3 - US Combat Soldiers in Vietnam

Summary

More than 2.7 million men and approximately 65,000 women served in Vietnam or in the Southeast Asian theater between 1963 and 1975. Yet much of the literature on the American side of the Vietnam War discusses the role of decision-making by presidents and their civilian advisors, along with military strategy developed and directed by general-grade officers. This chapter instead deals with the combat soldiers and marines who actually did the fighting in the jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam. These “grunts” had to first be selected, then trained, then sent to “repo-depots” where they became replacements for those who had been killed or wounded by the National Liberation Front or People’s Army of Vietnam soldiers. They were then sent to the field with their new units and would serve one year before “coming home.” Society would then have to deal with thousands of returning veterans, many with PTS(D) and some with a newly identified condition – moral injury.