1 of 12: #TDIDH - May 10, 1969

19-year-old Sergeant James Spears: “Have you ever been inside a hamburger machine? We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine-gun fire.”

[images enhanced by @Erikhistorian]
2/12: Military planners referred to the 3,000 foot tall highland as "Hill 937." North Vietnamese Army (NVA) fighters called it "The Mountain of the Crouching Beast." Members of the
@101stAASLTDIV
knew it as a version of hell on earth. We would come to know it as Hamburger Hill.
3 of 12: Over the coming 10 days, this hill would serve as a metaphor for war itself.

We're going deep into this story in the coming days.
4 of 12: The thickly forested rock sits about 60 miles south of Khe Sanh, about a mile from the Laos border, in the A Shua Valley.

Hill 937 overlooked a supply route for North Vietnamese troops along the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
5 of 12: The valley had long been a staging area for NVA units preparing to attack the coastal provinces. The @TheRakkasans were to clear the region of Vietnamese fighters. This meant taking Hill 937.
6 of 12: 52 years ago today, four battalions of 101st Airborne Paratroopers began a pitched battle against the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment.

[while the 29th was among the most experienced North Vietnamese units, this was a reconstituted force post-Tet with many "green" troops]
7 of 12: For the next 10 days, the Rakkasans sent assault after assault after assault up the hill. Each time the men faced an experienced North Vietnamese regiment, entrenched defenses, steep slopes, and treacherous weather.
8 of 12: The North Vietnamese fighters repulsed the American paratroopers over and over again.
9 of 12: Hamburger Hill would become one of the most controversial moments of a controversial war.
10 of 12: It served as the scene of some of the toughest fighting members of this Corps witnessed in Vietnam. The paratroopers of the 101st acquitted themselves with honor and valor in horrific conditions.
11 of 12: Hamburger Hill would serve as the source of many myths in the decades after that battle. One of them has been debunked by Dr. Erik Villard (pictured) and others.
END: Specifically, MAC-V did NOT abandon the hill after the battle. American forces built a road to the top and put tanks on it. Here is photo of one those tanks in July 1969, given to Dr. Villard by a Hamburger Hill veterans

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More from @18airbornecorps

9 May
We hope you and your Families are enjoying a relaxing Mother's Day Sunday.

This Tuesday we'll continue the 70-year story of the XVIII Airborne Corps with the period between 1962 and 1973.

For now, let's recap the history from 1951 to 1962.

[1 of 5] Image
[2 of 5]

In this first portion of our documentary, we cover the Corps' rebirth and the years 1951 to 1953. The Corps was just coming together on Fort Bragg.
[3 of 5]

Next up, the years 1953 to 1958. This period saw the 101st Airborne joined the Corps and big training exercises on Bragg and Campbell.
Read 5 tweets
7 May
Many are talking about Episode 27 of the 18th Airborne Corps podcast, which tells the incredible, inspiring story of Army Lt Colonel Ken Nguyen. Ken's story is one shared by many Vietnam war refugees, ~ 1.3M of whom now live in the US.

[1 of 7]
Ken was born in Saigon in 1975, just before the capital of S. Vietnam fell to the communists. His father [pictured here, 1959 with Ken's Mom], an LTC with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), was captured, tortured, & forced into hard labor & political indoctrination
[2/7]
This picture of Ken's family (Ken is the baby) in March 1975 is the only photo the family was allowed to keep; all other photographs of Ken's Dad in uniform, along with any remnants of his uniform, were destroyed by the communists.

[3 of 7]
Read 7 tweets
6 May
All month we're honoring the 70th anniversary of the rebirth of the XVIII Airborne Corps, a unit established on Fort Bragg on May 21, 1951.

One of the main symbols of the Corps to the world is the Iron Mike statue on Fort Bragg.

Here is Iron Mike's story.

[1 of 21]
[2 of 21]

The story starts with this man. You know Robert Sink. He commanded the 506th (aka the 5-Oh-Sink) in WWII and is portrayed by Dale Dye in Band of Brothers (and Robert Gould in A Bridge Too Far). There's also a Distinguished Visitors house on Bragg named after him.
[3 of 21]

Well, you may not have known that Robert was the 6th commander of the XVIII Airborne after its rebirth in 1951. He commanded the corps from 1957 - 1960.

In 1958, Sink ordered his staff to build a monument representative of the Corps.
Read 21 tweets
1 May
This unit, the XVIII Airborne Corps, was established toward the end of WWII for a single purpose: to command and control all the airborne forces during the final airborne assaults planned to strike into Holland and Berlin and end the war.

[1 of 11]
[2 of 11]

Once the Germans surrendered, this Corps was no longer needed and was promptly deactivated.

By 1951, however, the world was once again in conflict.
[3 of 11]

A new war was raging in Korea that required an enormous commitment of forces. Even more ground troops were needed to keep the Soviet Union in check.

For this latter requirement, 70 years ago this month the XVIII Airborne was reborn on Fort Bragg.
Read 11 tweets
29 Apr
[1 of 22]

THE SHORT LIFE AND FAST TIMES OF THE VANGUARD BRIGADE

A Top Of The Marne Week thread
[2 of 22]

The story of the 3rd Infantry Division's short-lived 4th Brigade Combat Team is the saga of the Army's modularity redesign, a series of ambitious force structure changes intended to move the Army from a division-focused force to a BCT-focused force.
[3 of 22]

It's a confusing tale: the story of a combat force built while deploying, then restructured while deploying, then shut down. It’s also the story of the remarkable ability of the American Army’s NCO corps to adapt to change.
Read 22 tweets
26 Apr
25 years ago today, April 26, 1996, at 9AM, the 24th Infantry Division, stationed on Fort Stewart, Georgia since 1975, cased its colors in a formal ceremony on Cottrell Field.

Minutes later, the division reflagged as the 3rd Infantry Division.

[1 of 7]
[2 of 7]

3ID, initially formed for entry into WWI, served in West Germany throughout the Cold War. The Rock of the Marne had moved from Germany to Fort Stewart to start a new life.

The Clinton Administration's focus on force reduction in Germany brought about this action.
[3 of 7]

In the 1990s, President Clinton looked to drastically cut the Army and reduce our military footprint in Germany.

Clinton was put in office on his domestic agenda and with the Cold War over, we no longer needed a massive, multi-division land force in Germany.
Read 7 tweets

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