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Finding unit records of Vietnam units
fcdl
Member Posts: 158 ✭✭✭
Howdy fellows:
Hope someone can help me find the way to get unit records of units in Vietnam. I was with the 53rd Signal Bn. located at II Field Force Headquarters. I'm trying to get these for use with a VA claim. Don't know why they can't obtain them easier than I. VA is all but calling me a liar and I'm again ready for battle. I was in country 1/69 through 1/70. Hioe a VET can help me find out how I can get these records. Thanks.
Hope someone can help me find the way to get unit records of units in Vietnam. I was with the 53rd Signal Bn. located at II Field Force Headquarters. I'm trying to get these for use with a VA claim. Don't know why they can't obtain them easier than I. VA is all but calling me a liar and I'm again ready for battle. I was in country 1/69 through 1/70. Hioe a VET can help me find out how I can get these records. Thanks.
Comments
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/evetrecs/index.html
for a copy of your DD214
W.D.
For those of you who are interested in obtaining the records of any Marine/Army unit while it was in Nam there's a computer site where you can obtain these records for free. These records will come out as Adobe reader files and can be saved onto your computer and you can even make your own hard copies of these records.
The following are the direction to this site and how to download your files.
Accessing Marine Corps Command Chronology's TT University Viet Nam Project
1. Access the main Vietnam portal at: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/
2. Access I'm Interested in: "Researching in the Collections"
3. On the bottom left hand corner click: "Search the Virtual Vietnam Archive."
On the page you have just accessed, to find the documents you are interested in fill in the following:
(Use the following example to access your first document)
(a) Line one - Key word/Item: Marine Corps
(b) Line two - your unit, i.e., 3D BN 26th Marines, 3D BN 5th Marines, etc.
(c) Document Title: Command Chronology
(d) Date/Span: dates you're looking for, i.e., 12/1/1967 to 12/30/1967
Click Search on the left hand side of the page, this will bring up your document(s)
Click Display Search Results, this will display the Document(s)
Click and to download, view or save the document in PDF format.
Good luck
Randy
Kilo 3/26 '68'
Mike 3/5 '69-70'
Discharge is nice- but mine comes along with the coffin- I'm retired, but not discharged. What you want is your Form DD 214. Service in VietNam shows up there, along with awards/decorations.
I would just like to add, that when I left "Nam" in '66 my Service Record was not up to date, with awards/decorations. Years later, I was told to also request the DD-215 record page (attachment to the DD-214 page) and it had my awards/decorations, earned after I left Nam.
I also was seeking Unit reports, and the following posts here, may help me obtain what I'm looking for !
Thanks Men !
Ski
Randy Williams
USMC
Ordnance
quote:Originally posted by RPelt
You can download any unit diaries from http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/
For those of you who are interested in obtaining the records of any Marine/Army unit while it was in Nam there's a computer site where you can obtain these records for free. These records will come out as Adobe reader files and can be saved onto your computer and you can even make your own hard copies of these records.
The following are the direction to this site and how to download your files.
Accessing Marine Corps Command Chronology's TT University Viet Nam Project
1. Access the main Vietnam portal at: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/
2. Access I'm Interested in: "Researching in the Collections"
3. On the bottom left hand corner click: "Search the Virtual Vietnam Archive."
On the page you have just accessed, to find the documents you are interested in fill in the following:
(Use the following example to access your first document)
(a) Line one - Key word/Item: Marine Corps
(b) Line two - your unit, i.e., 3D BN 26th Marines, 3D BN 5th Marines, etc.
(c) Document Title: Command Chronology
(d) Date/Span: dates you're looking for, i.e., 12/1/1967 to 12/30/1967
Click Search on the left hand side of the page, this will bring up your document(s)
Click Display Search Results, this will display the Document(s)
Click and to download, view or save the document in PDF format.
Good luck
Randy
Kilo 3/26 '68'
Mike 3/5 '69-70'
Discharge is nice- but mine comes along with the coffin- I'm retired, but not discharged. What you want is your Form DD 214. Service in VietNam shows up there, along with awards/decorations.
Sure, you've been discharged. You don't get a DD214 except at discharge. I've got 5 of them. 4 are discharges with immediate reenlistment and 1 is a discharge for transfer to the Retired Reserve, although I'm no longer eligible for recall (too old).
I know what you mean, though. Just yanking a chain.[:D]
You are correct, though. It should be fairly easy to get copies of a DD-214. The fire at the St Louis Record Center didn't affect Vietnam era records.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/II_Field_Force,_Vietnam_(United_States)
Little More.
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD507319
quote:The 54th and 53d Signal Battalions, supporting I Field Force at Nha Trang and II Field Force at a base camp called Plantation near Long Binh, were corps signal battalions, modified to operate in Vietnam. The main command posts of both the field forces, unlike those of corps, were semipermanent and did not deploy. There were also other differences between the operations of a field force and a doctrinal corps, and these differences were reflected in the communications that were provided to field force headquarters and corps headquarters in Vietnam.
The principal peculiarity of field force signal communications resulted from the need to supplant traditional wire with mobile multichannel radio relay systems across the miles that separated the base camps of the subordinate units. Multichannel radio systems were extended to lower levels than ever before. In some instances, multichannel service was provided as low as artillery battery level whereas, by accepted doctrine, normal corps systems terminate at artillery group level. Both corps signal battalions were capable of operating approximately eighteen multichannel radio relay links. It was normal to connect all U.S. combat troops and those of Free World Military Assistance Forces within the field forces' tactical areas of responsibility with the field force headquarters. In addition, it was common practice to employ circuits and systems of the 1st Signal Brigade's Corps Area Communications System to provide alternate routing.
Each of the two field forces had a distinct and separate method of employing the resources of the Corps Area Communications System to supplement the organic communications; each had a specific reason. The II Field Force, operating in the relatively flat and populous III Corps Tactical Zone, used the corps area circuitry as alternate routing for its own combat system. In essence, the Corps Area Communications System and the II Field Force's combat communications system were interconnected throughout III Corps
DD-214's are given at separation which usually is not discharge. Of course things could have changed in the last 42 years.
Every time I reenlisted from 1965 until the start of my last enlistment in 1980, I was honorably discharged and received an honorable discharge certificate.
That was the Army. Maybe other services do it differently.