re: Any Viet Nam vets here? do you want to share your experience?

My dad received his draft notice when he was in Navy boot camp lol. He became an east coast sailor so didn't see Vietnam. Most crazy thing that happened to him was a couple years after he got out a guy he worked a few rooms away on crypto gear was caught selling information to the Russians.

My best friend's dad got drafted and never talked about it with me or his son until we were Juniors in high school. We had that assignment to interview a veteran.

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when he hears people complaining of foot issues,

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This was something that was an issue but some guys would lie about to get out of patrol. My friend's dad got into a fist fight with a guy because the guy said he couldn't go because of his feet. Tore up most of the camp and lost himself a stripe because of it.

He was awarded the silver star because his platoon was ambushed then a few months later he was with a different group going through the same area and told his commanding officer about it. The officer sent him ahead to check the area out. He found two NVA sitting in the spot they were last ambushed at and took them out probably saving a couple guys' lives. He was sent home when a guy in front of him stepped on a booby trap that put shrapnel all through his lower leg.

When he got home he slept with his colt for a few years until his wife finally convinced him to stop. This is rural West Virginia where his closest neighbor was his father in law's family for a mile. The guy still loves hunting and always used a 22 for squirrels. We'd help him skin them and they were hit in the head everytime. Very quiet guy who was friendly but from what my friend tells me when he's upset it's scary.

Him and another man who went to the church I grew up in both served in Vietnam and both are fighting Leukemia right now. Probably due to that agent orange shite and other chemicals.

I was vacationing in Flamingo, FL (the southern tip of the Everglades) in 1998 and met a Vietnam veteran. He had an interesting story to tell.

I was about 100' from my assigned campsite, when my alternator seized up, the belt made this ungodly squealing and then broke. A few sites away, a black guy on an elliptical trainer heard the racket and came to help me push my truck into the campsite. I thanked him and made a joke about him really being dedicated to good health if he brought his elliptical on vacation with him. He told me that he wasn't on vacation and that he was retired military. He had been in Key West for a medical check-up and was visiting the Everglades. I asked when he got out and he said, "1968." I'm trying to do the math in my head, but can't figure out how a guy who ought to be at least 70 only looks 40. Being dumb as I am, I said he looked really good for his age. He asked how old I thought he was. I told him he looked like he was 35 or 40, but if he retired in 1968 and served 20, he must be close to 70. He got a good laugh from that and said he was medically retired and that why he was at the VA in Key West and why he had the elliptical. So I doubled down on stupid and asked what he did in the Navy (VA + Key West = Navy. Right?) Now he gives me a look like I'm the dumbest fricker on the planet. He says, "Who gets medically retired from the Dept of the Navy? In 1968?!? I was in the Marines!"

Needless to say, I felt like an idiot. Thankfully, the guy had a good sense of humor about it. He asked if I heard of Khe Sahn. Of course I had, everyone had. "Well, I wasn't there. I was at Con Thien." I told him I wasn't familiar with it. He kind of laughed and said, "Everybody knows about Khe Sahn, but nobody ever heard of Con Thien." He told me it, like Khe Sahn, was a firebase on the DMZ that was seiged by the NVA.

He said they usually just received harassing artillery fire, but there were several big infantry assaults. He was an M-60 gunner (or asst Gunner) and said "We just slaughtered those dudes, but they kept coming." He said the enemy dead were so piled up that it interfered with their field of fire.

He was shot three times when he was finally evacuated. One bullet lodged against his spine and cause temporary paralysis from his waist down. A second shattered his pelvis and exited his buttock. He said, "I can prove it when I tell people I went to Vietnam and got my arse shot off."

He had to learn to walk again and have checkups every 6 months to monitor the bullet next to his spine. The elliptical machine provided low impact exercise for a wound received 30 years earlier.

And he helped push my truck. Semper Fi.