18 years old. 150 lbs wringing wet with a 60lb combat ready ruck with full patrol loadout, 25lb prc25 radio with spare battery and accessories. Assign them to an air mobile outfit. Use them in an air mobile mission eagle flight, have the huey hover 4ft above the hot LZ in a flooded rice paddy and have the troop jump to the ground prepared to move out. Happy Veterans Day vets
Darn. . .those were MEN, doing a man’s job.
Salute.
You left out the 120 degree heat, 100% humidity, crotch and foot rot, and often as not, dysentery. Then the biting flies, the leeches, the snakes, the pounding rain that lasted for weeks.
Eating food from cans that were packed before we were born, sleeping maybe four hours per day and patrolling all night.
The booby traps and mines and Panji Pits that littered every trail, the little bastard with the PE scope waiting his chance to put one through your head.
All that, and the warm welcome waiting for us when we got home.
Great stuff! Small wonder all those young ladies want to share the fun.
Happy Veterans Day, old man. :)
Heh. I was 31 when graduating 13 weeks of 12B one-station unit training at Ft. Leonard Wood. National Guard and never mobilized but pretty proud of that little accomplishment anyway.