A serious question for VFW's.

[the other mike]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking 'hot zones' in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

 

[JGalt]

My brother in law (God rest his soul) did two tours of duty in VN, in a mortar platoon. The way he talked, he never had so much fun in his life.

Uncle Sam kept them well-supplied with cold beer and steaks to grill.

 

[westwall]

My brother in law (God rest his soul) did two tours of duty in VN, in a mortar platoon. The way he talked, he never had so much fun in his life.

Uncle Sam kept them well-supplied with cold beer and steaks to grill.

Yup. It was great right up till the rocket landed on your hooch.

 

[Concerned American]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking places in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

If you're being shot at or blown up, I'd say they are all the same, it's kinda like saying "would you like to be buried up to your neck in shit or buried up to your neck in shit, but you get a cup of coffee. Which is better. LOL

 

[DudleySmith]

Alaska sucked, so does anywhere in the ME and Islamic Asia. Everybody wanted duty in Hawaii, but it ain't all that great; more variety of stuff to do in northern California than Hawaii off duty. Australia, too. You still get to wear those stupid floral print shirts that are like three for a dollar and look like an idiot who buys his clothes at a Goodwill in all three.

 

[Rambunctious]

Worst place or most dangerous place?....most dangerous of course Afghanistan or Iraq 5 years ago....worst place...the Philippines....

 

[Canon Shooter]

I was in the Middle East during Desert Storm. We had a mine warfare base down in the UAE in Abu Dhabi, where the temperature was around 120° every day, with humidity hovering around 85-90%.

That place sucked...

 

[the other mike]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking places in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

If you're being shot at or blown up, I'd say they are all the same, it's kinda like saying "would you like to be buried up to your neck in shit or buried up to your neck in shit, but you get a cup of coffee. Which is better. LOL

Maybe I should have rephrased it more like if you were in the US Military where's the worst place I could send you ? What's the greasiest, most unbearable s h it hole you could think of being sent to right now ?

Seems to me that will be the place they hate us most.

 

[Concerned American]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking places in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

If you're being shot at or blown up, I'd say they are all the same, it's kinda like saying "would you like to be buried up to your neck in shit or buried up to your neck in shit, but you get a cup of coffee. Which is better. LOL

Maybe I should have rephrased it more like if you were in the US Military where's the worst place I could send you ? What's the greasiest, most unbearable s h it hole you could think of being sent to right now ?

Seems to me that will be the place they hate us most.

In that case, it is really hard to generalize. I spent time in Barstow, CA--isolated at the time but I liked it, grew up in the desert. Someone from NYC or Miami would probably have a much different view. Personally--I wouldn't want to be anywhere near DC or the middle east.

 

[the other mike]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking places in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

If you're being shot at or blown up, I'd say they are all the same, it's kinda like saying "would you like to be buried up to your neck in shit or buried up to your neck in shit, but you get a cup of coffee. Which is better. LOL

Maybe I should have rephrased it more like if you were in the US Military where's the worst place I could send you ? What's the greasiest, most unbearable s h it hole you could think of being sent to right now ?

Seems to me that will be the place they hate us most.

In that case, it is really hard to generalize. I spent time in Barstow, CA--isolated at the time but I liked it, grew up in the desert. Someone from NYC or Miami would probably have a much different view. Personally--I wouldn't want to be anywhere near DC or the middle east.

Try New Zealand.

 

[Concerned American]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking places in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

If you're being shot at or blown up, I'd say they are all the same, it's kinda like saying "would you like to be buried up to your neck in shit or buried up to your neck in shit, but you get a cup of coffee. Which is better. LOL

Maybe I should have rephrased it more like if you were in the US Military where's the worst place I could send you ? What's the greasiest, most unbearable s h it hole you could think of being sent to right now ?

Seems to me that will be the place they hate us most.

In that case, it is really hard to generalize. I spent time in Barstow, CA--isolated at the time but I liked it, grew up in the desert. Someone from NYC or Miami would probably have a much different view. Personally--I wouldn't want to be anywhere near DC or the middle east.

Try New Zealand.View attachment 454038

I've heard a lot of good things about the Gold Coast of Australia.

 

[DudleySmith]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking 'hot zones' in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

Are you sure you know what the VFW is? It's not just war veterans who get stationed overseas. In fact some wartime TOD's weren't bad at all, like Viet Nam or Thailand or Paris in WW I or some others. It wasn't all Bataan Death marches or Apocalypse Now nightmares for everyone in the military.

Somebody mentioned the Phillipines. My dad went into the Philippines with MacArthur; saw some combat but overall liked the place and the people; same when he went into Japan with the Occupation forces. He hated his time stationed in 'safe' Panama the worst.

 

[the other mike]

Are you sure you know what the VFW is? It's not just war veterans who get stationed overseas. In fact some wartime TOD's weren't bad at all, like Viet Nam or Thailand or Paris in WW I or some others. It wasn't all Bataan Death marches or Apocalypse Now nightmares for everyone in the military.

Somebody mentioned the Phillipines. My dad went into the Philippines with MacArthur; saw some combat but overall liked the place and the people; same when he went into Japan with the Occupation forces. He hated his time stationed in 'safe' Panama the worst.

Not 'the' VFW.
I just abbreviated veterans of foreign wars.

 

[night_son]

In the last 50 years, where was the worst place
on the planet to be stationed ?

The obvious assumption would be Vietnam, going by the loss of 60,000 + troops, with Iraq being a close second, but there are some pretty unpleasant-looking 'hot zones' in Africa and other places too.

My brother is a Marine veteran retired in Hawaii ( Persian Gulf War 1),
but I've never been in.

In my own personal experience the worst place to be deployed would have to be a tossup between Ethiopia and Bosnia. Before my long range surveillance detachment deployed to Somalia in 1993 ahead of Task Force Ranger, we staged with other US and international relief effort forces in two Ethiopian towns: Dire Dawa and Raaso . While I witnessed no actual violence there outside of street scuffles, the general feeling of the place was one of utter hopelessness set to the backdrop of a geographical paradise amid bombed out ghettos and unimaginable poverty. The desert inferno winds combined with cool sea breezes to form balmy, soothing zephyrs. The people we interacted with were inquisitive about American life and kind, but living under the shadow of extreme oppression. Everywhere seemed to be tokens or reminders that the place to belong more the ancient world than the modern and was absolutely barbaric.

Bosnia, on the other hand, should have made me feel at home. I was deployed there mid-90's as part of the UN Peacekeeping force—on a combined force reconnaissance unit made of up of American Army Rangers, Australians, Belgians and Russians. I should have felt at home there because the Serbian forested hills and mountains with tiny, sleepy villages nestled between them reminded me of, were in fact almost identical to, the mountains of northern Pennsylvania. From the air it did remind me of back home, but down at ground level the place was a meat grinder. It was such a bad place to be deployed because after returning home from there it forever made me jumpy, paranoid in a certain way—the simple act, which I had previously loved, of hiking and hunting the PA mountains, like I could step on land mine at any moment or might stumble upon a half-filled in mass grave. Even the smell of rotting leaves out in the woods still makes me feel weak in the stomach thinking about that place.

In peacetime, the worst place I was stationed (and in some ways also the best) was Ft. Irwin, Ca. In some ways I had never felt such an overwhelming sensation of mental and physical desolation as I did while riding around the Mojave Desert on Irwin. Some of the most remote areas out there are just soul shatteringly empty, devoid of life. I mean, I loved being able to ride down to LA and explore on the weekends, and the desert mountains out there are amazing, but just the overall feeling of emptiness there really got to me for some reason. Strangely enough, I'd like to go back sometime.

 

[whitehall]

A fifty year span means that you are comparing Vietnam to the Mid East. The reason we see Mid East Veterans with such horrific injuries is that medical and rescue efforts are so efficient that these guys don't have a chance to die. Not so in Vietnam.

 

[Missourian]

Thule Air Force Base, Greenland.

Pituffik Space Base - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[the other mike]

When my brother joined the Marines in 1988 he got stationed in
Hawaii of all places. But his dream-gig only lasted a year or so before he was
in Bahrain in the first Gulf war.

 

[Dayton3]

My dad was in South Korea, mainly in 1951. The way he described it was unbearably cold, terrible food (what there was of it), and of course the seven months of grueling combat. Dad sold all the free stuff the Army gave soldiers (cigarettes, condoms) to his comrades saved his money and spent it in Japan whenever he hightailed it there on liberty.

 

[harmonica]

My brother in law (God rest his soul) did two tours of duty in VN, in a mortar platoon. The way he talked, he never had so much fun in his life.

Uncle Sam kept them well-supplied with cold beer and steaks to grill.

and lots of Asian babes!

 

[harmonica]

My dad was in South Korea, mainly in 1951. The way he described it was unbearably cold, terrible food (what there was of it), and of course the seven months of grueling combat. Dad sold all the free stuff the Army gave soldiers (cigarettes, condoms) to his comrades saved his money and spent it in Japan whenever he hightailed it there on liberty.

well--cold???? sure if you think 30 BELOW zero is cold!!!! --and that's not wind chill ....my dad was at the Chosin
I would say the Chosin was hell:
-30 BELOW zero
-'''surrounded'''/cut off by about ten times the USMC strength
-hilly/icy/snowy/terrain
-basically, only one MSR [ Main Supply Route ]
-hard to get food/water/machines working/etc with that weather
-the Chinese did a lot of night attacks
..my dad got ''lucky''--shot in the leg--flown out of Hagaru-ri, if I remember correctly