Vietnam had a soundtrack, but it wasn’t simply the handful of songs Hollywood later chose for war movies. From Motown and rock to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, this is what I remember listening to while serving in Vietnam—and how music kept us connected to home.
Long before Americans began saying “whatever,” Marines in Vietnam had their own expression: “There it is.” Two words that could convey resignation, frustration, acceptance, dark humor, and survival.
War isn’t just firefights and history books. It’s also rumors, practical jokes, wildlife, and the strange folklore that soldiers tell each other to survive. These are some of the unforgettable legends of Vietnam.
n 1969 I took cover beneath a Marine convoy truck during a sniper attack near Da Nang. Forty years later, I discovered that same stretch of ground may have become part of one of Vietnam’s premier championship golf courses.
After exposing a theft ring inside his own Marine unit, Richard Schaefer became a marked man. This is the story of death threats, isolation, and the fight to survive long enough to make it home.
After transferring to Da Nang, life finally seemed safer—until fellow Marines and Vietnamese civilians were caught stealing from their own unit. Reporting the crime would have consequences no one saw coming.
Marine Corps boot camp taught discipline, brotherhood, and survival. Vietnam taught a different set of rules. A firsthand account of arriving in Dong Ha, serving near the DMZ, and discovering that the war wasn’t what anyone back home imagined.
When a Senator Plays JAG on TV So Senator Mark Kelly pops up in a video and starts tossing around this phrase: “illegal orders.” The message is clear enough: if President Trump gives some order the Democrats don’t like, the military should feel perfectly free to ignore it. Applause from the panel, nods all around, … Read more
