Images of Vietnam

Jim Holbrook ’66 graduated from Grinnell with a passion for philosophy. He was on the brink of entering the Ph.D. program at Yale when his plans fell apart.

It was 1968. Martin Luther King was killed, and then Bobby Kennedy.

“The world seemed a little crazy,” Holbrook says. “I found myself feeling like what I really needed to do was join the army.”

His next stop — Vietnam.

Dong Tam was the headquarters base camp of the Ninth Infantry Division in Vietnam. Holbrook served at the Fire Support Base Moore west of Dong Tam.

Holbrook in front of the Fire Direction Center bunker at Fire Support Base Moore.

Holbrook was an artillery fire direction specialist in the U.S. Army in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam.

Artillery experts often suffered hearing damage from firing the big guns.

One of the six 155-mm howitzers in B Battery. It could shoot a 95-pound projectile about 10 miles and drop it within an area less than the size of a football field.

Holbrook calculated the trajectory of artillery shells on plywood like this.

Showering under the blue sky of Vietnam.

Shaving required a steady hand and a helmet full of cold water.

Like all soldiers, Holbrook became familiar with the care and use of weapons like this one.

One of the batteries in Holbrook's artillery battalion had 155-mm self-propelled howitzers.

Occasionally the gunners in Holbrook's Battery would 'frag' the FDC tent with a tear gas grenade.

Holbrook on Easter Sunday in Vietnam (note the crosses in the background).

A collection of shrapnel and mortar and rocket shells fired at Fire Support Base Moore.

 

All photos courtesy of Holbrook. This article appeared as a web extra for The Grinnell Magazine, Winter 2009.