Thursday, October 25, 2012

Camp Carroll, 2012

One of the biggest and most famous of the DMZ Marine combat bases and the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion 94th Artillery was Camp J.J. Carroll. Camp Carroll was established to stop the North Vietnam Army (NVA) 324B Division, massed in the DMZ, from invading South Vietnam.

It was a crowded plateau just east of the highlands a few miles south of the DMZ and was enclosed by mine fields and concertina wire. We were greatly out-numbered but the camp did accommodated over 2,000 men and 60 artillery pieces including 12 of our long range 175mm guns. Our big guns put Camp Carroll on the map - particularly the maps of NVA gunners. Most of the casualties sustained at Carroll were from incoming artillery, rockets and mortars, almost all of Russian manufacture.

The base had been sprayed with herbicides (Agent Orange) and was treeless with practically no vegetation, just red dirt in the dry season and thick red mud during the monsoons. This video clip reveals what Camp Carroll looks like today, 2012, and, by comparison, presents a stark contrast to what it looked like for anyone who was there 45 years ago. Except for the familiar panoramic view of the surrounding hills, I would not have recognized it. This was our wartime home for most of the tour ...


(Video was posted on YouTube by someone without a profile.)

"No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now." -- Richard M. Nixon


"The war was fought on many fronts. The most important one was American public opinion." -- NVA General Vo Nguyen Giap

1 comment:

Unknown said...

the nva was 320 th division along with 66th and 48 nav regiments i have french man mcdonald interviews of general giap >Giap " i sent 10,000 nva of 320th to wipe out carroll tet jan 68 so that arty could not support khe sanh 6,000 usmc etc ,seiged by 20,to 40,000 nva. during daily fog till 3 pm etc,at khe sanh no choppers jets c 130s then flights canncelled nva arty , carroll kept bracketed arty during daily fog kept nva at bay ,,,OR KHE SANH MAY HAVE BEEN CAPTURED TAKING THE MARINES 6 CLICKS TO LAO BAO BORDER TO LAOS TO HANOI POSSIBLE END OF WAR .I HAVE wHITE hOUSE LETTERS TO COMANDERS DECLASSIFIED TO CARROLL ETC. CHAPLAIN GEOF STEINER CUSHING MN. USMC 2/9 3RD H CO 1RST PLT 1RST SQUAD .67 68 .SEMPER FI.1-!!!