Vietnamese Ranger Insignia,Headgear & Uniforms.

[Gil Burket]

Dennis, great detective work!

I suspect there are a lot of items that are from the time period 1972 to 1975 that are not fully documented in US and Western sources. I have one to share once I am granted posted privileages.

[D. Michael Kim]

Mahalo Gil, and wecome aboard! It gives me great pleasure to be able to first share and second to help preserve history.

The contact that I have made will be a valuable source of ranger and other war related information.

One thing that he related was that the Quang Tri Victory Badge that is posted in the Vietnamese Marine Thread was also awarded to and worn by ranger and airborne units that fought to retake the province.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Hi Dennis,

diligence does indeed bring rewards!

I will be adding the description of the patch into my copy of the previously published work.

Superb effort and thankyou for sharing the information.

[D. Michael Kim]

Attached are two pictures of the front entrance to the Duc My Ranger Training Center in II Corps. The first is how it looked when I was there in '68, the last is a photo courtesy of Grunts taken over 40 years later.

[D. Michael Kim]

How it looks today!

[zvezdah1]

Interesting that they took the soldier statue down but left the pedestal!
Chris

[D. Michael Kim]

I believe that the statue was made of metal, and the victors would never leave any statue standing. I am sure it was recycled.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Quite a melancholy, sad air is conjured by the modern photo...can any of our Vietnamese speakers venture a translation?

[express06snail]

"Doanh Trại Quân Đội Nhân Dân Việt Nam" is mean "Barrack of People Army of Vietnam".
This place used to be Ranger Training Center of the RVNAF "Trung-Tâm Huấn-Luyện Biệt-Động-Quân DỤC MỸ" TTHL/BĐQ/DM KBC#### (I can't remember at the moment !!!), locate in the middle area of Vietnam which has a lot of beautiful beach, near Nha Trang. Every National Officer Cadet from Đà Lạt before graduate to become an officer must have spend 30 days training here to gain the Ranger Qualification badges. At Dục Mỹ training center, to gain the ranger qualification badges ones must passed 4 separate training named: Jungles, Mountains, Mud, and Swamps. The Ranger Badge, the RVN call it RNSL or "Rừng Núi Sình Lầy" badge.

[nguoi tien su]

Dennis, great you posted them !

With Beezman we took that picture while going from Nha Trang to Ban Me Thuot last april. Actually at the time we did not know that Duc My was on that road, but it was a great find.

[express06snail]

@NTS: wow, what a great job you and Beezman have done NTS !!!

[D. Michael Kim]

Francois and Oliver,

I had to post the different views of Duc My. Also I will be posting a insigne that I just picked up on the para thread above. Please look at it and my question.

Directly across the street of this entrance was the entrance to the compound for Advisory Team 99, which housed the advisors for the Ranger, Infantry and Artillery Schools which were in close proximity to each other. At night Rangers from Duc My provided guard duty and security for the compound. During my tour sappers infiltrated the infantry school and killed a large number of students. I do not remember being on any type of guard duty and were protected very well.

Enclosed is a photo of the 81mm mortar pit that was located in the center of the compound. It was manned by me, WO Arthur “Robbie” Robinson from the AATTV a well known Australian who I met again 35 years after leaving Vietnam, Captain Steve R. Tice a highly decorated SF officer and one other individual. As you can see I wore two types of head gear a cap and on the sandbag the beret.

Besides U.S. personnel, I had both Australian and Koreans under my command.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Dennis,

thanks for sharing more of your service memories, as far as it is possible to remember, can you recall any major differences in the allied militaries methods of instruction or did you all share an instruction "template"?

[Beezman]

Thanks for the great pic and info Dennis! Too bad we did not look across the road when we were there. If think I remember an empty field.

[D. Michael Kim]

Oliver, glad to share.

More information related to me on what happened after the fall of Vietnam, at Duc My.

After the North Vietnamese took over the country, they moved and established the country’s’ sapper school at the training center. However, over time a great many of the students became ill and the training center was closed, looted and abandoned.

May that have been a curse of the dead against the living? I would like to think so! Living or dead, the spirit of the Ranger's lived TO FIGHT another day.