Infantry Soldier Hardships

By Glyn Haynie

​I found this photograph on the VietnamWarHistoryOrg page, posted by Tom Lacombe, and I thought it illustrated one hardship endured by infantry soldiers (unit unknown). After filling the canteens we would add iodine pills to make the water safe to drink and Kool-Aid to "try" to kill the taste of the iodine and nasty water. We would get water from streams and wells too, and it would taste as bad as this rain water.
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Look at the uniforms the soldiers are wearing. They are wet and dirty, and most likely soaked with their sweat. It was “normal” for us to wear the same uniform for weeks at a time before getting clean uniforms. Clean uniforms were dropped off in a bundle by a supply helicopter for the platoon, and we would search through the bundle of uniforms trying to find a set that would fit.

This is a photograph of Mike Dankert (on your right) and me getting water from a Vietnamese well located west of Quang Ngai. This was a typical way we got drinking and bathing water. If no wells then a stream was the next choice.