Reply #20: No, not very many [View All]

[exlrrp]

I was in Vietnam when I was 18--this was the legal age for going to Vietnam at the time. I had to wait untill I was 18 to go--everybody else in my jumpschool class went west after Jump school. I went suth to Panama. When I turned 18 I volunteered.
In 1966 a young 101st paratrooper died when he jumped on a grnade and saved people, he got the Cong Medal of Honor. After that there were no more 17 year olds there.
not that 18 is that far off.
If you want a Vietnam horror story I'll give you one. My unit, the 1st/327 (101st) was given the job of clearing the Song Ve valley of inhabitants--then it was declared a free fire zone. This involveed rounding up some very unhappy people who didn't want to go and I mean hundreds. Still, no one got murdered that I saw or heard of, although everyone there was unhappy about the situation including all of us--that wsn't what we signed up to do. But thats what it turned out to be. We didn't know this then but the Tiger Force, our battalion recon team was coming along behind "cleaning up" anyone who wanted to stay, this meant slaughtering 100 or more people.. You can google Tiger Force to get this whole sordid story.
So there I was real close to a massacre that may have been more than My Lai (which happened not far away less than a year later by another unit)that my battalion was responsible for. Do I get blamed for that? I didn't know anything about it till years later, nor did anyone else.
Was I responsible for that? Neither was Gunter Grass , he was probably trying to just survive. If he did bad its on his conscience now.
Judge not least ye be judged. He certainly has contributed greatly to society otherwise, loved the Tin Drum.