Curt Lemon

I remember we sat down the third day after marching west into the moutains. I saw Rat and Curt start to goof off throwing smoke gerenades back and fourth to eachother. Everytime somebody whould get coverd in smoke they would just think it was funny then do i t again. I was flippin my yo yo just watching these young boys play. The poeple next top me were kinda dozing of, because everything was so quiet but Rat and Curt laughing. I knew somthing was going to happen i just had this feeling. I didn't know what it was but i felt it coming. So i looked at Tim O'brein signaling him the way i felt. I wrapped up my yo yo and moved. Yep, then there was a big noise and there was Curt Lemon dead. I never knew how i got that certain feeling about what was going to happen. But the sad part about the whole feeling is that i was right.

Story

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I've always liked telling storys. I get really into them with silent pauses to make sure everybody is listening to be and believing me. This one time i told Tim O'Brien about this story of these guys going up in the moutains. I said how they stayed up there for one weeks staying completley silent. Then one say they started hereing all these kinds of noise. All the men up there went crazy saying thy were hearing music. So they called in in firepower and reported a enemy. The whole moutain got smoked out. The next say they went back to base and when asked what happened they didn't say one thing. I told Tim there is a moral to this Nobody listens, Nobody hears nothin'. The next morning he asked if i made up some stuff. I did just to make the story more interesting. So then i told him another moral, here the quiet man? that quiet just listen. I've always enjoyed telling war storys, but if ya add a little they sound better

People dieing

As a solider when somebody died we had to make sense out of it. We were sad it was hard but there is nothing that could be done. A lot of soliders wold make jokes out of it. When someone died they would call it greased, offed, lit up, or zapped while zipping. We would try to cover a death with anything not to make it sounds so bad. I remeber when Ted Lavender died. That guys smoked so much dope we joked that he probaly did even feel a thing. So when we were waiting for the chopper to come, we decided to smoke his dope. I told the guys there is a moral here. Stay away from drugs. No, joke they'll ruin your day everytime. This made me feel better and not so hurt by the death. Then the other guys had joke after i said that how its a mind blower because jsut his brains are left. But i knew this was really hard for everyone. Even though most of the guys would never show it.

Delta Company | Vietnam War Footage Video

Delta Company | Vietnam War Footage Video

Things We Carried

I'm Mitchell Sanders and I am a Radio Telephone Operator in the Vietnam War. I carry a very heavy PRC-25 radio which is 26 pounds with the battery. I also carry around brass knuckles. Something else I carry around is a set of starched tiger fatigues for special occasions. When something happens I report it to let people know what to do. Like when Ted Lavender died I had to report a KIA (kill in action) so I could request a chopper. I always have morals to events that happen. The things that people carried always had some extent by superstition. One time we came across this boy corpse that was about fifteen or sixteen years old. He was at the bottom of an irrigation ditch and was badly burned; he also had flies in his mouth and eyes. I thought there was a moral here so I put my hand on the boy’s wrist couldn't feel a pulse. So I took Kiowa’s hunting hatchet and removed his dark brown rubbery thumb which weighed about 4 ounces and wrapped in toilet paper. Then gave it to Norman Bowker. There was no blood and right after I gave it I kicked the body and watched the flies scatter away.