COMBAT STORIES FROM Vietnam

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  It was safer in the field than at the fire base. At the base, your position is fixed and they can find you. Gary Cantwell was staying at the base because of a sprained ankle and he experienced getting overrun by a large enemy force. He hung in there and was decorated for his actions during this battle.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Saddle up! The Marines were used to helicopters but this time they were ordered to board trucks. Hue City was under siege as the Tet Offensive raged across the entire country. Lee Riley recalls that they were under fire the minute they got there and it didn't let up for months.

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  John Bates - Marines +8 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  John Bates had just recovered from a gunshot wound but the NVA wasn't done with him yet. When he was on a listening post, he saw them creeping toward his position and readied a hand grenade. Before he left Vietnam he would have two more Purple Hearts.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  He enjoys hearing "Welcome Home" all these years after the war. Gary Cantwell didn't hear much of that when he came back from Vietnam. He pays tribute to one of his officers there who showed great leadership.

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  Bernardo Lopez - Marines +11 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  He was already dog tired from staying awake to keep an eye on his untrustworthy ARVN allies. Bernardo Lopez and his fellow Marines were told to gear up and head to Hue. The Tet Offensive was on. The combat there was intense but there was also some strangeness to the proceedings, like the Vietnamese girl who asked him an odd question and the TV cameraman who wanted a good shot. Part 1 of 4.

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  Terry Caskey - Army +10 Total Videos

  22nd Surgical Hospital

  There was a mortar attack going on when medic and operating room technician Terry Caskey arrived in Phu Bai. He was assigned to a field hospital where the flow of casualties and the enemy attacks were relentless. He could watch the rockets fire off from a nearby hilltop and track the contrail right into his compound. And as he ended an epic shift in the operating room, he emerged covered in blood. It was too much for a twenty year old to bear.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  His last post in Vietnam was nice. Gary Cantwell had a room and cold beer but then it was time to go. It was a long flight home and then a cluster of connecting flights to upstate New York but he finally got there. It would be fifteen years before he would want to talk about the war.

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  Bill Gessner - Navy +9 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 9th Marines (Attached)

  The fighting was hard. One company was ambushed and the other two were having a hard time breaking through to support it. Corpsman Bill Gessner was in the thick of the fight and as he was treating a wounded Marine, a hand grenade came into the hole and wounded him and killed two others.

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  Fred Behrens - Army +10 Total Videos

  Eagle Dust Off

  At first light, downed Dust Off pilot Fred Behrens found himself in even more trouble. He took three rounds from a Cobra gunship and one from a sniper. He had already been shot while still in his chopper. The next day, the Rangers he had set out to evacuate took off and he was nearly hit with more friendly fire from a Phantom jet. Finally he saw the right uniforms heading toward him. Part 2 of 3.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  He was a country boy, working on a farm in upstate New York since he was six years old. Then, Gary Cantwell was taken by the draft in 1968 shortly after high school. Designated as infantry, he got a good taste of the conditions in Vietnam when he went down to Tigerland at Fort Polk.

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  Terry Caskey - Army +10 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  There was water everywhere which meant that there were mosquitos everywhere which meant that Terry Caskey had malaria four times in Vietnam. His day at the hospital could be mundane or it could be terrible. He recalls a terrible day when a chopper full of dead and wounded Marines landed at the hospital.

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  Fred Behrens - Army +10 Total Videos

  Eagle Dust Off

  Word back at the Eagle Dust Off base was that Fred Behrens was dead. Shot down and hit with five bullets, he survived two nights in the bush and was airlifted out when he was found by some Rangers. It was a long recovery with sometimes indifferent treatment by the Army. Part 3 of 3.

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  Freddie Owens - Army +11 Total Videos

  A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  After the column was devastated by an NVA ambush, wounded Americans were scattered in the darkness. After his captain heard one such group calling for help on the radio, Freddie Owens joined a patrol to find them, guided by a gunshot every few minutes. Once there, medic Daniel Torres volunteered to stay with those who couldn't move and protected them through the night with medicine and a machine gun.

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  Joe McDonald - Army +5 Total Videos

  A Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Division

  The RPG that severed Joe McDonald’s foot didn’t kill him. The machine gun fire that hit him as he still tried to help others didn’t kill him. The grenade taped to his hand might have killed him if the VC had found his hiding place.

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  Stuart Jamison - Army +9 Total Videos

  9th Infantry Division (ARVN)

  Stuart Jamison recalls observing the reality and immediacy of death as his unit assaults a Viet Cong company during Phase II of the Tet Offensive.

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  Laurie Druyor - Navy +4 Total Videos

  USS Sanctuary

  One night, while Laurie was eating dinner, the USS Sanctuary got a call about a plane crash. She vividly remembers the patients coming aboard, and the aftermath of this incident, including one boy who was MIA. As difficult as this experience was, it was nothing compared to the Tet Offensive. New wounded were coming in constantly, and trying to care for all of them at once was emotionally exhausting. (Interview conducted at, and with the assistance of, the Military Heritage Museum- https://freedomisntfree.org/.)

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  George Forrest - Army +11 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment

  They were hunkered down after fierce fighting when the call came from "Ghost 4-6." It was a group of wounded men who had pulled themselves together after the ill fated march to LZ Albany and were lost in the dark. George Forrest sent a patrol to find them, and in an incredible act of bravery, medic Daniel Torres stayed through the night with them and saved many men. Captain Forrest still had to write a gut-wrenching letter to the mother of a missing soldier. Part 3 of 4.

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  Tommy Clack - Army +8 Total Videos

  C Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

  In a letter home, Tommy Clack expressed his worry that something bad was going to happen and it did when his unit engaged the NVA near the Cambodian border. He saw the enemy soldier stand and fire the RPG that changed his life forever.

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  LtGen Ron Christmas - Marines +16 Total Videos

  H Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division

  As Marine Captain Ron Christmas fought to regain the city of Hue, he found the enemy adept at concealment and surprise. Every soldier in a spider hole was armed with a rifle and a RPG launcher. His action during this time earned him the Navy Cross.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  It was search and destroy. Looking for NVA. Looking for weapons caches. Gary Cantwell remembers a big cache next to a river surrounded by booby traps. At one point he was loaned to the Riverine force as a gunner. That was interesting.

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  Candace Carter-Miller - Army +5 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  Candace Carter-Miller was an Army offspring and grew up all over the place. She had always wanted to be a nurse and the idea of being an Army nurse appealed to her so she secured a scholarship with a program at Walter Reed. Nearly everyone she was working with had been to Vietnam. Would she be going there?

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  Gary Cantwell broke a few M-16's in Vietnam. Once he shot so many clips so quickly that he warped the barrel. He was "volunteered" by his squad leader to act as a Forward Observer's radio operator on one operation. He wound up doing a lot more than that and it led to his first Purple Heart.

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  Candace Carter-Miller - Army +5 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  What was it like to be one of the few women serving in Vietnam? Candace Carter-Miller remembers that she never felt unsafe but that it could be very awkward to be in a room full of men where she stood out. The nurses were a close knit group. You had to be when you could hardly ever get off post.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  Gary Cantwell remembers the time he talked a Cobra pilot into giving him a ride. What a thrill! He was assigned to the rear because of a bum ankle but that didn't mean he was safe. He was hauling sandbags with a Mule vehicle across a landing area which the engineers had swept and cleared. They missed one land mine.

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  Candace Carter-Miller - Army +5 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  It was a long flight in heels and pantyhose. Candace Carter-Miller was glad to ditch that outfit and get into fatigues once she got to Vietnam. She was sent to Da Nang and the 95th Evacuation hospital where she was assigned to triage for the incoming wounded. The Medevac pilots who flew them in were dedicated and fearless.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  The elephant grass was deep and the pilot wasn't really low enough. When Gary Cantwell jumped from the Huey he rolled his ankle. He was evacuated to the rear and his ankle was so bad that he wound up assigned to supply for the rest of his tour. He also went down in a helicopter when a turbine failed but he was luckier then.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Lee Riley is still not back from Vietnam. When he returned, he went straight to the VA and told them he was not the same person who left. Besides the PTSD there was the Agent Orange, the Camp Lejeune water and a slew of related health issues. But the reunions of his unit give him something to hold on to.

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  Gary Cantwell - Army +8 Total Videos

  1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

  When you get there your name is Cherry or FNG. Fortunately, for Gary Cantwell, when he got to Vietnam he was taken under the wing of a good squad leader. In his first firefight, he had to flank an NVA bunker and drop a hand grenade into the opening. But I'm the new guy! He pulled it off and settled in to the war. Later, as a team leader, he saw firsthand what could happen if you didn't secure your grenades.

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  Candace Carter-Miller - Army +5 Total Videos

  95th Evacuation Hospital

  There was a lot going on in triage at the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang. Army nurse Candace Carter-Miller saw a lot of crazy things there but the most outlandish involved a tree limb. After every shift the nurses sat and analyzed the days work and brainstormed about how they could have done better.

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  Lee Riley - Marines +5 Total Videos

  2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment

  Why would you extend for another six months in Vietnam? Lee Riley did and his reasoning may surprise you. They made an MP out of him for that period and it suited him just fine. He ran into a Vietnamese boy who explained to him exactly why America would fail in Vietnam and it had the ring of truth.