The+Vietnam+Soldier

Vietnam Soldier Notes


 * U.S. Army foot soldiers in Vietnam were often on patrol. They were searching for a ruthless and elusive enemy.
 * Somehow, someone came up with the label "grunts" for these infantrymen.
 * The average grunt was white and came from rural or small-town America.
 * Most Soldiers has volunteered for the army and were 21-22 years old.
 * About 10-12 percent of these young men were African American, yet this ethnic group made up approximately 20 percent of the combat deaths.
 * New recruits or draftees trained in boot camps at places like Fort Benning, Georgia, or Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
 * An air-conditioned commercial jet transported the newly trained soldiers to Vietnam (often with stops in Japan and Okinawa.)
 * Exiting the plane, the new arrivals were almost overwhelmed by the heat and humidity (similar to South Florida). Smells were so strong the arriving Americans were almost breathless. The uses of human and animal fertilizers in fields near the airport, the absence of deodorants on the native population, and the spicy foods cooked outdoors mixed unpleasantly.
 * The Sounds around the airport and in the base camps were just as potent and foreign.
 * The Vietnamese, who of course outnumbered Americans, spoke in a loud, strange tongue, sharper and more abrupt than Chinese or Japanese.
 * The sights, sounds, and smells of this Asian country hit like a brick. The first impression of Vietnam, although not a pleasant one, was certainly a sensory experience.