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Old 01-28-2011, 10:47   #2
f50lrrp
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Monterey California
Posts: 392
I remember this course, well! I attended it in 1969 and the "MATA Mile" was just one of courses of instruction. The other courses consisted of RVN history & Culture, RVN tactics & Strategy, Weapons used by the RVN (mostly US WWII), and in the pm: we had Vietnamese courses.

Newly released POW, Major Nick Rowe gave two briefings to our class, One that was unclassified and in the afternoon there was a classified briefing for the students and cadre only.

During the morning briefing, one of the VN Instructors (Ba Toyet - married to an SF SGT named Snow) listened to Major Rowe speak Vietnamese and when he gave the group the opportunities to ask questions, Ba Toyet told Nick that his Vietnamese was good but lower class, like a peasant. Major Rowe replied that he had learned to speak in the Rung Sat Zone from his captors not in some Saigon Drawing Room.

The afternoon briefing was to teach us what to do to survive if we became prisoners of the VC or NVA.
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