I remember my grandfather spent countless hours with me in the woods, telling me the difference between footsteps and how heavy they are. He was in Vietnam as well, and he could pretty much hear some leaves rustle and tell exactly what animal it was. Kinda cool, I pretty much can just tell if it’s a four-legged animal or a human lmao
What about Sasquatch and Dogman? In Vietnam they’re called rock apes… So a large bipedal creature at around 8 feet tall would sound different? I dunno i’m kinda crashin and burnin in this comment..
My father was in Nam, man, he can't hear anything anymore. Acoustic trauma. One day at work, one of my first with him, I was walking up behind him and he was jolted. It pissed him off so bad, If I remember right he threatened to break my neck, and told me to make noise next time...I wasn't "sneaking" as he claimed. Got to respect those old boys who served in Nam, all politics aside, simply because of how hardcore the Vietnamese are.
Depends on what jungle. Local knowledge is what's most important. There's a lot of different jungles, and a lot of different animals, insects and plants that can kill you. Someone who grew up and thrived in one jungle could be totally screwed in another.
That's where I stopped watching. I doubt he's ever had to survive for a month on his own in the jungle. I've seen Les Stroud do a week before and how much that took out of him. This guy is talking out of his ass trying to sound cool. Any way you cut it that's the truth of that line.
I love the Keyboard Warriors flexing on the Jungle Warfare/Survival experts' flex. We know he has spent time in the jungle, can't say the same for the commenters here.
My father was in the 25th infantry division in Vietnam 1967-68. He also thought the ambush patrol scene in Platoon to be the most realistic, except for the ponchos as his battalion was instructed not to wear them at night as they were too shiny. Of course that doesn't mean battalion was the same, but that was his experience. In any case, once during ambush patrol my father woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of men marching. His rifle was just out of reach, just like in the movie. As it turned out the marching men were a company of either NVA or VC, around 200 guys, passing through. The ambush patrol was a 28 man platoon. My father recalled how he hoped no one would sneeze, snore or open fire, because to do so would have been suicide. My father described how he felt like his heart would pound out of his chest and seemed so loud that he feared it could be heard. As luck would have it, the company passed through without incident, none of them apparently aware of how close they came to stepping on American soldiers. Upon debriefing, the Battalion colonel was angry the men didn't engage, but the Company Captain (Kessler, I think his name was) defended the men under his command saying they shouldn't have sacrificed themselves for no real gain. As a side note regarding wounds, my father observed that generally those that got shot were calm and quiet, while those who had been injured in explosions (mines, booby traps, grenades etc. ) would scream and freak out. I've always wondered how common that is.
I believe he was going to say it could take hours to move 100 yards in a jungle due to the harsh terrain. I was apart of a arctic warfare unit in the army. It took us hours to travel a few hundred meters through a snowy environment because the snow was so deep. So deep that snowshoes didn’t work well. I’m sure this concept translates into the jungle. Not snow but vines and brush that is especially hard to get though while carrying gear.
I was never a soldier or in a jungle, but when I was younger I backpacked in national forests in the US. One night we heard an animal be caught and consumed by something. Probably a badger. That is freaky to hear. Whatever was being eaten must have suffered enormously by the sounds it made. Just this frantic panicked terror. It was weird just lying there in the dark listening to that
I go hunting and that is something I don't want to hear, I heard a beaver cried before, scared me shitless, just last year I also got scared by 2 owl hooting feet away from me while climbing a tree with my climber for deer hunting, im such a wuss when it comes to night in the forest, it's a whole different animal when night to morning comes
Next video, "Pizza delivery driver reacts pizza delivery scenes in movies" Pizza delivery guy: "If there was a real pizza in that box he'd have burned his hands holding it like that. Hey, he's supposed to deliver the pizzas, not have sex with everybody... what movie is this?!"
@Jerry Gallo so you don't think a navy SEAL is an expert in various forms of combat? I'm pretty sure the whole point of SEAL teams is that they're made up of experts.
i was a 11C for 20 years. That WW2 60mm actually does have a sight on it. The sight for the WW2 era 60 is much different from the M64/ M64A1 sights that have been used since the Vietnam era. I bought a demilled 60mm WW2 Mortar from IMA-USA with all the WW2 era gear including the sight. The one on the 60 in the Pacific is spot on. Good vid BTW.
As a marine, who now teaches survival classes, I gotta say, this guy is on point with his info. I also know I can survive for however long it takes in survival mode. I spent three years away from society, living in a deeply wooded area with zero help from society other than my knife.
@Karl with a K yet all that wonderful gear can (and at some point definitely will), only operates for so long (what you gonna do when the batteries run out, also, is it emp shielded, if not, easy way to take you out), and more can go wrong with it. Heated suits malfunction on the regular causing severe burns to the wearer, some have even caught fire. Even the best knives break eventually, what you gonna do if you can't make a new one? What if you survive a plane crash, but your gear is lost, and you gotta survive?
@@Fireclaws10 Yeah, I was surprised when I heard that a modern soldier has to carry more weight than the amount of weight a XVI century full plated armored knight would carry. There is all this misinformation of medieval knights being all clunky and heavy, but in reality a modern soldier carries way more weight. Of course they carry more things, but still.
My father was combat infantry in Vietnam and then went to Panama to teach jungle survival. One of the few things he'd tell me about his time was that he and a buddy would sleep during the day whenever they could, then at night they would sit up all night, back to back.
@@mikakorhonen5715 Really? That's not what the 3 wounded men, in 3 separate trips, whom he carried to the chopper thought after his platoon was ambushed. Especially not the one who took his "spot" on that helo. He instead crawled back amongst his dead friends to see who else he could save. Heh...they found his weapon and declared him dead until he arrived back at camp a few days later with what was left of his platoon. So before you go insult a great man, ask yourself if you'd have the sheer will to survive what he did?
@@Charlie_Rowe There is two aspects in this. First, if you read carefully your first message it sounds like your dad did not do much, sleeping during day and sitting all nights. Your text was funny. Second thing is America's world police role and sticking their nose everywhere. This would not be possible if your average intelligence were higher and country had better education system. You just start wars to kill uneducated men in masses on the other side of the world. Those men aren't heroes, just sheeps send in to meat grinder and if they come back alive very little support is provided. Its hard to break humanity from person, so all effort is put to break his mind. You call it military training. I call your dad brainless sheep if he killed single person.
@@mikakorhonen5715 With all its faults, America is still a greater country than most others. Certainly a lot better than Socialist Finland, that's for damn sure. Why do you think Lauri Törni left?
My grandpa was a mortarman with the British Army fighting the Japanese in Malaya and Singapore, alongside the ANZAC troops during ww2. That scene in The Pacific, the American 60mm mortar is accurate for that time. That mortar sight that Rami Malek's character is looking through, is actually the sight for it.
I thought it was accurate too , simply because it looked like the training aids models that you would use for combat lanes , not mortar training , but op4 position.
I remember reading about the Malayan Emergency from the late 40's to late 50's. Helicopters were very new tech at that time, nowhere near as reliable as those in Vietnam. So the SAS tried something called "tree jumping", the idea being that you parachuted onto the jungle where the canopy of the chute "would" catch on the branches of the trees and you'd use ropes to abseil down to the forest floor. A number of fatalities and serious injuries quickly led to the practice being reconsidered as... unsafe.
Haha reminds me of an old corporal I knew, telling us about how they used to do 'rolling insertions' out of trucks, back in the day. Theory was, there's a few ways that an enemy can track troop transports driving into an area from very far away and use that to determine where the troops were inserted. Rolling insertion, meant the trucks would drive in and out of the target area without stopping and the infantry would have jump out the back and literally tuck and roll. This way the enemy would just see a convoy drive in and turn around without a clue as to where they'd dropped of the men. Buuuut for obvious reasons they stopped this after people kept breaking their legs.
@@J_Stronsky 30 years ago I did that in basic training. We jumped from a flatbed truck landing beside it facing the same direction as the truck. First time the truck was moving so slow, we just landed on our feet and had to force ourselves to roll. Then we did it a bit faster (still slow for a moving truck) and rolling was just natural. It would totaly work if you had some form of cover otherwise you'de be easily spotted by any observers.
The role & tactics of helicopters is still being adjusted. The community recently wanted to take the lead in "deep strike" attack missions far forward of the close brigade fight. During the Iraq invasion one of these attacks ended disastrously for us. Not sure if they decided to abandon it completely but they suspended it for the rest of the war I believe.
I've spent time in the jungles of Guadalcanal with the natives. Hunted Pigs with spears and dogs over a number of days. Conditions were brutal. Heat was almost unbearable when combined with the humidity. Found a P-38 Lightning , Stuart tank, Thompson machine guns, M1911's, bayonets' and a lot of other war memorabilia. Insects and Snakes were the main problem.
Same! MOST HATED & LOVED Senior drill sargeant on base, everyone loved him to death but every god damn fucker talked shit about his method,... that’s prob why we were the best trained!!
"The Pacific" was fantastic. Of course there were a few inaccuracies and a little dramatics, it's a show. But, the way it was able to portray the brotherhood, intensity, the service, sacrifice, suffering, and seemingly senselessness of mechanized warfare to those on the ground was pretty amazing. The long lasting damage and human cost. For someone who has never been in combat, it is a humbling, terrifying, and respectful glimpse of what it was like for the heroes who have. It is impossible to imagine the horrors experienced by those who serve in war, but with well portrayed stories like "The Pacific", "Band of Brothers" and others like them it makes it a little easier to try.
He was my Drill Sergeant and taught us how to make snare traps during FTX. Really cool DS and actually wanted privates to learn. How funny it is to see him on a UA-cam video 6 years later. He told us some of these same stories.
Props to this guy this is actually the best one of these I've seen. Good balance of ripping on the film and actual exp/ procedure. Jocko phoned his in like, "Yeah we do that. No we don't do that..."
I love that for the "jungle warfare" clip from The Pacific, they choose the assault on the Peleliu airfield, which was an island that's literally just a chunk of coral, rather than showing the jungle scenes from Guadalcanal or Cape Gloucester
@skyZZo Absolutely, when i was an 11C we learned on the 60mm mortar we didn't use sights. Your not going to run aiming stakes in a firefight like that.
and he botches the clip since he complained about misuse of the mortar but it was actually used right: he used the sight, the SFC just didn’t know that he was using it! 🤣
We'll forget what that last guy said. Thank you for posting a video on jungle. Old man was Scout and I believe LRRP/LRP ('67-'69) in Vietnam. You're spot-on, minus moving in the water back then. UDTs taught them a lot and Aussies taught them how to replace those knee-to-elbow movements by replacing what they'd touched. 2 weeks, 60-80 lb. packs was the average mission. It changed in '68, so they were asked to engage, interrogate and annoy company-sized forces with booby traps and body snatches with only 4 or 5 men. So, even though you're spot-on with "predator" and "rambo", he still loved those movies >:p Thanks again, this was good.
Yeah, people do not realize, some parts are just impossible to pass through. Not with a broadsword, not even with a flamethrower. At certain places, you take two steps away from the path and in 3 seconds you are being eaten alive by hundreds of bugs and even plants. It happened with me in Cambodia and Thailand as well. One day I will go to Vietnam and Amazonas too. We camped between the ocean and the wild jungle for 6 weeks and kept telling arriving 'tourist' people not to sleep in the jungle, sleep on the sandy beach but people barely listened. It is so romantic to sleep there. Less sun, etc. They had like 50 ticks next day, so tiny, almost impossible to notice. Bacteria is so strong there, one tiny cut if not taken care for, will not heal but grow and spread to other scars through the blood! One French guy almost lost his leg, started from a scratch as he was oblivious. And the sound, yes, it is just mindblowing loud level sometimes, haha yeah. Also the singing bugs, when they gather, omg, at first I thought I have found a dimensional gate to some other world, I could not even think, it was so dominant... But still, I would not call anything else as home as the south pacific jungle. So many species, variation of plants and aninals, it is pure breathing life force; so vivid, so raw, it is god in and as the physical. It can change your perception forever. You either become the jungle or will hate it. Respect to the dude, to keep going back there and even fight, takes a special type of courage.
I was military and had minimal jungle training, but I did a week in a tropical jungle and man. The mosquitoes, spiders, centipedes, snakes, boars, constant 34+°C, the constant humidity and frequest rain, the mud, the rashes. The shower I finally took at the end of that week stung every part of my body, but felt absolutely amazing. The best shower of my life by FAR. My appreciate for baths and showers skyrocketed after that experience. Man, hundreds, literal HUNDREDS, of bites and stings within a week. I woke up with a spider on my neck poised to bite(front legs up all that), my buddy accidentally dove into an ant nest while training. He spent the next 30mins trying to get ants off his body and ended up with bites all around. We would walk around with a dark cloud of mosquitoes surrounding us. The jungle is probably, the most brutal environment where you can fight a war in. Lugging your equipment on uneven ground, up and down constant hills and slopes and the environment that's trying to eat you alive.
25th ID vet here. Was there between 03-06 with a year of that spent in Afghanistan. I attended a jungle tracking school while in Hawaii, but at the time, the 25th didn't have their own instructors. I was trained by instructors from the Malaysian Army. Still have my certificate and t-shirt. It's definitely a skill you have to stay on top of to remain sharp in the field.
Old guy story: We are teenagers watching Rambo 2. Only seats were front row, left side, and people sitting in the isle. Every time Rambo kills hand to hand, my buddy yells..."Water Monster!!!"..."Mud Monster!!!"..."Bush Monster!!!" He had 100 people cracking up the entire movie. BEST TIME EVER!!!
From the pictures that my dad bought back from his 3 combat tours in Vietnam, I didn't see many with him in camo face paint, and he was white with a bald head. Maybe that's why he was shot 9 times. Great video and thank you for your service. Greetings from Fayetteville/ Ft.Bragg. RIP dad Gary Goofy Grape Gilmer 5th SFG camp A325 Duc Hue
@@cannibalbunnygirl Man must have been built like a tank 😂, My one of my grandpa's was shot in the leg and he'd always show his grandkids the dip he had from it
12:02 I did the math once, and depending on the rate of fire the gun was set to, it would have been anywhere from about 98 pounds all the way up to 176 pounds for the ammo. That doesn't include the gun or the power supply, just the ammo. He burned through anywhere from about 2640 rounds on the top end, down to about 1470 rounds on the bottom end. I'm assuming it was closer to the 176 though, since it was probably configured for aircraft usage considering he stole it off the helicopter
@@MrNeosantana Same with foxes. I nearly called the police when I first heard what sounded like a woman screaming, until a friend told me it was a foxes mating call.
I think he did that for Rambo too. I get his point about the dragging scene though, but that mud scene seems like a legit method. Maybe the guy DID see tracks, but just figured he could handle it? And he did, right up to the hilt....
At the very end, talking about how the jungle is constantly screaming: My father did a stint in Vietnam as MOS 18E (because it had the longest training time/shortest time over there), and one of the locals he worked with claimed to understand what the monkeys were saying, and he was right often enough that Dad believed him. And if it ever goes completely quiet in the jungle, well, that means the animals sensed something before you did, and that deafening silence is about to become a deafening loudness.
And imagine that there are many tribes that flourish in jungle environments today. Even walking barefoot through the forest! Mad respect to these people.
They survive, don't flourish. There is a South African expert (I don't remember his name, he was with Joe Rogan in his podcast) that he went to jungles in America, and met a tribe of people who lived in isolation but adopted the Spanish accent of the slavery period. Being an expert in jungle survival he always goes with a cameraman and a medic, the locals then have a great opportunity of be treated with modern medicine. One three year old child was affected by asthma, the medic did improve his condition but confessed in private to the expert "I doubt that that child will reach adulthood".
I don't think anyone ever thought the Predator unit's gear was accurate to real life but no one can deny that when they all cut loose its one of the best scenes in action films mostly due to the mini gun
The minigun they used isn't actually man portable. It requires an electrical hook up that limits it to vehicle installation. They had the power feed hooked to a generator just out of the camera's view.
Dude, thanks for your service! I was a boy scout, I learned alot. I could for sure thrive in the woods. I hunt, fish, and farm and I'm good at it! It's a skill you actively practice, like playing a sport. Love and bless!
“You just have to be good, at being uncomfortable.” Wise words, and applicable to any success in life. Its NEVER easy. Its always work. Much of it NOT what you wish you were doing. Every promotion, transfer, career shift or risk taken.....all filled with anxiety and fear. Every time your kid gets their heart broken......you just have to be good at being uncomfortable sometimes. If I don’t exercise like a maniac, I go insane. I become depressed, anxious, and withdraw from the world. Something about pushing my body to exhaustion, helps my mind to STFU. The discomfort of a long run, the hate I feel for leg day, being unable to put a shirt on because my arms are so tired......somehow makes my piddly mind games more tolerable.
Second paragraph was especially spot on. Totally agree. Particularly for me, an hour of exercise a day keeps the depression away. Sometimes you’re comfortable BECAUSE you’re uncomfortable, if that makes sense.
@@kevinc8955 Sisyphus had it right, though not by his own choice. Do something seemingly pointless forever because it's infinitely better than trying to find meaning in an ultimately completely meaningless world - and life. The feeling of pure exhaustion after a great workout, that's a zen moment if something.
My husband has very bad anxiety and depression from a truly horrendous childhood of abuse and doing martial arts is the one thing that settles his mind enough to help with it. Even better than medication.
@@woodworkerroyer8497 That was funny....I am picturing it in my head The crew packs up in like 30 seconds, he is still talking for 20 minutes in a dark room
I just wanted to let Sgt. Steven Mason know this he is by far Expert I've seen on this channel. Very entertaining but even more educational and surprising emotional take on all these scenes. At 14:50 my eyes started to get a little watery, you can feel the emotion in what he says. Well done sir, and great job on this segment Insider
@@ThuggishDD if you ever seen Anaconda movie that filmed at Borneo That just show you a glimpse at how Borneo's Jungle at the time It's even worse when you, say, can go back in the '60s and visited Borneo's Jungle, man it will drive you insane, and yes big snakes there, not anaconda but python But nowadays Borneo's Jungle is nothing but a memory
This very scene caused a Friend of my Dad's who was a Green Beret in Nam to have a flashback in the theatre. He was tossing people everywhere, spent a few months at the VA after it.He has passed on now from agent orange,but a true American hero.luckily he didn't seriously injure anyone but was a sad situation. The way Oliver Stone filmed it with he heartbeat sound effect makes it realistic. RIP Truman Darly
I was very surprised when he said combat takes place at 5-10 meters. If that’s true, why are rifles even needed. Shotguns and SMGs would be about as effective. People go on about the AK-47 being inaccurate at ranges over 200 yards, but range clearly means Jack shit in cases like this.
I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam 1968-69. I served 21 years with 3 years in combat. Vietnam was the hardest year. We operated in different environments: coastal, rice paddies, mountains, and dense jungle. I can't speak to the Army, but to me, the movie Platoon was a total joke. However, I'm sure there were realistic scenes as well. A bunch of bad ass dudes wearing bandanas and not having much in the way of discipline. However, I agree with your comments about the monsoon scene and the included emotions. By the them the monsoon season arrived in Vietnam, I was already mentally and physically exhausted. I was also emotional at that time because of all the casualties I had in my platoon. And then the monsoon came and it just rained constantly. It was impossible to keep anything dry. Already worn out uniforms began to rot and easily tear. The poncho was about as effective in keeping you dry as a bathing suit in the ocean. It's hard to explain to people who have not experienced long term combat without much rest. I only used the poncho to cover me and my advanced squad at night using a map to give patrol orders. I learned when it was my turn to sleep for an hour, I could just lay down in the mud in the driving rain and fall asleep until my radio operator woke me up for my turn on radio watch. We were so under strength that I didn't have a platoon sergeant and I needed my platoon guide on the defensive perimeter at night. That left me and my radio operator to stand radio watch all night. Because exhaustion was such an issue, my rule was one hour on watch and one hour to sleep because it was nearly impossible to stay awake much more than and hour no matter how hard you tried. The war in Vietnam difficult. During the dry season it was brutally hot with all of our combat gear on. Resupply was uncertain and so one C-Ration had to last 2-3 days. I lost 20 pounds that year and I was in great shape when I arrived in Vietnam. I went from 160 pounds to 140 pounds and I have the photograph to prove it. Two thirds of the way through my tour, I looked like starving POW. I wasn't a POW, but I was hungry most of the time. My platoon was brought back to the battalion cantonment a couple of times for 3 days of "rest". The battalion was in the middle of nowhere and while my platoon was there for "rest" we were required to stand the defensive lines on the battalion perimeter at night. Not much in terms of rest. During our 3 days at battalion , we had hot chow. My Marines ate like pigs, but I was so used to C-Rations that the greasy hot "normal" food made me sick so I ate C-Rations instead. Side Note: We joked that if we were killed, the mortuary wouldn't have to embalm us because the preservatives in the C-Rations had already done the job. BTW, all but a couple of the C-Rations were just disgusting, but it's amazing what you will eat when you are hungry. My favorite was the Turkey Loaf, followed by the "beef steak" which I would BBQ over a heat tab to crisp it up a bit. One of my favorite memories regarding food in Vietnam was the innovative ways Marines tried to make C-Rations eatable. The list is too long but included pouring Cocoa Powder into the Beans and Franks just to make it different. But one day, we found a bush with tiny peppers on it. One of my Marines bit into it and instantly became nearly incapacitated. So we chopped the peppers up into very small pieces and added them into our C-Rations. Those peppers still caused eyes to water and a serious burning, but they made the C-Rations better. I think Vietnam was a unique war. During WW II, the allied forces certainly had jungle and monsoon conditions worse than in Vietnam. The difference is that in WW II, our government had declared unconditional surrender. In Vietnam, we had no support from our government nor the people. When the WW II GI's returned home, they were welcomed as heroes with a ticker tape parade in NYC. When I arrived home on a charter flight to San Francisco, as we exited the terminal after fighting for a year in Vietnam, we were greeted with an angry anti-war mob yelling expletive's and throwing bottles and cans at us while trying to spit on those closest. Welcome home for severing this country at the direction of the civilian government. The military cannot declare war or even engage in conflict without the expressed commitment of our government--whether the congress to declare war or the President to commit us to combat for 90 days without congress. In the case of Vietnam, the congress gave the President the power to escalate the war. I'm a hard core conservative and Constitutionalist. The US should never send our military into harm's way unless both the President and Congress agree that it is our strategic interest. That in fact is the law. However, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fake and it took us into war in Vietnam. Let this sink in. When I was a platoon commander in 1968-69, we already knew that our government had no intention of winning the war. How did we know? Because the only way to have won that war was to have invaded North Vietnam and neither President Johnson nor congress ever allowed us to invade North Vietnam. If Johnson and ordered the 3 Marine Divisions to land and defeat North Vietnam, the war would have been over in months or even a year instead of 10 years and a humiliatingly defeat. BTW, did you know that the treaty between South Vietnam and North Vietnam included a provision that if the North ever invades the South that the US would intervene????? But in 1975, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam and the US pretended that we had no treaty obligation to intervene. I was a Marine company commander during the evacuation of Saigon in April of 1975. My company was designated the "Sparrow Hawk" reaction force to rescue designated people from difficult locations. We were never given an execute order, but I know it was for political reasons because the people to be rescued were Vietnamese who had supported the US.. There were many calls for help coming in and we were never told to launch. It gets worse. One of the US rules of engagement was that we were not allowed to take Vietnamese who were in uniform. Let that sink in. These were the Vietnam military who fought for us and now politically we could not take anyone aboard ship who was wearing a uniform. It didn't take long for Vietnamese helicopter pilots to take off their uniforms and land on our ships. Some landed wearing only their underwear because they knew they would not be allowed aboard the ship if they wore their Vietnamese uniforms. I could tell you horror stories of the evacuation of Saigon that would make you hate our government at that time. My apologies for the long diatribe, but memories of those days are strong.
History repeats oldSalt if you're still above deck you saw the sacking of the US Capitol and the cluster of a withdrawal from Afghanistan...interesting times
Enjoyed this particular video . I was with the 25th Inf. Div Cambodia and Vietnam 70-71 . You soo correct about the jungle . We called it triple canopy . I think the biggest threat for me at least was the big bugs and mosquitoes. The heat was also relentless . Thank you for you service and welcome home 🇺🇸
I remember an overcast night in the A Shau in '69. In civilized environments, overcast works for you visionwise because you get a lot of reflective light from towns and cities. But up in the mountains near the border with Laos, when the sun went down it got "black cat in the bottom of a coal mine" dark. You not only couldn't see your hand in front of your face, you couldn't even see your own shoulder. They say dogs see with their noses...in night time jungle, you see with your ears. Wildlife noises are actually kinda comforting, because most wildlife go silent when humans enter the area. If it got quiet, you perked up cause somebody was out there. They didn't even have zippers on our camo trousers; buttons only. Cause you can button and unbutton quietly, but a zipper was a clearly human sound and you could hear it from 100 yards... once your ears learned to listen. There's a difference between hearing and listening and at night...you listen.
He gave scenes in Platoon 10/10. But only thing that ran through my mind is these scenes are made for Hollywood with lighting in background. Jungle at night is way too dark to see people highlighted like that. Even in normal woodlands, you won’t get that kind of detail. Your eyes can see movement when it’s dark with a little moonlight, but not sharp details. Being a jungle school instructor doesn’t make you an expert in military history. He discredited chaos of war just because 7-8 teaches things a certain way. He knows what he’s been taught. He has experience. But his ratings were a bit questionable at times.
I liked that you mentioned the environment. I've been homeless and lived in the woods, also been lost in the jungle on an Island in Western Fiji (sounds bizarre but both true). There might be a guy with a gun trying to kill you but the environment never gives up. I can see that dealing with the enemy is an issue but there's a whole lot more to worry about. Not freezing to death, not dehydrating, not starving or becoming sick or spraining an ankle or becoming lost.
I was in the 1/14th, 25th Div., back in the 70's. Our command back then to retreat was "fall back and regroup." I never remember hearing "break contact." Terminologies change. Golden Dragons!
And even what he said about being hit and not realising until somebody points that out. Poncho: You're hit. You're bleedin' man Blain: I ain't got time to bleed Machismo overload!! :D
@@krishnavivek5502 the actors playing the soldiers in the movie apart from Carl Weathers and Schwarzenegger were Vietnam vets and Jesse Ventura was a navy SEAL in Vietnam so they must have told some of their stories to the director, so we have that feel of authenticity here and there.
Fall back, pull back is definitely what they used to say. I have an old civil war strategy, and tactics manual. And 'fall back' is definitely in there. Of course that was a long time ago, at some point the military got cool, and came up with break contact I guess. Pretty sure if you were in that position you would get the idea either way.
This is the most generous insider so far. Giving lots of 10 out of 10. I've seen many agree with everything in a movie and still give a 6 or 7, and I just wonder why.
I'm very sure it's because of the unnecessary amount of cutting they do that they leave out extra info. It was evident in the 2nd part of the ancient warfare expert rates movies where it shows "i don't like the irrational and unnecessary thing but some parts are cool, 6 out of 10", "What they do it very rational and logical and how they will actually try this on specific terrain- 6 out of 10"
I remember having guard duty and as soon as I started, it started raining exaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaactly like that for the entire time like on Platoon and he is absolutely correct. I spent that whole night saying it's gotta be something better than this. Took me through to retirement though! And just like on Forrest Gump when he was referring to the radio when we got attacked, you will see people's nerves are shot, they are tired, but it's still detrimental to maintain discipline!
Him saying I could survive indefinitely reminds me of the confused face of a green beret being asked how long he could survive in the field by a journalist “What? I don’t understand. I mean I would just ... live here. Rather than in my house. What do you mean how long?” 😂
That scene from Thin Red Line is the payoff to an earlier set up. In another scene Woody is messing with the pins on his grenades that's why it pulled out so easily.
All I know about jungle survival I learned from my dad and his buddies, my mentors. And growing up on on Western Pacific Islands and the mangrove, sawgrass, jungles, and forests of Southeast Asia. Leftovers from WWII, formed up in 1950, trained the next generation, splitting up and reforming in 1957. Dear old dad is a legend. He and Mom are now together in "Arlington". For me, circa early 1950'' through the 1970's. It was one big magical adventure.
Outstanding presentation!! I went through JOTC in 1978 and again in 1980. Your analysis of the events in the movie scenes was informative. I hope the Army continues operation of JOTC indefinitely. Your school taught principles there applicable to every environment. And life in general!! Thank you for your service and Best Wishes. It hurt me to learn the mini-gun carried by Jesse “The Body” Ventura, and Arnold’s 950 round M203 magazines in Predator probably would not happen in real life!😮. Great presentation👍.
From my experiences: @6:43 - On company S&D with montagnards, it was zero visability. The yards were in perimeter, me and another American were near each other toward the center. We both awoke to footsteps slowly approaching. They stopped 1-2 feet from us. My M16 was on full auto pointing at crotch height. Any disturbing noise or action, the intruder would have a full mag recoiling up. Nothing happened. Me and the other American reached out and felt the guy all over. Decided he was a scared kid and encouraged him to go back on the perimeter. None of us could see anything. Only sound and touch. @6:53 They also had centipedes that had 2 glands per segment that sprayed acid, in defense. I tested it. @7:25 In a montagnard company we had set down for the night. Very dark. We knew there was supposed to be a VC unit a little way further. Our CO at base told us to move up to it. We didn't think moving a company through the jungle silently at night could be possible. Our CO disagreed. Somehow we lost radio contact with our base ;-) and stayed put for the night. @9:11 I've been a proponent of learning sign language, especially small recon units. And practicing. Just a bit more than the standard, rally, look that way, hold, etc. @10:27 I was in the hammer part of a hammer/ anvil mission. Things were quiet and we had a spotter plane fly over us. Eventually we even put out a panel, and the spotter couldn't see us. It can be HARD to spot someone from the air. @11:01 Company(yards) was getting extracted and the company leader and his senior NCO got the company moving to the extraction point(good so far). Then they both came back to my squad, the last in line, and told me they would cover our withdrawal. (not good - imho - for the leaders being tail gunners.) (I later realized why. The NCO, I'm pretty sure was Bob Howard, who had spike team background, and getting out of Dodge in small units could have encouraged that action. And the officer was a young LT, that would defer to Howard.) @11:56 A friend who served in Korea had a buddy (by his terms, a giant) whose personal weapon of choice was a 57 Recoiless. My friends description of him was he handled it like a big shotgun. Everyone seemed to carry at least one round for him. He was very good. @12:52 We had one montagnard blow himself up just like that, in camp. Pin snagged on something, and the spoon kept it on his web gear. (Later the other yards thought he had been a VC, so they didn't miss him. @13:45 MAKE a clearing for small unit infil/exfil. They/we started using daisy cutter bombs after I left Vietnam. Designed to blow several feet above the ground and clear a small LZ, I never ran into one. @14:59 We did have 60mm mortars that "could" be fired, freehand, no sights, no tripod, no T&E. But I believe its range was significantly less than the M79 grenade launcher. Though the mortar did have much more explosive.
@@irishdixie77 Knew him, no. Not positive it was him. But subsequent photos of him sort of matched what that NCO looked like. And his behavior was more like spike team action, get out if compromised. But we were a company sized force. He (whoever it was) knew we were compromised and instincts told him, its time to leave. SOG didn't have thousands of folks at any one time, so walking past someone, and later reflecting who they might have been, did make it possible. I know I saw Fred Zabitowsky in CCC as he walked past. The guy I was with pointed him out, and that the paperwork was in the works for his MoH. But knowing these guys? Nope. I was just a new green body, that happened to be in an incredible unit.
Can confirm from being down in the Amazon jungle a number of times, the insects at night are insanely loud! On top of that, they almost sound digital/technological in the noises they make. Hear a jaguar once or twice at night. Thing is, is that sounds can travel far in the jungle, so it was really hard to tell (at least for me) how near or far that jaguar might've been. Most likely far, as I was never more then a couple hours from a river town. Still.
I was with 3rd Marines at MCBH K-bay when Tears of the sun was filming on an island near us. They allowed Marines (they could've asked other branches as well) to go to casting call for the movie and Sgt. Bourgeois (yes his name was spelled like that) who was an NCO in our motorpool went to try out and did appear in the movie for about 2.5 seconds firing a shoulder fired missile. He was African American and a PT stud! He had that movie playing in the barracks common area all the time. We were with CSSG-3 at the time.
heres an interesting fact about platoon, the whole cast who is seen on screen as soldiers were all sent through a specially designed boot camp in the Phillipines where they filmed this by Dale Dye who is a Vietnam vet and is also in the movie. by the time they filmed the movie they were basically soldiers not actors
I saw that extra on the blu-ray and Dale dyes commentary as well. Brutal but effective and probably better training than the usual 6 weeks training actual recruits got at the time
I always wondered how accurate that Forest Gump scene was. Seen that movie many times. One of my favorites. I love how the guy gives some of the movies a high awesome rating but a low reality rating.
"you have to be good at being uncomfortable" - amen bro. Someone famous, I can't remember who, said words to the effect: "a good soldier is not defined by what they can do, but what they can endure".
One thing i hadnt considered about the jungle until i heard an interview with a lepidopterist who spent some time in the jungles of South America. At night i would imagine one of the biggest fears being wildlife such as jaguars, but what scared him the most at night was during heavy winds and rain that knocked down big branches that are often burdened with vines and epiphytes. Some large enough to seriously hurt you or even kill you if they land on your head. During those nights he would hear heavy branches fall in his vicinity making his way to some clearing for sheltering and sleep. That felt much more like an immediate danger than Jaguars who exist in the area.
Yep, even backpackers know the most dangerous thing in the woods are widowmaker limbs and ticks, not the bears. Everyone still asks me about bears, but they're no worry as long as you hang your food!
I Love this, it's nice to see someone who knows what's up comment on these things... The portrayal in movies and television about ops in the jungle. There is one thing however, that I wholeheartedly disagree with. That's the inability to sleep in the mud, on the ground, in the jungle.. I am a United States Infantry Marine Corps Veteran. Served from '97 to '01... Fox Co. 2/8, My company was heavily deployed so I spent a lot of time in jungles, Okinawa, Central and South America. And yes, this man nails it on the head, the jungle is hands down one of the most unforgiving environments on this planet.... Everything will kill you. But if you're patrolling day and night, nonstop for days or weeks... You get so exhausted you will fall asleep walking. At that point you don't even think about all the flora and fauna, you will lay down in that mud and be unconscious in a second... Just remember to pull your pancho liner over your face so the rain won't wake you up
Oliver Stone also had a battle buddy from his time in Vietnam working with him on Platoon as a technical advisor. Together they put the cast through quite a pre filming regimen.
I’m deaf and I can confirm that the sniper movie where Tom said “2 person walking down hill” Fun fact. Military actually learned how to do those signs from deaf people. Guess next one you could have deaf people rates actors who use sign language in movies.
@@angrydingus5256 NP. Other fun fact is Government such as FBI CIA even other countries couldn’t cipher sign languages. Examples, we sign in sentence and many of signs could have different meanings. I can give you one example. "orange" we fist our hand and sign it under the chin. it also can mean "old" you get the idea. Our sign language comes with different "accents" like other countries say "dags" it actually means "dogs" Sometimes, you would get confused and say what? I live in west and we sign Hospital with 2 fingers to cross on our shoulder. in East, they sign it with 2 fingers cross under the chin..
I was a sniper and on my team, once we where in sector, absolutely not talking. We made our own hand and arm signals and me and my spotter where so close and talked a lot with our hands, we almost having conversations...lol...of course if you where not on my team, you probly think we had issues lookin at us... 😂
I was a green clad jungle killer in the Australian army. I felt a chill up my spine in the 'trudging through the jungle' scenes. Best portrayal of what infantry soldiers do, did in Vietnam, ever. I've felt the sapping heat and humidity, slipped in the slick orange clay up steep features and been damp from rain or sweat 24/7 for weeks at a time. 'Platoon' brings back fond memories.
People always talk about wanting a 30 round mag or a 50+ round drum for their semi auto rifle, but I want some Hollywood magazines. They hold 2 or 3 hundred rds but look exactly like 30 rd magazines.
I remember going to the field in Hawaii and just getting absolutely rained and dumped on for 6 to 8 hours while laying in the prone. Centipedes were my field nemesis.
the mortar has a sight on it, he's shooting direct lay. granted the actor isn't looking through the sight but its like a little peep sight, hell its even locked into the sight mount. its kind of like shooting in handheld mode with a m224 60mm mortar today
Awesome gradings in this video. So true, not being able to see your hand at night, the jungle floor comes alive at night between the decomposing deadfall, to the noise of insects and animals. Our biggest problem were the Whitetail Rats, they would eat straight through your pack to get to your rations.
On the guy getting dragged to the ground by vines in Rambo. I always interpreted his inability to scream as the wind got knocked out of him because he landed hard on his chest.
Where’s tropic thunder? The most realistic war movie of all time
...👉 🗣️ 👈 -this emoji identifies with Robert Downey Jr. ... ;-)
I was about to ask the same thing ....😀
"Where's" or "what's" tho
I know who I am! I'm a dude playing the dude, disguised as another dude!!
The ‘woke’ people got wind of its inclusion and decided to go all ‘protest’ 🪧 on its arse 🤦🏻♂️🤣
No matter how it happens, Predator is always a 10/10, well said Mason.
Lol
Old Painless would agree with you!
He’s dug in better than an Alabama tick.
When?
@@davidf2244 what do you mean?
I remember my grandfather spent countless hours with me in the woods, telling me the difference between footsteps and how heavy they are. He was in Vietnam as well, and he could pretty much hear some leaves rustle and tell exactly what animal it was. Kinda cool, I pretty much can just tell if it’s a four-legged animal or a human lmao
Could you tell if it's a human crawling?
@@Make-Asylums-Great-Again slower, more abrupt movements than quadpedals. Humans (at least adults) are not made to crawl.
same
What about Sasquatch and Dogman? In Vietnam they’re called rock apes… So a large bipedal creature at around 8 feet tall would sound different? I dunno i’m kinda crashin and burnin in this comment..
My father was in Nam, man, he can't hear anything anymore. Acoustic trauma. One day at work, one of my first with him, I was walking up behind him and he was jolted. It pissed him off so bad, If I remember right he threatened to break my neck, and told me to make noise next time...I wasn't "sneaking" as he claimed.
Got to respect those old boys who served in Nam, all politics aside, simply because of how hardcore the Vietnamese are.
"I would rate this a 2/10 but a 10/10 for awesome"
My man! :D
To be fair he did have camoflage on it earlier in the movie, it just started coming off as the movie progressed.
*"Me? I think I can survive pretty much indefinetely."*
What a line.
Yeah that was bad ass to me
Depends on what jungle. Local knowledge is what's most important. There's a lot of different jungles, and a lot of different animals, insects and plants that can kill you. Someone who grew up and thrived in one jungle could be totally screwed in another.
@@billygauthier9512 and THAT is a more based statement than the dude's flexing.
That's where I stopped watching. I doubt he's ever had to survive for a month on his own in the jungle. I've seen Les Stroud do a week before and how much that took out of him. This guy is talking out of his ass trying to sound cool. Any way you cut it that's the truth of that line.
I love the Keyboard Warriors flexing on the Jungle Warfare/Survival experts' flex. We know he has spent time in the jungle, can't say the same for the commenters here.
My father was in the 25th infantry division in Vietnam 1967-68. He also thought the ambush patrol scene in Platoon to be the most realistic, except for the ponchos as his battalion was instructed not to wear them at night as they were too shiny. Of course that doesn't mean battalion was the same, but that was his experience. In any case, once during ambush patrol my father woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of men marching. His rifle was just out of reach, just like in the movie. As it turned out the marching men were a company of either NVA or VC, around 200 guys, passing through. The ambush patrol was a 28 man platoon. My father recalled how he hoped no one would sneeze, snore or open fire, because to do so would have been suicide. My father described how he felt like his heart would pound out of his chest and seemed so loud that he feared it could be heard.
As luck would have it, the company passed through without incident, none of them apparently aware of how close they came to stepping on American soldiers. Upon debriefing, the Battalion colonel was angry the men didn't engage, but the Company Captain (Kessler, I think his name was) defended the men under his command saying they shouldn't have sacrificed themselves for no real gain.
As a side note regarding wounds, my father observed that generally those that got shot were calm and quiet, while those who had been injured in explosions (mines, booby traps, grenades etc. ) would scream and freak out. I've always wondered how common that is.
Nice i was in the 25th back in 2011 2014
Wow thanks so much for sharing that is incredible insight.
@@karlwithak.How sure are you that all soldiers have that?
@@karlwithak.What country has that kinda kit?
Your dad must have been a great guy to talk to, best wishes
SFC MASON was my jungle instructor. God bless this man. Learned so much!
SFC*** Maybe he was a Sergeant when you were in. But he wouldn't have been a Senior instructor at E5.
@@RevengeAvenger sarn’t
@@RevengeAvenger sirnt
He was my DS
I was Navy. I'll stick to my air conditioned submarine, thanks.
Why did you cut him off? He was still saying interesting facts...
Nice point, it's not like TV and its time limitation, it's UA-cam damn it.
Gonna make it a two parter for the views
Classified
The youtube algorithm prefers videos 15 to 20 minute videos, maybe that's why? I wish they didn't tho
I believe he was going to say it could take hours to move 100 yards in a jungle due to the harsh terrain. I was apart of a arctic warfare unit in the army. It took us hours to travel a few hundred meters through a snowy environment because the snow was so deep. So deep that snowshoes didn’t work well. I’m sure this concept translates into the jungle. Not snow but vines and brush that is especially hard to get though while carrying gear.
I was never a soldier or in a jungle, but when I was younger I backpacked in national forests in the US. One night we heard an animal be caught and consumed by something. Probably a badger. That is freaky to hear. Whatever was being eaten must have suffered enormously by the sounds it made. Just this frantic panicked terror. It was weird just lying there in the dark listening to that
Reminds me of cats fighting at night
@Karl with a K man thats nature, how would you feel if u were eating your hamburger and then suddenly an ape comes and saves the burger? :D
@Karl with a K well, not every human likes to make statues of animals, just saying xd
I go hunting and that is something I don't want to hear, I heard a beaver cried before, scared me shitless, just last year I also got scared by 2 owl hooting feet away from me while climbing a tree with my climber for deer hunting, im such a wuss when it comes to night in the forest, it's a whole different animal when night to morning comes
"gaint white bald head"😂😂😂😂
Lol
LMAOOO
It is a camo, a big stone
@Pain Face ostrich in the jungle............... Don't make sanse
@Pain Face .......
Understand have a great day
Next video, "Pizza delivery driver reacts pizza delivery scenes in movies"
Pizza delivery guy: "If there was a real pizza in that box he'd have burned his hands holding it like that. Hey, he's supposed to deliver the pizzas, not have sex with everybody... what movie is this?!"
@Jerry Gallo **shrugs in German**
So glad I scrolled down to see this comment. Dead.
Haha yeah!
PIZZA TIME
@Jerry Gallo so you don't think a navy SEAL is an expert in various forms of combat? I'm pretty sure the whole point of SEAL teams is that they're made up of experts.
I’m glad he gave First Blood Part II and Predator a “10/10 for Awesome” 😆 Some movies are over the top but just plain fun
I was in Hawaii with sfc mason before he started working at the jungle course at 2-14 cav! Glad to see he’s doing well
Dont care
Damn, that's pretty cool
@@HaldaxMush I mean, you don't have to care, but other people do so there is nothing wrong with him saying it right?
I care
No sarcasm so we are clear. Nothing but respect.
i was a 11C for 20 years. That WW2 60mm actually does have a sight on it. The sight for the WW2 era 60 is much different from the M64/ M64A1 sights that have been used since the Vietnam era. I bought a demilled 60mm WW2 Mortar from IMA-USA with all the WW2 era gear including the sight. The one on the 60 in the Pacific is spot on. Good vid BTW.
11C BABY!!
@@chanceferguson8802 High Angle
It isn’t his fault. He is only an 11B, and can not comprehend the complicated magic of an M16.
As a marine, who now teaches survival classes, I gotta say, this guy is on point with his info.
I also know I can survive for however long it takes in survival mode.
I spent three years away from society, living in a deeply wooded area with zero help from society other than my knife.
Based LARPer
@Karl with a K yet all that wonderful gear can (and at some point definitely will), only operates for so long (what you gonna do when the batteries run out, also, is it emp shielded, if not, easy way to take you out), and more can go wrong with it.
Heated suits malfunction on the regular causing severe burns to the wearer, some have even caught fire.
Even the best knives break eventually, what you gonna do if you can't make a new one?
What if you survive a plane crash, but your gear is lost, and you gotta survive?
@Karl with a K it's clear you don't know what you're talking about.
SFC Mason: You want to be as light as you can for as long as you can
Army R&D: How can we make stuff heavier and less reliable?
In feudal Japan, there was an exhortation for battlefield infantry warriors to "grow lighter"
Army stuff is constantly getting lighter, but they have to carry more
@@Fireclaws10 more to get lost, cause distractions, carry as offset weight , slowing down movement, decreased stealth...
@@Fireclaws10 Yeah, I was surprised when I heard that a modern soldier has to carry more weight than the amount of weight a XVI century full plated armored knight would carry. There is all this misinformation of medieval knights being all clunky and heavy, but in reality a modern soldier carries way more weight. Of course they carry more things, but still.
@@farrex0 just the plates and carrier basically weigh as much as a suit of armour, it's crazy
My father was combat infantry in Vietnam and then went to Panama to teach jungle survival. One of the few things he'd tell me about his time was that he and a buddy would sleep during the day whenever they could, then at night they would sit up all night, back to back.
Your father sounds lazy person.
Bubba Gump's idea too.
@@mikakorhonen5715 Really? That's not what the 3 wounded men, in 3 separate trips, whom he carried to the chopper thought after his platoon was ambushed. Especially not the one who took his "spot" on that helo. He instead crawled back amongst his dead friends to see who else he could save. Heh...they found his weapon and declared him dead until he arrived back at camp a few days later with what was left of his platoon.
So before you go insult a great man, ask yourself if you'd have the sheer will to survive what he did?
@@Charlie_Rowe There is two aspects in this. First, if you read carefully your first message it sounds like your dad did not do much, sleeping during day and sitting all nights. Your text was funny.
Second thing is America's world police role and sticking their nose everywhere. This would not be possible if your average intelligence were higher and country had better education system. You just start wars to kill uneducated men in masses on the other side of the world. Those men aren't heroes, just sheeps send in to meat grinder and if they come back alive very little support is provided. Its hard to break humanity from person, so all effort is put to break his mind. You call it military training. I call your dad brainless sheep if he killed single person.
@@mikakorhonen5715 With all its faults, America is still a greater country than most others. Certainly a lot better than Socialist Finland, that's for damn sure. Why do you think Lauri Törni left?
My grandpa was a mortarman with the British Army fighting the Japanese in Malaya and Singapore, alongside the ANZAC troops during ww2. That scene in The Pacific, the American 60mm mortar is accurate for that time. That mortar sight that Rami Malek's character is looking through, is actually the sight for it.
I thought it was accurate too , simply because it looked like the training aids models that you would use for combat lanes , not mortar training , but op4 position.
I remember reading about the Malayan Emergency from the late 40's to late 50's. Helicopters were very new tech at that time, nowhere near as reliable as those in Vietnam. So the SAS tried something called "tree jumping", the idea being that you parachuted onto the jungle where the canopy of the chute "would" catch on the branches of the trees and you'd use ropes to abseil down to the forest floor. A number of fatalities and serious injuries quickly led to the practice being reconsidered as... unsafe.
Haha reminds me of an old corporal I knew, telling us about how they used to do 'rolling insertions' out of trucks, back in the day. Theory was, there's a few ways that an enemy can track troop transports driving into an area from very far away and use that to determine where the troops were inserted.
Rolling insertion, meant the trucks would drive in and out of the target area without stopping and the infantry would have jump out the back and literally tuck and roll. This way the enemy would just see a convoy drive in and turn around without a clue as to where they'd dropped of the men.
Buuuut for obvious reasons they stopped this after people kept breaking their legs.
@@J_Stronsky couldn't they just slow down?
@@J_Stronsky 30 years ago I did that in basic training. We jumped from a flatbed truck landing beside it facing the same direction as the truck. First time the truck was moving so slow, we just landed on our feet and had to force ourselves to roll. Then we did it a bit faster (still slow for a moving truck) and rolling was just natural. It would totaly work if you had some form of cover otherwise you'de be easily spotted by any observers.
The role & tactics of helicopters is still being adjusted. The community recently wanted to take the lead in "deep strike" attack missions far forward of the close brigade fight. During the Iraq invasion one of these attacks ended disastrously for us. Not sure if they decided to abandon it completely but they suspended it for the rest of the war I believe.
We have rough terrain jumpers today. 57th Sapper company.
The video was very interesting that I didn't realize it was 18 minutes
wow it was 18 minutes???
Wow me too wtf 😳 It felt like it was 7 minutes
wish it was longer
Yea felt like 6 minutes
i hate it that good videos feel so short
I've spent time in the jungles of Guadalcanal with the natives. Hunted Pigs with spears and dogs over a number of days. Conditions were brutal. Heat was almost unbearable when combined with the humidity. Found a P-38 Lightning , Stuart tank, Thompson machine guns, M1911's, bayonets' and a lot of other war memorabilia. Insects and Snakes were the main problem.
SFC Mason my senior drill sergeant! Most humble man I’ve met
Same! MOST HATED & LOVED Senior drill sargeant on base, everyone loved him to death but every god damn fucker talked shit about his method,... that’s prob why we were the best trained!!
@Ilyas read my comment
he was my jungle instructor when i went through jungle school!
@@Mr.Thermistor7228 me too lol
@@Mr.Thermistor7228 They were doing it at Ft. Sherman in Panama for a while. Where is Jungle Training now?
Yo I went to jungle school in January of 2019 and can’t believe SFC Mason is still around! Such a good dude!
He's gonna be around indefinitely, clearly
"The Pacific" was fantastic. Of course there were a few inaccuracies and a little dramatics, it's a show. But, the way it was able to portray the brotherhood, intensity, the service, sacrifice, suffering, and seemingly senselessness of mechanized warfare to those on the ground was pretty amazing. The long lasting damage and human cost. For someone who has never been in combat, it is a humbling, terrifying, and respectful glimpse of what it was like for the heroes who have.
It is impossible to imagine the horrors experienced by those who serve in war, but with well portrayed stories like "The Pacific", "Band of Brothers" and others like them it makes it a little easier to try.
He was my Drill Sergeant and taught us how to make snare traps during FTX. Really cool DS and actually wanted privates to learn. How funny it is to see him on a UA-cam video 6 years later. He told us some of these same stories.
Charlie 1-19. 2nd Platoon. Mar-Jun 2016.
he was our rotc cadre, just retired
@@markargiro1577 did he say he was harder than woodpecker lips?
@@TheItalianStallion51 I was C Co 1-19 Sep 2015 - Feb 2016. You were directly after me.
@@broome090 Yeahhhhhh boiiiiii ! What was your first duty station ?
This man was my BCT and Infantry school SDS. Badass dude right there.
His crazy stories were always the highlight of the day in jungle school
jesus loves you
Predator is the most re-watchable movie in the history of cinema. It literally never gets old!
Props to this guy this is actually the best one of these I've seen. Good balance of ripping on the film and actual exp/ procedure. Jocko phoned his in like, "Yeah we do that. No we don't do that..."
I love that for the "jungle warfare" clip from The Pacific, they choose the assault on the Peleliu airfield, which was an island that's literally just a chunk of coral, rather than showing the jungle scenes from Guadalcanal or Cape Gloucester
Yeah, and talks about tanks not being present "at that time", as if the scene is set on Guadalcanal.
@skyZZo Absolutely, when i was an 11C we learned on the 60mm mortar we didn't use sights. Your not going to run aiming stakes in a firefight like that.
Yeah their choice of clip and his commentary on it were a little off, but good video overall.
@skyZZo And he didn´t consider the timeshift on movies, when you cut the timelapse from the mortar being fired to the moment of hit. Nice video though
and he botches the clip since he complained about misuse of the mortar but it was actually used right: he used the sight, the SFC just didn’t know that he was using it! 🤣
We'll forget what that last guy said. Thank you for posting a video on jungle. Old man was Scout and I believe LRRP/LRP ('67-'69) in Vietnam. You're spot-on, minus moving in the water back then. UDTs taught them a lot and Aussies taught them how to replace those knee-to-elbow movements by replacing what they'd touched. 2 weeks, 60-80 lb. packs was the average mission. It changed in '68, so they were asked to engage, interrogate and annoy company-sized forces with booby traps and body snatches with only 4 or 5 men. So, even though you're spot-on with "predator" and "rambo", he still loved those movies >:p Thanks again, this was good.
Yeah, people do not realize, some parts are just impossible to pass through. Not with a broadsword, not even with a flamethrower. At certain places, you take two steps away from the path and in 3 seconds you are being eaten alive by hundreds of bugs and even plants. It happened with me in Cambodia and Thailand as well. One day I will go to Vietnam and Amazonas too.
We camped between the ocean and the wild jungle for 6 weeks and kept telling arriving 'tourist' people not to sleep in the jungle, sleep on the sandy beach but people barely listened. It is so romantic to sleep there. Less sun, etc. They had like 50 ticks next day, so tiny, almost impossible to notice. Bacteria is so strong there, one tiny cut if not taken care for, will not heal but grow and spread to other scars through the blood! One French guy almost lost his leg, started from a scratch as he was oblivious.
And the sound, yes, it is just mindblowing loud level sometimes, haha yeah. Also the singing bugs, when they gather, omg, at first I thought I have found a dimensional gate to some other world, I could not even think, it was so dominant...
But still, I would not call anything else as home as the south pacific jungle. So many species, variation of plants and aninals, it is pure breathing life force; so vivid, so raw, it is god in and as the physical. It can change your perception forever. You either become the jungle or will hate it. Respect to the dude, to keep going back there and even fight, takes a special type of courage.
Is it just me or am i seeing dubble.
@@LapisAndroid17ParkRanger definitely you. No way there are two random guys that said exactly the same thing on a comment section.....
I was military and had minimal jungle training, but I did a week in a tropical jungle and man. The mosquitoes, spiders, centipedes, snakes, boars, constant 34+°C, the constant humidity and frequest rain, the mud, the rashes. The shower I finally took at the end of that week stung every part of my body, but felt absolutely amazing. The best shower of my life by FAR. My appreciate for baths and showers skyrocketed after that experience. Man, hundreds, literal HUNDREDS, of bites and stings within a week. I woke up with a spider on my neck poised to bite(front legs up all that), my buddy accidentally dove into an ant nest while training. He spent the next 30mins trying to get ants off his body and ended up with bites all around. We would walk around with a dark cloud of mosquitoes surrounding us. The jungle is probably, the most brutal environment where you can fight a war in. Lugging your equipment on uneven ground, up and down constant hills and slopes and the environment that's trying to eat you alive.
You should write a book!! I'll bet the biting bugs would drive you insane, I'd be picking n scratching all day..
@@LapisAndroid17ParkRanger is it me or am I seeing dubble
25th ID vet here. Was there between 03-06 with a year of that spent in Afghanistan. I attended a jungle tracking school while in Hawaii, but at the time, the 25th didn't have their own instructors. I was trained by instructors from the Malaysian Army. Still have my certificate and t-shirt. It's definitely a skill you have to stay on top of to remain sharp in the field.
Boy, working in Malaysian jungles has to be rough.
@@woodworkerroyer8497 They came to Hawaii to teach the course 🤷🏻♂️
@@RocsMacho1 Do you know anything about the artic school? Usually its the alaskan national guard.
@@thegreatdogzilla5855 Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to attend any cold weather specific training.
Old guy story: We are teenagers watching Rambo 2. Only seats were front row, left side, and people sitting in the isle. Every time Rambo kills hand to hand, my buddy yells..."Water Monster!!!"..."Mud Monster!!!"..."Bush Monster!!!" He had 100 people cracking up the entire movie. BEST TIME EVER!!!
My dad was in Nam, and he cried all the way through platoon. He said it was very realistic. He is still a hard ass at 70.
Thank you to your dad for his service. How does he feel about "apocolypse now"?
@@creativeUtubehandle shame to you!
@@manumaster1990 ...ok then
@@manumaster1990 what??
@@niceguy8935 Do I really need to explain to you why war in general and Vietnam war in particular is a horrible and hateful thing?
From the pictures that my dad bought back from his 3 combat tours in Vietnam, I didn't see many with him in camo face paint, and he was white with a bald head. Maybe that's why he was shot 9 times. Great video and thank you for your service. Greetings from Fayetteville/ Ft.Bragg.
RIP dad
Gary Goofy Grape Gilmer
5th SFG camp A325 Duc Hue
9 times?! Thats more than Barnes in platoon. Pretty badass that he survived. What a strong person he must've been
@@cannibalbunnygirl Man must have been built like a tank 😂,
My one of my grandpa's was shot in the leg and he'd always show his grandkids the dip he had from it
@@world4me I mean, it's horrible they were at war and were injured but it's great they survived to tell their tales
12:02 I did the math once, and depending on the rate of fire the gun was set to, it would have been anywhere from about 98 pounds all the way up to 176 pounds for the ammo. That doesn't include the gun or the power supply, just the ammo. He burned through anywhere from about 2640 rounds on the top end, down to about 1470 rounds on the bottom end. I'm assuming it was closer to the 176 though, since it was probably configured for aircraft usage considering he stole it off the helicopter
He had me dying of laughter when he talked about the bird that sounds like a man being stabbed because I knew exactly what he was talking about
What bird species is it?
@@kevinf.1702 proba a crow, they squawk and squawk. Lots of them in the Thai jungle
Fun fact: Peacocks sound like a screaming woman. Not fun.
@@MrNeosantana have you heard cat communicating outside in the night ?
Sounds like babies crying etc
@@MrNeosantana Same with foxes. I nearly called the police when I first heard what sounded like a woman screaming, until a friend told me it was a foxes mating call.
2/10 but a 10/10 for Awesome , yeah that's Predator ... _GET TO THE CHOPPA !!!_
I think he did that for Rambo too. I get his point about the dragging scene though, but that mud scene seems like a legit method. Maybe the guy DID see tracks, but just figured he could handle it? And he did, right up to the hilt....
DYYYYYYLAAAAAAANNNN
😂😂😂😂😂
I would comment, too, but the CIA has me too busy sharpening pencils ;-)
At the very end, talking about how the jungle is constantly screaming: My father did a stint in Vietnam as MOS 18E (because it had the longest training time/shortest time over there), and one of the locals he worked with claimed to understand what the monkeys were saying, and he was right often enough that Dad believed him. And if it ever goes completely quiet in the jungle, well, that means the animals sensed something before you did, and that deafening silence is about to become a deafening loudness.
And imagine that there are many tribes that flourish in jungle environments today. Even walking barefoot through the forest! Mad respect to these people.
Like walking through your neighborhood. The grocery store pharmacy hardware store and everything else all rolled into one big death garden!
They survive, don't flourish. There is a South African expert (I don't remember his name, he was with Joe Rogan in his podcast) that he went to jungles in America, and met a tribe of people who lived in isolation but adopted the Spanish accent of the slavery period. Being an expert in jungle survival he always goes with a cameraman and a medic, the locals then have a great opportunity of be treated with modern medicine. One three year old child was affected by asthma, the medic did improve his condition but confessed in private to the expert "I doubt that that child will reach adulthood".
@@Kriegerdammerung I've seen that Joe Rogan one as well. There is a reason modern countries have extended average life expectancy. SCIENCE!
@@Kriegerdammerung It was Forrest Galante iirc
@@kainashhsu Yes! now I remember his name! many thanks, parcero!!
I don't think anyone ever thought the Predator unit's gear was accurate to real life but no one can deny that when they all cut loose its one of the best scenes in action films mostly due to the mini gun
Also Jesse Ventura was a seal
The minigun they used isn't actually man portable. It requires an electrical hook up that limits it to vehicle installation. They had the power feed hooked to a generator just out of the camera's view.
Time to bring out old painless.
I ain't got time to bleed.
Stick around.
Sonofabitch is dug in like an Alabama tick.
I imagine the recoil is no issue, from a mini gun? 🤣😂
@@Echo81Whiskey he was UDT, not a regular SEAL…they were separate then, with different jobs and his wasn’t like the job he did in the movie
Dude, thanks for your service! I was a boy scout, I learned alot. I could for sure thrive in the woods. I hunt, fish, and farm and I'm good at it! It's a skill you actively practice, like playing a sport. Love and bless!
“You just have to be good, at being uncomfortable.” Wise words, and applicable to any success in life. Its NEVER easy. Its always work. Much of it NOT what you wish you were doing. Every promotion, transfer, career shift or risk taken.....all filled with anxiety and fear. Every time your kid gets their heart broken......you just have to be good at being uncomfortable sometimes.
If I don’t exercise like a maniac, I go insane. I become depressed, anxious, and withdraw from the world. Something about pushing my body to exhaustion, helps my mind to STFU. The discomfort of a long run, the hate I feel for leg day, being unable to put a shirt on because my arms are so tired......somehow makes my piddly mind games more tolerable.
Second paragraph was especially spot on. Totally agree. Particularly for me, an hour of exercise a day keeps the depression away. Sometimes you’re comfortable BECAUSE you’re uncomfortable, if that makes sense.
@@kevinc8955 Sisyphus had it right, though not by his own choice. Do something seemingly pointless forever because it's infinitely better than trying to find meaning in an ultimately completely meaningless world - and life. The feeling of pure exhaustion after a great workout, that's a zen moment if something.
My husband has very bad anxiety and depression from a truly horrendous childhood of abuse and doing martial arts is the one thing that settles his mind enough to help with it. Even better than medication.
"A bitching sailor is a happy sailor." - Every Navy command, ever.
this works for me too. nice.
That was great how it cut off at the very end, while he was talking (hopefully you can hear sarcasm as I type)
I was thinking the same
Yeah, ok boys pack it up. Just let him wind himself, he'll get the idea eventually...
@@woodworkerroyer8497 That was funny....I am picturing it in my head
The crew packs up in like 30 seconds, he is still talking for 20 minutes in a dark room
It seems to be a recurring problem with Insider videos unfortunately
type /s for sarcasm
I just wanted to let Sgt. Steven Mason know this he is by far Expert I've seen on this channel. Very entertaining but even more educational and surprising emotional take on all these scenes. At 14:50 my eyes started to get a little watery, you can feel the emotion in what he says. Well done sir, and great job on this segment Insider
My father is a Captain of the Philippine Army and he also thinks that "Platoon" is the most realistic jungle warfare movie he has ever seen
Filipino Soldiers are tough as nails. Marawi insurgents didnt stand a chance! RIP to that Company Cdr that perished.
Southeast asian countries are so used at Jungle warfare. Good luck SEA Bros
@@ThuggishDD if you ever seen Anaconda movie that filmed at Borneo
That just show you a glimpse at how Borneo's Jungle at the time
It's even worse when you, say, can go back in the '60s and visited Borneo's Jungle, man it will drive you insane, and yes big snakes there, not anaconda but python
But nowadays Borneo's Jungle is nothing but a memory
This very scene caused a Friend of my Dad's who was a Green Beret in Nam to have a flashback in the theatre. He was tossing people everywhere, spent a few months at the VA after it.He has passed on now from agent orange,but a true American hero.luckily he didn't seriously injure anyone but was a sad situation. The way Oliver Stone filmed it with he heartbeat sound effect makes it realistic. RIP Truman Darly
I was very surprised when he said combat takes place at 5-10 meters. If that’s true, why are rifles even needed. Shotguns and SMGs would be about as effective. People go on about the AK-47 being inaccurate at ranges over 200 yards, but range clearly means Jack shit in cases like this.
I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam 1968-69. I served 21 years with 3 years in combat. Vietnam was the hardest year. We operated in different environments: coastal, rice paddies, mountains, and dense jungle. I can't speak to the Army, but to me, the movie Platoon was a total joke. However, I'm sure there were realistic scenes as well. A bunch of bad ass dudes wearing bandanas and not having much in the way of discipline.
However, I agree with your comments about the monsoon scene and the included emotions. By the them the monsoon season arrived in Vietnam, I was already mentally and physically exhausted. I was also emotional at that time because of all the casualties I had in my platoon. And then the monsoon came and it just rained constantly. It was impossible to keep anything dry. Already worn out uniforms began to rot and easily tear. The poncho was about as effective in keeping you dry as a bathing suit in the ocean. It's hard to explain to people who have not experienced long term combat without much rest. I only used the poncho to cover me and my advanced squad at night using a map to give patrol orders. I learned when it was my turn to sleep for an hour, I could just lay down in the mud in the driving rain and fall asleep until my radio operator woke me up for my turn on radio watch. We were so under strength that I didn't have a platoon sergeant and I needed my platoon guide on the defensive perimeter at night. That left me and my radio operator to stand radio watch all night. Because exhaustion was such an issue, my rule was one hour on watch and one hour to sleep because it was nearly impossible to stay awake much more than and hour no matter how hard you tried.
The war in Vietnam difficult. During the dry season it was brutally hot with all of our combat gear on. Resupply was uncertain and so one C-Ration had to last 2-3 days. I lost 20 pounds that year and I was in great shape when I arrived in Vietnam. I went from 160 pounds to 140 pounds and I have the photograph to prove it. Two thirds of the way through my tour, I looked like starving POW. I wasn't a POW, but I was hungry most of the time. My platoon was brought back to the battalion cantonment a couple of times for 3 days of "rest". The battalion was in the middle of nowhere and while my platoon was there for "rest" we were required to stand the defensive lines on the battalion perimeter at night. Not much in terms of rest.
During our 3 days at battalion , we had hot chow. My Marines ate like pigs, but I was so used to C-Rations that the greasy hot "normal" food made me sick so I ate C-Rations instead.
Side Note: We joked that if we were killed, the mortuary wouldn't have to embalm us because the preservatives in the C-Rations had already done the job. BTW, all but a couple of the C-Rations were just disgusting, but it's amazing what you will eat when you are hungry. My favorite was the Turkey Loaf, followed by the "beef steak" which I would BBQ over a heat tab to crisp it up a bit.
One of my favorite memories regarding food in Vietnam was the innovative ways Marines tried to make C-Rations eatable. The list is too long but included pouring Cocoa Powder into the Beans and Franks just to make it different. But one day, we found a bush with tiny peppers on it. One of my Marines bit into it and instantly became nearly incapacitated. So we chopped the peppers up into very small pieces and added them into our C-Rations. Those peppers still caused eyes to water and a serious burning, but they made the C-Rations better.
I think Vietnam was a unique war. During WW II, the allied forces certainly had jungle and monsoon conditions worse than in Vietnam. The difference is that in WW II, our government had declared unconditional surrender. In Vietnam, we had no support from our government nor the people.
When the WW II GI's returned home, they were welcomed as heroes with a ticker tape parade in NYC.
When I arrived home on a charter flight to San Francisco, as we exited the terminal after fighting for a year in Vietnam, we were greeted with an angry anti-war mob yelling expletive's and throwing bottles and cans at us while trying to spit on those closest. Welcome home for severing this country at the direction of the civilian government. The military cannot declare war or even engage in conflict without the expressed commitment of our government--whether the congress to declare war or the President to commit us to combat for 90 days without congress.
In the case of Vietnam, the congress gave the President the power to escalate the war.
I'm a hard core conservative and Constitutionalist. The US should never send our military into harm's way unless both the President and Congress agree that it is our strategic interest. That in fact is the law.
However, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fake and it took us into war in Vietnam. Let this sink in. When I was a platoon commander in 1968-69, we already knew that our government had no intention of winning the war. How did we know? Because the only way to have won that war was to have invaded North Vietnam and neither President Johnson nor congress ever allowed us to invade North Vietnam. If Johnson and ordered the 3 Marine Divisions to land and defeat North Vietnam, the war would have been over in months or even a year instead of 10 years and a humiliatingly defeat.
BTW, did you know that the treaty between South Vietnam and North Vietnam included a provision that if the North ever invades the South that the US would intervene?????
But in 1975, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam and the US pretended that we had no treaty obligation to intervene.
I was a Marine company commander during the evacuation of Saigon in April of 1975. My company was designated the "Sparrow Hawk" reaction force to rescue designated people from difficult locations. We were never given an execute order, but I know it was for political reasons because the people to be rescued were Vietnamese who had supported the US.. There were many calls for help coming in and we were never told to launch.
It gets worse. One of the US rules of engagement was that we were not allowed to take Vietnamese who were in uniform. Let that sink in. These were the Vietnam military who fought for us and now politically we could not take anyone aboard ship who was wearing a uniform.
It didn't take long for Vietnamese helicopter pilots to take off their uniforms and land on our ships. Some landed wearing only their underwear because they knew they would not be allowed aboard the ship if they wore their Vietnamese uniforms.
I could tell you horror stories of the evacuation of Saigon that would make you hate our government at that time.
My apologies for the long diatribe, but memories of those days are strong.
My Step father was a marine in Nam. He never talked about it. Thank you for your service and thank you for sharing.
Nice story if you are a Christian check out Derek Prince
History repeats oldSalt if you're still above deck you saw the sacking of the US Capitol and the cluster of a withdrawal from Afghanistan...interesting times
Thank you for your service and for sharing your story.
Thsnk you sooo much for this interesting and insightful comment. And thank you for your service!
Enjoyed this particular video . I was with the 25th Inf. Div Cambodia and Vietnam 70-71 . You soo correct about the jungle . We called it triple canopy . I think the biggest threat for me at least was the big bugs and mosquitoes. The heat was also relentless . Thank you for you service and welcome home 🇺🇸
I remember an overcast night in the A Shau in '69. In civilized environments, overcast works for you visionwise because you get a lot of reflective light from towns and cities. But up in the mountains near the border with Laos, when the sun went down it got "black cat in the bottom of a coal mine" dark. You not only couldn't see your hand in front of your face, you couldn't even see your own shoulder. They say dogs see with their noses...in night time jungle, you see with your ears. Wildlife noises are actually kinda comforting, because most wildlife go silent when humans enter the area. If it got quiet, you perked up cause somebody was out there. They didn't even have zippers on our camo trousers; buttons only. Cause you can button and unbutton quietly, but a zipper was a clearly human sound and you could hear it from 100 yards... once your ears learned to listen. There's a difference between hearing and listening and at night...you listen.
Activate bat ears mode!
Reading this was like talking to my father again. He was in the 198th LIB 69-70
Thanks for your service!
He gave scenes in Platoon 10/10. But only thing that ran through my mind is these scenes are made for Hollywood with lighting in background. Jungle at night is way too dark to see people highlighted like that. Even in normal woodlands, you won’t get that kind of detail. Your eyes can see movement when it’s dark with a little moonlight, but not sharp details. Being a jungle school instructor doesn’t make you an expert in military history. He discredited chaos of war just because 7-8 teaches things a certain way. He knows what he’s been taught. He has experience. But his ratings were a bit questionable at times.
I liked that you mentioned the environment. I've been homeless and lived in the woods, also been lost in the jungle on an Island in Western Fiji (sounds bizarre but both true). There might be a guy with a gun trying to kill you but the environment never gives up.
I can see that dealing with the enemy is an issue but there's a whole lot more to worry about. Not freezing to death, not dehydrating, not starving or becoming sick or spraining an ankle or becoming lost.
I was in the 1/14th, 25th Div., back in the 70's. Our command back then to retreat was "fall back and regroup." I never remember hearing "break contact." Terminologies change. Golden Dragons!
anyone else bummed about Predator not getting credit for the water vine Billy cuts into that he was talking about earlier in the video?
I immediately though of that scene when he was talking about water in the jungle.
Absolutely.
And even what he said about being hit and not realising until somebody points that out.
Poncho: You're hit. You're bleedin' man
Blain: I ain't got time to bleed
Machismo overload!! :D
@@krishnavivek5502 the actors playing the soldiers in the movie apart from Carl Weathers and Schwarzenegger were Vietnam vets and Jesse Ventura was a navy SEAL in Vietnam so they must have told some of their stories to the director, so we have that feel of authenticity here and there.
@@NKWittmann Oh cool! Thanks for sharing.
Predator was the first R rated film I ever saw, and still one of my favourite films to this day. "10/10 for awesome", indeed
The jungle is a remarkable place...lots of stuff and RAAMBO woe...now that is exciting. Interesting review I liked this video yes!!!!👍🎄
Fall back, pull back is definitely what they used to say. I have an old civil war strategy, and tactics manual. And 'fall back' is definitely in there. Of course that was a long time ago, at some point the military got cool, and came up with break contact I guess. Pretty sure if you were in that position you would get the idea either way.
Just sounds better politically to say break contract, having to say you've ordered a fall ack/retreat seems more embarrassing i guess.
Bet you can find John Wayne saying it somewhere
Fall back
This is the most generous insider so far. Giving lots of 10 out of 10. I've seen many agree with everything in a movie and still give a 6 or 7, and I just wonder why.
I'm very sure it's because of the unnecessary amount of cutting they do that they leave out extra info. It was evident in the 2nd part of the ancient warfare expert rates movies where it shows "i don't like the irrational and unnecessary thing but some parts are cool, 6 out of 10", "What they do it very rational and logical and how they will actually try this on specific terrain- 6 out of 10"
I remember having guard duty and as soon as I started, it started raining exaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaactly like that for the entire time like on Platoon and he is absolutely correct. I spent that whole night saying it's gotta be something better than this. Took me through to retirement though! And just like on Forrest Gump when he was referring to the radio when we got attacked, you will see people's nerves are shot, they are tired, but it's still detrimental to maintain discipline!
Him saying I could survive indefinitely reminds me of the confused face of a green beret being asked how long he could survive in the field by a journalist
“What? I don’t understand. I mean I would just ... live here. Rather than in my house. What do you mean how long?”
😂
**house burning down**
Dog: this is fine
Link
I want to see this video
Bro if you can find it link it plz i want to watch it
That scene from Thin Red Line is the payoff to an earlier set up. In another scene Woody is messing with the pins on his grenades that's why it pulled out so easily.
I was in the 25th ID (L) for many years and had some fun adventures. I do miss the Loco moco and shaved ice from North shore.
All I know about jungle survival I learned from my dad and his buddies, my mentors. And growing up on on Western Pacific Islands and the mangrove, sawgrass, jungles, and forests of Southeast Asia. Leftovers from WWII, formed up in 1950, trained the next generation, splitting up and reforming in 1957. Dear old dad is a legend. He and Mom are now together in "Arlington". For me, circa early 1950'' through the 1970's. It was one big magical adventure.
Sfc Mason was my senior drill sergeant during basic training. Good to see him !!
Damn, he's got the DS badge AND is a Jungle Instructor? He'll make CSM for sure.
Outstanding presentation!! I went through JOTC in 1978 and again in 1980. Your analysis of the events in the movie scenes was informative. I hope the Army continues operation of JOTC indefinitely. Your school taught principles there applicable to every environment. And life in general!! Thank you for your service and Best Wishes.
It hurt me to learn the mini-gun carried by Jesse “The Body” Ventura, and Arnold’s 950 round M203 magazines in Predator probably would not happen in real life!😮. Great presentation👍.
From my experiences:
@6:43 - On company S&D with montagnards, it was zero visability. The yards were in perimeter, me and another American were near each other toward the center. We both awoke to footsteps slowly approaching. They stopped 1-2 feet from us. My M16 was on full auto pointing at crotch height. Any disturbing noise or action, the intruder would have a full mag recoiling up. Nothing happened. Me and the other American reached out and felt the guy all over. Decided he was a scared kid and encouraged him to go back on the perimeter. None of us could see anything. Only sound and touch.
@6:53 They also had centipedes that had 2 glands per segment that sprayed acid, in defense. I tested it.
@7:25 In a montagnard company we had set down for the night. Very dark. We knew there was supposed to be a VC unit a little way further. Our CO at base told us to move up to it. We didn't think moving a company through the jungle silently at night could be possible. Our CO disagreed. Somehow we lost radio contact with our base ;-) and stayed put for the night.
@9:11 I've been a proponent of learning sign language, especially small recon units. And practicing. Just a bit more than the standard, rally, look that way, hold, etc.
@10:27 I was in the hammer part of a hammer/ anvil mission. Things were quiet and we had a spotter plane fly over us. Eventually we even put out a panel, and the spotter couldn't see us. It can be HARD to spot someone from the air.
@11:01 Company(yards) was getting extracted and the company leader and his senior NCO got the company moving to the extraction point(good so far). Then they both came back to my squad, the last in line, and told me they would cover our withdrawal. (not good - imho - for the leaders being tail gunners.) (I later realized why. The NCO, I'm pretty sure was Bob Howard, who had spike team background, and getting out of Dodge in small units could have encouraged that action. And the officer was a young LT, that would defer to Howard.)
@11:56 A friend who served in Korea had a buddy (by his terms, a giant) whose personal weapon of choice was a 57 Recoiless. My friends description of him was he handled it like a big shotgun. Everyone seemed to carry at least one round for him. He was very good.
@12:52 We had one montagnard blow himself up just like that, in camp. Pin snagged on something, and the spoon kept it on his web gear. (Later the other yards thought he had been a VC, so they didn't miss him.
@13:45 MAKE a clearing for small unit infil/exfil. They/we started using daisy cutter bombs after I left Vietnam. Designed to blow several feet above the ground and clear a small LZ, I never ran into one.
@14:59 We did have 60mm mortars that "could" be fired, freehand, no sights, no tripod, no T&E. But I believe its range was significantly less than the M79 grenade launcher. Though the mortar did have much more explosive.
Underrated Comment. Thank you for the stories :)
You knew Bob Howard? Legendary. Glad you made it home.
@@irishdixie77 Knew him, no. Not positive it was him. But subsequent photos of him sort of matched what that NCO looked like. And his behavior was more like spike team action, get out if compromised. But we were a company sized force. He (whoever it was) knew we were compromised and instincts told him, its time to leave.
SOG didn't have thousands of folks at any one time, so walking past someone, and later reflecting who they might have been, did make it possible. I know I saw Fred Zabitowsky in CCC as he walked past. The guy I was with pointed him out, and that the paperwork was in the works for his MoH. But knowing these guys? Nope. I was just a new green body, that happened to be in an incredible unit.
My favorite war movie that I thought was almost realistic was Platoon. I am glad you gave it a 10/10.
“Hello my name is Steven Mason”
me who plays CoD : *’starts getting flashbacks about Black Ops 1’* “MASOOOON”
What do the numbers mean?
@@nimay13 818181818181818181818181818181818811881
Please allow me to introduce my self I a man of wealth and taste
Ascension 7-15-1-2-19-7-25-6-13-6-7-15-14-0
What do the numbers mean, Mason?
Rescue Dawn is actually a true story it’s about one of my Dads good friends and squadron mates from Vietnam Lt. Dieter Dengler. VA-145 1966
Really glad he talked about We Were Soldiers, my favourite film and is completely underrated!
Can confirm from being down in the Amazon jungle a number of times, the insects at night are insanely loud! On top of that, they almost sound digital/technological in the noises they make. Hear a jaguar once or twice at night. Thing is, is that sounds can travel far in the jungle, so it was really hard to tell (at least for me) how near or far that jaguar might've been. Most likely far, as I was never more then a couple hours from a river town. Still.
I can’t imagine how terrifying the sound of a Jaguar must be in the pitch black! No sleep for you tonight 😂
I spent three months living deep in the amazon. Incredible place
this guys commentary is great, he has a very likable personality. Would love to see a sequel to this with the same guy.
Yeah, wished the vid was 1 hour +
I was with 3rd Marines at MCBH K-bay when Tears of the sun was filming on an island near us. They allowed Marines (they could've asked other branches as well) to go to casting call for the movie and Sgt. Bourgeois (yes his name was spelled like that) who was an NCO in our motorpool went to try out and did appear in the movie for about 2.5 seconds firing a shoulder fired missile. He was African American and a PT stud! He had that movie playing in the barracks common area all the time. We were with CSSG-3 at the time.
Predator is a perfect source for this where he cuts down a water Vine Billy in fact and drinks from it.
That predator movie scene is the most iconic ever.
Great video, 10/10
heres an interesting fact about platoon, the whole cast who is seen on screen as soldiers were all sent through a specially designed boot camp in the Phillipines where they filmed this by Dale Dye who is a Vietnam vet and is also in the movie. by the time they filmed the movie they were basically soldiers not actors
I saw that extra on the blu-ray and Dale dyes commentary as well. Brutal but effective and probably better training than the usual 6 weeks training actual recruits got at the time
"He probably should of have some camouflage on there. Not just a white bald head" lol
A bald head shines just as bright as a mag-lite
No matter how it happens, Predator is always a 10/10, well said Mason.
And the funny thing is they all had full face paint camo at the start of the movie...and when they actually had to go to the junglethey removed it
I'm pretty sure he is educated enough to say "should have" instead of "should of".
3:40 is that the Russian jocko willink
Dude I was thinking the same thing
Every glorious nation has its own Jocko Willink!
Except he was an American pilot
I always wondered how accurate that Forest Gump scene was. Seen that movie many times. One of my favorites. I love how the guy gives some of the movies a high awesome rating but a low reality rating.
It was actually extremely accurate and it resonated with a lot of Vietnam veterans
That was Star Wars crap
"you have to be good at being uncomfortable" - amen bro.
Someone famous, I can't remember who, said words to the effect: "a good soldier is not defined by what they can do, but what they can endure".
he looks old and young at the same time. MY FIRST LIKED COMMENT YASSSSSSSSSSS FEELS GOOD
Thats how the army do ya
He is only 26. The downfalls of diet mainly consisting of of dip and rip-its.
(I'm just kidding about his age)
I bet his knees and back are in worse shape than a Saigon hooker
No fr the army ages you so fast and forces you to grow up quickly i joined when i was 19 im 20 now and everyone back home says i look different
@@Anomaly-uz9pr I've been in the marines for 3 years and my knees pop like rice crispies
I could listen to experts like this for hours.
12:41 grenade goes off while attached to him and doesn't turn him into mangled meat, or wound his squadmates within eyesight of him
7/10
for realism
12:10 Predator "I'd give it a 2 out of 10 and a 10 out of 10 for awesome" LOL, love it!
This was the first time ive seen someone give a 10/10
One thing i hadnt considered about the jungle until i heard an interview with a lepidopterist who spent some time in the jungles of South America. At night i would imagine one of the biggest fears being wildlife such as jaguars, but what scared him the most at night was during heavy winds and rain that knocked down big branches that are often burdened with vines and epiphytes. Some large enough to seriously hurt you or even kill you if they land on your head. During those nights he would hear heavy branches fall in his vicinity making his way to some clearing for sheltering and sleep. That felt much more like an immediate danger than Jaguars who exist in the area.
Yep, even backpackers know the most dangerous thing in the woods are widowmaker limbs and ticks, not the bears. Everyone still asks me about bears, but they're no worry as long as you hang your food!
Riding that jungle penatrator up into a Blackhawk is one of the greatest feelings in the world.
I Love this, it's nice to see someone who knows what's up comment on these things... The portrayal in movies and television about ops in the jungle. There is one thing however, that I wholeheartedly disagree with. That's the inability to sleep in the mud, on the ground, in the jungle.. I am a United States Infantry Marine Corps Veteran. Served from '97 to '01...
Fox Co. 2/8, My company was heavily deployed so I spent a lot of time in jungles, Okinawa, Central and South America. And yes, this man nails it on the head, the jungle is hands down one of the most unforgiving environments on this planet.... Everything will kill you.
But if you're patrolling day and night, nonstop for days or weeks... You get so exhausted you will fall asleep walking. At that point you don't even think about all the flora and fauna, you will lay down in that mud and be unconscious in a second... Just remember to pull your pancho liner over your face so the rain won't wake you up
Oliver Stone also had a battle buddy from his time in Vietnam working with him on Platoon as a technical advisor. Together they put the cast through quite a pre filming regimen.
Oliver Red Stone was the First real Jungle Fighter on Cinema with real Experience
@@fabricio4794 No, he wasn't!
All Jungle Instructors in Jungle Course is masterful. I’ve been there for a week and they're very nice
“ you just have to be good at being uncomfortable” that’s an everyday life skill for sure
I’m deaf and I can confirm that the sniper movie where Tom said “2 person walking down hill”
Fun fact. Military actually learned how to do those signs from deaf people.
Guess next one you could have deaf people rates actors who use sign language in movies.
That would actually be really cool to see. Thanks for the knowledge
@@angrydingus5256 NP. Other fun fact is Government such as FBI CIA even other countries couldn’t cipher sign languages. Examples, we sign in sentence and many of signs could have different meanings. I can give you one example. "orange" we fist our hand and sign it under the chin. it also can mean "old" you get the idea.
Our sign language comes with different "accents" like other countries say "dags" it actually means "dogs" Sometimes, you would get confused and say what? I live in west and we sign Hospital with 2 fingers to cross on our shoulder. in East, they sign it with 2 fingers cross under the chin..
Who came first, a soldier or a deaf person?
Great idea!
I was a sniper and on my team, once we where in sector, absolutely not talking. We made our own hand and arm signals and me and my spotter where so close and talked a lot with our hands, we almost having conversations...lol...of course if you where not on my team, you probly think we had issues lookin at us... 😂
holy shit that was my drill sgt! much love to 1st SGT MASON
I was a green clad jungle killer in the Australian army. I felt a chill up my spine in the 'trudging through the jungle' scenes. Best portrayal of what infantry soldiers do, did in Vietnam, ever. I've felt the sapping heat and humidity, slipped in the slick orange clay up steep features and been damp from rain or sweat 24/7 for weeks at a time. 'Platoon' brings back fond memories.
Holy shit SFC Mason was my SDS and now here he is on my UA-cam recommendations, what a small world
I always keep on forgetting that there's early and late Vietnam veterans. Thank you for your service.
People always talk about wanting a 30 round mag or a 50+ round drum for their semi auto rifle, but I want some Hollywood magazines. They hold 2 or 3 hundred rds but look exactly like 30 rd magazines.
I remember going to the field in Hawaii and just getting absolutely rained and dumped on for 6 to 8 hours while laying in the prone. Centipedes were my field nemesis.
Those suckers will get you! In the Cook Islands they are highly aggressive and venomous...
the mortar has a sight on it, he's shooting direct lay. granted the actor isn't looking through the sight but its like a little peep sight, hell its even locked into the sight mount. its kind of like shooting in handheld mode with a m224 60mm mortar today
oh he knows, he was my drill sgt for becoming an 11c
Hangin n bangin👀
RETIRED old crusty Fister here! Just wanted to say love yall 11C's, years of fun on the hill with you guys
Wow a fellow 11C
11c represent!
Awesome gradings in this video. So true, not being able to see your hand at night, the jungle floor comes alive at night between the decomposing deadfall, to the noise of insects and animals. Our biggest problem were the Whitetail Rats, they would eat straight through your pack to get to your rations.
In Panama 88-90, one thing I could never wrap my head around were the ant nests were in the trees and the bee hives were in the ground.
Bee hives in the ground is the worst; if you step in it....oh man
My friend from high school was a Ranger that was killed there.
On the guy getting dragged to the ground by vines in Rambo. I always interpreted his inability to scream as the wind got knocked out of him because he landed hard on his chest.