9 Things the Army Let LRRPs Do in Vietnam That Grunts Were Punished For

No shaving, no helmets, no rank on the uniform, their own weapons, their own rations, a sergeant in charge, the right to wave the helicopter off, the Army's firepower on a string, three weeks with the Green Berets at Nha Trang, and a compound with a gate. The long range patrol teams of Vietnam lived by different rules than the rifleman on the bunker line, and they paid for every one of them in the bush. Sources: - Michael Lee Lanning, Inside the LRRPs: Rangers in Vietnam (Ivy Books, 1988) - Gary A. Linderer, Phantom Warriors (Ballantine, 2000) - Shelby L. Stanton, Rangers at War: LRRPs in Vietnam (Orion, 1992) - Accounts from Army veterans of the long range patrol and Ranger companies, 1966-1972