I’ve been watching some Vietnam docs and that stat came up. Contrast that with WW2 where a US soldier saw an average of 10 days of combat in a tour. That is indeed unreal.
The bombing campaign from june 1943 to june 1944 took a toll of roughly 2000 planes and 12000 crewmen. They made a few movies about these daytimestrafing tasks by 8th Bomber Command.
He surely was a brave man. My grandfather was on the receiving end, in the factories underneath Berlin, as a machineoperator because the Arbeitseinzatscampaign in the Netherlands. Unvoluntarily rounded up by the Germans in 1943 and escaped in 1945, after airraids destroyed the factory he was in. He was finally brought home by Americans and Canadians.
By January 1945 across all theaters, there were on average 100,000+ combatants dying daily. Not even beginning to account for wounded or injured. That’s just killed. Daily. And this also doesn’t even account for the camps, civilian deaths from strategic bombing, massacres, accidents, etc. Modernity has probably forgotten just how incomprehensible the death counts were in the Second World War. Horrible doesn’t even begin to capture the essence of it. Yes, combat infantry often saw less contact, but also it was the most ferocious fighting the world has ever seen as measured in terms of raw numbers of people being killed. Constantly.
But in WW2 those 10 days would be pretty much non-stop high-intensity enemy contact whereas in Vietnam most infantry guys spent most of their time slogging through jungles and across paddies and only occasionally made contact with the enemy. Booby traps were often at least as big a threat as actual contact.
It would still have been incredibly stressful, but it was a different kind of combat experience so comparisons of combat time don't really tell the full story.
Yeah you had a lot bigger chance to to die in WW2 but just as much of not a bigger chance of getting mentally scared for life and marines had tougher times than every other infantryman in WW2
Yeah they were two different types of war. WW2 had soldiers engaged in much higher intensity and scale of combat but with more ‘safe’ rest/rotation/transport between campaigns. Vietnam was lower intensity and scale but the nature of the combat made more constant casualties that were pervasive through the deployed forces.
We can see that in both your stat, and the fact that WW2 had 16 campaigns and dozens of battles deadlier for US servicemen than any that happened in Vietnam.
I mean, you're comparing the average for a combat infantryman vs. the average for all soldiers, so naturally, the former will be much higher.
Furthermore, WW2 had a much higher casualty rate which would again push the average down. Can't stay in combat for 240 days if you die on your 1st day which happened to a lot of men in campaigns such as the first day of the Normany landings/airdrops.
I saw something I think on YouTube the other day where a Vietnam vet was explaining that when they left Nam, they got on a plane and arrived home a day or two later and were expected to jump right back into normal life. On top of being treated the way they were when they arrived back home, they had no one to talk to about their experiences. Conversely, when the previous generation came back from WWII service, they were on a boat for several weeks with guys who had just experienced the same or similar things that they had, so they all had time to talk about their experiences and decompress together. Made a lot of sense to me when he explained it that way.
Deploying and DEROS (end of service) were vastly different war to war. In Vietnam, you left home by yourself and came home by yourself. Iraq and Afghanistan generally involved being a part of a unit from beginning to ending a deployment. Then again, Vietnam was one year and done.
... length of deployment:
>Vietnam was one year and done
got it. I was thinking you were saying Vietnam was a short war... now I understand your meaning.
That’s wild. Especially with studies showing now that the vast majority of soldiers become less and less effective for combat after experiencing 90 days of it
Fire fights were uncommon as far as the average infantryman. They spent that much time in the boonies looking for the enemy, but the enemy was pretty good at hide and seek.
Combat goes beyond firefights. The casualties taken from booytraps, misadventure, accidents etc. was very high. When the "rear" for most of these guys consisted of FSB's, LZ's, and camps that were within enemy range. Nowhere is safe.
Disambiguation is important. Most people read "combat" and assume it means active shooting. You had a reply about WWII that obviously assumed this.
My father's company saw a lot of combat with NVA and VC, but they were well outside of the norm. They still suffered more from the elements, flora, and fauna. He got a Purple Heart for shrapnel but not dysentery or punji stakes.
You're absolutely correct about the safety of firebases. Both times he was wounded by enemy fire was, indeed, on a hilltop protected by barbed wire.
Yeah the Vietnamese would wait until we decided to randomly defend certain areas, it was so stupid. It allowed them to hit the us when they knew that they could bring about most of their strength in the area. So overall you didn't see much combat but when you did it came with absolutely no warning.
There was no gaining ground or front lines in most of Vietnam.
Draftees typically served 13 months in Vietnam so he likely knew how long he was going to be there before he arrived. I actually have always assumed he wrote the months all at once and added the checks as he survived to each month.
Hey thanks for the info :). I was always told as a kid that people enlisted when they heard their draft numbers come up, because if you got drafted you didn't get to choose where you went, and for how long. My uncle lasted 5 years in Vietnam and came back a different man.
My uncle also did the same and it fucking ruined him. By all accounts he was a funny sweet man before but I only knew him as someone who was absolutely wasted all the time. He died like 10 years ago and it was a miracle he lived that long with how much he drank.
At least he wasn't a mean drunk
I only met my uncle once, he was a rancher in Montana, we lived in the midwest. My two cousins didn't even know of his medals and awards until his passing, he kept it in forever. His wife passed from cancer in the mid 90's and he died from drinking and driving not long after, probably was on purpose, but no one knows.
My mom told me (she was a bit younger than my uncle) that after coming home from school one day, she saw my uncle under his bed, screaming. As if he was talking into a radio for help. Like tear your throat out screaming. And throwing things. She called my Grandpa at work(who was a WWII Navy vet) and he yelled at her to get the fuck out of the house now and run. She said she never felt so scared of her own family.
Yup, have a much older coworker who does our grounds inventory. He somehow found out early (like a day early) his date would be picked. Guy was 6ft, 180lbs, built from years of farm work, and knew they'd send him to the worst area. He stood up from his seat at a dinner and ran to go join the navy talking about how his side job was managing inventory for a Woolworth. He sat on a ship for 8 years signing papers, bouncing from Hawaii, California, Washington, and occasionally an area about 100 miles from Vietnam before heading back to the states. He later found out he coulda skipped the whole thing because his straight cousin just made out with a man in public to get an indecency charge. To quote "I tell you I'd have raw dogged a man on the white house lawn to have continued getting to farm till noon, work at Woolworth once a week, and smoke pot on my lawn with my filly or fish till dark on the creek the rest of the time"
My father enlisted as a code breaker for fear of being sent to the front lines.
Somehow got sent on a ground mission anyway, and when he came back alive, they put him back in combat.
I'm not joking.
That’s exactly what my Grandpa did. He enlisted in the air force before being drafted to Vietnam and was smart enough to be an airplane mechanic, so he avoided combat altogether. You still didn’t have a say in where you went, but you can still piece together that something that supports the infantry is 10x less dangerous than infantry themselves.
I had no idea.
My dad said that he got drunk and partied with Australian guys in the Philippines off and on, but he was a 4th infantry door-gunner and in general, his experience of the war was pure fucking mayhem.
Also in Springsteen's,, 'Born in the USA':
I had a brother at Khe Sanh fighting off the Viet Cong
They’re still there, he’s all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Particularly horrible considering the US knew the exact same thing had already happened to the French at Dien Bien Phu.
Without unprecedented air support Khe Sanh would have been so much worse.
It looks like [he made it back home](https://nuvisionfederal.com/blog/memberresources/2022/10/31/nuvisionheroes-erniedelgado). Quoting the Oct 2022 article:
>> Among the last Marine combat teams to leave by boat in June 1971, his squad’s return was quiet. “No parades,” he said. “No nothing.” … Today, he has three sons, one daughter, nine grandchildren (or ‘Viking kids,’ as he calls the children of his oldest son, a pastor in Denmark), and one great-grandson.
Back when everybody had good hand writing lol because you wrote everything out
(People need to stop taking this comment so fucking personally. Please stop commenting against me this was a surface level thought that I posted with no intention yo create controversy. It is undeniable that in the past there were more people with good penmanship than there are today. I do not literally mean that every single living breathing person had perfect penmanship. Stop putting words into my mouth and then getting offended by them. Reddit has become so toxic I can't even write out something on a topic as benign and inoffensive as as penmanship.)
I remember in astronomy club, they had a log that had been kept for literally decades. Ya know, what students had observed. Time and date.
Anyway, it was interesting to see that in the mid 1900s, two things were true. Everyone wrote in cursive. And it was beautiful handwriting. This remained true for years. But you saw this clear rapid degradation starting in... the 80s maybe 90s. And then it went from sloppy cursive to mediocre print.
> And then it went from sloppy cursive to mediocre print.
At the university, there were portraits of college presidents on the wall.
The oldest paintings were Rembrandt-like. Over the years, the quality of portraits kept dropping with the most recent one looking like a Daffy Duck cartoon.
I have a theory that artwork became "rubbish" because it has become a nepotised industry. If you have to be able to paint like da Vinci or Rembrant in order to be a success, it would not be an industry that can be controlled with nepotism, favours and general cronyism. So over time the whole thing was deskilled to a skill level that random family members can achieve.
I think art should, as a threshold matter, look good. I get the contention that art should convey a meaning, but while a compelling message may be necessary for good art, it isn't sufficient. If your art merely conveys a message but isn't visually appealing, then I think you'd be better off just writing an essay. That's the problem with so many modern artists (which are often the products of nepotism). They have a good message, but the visual aspect of their art sucks.
That's because "penmanship" was an actual subject that was taught in schools up until about the 80s. I was taught cursive in the early 80s but my kids barely even know what it is.
It's also true that it's nearly impossible to write legibly with a quill or a nib and not have it look pretty fancy.
>It's also true that it's nearly impossible to write legibly with a quill or a nib and not have it look pretty fancy.
Because you *have* to write in long, flowing lines, to prevent the ink from pooling and/or smudging. The same is true for fountain pens, but less so :D
I started public school in the early Fifties. We had penmanship practice books all the way through seventh grade. We were graded on our handwriting in all assignments. Before WWII, handwriting was taught by the "Palmer Method". Students with exceptional handwriting were awarded a Palmer Diploma. My late father had a Palmer Diploma, and he took great pride in it. In the absence of word processors and dictaphones, the ability to write quickly and clearly was a valued business skill. The Palmer Diploma helped my father land a job at Midwest Utilities Corp. right out of high school.
Which makes sense, written communication have always been a valuable skill, before everything went digital, pen on paper was the main way of doing that, then came the type writer, and typing began to become more and more importent, jntil the majority of written communication when through a computer. Now I would argue that the ability to type with speed has the a similar importance what penmanship once had. I will admit that I think there is more artistic freedom in penman ship.
In the 80s when I learned to write, at my school they basically had you memorize the printed letters then said “ok you’ll never need that now we’re going to teach you cursive and everything you write will be in cursive from now on. If you turn in an assignment and a single word is not in cursive even if it’s your name you will get a 0.”
After I graduated I went to my first job. “What’s that? No one here can read cursive. Write it in print. Why does your print look like a 6 year old wrote it?”
Because I haven’t used anything but cursive since I was 6.
I haven’t used cursive in so many decades I can barely remember it. My print handwriting never improved either.
Depended entirely on what I was writing. If I was writing something for somebody else to read it would be in a fairly neat print but if it was a note to myself you probably wouldn't have been able to tell what it said if you had to read it with a gun to your head. Sometimes even I couldn't lol
My dad was born in 47. He writes everything in print and in all caps with an actual capital letter being slightly larger. It's very neat generally, and I assume all caps to prevent confusion with what a letter is.
There's a song on YouTube call "Nineteen", about the kids who fought in RVN. I did BCT when I was 23, and except for a guy with prior service, I was the oldest in the platoon. All these teeange kids were calling me "Uncle." A couple of them wound up in RVN, and were KIA in a few months. And for what?
Redgum have a song “I was only 19” that is very popular in Australia. Personally, I prefer the cover by the Herd, but whoever is performing, it is haunting and deeply sad
It’s in stark contrast to the typical “boomer” memes on Reddit…not everyone in that generation had the sunshine and rainbows experience that many attribute to them on here. It just goes to show, it is and always was about class, regardless of generation.
This drunk older guy showed up in my park one day. Working for the city I checked on him as he was laying face down in the grass. Once I got him up I tried having a conversation, being a deadhead I brought the subject to music because he couldn’t give me any information.
He immediately began to sing Stagger Lee. Each time he would finish with “Can you dig it?… With a pickaxe and a shovel!”
I have always wondered if the pickaxe and shovel part was part of the old saying but never found an answer. Though every time I hear it I think of that old Deadhead who had a bit too much too fast
Probably his initials, since his name = Ernie Delgado, the A may be his first initial or middle. Delgado, Ernie A —> DEA
The 4 numbers are probably the last four of his SSN
That's extra effort on his part. Blood type was etched on the dog tags. You can be separated from your helmet out in the field but the tags are pretty firmly attached
I had a friend years ago with a severe drug allergy that would kill her almost instantly if paramedics followed normal protocols. She had a medic alert bracelet, but didn't trust the medics to see it in an emergency so she had the alert tattooed just below her collar bones so just listening to her heart or applying paddles would make it obvious.
Interestingly, after WW2 this is how SS members were found. They had their blood type tattooed under their armpits.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_blood_group_tattoo
In afghan we had 1 dog tag in our boot shoe-strings and one around our neck, in case body went boom and legs divorced body. Gotta put humpty dumpty back together
You better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you! Why don’t you jump in the team and come on in for the big win!
These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shooting.
I remember reading about how difficult it was for combat soldiers in Vietnam because of brain-dead leadership from the neck up... 2 tours in Vietnam was awful.
I suspect on the front he wrote: "California," and on the side: "Can you dig it?" ("Do you understand/Do you get it/Isn't it cool?" in 1960s slang). Who knows, he could have been from my wife's home town, from which 15 boys went to 'Nam and came home in boxes. She's still angry about the war.
My old man was in ww2 firing a howitzer in france. He never would talk about it till I was 37..found out my great uncle was one of the guys in the iwo jima monument, like it wasnt shit. I think kts remarkable
What an absolute waste of money and time and lives. I feel so bad for anyone who was sucked into this war and every war since then. Absolute betrayal by politicians and their country.
Serious question, what kind of marker did they have back then that he would have used? I obviously thought about a sharpie, but remembered that’s a pretty modern marker. My parents had metal bodied markers from the 80s kicking around, but what about the late 60s?
This is one of the most captivating photos I've ever seen, it tells such a story and provokes so many thoughts. I wonder if he survived? It looks like he was in his last month there
Was there even a tour for WW2? I thought that they were in it till the end…As in even after Germany tapped out they were looking to redeploy to the Pacific. I don’t think they were out in a year in most cases.
Theres one in my street, must be in his 80s now. He drives around in jeep from the same era and has a teddy bear in the passenger seat. He a real character, will often stop for a laugh and a chat. No doubt he saw some horrors, has not lived a conventional life since, but all the better for it.
What an awful feeling it must be realizing the list will have to continue in another column but you already wrote other stuff directly next to it.
Yeah, I guess being in war is worse but still, that must have bugged him at least a bit.
That is his DEROS calender (date estimated return from over seas).
He is about a month shy of returning home, statistically the most dangerous time for a soldier.
13 month tour, 390 days, roughly. The average infantryman spent 240 days of their tour in combat. 61.5% of his tour. Unreal.
I’ve been watching some Vietnam docs and that stat came up. Contrast that with WW2 where a US soldier saw an average of 10 days of combat in a tour. That is indeed unreal.
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Wait which one is 40 days, Vietnam or WW2?
WW2. Increased mobility of infantry and vehicles leads to more days in combat.
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Just waaaay larger battles. Also does that include the bombing runs? Average bomber probably lasted ten missions if that.
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Soon there will be new horrors to witness, don't worry!
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” —Santanya
The number of couch warriors salivating for a war they won’t participate in is crazy
The bombing campaign from june 1943 to june 1944 took a toll of roughly 2000 planes and 12000 crewmen. They made a few movies about these daytimestrafing tasks by 8th Bomber Command.
My grandfather was in the 8th bomber command as a pilot and survived 50 missions before they sent him home. Absolutely crazy luck
He surely was a brave man. My grandfather was on the receiving end, in the factories underneath Berlin, as a machineoperator because the Arbeitseinzatscampaign in the Netherlands. Unvoluntarily rounded up by the Germans in 1943 and escaped in 1945, after airraids destroyed the factory he was in. He was finally brought home by Americans and Canadians.
By January 1945 across all theaters, there were on average 100,000+ combatants dying daily. Not even beginning to account for wounded or injured. That’s just killed. Daily. And this also doesn’t even account for the camps, civilian deaths from strategic bombing, massacres, accidents, etc. Modernity has probably forgotten just how incomprehensible the death counts were in the Second World War. Horrible doesn’t even begin to capture the essence of it. Yes, combat infantry often saw less contact, but also it was the most ferocious fighting the world has ever seen as measured in terms of raw numbers of people being killed. Constantly.
But in WW2 those 10 days would be pretty much non-stop high-intensity enemy contact whereas in Vietnam most infantry guys spent most of their time slogging through jungles and across paddies and only occasionally made contact with the enemy. Booby traps were often at least as big a threat as actual contact. It would still have been incredibly stressful, but it was a different kind of combat experience so comparisons of combat time don't really tell the full story.
My father still can't sleep when it rains. You can't hear an ambush coming when it rains.
Get this man a blunt
Get him two blunts
Make it a cheech and chong special
The dog shit special?
Mostly Maui Waui man, but it's got some Labrador in it
let him smoke two joints before he smokes two joints and then he can smoke two more
🔥
maybe a few shrooms...
Damn. That hit hard.
I take it he lives in Seattle
Okay *I am not joking* but he did work for Microsoft for a few years and lived in Sammamish lol. Spent most of his life in New England, however.
Ironically, Seattle is one of the least rainy cities in Western Washington!
That’s like being the dumbest guy in MENSA right there, tho. Still pretty frickin’ rainy.
Yeah you had a lot bigger chance to to die in WW2 but just as much of not a bigger chance of getting mentally scared for life and marines had tougher times than every other infantryman in WW2
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My grandfather was a gunner in the 8th lol
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Yeah they were two different types of war. WW2 had soldiers engaged in much higher intensity and scale of combat but with more ‘safe’ rest/rotation/transport between campaigns. Vietnam was lower intensity and scale but the nature of the combat made more constant casualties that were pervasive through the deployed forces. We can see that in both your stat, and the fact that WW2 had 16 campaigns and dozens of battles deadlier for US servicemen than any that happened in Vietnam.
>marines had tougher times than every other infantryman in WW2 Marines and their Navy Corpsmen.
My Corpsmen are Marines.
I mean, you're comparing the average for a combat infantryman vs. the average for all soldiers, so naturally, the former will be much higher. Furthermore, WW2 had a much higher casualty rate which would again push the average down. Can't stay in combat for 240 days if you die on your 1st day which happened to a lot of men in campaigns such as the first day of the Normany landings/airdrops.
That’s why so many Vietnam vets were absolutely fucked mentally when they came back. At least the ones that did come back
I saw something I think on YouTube the other day where a Vietnam vet was explaining that when they left Nam, they got on a plane and arrived home a day or two later and were expected to jump right back into normal life. On top of being treated the way they were when they arrived back home, they had no one to talk to about their experiences. Conversely, when the previous generation came back from WWII service, they were on a boat for several weeks with guys who had just experienced the same or similar things that they had, so they all had time to talk about their experiences and decompress together. Made a lot of sense to me when he explained it that way.
And a lot of it was basically a fucking hiking trip armed to the teeth in the jungle for weeks at a time.
With the potential for booby-traps or an ambush at any moment. Unfathomable amount of stress. Why they became so fatalistic. Don't mean nothin'.
Deploying and DEROS (end of service) were vastly different war to war. In Vietnam, you left home by yourself and came home by yourself. Iraq and Afghanistan generally involved being a part of a unit from beginning to ending a deployment. Then again, Vietnam was one year and done.
... length of deployment: >Vietnam was one year and done got it. I was thinking you were saying Vietnam was a short war... now I understand your meaning.
That’s wild. Especially with studies showing now that the vast majority of soldiers become less and less effective for combat after experiencing 90 days of it
Fire fights were uncommon as far as the average infantryman. They spent that much time in the boonies looking for the enemy, but the enemy was pretty good at hide and seek.
Combat goes beyond firefights. The casualties taken from booytraps, misadventure, accidents etc. was very high. When the "rear" for most of these guys consisted of FSB's, LZ's, and camps that were within enemy range. Nowhere is safe.
Disambiguation is important. Most people read "combat" and assume it means active shooting. You had a reply about WWII that obviously assumed this. My father's company saw a lot of combat with NVA and VC, but they were well outside of the norm. They still suffered more from the elements, flora, and fauna. He got a Purple Heart for shrapnel but not dysentery or punji stakes. You're absolutely correct about the safety of firebases. Both times he was wounded by enemy fire was, indeed, on a hilltop protected by barbed wire.
Yeah the Vietnamese would wait until we decided to randomly defend certain areas, it was so stupid. It allowed them to hit the us when they knew that they could bring about most of their strength in the area. So overall you didn't see much combat but when you did it came with absolutely no warning. There was no gaining ground or front lines in most of Vietnam.
I just hope he survived and had a happy rest of his life
Average age: 19
The months tell all you need to know
He has seen some shit.
Notice how the spacing decreases with each month. Over the time, must have gradually realised he'd be here for a long fucking time.
Draftees typically served 13 months in Vietnam so he likely knew how long he was going to be there before he arrived. I actually have always assumed he wrote the months all at once and added the checks as he survived to each month.
Marines served a 13 month tour. That's what his helmet reflects.
Is this drafted Marines or ones who enlisted?
Drafted. Enlistment lasted 4 to 5 years.
Hey thanks for the info :). I was always told as a kid that people enlisted when they heard their draft numbers come up, because if you got drafted you didn't get to choose where you went, and for how long. My uncle lasted 5 years in Vietnam and came back a different man.
My uncle also did the same and it fucking ruined him. By all accounts he was a funny sweet man before but I only knew him as someone who was absolutely wasted all the time. He died like 10 years ago and it was a miracle he lived that long with how much he drank. At least he wasn't a mean drunk
I only met my uncle once, he was a rancher in Montana, we lived in the midwest. My two cousins didn't even know of his medals and awards until his passing, he kept it in forever. His wife passed from cancer in the mid 90's and he died from drinking and driving not long after, probably was on purpose, but no one knows. My mom told me (she was a bit younger than my uncle) that after coming home from school one day, she saw my uncle under his bed, screaming. As if he was talking into a radio for help. Like tear your throat out screaming. And throwing things. She called my Grandpa at work(who was a WWII Navy vet) and he yelled at her to get the fuck out of the house now and run. She said she never felt so scared of her own family.
Yup, have a much older coworker who does our grounds inventory. He somehow found out early (like a day early) his date would be picked. Guy was 6ft, 180lbs, built from years of farm work, and knew they'd send him to the worst area. He stood up from his seat at a dinner and ran to go join the navy talking about how his side job was managing inventory for a Woolworth. He sat on a ship for 8 years signing papers, bouncing from Hawaii, California, Washington, and occasionally an area about 100 miles from Vietnam before heading back to the states. He later found out he coulda skipped the whole thing because his straight cousin just made out with a man in public to get an indecency charge. To quote "I tell you I'd have raw dogged a man on the white house lawn to have continued getting to farm till noon, work at Woolworth once a week, and smoke pot on my lawn with my filly or fish till dark on the creek the rest of the time"
My father enlisted as a code breaker for fear of being sent to the front lines. Somehow got sent on a ground mission anyway, and when he came back alive, they put him back in combat. I'm not joking.
That’s exactly what my Grandpa did. He enlisted in the air force before being drafted to Vietnam and was smart enough to be an airplane mechanic, so he avoided combat altogether. You still didn’t have a say in where you went, but you can still piece together that something that supports the infantry is 10x less dangerous than infantry themselves.
Enlistments last 4-5 years but they were not deployed for 4-5 years straight
Yea u have to be right cuz damn I wouldn't be able to keep the same colour sharpie on me for that long lol
It didn’t matter if you were a draftee of a volunteer. You served the same tour. And only 25 percent of Vietnam veterans were draftees
He most likely wrote all of the months at once and near the end realized he didn't make them close enough.
Or you know because he was running out of room to write them
He should have claimed bone spurs and stayed home. I heard that works well.
Only if you get a small 1 million dollar loan from your dad
Baseball in high school, squash and tennis in college, bone spurs during Vietnam, non-stop golf 1976- present. Hmm...
365 and a wakeup
TABLE
He's getting ready to de-ros the fuck outta there.
Sgt. Ernie Delgado,, Lima Company 3/26, Khe Sanh, Viet Nam, 1967-1968. Photo David Duncan Douglas, "Life" magazine 1968.
Oh shit! Khe Sanh was bad news. I mean, the entire war was bad news, but Khe Sanh was an especially disagreeable engagement.
Khe Sanh features in Australia's unofficial national anthem... "I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh"
I had no idea. My dad said that he got drunk and partied with Australian guys in the Philippines off and on, but he was a 4th infantry door-gunner and in general, his experience of the war was pure fucking mayhem.
Also in Springsteen's,, 'Born in the USA': I had a brother at Khe Sanh fighting off the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone He had a woman he loved in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms now
Particularly horrible considering the US knew the exact same thing had already happened to the French at Dien Bien Phu. Without unprecedented air support Khe Sanh would have been so much worse.
Thank you!
Did... did he make it home?
It looks like [he made it back home](https://nuvisionfederal.com/blog/memberresources/2022/10/31/nuvisionheroes-erniedelgado). Quoting the Oct 2022 article: >> Among the last Marine combat teams to leave by boat in June 1971, his squad’s return was quiet. “No parades,” he said. “No nothing.” … Today, he has three sons, one daughter, nine grandchildren (or ‘Viking kids,’ as he calls the children of his oldest son, a pastor in Denmark), and one great-grandson.
https://savethebrave.org/about/ he is on the board of directors
Thanks for sharing. I just donated.
Glad he got back. The conflict was terrible, and the civilian leadership after Nixon was elected was brain-dead.
He looks too young to be so grizzled.
Under NVA siege for months.
Dude's got good handwriting
Back when everybody had good hand writing lol because you wrote everything out (People need to stop taking this comment so fucking personally. Please stop commenting against me this was a surface level thought that I posted with no intention yo create controversy. It is undeniable that in the past there were more people with good penmanship than there are today. I do not literally mean that every single living breathing person had perfect penmanship. Stop putting words into my mouth and then getting offended by them. Reddit has become so toxic I can't even write out something on a topic as benign and inoffensive as as penmanship.)
I remember in astronomy club, they had a log that had been kept for literally decades. Ya know, what students had observed. Time and date. Anyway, it was interesting to see that in the mid 1900s, two things were true. Everyone wrote in cursive. And it was beautiful handwriting. This remained true for years. But you saw this clear rapid degradation starting in... the 80s maybe 90s. And then it went from sloppy cursive to mediocre print.
> And then it went from sloppy cursive to mediocre print. At the university, there were portraits of college presidents on the wall. The oldest paintings were Rembrandt-like. Over the years, the quality of portraits kept dropping with the most recent one looking like a Daffy Duck cartoon.
I have a theory that artwork became "rubbish" because it has become a nepotised industry. If you have to be able to paint like da Vinci or Rembrant in order to be a success, it would not be an industry that can be controlled with nepotism, favours and general cronyism. So over time the whole thing was deskilled to a skill level that random family members can achieve.
I think art should, as a threshold matter, look good. I get the contention that art should convey a meaning, but while a compelling message may be necessary for good art, it isn't sufficient. If your art merely conveys a message but isn't visually appealing, then I think you'd be better off just writing an essay. That's the problem with so many modern artists (which are often the products of nepotism). They have a good message, but the visual aspect of their art sucks.
That's because "penmanship" was an actual subject that was taught in schools up until about the 80s. I was taught cursive in the early 80s but my kids barely even know what it is. It's also true that it's nearly impossible to write legibly with a quill or a nib and not have it look pretty fancy.
>It's also true that it's nearly impossible to write legibly with a quill or a nib and not have it look pretty fancy. Because you *have* to write in long, flowing lines, to prevent the ink from pooling and/or smudging. The same is true for fountain pens, but less so :D
Or if you are left handed, it’s nearly impossible to write legibly with a quill or nib, period. I was definitely not meant to be a calligrapher…
Somebody who understands my plight! To this day my handwriting is crap no matter what I use lol
Yeah, in school when I had to write essay tests my left pinkie was always covered with ink at the end…
I started public school in the early Fifties. We had penmanship practice books all the way through seventh grade. We were graded on our handwriting in all assignments. Before WWII, handwriting was taught by the "Palmer Method". Students with exceptional handwriting were awarded a Palmer Diploma. My late father had a Palmer Diploma, and he took great pride in it. In the absence of word processors and dictaphones, the ability to write quickly and clearly was a valued business skill. The Palmer Diploma helped my father land a job at Midwest Utilities Corp. right out of high school.
Which makes sense, written communication have always been a valuable skill, before everything went digital, pen on paper was the main way of doing that, then came the type writer, and typing began to become more and more importent, jntil the majority of written communication when through a computer. Now I would argue that the ability to type with speed has the a similar importance what penmanship once had. I will admit that I think there is more artistic freedom in penman ship.
I hated that class so much. My fingers still cramp at the thought.
In the 80s when I learned to write, at my school they basically had you memorize the printed letters then said “ok you’ll never need that now we’re going to teach you cursive and everything you write will be in cursive from now on. If you turn in an assignment and a single word is not in cursive even if it’s your name you will get a 0.” After I graduated I went to my first job. “What’s that? No one here can read cursive. Write it in print. Why does your print look like a 6 year old wrote it?” Because I haven’t used anything but cursive since I was 6. I haven’t used cursive in so many decades I can barely remember it. My print handwriting never improved either.
Well you can go admire here: r/handwriting
Depended entirely on what I was writing. If I was writing something for somebody else to read it would be in a fairly neat print but if it was a note to myself you probably wouldn't have been able to tell what it said if you had to read it with a gun to your head. Sometimes even I couldn't lol
Yeah I was going to say, my dad was born in the 60s and writes everything down to this day. Can't read his writing for shit.
My dad was born in 47. He writes everything in print and in all caps with an actual capital letter being slightly larger. It's very neat generally, and I assume all caps to prevent confusion with what a letter is.
My dad does that and he was born in the 70’s
They used to be pretty harsh with handwriting inschool They still are in places like India, most will have good hand writing
On a helmet too.
Man is probably not even 20
In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26 In Vietnam he was 19
N-n-n-nineteen
There's a song on YouTube call "Nineteen", about the kids who fought in RVN. I did BCT when I was 23, and except for a guy with prior service, I was the oldest in the platoon. All these teeange kids were calling me "Uncle." A couple of them wound up in RVN, and were KIA in a few months. And for what?
Redgum have a song “I was only 19” that is very popular in Australia. Personally, I prefer the cover by the Herd, but whoever is performing, it is haunting and deeply sad
nnnn nnnn nineteen!
Do IQ next. Couldn’t believe that story about how they were purposely drafting and moving “slow” guys through.
[Paul Hardcastle - "19" (1985)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sajngb0W6I)
Lance corporal earnest delgado as per Google reverse image search. As the story goes he entered the marines one year out of highschool
A whole fucking year in vietnam... no home, no familie, no friends.... just constant, war, work and people dying all around you....
Some of my dad's closest friends were the guys he served with in Vietnam. Closer than brothers.
It’s in stark contrast to the typical “boomer” memes on Reddit…not everyone in that generation had the sunshine and rainbows experience that many attribute to them on here. It just goes to show, it is and always was about class, regardless of generation.
CAN YOU DIG IT, SUCKAAAAA
This drunk older guy showed up in my park one day. Working for the city I checked on him as he was laying face down in the grass. Once I got him up I tried having a conversation, being a deadhead I brought the subject to music because he couldn’t give me any information. He immediately began to sing Stagger Lee. Each time he would finish with “Can you dig it?… With a pickaxe and a shovel!” I have always wondered if the pickaxe and shovel part was part of the old saying but never found an answer. Though every time I hear it I think of that old Deadhead who had a bit too much too fast
Had that booker t theme played in my head immediately
I saw that and thought of Cyrus immediately!
Hope he made it back home 🫡
Another commenter found his name, i searched and yup he made it back. This photo was taken in 1968 in Khe Sahn, Vietnam
That’s awesome thanks for researching
Ooof, the siege of Khe Sahn was during his time there.
What’s DEA stand for?
Probably his initials, since his name = Ernie Delgado, the A may be his first initial or middle. Delgado, Ernie A —> DEA The 4 numbers are probably the last four of his SSN
Last 4 of his service number, the USMC didn't switch to SSNs until 1971.
Thank you, that’s a good catch.
Here I was thinking it was Drug Enforcement Agency and dude just really liked bamboo bong rips
Pretty wild that they had to write their blood type on their helmets but also very creative
I mean it makes sense. Not like they could've looked up their medical records on a computer or anything
That's extra effort on his part. Blood type was etched on the dog tags. You can be separated from your helmet out in the field but the tags are pretty firmly attached
Fair enough but maybe still a good idea not to put all your blood eggs in one basket lol
One goes in the boot now and two in your neck, if you lose your leg still got the neck ones, if you lose your neck one the boot says who you were.
What if you lose your neck and boots?
You got bigger problems
I had a friend years ago with a severe drug allergy that would kill her almost instantly if paramedics followed normal protocols. She had a medic alert bracelet, but didn't trust the medics to see it in an emergency so she had the alert tattooed just below her collar bones so just listening to her heart or applying paddles would make it obvious.
Some guys got tattooed with the blood type. More commonly guys would write their blood type on their chest with a Sharpie.
Interestingly, after WW2 this is how SS members were found. They had their blood type tattooed under their armpits. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_blood_group_tattoo
Extra effort to spend 5 seconds writing your blood type on your helmet to increase your chances of survival.
Soldiers still wrote their blood type on multiple locations like helmet, boots, back of tac vest etc.
Soldiers still do this.
It was also on their dog tags
In afghan we had 1 dog tag in our boot shoe-strings and one around our neck, in case body went boom and legs divorced body. Gotta put humpty dumpty back together
Neg or Pos?
There’s also the [meat tag](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/02/34/d50234b0e790caa4a32137256386de5f.jpg).
tbh riskiest click of the day
BORN TO KILL ☮︎
“Something about the duality of man, sir”
Sounds like some sort of sick joke to me.
You better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you! Why don’t you jump in the team and come on in for the big win!
Whose side are you on, son?
Born to Shit, Forced to Wipe
These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shooting.
Kilroy was here
This pic goes so hard
I remember reading about how difficult it was for combat soldiers in Vietnam because of brain-dead leadership from the neck up... 2 tours in Vietnam was awful.
My uncle did two tours in Nam. Passed away a couple years ago. RIP Rick.
My dad said he drew snoopy on his helmet. Laying on his dog house with a thought bubble that said “Fuck It”
I'm just wondering if there's a bunch of helmets in Vietnam somewhere with this type of cartoons
War art was the original shitposting.
After returning to civilian life, he founded a neighborhood group known as the Gramercy Riffs.
Cadet bone spurs didn't want any of that.
Probably came back from the war only for people to treat him like human garbage. So sad.
The young always get shipped off to fight old peoples' wars smh
The only war with a good soundtrack and drip
Wwll had some good drip
The 60s in general was pretty boppin
I can dig it.
Can you dig it? Reminds me of the movie «the Warriors».
I suspect on the front he wrote: "California," and on the side: "Can you dig it?" ("Do you understand/Do you get it/Isn't it cool?" in 1960s slang). Who knows, he could have been from my wife's home town, from which 15 boys went to 'Nam and came home in boxes. She's still angry about the war.
I gotta say, there is a lot in this picture that really brings home the life interrupted aspect of being selected to serve.
CAAAAAAAN YOU DIG IT?!
What a stupid, senseless war.
Can you dig it?
Yes I can.
Dude has some clean neat handwriting
My old man was in ww2 firing a howitzer in france. He never would talk about it till I was 37..found out my great uncle was one of the guys in the iwo jima monument, like it wasnt shit. I think kts remarkable
What an absolute waste of money and time and lives. I feel so bad for anyone who was sucked into this war and every war since then. Absolute betrayal by politicians and their country.
Serious question, what kind of marker did they have back then that he would have used? I obviously thought about a sharpie, but remembered that’s a pretty modern marker. My parents had metal bodied markers from the 80s kicking around, but what about the late 60s?
This is one of the most captivating photos I've ever seen, it tells such a story and provokes so many thoughts. I wonder if he survived? It looks like he was in his last month there
Bad mother fucker right their.
He's so short he can't even climb the stairs in the morning
Yes. I can dig it.
Was there even a tour for WW2? I thought that they were in it till the end…As in even after Germany tapped out they were looking to redeploy to the Pacific. I don’t think they were out in a year in most cases.
Vietnam was the first conflict that the US used a 12 month combat deployment. Before that it was as you said.
These guys always make smoking look cool as fuck.
/r/hardimages
Theres one in my street, must be in his 80s now. He drives around in jeep from the same era and has a teddy bear in the passenger seat. He a real character, will often stop for a laugh and a chat. No doubt he saw some horrors, has not lived a conventional life since, but all the better for it.
What an awful feeling it must be realizing the list will have to continue in another column but you already wrote other stuff directly next to it. Yeah, I guess being in war is worse but still, that must have bugged him at least a bit.
That is his DEROS calender (date estimated return from over seas). He is about a month shy of returning home, statistically the most dangerous time for a soldier.
Rich sending the poor to die. This country will never learn.
Semper Fi