Previously Held MOS 1729-Combat Engineer Reconnaissance Sergeant
1542-Infantry Unit Commander
1745-Infantry First Sergeant
1745-Light Weapons Platoon Sergeant
1745-Rifle Platoon or Squad Leader
1514-Radar Chief Of Section
What started with a TWS invitation from Sergeant Don Shook has now turned in to a very time consuming project. At the present time I have 504 photos with many hours of narratives.
I've tried to keep the facts and stories about each picture as factual as possible. To keep continuity in the narratives, I've added pictures that are not mine from yearbooks that I own and from long Google sessions. To verify things that I do remember happening, I also have added quoted sentences and paragraphs that are not mine. In all cases I've added copyright credits to pictures and text that I've used.
All of the photos without � credits are my own. All the Photoshop titles and composite slides are my own.
Since many of the things I write about go back as far as sixty years, some quotes that I attribute to persons may, of course, not be verbatim. I've tried to make them at least, "words to that effect".
I am not doing this for self aggrandizement, it is in response to "What did you do in the War, Daddy?" I've found TWS to be a good medium for creating memoir type slide presentations.
In some cases, my recollections may be a little fuzzy. If anyone who looks through my profile and finds wrong timelines or gross inaccuracies, please email and so that I can make corrections. TWS has made editing very easy.
There will also be spelling, grammar and punctation errors. After hours of typing, I get lazy and quote marks, commas, grammar and spelling errors get dropped into the narratives. Sorry. Thanks TWS for building in a spelling checker and bless Google for their endless source of knowledge.
After many hours of work on my 1968 tour in Vietnam, I've just finished the Jump School assignment and am working my way down each subsequent assignment. Many of which have titles that don't mean anything, pictures out of order and bits and gibberish pieces of narrative in them. Bear with me, I'm working on them.
Note: In many cases, I refer to soldiers only as "men". I don't mean to denigrate the women who serve. It is just that men served in the combat arms units in the Army and women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC). "It was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943. It was disbanded in 1978" Quote � Wikipedia
I retired in 1973 and never had the pleasure of serving with women soldiers.
Description This campaign was from 1 December 1971 to 29 March 1972.. The U.S. continued to reduce its ground presence in South Vietnam during late 1971 and early 1972, but American air attacks increased while both sides exchanged peace proposals.
In early January 1972 President Nixon confirmed that U.S. troop withdrawals would continue but promised that a force of 25,000-30,000 would remain in Vietnam until all American prisoners of war were released. Secretary of Defense Laird reported that Vietnamization was progressing well and that U.S. troops would not be reintroduced into Vietnam even in a military emergency. U.S. troop strength in Vietnam dropped to 136,500 by 31 January 1972, to 119,600 by 29 February, and then to 95,500 by the end of March.
During the last week of December 1971 U.S. Air Force and Navy planes carried out 1,000 strikes on North Vietnam, the heaviest U.S. air attacks since November 1968. Allied commanders insisted that it was necessary because of a huge buildup of military supplies in North Vietnam for possible offensive operations against South Vietnam and Cambodia. Stepped up North Vietnamese anti-aircraft and missile attacks on U.S. aircraft that bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos also contributed to the decision. During January 1972 American planes maintained their intermittent bombardment of missile sites in North Vietnam and on he Laotian border and also struck North Vietnamese troop concentrations in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.
On 25 January President Nixon announced an eight part program to end the war which included agreement to remove all U.S. and foreign allied troops from Vietnam no later than six months after a peace agreement was reached. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegates rejected the proposal and insisted upon complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from Indochina and cessation of all forms of U.S. aid to South Vietnam.
