Interesting interview: Blunt Vietnam Vet Marine Tells You Exactly What Happened To Him

I'll have to watch the video later. I had two Marine uncles in Vietnam. One came back okay, the other came back with bad PTSD that resulted in a life-long addiction to alcohol.

A crusty old Marine I worked with for about ten years did two tours in Vietnam. He said "we're here to win your hearts and minds....and burn down your fricking village!"

I watched that video a few years ago. Highly recommend for anyone born after Vietnam conflict ended, like myself.

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That guy had some recent "Bigfoot" videos. Pretty sure he is a wanna-be actor. He was eating the meat off a frozen bigfoot foot he claims his father shot and froze.
I'll see if I can find a link.

Edit:
Pretty sure this is him...

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That's not the same guy, nor even close. The Vietnam veteran's name is W.D. Erhart, and he's 15 years older than that clown.

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Pretty sure this is him...

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It is not. That Youtube channel is batshit crazy, by the way.

a guy from the battalion I was assigned to, picked me up in a jeep
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at Danang and we had to drive the 20 miles to where my battalion was located.
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And I, I really was
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disappointed that there weren't people standing along the road waving to me
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and you know, offering me flowers and things.
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I really expected to be greeted as with open arms as a liberator and it was as,
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as though I was invisible, as though I didn't exist.

I saw four armed enemy soldiers
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the first eight months I was in Vietnam


What I began to understand in Vietnam was that
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they didn't need to do things like that.
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All they had to do was let a marine patrol go through a village
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and whatever was left at that village,
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they had all the recruits that they needed.
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I began to understand why the Vietnamese
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didn't greet me with open arms.
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Why they in fact hated me,


I got a dear John letter from her and I kept hoping
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that I'd be able to fix this up once I got back
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and I did not know what kind... and that, that woman,
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that girl had become the focus of my life while I was in Vietnam.
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She had,
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she had ceased to be a real person, she'd become this icon
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and then of course she had sort of you know, she'd take a hike.
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And
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but you can't just let go off of a vision like that,

Wide variety of vets I’ve seen before.

My own dad came out relatively sane but that was because of the posting he got, working guard duty at the world’s largest ammo dump at that time. He didn’t talk about things for the longest time, not because anything happened to him over there but because the media environment made all vets to be crazies and baby killers, which got reinforces by a tweenaged girl asking him about such things at his welcome home party because “she didn’t want to live up the street from a baby killer.” He didn’t necessarily have PTSD but didn’t want to discuss the war AT ALL nor watch any depictions of it on TV or film because of bullshite he dealt with due to those portrayals.

His boss for years had been a tracker over there and had a lot of issues while overseas and after returning home, including but not limited to psychological issues caused by the anti-malaria drugs they were on while there. (Supposedly he had a psychotic reaction to them). He’s worked through a lot of his issues and is now a writer, which includes some semi-autobiographical books about his time over there.

One professor at my school had formerly been warden at the state prison and was famous for having presided over multiple executions. He came in and talked to our Vietnam War class about the culture shock of being on a paratroop medic mission in Nam then being in San Francisco in transit hours later getting a bottle broken over his head and being spit on. Lotta PTSD for him over that and his time as warden.

There was also the in-house veteran for our class, who gave a lot of history as to what things were really like over there and what happened to him afterward. He was in a battle which was traumatizing as hell to him and was significant on the Vietnamese side as well (Ap Bac II) but was generally unknown in the US until it got researched after his story got out and the professor wanted to dig up details like a US after action report. Surviving that battle changed him because of all the guys he lost and what he saw. He did about 2-3 tours total, was in long term afterward, had his wife and daughter walk out on him, and ended up as a burned out husk who got mustered out in the early 80s. A lot of work was done to get his life back together and his participation in the class was part of the school’s way of getting him into a degree program like he had intended to be in before he ended up in the military.


Lotta shite went on and an awful lot of people felt like they had been told to go over for their country and treated like dirt when they returned because they were the foot soldiers of an unpopular war.



A lot of what this guy said resonates a lot with what John (Ap Bac II survivor) said about his time over there as well as the kind of empty feeling he had when he got back.

My daddy is a USMC Vietnam Vet. About to watch this and will share with him.

I had about an hour long visit with my Uncle the other day. And we were talking about work. I work for Chevron, he was a deep sea diver for multiple oilfield service companies during his career. I have to preface this by saying I knew he was a Seal, and was one in Vietnam. I've never asked him about it, my moms sister who is his wife has said he doesn't talk about it. It's obviously affected his life, because he is a drinker. But clearly functional. Anyway, we are talking and the conversation turns to his military service and I start asking him what was BUDS was like, he would quickly correct me and say it was called UDT at the time. I always thought he was in the service for many many years. So I asked him, "how long were you a SEAL, and in the Navy." he says 4 years, and i said that's it? His eyes fixed on me real quick and said, "son, we were very busy for 4 years" and took another sip of his wine. When he said that, I knew what he meant. I meant no disrespect, and I said that to him, I just thought he was in there a lot longer. I can't imagine what he did while he was there.

The one I had the most contact with was my best friend's dad. We grew up in church together and best man in each other's weddings.

His dad never talked about the war until a project a social studies teacher gave us sophomore year of high school.

He interviewed his dad and his dad laid it all out. The most interesting points that I remember was

Company was ambushed on a patrol and then a couple weeks or months later(I don't exactly remember) they were about to patrol the same area. He told his commanding officer about what happened before so the officer told him to scout up ahead. He found two vietcong waiting there to ambush a patrol again. For killing the two waiting there they awarded him the silver star. Probably saved at least 1 guy's life.

Was told to round his company up for patrol and a guy was complaining about his feet hurting so that he wouldn't have to go. Told him to knock off the bullshite and get going. Eventually led to a fight that tore of the camp. They took a stripe from him for it.

He got to leave because on a patrol the guy in front of him hit a trap that blew the leg off of the guy in front of him and put chunks of shrapnel into his lower leg.

Him and another Vietnam vet in my church both developed chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Both thankfully survived but you know it's from that agent orange shite.