As visitors approach the entrance of the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, the first thing they see is a huge diorama of Fire Support Base Ripcord, depicting in meticulous detail the site of the very last major battle the U.S. Army experienced during the Vietnam War. Craig... read more →

These next few days on the calendar are fateful ones for anyone who contemplates the history of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. At the end of January, 55 years ago, our forces experienced the biggest shock of the Vietnam War. On the 30th and 31st of the month, the North... read more →

The long-neglected story of South Carolinians who fought in Vietnam is about to be told, as it’s never been told before. On Veterans Day – Friday, Nov. 11, 2022 – the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum will proudly present our exhibit that's been years in the making.... read more →

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The “troubled Vietnam veteran” became a trope of television in the late 1970s. These guys had been through the wringer, and many came home with something called “post-traumatic stress disorder.” Of course, many of their fathers had experienced “combat fatigue” in Europe and the Pacific, and some... read more →

COLUMBIA, S.C. – For Glen Inabinet, serving as a soldier in Vietnam, 1969-70, was just one new experience after another – experiences for which he had not been trained. He had trained as an artilleryman. After he arrived in IV Corps, in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon, he did... read more →

One of the things America has done particularly well through its history is turn civilians into soldiers. In World War II, for instance, the U.S. Army went from fewer than 188,000 active-duty members to 8.3 million soldiers who swept victoriously across battlefields around the globe. Vietnam would be a different... read more →

Gen. Lloyd "Fig" Newton has a lot of fascinating stories to tell, having led a life of adventure and distinction serving his country. He is a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general from South Carolina. He flew 269 combat missions in F-4s in the Vietnam War, 79 of them over... read more →

At the start of the fateful year of 1968, then-Capt. Myron Harrington, USMC, was a supply officer in Da Nang, far from the sharp end of the Vietnam War. In February, he was leading a company through the most intense combat of the Tet Offensive. He would receive the Navy... read more →

Tillman Abell, an ROTC-trained Army officer from Wofford College, took command of a platoon with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta on March 28, 1968, when the Tet Offensive was still raging throughout South Vietnam. He would stay there, engaged in frequent combat, until he was seriously wounded... read more →

The 1960s was a time of tremendous economic expansion. It was also a time of ambitious social change, from the Civil Rights Movement to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs. But despite the economic boom that had started after the Second World War, money was still finite, and the... read more →