, fight for this country and for their rights that so many of its citizens take for granted. Looking at the colors and feeling the pride for I know the price many youth have paid to keep it flying. Understanding, that one more year has passed and that I am closer to paying my dues to the one I cheated out of them three+ times. Not really caring about life or death personally anymore for after what I went through, saw, did, etc. what is really left but the waiting.... just like then. Yes, today I especially remember. Thanks for serving. Welcome home. God bless and see you in Fiddler's Green.
693635
Thank you so much; you seem wise beyond your years! I am a Vietnam Veteran and appreciate your words more than you will ever know. I hope you have a good life and support your local troops wherever they are. You are wished well. God bless you!
638577
Happiest.....long rides to the mountains to cook breakfast in the campgrounds. I can still smell the bacon frying and the coffee brewing (though we, my sisters and I had hot chocolate).  We would spend the day hiking and playing and then drive home that evening, but breakfast with the whole family in the mountains was the best!!  Saddest.....loosing both of my parents within six years of each other, I miss them terribly.
85277
Didn't the court martial of Lt. Calley for the My Lai massacre of women and children count for anything.  It prepared the present day commanders in Desert Storm to state to their troops "no My Lais--you hear?"  I say, we learned from history and will try to be as civilized in war as much as possible.  Troops in combat will always behave savagely in the heat of the moment, who are we to judge sitting in our comfortable living rooms, not knowing what they're go thru.  I won't judge them, but pray that we're not as inhumane as the enemy.
548148
Yes survived, don't really remember if it hurt.  Stray bullet in Iraq.  It was more of a scary feeling than a painful feeling.  Happy to be alive though.
433752
I would have to say taste... too many of my memories are linked to smells.  And if I couldn't taste anything, I would eat only to sustain life, and not for pleasure, therefore not gaining those stubborn 10 lbs that just keep coming back. lol
685860
I was there, still have flashbacks from that day...I lost Johnson, he was under my command. He was 19yrs old. When I rotated back to the world, I had to tell his family, mother, father, wife and his young son who he never met. I will never forget it.
1141683
Back in my wandering hippie days a busload of us crashed at an old house in Boulder Colorado.  One of the women awoke from a nap upstairs screaming, saying a little girl was trying to steal her body. \n\nOur host passed a couple of joints around and told the story of the original residents.  It seems their young daughter had died of typhoid, and they were in such denial of it that they just left her body to rot in her upstairs bedroom. Deprived of a proper burial, the girl's spirit never left the house.  The next owner had walled off the room, even going so far as to seal it with lead.  We were starting to have some fun with the story when there was suddenly a loud bang from the wall in question, causing a number of things to fall down.\n\nWe decided then to go out for ice cream, and we all slept downstairs on the living room floor that night.
158955
"I don't know!" HA!!! I just got slimed...yuk!  If I just had some WATER...AAAHHHHHHH!!!! Those were the days! Thanks for reminding me of my childhood.
1071934
Abu Gharib ... ooooh scary, dogs barked at me, someone put underwear on my head, a woman pointed at me and laughed.  Big deal.\n\nGuantanamo ... tell me, what happened there.  FACTS, not the NewsWeek/60 Minutes lies.  Air conditioned rooms, 3 hots and a cot, meals made specially for them.  WOW that's real torture.\n\nHaditha ... you don't know what happened there, I don't know what happened.  All we know is that there has been an investigation, all of the Marines were given thumbs up on a job well done.  No soldier is being charged with anything.\n\nOK now let's look at the guys we are fighting:\n-using women/children as bombs\n-beheadings, kidnappings, REAL torture, rape\n-blowing up anything and everything with IEDs\n-these guys would kill you, your family, and everyone you know if you gave them half a chance\n\nSo before you want to wring your hands and shout THOSE POOR PEOPLE.  Look at the facts before you dump on Pres Bush and our marines and demand we leave.
559386
Hi, I spray Agents Orange, White, and Blue in Nam. And yeah, it wasn't really known how bad the sh!t was. It was the contaminants in the Orange (PCB) that we were still removing from transformers on electrical poles all the way into the 1990s. \n\nNow about napalm and white phosphorus...that really was rude. And we knew it. We made up rhymes, stupid poems, to deal with the horror of dropping it on women and children: "Napalm Sticks to Kids." \n\nWe also used CS, tons of that tear "gas". I pushed 30 gal drums out of the back of Chinook helicopters, 30 drums per sortee. We turned the jungle white with that.\n\nAll of that was chemical weapons. My  MOS (military occupational specialty) was 54E - chem. staff specialist. There was all sorts of military double think about it not being lethal. That was BS when it came to napalm. Agent Orange like I said we did not know until later. People were using Roundup, an herbacide, that was d@mned near the same as Orange, all over the US. \n\nWe were frustrated by an "insurgent" action. It was like Iraq. We could not get the locals to play set-piece battles. They hit and hid. We thought we could use science to make it harder. The science turned against us. And yes, there were some who wanted to use nuclear weapons then, too. \n\nDow Chemical and the other big companies made money off the war. 50,000 Americans died. Over half of us died while trying to turn over the reins of government to the locals. Sound familiar?\n\nOver 150,000 Nam vets have since taken their lives with single car accidents, overdoses, and cleaning gun accidents. But I am sure Iraqi/Afghani war vets will get taken care of better. Aren't you? </sarcasm mode off>\n\nI am sick of war. Excuse me.\n\n-- Vietnam Class of 70-71 1st Cav & Americal