A young private waits on the beach during the Marine landing at Da Nang, 1965

Given who Da Nang was around at the time, he must be part of 1/3 or 1/9 Marine Corp. This soldier has just arrived. That's why she's still wearing a white T-shirt and a clean dress and she has a new looking web belt. Some soldiers in Vietnam were too young to legally buy alcohol.

Image found in the book "The Marines in Vietnam 1965" with the following description: The Landing and the Buildup, Operation Blastout 1.

In the chronology of important events it is stated that on 3 August 1965 (photo date) Company D, 1/9 conducted a one-day operation (Operation Blastout 1) in Cam Ne, south of Da Nang.

Situated on a flat, sandy plain on the south side of the major port city of Da Nang, the area was ideal for an airfield with an unobstructed approach to the north/south runway.

When US forces came to the aid of the South Vietnamese, the base became a joint operational airfield. The combat unit that landed at Da Nang to protect the airbase was the first US ground unit to land on South Vietnam.

In Vietnam, the soldiers did not feel that they were accepting the work they were doing there to save the Vietnamese for whom they were doing it.

This was the reason for the fury that had built up within most of the soldiers. The soldiers also faced very harsh weather, which is the exact opposite in America. Their lives were divided into long intervals with nothing to do against the weather and bad environment and short unpredictable intervals of actual fighting with the enemy.

During the early years of the war, many American soldiers supported the US government's decision to join Vietnam. He believed that it was important to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.

As a result, the morale of the first American soldiers was quite high. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, both the morale and performance of the US military declined sharply.

Update: Years have passed since this article was first published, finally, the soldier in the photo has been identified as Richard Coggins. He was 17 when he arrived in Da Nang in 1965 and made two tours to Vietnam. Unfortunately, he passed away in September 2020.