I once recorded my dad's stories about his time in Vietnam to submit the recording to local archive looking for Vietnam stories. It's hard to get the whole story from history books. You have to go to those who were there to know how bad things got. Without hearing his experiences I'd never know how truly scary and bad his experiences were over there. Thank you for sharing pictures and for your service.
Thanks so much! I'm working on some more, collecting pictures that other guys took. Most everything I did was highly classified ( a precursor to the Phoenix Program), so I'm having to rely on other sources.
That's very interesting. My dad handled communications (radios and such) but I know he saw a lot of combat. He's been sick for a long time due to agent orange exposure so he'd paid for his time there with his health. It's always interesting to hear others experiences.
Basically, it was a chemical herbicide that they sprayed to kill plants and destroy agriculture. It was sprayed all over during Vietnam as a war tactic to kill the enemies food sources. It was highly toxic and causes cancer and can impact genes so that people's kids could have birth defects. A lot of veterans were exposed to it and it caused permanent illness. My dad became allergic to everything in his 30s. Can't go to department stores because clothing dyes make him sick. Can't go to funerals bc/he's allergic to embalming chemicals. Perfumes, etc. make him sick. Drs. said it was due to that. He also has Leukemia and problems with his nerves from exposure.
The Agent Orange issue really pisses me off! I worked for the VVA for awhile selling ads for their newspaper to raise money. The average guy got paid $1500 for exposure!