My friend was at the range yesterday, met a guy who said as a sailor he was attached to a Marine Infantry unit in Nam. Friend asked him if he was a corpsman and he said nope, just a sailor.
Did some searching only came across the Mobile Riverine Force that provided tactical water mobility with the Army in the Delta.
What say you guys?
My best friends uncle was a Marine infantryman with like 3 or 4 Nam tours. He has talked about the Navy river boats.
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Bless HIM!
Yes, the Navy PBR’s were a very versatile boat in the Delta and the Saigon River.
I never heard sailors (non-corpsman) were attached to grunt units and saw land combat, that is the reason for my question.
If not HM, could have been SeaBees, mobile riverine forces, Navy security.
He was told by USMC command that if he volunteered for more tours his little brothers wouldn’t be drafted. Whether that was true or not, who knows, but his brothers weren’t drafted.
He has stories of working with Army, Navy, and Air Force guys. From his stories and a few other Nam vets I’ve talked to, guys getting attached to other units wasn’t uncommon at all.
Hmmmm, I believe they would go ahead and draft your brother but, they just wouldn’t/shouldn’t be in a combat zone at the same time as you were. Now having said that it may actually have been the same combat zone as you were. I had Uncles serving in the Pacific and in Europe at the same time, so…?
They got pretty careful about this after the Sullivan Brother went down together.
Yeah, who knows. His brothers weren’t drafted but that could easily have been because they just didn’t get drafted.
And it could have just been a lie to get him to keep going back.
OP, I have a buddy who was a Riverine in Iraq. He has worked with Marines, Specwar and other he doesn’t have much to say about. I asked him the difference between his role and SWCC, and his curt reply was “SWCC guys don’t leave the boat. We do”. He was trained in Marine infantry tactics (AIC?) and says they provided insertion and extraction support, as well as combat patrols on foot from the river inland. He loved it but the constant combat and non-stop duty rotations wore him out. I was not aware of this field when I joined the Navy, so I think it became a thing post 911.
Listening to my friend this am talking about the guy he met, 1st thought was he must have had advance infantry training (Army term AIT, not sure what the Marine term is). As a PSG, there is no way we would have a non-AIT or equivalent in our platoon.
Thank you VERY much for your post and stating he was Infantry trained. In my research the unit was created in 66 the Year of The Horse.
Again thanks, hopefully we have a member who was part of that unit that will shed more light.
Reminds me of a funny story that my father, who did three tours in Viet Nam with the Marines, told me. He said he was in a hole with a new corpsman during a very heavy mortar barrage. After the barrage my father spent some time getting to know the new guy. The new corpsman said he was getting drafted when his dad told him to go enlist in the Navy, that would keep him out of the field. So he enlisted in the Navy and they made him a corpsman and put him with the Marines.
Doubletap
I use to work with a gentleman who was born in NYC but grew up in San Diego. Out of high school he enlisted in the Navy and wanted to move around and see the world. They stationed him at . . . wait for it . . . Naval Base San Diego for the duration of his short enlistment.
I’m glad I added something of value. As for the creation of this section of the Navy, I have no doubt it was Nam era response to needs in the field; as it was not offered when I signed up I’m guessing the PBR thing was deactivated and eventually merged with SWCC. Again, speculation here, but the re-emergence of this specialty role of able bodied seaman+competant infantryman was needed in a new era of warfighting.
And, regarding the training, AIT is probably the correct acronym… I was thinking ‘Advance Infantry Course’ but I have zero experience there.
Brown water navy was a big deal. Read much about it, had a coworker drafted, then ended up at USNA, then ended up Riverine.
Fascinating, especially the landing crafts that did the grunt work and turned into floating pillboxes 2hile ferrying troops/cargo.
My FiL retired a Cmdr. (0-5) in '77 - he passed away last Monday. He was in-country… commanding Seabees. They were defoliating the jungle to build helicopter landing bases. Sadly, he sucked up a LOTTA Agent Orange in two tours of that, and got emphysema. That’s what got him.
How’d the dude go from USNA to Riverine? Is there a story there?
I was just reading about Seabees at Iwo and in Korea. IMO, they don’t get enough credit for the important combat work they did/do.
One of the reasons why The Green Berets is my favorite John Wayne film, his son Patrick played a Seabee clearing out a kill zone at the firebase. Always thought that was cool as hell that these guys were plowing down trees (with a dozer that had to be airlifted) in the middle of a firefight. And then of course there is John Wayne’s film The Fighting Seabees (1944).
I had just graduated from college, no kids, limited awareness of the Brown Water navy. At the time (early 80’s) guys did not talk much about VN service. (Often times was not viewed positively)
So I traveled with this guy, he was sales, I was the engineer. And we end up in rural GA South of Waycross. Which means swamp. Okefenokee. You have to see it to understand.
And he mentions that when he graduated & commissioned at USNA, he expected to head for a ship. Relatively safe duty for VN era.
Much to his surprise, his orders were to middle of nowhere Louisiana surrounded by swamps. And he’s trained on a new small boat, then, (I think, long time ago) had to ferry them to CA. And then by ship to VN.
And ended up in VN in the delta/swamps/rivers. Sleeping on a barge in the middle of the water. Mostly ferrying SEALs up river and back. (I barely knew what a SEAL was at the time. “Scary guys” he said). He hated it. Said you never got to sleep soundly, as someone was constantly dropping grenades in the water to keep sappers from swimming in mines.
Pre-internet, not much info. I knew less. I now am guessing he was assigned to PCF’s (Swift boats) as they had a junior officer + enlisted. Not sure the PBR’s had officers. And it sounds like from what he told me he must have been in Market Garden/Game Warden times. I wish I had known more to ask more.
Very polished guy. Great Sales rep. That’s about the only time he talked about it, and only because we were in the swamp and I was curious.
Main thing I’m curious about is how they did low band VHF comms over such long distances. Even with the 35-40 watts of the VRC-12 and good whips/groundplane, they ran longer distances than groundwave/line of sight VHF supported.
One old radio aware codger I asked said it was very common to have helicopters or dakotas orbiting acting as radio relays. Split frequency, etc. I’d love to know more.
Those guys fought with stone tools in comparison to modern mil. I have a PRC-77 backpack setup which is now way outperformed by cell phone sized civvy radios. Even PRC-148’s and 152 are tiny in comparison to VN era.
I had a great uncle who was a TEC-4 (radio operator) who had to swim rough surf as he landed on Utah beach with the Tough 'Ombres (90th ID) with a 30lb SCR-300 field radio on his back. How far radio tech has come . . .