Vietnam War-Stories.com: About, War Stories! and How to Submit Stories and Photos. 1995-2023.

Introduction & Posting Guidelines

War-Stories.com is Dedicated to United States military veterans who served honorably during the Vietnam War. Our goal is to post and archive Vietnam War Stories of those who fought and lived preserving accounts of valor, honor, duty, hardships, camaraderie, humor, and their memories of those who fought and died or have not returned. It is our hope the public and military will learn the cost war impacts upon the nation, military, family and friends of those who served, bled, or died. Victory may be won on the battlefield and denied politically from within.

War Stories! was born July 1, 1995 when I received a phone call from my Server offering to sponsor and host the site as a public service to all Veterans. In August of 2000, a new sponsor stepped forward! Today, War-Stories.com continues to grow in size, web redesign, and archive of stories and photos, and appreciates the voluntary support from the veteran community, without which War-Stories.com simply would not be possible. The great majority of stories posted at War-Stories.com are already available to the public. A very few stories are not available to the public by request of the authors, or because the language, subject matter or graphic photographs of war are not appropriate for the many young students who visit. This is by design. Voluntary supporting members are assigned a login userid and password for complete access to all War-Stories.com postings and newsletters. No veteran is denied an affiliate supporting membership because of a financial hardship.

About War Stories!

War Stories! is a Family Rated Awards winning 220 MB+ website averaging 5,200+ hits daily (30 million visitors since 1995), and is written, compiled and edited by Vietnam Veteran Don Poss, and Vietnam Era Veteran, Larry Poss. War Stories! is a site for any Vietnam Veterans to voice personal Vietnam experiences in a short-story format. To date, over 500 Vietvet stories are currently posted! Many stories have been posted for more than a decade (once posted, the story remains online). At the Memorial Wall you can leave a Rose or Flag by a name, or a message at the EmailCall's bulletin board.

No, South Vietnam wasn't Kansas. I remember that clearly, as I'm sure you do. Over 58,229 names listed of men and women who died in Vietnam on this web page's Vietnam Wall Memorial attest to that. In many ways, Vietnam was a series of personal wars. Often, we went there and returned individually. More often, we don't talk about our experiences. For instance, I've never told my family about any of the short-stories here. No reason. I just haven't. For some reason, I don't mind writing it down here.

      What I want most is for the reader to leave War Stories! with a good feeling and a desire to return for more great stories. You can be a part of that by telling us what you remember most vividly? Some veterans' Web sites repeat the blood and guts, which is okay, but I would rather hear about your good-memories, humor, R&R treks, and unusual for some reason, I remember this, like my Ribbons In The Wind.

      Topics are about Vietnam War Veterans' personal accounts of the war, ranging from the U.S. Air and ground War, grunts, dog handlers, riverboats, sea battles, war poetry, how-to research the war, and cover every service. Combat stories are okay, but I want to focus on positive memories more than negative. I would also like to counter the "deranged-Vietnam Veteran" image the media and movies so like to portray. Novel length stories will not be posted. Reader's comments on submitted short stories will be attached to that story or on the pages. A short "I remember this ..." event is what I prefer to post. I do not want to bash other Vietvets! There are too many doing that right now.

      Participants include U.S. and Allied Forces (Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines), comments from generals, SVN ARVN, South Vietnamese civilians, Allied Civilian Contractors, journalists, and American Red Cross members (more than were 100 KIA). All participants will be treated with respect, therefore North Vietnamese soldiers, Viet Cong, Communists allied, Presidents, politicians, Anti-War Activists, and Draft Dodgers are also invited to comment.

      Weekly contributions are listed in the War Stories! Library Menu. I'm looking forward to reading your's!*

How to Submit a Story/Photo

War Stories! receives a lot of stories and photos. These guidelines do not restrict your writing creativity---just read a few of the stories posted, if not convinced. You can help reduce time-requirements for editing, and increase the likelihood your story and photos will be posted, by complying with the following guidelines and requirements:

All stories submitted must be typed and emailed. Please do not fax or snail-mail your story, as I cannot take the time to retype it for you. By sending it email, I can copy and drop it into my word processor for posting.

War Stories! reserves the right to edit your grammatical and spelling errors, and language (no one's perfect, so just do your best). If you are so sensitive that absolutely no changes are desired, then post the story elsewhere and do not submit it to War Stories!. The story will be posted for your Final Review and Approval prior to making it public. It is your story, and you may request it's removal from War Stories! at any time.

Posting your photos is very important to a lot of people! I have had viewers extremely excited over checking out someone's photos and seeing themselves! One guy even saw his future wife walking on a beach photo! But I need your help in getting them posted, and you can greatly expedite this tedious process by taking time now to follow the below guidelines:

Name, Rank, Base(s) and Squadron(s), and year(s) of the story and photos should always be listed.
Always base your stories on facts . It has been 30+ years, and memories have faded some, but any story disclosed as intentionally false and misleading will be removed.
SPELL-CHECK before submitting the final draft.
No profanity---no exceptions (And yes, I know that's how we spoke as youngsters at war). No racial remarks (including "gook")---no exceptions.
No graphic gory photos of dead bodies---no exceptions.
Text: Stories must be written with upper and lower case letters. Stories submitted in all "UPPER CASE" or all "lower case" letters will not be read nor published!
Fonts & Background: Please use a white background and black font for letters. Do not use color to emphasize a word. Do not submit a story with Background colors, wallpaper, or images, or with italicized colored Fonts, italicized fonts, or html Tables.
Combat and Action alone will not get your story posted here. No bio or tedious details.
Photo Format: Send as many as you want via email, but try not to send very similar photos! My preference is that you scan at 300dpi. That makes for a large image that I can enhance and color balance (especially the really screwed up and faded photos)...most of the time. However, unless the photo is really a great subject, try to weed out the so-so photos. Please scan or convert your images to a .jpg format (not JPEG)! If you don't know how to do that, then send it as-is.
Vertical Photos: If you turned your camera "vertical" and took a photo, then ROTATE it Horizontal before submitting it.
Captions: In your email, write a brief caption about each photo, linking it to the number of the photo (see naming conventions below). Please do not: put captions on the photos, size, crop, colorize, optimize, or do anything to the image except scan it! If you already have placed captions onto the photo, I may crop that part and type the caption below the posted image (depends on what that would do to the posted image). If you do not have a scanner or access to one, you can go to the local Xerox copy store and make cheap color copies (even for the black and white photos) which will scan nicely on this end.
Zipping your photos would help the download time for me. Send up to 1MB at a time. Do not send a Bazzillion MB at one time (One guy sent me about 50MB--my thoughts cannot be posted due to the above restrictions)! I have a size-restriction on files that can be received for downloading to prevent a repeat of humungus sized files of some guy mugging at the camera and slowing down my computer and taking hours and hours to download.
Photo naming conventions: You can help me not mix up your photos with other submitted photos (stuff happens) by renaming each of your images to contain your name. Rename the images using the following all-lower-case format: "base-name-your-name-001.jpg" (Example: danang-don-poss-001.jpg). Easy enough, and this will really help me time-wise as I will have to do this to your photos otherwise. Be sure to reference your email captions to that new image name, such as, "danang-don-poss-001.jpg is a photo of me mugging at the camera...again."
Non-Vietnam Veterans who claim to be Vietvets may expect harsh reader responses exposing their B.S.
One more thing: Patience please! There are a dozens of stories and photos ahead of you...but they will all be posted, including yours! However, if you ignore all the items above suggestions to expedite posting (and save me time), and I have to recreate everything--your project may set a while. It takes time to do-it-right. And yes, I make mistakes and type with all thumbs, and stay up too late to focus (like tonight). So...if you notice a mistake or error on the pages, then email me with the URL address. Don't just say that I typo'd "Vietnam" ... with nearly a thousand War Stories! pages, I wouldn't know where to begin searching for it!

Ready to Submit your Story and Photos? After complying with the above Guidelines: Copy your story and drop it into your email to Don Poss. I find that email works best because of the many Word Processors in use that my Word Processor will not convert to a readable format.

In Memory of:

A3C James Bruce Jones, Bronze Star-V; and
SSgt Terance Kay Jensen, Silver Star
(Read their heroic stories!)

SSgt Terance Jenson: Silver Star
A3C James Jones (JB): Bronze Star w/V

Comments to Don Poss, WS LM-01