Necklaces
 

I never saw an ear necklace in Vietnam either. I never witnessed a mutilation of any body iby American troops in Vietnam. Our recon platoon, (What is it about these recon guys?) recovered a human skull from one of their old ambush sites. It had an entry hole right on top of the skull and they had it at company HQ in LZ Professional with a conical hat on top, until battlion made them take it out and bury it. the 1/501 and 1/502 of the 101st came into our AO May throuh July came into our AO to assist us in the Mothers Day Offensive, We were actually made op-con to the 101st for that time. Never saw ear necklaces on them either. I've never even seen a photograph of such a thing. I think it is one of those Vietnam myths.

176th AHC guns platoon had a skull. I think it went by the name of "Mother Musket". It was used with a bottle of firewater in initiations. I'm assuming it was something they acquired rather than created, but I don't know. Maybe someone here remembers it?

Too hardcore for me. :D

Grasshopper
 

At the top of the world


Ron

This whole thing sounds like a "Wannabee" story to me. I can't imagine wearing a necklace of ears in that climate. I'd heard guys where I worked telling war stories about having "Finger Necklaces" and after going the SF-180 route and getting their records I'd find out that they were Helicopter Mechanics and other MOS's that would be found in the rear. One of our "Resident War Heroes" told such outlandish stories that I just had to call him on it. He didn't know that I'd been a rifle company commander in the same Brigade where he had been a mechanic. What really tore it was when he said he went out on patrol with my company!

It's too bad that the Marine, lerp, Seal, and reserve sgt major, I used to work with got transfered. I never thought to ask him if he had one of them ear neglaces. I'll bet he did.

I did see a couple of dead charlies proped up a long side the road with a beer can in their hand along route 1 during tet. another one hanging from a tri pod in the perimeter wire. They were turning kind of green. I think the Marines in these CAP units were just trying to send a mesage to the local VC.

Wasn't going to comment on this cause it still seems strange. When I took over the platoon I heard one guy had an ear collection , he showed me a couple he had "curing" I told him to stop and told every one no mutilation. They might have done some before cause my CO kept telling me to make sure there was no mutilation. Some times , after a heavy contact , it was very hard not to mutilate them - minutes before they were trying to kill you and now you were standing over their boby - I think it's a very primitive urge almost like a celebration of life. Like Splummer saw they would sit them up and put cigarettes and beer cans in their hands and take pictures. If there was more than one body we would stack them up and put a frag with a smoke fuse under the bottom guy and set up a ways away. Always smiled when I heard the pop of the frag that night. Murderous days and nights.

DMZ!!!!!
 

If you had folks in your plt., that wanted to do what has been described, they must not have been taught, after action procedures. Or, maybe they should have been Sectioned 8, if that's all they had to do after a battle!!!!!
SF
NC

I saw or heard of nothing near what was portrayed in the articles. However, my short stint with the 3/22 ( leg unit) included a week at FSB Crook where there was an NVA human wave attack about 6 months earlier with some 600 or more dead. I noticed somone had put a human skull ( clean ) up on the barbed wire. I didn't ask any questions. A few months later near one of our hard spots, in the road were three dead VC or NVA. One of them appeared to have been hit in the head with an unexploded M-79 round. There were three ARVNs taking a whiz on his skull. As for killing civilians ( outside of a free-fire zone ) or mutilating bodies, didn't see or hear of it.

Larry

Some "Muskets" guns go through the initiation ceremony.