Fitz424 Loc: Los Angeles

Incase you forgot

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

steveo52 Loc: Rhode Island and Ocala Florida

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

💖💖💖
There is a name on the Vietnam Wall in the place mine would have been if Mac hadn't walked in and said he wanted to go on Outpost Duty to see if they followed his blue prints for the new bunkers while I was packing my stuff and handing my unfinished work load off to someone else. Tet was two days later and he died when the outpost was hit at 2AM.

10MPlayer Loc: California

Man, I hope you have managed to come to peace with what happened. It wasn't your fault. Bless you for your service.

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

Thanks for the poignant reminder of what this holiday is really about.

will

luvmypets Loc: Born & raised Texan living in Fayetteville NC

An important reminder that there is more than one type of loss!! Thanks for sharing.

Dodie

luvmypets Loc: Born & raised Texan living in Fayetteville NC

I am very sorry for your loss but I am very glad you are still with us.

Dodie

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I still think about it from time to time. I wonder if I had been there in charge of that bunker instead of Mac would I have done things differently and maybe spotted the attack coming in time to stop it. Of 10 guys at that bunker 3 dead, 4 wounded and one of our unit mechanics who was Mac's 2nd in Command and tent mate got three VC including the one who tossed the grenade that killed Mac as he was waking up after not sleeping for two days before that. Juan got blown 5 meters up the mountain and wounded by the grenade and opened fire on the VC as they ran away = 3 VC bodies (the RPG gunner who blew the door off the bunker, the guy who threw the satchel that destroyed it and the guy who threw the grenade that killed Mac - all hit on full auto by Juan's M14. He only remembers firing one magazine but had three empties on the ground and a partial in his rifle when he came to after the satchel charge that destroyed the bunker knocked him out while he was firing at the VC.

Mac was the only married guy from our unit on outpost duty - no children - Was that good or would it have been better if his wife had a son or daughter to remember him by and carry on their love and relationship.

My oldest son did a tour in Iraq as a combat engineer towards the end of the active fighting so I learned what my parents felt like when I was in Nam for over 2 years.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thank You

Hip Coyote

Thank you for your service and this touching remembrance of your fellow warriors.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Very nice.
I have nearly 300 men that died in the service that I served with over the years I was in.
Not a day goes by that I think of them and their ultimate sacrifice.
Thank you for posting this.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thanks
Actually I was an REMF but due to circumstances and training I did outpost and some patrol duty with a lot of remote location guard duty from time to time. Our company trained as light infantry before shipping out because we had a lot of WWII and Korean vets for our older NCO's and Senior Officers in our HQ - we were the HQ Company of "The 593rd General Support Group". They figured we already knew our jobs around HQ but we were supposed to build and run a division base camp on the Cambodian border so they concluded we also needed to know how to fight as well as they could prepare us for. Then the division whose camp we were supposed to build and run failed their deployment evaluation and went back into a 90 day training cycle. The Army wasn't going to put us out on the border with only a couple of engineer companies and some Special Forces with their mercs for 3-4 months so to keep us from being broken up as replacements our Colonel left the ship at Naha when we stopped for a day and flew to Saigon to see some of his buddies from the Academy and got us reassigned to the 1st Logistical Command as the Qui Nhon Sub Area Command HQ company. Then they also gave us the units for our General Support Group and things got weird. As 593rd General Support Group we were under an Engineer Brigade which was under Qui Nhon Sub Area Command so we sent orders to the Engineers and they sent orders to 593rd but we would have already carried them out and instantly sent reports back to the engineers and copies to ourselves as Sub Area Command. And then just for fun they gave us some Special Forces A & B Teams with their Mercs and a Nung Merc platoon that pretended to guard a heavy equipment salvage yard while serving as muscle for a few groups of guys in civilian cloths who called each other "Mister". Shhh! we didn't know they were CIA, SOG, DIA etc. etc., or at least we weren't supposed to know. Even if some of our people knew some of them from NATO, the States, Japan and Korea. My section NCO had worked with "Mr Green" at NATO Intel HQ when Mr Green wore an Admiral's uniform and ran US Naval Intelligence in Western Europe and environs.
We also had the Transit Barracks (Hotel) in our compound for troops going to the military hospitals etc. and for that first year when we had all our original people the combat unit guys in the Transit Barracks couldn't figure out what we were. Around the compound or in the EM or NCO clubs in the compound they would often say something like: "You guys are HQ troops but when you aren't in your offices you look and act like some kind of combat unit. But you aren't! What in hell are you guys?" They really got confused when they saw the Staff Sgt who was a 75th Ranger Jungle Warfare Instructor (with all the patches and insignia) and did whatever needed to be done around the compound. He had lost an eardrum to concussion from a close artillery round and declared unfit for combat, so we got him. And the Assistant Intel Officer I worked with on the night shift in the Tac Ops center for six months was a former 101st Platoon Leader who lost an eardrum to artillery concussion in the Central Highlands and that got him sent to us to finish his tour.

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

Never forget

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey