Comments on: "Guns on the Wing!"

"Guns on the Wing!"

John of Michigan — Sat, 12 May 2007 11:25:00 -0800

Sounds from the Vietnam War. Battle sounds, RTO chatter, speeches, briefings, LZ dustoffs, dogfights, and pirate radio. What war sounded like, in country and back the U.S.

By: j-urb

j-urb — Sat, 12 May 2007 11:36:08 -0800

great find, thanks.

By: Miko

Miko — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:05:37 -0800

This is good. Thanks.

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:15:12 -0800

One of my most vivid and surreal memories as a kidling was when my brother Steve sent us a new-fangled cassette recorder from Southeast Asia so we could trade tapes back and forth instead of writing letters. I recall a particular time when the family gathered to listen; he rambled on about mundane stuff while some sort of fire fight was going on in the background. Eerily oblivious, he neither reacted nor even referred to the explosions, as if he were simply inured. But my gramma jumped and gasped at every shell that popped to the point that we had to stop and calm her down.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:31:56 -0800

man, a gas-turbine helo spinning up is an infernal thing. "If I could turn back the hands of Time" apparently came out in 1970; sounded more like mid-70s to me, Last summer I bought a shelf of books to research the war; still debating whether I want to do a sim of it. This search page can divulge a lot of interesting information on the US KIA if you know how to search, eg. the following table is enlisted (E2-E5) KIA by year, divided by Regular and Draftee. I produced this table to more fully understand the domestic war-support dynamic (or lack thereof) over this time.

E2-E5 KIA	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970	1971	1972
Total Regular	1009	3468	5374	8440	5075	2406	1028	244
Total Draftee	252	1241	3476	5271	4224	2221	645	41
SSS KIA%	25%	36%	65%	62%	83%	92%	63%	17%

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sat, 12 May 2007 13:20:21 -0800

Great post; I was obsessed by Vietnam for a long time and this is like instant immersion. Thanks.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Sat, 12 May 2007 14:23:37 -0800

+1 (Here is the obligatory link to Real Alternative for playing Real Media files without all the crapware.)

By: subaruwrx

subaruwrx — Sat, 12 May 2007 14:48:44 -0800

i dont do real. too bad, because this looks good...

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:25:57 -0800

Yeah, real nice find, John. Thanks!

By: LarryC

LarryC — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:40:05 -0800

Terrific post, this is going straight into my internet history classes.

By: zamboni

zamboni — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:50:47 -0800

By: mctsonic

mctsonic — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:47:46 -0800

Excellent post - I'm in my mid-30s so I only know about the era and war from family members both hawk and dove and books - so between this and items on archive.org from this war and the current war I can only imagine the sounds on the ground. Heywood, from the chart you posted and figuring advancements in battlefield technology I see of potential for parallel KIA figures ... I'm going to look for wounded in action for a comparison too ...

By: DieHipsterDie

DieHipsterDie — Sat, 12 May 2007 18:35:08 -0800

My father in law was in Vietnam and ended up with a silver start and purple heart. I never had the nerve to ask him about it. Great post. Thanks!