6 VIETNAM
Troops of the 4th Battalion (Mechanized), 23rd Infantry
Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, participate in a 1968
mission aboard an M113 armored personnel carrier,
which the Viet Cong called the “Green Dragon.”BETTMANN/GETTY^ IMAGESSend letters and email:
Vietnam editor
1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182-
[email protected]Thanks for doing a great job of letting others know of
what we in the “Mech” units endured (“Riding the Green
Dragon,” by Dana Benner, August 2019). I noticed that the
story centers around the mechanized infantry units in
the 25th Infantry Division.
I have something to add to that story. There was an-
other mech unit to include on that list, and that was the
2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 22nd Infantry Regiment.
The “Triple Deuce,” as we called it, was originally a unit of
the 4th Infantry Division. But because of logistics, the
3rd Brigade of the 4th Division and the 25th Division
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I served with B Company, 2nd Battalion (Mechanized),
22nd Infantry Regiment, 25th Division, in 1970. I am
pleased to see this article, as I can now refer to it and
show these photos to my family.
Ben Barrett
Hamilton, N.Y.Rode the Army’s
Green Dragon
Media Under the Microscope
Remembers a
Green Beret
I much enjoyed your feature “Tet in the News” (by
Edwin E. Moïse, February 2019). It was an
interesting counterpoint to an often assumed
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its latter years.
Yet a few pages on is the excellent “The Battle for
Hearts and Minds” (by Don Alsbro, the captain of
an Army team that helped a village with programs
involving medical care, education, economic
opportunities and more). It resets things in focus
for those who doubted. Alsbro asked a visiting
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what my editors want to see.”
The press did not lose the war, but turned the
people against it, and no president, however strong
or resolute, can ignore the public.
Marc van Ackere
Evian, FranceI was in the 77th Special Forces Group
(Airborne) at the same time as Larry
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American Green Beret,” by David Kindy,
August 2019), although I only recall him
as one of six foreign soldiers who came
to the Special Forces at Fort Bragg in the
mid-1950s. I did not personally know
Thorne (below center).
In the group photo taken in 1964, I
believe the man in the black T-shirt
(lower left) may be Tom S. Hollingsworth.
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him. We joined the Army together on the
“buddy plan” (which guaranteed that
men who enlisted together under the plan
would be assigned to same unit initially).
Thanks for a most interesting article
that brought back lots of memories.
Jerry A. Hunsinger
Grand Junction, Colo.