How did the men of the Vietnam war live and sleep when they are not patrol?

Answer 1

Tank (Armor) and Mechanized Infantrymen in the field, unless on ambush patrol, usually slept within RON sites (Rendezvous sites) or NDP sites (Night Defensive Positions); next to their ACAV or tank. One or two men would be manning the fifty on the machines, depending on the alert status of that particular RON or NDP position. Any leg units (straight leg infantrymen) accompanying the armor/mech outfits would simply augment the position.

Sleeping quarters would vary from a hole in the ground to just sleeping on the ground covered in a poncho liner (sleeping bags in the highlands), or sleeping on a track (slang for any armored tracked vehicle/tank/apc/ACAC/etc.). Although many GIs shied away from sleeping on a tank or APC due to its standing out as a large target, even at night time. Plus they were usually loaded with hundreds of pounds worth of fuel, grenades, flares, claymores, Bangalore torpedos and other explosive devices. Artillerymen slept in homemade bunkers (built of sand filled wooden ammo crates) which surrounded their field guns (six to a battery).

Men on ambush patrol just dropped in place and slept, usually just wrapped in a poncho liner. The absolutely best example is the scene of actor Charlie Sheen with a poncho over his head in the rain and clacking his claymore anti-personnel land mine in the film "Platoon." That was a realistic scene of men sleeping in the field (on ambush patrol) they look like just a pile of bodies.