Run Through The Jungle CCR »
Posted By cowboygrandpa 7 months, 2 weeks ago in StyleRun Through The Jungle. With Vietnam war footage. One of my friends in country came out to visit me. He brought out some pictures and we reminissed about our friends of the past. This is in remembrance.
Read Full Story at youtube.com »
Submitted By:
cowboygrandpa
I'm happily married. I am a registered voter. I love animals. I'm a dad to three grown daughters and a grandpa to 10 ...
Related Articles:
Why not submit a story?
Join the Discussion 
+ Add Comment
Comments So Far: 81
-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
Chief didn't come home. Ben and I did. We three were the best of friends.
When Ben came out to visit we visited chiefs grave. It all came crashing back.
We shared a drink at the grave and left a full one for chief.
We talked about the kids coming home today and what could we say.
Like the tags say. Good music, Good friends, Hard memories.
Here's hoping we will one day not have to endure these kinds of memories.
Reply-
0%
lvrofwolves7 months, 2 weeks ago
To even imagine is very moving and powerful, still I wasn't there and it's hard to even fathom, tho these clips and especially the music along with the images can bring one somewhat closer. Does it feel like a whole nother life? You will forever have 'special brothers'
Reply-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
I was actually closer to my friends in country than my own brother.
You're scared half out your mind at times and bored at other times. You never feel so alive or so close to death.
It's hard to put into words. Because there really are no words to describe what you go thru. I mean imagine hearing bullets whiz by you, shell fragments thwacking into people and other things. Men screaming or crying while you are trying to survive a firefight, the wounded the enemy it's maddening.
I really don't know how to put into words the insanity of it.
Reply
-
-
0%
Spadecaller7 months, 2 weeks ago
Hey Gramps:
Great video
"Here's hoping we will one day not have to endure these kinds of memories."
Memories like these don't seem to fade; maybe they are not meant to. I believe the best we can do is to learn how to live with them. I spoke with my son from Baghdad earlier today; he'll be coming home next month. When he told me that he can't wait to see me, I nearly lost it. I know how long a month can be, as you well know.
Reply
-
-
0%
walden37 months, 2 weeks ago
Great video. It puts things in perspective. How does anyone come back from chaos like that "whole?"
We're lucky that the few are willing to sacrifice for the many. We've become a lot better at killing since than and luckily a lot better at battlefield medicine.
No one knows what they will do in a time of crisis. Sure, everyone likes to think, 'Yeah, I'd kick in the door and rescue the family from the burning house' or 'I'd jump in the water and pull the little kid out' or chase the purse snatcher down. But no one really knows until the flames are crackling and the bullets are whizzing by your head.
Honestly, I don't know if I would have gone or would have been a draft dodger. That's why I hold nothing against either. I like to think that I would have gone, but I don't know for sure. It's easy to say how brave you'd be when you don't have to be.
CowboyGrandpa - thanks to Ben, Chief and you and all the others for being brave when you didn't have to be.
Reply-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
Thanks, many still suffer in quiet agony. Yet the wars continue with no thought of the insane harm to all of mankind. War creates madness and hatred. Those don't go away easily. It continues to spread because those in power fail to realize the folly of unjustifiable warfare.
I'm going to continue to post these as an answer to the war profiteers who don't want the public to see what war is.
They will answer one day for the blood on their hands.
Reply
-
-
0%
texangelwings7 months, 2 weeks ago
I am proud of you, your friends and the rest of our soldiers who faught for our Freedom. The video brought back a lot of memories of my friends who went to Vietnam.
War is never good. My father did not talk about WWII for years and then he said very little! His job was to go ahead of the troops to probe for bouncing betty's.
Thanks cowboygrandpa. Maybe some day we will learn to stop the fighting of war and start fighting for humankind!
Reply-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
texangelwings:
Maybe some day we will learn to stop the fighting of war and start fighting for humankind.
Amen.
Reply
-
-
0%
hurr17 months, 2 weeks ago
Glad you and Ben made it back to America. That was a troubling time.
Reply -
-
0%
canadianrancher577 months, 2 weeks ago
I will have to watch this later since dial-up would take awhile and have things to do,but may I ask a question? At times in my life I have felt guilty of things that have not happened to me and I know that the death of friends and the horror of war must be hard but how does one live with the idea that I made it and others didn't, I know that some would just put it down to fate or good luck but I would be always questioning myself why others died and I didn't, that thought would haunt me more than the horrors themselves.
Reply-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
cr57:
It's called survivor's syndrome. For years I didn't think I was worthy of survival. I drank, took drugs, self medicated, took risks that others called suicidal. At one point in time I felt indestructable. But I now know that my time wasn't up yet God has something for me to finish.
Hard very hard as some of those feelings came back at the grave site.
Believe me they do. When I came home and talked to chiefs parents. I felt like it should have been him talking to mine.
Thats another reason for this it is doing something to keep those who died alive in our memories.
Reply -
0%
icono17 months, 2 weeks ago
"....but how does one live with the idea that I made it and others didn't" ......
CR....When that wolf comes howling at the front door the coping is usually one long silent drink at at time.
And everyone has a different idea of what the "long silent drink" should be.
Reply
-
-
0%
rdy2rck7 months, 2 weeks ago
I was young and just remember TV footage. I just wish you guys came back with the respect you deserved.
Reply-
-
0%
rdy2rck7 months, 2 weeks ago
great point.But as young as I was I was still old enough to be sickened with TV coverage of you guys being spit at.Media bias is not new.
But I know vets to this day including two uncles who have a touch of what may be called bitterness? or less of a lack of ability to laugh?
I just wonder if a good homecoming would have helped.
But the ones I know have a fierce in your face attitude of pride.God Bless America.
Reply
-
-
-
0%
HannibalBarca7 months, 2 weeks ago
Up here in Heaven we stand together
Both the enemy and the friend
Till the end of time
Up here in Heaven
We are forever
There is only one God up here
The God of the world
I would imagine that Chief is smiling down on you and Ben,and I am sure he appreciates the drink.
Thank you for sharing this as it does make some of my hurts seem insignificant.
Reply -
0%
mntnman4447 months, 2 weeks ago
Makes anyone with a conscience wonder why any president would send our young people into another illegal and unneccessary war.But then,Bush had his chance to volunteer for Viet Nam and declined,choosing instead to let other people do it while he hit the bottle.
Reply -
-
0%
mntnman4447 months, 2 weeks ago
Another CCR classic that still applies to todays crop of chickenhawks...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu8voQT89Qk&feat...
Reply -
-
-
0%
HannibalBarca7 months, 2 weeks ago
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ycKD5Xh3mmM
To all those that never returned and to those who miss them
Cheers
Reply -
0%
gamahuche7 months, 2 weeks ago
No one could read your words or listen to the story they tell without being moved, CBGP.
I wish the very best to you and all your brothers who suffered and stood fast and made it from day to day and grieve for those who didn't return and for their nearest and dearest.
And all the more completely fail to comprehend why. once again, on this very day, more young men and women are paying such a terrible price for the folly and madness which is conquest and war.
NIMN!
Not in my name can I accept this.
Reply -
0%
miklkit7 months, 2 weeks ago
Thanks for this post cowboygrandpa.
In my neighborhood 5 enlisted/drafted. One stayed in the States. One went to Germany. Three of us went to Vietnam. One was killed, one wounded, and I got out ok. For me, the smell of death was the worst. It stayed in my nostrils for years.
I have CCR and others on my hd, and play them now and then. Never forget.
Reply-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
miklkit:
Yeah, that wretched stench. I remember the times of smelling it. The flies and the heat seemed to add to the sickening situation.
To this day when I smell death I flash to certain pictures in my mind.
That was one good thing about the rain it seemed to wash that smell away some. LOL
Reply
-
-
0%
AnteUp7 months, 2 weeks ago
Cowboygrandpa ~
I have a question I would like to ask you. Maybe I shouldn't - but I would really like your opinion. Who better to listen to than someone who served in VietNam? As always, you're free to say you don't want to talk about it - no hard feelings - ever.
I was wondering what you and your fellow Vets thought about
the behaviour of some of our troops - like Tiger Force or
the group at MyLai. Do you hold their commanders responsible,or just the men, or war in general?
Reply-
0%
cowboygrandpa7 months, 2 weeks ago
AnteUp:
This is all I'll ever say about it. I wasn't there and don't know what the situations were. What people say and do in war can be horrific. Perceptions are different. What I may percieve as a threat you do not. What I may percieve as needed you might percieve as excessive. Unless you were there you couldn't know.
Sadly this same kind of garbage is being thrown in the face of today's combatants.
The cong would use women and children to kill us. In the heat of battle or the threat of death you shoot first and figure it out later.
Probably not the answer you seek. It's the answer I have.
Reply
-
-
0%
klr607 months, 2 weeks ago
CBG, a great one again. I am sorry about Chief. He still remembers what you did for him & Ben, also. I would like to personally thank everyone for their heartfelt comments. This cannot go on-war-& I'm afraid it will. I feel so sorry for the men & women in Iraq & Afg.. God Bless Them, a safe return, while Bush is planning another war or troop surge before he leaves. God Bless the USA--------------
Reply -
0%
Pupi7 months, 2 weeks ago
God bless you, Cowboygrandpa, and all of your Brothers. May you at last feel the peace that only the Lord can give.
Reply -
0%
MonkeyBiz7 months, 2 weeks ago
Thanks Cowboy! That song has always been a sort of theme song for me. The video was a flashback for sure.
Like you and Bad, I too spent years and years drowning myself in alcohol and doing any drug I could get my hands on.
A few years ago, I and some of the guys who had survived with me over there got together again for the first time since 1969. There were a lot of tears shed and good times revisited, but the best thing that happened was a sense of validation and a feeling that I was not alone with the memories anymore.
Last November 10, a few of us met in Washington DC and marched in the parade celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Memorial Wall. People were lining the streets cheering and thanking us!! It was an amazing thing that I never in my wildest dreams could ever have imagine happen to Vietnam Vets.
- more -
Reply-
0%
MonkeyBiz7 months, 2 weeks ago
The last ten years or so, I have stopped hiding the fact that I am a vietnam vet. I have a Vietnam vet sticker on my bumper, a CIB decal in my back window, and a ranger tab below that.
If anyone wants to spit on me now, I won't lower my head in shame and walk away, I will introduce them to the up close and personal experience of fighting for one's life.
I will not allow any of the anti-Iraq war sentiment (which I share)to be taken out on the troops in front of me. They shouldn't have to go through what we did when they come home. They also should get the best care from the VA that is possible to provide.
Thanks Cowboy! From another dinky dow vet, WELCOME HOME BROTHER!!
Reply
-
-
-
0%
pre2master6 months, 2 weeks ago
Most of that I believe was archival media footage shot from journalists that were in the skirmishes with the troops.
I didn't see any Forrest Gump in there at all.
Reply
Add a Comment
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.