Special Forces Shoulder Patch
173rd Airborne Brigade Shoulder Patch
Novice Parachute Badge

My Viet Nam

Vietnam was a rock and roll war -- rock and roll -- lock and load. There was Temptations, the Supremes,Jefferson Airplane, the Mamas and Papas, Joe Tex and the Rolling Stones. It was a psychedelic war and the grunts all wanted to be flower children in San Francisco, getting their share of the young free pussy, instead of pounding the boonies in some nameless valley or jungle or wading knee deep in shit through a stinking rice paddy. It was a war with peace signs, and beads, and necklaces strung up with dead Vietcong ears and the Ace of Spades left in a gook's mouth -- psyops they called it. The Vietnamese were a superstitious bunch of fucks. It was a war of the 15 to 1 ratio -- fifteen remfs(rear echelon motherfuckers) and one guy humping a sixty pound pack with a M16 in a fire fight. It was a war of supply sergeants getting rich selling everything that wasn't nailed down out the back door of the base and into the streets of Saigon, Chu Li, Da Nang and dozens of two-bit towns and villages. It was a war of starched khakis for majors and colonials, with air conditioned clubs and hooch's and R&R in Tokyo. It was a war of the Saigon Cowboys, pimps on wheels, and MACV, White Mice, and raven haired whores calling out, hey GI, "you want make boom boom" or "buy me drink -- I love you, no shit." It was a war of deceit and lies, double cross and waste. It was dumb, stupid, and truly a war of older men playing with young men's lives but, it was the only war we had.

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Web Author: Mike Flynn