The day I became a US Marine

As you all know I was recruited recently to be in a war film as an actor. We weren’t told a lot about it at all, just to turn up to a central location, we’d be paid $110 for a day’s work and that there were about 25 of us needed. By ‘Us’ I mean white or black men aged between 19 and 34.

So I turned up, boarded a coach that was waiting at 6am for us and got chatting to some of the other people hired for the day. Everyone was pretty nice, chilled, a bit sleepy as it was an early start. We then got briefed on what we were doing as we set off leaving HCMC. The Vietnamese government had commissioned a film from one of the top SE Asian film studios to mark the 40th anniverary of the reunification of North and South Vietnam. Because of this, they needed 25 people to form a few squads of men acting out the role of the US marines in Bien Hoa. The film itself was to be called ‘The Red Road’ – The rough translation, anyway, and on the 30th april it would be shown across the largest TV stations throughout Vietnam! I was pretty excited that millions of people get to see me on TV 🙂

I managed to catch some sleep and woke up as we arrived. It was basically a clearing in the middle of a wooded/jungle area outside the city limits. We were issued our ‘kit’ including a real M-16. We realised a lot of the kit – webbing, backpacks and guns were actually authentic, which to be honest was a bit of an odd feeling.

What was stranger is that there we a number of mounds around the area with trenches behind them that were dug out very well and looked solid. I wondered how long this all took to make (The clearing, trenches, etc). When asked, one of the producers proudly tell me “oh hahaha no no, many years ago americans make it and run away, get shot by vietnamese, they attack.” Oh. Right. We were standing on the ruins of a base. Wow.

The huey and pilot

Anyway, no sooner as we had finished talking, two huey helicopters screamed in from somewhere and landed near us. Once all the dust had settled we were told to go over to them – One team in each.

My squad.

Inside the Huey – My M-16 and the minigun attached.

I never signed up for this. Holy shit, we get to go a helicopter. The scene was “Chopper lands in clearing, marines jump the hell out fast and run in single file off camera” – Sounds easy enough. Honestly though, Jumping in and out of a huey is actually harder than it looks with all the kit on. 7/8 people inside plus pilot, ‘gunner’ and co-pilot all running to get in within 10-15 seconds is pretty hard going. It took off fast, spun round and headed off. We only really had one take as the fuel for these things is fucking expensive, so we had to do it right. I should probably mention that there we no ‘windows’ as such, it goes straight outside into the sky. I should have probably mentioned I’m scared of heights, heh.

I should have probably mentioned, I am scared of heights. This is when it was circling round back to the woods/jungle.

As you can see from the video, It went pretty damn well for both teams. We landed, exited without a hitch and ran off camera.

We then were loaded onto a bus and moved maybe half a kilometer north, through the trees to another clearing, where a FULL GODDAMN MILITARY BASE HAD BEEN MADE.

The base at dusk – Probably the best picture of it before.. well.. read on.

There were 7 APC’s dotted around (Armored personnel carriers for those that have no idea- Troop transporters), a few watchtowers 4/5 tents set up around trenches and general.. military.. stuff just around. There was an artillery battery set up to the side and it was just very impressive all round to look at.

The APC detachment

The gun battery

We had a break for lunch, it was about then I realised how much I’d been sweating – I still had jeans under my trousers and a t-shirt on under my top. The prop company were funny about us wearing it straight off (probably to save money on cleaning it..) Still looked badass though.

Me, slightly sunburned and fully badass.

Anyway, we filmed more ‘generic base shots’ with us milling around, pointing, cleaning the guns (I took the opportunity to teach everyone how to actually cock the weapons and dry fire them ^^) and we had then another helicopter scene – This time the same thing but in reverse. Getting all our shit together then running into the huey for an emergency take-off. MORE AIRBORNE FUN.

Anyway. Night fell and we had to film the “patrolling the base / jungle in an APC” scene which was ace. I’d never been in one that actually moved before, so this was a new experience for me.

Me, in command of a large machine gun 🙂

This went on for a good few hours, and as we approached 10pm, the finale was being set up and talked about.

This involved the full scale NVA assault on the base, and we weren’t told very much except there would be a lot of pyrotechnics. All 7 APC’s lined up behind the base, and we had to run either side of them, to keep formation. I was hopeful the drivers knew what they were fucking doing as running 1 meter away from a fast moving APC with huge tracks is pretty inimidating, especially if you’re leading everyone else..

We practiced a few times and then on action, we ran. We prepared for the final take and usually the shout of “READY… ACTION!” let us know that filming had begun but this time.. “READY…. ** BOOM **”

There was a huge fucking explosion that made every sane person duck. Now I’ve seen pyrotechnics before but this was *huge* – You could feel it in your lungs. We ran like we’d never ran before as more and more huge fucking explosions went off. Bit of debris and sand went EVERYWHERE. Just as we were running out the base front door the watchtower – now with an added mannequin” exploded in a ball of flames, sending huge chunks of wood flying everywhere. Of course, I’d have loved to film this but sadly I only managed to spin round off camera and snap this.

The base, blown to hell. There was only a few bits left that weren’t on fire. Health and safety isn’t really a big thing here, incase you hadn’t realised.

As you can see.. there isn’t much base left at all. Everything else was blown to hell. I was covered in dirt, mud etc. We weren’t done filming yet.  We were then taken to the artillery battery and filmed loading and firing the things, repeatedly.

Anyway, about 1am we all piled back on the bus which took us back to HCMC. One of the best days I’ve had a since I got here. I met some utterly fantastic people, nearly got blown up, flew in a helicopter, twice and was in a moving APC. It was fantastic- I even got paid for it!

Tomorrow, I begin the trip up to Hanoi.

It’s 1,450 miles i’m gonna put my little bike through, and it’s going to be 20 days of riding and chilling out inbetween. Many guesthouses, probably a few mechanics, lots of coast and some beautiful views to come.

Hope you’re all well ❤

Cu Chi Tunnels, The American War and Catsitting

When you mention ‘Vietnam’ to most westerners like us, the first things that usually spring to mind is ‘War, Jungle, Strange food’. Well, that’s not wrong – But just how much do you know about these things? You might know of ‘The Vietnam War’ – As it took place here, but the Vietnamese refer to it as ‘The American War’ due to the thousands of American troops occupying and fighting against the north of the country.

So, why did it happen?

Well, at the time Vietnam was separated into North and South Vietnam – The north was a communist country lead by Ho Chi Minh and supported by the USSR, China and other communist comrades. The south, a democracy, was supported by Australia and the USA. During the time of the cold war, the USA could not let the entirety of SE Asia fall under Communist rule and was determined to keep an ally / foothold by supporting the South as long as possible.

North / South Vietnam divide

The war lasted nearly 20 years and escalated from the mid-60’s onward. This was a very different type of war; guerrilla tactics, a media led information system and support from both communist and anti-communist countries made this something the world had never seen before.

I am sure you are perfectly able to look into this more in your own time so I will jump straight to the mid-60’s where all out fighting between the US forces and South Vietnamese VS the NVLA (North Viet Liberation Army / Viet Cong) – The US has 250,000 ground troops against the NVLA’s 800,000 – 1 million. The US had the technology – The ability to bomb the living bejeezus out of everything with ease and the sheer firepower but the NVLA knew the land, the people, guerrilla and jungle warfare as for the past 25 years or so they had been fighting AN enemy – Within or externally. Vietnam itself is really 3 parts – Huge amounts of dense jungle interspersed with villages, large expanses of farmland and fields and cities. You can see why the US forces would have had a hard time here!

Thick Jungle

One of the main crunch points was Cu Chi, just north of Saigon. There were a network of tunnels originally built by the Vietnamese during WW2 and expanded upon during various conflicts that followed – Namely the war between north and south Vietnam – Inhabited by NVLA and the villages that supported them. These  tunnels are over 150km in total and at points were 3 tunnels on top of each other – some at ground level / trenches down to 2 meters, some at 5-6 meters and some at 10 meters deep.

Jungle living – These would be grouped, hidden in dense foliage

I took a trip out to Cu Chi to see the tunnels for myself. These are the huts similar to what the villagers lived in. These were hidden in thick jungle so were usually quite hard to spot – When the US forces did come across them, they largely ignored the americans. The villagers would take unused ammunition they would find from battles with the NVLA / US forces and break the shells and bombs down, and reassemble them into weapons for the NVLA to use – Like mines.

Disassambled shells and bombs.

The NVLA would live sometimes for weeks at a time in the tunnels – Only coming out when the villiagers would signal the coast was clear. Many suffered from parasites, malaria and worse. Food and air was scarce and they only had the most basic of instruments to dig with. Most tunnels grew only 2 meters in length each day with 3 men digging!

We had the option to go down into them to see – They’ve been reinforced a little more and widened for tourists up to 20% but still, being on your hands and knees and crawling TEN METERS underground is a pretty hairy experience. There are points where I literally had to crawl on my stomach to get through. These ones that people were actually allowed in were 150 meters long with “emergency exits” for freakouts and panic attacks every 25 meters or so. Out of 18 people in our tour group, only myself and one other managed to make my way along the whole of the tunnel without leaving the exits. One of the guys that bailed early was a US marine stationed over here at the embassy. I was a little proud of being one of two that made it through the whole way! 🙂

This might look tall but it’s about waist-to-head height. I had to crawl the entire way, and even flat on my stomach at points. Only parts of it had light.

Anyway, we were then taken to a showcase of traps – the NVLA and villagers alike lay some rather ingenious and extremely nasty traps for the US forces like the ones pictured below.

A ”window’ trap – A soldiers foot would tread in the gap between the spikes and they would fall a few feet into it onto some fabric, driving the spikes into their leg, similar to a bear trap.

Most of the spikes were covered in human or animal faeces to cause infection even after severe damage. Remember, these traps, like landmines, aren’t designed to kill instantly; they’re designed to instill terror and cause someone to be so severely wounded that other members of the unit have to tend to them – taking them away from fighting. Due to the screaming and the like involved, it would also more than likely give away a position.

We then got to go to the shooting range.

This was amazing fun and I will definitely be doing something similar soon. After buying some rounds we were all taken to the range where we were able to let loose on some targets (holding my M16 in a purposely first-person-shooter way for this picture ;)) It’s been a while since I fired a rifle but I forgot how much fun it can be.

M-16 Rifle and range.

A really good experience overall and really interesting to see things from the winners of the war perspective, rather than the media we’re exposed to. Ultimately for those that don’t know, the US forces pulled out of South Vietnam and the North mounted a full scale invasion a short while later. I will cover this in another blog soon though.

PS – I’ve now moved from a hostel living to a high rise apartment block overlooking the Saigon River – Two lovely Australian girls needed their cats looking after so let the room out for free for a month whilst they were gone in exchange for cat keeping and petting! Best of both worlds? I think so.

View to the East

View to the West