Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:49 | After a tour in postwar Korea, Dale Ney got adventurous and went Airborne. When the 173rd Airborne Brigade was seeking volunteers to replace men lost in Vietnam, his hand went up. Once he arrived in the war zone, he was fortunate to have an experienced platoon sergeant to show him the ropes, a man who had a Combat Infantryman's Badge from three different wars.
Keywords : Dale Ney Paratrooper Airborne 101st Airborne Division 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment Geronimo Battle Group Recondo school West Point Vietnam Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) War Zone D Iron Triangle French Viet Cong (VC) blood
Dale Ney made heliborne assaults all over South Vietnam and even into Cambodia to support CIA operations. On that mission, a vast tunnel complex used by the Viet Cong was rendered unusable with CS agent, a concentrated powdered form of tear gas.
The jungle was so thick in Vietnam that you rarely saw anyone who shot at you, recalls Dale Ney, who also remembers the hellish devastation of napalm attacks. He already knew it's potential because of his training.
There was no reason for them to be there. Dale Ney spotted a group of civilians working on a rubber plantation in a Communist stronghold. He fired in their direction and they scattered, but they had a radio and soon their compatriots set up an ambush which pinned down the Americans for over an hour.
Every night, a clearing patrol went out to sweep the area ahead of the unit in preparation for the night. Dale Ney tells what happened on one search and destroy mission when the clearing patrol did not return. What he found the next morning haunts him till this day.
Dale Ney never took a bullet in Vietnam but he did have an unfortunate encounter with a punji stick. Another constant fear was enemy Claymore mines. And as if all that wasn't bad enough, every bit of wildlife in the country seemed to be against you.
Three or four Viet Cong could tie down an entire company with a well planned ambush and then just disappear. Snipers were a big problem, too, but Dale Ney quieted down a really annoying one with a disposable weapon meant for heavy armor.
Combat in the rice paddies was a miserable and dangerous affair. It was wet and nasty with little cover. The mountain range near Vung Tau was no picnic, either, but as Dale Ney's unit conducted a sweep along it toward the sea, a remarkable sight called for a little unscheduled R&R.
Dale Ney was on patrol in Vietnam when, all of a sudden, the entire horizon lit up. Smoke billowed high in the sky and the trees were shaking. It was a B-52 strike. There was another awesome aircraft employed in Vietnam that did not create such mayhem and which was secretly flown at night.
Dale Ney missed the military. It took him a while to readjust to civilian life after nine years of service and a tour in Vietnam. One of the worst things was the bias against Vietnam vets when searching for a job.
His three brothers joined the Navy, but when it was Dale Ney's turn, they had a waiting list, so he went with the Army. After basic training and MP school, he deployed to Korea as part of the American force remaining after the armistice.
