What Training for Vietnam War Was Like

During America's long involvement in the Vietnam conflict, which lasted from 1965 through 1973, tens of thousands of men were recruited and drafted into the US armed forces. But whether they were conscripted or actively joined to dictate one's own career path, these folks had one painfully common experience, training. And no slick 80s montage could speed that process up. So today, we're going to show you what training for the Vietnam War was actually like. But first, make sure you subscribe to the Weird History YouTube channel. After that, let us know in the comments what other military history you would like to know more about. All right, cadets, left, right, left, right. Basic training lasted 352 hours, or 44 hours a week, for eight weeks. Then advanced training lasted another eight weeks. And through it all, these recruits were prepared to fight on the front lines in the most grueling and exacting ways possible. There's one key component to military training that may make you shiver the most, getting up early. Like, watch the sunrise as a zombie early. And no Keurig machine to help. Veteran Jerry Prater explained that Reveille was blasted by Bugles at the recruits at 0500 hours, or 5 AM, telling them to get up, shower, shave, get dressed in our fatigues, and be in platoon formation outside the barracks by 0530. The company commander, or one of the two training officers, would conduct an inspection of each of the four barracks each morning after we left the company area for our training sessions. The platoon with the highest daily and weekly ranking would receive special privileges and benefits. And the other three platoons would have to live with the stigma, as well as constant reminders and harassment of the drill sergeants that they did not measure up. Speaking of harassing drill sergeants, remember R. Lee Ermey's iconic drill sergeant character in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket? Ermey was an actual drill sergeant during Vietnam and brought his real life experience to the character, which means that recruits really were constantly terrorized by their superiors, at least until they got up to snuff. As veteran Larry Letty put it, drill sergeants were in everyone's face at one time or another. Yes, they did their best to terrorize you. That was their job. It was their job to take you apart and put you back together the Army way. Once they realized you were with the program, they left you alone and focused on those more in need of motivation. Who needs a TED Talk when you've got a drill sergeant? Once recruits get up at the pre-crack of dawn, they can't use, don't bark orders at me until I've had my coffee, as an excuse. Before eating or drinking anything, they'd laced up their boots and literally hit the ground running. Then after this pre-breakfast appetizer of running, the pre-breakfast entree came in the form of crossing a horizontal ladder, which sort of looks like an adult monkey bars. Nutty found this exercise to be particularly challenging. We had to complete 88 bars on the horizontal ladder before each and every meal. Those without calloused hands had problems there. Some real tough guys from the streets of Baltimore and Detroit left a lot of their blood on those bars until they developed the necessary calluses. Finally, we know how the casts of the wire and eight mile would do in basic training. As soldiers moved from basic to advanced training, mealtime no longer meant mercy from running. As veteran Fred Childs put it, several things were quite different from basic training. One, we ran in the morning before breakfast. Two, we ran and had PT, which stands for physical training after breakfast. Three, we ran to almost every training session. We kept running and running, just like Forrest Gump. And hey, that guy was a pretty good soldier. Then again, there wasn't much mercy to be found with the art of mealtime in the first place. Recruits had to follow a very specific procedure and protocol to even get into the mess hall. And while they were eating, drill instructors would scream at them to eat faster or eat less for recruits who needed to lose some weight. And for soldiers who were assigned to kitchen police duty, or KP, life became noticeably more difficult, to the point where these duties were often used as punishment tactics for recruits who slipped up. Prater summarized KP as such. Those assigned to pull KP would be awakened at about 0430 so they could get dressed and report to the mess hall to assist in the preparation of breakfast. They would continue on this detail until after the dinner meal had been served and the mess hall was policed. Policing didn't mean writing the dirty dishes a ticket. It meant making sure absolutely everything was cleaned and ready for the next meal, including dishes, trays, pots, pans, the tables, the floor, any ants that wandered in during meal service, et cetera. Prater went on to say that his most hated of all kitchen police duties was washing the pots and pans because so many were used for each meal and they were so dirty, greasy, and hard to clean. Says a lot that most of the guys would have rather done PT than do the dishes. Hey there, weird historians. If you're busy watching a bunch of weird history videos, you don't have time to prep an entire meal, let alone shop for a bunch of ingredients. When life gets busy, don't call for delivery. Get HelloFresh. It's 25% cheaper than takeout and less expensive than grocery shopping, too. Just choose your recipes and receive fresh pre-proportioned ingredients so you can get cooking quick. 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Just about every day, recruits would march out to the firing range, which was often very far from the rest of the barracks, sometimes even requiring the recruits to camp out, sometimes requiring a beach day. But even this basic weapons training didn't always adequately prepare the soldiers, because they didn't always use the weapons they'd actually use in combat. As special forces vet Dennis Mulgannon reported, problem was that none of us had even held an M16 until arriving in Vietnam. So we had zero experience. He and the rest of the recruits had extensive knowledge and experience with the M14, and according to Mulgannon, could strip and reassemble the M14 blindfolded. But like community college credit, none of that training transferred over to the M16, because as you may have noticed, it's an entirely different gun. Mulgannon said of the M16, first time I stripped one, the bolt went flying, because I pulled too hard on the actuating lever. Good thing I was just cleaning it. But it wasn't just call of duty going on in basic training. There was also some mortal combat snuck in there. Eight hours of recruits total time and training was dedicated to hand-to-hand combat. This included grappling, pugil stick exercises, and bayonet training. And while official bayonet charges hadn't been led since the Korean War in 1951, any close quarter combat situations needed to be accounted for, especially in the guerrilla tactics of the Vietnam conflict. Veteran Fred Childs knew the importance of being a skilled and efficient soldier in all possible areas of combat, because that was what he needed to learn to stay alive. Our DI would ask us, what are the two types of soldiers? We would respond, the quick and the dead, drill sergeant. He would then say, what kind of soldier are you? And we would respond, the quick, drill sergeant, the quick. Part of recruits PT included confidence and obstacle courses. But this ain't your average episode of Wipeout. Soldiers muscled their way through overhead bars, wall climbs, jumping jacks, and rope climbing, often through extreme heat, cold, and other intense weather patterns. At first, just getting through these courses was a prize unto itself. But eventually, recruits needed to beat certain set times. Veteran Charles A. Wells Jr. spoke of his least favorite course. My least favorite event was the low crawl, requiring one to crawl under strands of barbed wire for 50 yards. Intermittent bursts of machine gun fire with tracers provided even further inducement to stay low. Hmm, who says negative reinforcement doesn't work? Speaking of negative reinforcement, the general purpose of basic training was to take civilians, many of whom didn't actually want to be there, and turn them into soldiers in a very short amount of time so they could be shipped off to assist in the conflict, whether or not they were truly ready. This process included hardening these recruits and exposing them to what conditions might be like. And according to Wells, this included getting tear gassed. I don't know if they thought we might develop a level of immunity by breathing obnoxious fumes, or if they just wanted to see body fluids gushing out of our orifices. OK, let's hope it was the first one. Wells states that they were given gas masks and led into a small shed-sized building, at which point they were tear gassed and told to remove their masks and just hang out for a few minutes. Recalling the experience, Wells stated, up to this point, I could see a hint of logic in our training. In between the hours upon hours of PT, recruits were also taught basic lessons on conduct, behavior, basic medical knowledge, military courtesy, uniform code, hygiene, character guidance, and proper marching procedure. So a little less 1776 and a little more my fair lady than you may have expected. Despite this attempt at a holistic education, veteran Mike Page still felt ill-prepared when sent into Vietnam because there was little formal training, if any, to prepare us for dealing with the Asian population, language, customs, traditions, and psychology. So a soldier might have received excellent hands-on training and assorted military skills, yet he would still be ill-prepared to confront a skillful, determined enemy in the context of mountain warfare, jungle warfare, combat in cities, et cetera. After a long day, recruits usually weren't able to get a normal, uninterrupted night of sleep. That's because each recruit was required to go on fire watch, which is not as much fun as it sounds. The barracks recruits would stay in were old, wooden, rickety structures that weren't built with anyone's comfort in mind. So from 2100 to 0500 hours, which is 9 PM until 5 AM, one soldier per hour was on fire watch, where they patrol the barracks and make sure something like a stray cigarette spark wasn't about to burn everyone to ashes. Then that soldier would wake up the next one and so on to ensure that the camp didn't burn down in the night. Soldiers did get mental rest and much needed bonding time by receiving mail from home. During any amount of downtime at the end of the night, recruits would share whatever letters, gifts, or stories they received from their loved ones. Veteran Salvador de Blasio said this ritual helped us pass the time and not think about things that confronted us. Anything anyone could send us, we enjoyed a lot. When we got something, it was great. So what do you think? Would you have been able to handle training for the Vietnam War? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.