my great uncle gave me this M1 carbine. He was in MAC-V, was in Vietnam on the border between north and south before any regular GI troops made it there, and stayed after they were all sent home. Has seen some absolute shit and has a lot of stories. One quick storiy, he used his carbine to slot a cong scout who he suddenly met at the top of a hill face to face and he shot first. Poor cong had a bolt action rifle he was literally dragging behind him in the mud as he walked so he was too slow to draw.

Another story, he was up in a single prop plane with his pilot trying to call for any air support for his south vietnam militia guys on the ground during a battle with north forces. He was flying in circles around it all and no one was answering. After a few minutes finally someone answered in a thick southern accent and said something along the lines of "Uhhh if no one else can, we can give you fire support, send coords" It ended up being the guns from the fucking USS New Jersey battleship from WW II, and it was the biggest and loudest and most accurate explosions he witnessed in his three tours and it fucked up northerners on the ground