The Vietnam War -The way it was 1971
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PHOTOS - 2
Click on the small pictures to see the full size pictures
That's me, as alert and vigilant as ever. The hardest thing to do, was to stay awake. We used to sit like this a lot, it was easy to forget it was a war zone when it was peaceful, quiet and green.
That's me writing a letter home while relaxing on the patio furniture outside our luxury 4 bedroom apartment while holidaying at the "Horseshoe". (The Horseshoe was a fortified horseshoe shaped hill that we all took turns being stationed at.
Join the dots and see me in my trendy attire. (I'm the one holding up two fingers!) Quite often we would relieve the boredom by taking these magnificent portraits of each other.
That's me on the left with Frank (our machinegunner), pondering the beauty of nature. We thought we could be extremely photogenic at times.
Your's truly! Yes, it was another one of those "Kodak moments". There was always time to take one more snap for the photo album.
Yes, all that crap we carried was as heavy as it looks!! All up we used to carry about 40 kilos of stuff. That would be like carrying another person around all day!
Some of the bugs that were around, fortunately there weren't too many of these little critters. It was always the little ones that were hard to see that caused the problems.
[left] Waiting for our ride at Nui dat (I'm on the right).
[right] About to enter our limo.
[bottom] About to land at the LZ.
This is a "shellscrape". We didn't have to do this very often, but when there was a good chance of being attacked we each had to dig a hole long enough and deep enough to lie in (and sleep in).
Don't know why I bothered to take this picture, maybe I just wanted to be reminded of what my bed looked like! (It's where I slept one night.)
Sitting under the shade of one of the many thick, bushy palm leaves that were so abundant. Who said there was a war around here? I can't see any war!
Just two of the guys in my section. Most of the time we would walk a few steps, then wait, walk a few more, then wait again and so on, all day. Sometimes it got so exciting that we sat down for a while. (ho-hum).
Just another piccy of the same two guys doing what we all did as often as we could. A clear spot, a comfy log to sit on, someone to take your picture...what more could anyone want from life!
The quality of this one is terrible, but you can see Frank ( our gunner) with one other man behind him.
A Centurion tank that made its own road through the jungle. They were big, noisy, smelly and made a hell of a mess in the jungle, whereas we were very small, quiet and tidy!
Looking back from the "business class" seating on the back of a tank.
It was always good to score a free ride on a tank, the only real drawback was the amount of crap that fell on us from the trees that they knocked down. Bugs, creepy crawlies and bucketsfull of leaves and bark.
Not a very clear picture, but a Centurion sitting on the edge of what used to be a grass field. These few pictures are of a bunker system that was found after a contact, artillery and planes shelled it, then the tanks came in and did "wheelies" on top to cave them in. We were ground protection for the tanks.
All the tanks were environmentally friendly (no exhaust smoke) and we NEVER overcrowded them! (hardy-ha-ha!)
Ahh! There's nothing like the smell of thick, blue diesel fumes, a smouldering scorched ground and the deafening roar of a dozen tanks. It just doesn't get any better than this!!