Who is the best?

[LT. Ox]

Ok here ye go.
I did not fight in the BIG WAR, but I did fight and even bleed in another.
I was a member of the US Army and an Officer. I even got a medal or two.
I have read just about everything that has been put out about why it was fought, how it was fought and why it resulted in what some folks like to point out was a loss. I use the term like because some seem to speak with glee in that assumption.
I fought with people of several other nations, two of them directly at times.
When we were in the mist of getting our butts shot at we did not much care where the guy next to us or behind us came from only that he had our back and was THERE.
I did often think about the fine fighting men from down under and wonder just why those fellows were with us. It was a US commitment after all no matter what anyone says.
Mayhap it has changed but then....... I'm an old man now and I am crying remembering this short conversation.
I asked a fellow by the name of Brian why he /they were there and his answered may not mean much to you historians but he said “because ye need us mate." Well that fine man died just a short time later.
So folks dicuss and cuss all ye want about who won and how and why and who is the best but ta me the best are still their where they fell, and we owe them ALL.
Ah hell I will end this now and as always that is just my humble opinion.
Harry O or LT OX or old fart you pick

[Anna Elizabeth]

Harry, I don't personally know any Australian veterans of the Vietnam War, but I have quite a few Aussie friends, male & female, and these modern Aussies are uniformly kind, fun, and have expressed kinship not just with me, but with pretty much *all* Americans. (Unless you're an American that as my friend Tish says, is a C*** XD)

I think there are simply a lot of great fols in Australia.

[Targan]

As part of Commonwealth joint operations Australian and New Zealand forces had been involved (with considerable success) in the Malayan Emergency and the Borneo Confrontation in the years before the height of the Vietnam War. As you know, there were very real concerns in the US that a "domino effect" could occur all the way over on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Well here in Australia we held the same fears, but we were a great deal closer and many Australians at the time honestly thought that the communist hordes could be on our doorstep before we knew it.

Commonwealth forces did very well in the counterinsurgency jungle warfare that characterised the Malayan Emergency and the Borneo Confrontation. We won those fights and we thought we could do the same in Vietnam if allowed to fight our way. And in fact we pretty much did, in Phuoc Tuy Province. The US agreed to hand responsibility for Phuoc Tuy Province to ANZAC forces and we kept things pretty much under control there until the war became untenable as a whole for the US and its allies. Even when the North Vietnamese had their chance to inflict major damage on ANZAC forces at the Battle of Long Tan, they learned the hard way that 106 Aussies and 2 Kiwis are well capable of killing or wounding nearly 1000 of the enemy for the loss of 18 killed and 24 wounded. There wasn't much trouble in Phuoc Tuy Province after that.

[aspqrz]

I remember one of the WOs (a CSM, IIRC, not the RSM) of my reserve unit (Sydney University Regiment) telling us of a couple of hair raising experiences he'd had in Vietnam ...

One that stuck in my mind was defending a firebase against a VC attack and firing one of the 105's over open sights just as you could see the whites of their eyes ... firing canister (or flechette, or whatever they used) ... and then hightailing it back to the reserve line before counterattacking and throwing the VC (or maybe NVA) back over the bodies of their dead.

He was in the AATV (Australian Army Training Team) and was there (in Vietnam) before the Nashos so I don't remember whether that incident was at a US Firebase or one of ours ... hair raising, however (he'd also had experience during 'Konfrontasi' but, apart from some disparaging marks about the Indonesian forces, never said much about that).

He didn't have a high opinion of the US Army as a whole, but was highly impressed by the US Marines and most of the US Special Forces he encountered ... I got the impression he thought that training standards for the US Infantry was not up to scratch.

I read some years later, in a book on the SW Pacific, that the Marines were generally highly impressed with Aussie soldiers, and thought of them as being 'as good' as Marines ... so I guess there must have been/still is some ongoing affinity :)

And, of course, as I have mentioned elsewhere, Aussie soldiers love taking the mickey out of the Marines by warning them of the ferocious wildlife when they come here for exercises/training :D

Phil

[Legbreaker]

Who are the best?

3567

Ok, scariest anyway.