Ed "Spooky" Nored

RVN Sep 69 - Sep 70

Click on image to enlarge

9-1-70 Tokyo

9-2-70 Returned to Bien Hoa

9-3-70 Bien Hoa

9-4-70 ?

9-5-70 Song Be

9-6-70 Song Be

9-7-70 Song Be

9-8-70 Song Be

9-9-70 Song Be

9-10-70 Song Be

9-11-70 Song Be

	L-R: Bill Belcher, Mike Eklund "Lefty", Ron Robbins "Tex", Chris Lueke, Larry Antici. (click on image to enlarge)
	(Nored) Ed Stoffel replaced Ed Bryson as company clerk. Both were from my squad. Stoffel is shown here at the company rear at Song Be. I  remember this is where I typed my last letter home on the same typewriter Stoffel  used. With the collection of pin up girls on the wall in the background, this scene is typical of many Korea and W.W. 2 photographs. (click on image for a larger view.)

9-12-70 Song Be

(Nored) Staff Sgt. Chris Luecke  looks thru the pages of  Bill Belchar's  photo album of family, friends and the real world back home. Photo taken in one of the sleeping quarters in the Song Be Company rear. It was evenings like this in my final days in country where the topics of discussion was about the future and what we were going to do with our lives after the Army and always about the war and what would happen to Nam after all the Americans had withdrawn. Such conversations about the war always left me depressed and it sure as hell didn't  help when I went to the dumps one day. There was an anger growing in me and using  the typewriter in the company clerks office I couldn't help but express it in a last letter to Linda. (click on image to enlarge)

The following is the last letter I sent home to my girlfriend at the time, Linda Dalton.

My letter to Linda:

(to understand the feeling see the photos at the bottom of the letter.)

Last night the gang got together and was talking about the war and we all concluded that the war over here is a waste and those who have died have died for nothing. The people over here don't need the Americans. Sometimes I can type pretty good and other times I aint worth a plug nickel. Anyway as I was saying they don't need the U.S. or anybody cause all they need is there rice to eat and the ground to sleep on. That's all they want. They use the G.I.s and take their hard earned money. I'm tired of the place and these V.D. ridden people. I know I'm kind of pissed off cause I'm thinking about all my friends who are still out in the bush and just may not live through the night. God help us all! Love and Peace. That's the only thing that makes sense anymore.

Sept 12, 1970

Song Be Vietnam

Today I went out to the dumps. It's quite an experience, believe me. There's about 100 people out there at the dumps for the sole purpose of scrounging. But this isn't little unnecessary scrounging it's a matter of surviving for them. These people are a mixture of Vietnamese and Mountianyard, it isn't spelled that way but looks like that, anyway today me and this soul brother loaded a bunch of garbage cans and junk onto a trailer and took it down to the dumps. So we're driving along and turn off the main road onto a dirt road that goes to the dump. There are about 6 kids waiting there for you. You drive by at about 20 mph and they jump into the trailer and dig there way into the cans. Then you finally get to the end of the road and there they are. 100 of the most filthiest, raggedy, sad looking people or is animals a better word? Before you can back the trailer into the pile of trash they are all over the thing, and they are grabbing, digging, throwing and fighting over this trash, it just ain 't kids, it's old people shoving little kids out of the way. One old woman wearing nothing but and army towel around her waist and that's it, all bare breasted and bare footed she stomps through the mud of old food rotten milk that these people are picking up and drinking. Sour hot milk that would turn anybody's stomach. Then I saw this one girl carrying off about 50 issues of the 1st Air Cav magazine they send to us. There pretty good books and the guys out in the bush like to send them home cause they sort of explain what we are doing there etc. So I took these magazines away from her and wow did she bitch! She was really telling me off and then she said in broken english that she would give no. 1 boom boom to g.i. to get the magazines back. Good grief! Here's some 15 year old girl willing to lay me for some stupid magazines.

I took some pictures and I was surprised to see some of them even smile. It was the little kids it really hurt me to see cause you knew that in a matter of years they too would be in the piles of ruined food barefooted eating to survive in the only way they knew how. And then you think of Nixons great Americanization plan. I now realize this plan pertains only to the military and not to the people. But yet as I looked at these people, I saw smiles and even heard laughter, so I guess in that alone there is some hope.

Tomorrow the company is to come on to L.Z. Betty and the 15th or so start tearing it down, and so as I leave in 9 days nothing will change the beat will go on more L.Z.s and more people getting killed. So I guess I go home and forget about it. What a way to live. I better get this letter off soon honey. I just may beat it home.

Again I must warn you hon, please forgive the way I talk or the way I don't talk, I've spent 358 days talking to guys and the only words that seem to exist are swear words. So take into consideration I ain't no gentleman o.k.?

If I only have one life to live let me live it as a Grunt! For a Grunts life is an appreciative, honored, proud, hard type of life the protected will never know.

("And God willing I hope they never will have to know!")

	(Nored) These are 3 of the magazines I kept and brought home from the girl in the dumps. (Click on image for a larger view.)
	Photos taken at the Song Be Dump. (click on image for a larger view)

9-13-70 Song Be

9-14-70 Song Be

9-15-70 Song Be

Last letter home.

Here's a copy of Eds' "warning" letter to his friends and family. (click on image for a larger view)

Left for home on 9-21-70.

At the reunion held in 1988 Dave Arronson showed me this picture he took as he left the world of the boonies for the final time. The small group of men seeing Dave off are some of the good friends he had served with. I found the photo very touching. He was kind enough to send me a copy. We all looked forward to going home. I think we were all eager to return to the real world and get on with our lives. But having to leave everyone behind that you served with just didn't feel right. There wasn't much to feel good about when you left Nam. There was no sense of victory or sense of having accomplished anything positive. Though we had dropped our pack and equipment we were still "humping heavy" on our way home. Loaded down with the emotional garbage of the entire experience. The heaviest thing being the question, was the sacrifice worth it? There was certainly a lot of things we would have liked to have left behind in Nam. But one of them was not the people we served with. Thank goodness most of them did make it home. Ed Nored.....
(click on image for a larger view)
(click on image for a larger view) (click on image for a larger view) (Nored) After arriving at Travis AFB from Nam we traveled by bus to the Oakland Army base where we changed out of our jungle fatigues and were issued our dress uniforms. Mike Eklund is shown still in his fatigues  on the right and on the left is shown  removing  the ribbons from the medal boxes and is about to place them on his dress uniform. I remember Mike stopped me from putting the large full sized medals on my new uniform. That's how savvy I was concerning the dress uniform. Thanks Mike.
Mike Eukland and Ed Nored at Oakland Army Base. We just got back from Vietnam. Well I'm 20 mins away from home and Mike is on his way to the San Francisco airport via Taxi. Instead of calling someone to pick me up I grabbed a taxi and headed home. Every one of us remembers that day we came home......

You are on page 20

Grunts & the gear we carried (start here)

Maps

LZ's

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-misc