Gary Weaver and Vietnam

By Cole, Class of 2004

This is a Christmas postcard sent by the soldiers in Vietnam.

Gary was raised in a very religious family with five brothers. His family is very patriotic and believed in the United States, in the flag and what it stood for. He is very proud, at the time, to serve under the flag, the nation, and its leaders.

He said he knew he would be drafted so he enlisted into the army. He took his basic training or boot camp in Fort Jackson, North Carolina for eight weeks. Then he was sent to Fort Gordon, Georgia for Military Police training. After that he was in San Houston, Texas for six month and served as a Military Police Officer then to Germany also as a Military Police officer. He was also a security guard 3 months at Long Binh. Gary got tired of saluting officers. He said he was young and foolish at the time and thought that he could never die so he turned in his paper work to be a door gunner in Vietnam. He was a door gunner on a Chinook helicopter for ten months. He was in Vietnam for thirteen months total. Most people did twelve months in Vietnam then left and had to return for six month before they could be discharged. Gary stayed thirteen months and that way he didn’t have to return for the six months to complete his duty.

He was an expert with a Colt 45 handgun, AR 15 and M 14 rifle, M 60 machine gun, and M 79 grenade launcher.

When Gary was the door gunner on the Chinook 084 helicopter, he thought he had it nice because he slept in a dry bed and had good food. The soldiers in the infantry had to sleep in mud, heat, bugs, snakes, jungle etc. He was with the same four-crew members on the helicopter the whole ten months. They were transporting nine GIs when they were shot down near the Cambodian border. He and all of his crewmembers received a metal for bravery and Gary received a special citation on his for valor in saving seven of the GIs before the helicopter burned completely.

He impact it had on this area was great. It was a major news topic making the headlines on a daily basis. The papers were always listing how many were wounded or killed in Vietnam. Ninety six percent of young men were drafted after high school and almost everyone went unless you had a college scholarship or you were a draft dodger like Bill Clinton. This created many jobs opportunities and prevented the country from going into a depression. A lot of the jobs were to make supplies for the Vietnam conflict. Almost everyone knew someone that had been drafted and that is all everyone thought about. Everyone minds were still on World War ll. The conflict was making no progress and they kept drafting more people and needing more ammunition. Mothers and fathers were losing their sons and nothing good was becoming of it.

In this immediate area we lost a young man, Ronald Knight, killed by a night attack by the Vietnamese. He wrote a letter to Gary the day before he was killed and Gary received the letter the day after he was killed. Gary was aware that Ronald had been killed before he received the letter because he knew the head of the Western Union and she had told him.

The Vietnam War was not a war at all. It was more like a conflict. There were no enemy lines and no plan of attack. Everyone was just dropped in the middle of nowhere and told to fight. You didn’t know who was the enemy and who was on your side. Everyone would walk around smiling at each other in the day and killing each other at night. It was Helter Skelter. This was how religious boys became a man in a blink of an eye. They were sent to a foreign country to meet and kill people.

When the United States pulled out of Vietnam they left more ammunition, jeeps, guns, helicopters, and was weapons for the south to defend themselves than in all other wars combined. Most of the soldiers thought they were doing their country a great service but when they returned home there was no welcome, no parades, no victory march, no magazines or talk shows like the World War 11 veterans. A lot of the men left the country and went to all other areas of the world. Some even returned to Vietnam. They all had to live with all the killing they had done and felt it was for no good reason and the country didn’t appreciate it.

Then the government said the Vietnam War was wrong. Gary said," They should have never sent our men over there and they could all return to our country with pride."

The government also said it was ok to burn the American Flag that it was one of our rights. In Gary’s opinion, he strongly suggests you don’t burn an American Flag in front of him or he will exercise his rights on you.

If nothing else, Gary feels that the nation learned a valuable lesson from the Vietnam conflict.

When we went to Desert Storm we had a plan, set a date, and went over a wiped everyone out and very few American lives were lost. The only problem was they stopped and now we have Bin Laden.

This is a picture of the four other men who Gary was with in the Chinock 087.

Click to enlarge.

Gary was a door gunner on the Chinock 084 helicopter. With that job he got a dry bed and good food. compared to the soldiers in the infantry that slept in mud, heat, bugs, snakes, and the jungle. He was  with the same four men for ten months.

Click to enlarge.

This is a map of the spots where the troops were in Vietnam.

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 This is a picture of Gary Weaver at Fort Gordon, Georgia during his military training.

This is a picture of Gary and his crew that received the valor award for when they escaped Vietnam after their Chinook 084 was shot down.

Web page designed by Kyle G., Class of 2004