Army chow...SOS in particular.

[Bill D]

You can buy SOS from Schwan's Foods - and have it delivered to your door. I get some every once in a while just for old times.
Schwan's is good but a bit pricey.

[Rick]

Nick you described my Vietnamese x sister-in law perfectly. Brother married a I will love you forever girl. Lasted until her old boy friend made it to the United States. She abandoned her three children and he abandoned his wife and six children. They married and had two more of their own. I can't speak for all Vietnamese but but this gal was the nastiest thing that ever took a breath of air.

Every time I think of her it goes through my mind. If they were all like her it wasn't worth one American life let alone 50,000.

[Art]

"Gook" goes back to the Korean war. As I recall it is a corruption of the Korean word for person. Han guk = Korean, Mi guk=American etc. It quickly became a perjoritive for Koreans first and then all Asians.

On the Viet Namese wife thing. I was never in 'Nam as I said, but when I was in Korea just about the only women who would have anything to to with the G.I. were the prostitutes. Korean women back then, at least, were almost always prohibited by their families from marrying outside their race. Respectable women who would have anything to do with a G.I. were few and far between. Respectable women who did so with their families blessing were fewer and further between. Two Korean ladies, real cute gals, who worked in the mess hall regularly had guys make runs at them always unsuccessfully. Now there were a few exceptions, There was an American civilian contractor who worked at our base occassionally who had married a Korean lady, and I use the term advisedly who was just a regular girl, and the mother of a friend of our daughter also was just a regular girl who married an Army Officer, so it did happen. Most of the time the American was just some poor 20 year old who had become infatuated with one of the local "business girls." For obvious reasons many, perhaps most of those marriages didn't survive return to "The World." When the woman in question arrived at the big PX in the sky and knew she couldn't be sent back she very often boogied out of there.

One thing that didn't help with the marriage thing was that the Army facilitated access to the local ladies of the night at least through the time I was in Korea in the mid 60s in the name of disease prevention. They did this by providing medical check ups and issuing cards that allowed the gals on base if they were disease free. One of the CQ jobs at the little base I was stationed at was to check the V.D. cards of women at the door of the N.C.O./EM club which had an entrance to the villiage street. No card you couldn't get in. The N.C.O. club was the "honey hole" for Korean hookers trolling for business.

Of course it dosen't help in developing an opinion of the people of a country when the only people one deals with personally on a regular basis are bartenders and whores.

[Rick]

That describes my brothers situation exactly. That's what can happen when you let your little head do the thinking for your big head.

[Nick Riviezzo]

Thanks for the support guys, I meant no offense to MichaelP or any one else. A quick "war story" a new Warrant Offficer[pilot] assigned to my platoon wanted to take the 3/4 ton ammo carrier truck to go to the big PX over at Da Nang main to get a little refrigerator and fan, etc. for his "hootch",when stopped at a stop light a Viet kid snuck up from behind and reached in and snatched his aviator sunglasses off of his face!When he reflexively reached out to grab the miscreant another kid snatched his watch. Makes a new guy really want to go out and fight for your sorry a$$ doesn't it? Bottom line , if loving them comes in shares you are welcome to mine! Just my not So Humble Opinion,Nick

[Sean P Gilday]

Love the stuff. First had it at Ft. Sill in Winter 81. Only time I hated it was in 93-94 one of the Battalion cooks used to load it with Onion(Chunks of Onion). Last time I had it was at Ft. Indiantown Gap during the BoB reenactment.

[Art]

Michaelp, I'm sorry the term "gook" offended you .I had no such intent.I too,spent a little time in RVN and had some close aquaintences on"our side".My comment was made to point out something I learned in the USAF's Jungle Survival Course at Clark AFB.It was obvious that you shouldn't shower with Life Bouy soap, deoderant, etc. and go in the boonies but the Negritos employed by the USAF as aggressors could literally smell your B.O. from 10- 20 feet!Unless you assumed the life style AND DIET of the enemy[NVA, VC. or whatever ] your B.O. in the bonnies could give you away.BTW, my first tour I spent 9 months in an A team on the Cambodian border[I was med-evacced out].My other two tours were flying but after 33 months fighting and bleeding for the South Viets while their two faced civilian populace would lie, cheat, beg, borrow, or steal us blind they, as a people, did little to earn my respect. I did have a lot of professional respect for the NVA. They were enemy but they were dedicated,trained, and well equipped soldiers.Again, sorry to upset your apple cart but that's is about all the sympathy I can muster for the Viets. Nick

Nick,

I did not go to Korea to fight for the Koreans. I went because the United States sent me and the other 60 odd thousand U.S. military personnel there as a deterrent to world communism which is why you went to Viet Nam. You fought for The United States, not for the Viet Namese. The interest you were there to defend was the interest of this country. Whether it was misguided or not is another issue.

[DarylBruce]

All I know is that I was a 170 lb when I in and 195 when I got out 3 years latter. Hmmmmmm maybe it was the beer.

[Sean P Gilday]

All I know is that I was a 170 lb when I in and 195 when I got out 3 years latter. Hmmmmmm maybe it was the beer.

Not Possible. You cant keep beer, only rent it........

[Griff Murphey]

At age 61 I now weigh 4 pounds LESS than my 1976 discharge weight. Both my leather shooting jacket from my shooting days and my Dress Navy blue jacket from 34 years ago lack about 7" closing in front. Gravity? Beer? - No, wait, you just RENT that! Thanks for that valuable info! Must be the frickin' gravity/

[phil441]

I think gravity is probably working on a bunch of us here. That's why the top buttons still work but the lower ones are useless!

[Michaelp]

I'd appreciate it if you did not tell me why I went to RVN.

I was aprofessional soldier.

I trained as a military advisor.

I served with Special Forces and that is our mission.

SF teams are utilized for this role all over the world.

Often in places you never know about.

I happened to be sent to RVN, there were other places at the time I might have gone to.

Absolutely, I was a member of the US Army, but with a bit different role and atitude than conventional guys.

I was simply fortunate enough to be selected for that training in 1967 and given the opportunity to use some of it. I met some truly amazing people. A guy on my 1st team had been a flak gunner in the Luftwaffe.

At no time did I ever fear that a NVA was a thrteat to my grandmother at home.

I did feel the Red Tide was a threat to humanity, and took my opportunity to fight it where I could.

I can only speak for the indigenous people I worked with directly and they were fine people.

They did send us a company of Saigon Cowboys as replacements once and a lot of them deserted.

Few, if any of them of them made it across the Song Be.

I know all about the Korean history of "Meguk," etc.

In VNit it was used as a derogatory phrase as were several others.

I think some guys do not realize this and also some don't care.

It's a free country.

[Nick Riviezzo]

Michaelp, I've been "cogitating" on this line of thought for several days and I would like to end it on this line of thinking. Again, I'm sorry you were offended.Much of what you say above applies to me also. My first tour started with the feeling that we were there for a noble cause to help a threatened and oppressed people.Unfortunately the "troops" we were stuck with were CIDG's who could care less, didn't want to be there,or were VC. It is hard to develope respect for people you can't trust. I wish I could have had a fine group to work with like you did but that was not in the cards.My second and third tours I was the Viet Labor Service Officer.I hired and fired all the hootch maids, day laborers,and some "technical" help.They were smiley,happy to our face but would steal you blind,sabotage our equipment and provide great intell to the "bads guys"about our day to day goings on.I wish I could have had an enlightening experience like yours so I wasn't such a bitter person. But bitter experiences make for bad feelings like I have. Good experiences, like yours,made for your feeling of satisfaction.I'm proud for you, having shared the same training and ideals you did, and I am sorry my experience went sour.I would rather have your good out look but, I'm sorry, I don't. Nick

[Griff Murphey]

Technically I am a Vietnam Veteran but as a practical matter I had a very easy time. I was there for the evacuation in 1975 at Phan Rhang (in Cam Ranh Bay). The worst things I saw were light wounds and one baby who had been burned, ashore, in a cooking accident. I did see artillery and flares on the horizon as the NVA was pushing the ARVN toward us but that was the closest I ever got. It is a mark of how bad the war was that so many men have so many deep emotions about it. I can promise you that I felt very frightened about being sent to VN and since, after all, we had already pretty much cut them loose after the '72 peace talks; I was not at all crazy about being sent there. My biggest fear would be that we would get ashore to secure airfields, then we'd get surrounded and captured. Thank God that did not happen.

I remember being on the foc'sle of the USS DUBUQUE LPD-8 and getting an impromptu Vietnamese lesson, with the 1-4 Corpsmen and my dental tech, from a USMC gunny, and flashing back to the Vietnam Village at Fort Sill 5 years before, and marveling at the weird succession of MY decisions that led me there. I just salute all you guys who were there and were actually in combat. I don't think ANY of the guys posting on this forum ever mean to hurt any of the other guys' feelings.

[old marine]

Campbells has Sausage & gravy for just over a buck...Heat it and eat it....served best over hot biscuits.........Mike