I was not able to attend the VBC Scuttlebutt‘s Open Conversation about Marc Leepson’s proposal that the term “Combat Veteran” be deleted from the Vietnam Veterans lexicon. But I did view it on YouTube.  It was a well conducted meeting and easy to watch and listen.

In regard to the definition of a “combat veteran,” it was clear that there was no such definition reached among the participants. So I would like to offer some historical perspective.

The U.S. Navy first authorized the Combat Action Ribbon on 17 February 1969.  The Navy ribbon was originally retroactive to March 1961; in 1999 it was made retroactive to 7 December 1941.  The ribbon is awarded to members of the Navy and Marine Corps with a rank no higher than captain and colonel, respectively.

The Air Force Combat Action Medal (AFCAM) was established on March 15, 2007, by the Secretary of the Air Force to recognize Air Force members who actively participated in either air or ground combat, specifically those who were under direct and hostile fire while operating in an unsecured space or physically engaged hostile forces with direct and lethal fire; this medal is retroactive to September 11, 2001, and can be awarded posthumously.

The U.S. Army, into which I was drafted, is a whole different ballgame.

It has a Combat Infantryman Badge (“CIB”), the meaning of which a lot of your Zoom meeting recipient/participants did not fully clarify.

According to Wikipedia, the War Department struggled to recruit soldiers into the Infantry branch during the early months of World War II. Morale in the Infantry was low because infantrymen faced the toughest conditions, suffered the most casualties, and received little public recognition. To address this, on October 27, 1943, the War Department established the Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) and the Expert Infantryman Badge (EIB).

Again, according to Wikipedia, Section I of War Department Circular 269 stated: “The present war has demonstrated the importance of highly-proficient, tough, hard, and aggressive infantry, which can be obtained only by developing a high degree of individual all-around proficiency on the part of every infantryman. As a means of attaining the high standards desired and to foster esprit de corps in infantry units; the Expert Infantryman and the Combat Infantryman badges are established for infantry personnel.”

The  infantry in World War II made up 6% of soldiers but took 80% of casualties.

On June 30, 1944, Congress approved a monthly pay increase of ten dollars for infantrymen awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, excluding commissioned officers. This represented a 20% increase in pay.

During the Vietnam War, the criteria for earning the CIB were straightforward, with three key requirements:

1. The soldier had to be an infantryman and perform infantry duties satisfactorily.
2. The soldier needed to be assigned to an infantry unit that was actively involved in ground combat.
3. The soldier had to actively participate in that combat.

Someone in a Zoom meeting suggested that spending 30 days in the field could qualify a soldier for the CIB, but that is incorrect.

Messages from Army headquarters in 1963 and 1965, sent to the senior Army commander in Southeast Asia, clarified that soldiers could be awarded the CIB only if they were personally present under fire. U.S. Army Vietnam regulations further required proof of the type and intensity of enemy fire encountered by the soldier. The core requirement to be “personally under fire” has remained unchanged.

The Army has clearly identified Infantrymen who have been awarded a CIB to be Combat Veterans.  There may be other Army soldiers, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force veterans who are combat veterans, but this Army classification of soldiers as Combat Veterans is without question.

What no one on the Zoom call mentioned is that the CIB is worn on a uniform above every other medal except the Medal of Honor.

In his article Marc Leepson says that people who have been awarded what may be considered the second highest award displayed on a U.S. Army uniform should not mention this fact to other people.  Mr Leepson’s issue should not be with Combat Veterans but with the U.S. Army’s recognition of such veterans. Perhaps he should propose to the Secretary of the Army that the CIB should be abolished, or not displayed on a Class A uniform.

It should also be noted that 63 % of U.S. forces that served on the ground or in the territorial waters of Vietnam were in the U.S. Army.  81% of soldiers killed by hostile action (approximately 48,000) in Vietnam were in the Army. Of the approximately 66 Army Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) in Vietnam, 54% of all those killed had an Infantry MOS. The next highest MOS of those killed by hostile action were helicopter crew deaths at 10% and then Armor crew deaths at 8%.

Helicopter crew deaths may seem counterintuitive to those of us who participated in combat assaults, but it appears a significant number of helicopter crews were on Chinooks making milk runs between U.S. bases.  So it seems fair to talk about the Army’s CIB as very representative of a “combat veteran” and an infantryman was easily the most likely soldier in to be killed in Vietnam – five times greater than the next most dangerous MOS.

I agree that in Vietnam anyone anywhere ran the risk of being killed or wounded.  It just that the odds of that happening varied dramatically depending on your MOS.

Another thing that was not mentioned in the Zoom meeting was the other basic criteria of creating a CIB:  the statement that  “the infantryman continuously operated under the worst conditions . . . “.  of any other soldier.

Here are just a few of those Vietnam “worse conditions” that go into being a Combat Veteran:

Sleeping in the mud during the monsoon season for six months of the year with just a poncho to try and keep dry.

Having to go weeks without taking off your socks or boots.

Having to ask a buddy to check your legs and ass for leeches every time you have to have a bowel movement.

Having to sleep and live everyday with snakes, leeches, spiders as big as your hand, poisonous caterpillars and all other types of creatures.

Having to sleep on a firebase on a wooden pallet (with or without an air mattress) with rats crawling under and over you all night long.

Having to walk through swamps with mud up to your knees, black water up to your waist and green slime coating your chest, and then when you get out you smell like vomit and have to wear and smell that way for days on end.

Having to eat C-rations everyday for weeks even though the Army classified them as “emergency” rations not to be consumed for more than three days straight.

Having to battle “jungle rot” and malaria.

Having guard duty every night which resulted in going months without ever sleeping through the night.  (When I was re-assigned to the 15th Admin Co. I had guard duty once in 2 1/2 months)

Having to spend months with a 65 pound pack on your back climbing and crawling up and down hills, mountains, across rivers, swamps or through rice paddy’s.

Occasionally running out of food or water while trying to get to the next break in the jungle big enough for a resupply helicopter to land.

And I am sure my fellow Infantrymen on your zoom call can easily add to this list.

And how did we get in this situation?  By sitting on the floor of a Huey with no doors flying into a LZ while some assholes in the tree line took pot shots at us while we waited for the Cobra’s rockets and grenades and the door gunner’s M-60 bullets to bring the Wrath of God down upon those in the tree line.

So that is all part of what being a Combat Veteran and earning a CIB has been all about since 1943.

Now, a lot of guys have to remember what it was like back when they were in Vietnam over 50 years ago.  I wrote to my parents about once a week. My mother saved the letters, and 40 years later when she and my Dad retired to Florida she gave them to me. I did not look at them for years. Now, on certain matters I know exactly how I felt 50 odd years ago:

January 27, 1971. While I was on R & R orders came through transferring me to the 15th Admin company in Bien Hoa to help process paperwork as the 1st Air Cav is to be rotated back to the states soon.  They took away my rifle and now I sleep in a barracks on a bed with clean sheets, showers and hot meals.  The war is over for me.

So there it is – my attitude in 1971 was that being stationed in Bien Hoa actually had nothing to do with being a participant in the Vietnam War. The very first thing that struck me was that as a Combat Infantryman I carried a 65 pound backpack through the jungle from dawn to dusk seven days a week. As a clerk I worked an 8 hour shift.  Really ? Why couldn’t a clerk type from dawn to dusk ? Afraid they might hurt their pinky fingers? I was totally pissed off at the unfairness of the entire system and guilty as hell about abandoning the closest “brothers” I would ever have to their fate in the jungle. And unlike WW II, we all got the same pay. I was a very unhappy camper.  I am sure you are familiar with the term FTA.

Let me tell you about another story about the life of a REMF.

I met a guy who was an officer in  charge of a PX.  Every night he and his staff shut down the PX at closing time, got out the grill and drank beer, grilled steaks, listened to rock and roll or country music, put on their baseball caps and aviator sunglasses and cut off Levi shorts and just partied. Periodically the MPs would come in after hours and bring in the “boom boom” girls who in addition to their services also provided drugs and everything else the guys wanted. For a 19 year old kid their year in Vietnam was the best year of their lives – an unlimited supply of sex, drugs, rock and roll, beer and barbecue. A dream come true: fun in the sun in Southeast Asia.

Now the problem occurred when the infantry came in for a three day in-country R&R, which included a visit to said PX. (The only visit I made to a PX in my seven months in the infantry was one 3 day in country R&R).

If looks could kill that PX and everyone associated with it would have been blown out into the South China Sea.  So the Colonel came up to my officer friend and said you better cool your jets when the infantry are here or there is going to be trouble. Note the Colonel made no attempt to stop the illegal prostitution and drug ring. Boys will be Boys.

Now I, like everyone on your Zoom call, know that most of us who were drafted had no say in what our MOS was.

Some guys got lucky, some didn’t. What you did and where you did it was mostly no choice of an individual soldier.

I’ll tell you one more (of many) stories about life in Bien Hoa. There was this guy in charge of “recreation.”  Everyday at 9:00 am he unlocked this little hut filled with basketballs, footballs, baseball bats, softballs and gloves, etc. His job was to sign them out to the GI’s who had so much time on their hands and nothing to do they were looking for some “recreation.” At 11:00 am he locked up the hut and went to lunch until 1:00 pm. He came back and sat in the hut reading books, magazines and newspapers until 5:00 pm. He then left for the day. I never saw a single person use any of these recreational items.

What I personally know is there was not a single soldier in the 15th Administration Company in Bien Hoa in early 1971 that had any clue as to what went on in the life of a combat infantryman in Vietnam.

To paraphrase Charlton Heston, “I’ll give Marc Leepson my hat when he prys it from my cold, dead head.”  (That’s a joke).

Finally, I would like to finish by saying that, maybe with one exception, I have never demeaned the service of any U.S. Veteran, no matter where or when they served or what they did. Everyone of them gave up multiple years of their life in service to their country and no one should ever demean that or criticize another veteran. We all did what we were assigned to do and very few had any say in what or where we did it.

But, and there is always a “But.”

Before finalizing this email I re-read Mr. Leepson’s article. And, unbelievably, his last sentence is “While you’re at it, I wouldn’t mind a “thank you for your service.””

Every single person who served in Vietnam knows that Vietnam Veterans were the only veterans in the history of the United States of America who were not welcomed home after the war. Therefore, the official greeting from one Vietnam veteran to another is simply “Welcome Home,” not thank you for your service.  C’mon, man.

I am proud of my service. I am sorry Mr. Leepson feels victimized by his.

Alan E. Krause, Echo Recon, 5th BN. 7th Cav, 1st Air Cav, 1970 – 1971