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Preferred Citation:

Clifford C. Neilson Vietnam Way Diary, 1968, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

Scope and Contents

Diary kept by Lieutenant Colonel Clifford C. Neilson, Commander of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry, 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam from May to November 1968.  It was written in the evening and recounts actions of the unit but much of the diary is written in shorthand and acronyms as it was created while engaged in heavy combat by the author in the vicinity of Ton Sonh Nhant Airbase near Saigon and Tay Ninh Province.  Neilson records that they suffered 38 men killed in action, 218 wounded in action, lost over fifty percent of their armored personal carriers to enemy fire and mines.  They inflicted on their enemy 479 killed, unknown wounded, captured 23 prisoners of war and recovered 129 weapons.  A website, tomahawkveterans.com/vietnam_years.htm provides a trasnlation of the shorthand in the diary and an overview of its contents by the creator.