My Memoir of Vietnam-1971 - New Show

[goddi]

Greetings,

This is a slideshow of some slides I recently re-scanned of my time in Vietnam in 1971. Pardon the dust and scratch marks. I have already spent hours/days trying to clean it up. Just gave up. Anyway, also pardon this self-indulgent ‘it’s-all-about-me’ show. This was my first PTE slideshow years ago and I have learned much since and wanted to make it a bit better. It is long, but shorter than when I started. I tried to be brutal with the editing.

For me, it contains the some of the best music of that time. 'I am still a boy and a man, I’m 18 and I don’t know what I’m talking about…got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart…'. It really fit the experience. And caution, it contains a couple Playboy centerfold pin-ups in the background. 6:48; 48 Mb; 16x9; Nav Bar active.

Comments/critiques welcomed.

On Beechbrook:

http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/downloadfile.asp?id=1877

Thanks... Gary

[mhwarner]

Gary,

Wow! Thanks for sharing this. I don't believe I have ever seen Vietnam quite so personally. I have seen movies and newsreels, of course, and I know many guys who served there, but to see someone's personal slides was a unique experience. One thought I had while watching was that you were all so young. We must be about the same age. I graduated high school in '64.

Anyway, the length of the show was just fine and somehow the dust and scratches actually added to the experience. The music was perfect. My only negative comment would be on the the opening titles. The mixture of different fonts and white shadows mixed with the animations were a bit too flashy for my taste, but to each his own. Thanks for sharing this and I'm glad you made it home!

[goddi]

Gary,

Wow! Thanks for sharing this. I don't believe I have ever seen Vietnam quite so personally. I have seen movies and newsreels, of course, and I know many guys who served there, but to see someone's personal slides was a unique experience. One thought I had while watching was that you were all so young. We must be about the same age. I graduated high school in '64.

Anyway, the length of the show was just fine and somehow the dust and scratches actually added to the experience. The music was perfect. My only negative comment would be on the the opening titles. The mixture of different fonts and white shadows mixed with the animations were a bit too flashy for my taste, but to each his own. Thanks for sharing this and I'm glad you made it home!

==================

Mary,

Thanks for the comments. 62 and counting... Long time ago but sometimes seems like yesterday. We really had some great music back then. I think I got carried away with this font program!!! I wanted something different but maybe it was too different. Just experimenting.

Thanks for the 'welcome home' Didn't get too many back then... Gary

[rick235]

Gary,

A different kind of show of a place and time i have not seen before, the show was quite well done but you need to remove the noise from your images, this would make them appear sharper.

Rick235.

[goddi]

Gary,

A different kind of show of a place and time i have not seen before, the show was quite well done but you need to remove the noise from your images, this would make them appear sharper.

Rick235.

===================

Rick... The slides are about 40 years old. Had lots of dust and stuff. You should have seen the 'noise' on them before I spent hours and hours and hours just getting them to this point. I finally gave up and let them just look 'old'. Also, to get the file size down, I had to reduce them twice. Maybe this is the 'noise' you are talking about. But thanks for the comment. I know they were not sharp/clear as I'd like them to be but back then, I was a real novice in photography.

Gary

[d67]

Hi Goddi

A superb show sustained by an excellent sound track !

This kind of diary, a sort of day after day reportage, makes the concern about the slide quality to be of very poor importance.

Thank you very much for sharing such a personal slideshow.

I stood stuck on the screen until the last slide and could stay so for a much much longer time.

Definitely a keeper !

Patrick

[snapcam]

Hi Gary

Really enjoyed this show.You allow us to share in something personal. Although not involved directly our generation watched this worldwide and I suppose

it was our first war. We were just starting our little show here at the time. I've seen the movies but nothing compares to a personal experiance like your's.

You must cringe at Rambo!

As regards comments I thought the age of the slides and the way you have presented it added to the whole atmosphere I would like to see a few slightly brighter

as there appeared to be more detail available (a small point). Timewise I didn't realise the time passing could have been twice as long.

Thanks

Snapcam

[goddi]

Greetings,

Thanks, Patrick and Snapcam...

Talk about emotional attachment to pictures.... At first, I had put more images in the show but they might have needed some explanation or maybe they would not have an impact that I would want. So this time, less was more. Glad you enjoyed it. It is more of a cathartic experience for me.

Gary

[thedom]

Thank you so much for sharing this authentic and priceless testimony of a period that I only know with hollywood movies.

How much time did you spend in Vietnam ? Are you still in touch with people who came back ?

[goddi]

Thank you so much for sharing this authentic and priceless testimony of a period that I only know with hollywood movies.

How much time did you spend in Vietnam ? Are you still in touch with people who came back ?

================

Greetings thedom,

Thanks for taking a look at it. I spent almost a year in Can Tho. I was a 2nd Lt. trained in the 8 inch howitzer (most accurate at the time). My specialty was the assembly of the 8" nuclear round. When we went for training, we could not take any notes or have anything to study from. So when my orders came through for Vietnam, with Top Secret clearance, I thought to myself...are we going to be firing nuclear artillery??? Scared the pants off of me. Normally I would have been assigned as an artillery forward observer (whose life expectancy was measured in day) with the South Vietnamese. But my accounting degree got me stationed in Can Tho to replace 3 officers who had been running the Officers Club. I think that job was worse than being a forward observer (...not really, but it was a pain--another story). Thankfully, I was quickly reassigned to a searchlight battery. On red alerts, we were the first ones out there shinning our lights down the runway to catch any sappers who were trying to destroy the aircraft on the runway. I also had an anti-personnel radar detachment on the Cambodian border and an anti-mortar radar detachment at the airfield. Anyway, no, I have never found anyone who was in my unit. I have hardly met anyone else who has even been in Vietnam. So the slideshow is somewhat of the only reminder of those days for me. I probably wouldn't believe it unless was able to put together the PTE show and watch it every so often...Then, I say to myself, I really was there!

Gary