M14 Forum

CCKen

Good video about the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam. Lots of views of the M14 in action.

http://www.pentagonchannel.mil/?pid=...er=GovDelivery

1stIDvet

Thanks for the heads up.

LighthorseHarry

Really enjoyed watching - Thanks!

Seventh Fleet

Good stuff, I enjoyed it very much thanks for posting it...

7th

1stIDvet

Whats great about the episode is they start out with my unit. D 1-5FA. I about shit myself. Oldest serving and still actively engaging the enemy in battle.


Thanks again CC.

Sustinemus

Guys,
You can find this and hundreds of videos like it on the internet archive. You can even download your own copies and burn dvd's if you like.
I just typed the word "vietnam" in the search window and got the following results:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?qu...dpublicaffairs

BRO

CCKen, thanks for the link. I was a member of the Big Red One (BRO) in the RVN from Oct 67 to May of 69 and had the pleasure of serving with some good men. The short film reminded me of "experiences" good and bad but always with pride. BRO

CCKen

1stIDvet,

Glad to hear the 1st ID is still hanging in there and kicking arse.

CCKen

BRO,

Where were you based at in VN? I was at Lai Khe, III CTZ, supporting the 3d Bde. I was at Lai Khe from Nov 66 to Jan 68.

1stIDvet

You goddamn right we are! The tradition and history of the unit will not die, especially if we have wars to fight. I am honored to have been placed in the 1st.

1stIDvet

Hey CCKen, my father was in Pleiku and bong song from 66-67. He went other places as well but I cant remember. He was in the 1st Cav. Could he of been near you?

CCKen

No, Pleiku was north of me in II Corp. I was in III Corp, about 20 klicks north of Saigon. The 1st ID (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Bdes) had an area of responsibility within III Corp. I was proud to support the 3rd Bde (The Iron Brigade).

BRO

CCKen, I was in Lai Khe during the 68 TET. But I was there off and on through my tour. When I was with the 1st Combat Engineers I was always going in and out of Lai Khe, but we operated out of Dian. When I was with the Rebel Gun Ships, we always were supporting around Lai Khe especially the TET of 69. While with the Rebel's we were out of Phu Loi but we did a lot of over nighters in Quan Loi (?). I got trigger time while on the ground with the Engineers but got a whole lot of trigger time while flying with the Rebel's.

Welcome Home CCKen! RA All The Way, BRO

CCKen, I just noticed that I wrote May of 68 on my original post, it was May of 69, in country from Nov 67 to May 69.

30Caliber

GeneCo

I have the complete 6 DVD set of VN.....that section is part of that set.

I went in the USMC in '76( at 17), most of those still in had been to VN. All training was in Jungle and Guerilla warfare, especially urban insurgency. I was in aviation and my first squadrion was Harriers, a brand new jet and a brand new tactic of close air support. The years I was in, after action anlysis was the order of the day. I was lucky to learn the lessons when and how I did( by not actually having to be there).

IMO, the VN conflict( a UN action, not a Congressionally declared war- something we've come to know quite well) was divided between the TET Offensive of '68, which I call BTET and ATET. BTET, the US military was in complete disarray, Their knowledge was from WWII, with conventional battles and battlefield tactics( in the European theater). The lessons learned from the Pacific theater seemed to have gotten lost.

When the first major troops were sent in, the Pentagon had to fly by the seat of their pants trying to get a handle on this new 'war'. The enemy didn't have uniforms or flags and they didn't meet on battlefields. Where Patton and his armored divisions had won great success in Europe, they couldn't budge in the jungles and swamps of VN.

Nope, this was a whole new ballgame and the Pentagon had to play catch up. Luckily , we had a new President who grabbed the bull by the horns and incorporated Special Forces and Guerilla tactics. VN became a new testing ground for new gear and new weapons and new tactics. Close air support and troop transport became top priority.The M-16 was introduced. ALot of new equipment- NVG, etc came into play, but still , there were alot of bugs. All the new electronics had different batteries and couldn't hold up to the humidity of the tropical climate.


The enemy was coming and going at will, the US became frustrated at playing cat and mouse. They had forgotten about the Pacific Island battles of WWII- Okinawa, the PI, Guadacanal, et al. The tunnels and bunkers and guerilla warfare even back then.

BTET, they were sending in tunnel rats when they found tunnels, buit this was slow and inefficient and dangerous.

As the vid shows, ATET, the US got more serious, because the VC had shown that they could get right into the US back yard.

Most equipment became unitized, to take the same batteries and became more durable. Instead of sending in tunnel rats, they gassed and exploded tunnels. They bulldozed much of the jungle and sprayed plant killer( agent Orange) to kill it off so the enemy had nowhere to hide and move around.

As we all know, the "war at home " is what brought us down and we all know the ending, but some really good gear and weapons and tactics came out it.

Surprisingly, imo, goodly, alot of them are being used in the current wars and has led to even more advances in gear and weapons. Tactics are a thing that (n)ever changes, as Sun Tzu wrote the book a LONG time ago and it hasn't changed.