Very cool night time Viet Nam pictures...

[Bic]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345454/Vietnam-War-photos-reveal-moment-U-S-troops-unleashed-hell-Viet-Cong-sniper-hills-Army-camp.html

[tombogan03884]

FTA
"Hensinger says: 'We sent out patrols during the day, and found a blood trail one morning. Otherwise, we never found him."


In other words the photo's illustrate a very impressive waste of ammo .
All that and they could not stop one 90 pound rice burner.

[crusader rabbit]

From my own experiences, the photos are illustrative of some pretty normal nighttime activity in the mid to late '60s. 

I was stationed way south in Vung Tau, and we had an area north of the town that was a center of Cong activity .  We informally called it Charlie's Hill. 

Almost every night, Charlie would start lobbing mortars at us, punctuating the assault with AK fire. 

And every night a couple of Huey door gunners would pepper him/them with .50 cal laced with tracers.

Every night, our guys figured they had taken him out, until it started up again the next night.

Seeing this from a Mike or Poppa boat holding offshore was like watching a sci-fi movie.  The tracers made it look like ray guns, and we were far enough offshore with enough motor noise that it covered the sounds of the shooting.

That was regular nighttime entertainment for a lot of Navy and Marine kids out on the boats.

When I went back to Vietnam in 2008, the hill was hardly recognizable it had been so developed.  The town, too, was amazingly improved with paved roads, shopping centers, movie theaters and restaurants.

My conclusion:  We did no lasting damage to the country;  We did permanent damage to a significant number of participants--on both sides.

FWIW,

Crusader Rabbit