GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – Brock Sloan joined the Army at just 17 years old.
“Something to do, I guess. I don’t know?” Sloan shared. “School wasn’t working for me.”
It was June of 1966 during the Vietnam War. Sloan said he was the Mechanized Infantry Unit’s driver and track commander.
“And so that’s where I went, Fourth battalion, 23rd infantry,” Sloan explained. “It was mechanized infantry and that’s what I did for a whole year. I made it a whole year. These were mounted with a 50 caliber machine gun in the middle and M60 machine guns on each side. We’d use these things in assault vehicles.”
Most combat Sloan said happened in free-fire zones.
“In other words, if you saw the enemy or if you saw anything out there, you shot at it and it was a free-fire zone,” said Sloan.
Sloan said he was in the field daily.
“And what would be the jungle force, whatever you wanna call it, it would be devastated by the time we got through we had that much firepower,” said Sloan.
One battle in particular during the Tet Offensive still haunts Sloan.