I felt a large hand grip my left bicep, as I stood gazing with Fusner down into the hypnotic A Shau Valley below. The hand gently guided me backwards. I didn’t resist, turning to see the man I already knew the hand had to belong to.
“Why do you suppose this clearing is left alone on the edge of the jungle, as cleared and clean as it was when it was created?” the Gunny asked, pulling me slowly back to where the jungle smoked, and would continue to smoke for days as the white phosphorus I’d brought down in the night would continue to eat its way deep into the muck under the vegetative covering above. I knew the answer but didn’t answer. When we were back among the bodies and piles of blackened debris the Gunny answered for me.
“Artillery registration point,” he said, squatting down to begin work on one of his coffee concoctions he’d addicted me to, as well. I took out my canteen, poured it half full and squatted down next to him, both of us working our small metal pots over the single burning chunk of explosive he’d lit. I looked back across the bare rock area. The Gunny was right. I wondered how I’d forgotten the danger of being exposed anywhere upon it, and exposing Fusner, as well.
“Your first real combat,” the Gunny said, softly. “It’s like that. Always like that. The grand symphony of God plays with all its crashing percussion, drums and whistles. And then it’s over and you walk around like you’re walking around. In a daze. Your brain so disconnected that you end up becoming the perfect target for anyone across that valley who might have binoculars and even a bit of your ability in calling artillery fire. Remember what it’s like for next time, so you won’t get killed right as you’re thinking you can’t be killed.”
My brain began to think again. The Gunny was right, and I was embarrassed. How dumb would it have been to live through the horrendous night, call all of the supporting fires with some accuracy, and then die because my deadened mind was off in some sort of mental fantasyland.
“So what do I do now?” I asked.
“You be the forward observer you’re supposed to be,” he answered.
“Okay,” I replied, after taking a swig of the coffee that was too hot to drink. I grimaced, but didn’t spit, preferring to burn my lips rather than lose the life-assuring coffee. “What about when we’re in deep shit again?”
“Then you become whatever that other thing is again,” the Gunny replied, sounding like he knew exactly what he was talking about.
“What other thing?” I said, surprised.
“I don’t know,” the Gunny replied, after almost full minute, which he passed sipping away at his own hot coffee. “Maybe the best I can describe it is of another officer I had in that Korean mess. He was a shitty commanding officer but the best leader I ever fought with.”
“How can anyone be a shitty commanding officer and a great leader at the same time?” I asked, my surprise holding.
“You tell me,” the Gunny replied, shaking his head. He said the words like he didn’t expect an answer, and I had none to give him.
“I’m supposed to be a leader when needed but not get the credit or respect,” I said, not intending to sound disappointed or angry but sounding every bit of those things to myself.
The Gunny finished his coffee, drinking his last dregs down, and then rising to stamp out the burning embers of the small fire.
“If you want respect then get yourself some merit badges,” he said before turning to walk away. “If you want to live then do what you have to do. I’m going to have some of this debris shoved around to make a decent landing zone. We don’t need to lose any choppers, and we need the FNGs to replace what we lost.
“What we lost,” I whispered to myself, still squatting by the extinguished fire, nursing my own coffee. The Gunny hadn’t said ‘who,’ he’d said ‘what.’
I wondered at what point of mental deadening the Marines became ‘what’s’ instead of ‘who’s.’ The only satisfaction I got was in thinking that if I could reflect on it then maybe I’d not gotten to that emotion deadened point yet.
Fusner was right at my right shoulder, like a pirate’s parrot, but not actually on my shoulder.
“Did you hear that corporal?” I asked. “I’m a shitty commander but a great leader, according to the Gunny.”
“Ah, I don’t think you’re a commander anymore, are you, sir?” Fusner replied.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” I whispered.
“Sir?” Fusner asked, but I didn’t bother answering.
When I was ready, a few minutes later, we made our way back to the command post area. I noted that everyone was packed up and sitting around eating C-rations. Dawn had come while the Gunny and I had been having coffee. The jungle had become a different place. Except for the stinking smoking mass the kill zone had become, the double canopy jungle looked bright and inviting, with the first rays of dawn shining upon it.
Keating’s hooch was gone and so was his gear, like he’d never been. Marines had come and carried his body to where the Gunny was having a detail form a landing zone, I guessed. Captain Casey and Billings were sitting on their packs. They both had their boots on. There was so much oil on and in them that they’d turned dark instead of the light greenish camouflage they’d been. The oil mystery was a small one, but one that nagged at me because of Keating’s death and the likelihood that his not having boots possibly contributed to that.
Casey waved me over, just as I’d taken a can of ham and mothers from my pack and settled atop my poncho to relax for a bit. I was still not over recovering from the combat of the night before. I was trying to do ‘normal’ things to help get by the hangover it had left behind. I dragged myself back to my feet and walked over, with Fusner, my ‘parrot,’ at my side, but back a few feet.
“Sir,” I said, formally, making no move to hunker down with them, however.
“You can come with us,” Casey said, “since you’re an officer too, Junior.”
I wanted give him a nasty comeback about the ‘officer too’ comment but held my tongue.
“Where are you going?” I asked instead, wondering both men looked like they were ready to depart immediately.
“Down into the A Shau, when the choppers come,” Billings said, with a laugh, like I was the outsider in the command post that I was.
I looked at both men and wondered if they were in some sort of shock. They didn’t seem to be making sense. We were all going down into the A Shau.
“Keating’s dead,” was all I could think to reply, wondering why the loss of one of their own was not impacting on them emotionally.
“No thanks to who or what?” Billings asked, his tone indicating that the words were not delivered as a question.
“That would be the Kamehameha Plan, I believe,” Casey said, responding to Billing’s question.
“We’re heading over to help clear the LZ,” I said, using any subject to get away from where the apparently shell shocked officer’s minds were going. I gently clutched the three letters I’d written home with my left hand, so I wouldn’t forget that there was sanity in some part of the universe, and that I was still linked to it, no matter how tenuously or distant. Captain Casey didn’t respond. I didn’t know what our orders were about heading down into the valley but felt it wasn’t a good time to ask. I backed away slowly, and went back to collect my things.
I arrived at the jungle clearing scene, looking more like a set from some WWII island hopping movie than anything else. The Marines had already cleared a section almost a third the size of a football field. Several were cutting down bamboo stalks with knives and a couple of machetes.
The Gunny stood supervising. There was no place safe for Fusner and my scout team to drop packs and lay in wait for the helicopters, not without going deeper into the bracken, and that wasn’t going to happen.
“Flank security out?” I asked the Gunny, wondering if whatever listening post we had out currently was manned by Sugar Daddy’s men. I didn’t ask about that, however. I analyzed the potential of the LZ for artillery. There was no possibility of using counter-battery fire because we had no idea where the enemy artillery was set up. The open rock area at the edge of the cliff was only a hundred meters in the distance. The choppers would have both concealment and a bit of cover but if the enemy had any kind of decent forward observation post the adjustment of fire from the already recorded and again proven registration point would be child’s play. There was nothing to be done so I squatted down and made coffee, joined by Zippo and Stevens. Nguyen hung out near the fringes of cleared area but not so far into the bush that he might be taken for the enemy or become a victim of it. The man’s ability to travel light continued to amaze me. He carried no pack, no poncho and wore no suspenders to hold up a heavy belt with a lot of stuff attached to it. He carried an M-16 in one hand and a canvas sack in the other, and that was it.
“Flanks are out, north, south and back to the west,” the Gunny reported, tersely, as if I was going to bring up the subject of the previous night’s failure.
I heard the choppers before I felt the vibrations of their spinning blades. It took only seconds to figure that An Hoa had sent a big twin-engine Ch-46, a slick, and what seemed by sound to be a couple of Cobra support craft. In only ten days I’d somehow acquired the ability to tell all helicopters apart before I saw them, and recognize any weapon at night using only my ears. I stared over toward the edge of the jungle where Nguyen had posted himself. I watched the Montagnard but thought about myself. I was changing and I didn’t like it. My memory skills, the map reading and instant talent with the artillery were more than I’d had before arriving in country. I was becoming some other form of man, or creature, as the Gunny had said, and I’d yet to even enter the dreaded valley below.
The big chopper came skimming in, causing the burned top of the artillery shredded bracken in the clearing to blow about like black snow. The smoke blew with it and the smell was awful, somehow the newly dead strewn about able to begin the process of decomposition early. The C-46 touched and boxes and slings of supplies were disgorged from the back ramp at an incredible speed. I though the chopper would be gone in seconds, as I hunched down with my team not far from Nguyen, trying to shield ourselves from the savage wind-blown debris. My helmet proved invaluable. Tipped slightly forward, I felt and heard a couple of more substantial objects bounce off it. The Phrog didn’t pull up and out to allow the slick to come in and collect the body bags, however. It just sat there with its giant blades spinning.
I looked around to see the Gunny escorting Captain Casey, Pilson and Lieutenant Billings toward the back end of the chopper. A line of Marines streamed by behind the two bent over officers, and disappeared inside the big bird. The last man I recognized as Jurgens. Our eyes met just before he turned to get up the dropped ramp. And then he smiled a nasty smile and waved. He disappeared inside with the rest, avoiding a flock of about a dozen FNGs surging down the ramp and spreading out as they were to be attacked or had to set up a perimeter.
I stared at where Jurgens had disappeared. What was Jurgens doing with a full squad of Marines taking off with the company’s officers? I couldn’t figure it out, as the pilot put full power to the huge turbines and the giant machine first shuddered into the air, and then tilted toward the lip of the valley and took off.
It was gone in seconds, to be immediately replaced with the more familiar Huey slick, or utility chopper. The helicopter landed and a bag of bags was tossed to the ground. The Gunny supervised half a dozen Marines as they dragged the black bags out of he Huey’s prop wash and began unfolding them. I didn’t want to watch so I turned back to the body of the waiting bird to see Macho Man step out. His ridiculous costume was fully intact and possibly even more squared away than in the past. My left hand shot down to the external pocket stitched onto the outside of my thigh trouser leg. I reached in and crushed my three letters into a ball before pulling them out and taking off and running full tilt to where Macho Man stood in his usual parade rest position, his Thompson still looking extremely well cleaned or never fired, or both. I pushed the letters out. Macho Man dropped his right hand from the receiver of the Thompson and accepted the letters, shoving them into his breast pocket, before returning to his rigid guard position.
“Thank you,” I said, cupping my hands.
“Welcome, Junior,” I thought I heard him yell, as I turned and retreated back from under the blades to where Nguyen stood unmoving, with my team hunched down nearby. The name ‘Junior’ was getting around, and both the use of it and the unlikely places I was hearing it made me uncomfortable. In seconds, the bodies of the company’s losses were tossed aboard the Huey before it lifted off. Macho Man hopped aboard with one fluid jump, finishing the move by rotating mid-air, like a gymnast finishing a routine. The door gunner, his black helmet and dark glasses making him look like a giant insect, swept his door-mounted M-60 back and forth across the clearing, as the chopper surged into the air, following the same flight path as the bigger 46, that preceded it. The airborne Cobras closed in behind the departing choppers, flitting about like the big dangerous predators they were. Silence again reigned down across the dying battlefield.
The Gunny came down the path to join me. We stood watching the distant tiny dots of the now distantly silent helicopters gaining altitude for their return flight to the air field at An Hoa, except for the big 46. It began a slow spiral down, until it was lost to sight, as it plunged down into the A Shau.
“A landing zone down there somewhere near the bottom of the path?” I asked.
“You guessed it,” the Gunny replied. “They’ll be down there with a perimeter set up when we finish the climb.”
“Nice example,” I said, wanting to add expletives but stopping myself. The rule in training was never to criticize leadership decisions made above your own rank in front of enlisted personnel. “Casey invited me along,” I added, not mentioned that I hadn’t understood what the offer was when he made it.
“If you’d chosen to go then you’d be a good commanding officer, Junior,” the Gunny said, turning to look me in the eyes. “Like I said.”
“I’m not a commanding officer at all,” I replied, putting some bite into my words. “And I don’t like the fact that Jurgens went with them. We’ve got enough racial problem without Casey and Billings taking sides.”
“True, but that’s about a future problem. We’ve got a more immediate one,” the Gunny continued. “That problem is getting down the path leading across the face of this cliff without losing half the company, or more.”
“Too bad we can’t use the escape routes I laid out,” I said, not prepared for the Gunny to break out in laughter.
“You’re going on report for that one, according to the real company commander,” the Gunny said, still laughing. He then reached out his right hand toward me. “Your watch,” he said, his expression once more returning to seriousness.
I looked at him for a few seconds before unstrapping my ruined combat watch, and then handed him the tattered item, wondering why he wanted the thing. It was a useless piece of junk.
The Gunny heaved the watch into the bracken. He looked back toward me and reached down to his pocket. Pulling his hand back out he pushed it toward me opening his fingers to display an object held atop his open palm.
I stared down for a moment. The object was a watch.
I took the watch, and then marveled. A small smile came to my lips.
“Gus Grissom,” I whispered. I was holding an Omega Speedmaster watch, the favorite watch worn by my favorite astronaut. “Fuck’n A,” I breathed, quoting the great man. I stared across the small space between the Gunny and I, the watch hanging from my left hand by the end of one strap.
“Keating?” I asked.
“He’d be proud,” the Gunny replied, looking off toward where the cliff above the edge of the valley was located. “Besides, no watch that good would ever make it back to the world without getting pinched.”
I strapped the watch to my left wrist, covering the dead white band of skin that had been protected by the old strap. I stared at the face of the watch, which had one big dial and three smaller dials. I saw that it was just before seven in the morning. I’d never had or handled a real chronometer before so I didn’t really know how everything in it worked but was becoming excited about finding out. A pang of regret over the loss of Keating shot through me.
“If we go home, I’ll return it to his parents,” I said, holding my wrist up to keep looking at the beautiful watch.
“Or his wife,” the Gunny answered.
“Wife?” I asked, in surprise. “He had a wife?”
“Just guessing,” the Gunny answered. “Didn’t know you had a wife until Nguyen showed me.”
I was rocked back a bit by the Gunny’s revelation. I hadn’t expected Nguyen to show anyone anything. The enigmatic man seemed to be totally self-contained and private. I looked over toward the bushes he’d been standing near earlier but he was gone.
“Let’s take a look at the valley,” I said, changing the subject. I wasn’t ready to share my family with anyone, in the hell I’d been dropped into. It just felt wrong, even with the Gunny or any of my team. I left my pack, after pulling out my binoculars, and headed for the edge of the cliff, although this time being careful to head for the jungle covered northern edge of the exposed rock clearing. The Gunny, Fusner and Stevens followed.
Once near the edge I steadied myself against the trunk of a large tree that overhung the abyss. Using the binoculars, I followed the narrow path that worked its way back and forth, first across the bare stone face, and then down into the jungle below. Off in the distance I saw the white color of the landing zone Casey had landed in. Even through the powerful lenses the Marines left behind after the big chopper’s departure looked like small ants setting up a perimeter. I checked my map and found the LZ right where it was supposed to be, not far from the river. The whitish appearance of the small LZ patch was sand, according to my map. The words ‘destroyed landing zone,’ were also typed across that same patch.
“What’s a destroyed landing zone?” I asked the Gunny. I stepped back from the edge and pointed out the words on the map.
“Means it was once important but got overrun,” he answered. I noted that some fire bases were listed with the same words, further up the river. In fact, almost everything along the bottom of the valley heading upriver read the same.
“Which means it’s probably registered, like the clearing up here,” I added.
“Mortars, though,” I said aloud, but mostly to myself. “Artillery would have to be howitzers and they don’t have howitzers. Guns won’t do indirect fire at high angle in order to get rounds down there. Casey’s in deep shit from mortar attack unless the NVA are willing to wait until the whole company’s down there with him.”
“What about their artillery hitting us up here and while we’re climbing down?” Stevens asked. “Why couldn’t they have used the helicopter to fly us all down there, too?”
“Would have had to make about a dozen or more trips back and forth,” the Gunny said, reaching out his left hand for the binoculars.
“That’s the plan,” I said, handing the binoculars over, my eyes going back and forth from the valley below to the map resting against the bark of the overhanging tree trunk. “The No Joy in Mudville Plan,” I said.
“Mudville?” Fusner asked. “Where’s Mudville?”
“Right here,” I replied. “There’s a story back home about a small town baseball team. The big hero of the team steps up and every ball thrown at him turns out to be a strike. Every ball thrown is a big swing and a miss. And that’s what we’re going to do. Every artillery round they throw at us will be a miss because we’re going to give them targets too small and moving too fast to hit, especially since they’ll be trying to adjust up and down against the face of a rock wall.”
“One at a time down the path?” the Gunny asked, handing back the binoculars with a grin on his face.
“Maybe three at a time,” I answered, once again surprised at just how quick and bright the Gunny was. “We’ll delay and stagger departures from the brush here. The only downside is that the move will take most of the day and I don’t know what the mission is. We’re going down into the A Shau for some reason we don’t know.”
“Let’s get started,” I said. “Using that path isn’t going to be possible at night. Also, the lower we get the safer it gets. No snipers have anything that’ll cover the range to the other ridge and their cannons can only depress so far unless they’re mounted on the lip of the canyon, and that’s unlikely. If your Marines follow instructions, they’ll cross back and forth across the face unpredictably. When called in, and saying the 122’s are pretty distant across the valley, it’ll take the rounds almost twenty or thirty seconds just to travel through the air.”
The Gunny took out a cigarette, had a little trouble lighting it with the mild wind coming up over the lip of the abyss, and then coughed and laughed after exhaling the first puff of smoke.
“What’s funny?” Stevens asked, the Gunny’s laugh seeming out of place.
“That story, about the baseball team,” he laughed again, before going on. “No Joy in Mudville. The last line in that poem.”
“The last line,” the Gunny repeated, blowing out another puff of smoke before finishing, “mighty Casey has struck out.”
Looking at the Helo – ET was HMM 262 a sister squadron to us at Quang Tri air base , we were HMM 163. Brought back those times .
Jim, Minor typos. Welcome back, Dave.
“Did you hear that corporal?” I asked. “I’m a shitty commander but a great leader, according to the Gunny..” => either 1 extra period or 1 too few
“No joy in Mudville. The last line in that poem.” => joy should be capitalized as the name of the poem.
Noted and corrected.
Thanks agin Dave
Semper fi,
Jim
James
At the end of the 11th day, there are no arrows to take you to the next chapter. Am really enjoying, if that is a good word, your book. Was in the Gulf on a carrier 68-69.Hard to believe, after as much ordnance we loaded out, that there was anything left. Thank you for this book.
Thanks Dan for reading and liking the story.
We sure used a lot of the stuff you loaded.
There was no end to American ordnance in that war,
at least not the part of it I worked.
Thanks for the supply and your compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, I see you bust on yourself for typos and other small errors. They matter much less than getting this story written. Fix what you can, but you now have a team of readers and editors backing you up, so don’t waste a lot of time fretting over any of that. We’ll get it squared away before it’s time to publish. You’re the writer, and it’s your job to get the story down. Cool?
Paragraph and Correction: The Gunny finished his coffee, drinking his last dregs down
Paragraph: “If you want respect then get yourself Correction:…to replace what we lost.”
Paragraph and Correction: “Where are you going?” I asked instead,
wondering why both men
Paragraph and Correction: “One at a time down the path?” the Gunny asked, handing back the binoculars with a grin on his face.
Paragraph: “Let’s get started,” I said. Correction: …possible at
night. Also…
Thanks for the help Arnie. Correcting away….
Semper fi,
Jim
I think that this is a true story. It may be told as a fiction. But I think that it is told from the heart as it happened. I know a lot of vets that lived it and it all lines up with what they have told me GOD bless those that have ben there. And GOD bless you James Strauss. Welcome home. Thank you for your service.
Thank you billy. It’s kind of hard to tell the ‘truth’ about anything these days because
almost everything one writes or say is available to everyone and everyone has a different perspective
and feelings about the ‘truth’ as you or I may relate it.
Thanks for being here and thanks for reading the story…and really thanks for welcoming me back!
Semper fi,
Jim
Truth is relative only to the story teller. What is real for one may not be real for another. 6 pilots on a mission, all 6 come into same landing zone, taking same fire, getting out, back to An Hoa, Baldy, wherever….each saw the mission unfolding differently from their respective seats. What was real, was the fear. Each pilot had to remove the seat cushion from their butt cheeks albeit at different angles.
How very very true Pat, and I restate my own experience, now related all these years
later. It is impossible not to publish as a novel because of how flawed we are under
such emotional and harsh circumstance. Thank you for that wisdom from like experience.
Semper fi,
Jim
Just some thoughts running thru my head………..Keating and his white socks, No boots , his watch, … did the watch come home with U ? Did he have a wife ? … I had two husbands who had gone to Vietnam, one a Marine who never wore underwear, I never asked why, but, having read a story last yr. I found out why.. Neither could talk of their time there.. I don’t understand why more women , wives of Vets aren’t reading, i’m a huge war history buff (esp Vietnam) having graduated H.S. 68 , your writing is almost hypnotic, you just can’t stop . reading …. …. thank you ! I wish more ppl really cared about what really happened , everyone seems to only remember the Calley incident ..
The most satisfying part of writing the story has turned out to be
the comments so many wonderful people have made. Like your own. As you read you discover
why my own family and friends are getting the story for the first time, all the way through, for the first time.
It’s not a believable story and it does not leave a glowing impression about the heroism of me or anyone around me.
It’s grit and dirt and shame and loss…and then loads of regret.
And again, that stuff is not only not believable, nobody wants to believe it even if they have or do!
The citizens want it to be the fake Marines raising the fake flag on Iwo for the second time…no!
They want those guys to have been the ones who charged up that hill and took
it from the Japanese. And there it is.
The real guys cannot say anything because they will be cast even further out.
They will not get the job, the girl, the family or anything but an old coat, a bottle
and a cemetery spot to sleep in as long as they are not rousted and moved on….
Thanks for writing about this.
And thanks for being caught up in the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
Your personal courage telling the raw, unvarnished truth today leaves me in awe, sir. I join the hundreds, perhaps thousands of others who have become addicted to the story. Thank you for sharing what so few are able. I notice my stomach had that deep, low grinding unexplained fear I remember from much of my time in the Army 70-79 as I read this, even though I was not in country. The race problems & violence are especially familiar. I have to confess when I see one of the Brothers in the VA my age I wonder if he was one of the 4 guys thumping a guy with bunk extenders back in 71 who complained about their smoking dope & playing loud music in an open barracks at 3 AM & went back for a second round. That insanity that was there trough out my Army “career” was really bad in Korea & bad stateside until the last of the draft left…then it let up some. We had quiet fragging incidents in Korea. I was EOD & later an MP. I was on orders for RVN in 71 & spent 4 days in the madness that was Oakland Army Base in Feb. of 72 then returned to my own slot since so many units were standing down. I am grateful, actually, for that & your story reminds me of why. Thank you for telling the truth for the time & place you were in country. No one wants to hear anything but bull shit usually. Reality gets edited out to the “narrative”. Thank you for serving as we say in our generation & telling the story others are unable to. I am so glad wives are reading this.
I haven’t seen evidence that many wives are reading the story. A couple have made comments.
Yes, I do believe now, in reflection, that if might help the
wives understand why their husbands feel that they will not burden their wives with their
living nightmares without realizing that the burden they land on her shoulders
is greater than that if they told those awful things.
Part of recovery from this is realization that you can do good works
and be redeemed for the shit we did, had to do, really had to do.
Wives are a hell of a lot less judgmental about this sort of thing than most men
would believe and they can be the best therapists in the world.
But only if they are brought into that world. So, if my ‘world’ story helps
then I am thankful. And thank you for saying that.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jan, maybe I can answer your question about the wives. I was a Navy Corpsman who did my time with the Marines in Vietnam. In August 1965, we lost a baby that we had been trying for for almost 5 yrs. I was headed to Nam at the time, and my wife took that as a sign that I was going to be killed, so she would not have to raise the baby alone. She was 5’8″ and weighed in at 135 when she lost the baby. When I returned, she weighed only 96 pounds. Last year, I wrote a book of short memories of my 12 years in the Navy. She refuses to read it, saying “I lived through Vietnam–I don’t want to read about it”. OH, and as an after-thought, anyone who wishes to look at my page, Photo Memories of Vietnam and see the 1st Med Bn Field Hospital that the author referred to–it is the face page. That was it as it was originally when we built it as 3rd Med Bn, before turning it over to 1st Med on Christmas Eve 1966.
I am certainly not intimating that your wife is a problem,
but she is emblematic of some of the bitter experiences that guys who really
went through the shit have to deal with.
That hurts. When someone close chooses not to accept the sharing of that
pain it hurts, pure and simple…and the closer the person the greater the hurt.
More hurt. Another helping of porridge please.
I was at First Med, of course and it was one hell of an efficient place to be. Thank you!
Semper fi,
Jim
Jan, wonderful comment.
I am surprised how many wives are sharing this with friends.
Also the number of younger people are finally understanding
WHY their father, uncles, and grandfathers were a bit “different”
in some areas.
I share this site with so many and they have been appreciative
I am betting that the “oil” in those boots is really Mosquito Repellent.
So, you are a gambling man, Glenn. I sure had a lot to learn and not learned nearly
enough in only ten days. Thanks for noting and then thinking about those boots.
Semper fi,
Jim
ROFL I’m guessing that some foot problems will come up next.
Thanks for coming to that conclusion Marcus, because it takes some in depth reading and
thinking, and a bit of life experience to thing those kinds of things through.
Semper fi,
Jim
Yes, I was there too. It’s so long ago now but I can remember all the intensity as it was yesterday. ROFL And getting back at folks that didn’t understand that the book goes bye, bye in the bush.
Army here.
Thanks Marcus, for the comment and the astute observation.
The book goes out because the book is improperly written,
and now I wonder if it is not deliberately done that way.
How could training be so far from reality?
Why is the military set up to work so rigidly efficient back
in the barracks but falling apart in the field?
Is that all by accident? And has it changed at all with the advent
of the all volunteer professional military of today?
Thanks for the comment and your writing it here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Although I was not a Marine there were so many parallels between your experiences as a young 2LT and me being an Army 2LT in the Nam at about the same time. I was a FNG LT; I was a replacement platoon leader to an Army unit who got the living crap beat out of them in the Ashau Valley. The Platoon I was assigned to experienced more than 50% casualties in the Ashau. Thank God I mixed it. After Infantry OCS I was assigned to six months stateside duty at Fort Carson. In 1969 the Army did not assign any OCS graduates directly to Nam; they required the new 2LT’s to serve stateside for 6 months. In my new platoon there were a couple of Buck Sergeants who had just come from Viet Nam to spend a few months before they were discharged. We were about the same age and got to be friendly. Anyway these two buck sergeants gave me some of the best advice I ever received. Their words as close as I can recall were- “even though you are an LT you don’t know shit about combat. Forget everything the Army taught you in OCS and when you get to your unit in the Nam grab your platoon sergeant and tell him you don’t know shit and your want his help to make sure you don’t get anybody killed because of something stupid you do”. And if he is a good platoon sergeant he will appreciate your comments and will do everything to help you. That worked well. That advice has worked well in life- do not be afraid to admit that you do not know everything and be open to help. The other good advice I received was just as soon as you get in country throw away your underwear as you are going to be wet most of the time and the underwear will rub you raw and cause infections. That also worked well. The last thing was to always keep an extra pair of dry socks.
In the company I was assigned to the CO was an older ROTC Captain, a West Point 1LT who was being promoted to Captain and was being reassigned to be a Company commander, a ROTC 2LT, and an incoming West Point 2LT. With my experience I was not impressed with any of them. The 1LT West Point had the knowledge but did not have any people skills- nobody liked him- I was afraid he would get killed by his soldiers before he got reassigned. The other West Point officer just wanted to be one of the guys and got hooked up with smoking weed with his troops. The troops ran that platoon- no leadership at all- he was finally reassigned and sent elsewhere. The poor ROTC 2LT had neither the knowledge or the skills- didn’t last but a few weeks. I lasted but did bump heads with the CO on a few occassions due to some ill thought out orders. He was promoted to Major and was assigned to the Battalion HQ staff. We got a second tour Captain and I got along with him a whole lot better and we had a much better working relationship.
Another great rendition of military history. So many of you guys on here with interesting back grounds
and strange, if not downright weird tours of duty.
IF you were seeking justice in the Universe than Vietnam was not where you
wanted to end up by any means.
Thanks you for this rendition of your own and the advice you were given,
which as all spoton and I’d have loved to receive myself before going in there.
Thanks for the support and making this richly described comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Got out and burned everything that associated me to the military. Your comment on leaving military service off your resume is funny . Thought I was the only one who did that.
I wrote the only article I ever published in the New York Times about being denied
a position with a big company because of my military background. I think there are
a lot of us who came back to find that veterans of combat are liked in general, at a distance,and
not specific and up close. That discovery has remained mostly true and valid.
Thanks for your own confirmation…
Semper fi,
Jim
One curious comment that may seem critical but not intended. You write about and others mention them–FNG’s. Were these guys just dumped in the field and into combat with little or no training about how to survive? It appears to me that the air conditioned commanders only cared about enemy Kia headcount and not the survival of new troops. I can see how when dumped on a unit in the field there could be little instruction on survival for these guys. You could have easily been a stat your first few days. The war protests hurt me when I got out of the army and came home. Now, after reading this, I wish I could have protested. Too many boys lost their lives due to the office chain of command and their asinine orders. I was proud of my service, now not so sure.
I was put directly into active ongoing combat when I was taken from Da Nang and flown right to a combat
unit within 24 hours of getting off a plane. FNGs were exactly like that. In they came and out they went.
There was no instruction, no training there and only a pack of supplies and a gun. And yes, they died so many
times in only hours after reaching he field. That first night. Who’s ready to be deaf and blind and lost
on a front line of battlefield where everyone else is hiding or not to be found…and waiting for you to die
so they don’t have to. I am sorry it was that way. I don’t know how it is today.
Unbelievable? Yes, and that’s why this writing of 30 days is so controversial.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you James Nam 69-70 USMC
You are most welcome Tim. I’m not sure I deserve thanks, exactly. Sort of a judgement call based upon
perspective. But I really appreciate the support and the kind words…
Semper fi,
Jim
OK Jim, a question Lake Geneva? Do you know where Mosinee is?
Yes, its up above Steven Point. Haven’t been there in years. Like the place though and Stevens Point too.
When I worked for the CIA used to visit Stevens Point because they
had the supply depot for most of the NVG equipment of the time.
Thanks for commenting…
Semper fi,
Jim
Hell, It would be a pleasure to buy you a beer, even a few of them, and have a talk, Yes I came back, tried to go civilian, Met a judge one morning and we discussed my future travel plans, So, I went back and became a career man….. Yes civilians loved us from afar, But don’t get close enough for them to smell the death that became part of us, They become jumpier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, Chism; Pat Garrett: Well, I’m upwind and I smell it on you.
Billy the Kid: Buffalo?
Pat Garrett: Death.
Billy the Kid: I see what you mean. Can it ever go away? That smell I mean.
Pat Garrett: Sure it can, with time, good company and patience. Chism;
Pat Garret: Well I am up wind of you and I can smell it on you.
Billy the Kid: Buffalo?
Pat Garrett: Death….
Billy the Kid: Can it ever go away? That smell…
Pat Garrett: Sure it can, with time, good company and patience…
The problem was Civilians did have the Time or the Patience or the Will, Because they thought they new who we really were from the news…….
Civilian: Welcome Home, Why are you that way, I never did anything to hurt you!
Me in my mind: (OK…. What have you done for us?) never said a word because it would be like yelling into a canyon all you would get back would be the echo of your own voice….
Semper Fi…. Bob
I get some deep comments and then I get some well researched and thought out deep comments that have
bitter hard and accommodated pain at their foundations. This is one of those. The pain is real but submerged…running silent and running deep,
a Navy submariner might whisper. Yes, it is all there and it eminates from us. If you have killed up close and personal that you know things about
killing that citizens, real citizens, are never going to be able to figure out. If confronted and threatened, which is not that uncommon in the
American macho culture, the citizen threatening has no clue that death is sitting across from him or nudged up to him at the bar. That the decision about
who is going to live and who is going to walk away has already been taken from him. That he lives will not come as a gift to him in knowledge, for he won’t know
and would never believe. It would also completely escape him that your reticence in doing devastating things to him is from perfectly selfish motivations.
You don’t want to add him to your night-visiting ‘friends.’ You do not want to even damage a pinky in hurting him. This is a funny world to be a real predator
in and to be completely in disguise at all times. But it is in not doing further damage or giving out death that we former combat veterans shine. We, and the cultures of
the world are the better for it and we know that, even if most of them do not.
I am glad you are here with me, and us.
Semper fi,
Jim
I read that you came out of the catholic school system in Duluth, MN. I thought you might like to hear about the old Cathedral High School building on w. 4th st. In the 1980’s, a group of us formed up a committee and the Bishop of Duluth gave us that building. We built a collection of low income issue people including food, clothing and housing. I was amazed by the amount of old soldiers who were homeless and hungry. We managed to organize enough help to get most of them sheltered and fed. I thought you might like the serendipity of that connection to your past.
That was my school, with the church across the street. I sure broke a lot of ice
from those walks and playgrounds. Somehow the nuns knew the young guys needed to do stuff all the time.
Thanks for that comment. Glad the building is still there. They took down the old Coast Guard house
I lived in right near that bridge. They build a bunch of apartments or condos on the land.
Loved the pier and the run all the way down from the school every day.
Great thanks!
Semper fi,
Jim
Back again Paul……
Did you catch my reflection posted last year?
Monsignor
No. This is the first writing of your work I’ve read. It is very good, and I will look at more as time goes on. I had a friend who just died last year. His name was Jim Northrup and he was a marine who wrote extensively about his service. He had a life like you write about, unconnected to corporate reality, full of funny, profane impeccable wisdom driven by his service and race. (He was a Chippawa) Good man, good read. Same as you Keep writing.
Paul Dwyer
Thanks Paul. I have sort of lived life burning the candle toward the center form both ends.
That part’s is undeniably true. Sorry you lost your friend.
Thanks for the comparative compliment and putting it on here for everyone to see.
Semper fi,
Jim
Tremendous ability to weave a story in and out and put us there. It’s one thing to tell a story and quite another to put it to paper and make it incredibly readable for anyone. I’ve read a multitude of books on Nam and this one is easily the most interisting, and the ability to read the comments is a book worth reading by itself. Thanks again, the comments must be time consuming , but very interisting to get other Vets observations.
The comments are worth it. At my age you either stay very busy or you slowly stop moving.
The comments also have a current life in them that permeates me and the story, in a way.
I’m not sure how, really, but I know it’s true. You guys are somehow having a say in recreating the past
and although I am not consciously aware of that I know it is there.
Strange thing to say, I guess, but as near to the truth about why
I am involved personally in all comments as I can get.
thank you.
Semper fi,
Jim
I like your story you put me back there. We were getting clean clothes about 1st a Month. They came in a bag and they dump them on the ground. The Co gets his 0nes a week . lol