Yes. But it was more the NVA and VC smelling us instead of us smelling them.
American soldiers smelled like their rations; meat and dairy products gave them a distinct and different body odor than local citizens.
Cigarettes also gave Americans a distinct scent. Winston and Pall Mall cigarettes, which were packed with the C rations, gave a particularly strong odor that clung to clothes.
Guns had the scent of oil, cleaner, and protectorant. Gear like packs had an army smell, as I called it: musty, dirty, sweaty canvas. I can still smell it now. Wet canvas smelled like misery, musty mildew and muck. Every combat US soldier would know that smell. So did the enemy.
Another giveaway that GI’s were in the area was the smell of pot and weed, or Bleu de Hue and Cambodian Red. I knew a tanker that called it JC, Jazz Cabbage. That stuff clung to the clothes like crazy. There were no skunks in Vietnam, if you know what I mean. Weed contains sulfur compounds as does skunk. The human nose is extremely sensitive to sulfur compounds, meaning even tiny amounts create a very strong, noticeable punch.
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters often reported that they could detect U.S. troops from a distance due to these odors.
What did the NVA and VC smell like? If GI’s were close enough to smell them, which wasn’t that often, and if they were, they would be in trouble. The NVA and VC would carry the scent of steamed rice, fish sauce called Nuoc Mam, which was made from fermented fish among other things, and Chinese cigarettes. This was very rare, though. The NVA and VC were good at covering scents. When an American soldier said he could ‘smell the enemy,’ he really meant that he had a feeling, a sixth sense, the enemy was near, not that he actually smelled them. [he could have smelled their cooking fires]
Our TC would often say into our tank coms, “They’re here, they’re around, I can smell them.” I always felt those words chilling. Well, he couldn’t really smell them; he could feel it. They were close, and he was usually right. He was good at that. Usually the ones with that sixth sense were lucky; it kept them alive. They were the ones that usually, I say usually, made it home.
‘Fee Fie Foe Fum, I smell Wrigley’s chewing gum!’ (We got those with our C Rations)
This post was taken from Quora.
Admin addition: When returning to a firebase or the rear area after a lengthy stay in the jungle, we could smell the cleanliness and soapy smell of those soldiers within the camp. In turn, we smelled ripe and vinegarish to them. In the bush, one could also smell the bug juice, which left a hint of alcohol in the air.
Any more examples or disagreements?
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CherriesWriter - Vietnam War website 
On my second trip to SEA I went to RVN as pilot in a Recon Airplane Company. We flew the O1 Birddog aircraft generally in support of Artillery units and Special Forces detachments in various places. During my first three months there I worked for the RECONDO School run by SF in Na Trang as my first real combat mission. The school taught long range patrolling techniques and tactics for the first two weeks and then the last week was a Practical Exercise of a four day patrol that had to be successfully completed for the students graduation and return to their individual soldiers unit. A major point of emphasis in the curriculum was the suppression of odors emanating from our troops and the recognition of odors coming from the NVA/VC as the TC in the article related. I flew an SF NCO that had extensive combat experience in WW II and at least two years in RVN. We flew with his windows in the back open so that he could deploy a special radio antenna so we could complete our mission of maintaining contact with the patrols on the ground, but also so that he could pick up some of the smells from the jungle areas over which we flew. He claimed that he could smell and identify locations of bad guys much like the TC.
I remember that at least two of my buddies that flew Recon with the Birddog (O1) in different units also told me that they had frequently detected the smell of cooking fires and other odors while doing recon missions in their AOs.
The odor thing was also taken seriously by MACV. There were several UH-1 units that were issued a “People Sniffer” for low level efforts at detecting small units of the enemy. It was a special device worked well in the Delta where I was sent for the balance of my tour after three months in II Corps, but not so well in the highlands were I started. There were at least 20 “People Sniffer” operations on an almost daily basis in each Corps area in 67-68 as I remember it. The intel people thought it was a good idea or they would not have spent so much money, time and aircraft effort into the missions, the equipment and data collection. As for me, I believe the TC. He could smell them on way or another.
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You can believe this or not, but I was an Infantryman (M-60 Gunner) in Vietnam from 1966 -1968 and whenever we were close to the enemy, I could smell blood, that copper taste in the back of your mouth. Maybe not every time but most every time I smelled it something was about to happen. I can’t explain it, but I promise you that it was real.
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This is why our Australian Special Air Service Regiment had to keep themselves clean of any smells on Recon, our Royal Australian Regiments (eg 1 RAR, 2RAR etc} had to do the same no toothpaste, no smoking etc keep off trails, We have just commemorated our Battle of Long Tan 18 of August 1966 a company of 6 RAR fought off a Battalion etc of NVA/VC our casualties of 18 KIA and WIA, We fought with artillery and normal small arms, the enemy had confirmed 245 KIA accounted for. RIP our Diggers and Lest We Forget.
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