Russian troops in Vietnam War.

© Photo: An exhibtiion of photos taken during the Vietnam War
A group of Soviet military experts assigned to the 368th surface to air-missile regiment of the People's Army of Vietnam
The Soviet Union's military and technical assistance played a major role in Vietnam's victory. Moscow deployed 2,000 tanks, 1,700 armored vehicles, 7,000 artillery weapons and mortar launchers, more than 700 combat planes, 158 surface-to-air missile systems and nearly 8,000 missiles to the Southeast Asian nation.
Approximately 11,000 Soviet troops, including privates, officers and generals, took part in combat operations in Vietnam from 1965 until 1974. More than 2,000 of them received Soviet medals for their service, while more than 3,000 people were decorated by Vietnam.
Kolesnik, a Russian, was deployed to Vietnam as part of the first group of Soviet missile officers. They came to the Southeast Asian nation in the spring of 1965. The 22-year-old sergeant was tasked with training soldiers of the 236th and 285th surface-to-air-missile regiments of the People's Army of Vietnam. On August 11-12, Kolesnik took part in the second missile fight with US warplanes. His regiment shot down four aircraft.

 

My high school classmate was U.S. Army infantry in Vietnam. He told me in one firefight a bunch of white men started shooting at them. It was confusing, but they finally fired back. When it was over, they found dead white men and some Chinese. Now they know they were Russian troops and Chinese mercenaries.
The ship I was on in the Tonkin Gulf spotted a burned small craft. The bodies were Japanese. Japan said they were just poor fishermen whose boat caught on fire. Who knows! Why would they be fishing so close to Haiphong which is North of the DMZ?
Crazy days back then.

 

No, I've known about it a long time. Thought some of the younger people might be interested.
Some of those troops had R&R in Kowloon. We were told not to go there and just stay in Hong Kong. You know how that goes to a military guy, "Give me a list of the off limits places because I want to obey the rules." Yea, right, off limit areas and establishments are where the fun is. The "off limits" list is the key to paradise.

 

That's a good offer!
3 or 4 years ago the Russian Navy did a tour of anti-pirate patrols off Somolia. They have a good policy on that; the pirates always resist and are killed or the Russians show compassion and free them in a leaky boat and gps device with low battery. No pirates ever survived. The UN complained about it to no avail. Those Russians are tough. Most have a hard life growing up and take that toughness along the rest of their life.
I talked to one recently in a restuarant in Beijing. My wife translated for the guy and his wife when they ordered food because the waitress couldn't speak Russian or English. Real likable guy and he gave my young son some Russian coins.