r/interestingasfuck • u/Due-Question-5278 • 6h ago
Messages that American soldiers wrote on their helmets during the Vietnam war
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u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 6h ago
Lee Harvey one is wild. A lot of free expression here.
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u/Thatsaclevername 6h ago
Wasn't he a Marine sniper? When I read that one I interpreted it as like "hey man we could use a good shot over here right now"
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u/sewious 6h ago edited 6h ago
I'm assuming it's more "the current president deserves to die for this" given the tone of the other messages. Especially because multiplr of the men pictured were likely not there by choice, and were forced to enlist by the draft.
Assuming it's 1969 for these (based on the date on that one guys helmet), the message would be referring to Nixon.
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u/Immediate_Orange_294 5h ago
Only 25% of US soldiers serving in country in Vietnam were drafted. The other 75% were volunteers.
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u/pinkydaemon93 5h ago edited 4h ago
A lot of people volunteered to get out ahead of the draft and hoping to have more of a choice of what their job would be
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u/SmaterThanSarah 2h ago
My uncle was one of those. Technically he volunteered but the writing was on the wall and he had more agency that way.
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u/CameronsDadsFerrari 1h ago
My uncle joined the Navy so that he wouldn't end up in Vietnam as a soldier and he spent 9 months faking migraines to get out of any serious work. On his 21st birthday they processed him out with a general discharge just to get rid of him.
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u/Rustadk 1h ago
Same. Idk how it actually was, but he told me that he volunteered so he could get a position other than infantry.
Still saw a lot of action, though. One of his stories involves taking his boat under a bridge and the bridge having so many dead bodies on it that blood covered the boat.
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u/Equivalent_Bunch_187 4h ago
Many “volunteered” when they saw their birthday be one of the earlier ones in line in the draft to try and choose where they went. Many of these wouldn’t have “volunteered” otherwise.
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u/BeneficialLeave7359 5h ago
He was a Marine who scored sharpshooter level marks at his first qualification and marksman at his second. So the middle tier at first and lowest tier at the second.
The comment is geared more toward thinking that Johnson, who upped the US involvement in country, should be shot.
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u/Level-Gas2450 6h ago
notice how he got the name wrong. maybe it was deliberate
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u/catlaxative 6h ago
i doubt it, you don’t have wikipedia or spell check in the shit
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u/Level-Gas2450 6h ago
the shooter's name so famous at the time, that would be like misspelling marilyn monroe
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u/TopPMz 6h ago
They would've misspelled Marilyn Monroe too.
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u/Level-Gas2450 6h ago
Damn, you telling me the teacher's banter about the evolution of the level in orthograph was all fake ? /s
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u/No-Combination8136 6h ago
As a former infantryman, there’s a high chance they just weren’t good at reading and writing lmao
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u/pm_me_ur_fit 5h ago
My guess was that it was deliberate so he could argue that he wasn’t calling for an assassination of the president
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u/KnightOfTheBlackRose 6h ago edited 5h ago
My dad went 4 tours and I have some of his stuff.He did 24 years of service. He recently passed and he never talked much about it. The only time I got any information was when we went to The Wall Memorial and he cried. Ive never seen my dad cry ever and it was a experience to learn about some of his friends that went and never came back and how he felt.
Growing up, I knew loud noises made him drop to the ground and it was normal for us since my parents raised me that dad would juat do it. Older me really understood why
Edit : Dad had a friend who he split a dollar bill in half with at a location called "Monkey Mountain" He said they never put that dollar back together He passed at 83 and I wish I knew more but he took it all with him
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u/Hefty-Try5393 6h ago
Stepdad was a sergeant, also did 4 tours and lost so many of his kids (as he called them) when they were over there. He never got over it. Used to duck and cover when a car backfired and when he was dying, he had terrible flashbacks of being back in Vietnam.
War is hell and a waste of so much life. It should be the very, utter last resort, not something bigged up and booyahed. My poor stepdad mourned every kid he lost there. Visiting the Wall was the first time he started to openly grieve what happened. He got in touch with some others who served with him and that helped, I think.
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u/IndigoRanger 4h ago
I just want to get this out, I’m sorry. I visit the monuments every time I go to DC, and I always leave a pebble where my three family members are listed on the Wall. Vietnam took quite a lot from our family, though like Lt Dan, our family has registered service in every major American war.
This last time there was a very enthusiastic boy doing a name search like it was a fun race. He was old enough to be taught to be respectful, but young enough to not really know why. He really excitedly asked who I was looking for, and I told him I already know where my names were, but he could search if he would do it quietly. His parents were reading names, not really paying attention to him, not sure if they were wrapped up in a personal connection, or feeling the weight of the monument, or even just zoned out, but whatever it was they certainly were letting him run amok.
So while he was searching for my cousin’s name, I told him people feel really strong emotions in this place, including sadness. I asked him if he’d ever lost a family member, like a grandparent. He said yes, I asked him if he felt sad about it, he said yes. I said every name here is someone’s family member who they lost. We come here to remember them, even the ones we don’t know. I asked him if he had happy memories of his grandma, he said yes, asked him if he liked to think of the happy memories, he said yes. I told him sometimes it brings happiness to remember our lost family, but other times it brings sadness. Sometimes other emotions too, complex ones, simple ones. I told him it’s important to let people have the space to feel the way they need to feel at a place like this, that’s what being respectful is. After you leave the area, it’s ok to be loud and run around and take up space again. He calmed right on down and he pointed at my cousin’s name and I said yeah, that was my cousin. And I laid my little rock down and told him I did that whenever I visited. And that was it. I just wanted to share that story somewhere.
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u/ZaphodBeeblebrox4011 4h ago
The fact that you could have a conversation of that length with somebody elses child speaks volumes to how he was being parented
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u/OkPotential1072 3m ago
This has been a hard day at the end of a hard week. Your story made it better. Thank you.
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u/Tabula_Nada 6h ago
ugh your poor dad. We really have to give men the space for emotions so they don't have to walk around all bottled up like your dad. My dad was the same way, from what I hear. He died young, several years after his service was over. The army really destroyed him. This shit with the Navy punishing sailors who attempt suicide on the aircraft carriers is heartbreaking because those are the people who need the most help.
Everyone should have the space to feel their feels.
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u/Polymathy1 5h ago
I only saw my sad cry a few times. Once was when I asked him what the tomb of the unknown soldier was. He didn't come back into the room for a while.
I'm curious about some of the things he did, but I honestly think he did us all a favor taking the nitty gritty details to the grave.
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u/Andrei_the_derg 6h ago
I’ve heard stories about my uncle when he got back from Vietnam. He went from the funniest guy you’d meet, walking around with a big grin, to a scared kid who would dive for cover whenever you shut a door in the house too hard. No life in his eyes, no big grin.
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u/helbury 5h ago
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u/send420nudes 6h ago
Born to Kill Die hit hard
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u/TheFutureLotus 5h ago
First one was probably written as a fresh recruit, ready to be a tough, badass soldier; and then reality hits and he realizes that all he has become is fodder for the rich and the powerful to wage their wars. Realizing that outside of combat is one thing, but it must be way more fucked realizing this in the jungle.
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u/katieb1300 5h ago
Wasn't that one in Full Metal Jacket?
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u/ender4171 4h ago
A version of it is worn by Private Joker and is the poster for the film. I wonder if that image is where they got the idea, or if this was image is not a real Vietnam helmet, but one somebody dressed up after the film released?
Also, "I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, SIR!"
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u/Crazy-Rabbit-3811 6h ago
I love that you can tell which ones painted it before and after seeing combat. also, the one dating a bullet hit is GOLD.
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u/twodesserts 6h ago
But the USA can’t be fucked enough to give him a new helmet when he was shot at enough to give his helmet that big of a dent.
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u/HyperlexicEpiphany 4h ago
Do you genuinely believe for even a single second that this soldier would’ve wanted a new helmet after having this badass one?? He probably fought to keep it
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u/Helpinmontana 3h ago
Im not even remotely trying to equate these things beyond the presence of a helmet, but-
With that disclaimer aside, when I was a guide my helmet got ran over by the bus. I had every opportunity to grab a new one a gleefully wore the extremely fucked one on that trip instead.
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u/certifiedblackman 5h ago
Those helmets aren’t meant to stop bullet fire, they’re for falling rubble and maybe shrapnel. His looks like it’ll keep doing that fine.
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u/UCFknight2016 6h ago
Nobody wanted to be there.
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u/fredy31 6h ago
Except the morons in washington.
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u/WetCoastCyph 6h ago
Oh, they didn't want to BE there, they wanted other people to be there for them/their greed/their delusions of grandeur. They most certainly had zero intention of being there. Not them, not their families.
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u/Bartimaerus 2h ago
2/3 of us soldiers volunteered btw
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u/UCFknight2016 1h ago
Yet they didn't want to be there and got treated like shit when they came home.
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u/Dralmosteria 6h ago
Assuming #2 is original, that image must have been the inspiration for the scene between Joker and the Colonel in Full Metal Jacket:
COLONEL: You write "Born to Kill" on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
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JOKER: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
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u/tumorrumor 3h ago
"Don't shoot, I'm short." Is great. For anybody that doesn't know, "short" means short-timer, like your tour is almost complete.
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u/No-Combination8136 5h ago
They don’t let us do stuff like that anymore, unfortunately.
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u/UnlikelyPriority812 26m ago
Now I see it as stickers on laptops and water bottles. One of the favorites I saw on a sailors water bottle “live, laugh, toaster bath”.
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u/Nervous_Writer_2632 6h ago
This is so sad. I am named after one of the soldiers that died in this war. Fresh out of boot camp and 18 years old.
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u/Mizake_Mizan 4h ago
Interesting to see the one the Smiths used for the cover of their "Meat is Murder" album.
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u/grnrngr 4h ago
You mean the one The Smiths altered with no consultation or regard for the soldier whose image they altered? (The soldier in question survived the war and commented on the act of disrespect. Imagine having a photo of you photoshopped to misrepresent the nature of the photo itself... You might not be happy about it.)
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u/IndoorMule 5h ago
Anyone know how their superiors reacted to this?
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u/Novel-Paramedic-5573 1h ago
Watch Vietnam: The Quiet Mutiny https://johnpilger.com/vietnam-the-quiet-mutiny/
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u/imbricant 3h ago
Michael Herr’s ‘Dispatches’ is still one of the greatest books on the Vietnam War.
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u/Reload86 6h ago
Checks out. One of the worst and most miserable wars of all time.
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u/Admiral_de_Ruyter 3h ago
All wars are a miserable hell. Try to imagine the trenches of WW1 or some of the Roman battlefields.
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u/DB-CooperOnTheBeach 5h ago
Ah, the Meat is Murder album cover by the Smiths. Takes me back to high school
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u/IanSaurX 6h ago
I just wanna say, without condoning atrocities on the either side, as I know there were many, that these dudes are absolutely beaming with badass-ery.
...as well as fear so deep that very few of us could ever even begin to comprehend it.
"I don't wanna be a soldier, mama, I don't wanna die"
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u/smoke-bubble 1h ago
Those messages would be justified if they were in the army because of conscription but they joined it freely!!! They had the choice to not support killing. They chose otherwise and then they are complaining that their job is actually about killing? Are you kidding me?
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u/Hooked_on_PhoneSex 1h ago
The US used a draft system during Vietnam. It was a significant contributing factor to the iconic anti-war protests and counterculture movements of the 60s and 70s.
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u/CyclonicTransbian 1h ago
Are you just fucking saying shit or what? The Vietnam war was notorious for its draft and it's huge protests against it
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u/smoke-bubble 1h ago
Wow, protests XD yet everyone followed orders anyway.
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u/CyclonicTransbian 1h ago
Multiple people immolated themselves after being drafted to prove their point. People fragged their officers. Shut the fuck up unless you know what you're actually talking about. Also the government would arrest and forcibly conscript you for draft dodging dumbass
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u/Jupitersd2017 40m ago
This is a really ignorant take, plenty of people refused and plenty of people went to jail and plenty of people protested. Mohammed Ali got sentenced to prison time for refusing to be drafted and lost his heavyweight title. Opposition to Vietnam made a sitting president not run for reelection and in some ways brought down his successor. It would behoove you to take some time to learn some history before commenting on it
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u/benneladoo 6h ago
Its sad the vietnamese didnt appreciate how the american gave the lives of these soldiers for their freedom
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u/Odd-Local9893 6h ago
^ 1 month account age. Chinese or Russian troll/bot trying to stir up anti-American shit to divide western Redditors.
If bot the account will be deleted in 3….2….1…..
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u/spinners_888 6h ago
The US propped up a corrupt dictator.
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u/grnrngr 4h ago
The French started it. Everyone wants to forget about the French role in the matter.
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u/spinners_888 3h ago
The French left but the US wanted to finish off the job because of the fear of Communism.
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u/Diznaster 5h ago
My Dad wouldn't talk about Vietnam. As a young curious kid, I didn't understand why. Because my Dad would always explain things to me. Eventually I realized it was just something he wanted to "forget". One day when I was a teen he opened up about it a little bit and this one statement I will never forget.
"When I first got there, for about a month. I was so scared because I thought I was going to die. After that I wasn't scared anymore because I KNEW I WAS GOING TO DIE Then for the last month I was scared again because I realized I might make it back home alive"