The Vietnam started in November 1st, 1955 and came to end in April 30th, 1975. The war started because North Vietnam was a communist lead nation and it’s leader, Ho Chi Minh, wanted South Vietnam to be communist as well. While North and South Vietnam were fighting over this, America decided to intervene by sending soldiers over to aid South Vietnam. America wanted to help South vietnam out because they were afraid that if both South and North Vietnam were communist, that other nations would follow. Since the Vietnam war wasn’t technically America’s war to fight in, the American citizens found it to be very pointless and a waste of too many innocent lives. Because of this outrage, there was tons of protests and peace rallies. The American citizens were finally satisfied when Nixon started pulling the troops out of Vietnam when he was elected in 1969. Sadly, North and South Vietnam merged into one communist country by 1975, bringing an end to the war.
Monologue:
In early October of 1967, I had been sent to Vietnam after training for a about a year. My duties were to serve there for two years. During my two years of service in Vietnam, I can definitely say that I’ve had my fair share of life threatening experiences. The most horrific one that I’ve faced, and my most memorable one, took place in March 22, of 1968. Rumors were going around from soldier to soldier for weeks, saying that NVA were planning on launching an assault on our base; since it was the anniversary of the the March 1954 assault on the French stronghold at Dien Bien Phu. At about 2100 hours I started to feel a heavy impact repeatedly shake the ground. The rumors were true, the assault had commenced.
The sergeant and I were pinned down in a bunker, having a repeated barrage of ammo unloaded onto us. We were relying on our landline communications with our gun positions for a short time, until it was destroyed between the gunfire. The sergeant and I decided to flee our bunker and make run for the Quad 50 position. My heart almost stopped as we ran between the crossfire, fearing that I might lose my life to one lucky shot. We successfully made it to the bunker unharmed and found a crew huddled inside unable to make contact by landline or radio with the other gun positions. We told them to stand by their weapons then I commanded the sergeant to go to the nearby duster position. I ran towards the opposite direction to the distant duster and Quad 50 positions at the other end of the runway. I ran no more than 50 meters when rocket came down destroyed the command post bunker about 50 meters in front of me. I ran across the runway to retrieve medical attention for the victims of the rocket strike. I got a corpsman to come and aid them. I was able to meet up with the sergeant afterwards at the Quad 50 position, and we were able to man our guns and fight our way through the invasion.
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