Dawn would not come. Again. A slight change in the dead blackness of lower jungle life was the only clue that dawn was in the offing. I looked at my combat watch only to realize that I could barely read it anymore. I rubbed it to see the luminous hands better but, after fruitlessly drying it using toilet paper from my Sundries Pack, I gave up. The problem wasn’t moisture or dirt. The problem was Agent Orange. Somehow the mix of repellant and retardant formed a substance that melted plastic. Everyone said both substances were harmless but how could a solution so powerful it melted plastic be anything but dangerous, I wondered. In my short time in country, I’d come to find that the sun always rose at about ten after six in the morning and set at about twenty after six every night. From the artillery registration data, I knew the equator was almost exactly eleven hundred miles away. Sunrise and sunset would not change much throughout the year because of that short distance. My melted plastic watch told me it was a quarter after five, or zero five fifteen in military time. The night had been filled with small arms fire and some thundering artillery explosions. I’d called fire using Russ and the battery back at An Hoa. The company was beyond the effective range of the 105 rounds, but Russ had agreed to fire anyway, in spite of the rules of engagement that were supposed to govern the potentially suicidal results that could occur.
We were on the wrong side of the mountain to call in Army supporting fire from Cunningham. There was no sleep in the company area inside the perimeter, not with shells that screamed in only a few hundred feet in the air right above everyone’s head at over a thousand miles per hour. In the thickness of jungle growth, a high explosive shell’s circular error of probability (the area of terminal destructiveness) was less than fifty meters. Dropping shells down little more than fifty meters from our perimeter had done quite a bit to dampen the enthusiasm of NVA snipers, but it had also added an additional edge to everyone’s fear, including my own. I knew the A Shau Valley was going to be a different deal altogether because I’d heard, all the way back at Fort Sill, about the supporting fires the NVA had covering that area. The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran curling back and forth across the river that flowed fitfully along the bottom of the valley. That trail was the North’s lifeblood of supply and they weren’t going to surrender it without expending every round and all the personnel they had.
James, I was on the “other side”, with a squadron of A-4’s. We had just transitioned from the Spads to the Skyhawks. It is great learning how much we were appreciated, direct from the horse’s mouth. I used to stand on the flight deck of the Intrepid at night, and watch the flares onshore, knowing what Hell lay beneath them.
First visited S. Vietnam in 1957 and 58 – dad was stationed at Sangley Point NAS, across the bay from Manila, and would often go to many of the SEATO points, checking on logistics and such, and would often take me along. Little did I know that in a few short years, I would be loading bombs, rockets, and ammo into both Spads and Skyhawks.
My grandson graduated from Parris Is just a month ago, and just graduated from MCT at LeJeune – so very proud of him! His son is due tomorrow, and he will be able to visit my new great grandson (#6 for me!!!) in a few weeks.
Always enjoyed and took great pride in my Jarhead buddies. The Gunny at Sangley Point took me under his wing when I was 12, and had me qualified with each and every weapon by the age of 13 – a skill that stands me in great stead to this day. For some reason, my friends stand in awe at my firearm skills at my age of 71. i just tell them to practice, practice, practice!
You have amazing literary skills, and I truly admire them. Please keep up the great work. I am an avid reader, and always enjoy good writing.
Thanks Craig. Like you I was shooting all over the place when I was a kid.
I shot with McMillan, Chase and some of the other top pros at Camp Perry and rubbing shoulders
with them made it all seem easy at the time.
Whom would have guessed that I would need Colt .45 skills in real combat!
Anyway, thanks for writing and reading the stuff here.
You guys, who comment, make it fun to get up in the morning to see what you’ve said now!
Semper fi,
Jim
“I went to my hands and knees and crawled into the bracken, punching down on the safety lever to avoid an accidental discharge.”
I thought you pressed “up” to engage the safety on a 1911.
That is true. The safety lever is pushed down to release the slide.
Thnaks for the correction.
Semper fi,
Jim
Corrected,
Thanks again
I wasn’t in the bush I was in a helicopter recovery team. Be as it may I was in the bunker from January to Feb 1970. That Tet threat that never came. I was in four Corp close to the Delta.it was hot and only being in country Three weeks I was not yet acclimated.So I went and sat down in front of the bunker as I checked out the stars and thought about my girlfriend. That’s when I got a rude awakening from a RPG going right past my head, I felt the heat from it big time. I jumped up and got back inside the bunker and maned the m-60.nothing else came our way that night. I had finally realized that no one was safe in the Nam. I did two tours over there and guess I was a thrill junkie of sorts. I saw death in many ways over there.when I got back to the world I had a nervous breakdown and my Mom took me to a shrink. I turned out okay I guess I became a Airline Pilot for 34 years.I was just one of the lucky ones that my mom recognized what was going wrong with me.love your writing and stories.my son is a Marine and we are very close.Semper Fi.
Your war and your story, unlike my own but stunning in another dimension. Your recovery, not unlike my own, not unlike our own.
I am glad you made it. In the bush there are close calls after close calls until they’re aren’t anymore. Glad you made it, and glad you
are still making it. And your son too.
Thanks for the interesting comment, and I mean really interesting.
Thanks for liking the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
1st/52nd/198th Americal We were in that A Shau valley first part of 1969 and it was a bad place.
Amazing how that damned valley remained almost exactly the same for the whole time
we were there and blew it to hell and gone. It’s still there and we are gone!
Thanks for he cogent comment and care in reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
I have never searved and wonder how i would measure up. Hard to think of young men just out of school doing the stuff they did. I really admire them.
How would you measure up, Joel? It’s all about how well wired together you are when you go. The guys who were pretty sound going in
were pretty sound coming out, albeit loaded with PTSD in several different forms. The screwed up people were simply much more screwed up when in combat and even worse if they survived it. So how are you doing so far in life? There’s you clue. Your capability in writing what you wrote would seem to indicate that you would do just fine…until down the road a bit if you lived.
Semper fi, and thanks for writing….
Jim
Did three combat tours as a Medevac Aircrewman then went back to fly the Retreat. It was twenty six years later before I could even talk about what I saw and felt in country. Your stories bring up a lot of demons I have kept buried for many years. I live away from humanity on top of mountain and to this day if I hear a Helo fly over my stomach ties in knots and does flips. Thanks for the memories
Bryce, you make it sound like a refuge on the top of that hill that I would like to be at.
Sitting around a fire with someone who’s been and having a more secretive tough time than somebody like
me who’s now putting it all out in front of the public. I’m going to take some fire, as time goes by
because the time between combat and now got a little prickly and speculative along the way, not to mention that
my perspective might not be the same as some I encountered over there that may still be alive.
Thanks for coming down from the mountain for a bit to join this loose brotherhood of those who went
through such terrifying darkness and now bob our heads up every once and awhile to enjoy the warmth and light.
Thank you for being here and for reading and especially for the heart-rending comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Bryce,
I too have problems with choppers. I arrived in country on 1 Oct 1968. I was to be in a communications area in the Saigon area. While on leave on my way to Nam, I was promoted to SFC. They office where I was going had a new SFC. He had time in grade, I had time in service. We spent perhaps 20 minutes around one another. We simply did not make it as friends. I simply advised him to back off or he would find his pecker in his watch pocket. I immediately went to personnel and asked to transfered. My brother had been in the Hue/Phu Bai area. I asked for there. I was sent there. No more problems. Ny first night in Phu Bai, we got 122s and RPGs. I was the last one in the bunker the first time. I got fast real quick. I was the first person in the bunker after that. I too spent a few days in the Ashu Valley. I was there for a different purpose. I was there to simply watch Charlie and bring back information. I did several other locations. Never fired my weapon except when Charlie tried to come visit my base camp. I do have a couple good stories. General Richard Stillwell like Coors beer.We had lots of Coors beer. The 101st chopper bunch was on the next hill. They had golf balls all over the place. I would take a case of Coors to their supply area. They would give me several hundred Titlist golf balls. I had arranged to bring a 5 irons with me to Nam. I was to be in the Saigon area and they had a golf course. Until TET 68. Any way, I would go out to some area of our perimeter (never the same place). I would fire off perhaps two full clips into the bush. I would then proceed to hit two dozen golf balls in to the bush from inside our perimeter. Then I would dump another 20 rounds into the bush. My handicap when I arrive in Vietnam was 17. When I came back to the land of round door knobs, I went down to a 7 handicap. Practice makes perfect.
My other story is much better. I hosted some reunions from my unit in Germany. We were 12th Ordnance and we were in Germany in 1955 and we never existed. Okay, we were in Branson, MO. Some of us drove to Fort Leonard Wood.We stopped for a few hours. We stopped at a place for dinner near the base. I was walking back from the counter after ordering my food. As I walked past a table of guy in uniform and wearing a Screaming Eagle, some one called out “Hey you”. I stopped and asked if they were talking to me. They were or I should say one guy was. I went to his table. He stated asking some questions. Have you ever been in Vietnam and when. I answered yes and replied from Oct 68 to Jan 70. He asked if I had ever been to Phu Bai, Quang Tri, and Dong Ha. I gave him an affirmative answer He asked if I have ever been in the jungle and had to be picked up by a 101st chopper. Another affirmative. He then looked at me and asked are you the SOB we had to pickup where we would fly in to a specific coordinate and hover about two feet off the ground. You would come running out of the bush, make a leap and we would catch you and get the hell out of there. I gave him another affirmative. I was adopted by the 101st on that day. I wear my pin proudly, but I stil would never jump from a plane.
Have a good laugh guys. We earned that.
I’d say you’ve been ‘Around the Horn’ a few times! What an odyssey. Did you go out to the bunnies with Force Recon? Special Forces or Green Berets. Recon was a bitch over there because you were in the bush with no infantry support until it was too late. Thank you for your lengthy but oh so interesting response on this site.
Semper fi,
Jim
JIm,
I forgot. I was Army. I was eventually assigned to XXIV Corps in Phu Bai. I was in G-4. That was my official job.I was also a Platoon SGT for the company. I have met only two guys who worked for me in Nam. One is a recluse. The other is a business man. He owns his own business. I spent a day with him and his wife for lunch and dinner at Myrtle Beach. SC. He remembers I was not in the office all the time. I would simply disappear for a few days. General Stillwell would simply put me on a copper and send me some place to observe movement. End of story.
U wrote this paragraph quick like u wrote that letter home to your wife…is it helping to get it off your chest??? Thank u for sharing
As young men after every fire fight, after putting body bags and wounded on dust-offs. Some how we could still focus on the job at hand
Russ, it was amazing that we were so mission oriented. The Basic Training was purely basic and it sure did not prepare us for that
hot green hell of Vietnam but you are correct, so many held it together to do what needed to be done for the men around them. We also thought about the people
back home and how we might be helping them, although not many discuss that to this day.
Thank you for the straight to the heart comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I always anxiously await each new part of your story. Reading this one I thought you explained well the thoughts and feelings after the first time killing enemy troops. I too wondered if I would ever forget. Unlike you I searched the bodies myself and still remember their faces and feel of touching their still warm bodies. Finding pictures of them with wives/girlfriends, young and smiling, left a sick feeling inside that is still there each time I think of them. We called them gooks to lessen the thought of them being real people with friends and family like us but those who were there up close and personal knew how real they were and will forever struggle with what we did as a job.. Semper Fi…
Jack, you are spot on, of course. I thought I would forget but I have never forgotten, as the detail of this unfolding story sort of gives away.
I had no idea at the time. When we are young we just sort of take as normal whatever we are involved with, no matter how bizarre it actually may be.
Later on we are left to really reflect on the strangeness of it all.
Thank you for your very descriptive and accurate portrayal about your own situation and those memories that will never go away.
Semper fi,
Jim
I should know better by now than read one of the new segments right before I go to bed. It is guaranteed to result in a restless night. I felt like it was almost an obligation to score expert with my rifle. I never achieved that until long after TBS even though I had been shooting a rifle since I was 10 years old. I had never even picked up a 45, let alone fire one for qualification. I shot expert with it the first time. Maybe that was because I didn’t have any bad habits to unlearn. My restless night was the result of my interminably pointing that pistol at the bad guys and yelling BANG BANG as they shot down multiple flaming choppers right in front of my eyes. My nightmares suck. I can’t fathom what yours must be like. I’m praying today’s current environment isn’t making them worse.
SF,
PFJ
Thank you John, as usual. I don’t really have many nightmares probably because I have daymares instead.
Easier to deal with, I think.
Also, probably like you, it’s almost impossible to explain to anyone you sleep with who’s not like us,
what the hell you are up for at three a.m. and wandering about over it.
People, regular citizens, all feel like you should just get over it or you should have gotten over it by now.
The current situation bothers me, with this new change in leadership, not so much because of my military background
but because of my time with the CIA and all my travels around the world.
I have lived long enough to see this pattern before and now I’m entering that pattern
and I’m afraid and nobody around me will believe the pattern I see,
anymore than some will believe what really happened to me in the Nam.
Thanks for caring and the intelligent well put together writing.
I share your pain….old expression but applies.
Semper fi,
Jim
TMM, Fiji Island?
I’ve been an avid reader. Was a wing wiper myself there with a younger brother who was 0311 a couple of years later. He, and at least two of my HS classmates have issues yet from that place. So.. I get the pain, but must say, from your actions – I see strong, inspiring leadership. And, not for the 1st time in this saga. Thank you for this series, I look for updates every time I click on FB. Semper Fi!
Thanks Bill for being an avid reader. I sure had my doubts when I started because the Internet is so full out here I wondered how anybody would even find the work.
I am at it on Eighth Day Second Part this morning so that should go up tonight (yeah, it takes me a whole day to edit and then get it up properly). Thanks for the leadership
comment. To tell you the truth I felt like an abject failure as a leader through my whole run in the corps. I guess I did all right slip-sliding my way through though.
Thanks for your perspective because it makes me fell good, whether right or wrong.
And your intent comes shining right on through.
Semper fi,
Jim
Forgot to mention if you want to be assured not missing an episode, you can also sign in for Updates. I send an email every time a chapter published.
Our subscribers will be rewarded when published material “hits the street”
I enjoy reading your stories. I was at Marble Mt. and flew door gunner we covered all those places you mentioned. One question,you said LZ Russ I remember going to LZ ross many times. Was that spelling error or were we pronouning it wrong
/
Hey Paul. No LZ name. I was writing about Russ
who was my Basic School classmate who went to the battery back at An Hoa that
supported me with artillery in the field when I was in range.
That Russ, who was lucky enough to get battery duty from the get go instead of a position out in the field in combat.
He was a good guy though and really cared.
Thanks for watching the detail for me.
Semper fi,
Jim
I also have a personal connection. My older brother was a two tour Army huey pilot there and I was a grunt. he went I went he went back. Him and I these last few years had a few moments, and cried together, After all these decades him more than me carried a lot of baggage from there.. He died this past spring from cancer, and i have had bladder cancer 9 years post op. The vietnam war is still killing us.
So in some ways the battle continues for our life.
Hell, Don, so sorry about your brother. I lost my own early on, as I’ve written. That war ate families alive. You had him for a good while and I’m glad you talked about the scene over there.
Nobody in my life like that and nobody around here. Lake Geneva’s not one of those hubs that attracted Vietnam vets but that’s okay. The VA shrink is good guy and wants me to come speak to
some group there but I don’t think I’ll go. A lot of guys don’t really want to hear it and on this site they can take what they wan’t and leave the rest. Comments like your own have been wonderful
to read because of how real and heartfelt they are. Those keep me going and I can’t help but answer every one, no matter how much time it may take. The vets on here are the real story for me
and that keeps me writing too. On into deep into the Eighth Day and that damned nameless hill.
Thank you my brother and friend,
Semper fi,
Jim
Many of us who have not been in the military, yet exposed to graphic war documentaries, still cannot appreciate the scarring reality of actually being in blood combat. God’s peace and healing upon every one of you.
Maybe some of what I am doing here, Patrick, is trying to give people a clue what it is really like, not necessarily to prevent it in
the future but to allow those who might go to go with eyes wide open. It’s not that the powers that be don’t know, it’s that they don’t want
new young guys to know. Thanks for the caring comment.
Semper fi
Jim
I tried to enlist in ’64 (age 21) and I was turned down and reclassified as 1-Y. The NYCPD accepted me and during my 20 years I worked with a lot of former Marines. They were all intense. Some excellent some not so much and they were really a problem sometimes. I found that the best cops were former Marines enlisted men and conversely some of the worst were also former Marines. They as a group were either hot or cold. Very few average Marines joined the NYCPD. Having retired in ’84 over thirty years ago I find that I miss the guys more and more. I am now 75 and most of them are gone. I still love shooting my pair of M 1’s at every opportunity along with my 1911. You have done a great service to the Marine Corps and I look forwards to more of your writing.
I am sorry that you got reclassified but I’m not sorry you didn’t go to the Nam. I like the fact that you are writing on here!
You are alive and in one piece. Neat. And an ex-NYPD cop to boot. Thanks for coming on here and sharing through your comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
All I can utter is WOW! Keep them coming James. Welcome home.
Thank you most kindly Jim. I am working on Eighth right this minute so it should be up tomorrow or the next day at the latest.
Then I will get to ten days and publish the first book all put together (God willing and the stream don’t rise) for Amazon.
Thanks for caring and taking the time to comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I think you meant
mulch rather than much in paragraph 27. Good stuff. Mark K
Thank you for your sharp eye. Problem Fixed.
Have you signed in for updates, Mark?
Our subscribers will be rewarded at publish time….~~smile
James,
I believe we all have that one hotspot image…
.indelibly burned into our brain….I am sorry for yours, and wish you peace…
Welcome home,
Bill
Thank you Bill, and I wish that was not the only one.
But I am not here to layout my travail of tears. I’m doing this to layout what happened so other vets
and even people concerning going to real war can get an insight to what it was,
and probably still is out there, like in actual combat.
Thanks for your care and concern and your comment, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim
Bill, you’re soooo right about the hotspot image. Mine is a point blank .45 shot from the hip (luck?). Being the ‘Doc’, I then had to try to save his ass. He didn’t make it, even though I really did try.
Mine is watchn the life drain out of the baby blue eyes of my best friend.. holding him.. lieing to him it will b ok… the smell the taste of that day never leaves..it’s imprinted on back of my eye lids.
Yes, Hampton, I breathe silently with you in that memory. PTSD is all about that reality and no drug or group therapy is going to remove it.
Accommodation that would be effective, if ever applied by the government and the VA, would be meaningful well-compensated jobs when combat veteran’s got home, not great jobs for those ‘taking care’ of them. Those memories are never going away, but they can be minimized and compartmentalized but that can only be done if you have a life. Hope you have a life Hampton. You’ve made it this far brother, and I hope there’s plenty more in you.
Thank you!!! The other guys on here need to read what you wrote…
Semper fi,
Jim
I wonder how many civilians even think about aiming at and killing an individual. Heat of the battle, shooting to keep “them” down, that sort of thing, we all think that. The personal touch of what you did is a whole other thing. I chambered one round and switched my M-14 to “fire”, pointed it at one man’s chest one time and STILL wonder.
Walt. Only months earlier, even in Marine training, I never imagined that I would train a .45 on a human being, much less a fleeing female one, and coldly and analytically pull the trigger and then do it again immediately without compunction or regret or anything. That last line I wrote about when I would forget them completely. Of course, as you probably know yourself, I never did forget them. I see them all the time, with the others. What if I’d kept their stuff? Would I be up in the attic drunk one day with my war trunk open telling my grand kids the truth like Uncle Jim did with me?
Semper fi,
Jim
The sight of my fathers eyes asking me if he was going to be ok bothers me every day. He was in the process of throwing a blood clot from his heart to his lungs. Doctors had told me what to expect, but I asked them not to tell him, no use having him worry about his impending death-was that right? I still dont know, but I live with it daily. I also lied to my family & told them he just closed his eyes. I didnt tell them of the horrible gasping for his every last breath. I feel better having written this, relieved in some weird way. It gives me a great respect for those who served and what they still deal with. Thanks for listening.
As I write about, it’s the process of dying that can be so terrifying when you are among it, not the stopping of everything which is how we all imagine death.
Having gone through the process with your Dad you became aware of something that, for the most part, humans don’t experience a lot of until they get older.
When you are young it permeates life and brings the temporary nature of it home in uncomfortable ways. That we are only here so long does not really impact
our reality until something happens. I’m sorry about your loss and, of course, there’s not much anybody can do or say to accommodate it better. Glad you are
still here and, although in pain, with a better understanding of how it all works. From your writing it seems like you might have had a pretty great dad.
That’s not the commonest thing in the world so you can at least celebrate that. Glad you wrote about him and the experience and thank you for the compliment
of doing that.
Semper fi,
Jim