Surviving Vietnam - Episode 1 : A Vietnam Veteran Tells His Story

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ALU veterans out there from all wars I'm gonna be sharing my story about my experience in Vietnam my name is Dennis I'm 69 years old from Visalia California and I went into the military in 1969 but to build up to that I want to talk about the reason I went to Vietnam I wasn't drafted I actually joined but there was a reason I joined a friend of mine his name was Rick informed as he was going to be at Nam well we didn't know what the heck Vietnam was who were high school seniors who were up swimming in the river drinking beer and he sprung that on us and we all asked her what the heck's that about and he goes well I got drafted and I have to go and so we said wow man that kind of sucks so anyway he takes off and he goes to Vietnam and I think that was in like 1967 I think because he was a year older than me so anyway we know we went about our business we hung out with each other and give it a high school kids do then Rick was engaged to this young girl and we found out later that Rick and being killed over there and we all like freaked out what do you mean Rick you know what you mean Rick's gone yeah he got killed over there and so my best friend Rick was one of my best friends but my best friend Butch and I we just like went went off we went crazy we could not believe that and we were young crazy kids so we were you know we talked about it and we said to do you know what we need to go over there we need to go with and kill him suckers that kill them not knowing what we were talking about but we were gonna go revenge Rick's death so we finished high school we're start working at a car wash and we you know we've been talking about it all along while we worked at the car wash finally we got up the nerve to say you know what let's let's do that we don't like this car wash anyway let's go just go do something so we went enjoying both of us we joined the army and they accepted us we took all the tests and all that stuff and so I'm grieving my one of my best friend's death and at that time I didn't know how he was killed over there all we knew he was killed so butch and I were were you know just biding their time waiting for our date to go into the bootcamp and so one night after partying we're laying out and I had a little separate room from the house a separate room and we're laying out my bed and my mother walks in and I knew something was wrong she said son she said get in the car we have to go to the hospital let's go to hospital why and she said just get in the car no warning nothing so we get in the car and she said in fact you need to drive fast we need to get down there fast she said something's happened to dad he's had a heart attack so we go flying down there to the hospital pull up into the parking lot I'm still in the car trying to park it my mother had ran inside and she heard what you know what had happened and she came back out before I even got out of car I didn't even get into the hospital I was still outside in the parking lot and she said dad died and I was like 17 and I just lost wreck one of my best friends in Vietnam then I hear this and I can remember finding a big tree and punching it and just kept punching - my hands were bloody and my mom came up and said son me and you have to be strong for the rest of the family because I have like six brothers and sisters and she was like in shock you know and we all were but anyway I said you have to be strong and so kind of had to try to deal with that and then with my date coming up to go to boot camp so I just shared that to let you know where my mindset was when we left for boot camp so we headed to Fort Ord no first of all I was in jail the night I was supposed to go to boot camp so my mom had to come down and get me out of jail said I'm the property of the United States government you have to let him out so they said they made the phone call and they said you're right ma'am we have to let him out so they let me out and I went to four door California Monterey it's in Monterey to show up for boot camp butch my friend and I so you can imagine 17 years old and we pull up there on these D eyes or scream and get off that bus you stupid tell my bluff you know you left your mother at home now and now you're ours all that kind of garbage formation stand in line okay who here thinks are tough get out here so if you guys thought they were tough and they stepped out there okay your platoon sergeant so are you so anyway we went into training and we we did all all the kind of training you have to do how to fire weapons at a fire m16 m14 how to throw hanger nage how to go through buildings and endure the gas when they throw it on you and all this kind of stuff so one night we had a mission I mean a training class ready to go to so we marched we marched everywhere everywhere you went you marched it was it gets you in shape and learned how to take orders and all that kind of stuff and so we go to this one training session it was firing up 50 Cal machine guns over your head wellyou've low crawl on your back with your weapon and all that stuff simulating war so my friend and I are watching this stuff from the bleachers and everything's blowing up you got like 10 50 cals going off at the same time you never heard something so loud as this and and we said oh my god let's get out of here but we're not gonna do this it sucks this this I'm not crawling under no frickin machine gun rounds yeah let's get out of here so we're looking around to hide and you know get out of what we were supposed to do there was no way there was GIS everywhere they probably seen that happen before people hiding under the bleachers that I couldn't go through that so anyway we had to do it and oh my god we're low crawling and stuffs blowing up claymore mines simulated claymore mines simulated 50 cals with tracers every fifth rounds of tracer and it's at night and all you see is red lines red lines red lines going over the top of these guys heads is what it looked like from the bleachers and like I said stuff blowing up and in smoke and all that and we're wondering what's that smoke what's that about because they didn't tell you they even warned you so we get in line we get our turn comes and we're crawling the X I remember he was really cold outside we're in Monterey kind of rainy and and all this stuff is going down all of a sudden they pop a canister threw gas on all of us in CS gas trying to remember with that standard form but that stood for CS anyway it was a powerful chemical he'd get down in you in your pores if you were sweating it made it worse burned worse so we're all sweating from all that physical exertion crawling backwards and this stuff gets all in our in our bodies and if you man were on fire physically we are just lit up from the skin yes then we're just freaking out so we finally made it through that and so we we go on to more training more training then we hear all these guys in different barracks and different companies you know these guys we hear like a hundred of them died and we go what they said meningitis they they have now breakup meningitis in Fort Ord when I was there and in boot camp so now I'm going Jesus now I'm going to die before I even get to the war for meningitis so they made us sleep with all the windows open they had to do with the not a cure for meningitis but gave you a better chance of not catching it it evidently the medical world was figuring out my guess if you had fresh air all the time there's not as many germs or whatever so anyway I'm all worried about that in words we're like training like crazy you know best shape of my life I mean you you train hard you work hard so I March I'm coming in from a March at the end of the day exhausted not marching up the stairs next thing I know I'm blacked out I don't know what happened and I wake up in the hospital and find out I had got walking pneumonia and I said what the heck and I mean I'm on like ventilators all this stuff up my nose all like crap they do IVs all over the place I'm thinking I got meningitis right what would you think die like the rest some guys I have managed I don't know doctor you don't have that we have pneumonia you okay we're gonna take care of it and so for three days I was like out and then I woke up finally getting better and it's a lung disease so when lungs which was I couldn't hardly breathe so they want to recycle me and send me back through basic training because of the this setback which was about a week total and so I asked my CEO my captain I said do you know nothing no no I'm like a recycled no way I'm not going back through that again said is there any way I can take this test to pass boot camp so he said let's ask the doctor and the doctor says eight if he feels up to it and he wants to try it I think I'll be fine if this kids in great shape physical shape he should be okay because he's gotten tested pneumonia so they let me do it and I pass that 100% and so they graduated me and much from basic and then our next our next thing after after a brief R&R I think we got a week in between basics because we had to go to the next advanced training advanced infantry training for your second basic training actually that's what it is it's your second basic training to learn and detail your MOS that's actually a job you do in the army they assign you an MOS infantry you know mechanic clerk whatever your jobs gonna be they they give her your MOS and so butch and I we were assigned to Fort Sill Oklahoma and we said Fort Sill Oklahoma what that we're from California writes like 30 below there snow and it was that time of the year and so they they were gonna send us to Fort Sill Oklahoma because we were gonna go to artillery training and so I can remember getting off that bus oh my god we were like popsicles it was horrible we thought we were gonna get a lesser situation than basic but it's kind of almost the same little bit difference to pull guard you have formations you go through all this training for like I mean 16 weeks training pretty sure 16 weeks or I don't know I don't remember I was fifty years ago all I know is it sucked and you know the D I said icicles in their nose they're trying to teach you something and you're like stuck to the guy next you cuz you're frozen everybody's frozen it was so quick three pairs of gloves three pairs of pants II just sucked so anyway we we were going through this training I remember one time we had pull guard I had to pull guard and it was so cold I crawled inside this five-ton truck realm tire wheel rim and I was sleeping in there I'm pulling guard and his lieutenant pulled up you know the the guy checking on all of us man he woke me up and he cussed me out must have been for a half hour he said dude you'd be dead right now if you're out in war he would be dead that's that they'd cut you throat you're out so you know you can't ever do it again so I got in trouble article 15 knowledge crap and so the training seemed like it took forever here too but it was it was mostly classroom stuff it it was really boring because we already knew how to March and all that even though you did that we had already learned that so now you're just learning your MOS how to fire a like 105 howitzer which you know I didn't I didn't know anything in that training didn't learn a frickin thing they were talking about all this stuff you know fuse quick the fuses on the rounds and how many of the powder powder that goes in the canister of the ground all what you didn't pay attention then because it was totally boring and so we they told us you know you're gonna graduate and here's the next step you guys gonna be in orders they give you orders where you going Germany Korea Vietnam and at that time nine out of ten I'm telling you how them platoons went to Vietnam just about everybody automatically were ready to go to Vietnam and if you got lucky like my friend my best friend butch he got sent to Korea and Korea we're supposed to be on a buddy plan supposed to go everywhere no not just just basic but when you get your orders you could be anywhere so the buddy plan just basically was about you can go through basic training together but after that you go or the army tells you to go so butch goes to Korea everybody else went everywhere I didn't get any orders so I'm sitting it on what the heck so butch just day comes to take off he's got to go home call an R&R go over to Korea so I said I remember I'm driving off and I remember going this sucks my dad just died my best friend just got killed and I'm heading there maybe I even got my order shipped that was a that's what I was thinking and I want to go if I wanted I want to desert I'm gonna screw all I might find the next bus I'm out of here screw all this stuff and so I had to wait three more weeks doing nothing because nobody was there few guys were there waiting for orders but I didn't have to do KP I am do anything I just sitting in barracks wondering you know what's up and I would bother people you know the officers you know what's going on where's my order so you just have to wait kid till they decide what they're gonna do with you nothing we can do you just have to wait so I waited for three weeks for them orders and I thought I was going to go to Korea because why would I be delayed three weeks why wouldn't it he sent me to Nam with the rest of the guys so I had no expectation to go to Vietnam and sure enough orders came you're gonna be at Nam on X date and I said oh shoot my best friend's gone you went to Korea you know my whole life is what that each my mother's by herself now everything just sucked and so they go okay you get leave you get go home for a couple weeks or whatever it was so I remember going home let's start party and of course screw the arm I already forgot about them three days I've crossed through that place I ain't going back there I've done basically well kkona no Vietnam so I start deserting man I mean it's going on three weeks a month times gone by and people who look at you supposed to go bad now screw Vietnam I'm not going there and my my stepdad he called me at a barbecue after we had a few beers he said dude you have to go I don't I don't have to do anything I was always rebellious you know screw them people and he said no man you're talking desertion they'll put you in level word prison for 30 years this is big this isn't a joke like good I've been in juvenile halls and in jail few times before this happened and so they go this isn't that that kind of patty-cake crap this is prison level work you have to go and you have to go for your honor your father fought in World War two I fought in World War two that getting all this crap from all these these veterans you know saying you gotta go man you have to fight for your country and I'll fight for my country get my best friend killed what I wanna do that part we're gonna fight for him then oh okay that caught my interest again that's why I did it in the first place I'm gonna go fight for him so I saw I might as well go so I decided I'm gonna go man I was late Oh at least a month might be a month in out so I get to Oakland my brother drives me up there my oldest brother and we start getting close and I started getting little he's kept getting a little real here and so he I remember him dropping me off there and driving off and I'm standing there on the street in this Oakland where we were left from some base where you you report and all that stuff and then you catch you playing for Vietnam I'm standing in the street with this duffel bag of army crab and I'm going oh shoot what am i into there so they go go report here whatever I report so I'm sitting there waiting to go to Vietnam I'm in this big building well the big plane comes in and it parks and I'm sitting against the wall I can't remember it having a lot of memories here you know I have any friends cuz I'd met anybody yet you know had them green green fatigues on they give you where they call you cherry boy that means you're brand new man you brand new going over there you don't know nothing then they treat you like that too they call they say crap to you like hey cherry boy you better stay awake for you on a even come on the veterans say that crept you when they walk by you so I see all these guys coming through this gate and these guys aren't soldiers man I mean they're not looking like soldiers take that long hair they got beards fricking right out of the jungle back in the day they came right out of the bush and got on the plane and headed home you know it were they they you do you you go through camera on bearwear whatever to process out but you're still in them same jungle fatigues because that's what your that's what you were wearing it's not like you have you know got around my time when I came home by then they required GIS to wear the class ace they're called you you have to wear your nicest army suit with all your medals and all that crap they changed all that because of the higher-ups general said in platica these guys are so rebellious man they come out you know it's just like to off the street they live worse in Hell's Angels some of them were whack jobs I'm a name they would like like me when I came back crazy man you get crazy over there not just from war but from major drugs major drugs and I didn't know drugs before I went to Vietnam I drink beer I was a drinker but man I came back I'm probably getting ahead of myself here but anyway him guys walked through that gate and I was really upset then and I'm heading out it gets that big bird for Vietnam and that's up to this point that was here we had to be at Nam we got on this plane and they started playing movies why are they playing movies because it's 16-hour flight and we're gonna fly it away and stop there and and then we stopped in Guam think it were true stops and man I'm sitting there just course you know that planes quiet everybody nobody's busy ain't talking probably a lot of know each other like I didn't know them and so we're heading back in the day when you got orders for Vietnam and we thought you were gonna die you ask any number you're done you can go to kill because that's you just got through home cards here you're out you did and so everybody I'm sure had that on their mind you know am I ever gonna come back am I gonna make it type thing and so it's quiet all the way there's a long long flight with these movies playing didn't know what was on the movie we just tripping you know waiting to get there and so I remember we're gonna land on Benoit I landed Benoit by Ben folk in the base camp Bearcat South Vietnam so we touch we touch down and the guys are filing out and we have our duffel bags and stuff I can remember stepping out of that plane it was so I've never been anywhere my life that hot it was the most human that's why most of the infantry training in the army is in Fort Polk Louisiana the closest they could get to the humidity and the jungle you know the swamps in Louisiana and that kind of a feeling it was the closest they could get to the feeling in Vietnam and I can remember it smell just like Shi T because it was and we didn't understand why why this place smell like crap litter literally crap and they told us the vets over there have been there long time dude there's no bathrooms here they burn their waste they have little outhouses and they have these tin cans and one of our things until I left Vietnam was one of your duties besides guard duty was you'd have to go down and burn the whole company's waste all day long for like 10 hours he throw diesel on it and I didn't have to sit there goes out like that was that was part of the duties in Vietnam you had to do that from the time you got there chi'lan well out in the bush we didn't do that but if you were in a base camp that's how they that's how they took care of their waste and so I'm thinking holy what have you know where am i and say and while you're in with him the trees I remember the first bathroom I went into if you go into a bathroom here in the states with graffiti everywhere that's that was it gif by army yeah now secure this place ETA estimated time to get out and have their date of when they get to get out and how many years they've been there and this is my third tour and people's names and crap everywhere you're gonna die you're gonna get killed stale the bush you're gonna be one of the statistic I mean just you're a young young guy in a farm place in your reading crap like that you're gonna die to hell it's all you remember my orders were to go to a base camp called Bear Cat outside of Bend book it's kind of like a place you go until you get orders or whatever and but you are doing something in your MOS because these little diesel cities little towns in Vietnam have artillery that protects them and so that's one of the places I went for like two or three weeks I remember but I can remember sitting there wait waiting to get shipped out and you had you had infantry guys you had everything all over the place waiting for the same thing they may have been in to the doctor and they're going back out to the jungle to the bush they're waiting to get flown out or convoyed out or whatever and these dudes had like pythons wrapped around their necks I mean we're talking pythons 25 freaking feet long monkeys on the shoulders and these were saying guys I talked about they came back through that that thing with the hair long and you know infantry Bush guys many animals he fell from the bush up his shoulders 50 Cal rounds wrapped around him grenades hanging off him and I thought what the heck if I gotten into and so I might tell one little episode I saw this there I was two days later you are now in Vietnam whether you've gotten to your company or not you're expected to pull card and you know they're gonna put you to work here whatever and it was a way to give infantrymen they're there to rest and stuff so you know they grab wherever the candidate pull card so I can remember pulling guard I'd only been there two or three days and I'm pulling guard and this guy next to me gets shot between eyes get shot dead between eyes and it turns out he was smoking a cigarette and a sniper took him out because he's smoking a cigarette and to say the least I never smoked a cigarette in the dark the rest of my tour it was no way huh I gotta learn from that and so I come back and I sit down and I felt like that been you know it's the next day who's pulling guard at night obviously we had starlight scopes and all that and I and I'm I'm looking at these bets that have been there I mean I mean short timers we call them they'd been there you know probably nine months to a year they get ready to go home and I said dude this guy looks at me I'm trying to remember he was either with with a big red one or 101st airborne and I said how do you frickin deal with this dude then he goes you don't he said smoke this and it was my first introduction to to dope in Vietnam and I smoked at weight and I got so I got so freakin stoned I didn't know who I was where I was what day but because over there you're talking about what we called OJ's opium soaked joints I'm talking about Cambodian red we're talking about the most powerful weed you could get in the whole freaking world hash they had hash from Laos oh my god they had these water bowls that you smoked it out of pipes and stuff and so from that day on what do you do and he said you don't you go on you smoke this [ __ ] and you get it you just leave leave this world so from that day from the till the time I came home I was stoned out of my mind every day it was an everyday thing you just went if you if it wasn't from a firefight something that happened ambush whatever you went through missing your girlfriend anything you would smoke that dope to leave reality because by then we starting to become a veteran and understanding dude you can't walk through here sober you can't deal with this you know you know you're gonna have trouble of yours if you're sober and so I'm there I'm there I'm learning this stuff a week after that of course I don't know what the hell I'm doing brand-new CI same place same place pulling yard right and a freakin water buffalo trips a trip flare and he goes off and I have a 50 Cal from my hands I went completely out of my mind I am lighting up that whole freakin play you know I just remember I told you that I just got from a sniper my queen is dead not me then I'd kill me this guy calls me up on the radio communications what the hell what the hell's going on out there we need what the hell's going on out there hey you can't do that you have to call in here and get permission before you fire anything what's your name [ __ ] told me his name I said you get out of here I'm gonna switch you positions right now I'm going to your communications job and you come and sit where I'm sitting right now don't tell me when I'm gonna fire I'm going home after my time if I see anything that I think starting to my life that son of a gun is dead I'm gonna take him out I mean breaking claymores just like it's fricking place you're not gonna kill me dude so say next day Co what the hell are you doing private because I know as a PFC Evie what are you doing PFC the hell you mean what am i you said you just killed 10 other freaking South Vietnamese water buffalos they're down here this morning cussing me out think they fit me and they're the things we tried yo number 10 GI you stupid - I you just kill all of you kill alright a truck was and I said oh whoops maybe they're dam water buffaloes shouldn't have been in front of a 50 caliber machine gun tripping the tripwire right so anyway I thought that was a funny time so I mean the craziness started so so I lived through all this this was only like two weeks and I get orders it could go to this place called Bearcat - all you returning vets from all wars I'd like to talk a minute about my friends money robbers who I went to one of his 4 cent healing meetings and oh my gosh that he changed my life I would recommend that for all of you guys he's out as solvating california flag is up farms and just incredible healing for me i know we've all been through a lot of different kinds of feelings but he uses horse therapy to teach you a lot of things that would help you with anxieties fears etc and I would just like to put in just I can't put in words how much he helped me and so you guys should look him up and go to some of these meetings and they would help tremendously thanks hi I'm Marty Roberts and I have to tell you how proud I am of Dennis and Diana Nick they've come to our horse sense and healing for veterans he's a non veteran and they have a project going surviving Vietnam do I wish them well they helped us form a lot of our opinions about what we should do with our clinics for military people Dennis and Diana nickel made of gold looking on [Music] [Music]

Channel: survivingvietnam

Views: 260,948

Rating: 4.8202562 out of 5

Keywords: Vietnam Veteran, Vietnam War, Vietnam Stories, War Stories, Veteran Stories, Soldiers PTSD, Military, Military Stories, Veteran PTSD, Dennis Nickell, US Army, Army, 1st Cav, 25th Infantry

Id: wFEnGE8CDOc

Length: 37min 0sec (2220 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 28 2020