An Astonishing Fact of the Vietnam War and WWII

[Courtland]

In WWII, men averaged 10 days a year in combat, in Vietnam men averaged 240 days a year in combat.

Source: the movie "Vietnam in HD"

 

My jaw dropped when I saw this. I have a day off work, and I am spending some time with this movie. I am currently in the year 1966-1967. Kids are at school, and I can fully engross myself in the movie, the stories, the men and the families, it's an incredible accounting of the war.

[lew]

I've seen some of this on TV. It can be difficult to watch.

 

As a sailor, my experiences cannot compare to what the Soldiers and Marines went through. I think what has continued to bother me the most was that my job ultimately resulted in many deaths. I made certain that our aircraft's ordinance landed exactly on target. Our plane could carry almost its' own weight in bombs/missiles- that's a tremendous amount of explosives. We flew sorties mostly at night. No one saw us coming.

 

A fictional account of what our plane did is in the movie "Flight of the Intruder".

[Ron Dudelston]

I agree with Lew.  I served in Guam and Thailand flying B-52 support to the guys that were on the ground.  We dropped lots and lots of iron over that country.

[Fred Wilson]

Ron and Lew - and I was back home working on those B-52s when they came home - so I was even more remote