Bob Parsons was a 0311, a Marine Corps Rifleman, with 1st Battalion 26th Marines in South Vietnam’s Quang Nam province. When he first arrived on Hill 190, where his company operated, it was all rice paddy as far as his eyes could see. He was told that his time in-country would change him. He may not have realized just how much he would change.
“The Gunner and the Grunt” is a unique Vietnam War memoir because it’s actually two memoirs. Two men from Massachusetts join the Army to do very different jobs, train for those jobs, and both go to Vietnam to serve their country. The book is written in two distinct voices, both members of the same reconnaissance unit, the 1st Cavalry Division, providing two very different perspectives of the war. One flies an armed helicopter above, while the other pounds the ground through the jungles below.
Five years ago, the author returned to Vietnam on a battlefield tour with his wife, Nancy. In a conversation with the guide, Bill Stilwagen, he mentioned how his unit had accomplished a lot in its first 13 months in-country, yet when he looked on the internet, he couldn’t find anything. Stilwagen challenged him by saying, “Why don’t you write a book about it?” Hoffman took the challenge seriously.
For some, finding humor in war and combat might seem to make light of a very heavy situation. Some might even find it offensive. But those of us who have served in combat know that humor, even dark humor, is sometimes the only way to break the tension, ease the pain, and build the camaraderie that comes with fighting in a war. John Montalbano, a retired Vietnam veteran who was drafted into the Army in 1967, would not only agree that humor is important, even in war, but he literally wrote a book about it. Montalbano would spend some thirty years after the war writing and rewriting the manuscript for his book, "Bullets in My Bottom Drawer: The Lighter Side of Combat," which he finally published to great fanfare in 2024. Montalbano served in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division and later during an extended tour of duty as a courier for the 93rd Military Police Battalion Headquarters. Today, he writes about his unit’s experiences in-country and has been featured in Vietnam...
I wanted to get the GI Bill before it was no longer available. I was sworn in on Jan 31, 1955, at 6 pm. GI Bill ended on Jan 31, 1955, at midnight. Went aboard the USS Piedmont AD17, a Destroyer Tender right out of Boot Camp. I had a choice of working in the Ice Machine Shop (too cold, I thought), Engine Room (too noisy and hot, I thought), Boiler Room (way too hot, I thought), or the Ships Company Electric Shop, perfect, I thought, and I was right. I loved the electric shop in junior high and High School. This put me on a path that helped me find and keep jobs all my life. I went through Boot Camp in San Diego. My Company 092 graduated with Brigade Honors. I spent 1 1/2 years aboard the USS Piedmont and did a 6months tour overseas. I spent 2 days in Hawaii on our way to Sasebo, Japan. After 2 months there, we sailed to Hong Kong for 2 weeks R&R. After Hong Kong, we returned to Sasebo for another month, then off to Subic Bay for a few months.
Brian Dickinson is a former U.S. Navy Aviation Rescue Swimmer who specialized in combat search and rescue. His military experience is not the most difficult situation he's ever faced. For six years, he served as a rescue swimmer, but in his post-military career, he has climbed some of the most challenging mountains in the world, including Denali, Kilimanjaro, and even the Sentinel Range in Antarctica. In 2011, Dickinson climbed Mount Everest by himself, which was a difficult challenge in itself, but on his way down, he became snowblind and had to make his way down the world's highest and most dangerous peak solo and without eyesight. In a sojourn that should have taken three hours, he climbed hand-over-hand for seven hours. In that time he fell and lost his oxygen too. With what he calls a "determined faith and focus," he arrived safely back to the campsite and survived. "Blind Descent: Surviving Alone and Blind on Mount Everest" is the story of his powerful and bold decision...
I spent 8 years in the US Army and wanted to make a career out of it and retire. I began with Basic at Ft. Campbell, Ky., the coolest place I’d ever been to. Then, I took Advanced Infantry training at Ft. McLellan, Ala. This place was a mini Vietnam, as it had the highlands and swamps. Afterward, Ft. Benning, Ga., and on to Nam. After my tour, I ended up at Ft. Bragg, NC, and was sent to Parachute Rigging School in Virginia. Learning to pack your own chute was definitely a confidence builder! My direction changed when the military was converted to a voluntary unit while stationed at Ft. Bragg. Now you have people who couldn’t even read a map telling you where to jump from the Huey or whatnot. People were getting promoted for the wrong reasons, and I knew then my time was up.
Many of us in a high school fraternity decided that the best way to complete our military obligation was to enlist in the Naval Reserve. As I was older than the others, I had already graduated when the Naval Reserve Recruiter came to Fairfax High School in Los Angeles to make his presentation. They were all Gung Ho, and they tried to convince me to join them. I told them that I would check it out on my own and give them an answer within the next week. As they were not graduating until the end of the semester, the only rush was that summer vacation would be a great time to do our Boot Camp. Being Reservists would allow us to continue our education while attending Reserve Meetings.
There are few Marine Corps legends like that of Carlos Hathcock. If there's a pantheon of Marine Corps gods somewhere, Hathcock is definitely among them. He served the Corps and his country for 20 years, including two tours as a sniper in Vietnam, where he racked up what was then the world record for confirmed kills at 93 - although he believed the actual number was somewhere around 300. "Carlos just really believed in what he was doing out there. He was saving Marines; that's how he really saw it. He was just doing his job, his duty. Now, Carlos is kind of a folk hero to a tremendous number of people," his boss in Vietnam, retired Maj. Jim Land told Leatherneck Magazine in a 2010 profile. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1942, Hathcock taught himself to shoot as a young boy, just like his boyhood idols Alvin York and Audie Murphy. It was the foundation of what would become his lifelong dream: to join the United States Marine Corps. Little did he know, as he took aim and fired that...
The Coast Guard vessel, Point Orient, was stationed at Fort Pierce, FL, from 1961 to 1965 and was first used for law enforcement and SAR (Search and Rescue). On 15 January 1965, she towed the disabled M/V Sally 120 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, TX, to safety. She was assigned to CG Squadron One, Division 12, Vietnam, from July 1965 to May 1970. On 15 July 1967, Point Orient captured an enemy trawler. The Point-class cutters were 82-foot patrol boats designed to replace the United States Coast Guard's aging 83-foot wooden hull patrols being used at the time. The Early History of USCGC Point Orient The design utilized a mild steel hull and an aluminum superstructure. Following the Coast Guard custom in place in 1960 of not naming vessels under 100 feet in length, the first 44 Point-class patrol boats were only identified by their hull number using the scheme of WPB-823xx, where 82 was the design length of the hull. Beginning in January 1964, the Coast Guard started naming...
Many of us in a high school fraternity decided that the best way to complete our military obligation was to enlist in the Naval Reserve. As I was older than the others, I had already graduated when the Naval Reserve Recruiter came to Fairfax High School in Los Angeles to make his presentation. They were all Gung Ho, and they tried to convince me to join them. I told them that I would check it out on my own and give them an answer within the next week. As they were not graduating until the end of the semester, the only rush was that summer vacation would be a great time to do our Boot Camp. Being Reservists would allow us to continue our education while attending Reserve Meetings.
My dad influenced me tremendously. I had no prospects of getting a job living overseas. My dad did all he could to get me into the Academy. He wrote letters and made phone calls to BUPERS and NAVSTA Rota (in those times, there were no recruiters nearby). I was tentatively accepted to the Prep School in Bainbridge, MD, but I was medically disqualified when they received my physical results due to my vision. I had vision correctable to 20/20, but there was too much refractive error between the left eye and the right one. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college back in the States, so off to the Navy I went.
But before I joined up, my dad made sure I got into a field where I would have a good chance of advancement, so I took a whole array of tests and was found qualified for the ADVANCED ELECTRONIC FIELD, qualifying for either AT, DS, or FT. I signed up for six years, and I would get PO3 upon successfully completing “A” school.
