Vets who served 'in country' faced great hardships
Robert Sims
This is in response to Mr. Randall Jones' column in Sunday November 11th edition of The Gaston Gazette regarding "Who is a Vietnam era veteran." Yes, Mr. Randall, you did rain on my parade and the parade of the 58,000 who gave their all and have their names on the "WALL" and the 2.59 million who by the 2004 census served "In Country."
In the definitions I could find, a Vietnam era veteran:
1) Served between Aug. 5, 1964 - May 7,1975
2) Was discharged or released for a service connected disability during the
same period.
I am sure that all of us that served "in country" would have traded with Mr. Jones to have had three hot meals a day, a hot shower every day, a dry bunk to sleep in, a day room to write letters home or relax, or play games.
Now let me introduce myself, I was an Army captain and served from January 1963 Until May 1967. I took a Maintenance Company to Vietnam in August 1966; our mission was to support non-divisional units such as Signal and Engineer units. We were to be in one location, however, we setup in Long Binh and were there for two months and were give orders to move all our equipment, which included tents, about 35 vehicles and wooden floors for our tents, which we had constructed to keep off the ground during the wet season. Let me interject at this point that we had it so much better than the infantry who were lucky if they saw a tent or bed or a shower in a month. We moved to Pho Loi and setup again and were there until the end of January 1967. We then moved to Tay Ninh in February 1967.
My unit was designed to be broken up into three contact teams. These teams were sent out to support units in the field with the main body in our base camp. I spent 50 percent of my time on the road visiting my troops on the contact teams. Since this was the early part of the build up of the conflict, supplies were short, so me, with six to eight of our vehicles, with two personnel per vehicle, spent many nights on the docks of Saigon watching ships unload and backing our trucks under the containers we recognized as engines we needed to put a vehicle back off deadline.
Other things that Mr. Jones was not exposed to the threat of enemy fire each time one left the gates of the compound or being rousted out of bed in the middle of the night by incoming mortar rounds. In addition, Mr. Jones does not have to worry about the threat of "Agent Orange." I have had part of a lung removed due to "Agent Orange," under gone radiation treatments and have a CT every six months. Many of my guys have had prostate cancer and children born with defects.
Again, I believe that anyone that served "IN COUNTRY" would have traded places with Mr. Jones.
Robert Sims is a resident of Gastonia.