Evans - Bloody jungle : the war in Vietnam

Copyright 2013 by Chris Evans

Published by

STACKPOLE BOOKS

5067 Ritter Road

Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.

Cover design by Caroline M. Stover

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Chris (Chris R.)

Bloody jungle : the war in Vietnam / Chris Evans ; foreword by Jim Ross. pages cm. (Stackpole military photo series)

ISBN 978-0-8117-1208-8

eISBN 978-0-8117-5269-5

1. Vietnam War, 19611975Pictorial works. 2. Vietnam War, 19611975 United StatesPictorial works. 3. United StatesArmed ForcesHistoryVietnam War, 19611975Pictorial works. I. Title.

DS557.72.E93 2013

959.704'30222dc23

2013030704

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

W hile the Vietnam War cut deeply into the soul of the nation and remains a lingering wound, the majority of those who participated upheld the mantra of honor-duty-country handed down and entrusted to them by their forefathers. They came from all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds. Many knew little or nothing of the backstory of the conflict; the threat of spreading communism seemed reason enough to pony up. But as the war escalatedemploying misguided strategies and political manipulationthe challenges facing those slogging through the monsoon muck soon stood as insurmountable obstacles to a positive outcome. Worsening their plight, they became stereotyped as heartless killers on the home front and got little help from a South Vietnamese military content to let Americans do the heavy liftingand dying. Over time, then, honor-duty-country boiled down to survive-and-go-home.

In spite of the confidence cultivated in training, few were prepared for the real horrors of war. Kill or be killed was only the first layer. Morality degraded quickly from exposure to unrelenting brutality and the push to stack enemy bodies like poker chips to be cashed in for victory. Soldiers saw buddies killed and maimed, and lived thereafter with the memory of their screams. They endured swarming insects, jungle rot, sleep deprivation, insufferable heat, friendly-fire incidents, and insidious booby-traps of every kind. They contended with a less-than-seasoned officer corps that rotated out of the field at twice the rate of enlisted men, as well as higher-ups who too often concocted missions impossible such as the infamous battles at Hamburger Hill and Firebase Ripcord.

Yet through it all, the bulk of the draftees and volunteers who served in Vietnam maintained a sense of personal honor, retained their love of country, and held the notion that somewhere in the morass some good would come from it all. And so they continued to march until the last combat units were withdrawn in 1973.

In spite of the fallout from such a life-changing event, most Vietnam veterans now live ordinary lives. They understand that the bell cannot be un-rung and have reconciled their combat experiences with what they know to be true. Though still taunted by demons from time to time, they manage to keep those subtle but hot embers at arms length.

Included in this book are images from some of the survivors. They have opened their scrapbooks to share glimpses of their tours. Few things are of greater value to war veterans than these fading links to the most significant moments of their lives. As such, they reveal the camaraderie, the bravado, the hidden despair, and some of what they witnessed while prowling the lethal landscape there. Above all, they portray average young Americans trying to do their best while being forced to grow up too fast.

Jim Ross

Author of Outside the Wire

INTRODUCTION

T he Vietnam War stands out in American history for its length, spanning nearly twenty years from the departure of the French shortly after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954; for its bloody costmore than 58,000 American servicemen and women killed and more than 300,000 wounded; the cultural upheaval it spawned back home, including the killing of four university students at Kent State in Ohio by the Ohio National Guard; and the shocking culmination of hostilities on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon to Communist forces.

This book aims to illustrate the war as seen through the camera lenses of the soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors who fought it. With the advent of inexpensive and readily available cameras and film, including instant processing using Polaroids, the Vietnam War was documented on a scale and with an intimacy never before seen by the public. Modern technology made the war bloody, its death toll augmented by the ever increasing sophistication of the weaponry employed, but it also sparked revolutionary care of the wounded. More salient, perhaps, is that the war bonded a generation of warriors together. And in that bond of shared sacrifice, of joys and sorrows, they captured their time together in Vietnam prolifically and often poignantly through photographs.

The photographs in Bloody Jungle are primarily from the warriors themselves. Youll see color Polaroids taken in the field on a dusty fire base and slides snapped from the cockpit of a Huey flying high over the jungle canopy. Some of the shots are blurred, others taken from odd angles and in poor lighting, and that is as it should be. If the books raw approach unsettles, if the words of the combatants jar against the ear, then this book has served its small but important role in conveying a fraction of what it meant to fight in the Vietnam War.

Chris Evans

New York, New York

August 2013

Sergeant Fish relaxes with a beer on the wall of a fortified watchtower. He holds his M16, the ubiquitous American weapon of the Vietnam War. The M16 fired a 5.56mm round, which was significantly lighter than the 7.62mm round fired by the rifle it replaced, the larger M14. August 1969.

A Marine returns from patrol in the bush. Troops often ditched their helmets for boonie hats, which were significantly lighter and didnt obscure their hearing while patrolling in the jungle. The downside was the complete lack of armor protection for the head, but it was a trade-off many were happy to make. June 1970.

Command Sergeant Major Ted G. Arthurs, 173rd Airborne Brigade, May 1967 to May 1968

The Sky Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne were in the thick of the fighting in Vietnam while Ted Arthurs was there, humping eighty-pound rucksacks through triplecanopy jungle and chasing down the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in the Central Highlands. As a sergeant major for a battalion of 800 men, it was Arthurss job to see them through this jungle hell and get them back home again.