# Hanoi Hannah.....DEAD



## Gunz (Oct 4, 2016)

She's dead. Xin loi, bitch.

Hanoi Hannah, Vietnam war propaganda radio presenter, dies aged 87


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## Ooh-Rah (Oct 4, 2016)

@Ocoka One - any memories or stories tied directly to her that you can recall?  (and are willing to share).


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## Gunz (Oct 4, 2016)

Ooh-Rah said:


> @Ocoka One - any memories or stories tied directly to her that you can recall?  (and are willing to share).




I heard her a few times. I think Hanoi Jane did more for the Communist cause. And I'll throw a party if I outlive her.

A few of the guys in my team had transistor radios and we'd tune in to AFVN, which was okay most of the time.

My bro John "Paladin" Shockley, carried, along with his M79 and other gear, a portable, battery-powered cassette player.  We'd break from ambush sites about an hour before dawn and go mobile to somewhere near a ville to spend most of the day (our Day Haven Site) and hang around catching up on sleep, writing letters, playing cards etc. 

This is Shockley firing off 40mm HE in a contact in Jan '71.







Our Corpsman, Doc Coonfield, got hold of a guitar somewhere.  If you look carefully you can see the little portable cassette recorder in front of him. I don't know what happened to the guitar but I know damn well he didn't hump it to ambush sites or on patrols.













_
_


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## Ooh-Rah (Oct 4, 2016)

@Ocoka One , this may be one of the coolest pics I have ever seen.  With your permission I'd like to share with folks on another site who would really dig seeing it.  I'll be sure to PERSEC the names.


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## Gunz (Oct 4, 2016)

Ooh-Rah said:


> @Ocoka One , this may be one of the coolest pics I have ever seen.  With your permission I'd like to share with folks on another site who would really dig seeing it.  I'll be sure to PERSEC the names.
> 
> View attachment 16789



That pic was taken during a contact by another member of my team, Luis "Marty" Martinez, one of my friends...and you are welcome to it. Don't worry about the names. That's "Stretch" Stravaaldson on the 60 and "Paladin" Shockley on the 79. The coolest thing about this is that the camera caught the 40mm round in flight, that little dot at the top right. Sometimes you had to stand up and expose yourself to get your rounds on target.


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## Red Flag 1 (Oct 4, 2016)

Ocoka One said:


> That pic was taken during a contact by another member of my team, Luis "Marty" Martinez, one of my best friends...and you are welcome to it. Don't worry about the names. That's "Stretch" Stravaaldson on the 60 and "Paladin" Shockley on the 79. The coolest thing about this is that the camera caught the 40mm round in flight, that little dot at the top right. Sometimes you had to stand up and expose yourself to get your rounds on target.



I did not see the round until you pointed it out. That is one hell of a photo, A!


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## Scubadew (Oct 5, 2016)

Doc Coonfield rocking flip flops. Hells yeah.


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## Ooh-Rah (Oct 5, 2016)

@Ocoka One -

Buddy of mine said, "a photo like that deserves to be cleaned up a bit. "

Here you go.


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## Gunz (Oct 5, 2016)

Ooh-Rah said:


> @Ocoka One -
> 
> Buddy of mine said, "a photo like that deserves to be cleaned up a bit. "
> 
> ...



Beautiful job. Please pass along my thanks.



Scubadew said:


> Doc Coonfield rocking flip flops. Hells yeah.



Our "Day Havens" were different places every day, usually a house in a hamlet or ville with a fairly good field of fire. We had our favorites: Frenchy's Place, Al's Place, The Brick Factory-- we had nicknames for them all. That stucco place with the columns that you see in a number of these pictures was our favorite day haven, a former tobacco plantation. It was called The Old Ba's (The Old Woman's). Most of the houses in the villes were thatch with dirt floors. No electricity or running water in that part of VN. People shit in the bushes or on the crops.

But we'd never stay in the same place two days in a row and never in the same place more than 8 or 9 hours. We kept moving. RV'd with a 46 once a week for regular resupply. At the Day Haven's we dropped our gear and got down to shorts and Ho Chi Minh sandals..._but three guys were always on watch, _and half the team, alternating between the Alpha and Bravo elements, ran a combat patrol sometime during the day to keep Charlie on his toes.

Typical Day Haven. This guy's name was "CoolJim."






The 12 of us.






Paladin






Billy "Chief" Fragua, our Navaho pointman, and me.







Half of us were 0311's the other half 0331's. The M60, the two M79s and the two PRC-25s were rotated every couple of weeks. So nobody was a permanent RTO or gunner or bloop man, we just traded off. It kept everybody proficient. Everybody knew how to use the C4 and detcord and set charges, everybody knew how to bust a LAAW, our corpsman would give us medical classes sometimes in Day Haven to broaden our skills a bit in case _he_ got incapacitated. Everybody knew how to call up arty, medevac, CAS. When an FNG joined us, he was paired up with a "mentor" who gave him a crash course in comm and he was watched very closely on patrol, in ambush sites...and we made sure he got a good look at dead EKIAs at the first opportunity . The first rite of passage was busting his cherry in contact, doing his job, earning his CAR. After that the close supervision ended.

Okay that's it. Once you guys open the floodgate it pours out. :wall:


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## SpongeBob*24 (Oct 5, 2016)

Ocoka One said:


> Okay that's it. Once you guys open the floodgate it pours out. :wall:


Keep it pouring...these photos are AWESOME!!!!


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## Gunz (Oct 5, 2016)

46 Resup





Doc Coonfield writes home





"Chipper" our Mine & Boobytrap dog and questioning VC suspect




Counterparts with captured 122mm rocket





Mobile toward night ambush sites with counterparts





Doc Donoghue with his puppy





RJ and Frenchy at LZ Baldy, full load, with counterparts, after our evacuation due to Typhoon Kate when our AO flooded.





Eddie Caido and "Chipper."

And mi hermano  Marty Martinez...who made the cover of a book:


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## 104TN (Oct 5, 2016)

Loving the pics and stories @Ocoka One. One of my few regrets about my brief time in, is that I didn't take more (any) pics with my buddies.


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## RackMaster (Oct 5, 2016)

@Ocoka One  Thank you for sharing.


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## Ooh-Rah (Oct 5, 2016)

Ocoka One said:


> Wow! He did a hell of a job! Just amazing. Please pass along a Bravo Zulu to him...and many thanks to you.



He's very good with those programs - he asked me to let you know that if you have any others you'd like cleaned up, send them to me and it would be his pleasure.


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## Gunz (Oct 5, 2016)

rick said:


> Loving the pics and stories @Ocoka One. One of my few regrets about my brief time in, is that I didn't take more (any) pics with my buddies.



My regret too. I didn't have a camera so all these pics had to come from my bros who took pictures and shared with me. That's why they're all so different. 

Your time in uniform is when you get to do all kinds of cool shit and play with cool toys and have adventures you may not have in later life, so pictures are precious. My dad told me this when I was 18 and, like everything  else he told me, none of it made sense until I hit 26.


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## Muppet (Oct 5, 2016)

Fucking awesome pics bro. God bless you hard dicks.

Fuck that cunt also.

M.


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## AWP (Oct 5, 2016)

I'm not siding with one generation over the other because that isn't my place, but contrast the pictures above with today, WWII, WWI, and the Civil War. You'll see how times have changed, but they haven't. Like the Fallout series of video games...

_War, war never changes._


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## Gunz (Oct 5, 2016)

Muppet said:


> Fucking awesome pics bro. God bless you hard dicks.
> 
> Fuck that cunt also.
> 
> M.



Yeah, fuck her. Fuck both them bitches Hanoi Hannah, Hanoi Jane...And thank you, Brother. I consider that a great compliment coming from a paratrooper.




Freefalling said:


> I'm not siding with one generation over the other because that isn't my place, but contrast the pictures above with today, WWII, WWI, and the Civil War. You'll see how times have changed, but they haven't. Like the Fallout series of video games...
> 
> _War, war never changes._




Absolutely. The gear changes, the terrain changes...but at the grit end it all boils down to guys with rifles trying to kill each other. And human reactions don't change. I'm betting if you or I or any of the combat vets on this forum could talk to some Civil War vets, or vets from _any _war...we would all have many things in common.

Cheers to vets,  goddammit!


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## RackMaster (Oct 5, 2016)

I took some pictures but most of us avoided cameras as much as possible but I got in shortly after CAR was disbanded.


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## SpitfireV (Oct 6, 2016)

@Ocoka One if you don't mind, I have a bit of a random question. I've seen pictures of Marine units in VN using AKs rather than the M16s. Do you happen to know why that was and if it was widespread?


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## Gunz (Oct 6, 2016)

SpitfireV said:


> @Ocoka One if you don't mind, I have a bit of a random question. I've seen pictures of Marine units in VN using AKs rather than the M16s. Do you happen to know why that was and if it was widespread?




I'm sure you've heard of the problems with the M16 when it was first introduced. During the Hill Fights in '67, our guys were getting killed trying to dislodge jammed brass from their rifles during intense firefights. So there was incredible mistrust of the weapon and in a number of instances Marines grabbed AKs...and some even carried the AKs for as long as they could get away with it.

By the time I got to VN the kinks had been worked out and I never knew anybody who had any problems with their rifle. And most of the AKs we recovered after firefights were so badly shot up or damaged, they were unusable.


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## Totentanz (Oct 6, 2016)

Ocoka One said:


> Absolutely. The gear changes, the terrain changes...but at the grit end it all boils down to guys with rifles trying to kill each other. And human reactions don't change. I'm betting if you or I or any of the combat vets on this forum could talk to some Civil War vets, or vets from _any _war...we would all have many things in common.
> 
> Cheers to vets,  goddammit!



That's why I really like reading your posts on your experiences during that era. I won't push you to share any more than you want to, but I really enjoy it when you do.


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## Gunz (Oct 24, 2016)

The only stuff I don't like to share is the stuff I probably need to share but won't. Maybe someday. Ya'll know how it is.


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