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OUR
WANNABE OLIN, MY RESPONSE AND HIS STORY
Note: Please note my response to Mr. Olin. Please feel free to
correct me if I am wrong in my observations. Mr. Olin's address is
furnished if you would like to chat with him.-RLNoe
From:
sog1rlnoe@aol.com
Mr. Olin, I have spent a couple of days reviewing
your claim to having been captured by the VC/NVA in Vietnam (see below)
and the copy of the DA Form 31 (10 days leave) attached. Here's the
problems I have with your story off the cuff: Since you failed to tell
anyone about your encounter with the enemy at the time. I find you put
your fellow soldiers and command at great risk and may have caused the
life or lives of other soldiers by your failure. As a soldier, it was
your responsibility to report all enemy or suspected enemy activities,
thus, your failure was a dereliction of duty and a possible violation of
the Uniform Code of Military Justice (a criminal act).
According to the DA form 31, you were in country in 1965. At that time,
the entire country was supporting our Vietnam efforts and all who served
were considered hero's and everything you were doing was considered in
the positive, therefore, there was no reason for you not to report your
claimed action. I find it extremely difficult to believe, in fact
impossible to believe the enemy would act as you related their actions
toward you. It would not benefit them to just turn you loose, in fact,
to do so would result in the enemy soldiers being disciplined by their
command! Your claim is contrary to how they operate and for them to have
beat the hell out of you a couple of times, inflicting wounds that would
leave scars to this day then take you to a hotel and have you cared for
is utter nonsense and borders on the insane. I personally think
your story would fit well with the "SOG
WANNABE BULLSHIT CONTEST" and might be
considered for a first place since you are really trying to get us to
beleive it. I invite you to view some of these stories, click on
the site noted above.
There is no one I know who has been in Vietnam with actual combat
experience that is going to believe your story and it is going to be
impossible to substantiate. You stated you never told anybody. You said
you were just thinking about going home? Tell me how you cared for
the wounds, wrist, leaches, etc.? It is implausible that you would
not tell anyone about being captured and then not to have any of your
wounds/injuries tended to? It's not like you were behind enemy lines or
out in the boonies without medical staff available.
Why would you bring your claim to having being captured after all these
years if it was not important to do so at the time? I must
conclude this is your claim for PTSD benefits, an effort to soak the
taxpayers of America. You can pass this by civilians, those who are not
in the know and some of the VA psychologist, but not the rest of us.
The next question, if this indeed happened, how do you know it was the
enemy (VC or NVA) that captured you? They are not prone to just let you
go. Could it have been some "cowboys," common criminals, a
gang? How about you messing with some Vietnamese lady while on
leave, pissed off her boyfriend/husband and they got together and kicked
your ass? That would seem more plausible, but then they wouldn't put you
up in a hotel after the fact to feed you and care for you, would they?
This doesn't fit either? Hell, nothing in your story fits anything
that makes any sense to a reasonable person who was there.
You continued on to say "then he had tears in his eyes and it made
me cry to........" talking about the SG looking at your records.
Why the hell would he have tears in his eyes looking at your records?
You stated you didn't report anything so there was no After Action
Report (it wouldn't have been in your record anyway). Your military
personnel records would have only noted your assignments, awards,
disciplinary action, training, and qualifications so tell me what the
hell did you have in them that would make your SG cry?
I spent 20 years in the military both in the NCO and Officers ranks and
never saw a sergeant who had tears in their eyes looking at someone's
military records. Sergeants are "hard-core" and not concerned
as to your assignments to the point they would become emotional and boo
hoo. Just more shit you're trying to pass on.
Mr. Olin, there is nothing to investigate here, you failed in your
responsibility to make an appropriate report at the time it happened,
thus, your claim in mute and worthless and must be dismissed out of hand
as utter bullshit.
If you served in Vietnam at all, I thank you for your service, but with
respect to your claim, ugh, it brings discredit to you in the eyes of
those who did serve and an insult to all the veterans of all wars.
Subj: Re: Emailing: ten day leave
Date: 4/12/06 2:55:46 PM Central Daylight Time
From: sueolin@bellsouth.net
To Robert
DAY 1 Got picked up on Duong Phan street or area that
they call it......by a bunch of guys in civilian clothes......they beat
the living crap out of me till i passed out......I wake up and I am
somewhere else......not in the city anymore.....when I come to I get a
face full of fists again..... they cut me with razor blades and then
they put me in the cage.....in the mud.......the leaches come.....but i
cannot get them off because I will sink down in the cage in the
mud......so i lock my arms in the top of the cage so I can
breathe......they put a hot knife on my left hand a scar that I still
have today.......
DAY 2 I just hang there.......with the sun and
the leaches.....I feel that I am alone but I don't know......the guys
don't seem to be there.....my mind goes off, I see my mother, my
brothers, my father....... hope that they will never know of this
because I know I will surely die here......
DAY 3 I just hang there......I know i will
surely die so I pray to GOD that my mother will never know of
this......I slowly slip away........
DAY 3 to DAY 8 I know nothing, unconscious
.....on DAY 8 I wake up to find myself in the Siagon Hotel dressed in
some fatigues the kind you could buy on the street......I ask the
guy in the hotel who brought me here......he won't tell me......I ask
him what day it is......he says its ba muy mot (31)......go back to room
and the hotel people bring me food......I tell them I have no money for
food or room.....they say Okay Okay.....
DAY 9 to 10 Rest in room.......they keep
bringing me food till I leave, even give taxi money to airfield ......go
back to unit
Never tell anybody, all that was on my mind was going home, which I went
home a short time later......had two weeks 3 months time left......in
Oakland went up first sergeants desk to find out if I would be
re-assigned......he looked at my records.....then he looked at me and
said......you know I could re-assign you.....i said Yes Sir.....then he
had tears in his eyes and it made me cry to........but i aint going to
re-assign you he said......go to Frisco and come back in two
weeks.......my mother and my father are in their graves now and never
had to know of this........Loyd Olin
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http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2005-02-15/cover_story.html
LOYD OLIN IS A BURLY MAN of Choctaw heritage with long graying hair and
big hands. "PTSD affects your relationships with people because
your emotions are always on a roller-coaster, between reality and what
the traumatic event caused," Olin says, looking directly at Cpl.
Perez. "You avoid people. People are your enemy. Authority is your
enemy. And you really cannot explain why you are so mad until you meet
other vets. Until then, the best you can do is stay busy all the time.
"So as time goes on with not
having normal relationships, you get so overloaded emotionally that you
get tied down to a stretcher like I did and taken to a mental
institution -- like I did."
By July 1965, Olin was almost
22. He had flown 225 combat missions in Vietnam as a specialist and crew
chief for the Army's 18th Aviation Division. "I was ready
to come home," he says.
Three
weeks before the end of his one-year tour of duty, he was captured,
beaten, taken out of Saigon, put in a cage and left to die. He was
rescued by villagers and returned to Saigon 10 days later.
Another time, he recalls, he
was hit by sniper fire, but the bullet struck his flak vest. He
saw a man blown apart at Pleiku. "You never got a break from the
booby traps and snipers," he says.
On another occasion, one of
the pilots on his crew suffered a nervous breakdown and killed a fellow
pilot.
"Toward the end, I had had
it." Olin recalls, his hands trembling. "I took my gun
and put it to my own head."
Someone took his weapon away. Instead
of ending his own life, Olin returned to Louisiana a decorated
soldier. But when he came home, his mother was the only one who
recognized him at the airport. He had wasted away to 125 pounds.
"When I left home my nickname was ŒSmiley,'" Olin says.
"But when my little brother saw me, he looked straight at me and
says ŒWhere's Smiley?' And I realized ŒSmiley' was gone forever."
He still weeps at the memory. Eleven
years ago, Olin apparently suffered a nervous breakdown.
He was taken to a mental hospital, and later released. Medication helped
keep his suicidal thoughts away, he says.
"If it had not been for James
and Bill, I would probably be in the crazy house or had committed
suicide," he says.....
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