{"id":1433,"date":"2024-05-18T11:38:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T18:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/187thahc.net\/wp\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2024-09-13T14:38:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T21:38:36","slug":"a-vietnam-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/?p=1433","title":{"rendered":"A Vietnam Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
“A VIETNAM EXPERIENCE”
    by Tom ‘the Toe’ Talarico<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Opening note:Mike,
I thought you might like to post this to our poems section. It was occasion by a Vet group trip to the traveling ‘Wall’.\u00a0 Tom was not quite ready for it so he hung back and watched form a distance.\u00a0 Later that night he went to the computer and wrote this poem, his first attempt…..as a bard.

Tom was a 27th Regiment ‘Wolfhound’ and a MATS team advisor 67-68 with a Medic MOS, as well as damn good grunt.\u00a0 Out of 65 men on his small ARVN compound just off Highway 1, five survived the night of February 3, 1968, all wounded.\u00a0 On February 5th they decided that help was not forthcoming and decided to try make a insanely hazardous dash for the ‘Black Dog Inn’ at Cu
Chi city.\u00a0 They drove west down Highway 1 right through the middle of the 13 day Ap Cho Battle that started on February 5th.\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Rat Pack’ was scrambled to help the men of 2\/12th on a TAC-E on this day).\u00a0 The men of the 2\/12th, heavily engaged with the entrenched enemy, stared in amazement as a jeep with five men in it, and four flat tires, drove between the\u00a0 enemy and them in 1st gear.\u00a0 When the jeep finally arrived at the ‘Black Dog’ in Cu Chi city they told the men they had counted 67 bullet holes in it, but miraculously yet none already wounded men were hit.\u00a0 These were the HEROES we served, what an honor……

Frenchy Gibeault
“Rat Pack” Door Gunner<\/strong>

\u00a0\u00a0“A VIETNAM EXPERIENCE”
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 by Tom ‘the Toe’ Talarico<\/strong>

\u00a0The Army put us on a boat so huge,
\u00a0We doubted it could float;
\u00a0And sent us to a place called Vietnam

\u00a0When we hit our port of call
\u00a0We were ready one and all;
\u00a0But rule one was to get your gear and
\u00a0Jump on trucks

\u00a0They took us to Long Binh and
\u00a0In barracks we were crammed.
\u00a0To wait until the sergeant called our
\u00a0Name

\u00a0Our thinking was pure bliss
\u00a0We had been afraid of this?
\u00a0But that was not Uncle Sam’s
\u00a0Planned game

\u00a0Talarico, Jones, and Gleason,
\u00a0You’re going to the 25th Division;
\u00a0Far away at a base camp called Cu Chi

\u00a0Your AO’s were called the Iron Triangle,
\u00a0Parrot’s Beak and Ann Margaret
\u00a0We thought we were cool but, the
\u00a0Lifers were not fooled
\u00a0They knew that we’d soon all be targets

\u00a0At Cu Chi we were welcomed like hero’s one and all;
\u00a0But soon were pulling bunker guard, filling sandbags,
\u00a0and pulling KP in the mess hall

\u00a0After several days of toil and outright insanity
\u00a0We were assigned respective units where
\u00a0The Grunts were glad to see us, cause soon they would all E.T.S.
\u00a0 most shortly

\u00a0 I was assigned to be a Wolfhound “Blood and Guts”
\u00a027th Regiment Infantry

\u00a0Two days later I’m on ambush with the rest
\u00a0of my squad seeing Viet Cong behind every tree
\u00a0We set up, sat out the night,
\u00a0And boredom soon washed away our fright,
\u00a0But that was just a lucky night to be.

On the early morning after and 3 hours of
\u00a0Fitful sleep, we all picked up our rucksacks
\u00a0And took a 4-Klick stroll called a sweep.

\u00a0After weeks of VC contact we
\u00a0Soon learned what was combat
\u00a0Instead of Big-Screen movie fare,
\u00a0We’d rather had a peep.

\u00a0I left to join a MATS team
\u00a0With better odds it seemed
\u00a0But that’s when Chuck showed us his true side.

\u00a0After weeks and months of skirmishes
\u00a0And no support but what we had on hand,
\u00a0We realized that “Charlie” ruled this
\u00a0Foreign land.

\u00a0We fortified our positions and
\u00a0Kept with our traditions,
\u00a0This little squad of seven
\u00a0Infantry man.

\u00a0Any time that we encountered ‘Chuck’
\u00a0With pride, guts, and little luck,
\u00a0We gave him all he wanted and,
\u00a0Just a little more.

\u00a0After being mauled and battered
\u00a0In all the action we encountered
\u00a0He respected our resolve and tossed his hand.

\u00a0He had learned to fear and respect us
\u00a0And he knew when to disengage us
\u00a0For mightier were we, than them.

\u00a0Then came the TET of ’68 and Hell was
\u00a0Broken Loose
\u00a0Chuck had us in his sight on the ready to annihilate us
\u00a0and he created quite a ruse.

\u00a0First our Kit Carson left, then
\u00a0Trung Wi Ba and 14 others
\u00a0Presumably to celebrate,
\u00a0With their fathers and their mothers.

\u00a0From 79 to 65 the numbers did decrease,
\u00a0All within 24 hours prior to the cease.

\u00a0It was dry and dark in ’68 on that very night
\u00a0Till the RPGs began to fall and 51’s did sing their song
\u00a0We were instantly confronted with many Viet Cong
\u00a0Who came ready and full of fight.

\u00a0It was 1:15 in the morning
\u00a0And the explosives were a-storming
\u00a0With Charlie in the driver’s seat
\u00a0Revealing all his might.

\u00a0We sucked up all our fear to every man
\u00a0Then came Captain Adams’ call to arms
\u00a0For everyone to hear
\u00a0“We’re gonna dig in and repel these sneaks who come from Hell
\u00a0Chuck will be sorry of his folly in the morn.”

\u00a0Firing LAWs, grenades, and B.A.R.s, small arms and claymore mines
\u00a0We repelled in full force and we were very much the worse,
\u00a0for Chuck had exacted an awesome toll.

\u00a0When the smoke had cleared the air,
\u00a0We viewed the dead lain there
\u00a0Not one could dance or sing a tune
\u00a0For Hoc Mon had started there
\u00a0They had used us for a scare,
\u00a0And destroyed a place called Xuan Touy Toung

\u00a0The battle stopped for us but moved to Ap Cho,
\u00a0Where the infantry, the cavalry, and slicks
\u00a0That’s where Victor Charlie got his licks
\u00a0And the tide was turned
\u00a0The 25th, 187th, triple deuce commenced bloodletting,
\u00a0scorched, and burned.

\u00a0You can bet your last 5 Dong
\u00a0That “Chuck” sang a different song
\u00a0Because he was now “chopped liver”, not Viet Cong
\u00a0He was demoralized and crushed,
\u00a0By the will and firepower of our troops.

\u00a0In the news they said we lost the war
\u00a0As we still mourned our ghosts
\u00a0Our morale forever shaken by this lie.

\u00a0We fought until Deros,
\u00a0But Charlie never did get close,
\u00a0To whipping us or handing us defeat.

\u00a0The damage had been done
\u00a0Because Walter Cronkite declared they’d won,
\u00a0Ho and Giap ran to Paris full of Glee.

\u00a0But for I and all our heros who did their job
\u00a0till Deros,
\u00a0Satisfaction in us all.

\u00a0The only evidence that’s left, is remembrance of our best
\u00a0Whose names appear
\u00a0Upon a Wall.<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“A VIETNAM EXPERIENCE”    by Tom ‘the Toe’ Talarico Opening note:Mike,I thought you might like to post this to our poems section. It was occasion by a Vet group trip to the traveling ‘Wall’.\u00a0 Tom was not quite ready for it so he hung back and watched form a distance.\u00a0 Later that night he went to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poems","category-tins"],"modified_by":"Webmaster","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/187thahc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}