Some time ago, my granddaughter asked me, “Do we have anyone famous in our family?”
I thought a bit and said, “No. But we have some people that did interesting things.” I thought deeper on this and arrived with some family members that served in the military, one of which was Captain Jeremiah Manton of the Revolutionary War. What possessed him and others in the relative comfort of their Rhode Island homes to forsake their sitting government and pledge their lives for a cause that had no tradition? When they grasped their hunting musket and came to muster, what thoughts crossed their minds and what rationale did they impart to their wives and children? Subsequent family members would follow in WWI and the Second World War was an inclusion event for virtually all of the males on all sides of our family. My father, Edward Nightingale, went to China to advise the Chinese in field artillery making the army a quasi-career but not enough to earn a pension.
I was born in Pasadena, California in January 1943. I was with the Army, Infantry, Airborne and Rangers and served for a total of thirty years inclusive of Dominican Republic in 1965, two tours in Vietnam, 67-68, 70-71, Iran Rescue 80, Grenada, Latin America and the Pentagon/Classified. My service began after completing ROTC and becoming a commissioned 2nd Lt in the Regular Army on June 6, 1965. My specialized training was Jumpmaster, combat medical, the Vietnamese language and Classified.
During combat, you never think of anything. It is afterward when you reflect and things begin to surface. On June 12, 1968, a battle, one of many that preceded and succeeded it, was fought on the eastern fringe of a place called War Zone D, approximately 70 miles north of Saigon. That action decimated a Vietnamese Ranger battalion and the majority of a Main Force Viet Cong division. It inflicted heavy casualties on an American armored cavalry force. A wide variety of elements, unmentioned in press dispatches, participated from both sides. This action had absolutely no significant impact on the ultimate outcome of the war. However, the battle in many ways represented what the war was all about and what it ultimately became.
The worst part of my war experience was the loneliness. But I was there to insure that my units understood how to effectively fight. My greatest fear was being captured. I do not regret going. My experiences are captured in my first book, LIVING AND BREATHING.
In Christmas of 1968, the VC as a goodwill gesture released several Second Company Rangers. They reported that they had been captured after the escape assault and moved across the Dong Nai to a larger base camp where allegedly they had seen both Chinese and Russian advisors. They also said the B52 strike on the first night had hit part of the base camp and resulted in the death of a major VC or NVA general. They reported that had to divert their movement to take the body to the border where it was evacuated by helicopter to the North. We had no reason not to believe them. After this, we were sent to Trang Bang Ranger Training Center for refitting. Here, we had more casualties that month than at any other operational area other than during Tet. It was easy to understand why the Rangers developed such a fatalistic attitude. It was both essential to survival and decidedly logical.
When the United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, it was very painful. I was at Ft. Stewart with the Rangers. My wife and I sponsored a Vietnamese family; the husband had been a friend of ours when single at Cal Poly. His wife and baby stayed with us for six months.
I returned to Vietnam with a neighbor that I grew up with. We stayed for 30 days. I was impressed at how the locals were very supportive of us. It felt good.
~ Colonel Keith Nightingale, Vietnam Vet, Author of Living and Breathing and A Soldier Looks Back, available on Amazon available on Amazon www.amazon.com/Living-Breathing-Just-Another-Vietnam/dp/1517418607/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459185650&sr=1-1&keywords=living+and+breathing+just+another+day+in+vietnam
STORY LINK: https://medium.com/…/rangers-developed-a-fatalistic-attitud…
FOLLOW US OUR VETERAN TRIBUTE PAGE:
www.facebook.com/ComesASoldiersWhisper
