Donald J. Buzney

Donald Buzney was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in July 1945. While his home state is now New Jersey, he spent his childhood in Venezuela, because his father was employed there. Buzney would return to school in the United States each year. During college, he joined the United States Marine Corps Platoon Leader Course, spending the summers of 1965 and 1966 training.

Buzney was commissioned as a Marine Corps second lieutenant upon graduation from college in June of 1967. Then he attended the Marine Officer Basic course at Quantico, Virginia, where he and his fellow Marines were prepared for combat. Buzney was particularly aware of the harsh environment of Vietnam, since living in Venezuela enabled him to know what it was like to navigate through thick jungle in extreme heat. After the course, he spent a few more months in Quantico, until he was officially deployed to Vietnam.

When Buzney was asked if he felt fully prepared for the realities of war, his answer was a simple “no.” His father had talked about his experiences in World War II and was very patriotic about his time in the military. Buzney remarked that “You can never be aware of the realities of war until you are in it.” He received advice from older veterans who offered him these words of wisdom: “always be prepared and rely on your fellow Marines.”

When Buzney finally arrived in Vietnam, he was stationed in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) adjacent to the North Vietnamese border, as a member of the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade’s 5th Anti-tank Battalion and Ontos platoon leader. The Ontos was a light armored tracked anti-tank vehicle developed in the 1950s. It mounted six 106-millimeter recoilless rifles. Although the Army rejected it, the Ontos was adopted by the Marines, who saw it as an asset in their often-unique missions. Since tanks were absent in enemy armament in Vietnam, the Ontos was used as a direct infantry support fire weapon by the Marines.

Buzney recalled how horrible the heat was and how distinct the odor in the air was in Vietnam. In the DMZ, there were not as many land mines as there were in other areas of the country; weather, however, compounded the difficulty of combat. The weather in Vietnam was insufferable – it was either extremely hot, or, during the monsoon season, continually rainy.

Buzney and his fellow Marines were in a constant state of discomfort. They were always tired due to sleep deprivation, as it was too hot to sleep during the day, and at night they were on patrols or on alert. The interviewer asked Buzney about the Ho Chi Minh Trail; he remarked that it was not really a trail, but a network of well-built roads used very effectively to deliver supplies to enemy troops in Vietnam. While the trail was easy to navigate, the surrounding environment was not so simple. It became especially difficult for Americans moving through the jungle in extreme weather who had to fight Viet Cong guerrillas concealed in “spider holes.”

In the time he was stationed in Vietnam, Buzney only engaged in direct combat four times. His longest engagement was at Mai Loc Camp, where a company of Marines was stationed to combat North Vietnamese soldiers infiltrating into South Vietnam. The Marines were attacked, and Buzney’s platoon was among those sent to help. The action lasted a total of four hours, because there had been another ambush at a nearby location, and they had to support the Marines there as well. Buzney recalled that there were difficult decisions to be made that night. The leadership realized they could not possibly hold on indefinitely, and began devising plans to extricate the Marines at both locations without putting them in a dangerous tactical situation. One of the main reasons the fight lasted so long was because visibility was low, making it difficult to see where the enemy was.

The other three engagements that Buzney found himself in lasted less than sixty minutes. They occurred during the night when he was assigned to a fire support role. The enemy would initiate a firefight, and then both sides would withdraw and assess the damage. Buzney’s unit was small, and their usual job was to identify, engage if had to, and then back off and call in artillery fire.

Buzney recalled that morale was very high among his fellow Marines, since they were always prepared for combat because they were Marines. He noted that “The job they did was incredible – in extremely difficult circumstances, they never questioned the mission; they knew they were there to do a job and they were Marines, so morale never flagged.” 

While the weather and harsh environment made combat difficult for all Marines, it was even more problematic for Buzney, because he was a platoon leader and constantly on edge. The fact that the enemy in Vietnam was ethnically indistinguishable from the civilian population made things frustrating, because he could not alienate the civilians, as well as he had a duty to protect his own men. Americans could not tell who their enemies were until they started shooting, which put American soldiers at an extreme disadvantage. The enemy could be disguised as anyone. That was the hardest part of his job, because he was in constant fear of an imminent attack.