laststandonzombieisland

3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, “the Golden Brigade,” arriving for their time in Vietnam in early 1968. Note everybody taking advantage of “smoke em if you got em,” as well as the camo M1 covers, M16A1s, several 173rd ABN Brigade combat patches, and heavy distribution of M79 bloop guns.

U.S Army photo. Typically held back as part of the U.S. Army’s very slim strategic reserve during the war, the 3,650 paratroopers of the Golden Brigade was rushed was to Vietnam in February 1968 as an emergency measure in response to the Tet Offensive.

Reminds me of this passage from a book that I was pleased to see on my son’s reading list, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried,

In addition to the three standard weapons–the M-60, M-16, and M-79–they carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive. They carried catch-as-catch-can. At various times, in various situations, they carried M-14s and CAR-15s and Swedish Ks and grease guns and captured AK-47s and Chi-Coms and RPGs and Simonov carbines and black market Uzis and .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handguns and 66 mm LAWs and shotguns and silencers and blackjacks and bayonets and C4 plastic explosives.

Lee Strunk carried a slingshot; a weapon of last resort, he called it. Mitchell Sanders carried brass knuckles. Kiowa carried his grandfather’s feathered hatchet. Every third or fourth man carried a Claymore antipersonnel mine–3.5 pounds with its firing device. They all carried fragmentation grenades–14 ounces each. They all carried at least one M-18 colored smoke grenade–24 ounces. Some carried CS or tear gas grenades. Some carried white phosphorus grenades. They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”