What did the american soldiers in vietnam have to cope with during the war?

Most vivid memory: being wounded in a blast on patrol, along with a wartime buddy, Willie Henry, and not knowing what happened to his friend until 26 years later

“After two to three weeks of recovery, I was back out in the field and never did find out what happened to Willie. For years and years I didn’t know how to get ahold of him. I didn’t know anything. And so when the [Vietnam] memorial was built, I looked for his name, didn’t find his name, which was a good clue that he was still alive. And for some reason, I thought he was from Chicago. So every time I traveled through O’Hare, I would grab the phone book, back in the days when they still had phone books and pay phones, and I called every Henry in the Chicago phone book and relay the story: ‘So, do you know this guy, I’m trying to find him.’ ‘No, never heard of him.’

“So in ’96, a friend of mine was appointed to a job at the Department of Veterans Affairs as a deputy or assistant secretary for something or other. And I relayed the story to him, and he says, ‘Well, look, I can’t give you any information. But if you send me a letter addressed to Willie, I will forward it to him. And if he wants to contact you, he can do that.’ So I did that, and about a month later, I was in D.C. I was on the board of Vietnam Veterans of America at that time. And I was in my hotel room, and the phone rang, and it was my wife.

“She says, ‘You got a message on your machine that I think you’re gonna want to hear.’ So she held the phone over the machine, and it was Willie, who called and said, ‘I got your letter.’ I called him and left a message on his machine. About an hour later, he called me back at the hotel, and that was when we connected, 26 years later.” [Willie, it turns out, was in Chattanooga, Tennessee.]

What Americans should know: The men who fought didn’t create the war.

“All the people who fought the war weren’t responsible for making the war. If there is anything we’ve learned from the Vietnam War, it is that we haven’t learned anything from the Vietnam War.”

Aaron Kassraie writes about issues important to military veterans and their families for AARP. He also serves as a general assignment reporter. Kassraie previously covered U.S. foreign policy as a correspondent for the Kuwait News Agency’s Washington bureau and worked in news gathering for USA Today and Al Jazeera English.

Editor’s note: This article, originally published on March 28, 2019, has been updated with new information on the veterans featured.

Managing post-combat adrenaline, fears of combat, sorrow, grief, injuries, witnessing the death of peers, and other challenges associated with combat caused soldiers to partake in multiple leisure activities as a method of coping with the challenges they faced in the field. However, soldiers also encountered other adversities during the noncombat experience such as trying to cope with the boredom of war. To cope with all these challenges it was imperative for infantry soldiers to participate in leisure activities to decompress, relax, and have fun. The first method of coping came in the form of R&R (Rest and Relaxation or Rest and Recuperation). R&R was available to infantry troops in multiple foreign countries outside Vietnam and every R&R country offered its own unique multiple leisure activities for troops to partake in. Each infantry soldier participated in a myriad of leisure activities in their R&R destination of choice to relax, decompress, and have fun from the adversities soldiers personally faced. Recreational drug utilization during the noncombat experience was another method by which grunts (infantry soldiers) coped with their internal and external problems that life in the field posed for troops. For soldiers, drug usage consisted of beer, alcohol, and marijuana and seldom more potent drugs. This chapter on drug usage argues that drug usage for troops usually occurred within an appropriate social context during times of noncombat. Finally, the last chapter of this thesis seeks to explain the different manners by which chaplains and sometimes priests helped soldiers cope with their personal struggles through their religious services during times of noncombat, by serving in combat alongside their peers in the field, and more importantly by showing how chaplains acted as counselors to infantry troops which helped soldiers cope with their personal hardships. Ultimately, leisure activities were critical to helping soldiers cope with the challenges and adversities that life in Vietnam posed for infantry troops.

Nor was Troyer concerned about being a member of the Black Lions battalion, which was so well known that the Viet Cong had allegedly offered a bounty for every Black Lions soldier killed. Like other twenty-year-olds, both in the service and out, he felt invulnerable. "There hasn't been a gook born yet that is going to get me," he wrote.

Frustrations
Men like Troyer had to deal with several frustrations particular to the war in Vietnam. Many were brought in piecemeal as replacements within existing units, which made them feel disconnected from the larger group. And with no geographical lines separating friend from foe, the GI in the field couldn't trust anyone. Villagers might be innocent civilians or Viet Cong sympathizers. Areas temporarily cleared of enemy forces could become dangerous again the next week. What particularly galled Troyer was his feeling that superior officers "wouldn't leave [a soldier] alone to fight the war with the knowledge he learned to fight with." Flying by safely in their helicopters, men like Battalion Commander Terry Allen pressured the enlisted men on the ground to move more quickly and kill more of their foes. Then, dog-tired from marching through the jungle all day with 50-pound packs, the soldiers faced the prospect of some general swooping down and declaring that the way they had set up their perimeter did not comport with Army regulations. As Troyer put it, the war "is run by the book and Charlie can't read English so he gets all the breaks and we usually get killed." Troyer told his family that he didn't "feel like marchin' in any protest march against Vietnam, but this war is worthless."

The Battle
The majority of American soldiers never witnessed large-scale battles or suffered through the terror of a jungle ambush during their one-year tours. But when they did, dozens of men could die within minutes. For Mike Troyer, an acting squad leader within Delta Company, the ambush of October 17 came just three months after he arrived in Vietnam, and what mattered on that terrible day was whether you were in the shade or sunlight. Crouching for cover behind an anthill, Troyer stayed out of the light and watched more exposed comrades get shot. He later crawled across the battlefield, "trying to find somebody that was alive." But the bodies had been so shot up that many were unrecognizable. Troyer identified one victim only by his 101st Airborne tattoo.

Coming Home
Troyer was lucky; he survived the year until his Date Eligible for Return from Over Seas, or DEROS, and came back to Ohio in one piece. But Troyer had no illusions that returning soldiers would be greeted as heroes; other than his parents, he wasn't sure anyone would be happy to see him. And so before he left Vietnam, Mike Troyer made sure to do one more thing: he sent a self-addressed letter home, welcoming himself back to civilian life.

How did soldiers cope with the Vietnam War?

How did soldiers feel during the Vietnam War?