The Skyraiders came out of the low level pre-dawn light, the sun still out and down earth somewhere on the other side of the valley’s eastern lip. There were four of them, and the drone of their big powerful propellers and engines built from a faint buzzing to a resonating roar, as they dropped from the heights of the valley wall, coming in low, pulling level just above the A Shau Valley floor.
“Three hundred gallons of special lemonade, times four,” Jacko said.
“The fifty’s back up,” I warned.
There was no more time for talk. The big planes came over us at what seemed like ten feet in altitude, but had to be more. Each carried externally mounted bombs, as before, but unlike before they also each had one huge centerline tank attached to their bellies.
I immediately presumed that they had been on station in the dark, waiting for the dawn in order to make out the situation. Cowboy knew we were in deep shit down below, and didn’t want to drop anything on top of us by mistake.
The four Sandys dropped their tumbling loads, the white bodies of the bloated white canisters tumbling briefly through the air, before falling into the jungle. Four distinct deep ‘whumps’ vibrated across the space between us and the deadly hill the NVA had taken so much abuse in defending, and then refortifying every time their position was destroyed. The wumps vibrated their way through the jungle debris and more solid growth, the shudder of their ignition felt, more than heard. Red and yellow fire exploded upwards, the last of the Sandys flying right through the thick rising mass of its fury. Black clouds came next, and then the radiant heat of the fire spreading out as the planes banked in the distance and turned to make another pass.
“First the enchiladas and now a little hot sauce to make sure everything’s nice and spicy,” Jacko yelled, his faintly suppressed glee coming right through the speaker pressed into my ear. The Skyraiders twisted down, seeming to dive straight into our position from on high before abruptly pulling out and heading directly back to the mess of burning jungle they’d left behind only seconds before. This time the planes lined up with two in the front and two in the back, wings almost touching. Their twenty millimeter wing cannons opened up, and then a mass of bombs dropped from the first two planes and was followed with the bombs of the other two only an instant later.
The planes flew through the smoke like it wasn’t there, and then the bombs went off. The five hundred pound bombs threw parts of the burning jungle in all directions, including toward us.
I rolled toward the water. Great chunks of flaming tree parts, fern fronds and indescribable debris rained down around us. I knew I’d never make it to the water, and even entering the fast moving liquid would not save me if some part of a tree trunk descended and struck me. All I could do was cover up, and push the front of my newly clean body as deep as I could into the combined sand and mud mixture under me.
The Sandys flew off, the faint buzzing of their existence dwindling down the valley. There were no sounds coming from the jungle area they’d torn to burning shreds. I pushed myself up to my knees and stared up and over the tops of what was left of the jungle area that lay between the river bank and the hill where the fifty had been. The whole mess burned and seethed with billowing curtains of black ugly smoke. I looked upriver a few meters to see Fusner and Zippo recovering, while Nguyen slipped from the edge of the jungle, walking carefully but confidently toward us. I realized that the headset still hung from around my neck, the jack end dangling down to the sand. I’d pulled away from the radio in panic, without noticing my electronic connection. I suddenly realized that if Cowboy was trying to reach me I couldn’t hear him. I moved toward Fusner, as Zippo stood and moved toward me.
Before I reached Fusner, I stopped. Zippo handed me my cartridge belt with the Colt still attached to it. I flopped my helmet on, happy to have the damaged thing back, pushing Casey out of my mind. I pushed the jack toward Fusner, shaking myself into my gear, fastening the belt clasp and feeling like I was me again.
Fusner took the headset and tried to reach Cowboy or any of the air group that had saved us.
“Nothing,” Fusner reported, after trying for five minutes. “I think they’re out of range because the radio seems fine.” I walked to the edge of the forest to get away from being so exposed on the flat bank. I looked back at the tank through the clearing mist. It was like the rain and mist were clearing, so the jungle could burn properly, although I knew deep down that the jungle was so laden with moisture it would never truly burn.
I ignored Jurgens behind me, letting the man get warm again, while also recovering from being certain he was a dead man. I had no expectations of the man. His character was set in my mind. There was little doubt that once he regained his composure he would return to being the manipulative, violent and dangerous man he’d revealed himself to be. I really didn’t care if he lay by the side of the river all day long, fully exposed to whatever remained of the burned out NVA position the Skyraiders had hopefully taken out. I’d risked everything to save the most rotten noncom I’d ever met but I hadn’t done it to save him. I’d done it because I knew in my heart of hearts that First Platoon would find a way to do me in if I left him to die out in the middle of the river. Coming to that conclusion caused me a shiver of regret. What had I become? I didn’t know, but left to my own devices I knew lousy Marine Sergeant Jurgens would certainly have become dead lousy Marine Sergeant Jurgens.
I turned away from thinking about the disgusting man to think once more of surviving the day and surviving my scout team with me. I knew I wouldn’t feel safe from the fifty until I was under the concrete end of the eaten out runway pad. Before we could pull out and get back I had to talk to the Gunny. I didn’t have it in me to go back upriver, swim out and then let the current return me to the body of the tank. Once there I would have to tie one end off and work my way back to shore downriver. I couldn’t do it without rest, and neither could any members of my team. The Moses Plan was a failure, with one fatality and the entire company still trapped on the other side of the damned unforgiving river.
“We’ve got to move upriver,” I said to the Gunny, once Fusner got him on the radio.
“Jurgens alive?” the Gunny asked.
“Five by five,” I replied. “We only have a rope halfway across, to the tank.” I glanced back to where Jurgens was laying but saw that he was no longer there.
I didn’t know what else to say to the Gunny. I had no plan except somehow getting back to Pilson, and getting down before I fell down. In turning my head to look out at the tank I saw things near the edge of my vision. I jerked my head back and forth. The things went away but then came easing back, almost invisible but there. Fatigue was coming for me and I knew I didn’t have much time left. And I had no plan. Nothing. My patrol could not stay on our side of the river, even in a fortified position, and hope to survive long with only a few small arms for protection. The only thing we’d have going for us is the mighty reach of the 175mm guns firing at more than maximum range from Rip Cord, and using them was a tough call all the way around. The company could not stay where it was forever, either. Without resupply of ammunition, water, and food, it was a tossup about whether our situation was worse than that of the rapidly deteriorating situation of the hunkered down company across the river.
“What’s the plan?” the Gunny asked.
It was the question I was dreading. The relatively flat area between the river and the company perimeter was so exposed it didn’t deserve any thought about landing choppers on it. The old airfield, particularly the northern part of it, was the only solution. But there was no way to get the company across the river that I could think of.
“We’ll cross later in the day,” I lied.
“You better move out,” the Gunny replied like he believed me. “We can cover your traverse for quite a ways if you stay close to the river’s edge. To a point. We’re trying to cook up some bread here but we’ve got little or no flour.”
I pulled back and looked at the handset as if the Gunny was somehow visible inside it. Bread? Then it came to me. The company was almost out of ammo and the Gunny didn’t want that broadcast in the clear.
“Call command and get resupply onto the runway,” I said to the Gunny. “I’ll let you know the plan as soon as we’re up into position.”
“Roger that,” the Gunny said. “Knew we could count on you.”
“Great,” I whispered, not keying the microphone. “Just great.”
Out of ammunition. What got the British massacred in South Africa and Custer’s company by the Indians? I looked around, wondering what had happened to Jurgens. I finally saw him, sitting on the backs of his ankles by the poncho-covered body of Barnes. I looked at Fusner, but he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Zippo was getting his pack ready to go. Only Nguyen gave me anything at all. He looked slowly from where Jurgens sat, and then back at me with his expressionless eyes. He took his right fist and gently tapped his chest over his heart. I got up and headed to Jurgens’ position, but stopped just before I reached him. He’d pulled the poncho back, exposing Barnes’ boyish smiling face. He held the kid’s left hand in his own hands. Jurgen’s eyes were closed but his lips were moving. I slowly backed away, more in shock than respect or care. I knew what he was doing. Jurgens was praying.
Fusner and Zippo ignored the man. Only Nguyen and I kept a vigil over Jurgens and the boy. Once again the silent Vietnamese seemed to know things nobody else did. He sat like a statue, watching closely but making no move to do anything but wait. I determined to do the same. After a few minutes Jurgens recovered the boy’s body, stood up and walked toward me. In spite of the light mist still falling, and leftover water still dripping from his being submerged in the river, I knew Jurgens was crying.
Jurgens stopped in front of me and crouched down. I joined him. He didn’t look me directly in the eyes.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, making no move to wipe his eyes, the tears obviously bothering me more than him.
I hadn’t been expecting any ‘thank you’ or demonstration of gratitude toward me on the man’s part. For some reason, I didn’t see his obvious grieving state as a weakness either. Once again my mind whirled in conflict. I wanted to hate Jurgens so badly I could taste it but I couldn’t. There was a twisted complexity running through the Marine I didn’t know how to deal with.
“Well, for one thing, you can call me sir,” I replied, my voice soft and not commanding, however. “And then you can help me figure out how to get the company across this goddamned river. But, before that, we’ve got to get to a secure position upriver. Pilson’s holding down a fortified position all by himself under the old runway located up there.”
Jurgens wiped his eyes for the first time. I looked away and waited.
“I didn’t make you Junior,” Jurgens said. “You did. As far as the rest is concerned I got your six.” He stood up. “I got nuthin. No pack, no gear and no gun.”
I stood up in front of him, wondering what he wanted me to do. Fusner and Zippo had hung onto their 16s and I had my .45. None of us had much in the way of ammunition. I’d lost my knife like Jurgens had lost his. I stood facing the man uncomfortably, and then he did something that stunned me again. He held out his right hand.
“You want to start again, Junior?” he asked.
I didn’t take his hand right away. My mind raced. What was he up to? It took half a minute, but finally, I thought I had it. Jurgens was calling our experience together to date a wash. He’d probably let me live when I came back to the company earlier. I’d come back out to the tank for him. We were even, in his eyes. I gingerly took his rough hand on my own. His handshake was hard, like mine. There was no smile in either of us. I stared into his eyes and him into mine.
“Move out,” I ordered, dropping his hand and turning upriver.
I caught Nguyen’s look as I turned. I would have bet quite a bit that he smiled but it was a fleeting wispy thing if it existed at all.
“Fusner, give Sergeant Jurgens your weapon. You’ve got enough to do with the radios.”
I walked past Fusner, not looking at him. I knew just how seriously Marines were attached to their weapons, and my order was way out of line for normal conditions. But we were a long way from normal conditions.
The hike back up to the old runway complex took less than an hour. The coming light was everything in being able to avoid pits and rocks along the way. There was no fire from the enemy along as we moved, but I didn’t feel relieved until we arrived just above where we’d left Pilson, who was supposedly working away to make a camp for us.
I motioned for everyone to get down just before we reached the end of the concrete, where the worn away ground under the runway had to be. I was going to instruct Jurgens to check out the position when Fusner got up, walked to the edge, leaned over and yelled, cupping both hands over his mouth.
“Pilson, is your sorry ass down here?”
He got an answer but it wasn’t what any of us expected. Instead of a return cry from below, the sound of a diesel engine floated across the concrete extending out behind us. We all froze in place. The creak and clanking clutter of tracks on a hard surface followed the low roaring of the diesel.
“Not another fucking tank,” I whispered, jumping to my feet.
“Down under the runway,” I hissed at my patrol.
I ran to the edge of the runway, looked down at the sand about ten feet below and jumped. I landed, twisting to one side and rolling out onto my back. I immediately saw Pilson, standing in the cleft with his M-16 held at the ready position. The other men jumped, landing nearby. I crawled to Zippo and reached him before he’d stopped moving. He’d held onto my pack. I grabbed it and tore it open, dragging my Japanese binoculars forth, before climbing to my feet and making it back toward where the concrete stuck out over the eaten out riverbed wall Pilson had turned into a nearly livable cave. The top of the concrete lip was at shoulder level. I placed the binoculars down on the hard surface after sweeping a thin covering of plant debris and dirt away.
I saw the lead vehicle coming down Highway 548, headed for the road’s dead end. I focused the lenses until the metal clanking and smoking beast came into fully defined view. I breathed out heavily, only then aware that I’d been holding my breath. The tracked vehicle wasn’t a tank. And there were two tracked vehicles followed by a truck. I didn’t recognize the lead vehicle. It looked like nothing more or less than a combination of a portable drilling rig and a giant erector set put together wrong. But I recognized the second vehicle. I’d seen many of the little deadly things in Quantico and at Fort Sill. I was looking at what was called an M-50 Ontos Tank, which I’d heard was the Greek word for ‘thing.’ The vehicles were U.S. equipment painted dark green with yellow letters on their sides.
The other members of my patrol were lined up along the edge of the concrete, looking at that same sight I was.
“The cavalry has arrived,” Zippo laughed, as he started to climb the bank to get up to the runway.
“Stay,” I ordered. “They’re about to reach the end of the road, so they’ll have to turn, anyway.”
I was still worried about the fifty that had claimed so many. How the crew and hardware slowly passing in front of us had gotten down to where we were would be explained when they got closer. Until that time, the attention they had to be drawing was significant. The Ontos was armored, I knew, against light weaponry, even the fire of a fifty caliber, but I doubted the truck or the other vehicle could take such abuse.
I drank my last half a canteen of water while I waited. The liquid perked me up, as I stood and tried to think. It took an hour for the Ontos to come out from behind the overgrown undergrowth and appear on the other side of the runway.
“Okay, Jurgens, get up there and wave at them, since it’s not likely they are on any radio frequency we can get quickly. I was so tired I’d forgotten about the radio. The vehicles had had to come from somewhere further up the valley and the Army firebases would probably know where. But it didn’t matter. The Ontos was coming right at us. Zippo jumped up and joined the sergeant.
The loud, smoky mini-tank came skittering across the width of the runway, moving fast and looking light and nimble in coming. The six big barrels of its 106 mm tubes
M50 Ontos in Vietna
looked menacing, indeed. Zippo was still waving at it when it stopped, broadside to the river edge of our position. The vehicle slowly ground around until its barrels were pointing at the far side of the valley. Its engine died and the two rear doors of heavy steel banged open in unison. A tall skinny man in light green Army fatigues stepped out. I laboriously climbed the short distance up the berm to meet him.
He walked toward me with his hand outstretched, for some reason walking right by where Jurgens stood with his M-16 hanging at his side.
“They call me Tex,” the tall man said, his face split in half with a huge smile. It was impossible not to smile back at him, what with the fact that he also wore a huge winding ‘handlebar’ mustache under his nose. He wore no rank. I had no choice but to accept his hand, as I had done with Jurgens only hours earlier.
“I’m company commander of Charlie Company, 326 Combat Engineers. They sent me down here to pull some Marine faggots out of a hot fire. Am I in the right place?”
I didn’t know where the laugh or not so I did nothing, simply shaking his hand before releasing it and moving a few steps back to wait.
“Man, you look like hammered shit,” Tex said, with a laugh. “Who are you?”
I thought about formally introducing myself but it seemed, even outside of the company, nicknames were all the rage in combat.
“They call me Junior,” I replied, “company commander of the faggots.”
“Where’s Flash?” Tex asked.
“That’s him too,” Fusner answered, pointing unnecessarily at me.
“Junior Flash, I like that,” Tex laughed some more.
“What’s on the big lead vehicle?” I asked, eyeing the thirty caliber machine gun on top of the Ontos.
I suddenly realized we had guns, real guns, and ammunition again. There was also a fifty caliber spotting gun aligned with one of the three barrel sets. I knew that the spotting fifty shot the same arc of fire as the 106 round. The gunner would fire a fifty tracer round, one at a time until he got a hit, and then almost instantly slam his hand onto the big button on the side of the recoilless to explode a round out. The enemy could not reach us with their artillery and we couldn’t really reach them, but the Ontos could. The 106 rounds delivered less than half the power of a 105 howitzer round but that was more than anything other than what could occasionally be dropped in from the air, except the 106 would now be right here with us all the time. I wondered how many extra rounds it carried inside.
“That, my friend, is an armored vehicle, bridge mounted, fording device, Tex said. “She’ll handle forty tons and stretches out almost a hundred feet, which I have to guess is enough to get your company across to join you. Why do they call you Junior?” He asked the last question like it was part of what he’d said before.
“Why do they call you Tex?” I countered, trying to think about how to tell him why I was called Junior.
“Tall, lanky, and laugh a lot, I guess,” Tex answered, laughing again.
“I’m a second lieutenant. They call me Junior…” but I didn’t get to finish my own explanation.
“Because he’s tall, lanky and laughs a lot,” Jurgens broke in, his M-16 at the ready position and his voice low and gravelly.
“No offense,” Tex said quickly, backing up a few steps. “Came all the way down here to help you fellas.”
“Call the Gunny,” I ordered Fusner. “I’m going down.” I was simply too tired to carry on any kind of further conversation with Tex.
I walked the long way around to climb down toward the river. I was too beat to jump again. I could hear Fusner calling the Gunny and talking like the young gossip he was. I heard him tell the Gunny that I was implementing the Bong Song Bridge Plan, and I smiled for the first time in a long time. The Gunny was probably going to have a heart attack because of the shock of the bridge laying machine showing up, or merely collapse and breathe slowly in relief, like I was going to do. I entered the cave. I didn’t know which poncho or pad was mine. I’d left my pack behind me in the sand. I knew I was done. Fusner stopped talking up above and moved down to stand just outside the cliff. I knew that Tex was probably going back over to the bridge laying device and no doubt about to save the company.
I heard Fusner turn on his little transistor radio and fiddle with the dial. I looked over at him from where I sat deep inside the cave. I sat leaning against the worn away surface of the dried mud I’d backed into because for some reason I didn’t want to lay flat. There was only one station to listen to. It took Fusner almost a minute to find it, however. I closed my eyes. Brother John spoke, as if he’d been inside Fusner’s little plastic box waiting to be let out. “This is Brother John, coming to you from Nah Trang on the Armed Forces Radio Network, and here’s a selection for you guys out there in the bush wondering about those you love and miss back home. It’s Tim Hardin giving you all a reason to believe.” The song played: “If I listened long enough to you…I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true…knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried, still I look to find a reason to believe…”
The words bit into me, the melody driving them ever deeper with each line of lyrics Hardin sang. I knew my wife was true, but I didn’t think the song was about her. I’d get home, if I made it, and there we would be. And I’d stand there, looking at her, and then I’d lie straight-faced, and she’d cry. She’d know, and we’d live with her knowing, that I lied. She wouldn’t leave me because of who she was and who she thought I was. And I knew I could never tell her the truth, unless I wanted to lose her. The song continued to play, like it was being strummed on the damaged instrument of my soul, until I couldn’t listen anymore. I closed my eyes and it all started to go away, as I drifted to somewhere else inside the faded darkness of my cave. I went away, knowing that somehow my wife would find a reason to believe.
Reason to Believe
Written by Tim Hardin 1965
Footnote on Featured Photo: Four Douglas A-1E Skyraider aircraft fly in formation over South Vietnam on way to target on 25 June 1965. The aircraft were assigned to the 34th Tactical Group based at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. The A-1E 133899 was lost on 9 June 1966, 132633 on 10 November 1966, and 132638 on 4 May 1967. (U.S. Air Force photo)
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OK, I’ve finished the first ten days and have started to get caught up to the current chapters. Long history of service in the family, my Father in WWII in CBI, brother in law MACV, Dad’s buddy Parnell a chopper pilot Korea and Vietnam, myself a Cold War Warrior and in through Desert Storm, my son currently serving in the Navy, so I’ve been around the stories all my life, but I have to admit that this has to be one of the most dicked up companies I’ve ever seen or heard about. Are we going to get some clues to what fractured the company’s unity to the point that platoons where killing each other? Generally I would expect that aggression to be externalized towards things outside of the unit.
One of things that you must do Larry is carefully read the comments by guys
who were really out in the bush at the time.
It was not the most ‘dicked up’ company down in that valley. There were a lot of them.
And the guys don’t come back and talk about them that way. They make up stories to get them by.
None of us want the public feeling sorry for us or afraid of us or any of that.
The truth about what I and so many others faced is not really believable
(and that is reinforced by your writing)
and so we modify the stories to make them more acceptable
because we have to live back here with you citizens.
We are not citizens. We went away and came back as something else entirely.
If you will note what happens in many damaged marriages back in this world, husband and wife
often attack one another when faced with terrific stress from the outside.
What happened in my company was not really that odd, I am discovering.
It is simply odd when viewed upon by those who have not been in that situation.
And we were externally aggressive as hell also….at the same time…
Semper fi,
Jim
I was 101 and 6th Id and I realize that the public face of the war was different than the realities of combat, the same as the perceptions of what the guys today face in the Middle East. The stories told inside a unit are not the same ones that you tell your friends and family. But that really isn’t what my question was about. You walked into a company that was as much at war with itself as it was with enemy and that doesn’t seem to be the norm from any of the other sources. Even in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, the division was at leadership levels and the men in the platoons and squads weren’t killing each other. To use a historical example that my father supported in CBI, Merrill’s Marauders, where 2750 men spend over 5 months in jungle combat to the point that only two remained combat effective, but you still didn’t see this kind of breakdown in the unit. So what happened within the unit to allow things to get where they were when you arrived? And I am just old enough to have a real draft card, so I saw how returning vets were treated by the nation.
I was 11B (0300 for your guys)enlisted and commissioned (grass to brass officer), and also a 21J Combat Engineer Officer.
What happened Larry? What happened is that I have been willing to write what happened and not some fanciful movie version of Merrill’s Mauraders, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Kelly’s Heroes, or any of that stuff. I don’t know what happened in WWII or in the rest of the Nam. I operated in a small part of that country called the A Shau Valley. That September, down in that valley, around me with those companies and ancillary units, I am writing what the hell happened. I don’t know the rest and cannot fathom the rest. When I started writing this I thought my experiences were singular. That I had been punishment assigned (for lipping off) to a bad unit out in the shit. I had no idea that my experiences were so general. That so many would identify. That so many could not or would not talk about what had happened to them. But here we all are. And the preponderance of comments comes form men who were there and who went through the shit storm like I did, whatever variation….
Semper fi,
Jim
The Merrill that my father spoke of wasn’t Jeff Chandler, nor were his experiences the movie version either. He spent from March of 1942 to November of 1945 flying into China and Burma, “Flying the Hump”, a mission that was so dangerous that the command didn’t report casualties for fear that public pressure would shut them down. The point of that being what he told me was not about glorious deeds of valor, but as real as one could get it, especially after I joined the Infantry.
While your experiences may not have been as singular as you believed, I certainly think that the situation you were dropped into was pretty singular. Been around enough to know about vindictive commanders and incompetent company grade officers, especially in a war that wasn’t popular back home, but what I can’t fathom is how the company was allowed to get to the point that it fragmented the way you state. Hell, I don’t understand why it was still in the field if they had taken enough of a beating to remove all the officers and senior NCO’s down to running a platoon with an E5, which isn’t even squad leader in the Army. I guess the Marines have their own brand of Stupid sometimes.
Please don’t feel that any of this is aimed at you, but you were dropped into a special kind of a hell, besides the A Shau Valley, and I am trying to understand how that hell developed.
Your foundational belief system is based upon the idea that the leadership back in the rear,
or even over in Washington at the time, was somehow grounded in principals of integrity and care.
We were out there doing what we were doing and going through what we were going through
because of some strange and weird Twilight Zone kind of experience.
That is the explanation you are looking for. I thought that for years. I thought it was me.
I thought it was just plain bad luck and strange circumstance.
Well, read the comments of others on here. I have. I was not alone and my unit
and the units I worked with were not being served by caring people in the rear…
if it meant that they might have to replace us in the field with themselves.
Nobody went out there voluntarily and sure as hell, if some did out of complete ignorance,
they never went back a second time voluntarily. You are reading this story and if you believe it then
would you have wanted to be dropped in on the coming resupply?
They cared in the rear and they were sorry.
They had booze and drugs there to get through their own angst over what they had to do to us so it would not be done to them.
Thanks for the depth of your comment and the way you have fashioned wording it
so as not to hurt my feelings or attack me. It’s okay. I could not understand more your own feelings, misgivings and doubt.
This is not a believable story and I knew that from the start. It’s why the whole thing has lain at the bottom of closets all these years.
I also knew that the writing of it might be costly to me as a person.
Semper fi, and thank you…
Jim
Jim, Welcome home, Dave.
Their twenty millimeter wing cannons opened up, and then a mass of bombs dropped from the
first two planes was followed () the bombs of the other two only an instant later. [ (by) ]
The gunner would fire (a fifty tracer rounds), one at a time until he got a hit, …
[either (fifty tracer rounds) or (a fifty tracer round)]
Thanks Dave, appreciate the comment and your making it on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m still not sure you are understanding my question. I was in the Army long enough and a student of military history enough to know that Washington can screw up empty space and even in peace time I’ve had the S4 leave my platoon in the Tundra for two days without fuel or food, so none of that part is surprising or unbelievable. Nor do I find your personal situation unbelievable, while somewhat more desperate, it parallels the experiences related in James McDonough’s Platoon Leader, if you haven’t read it. And as a student of military history there are battles after battles fought by desperate men with inadequate support, from Valley Forge to Fallujah. Additionally my college roommate was a Navy Corpsman on the DMZ in 1968 and my buddy Bob spent most of three tours as a door gunner (do you believe that!!), only went home after he was shot up enough to put him out of the service, so I heard a lot of this first hand from people besides you. What intrigues me about your story is that you landed in a civil war within the company, and that certainly wasn’t the norm for field units as far as I can tell. So my question is still what pushed/allowed them to go in that direction? You may not know and I can understand it is you didn’t.
All acts of courage are done by scared men that would rather be somewhere else.
The answer would be that I don’t know. I came upon it and then left later so that one will remain a mystery. There is no place later in
the books were everyone sits in a circle around a fire and discusses how the unit came to be the way it was or why.
Semper fi,
Jim
Then thank you for taking the time to respond and I look forward to reading the rest of the story.
Most welcome Larry. It means a lot to me that you have written what yuu’ve written.
Semper fi,
Jim
back from my off grid world for a few days and got caught up. Sounds like you may be getting another visit from the 101st – at lease part of the 326 Engineers were working with us at that time.
The 101st was such a class act over there, even damned part of it.
And they liked Marines!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
Dang, LT, you got me crying, thinking about
the whole mess. Been lots of years. I remember that the Ontos was discarded by the Army, and here it is, saving your butt.
Yes, the Army dumped the Ontos but some units kept them in inventory
until late in the war. Vietnam was a funny place for equipment. It could
come out of the woodwork from the strangest of places…
Thanks and semper fi,
Jim
i have been following you since day one. wow, your in deep $hit and no end in sight! i chose 4 years in the navy instead (70-74), so i didn’t have to deal with what you are going through. that was no picnic either, but sure not this. in basic, was told all sailors had to pass water survival training or they would be transferred to marines. not sure if true, but a motivation for sure. half the recruit company went to corpsman school. seems like a lifetime ago now. guess it because it is. my God, we were a bunch of kids back then. it don’t mean nothin now does it? keep on writing. .
Thanks for following from day one. There’s an end in sight, all right. For all of us, of course. Half the company became Marines, anyway! Funny that eventuality
wasn’t well played in training either. Yes, were were kids sure enough, and most of us came home kids in trouble in one way or more…
Semper fi, and thanks for writing on here what you wrote…
Semper fi,
Jim
Lit the page up after my nap wondering if an unnamed Lt was relaxing on his couch under the runway waiting for a CB Outfit to arrive with a beverage cooler and generator to run it. This might shock some, but Nam Vets are old guys these days. Then I read the comments, this is the damndest place. If nothing else it convinces me I’m neither nuts or delusional.
I once wrote of that geography as an accursed vortex on a damnable peninsula that devoured all who came. That slab of ground devoured the blood and fortune of China, Japan, England, France and America. How it unfolded is well established, and kept very quiet by filthy politicians covering for prior politicians who drained our blood, savaged our minds, and hauled our expended carcasses back to a place we never knew, so they could throw shit at us.
I study too much History, learn too many facts, and remain pissed off. Sorry Dorothy, there is no place called home. I remain certain that place ended the day I buried my Mom, and I take solace Mom never saw what her son became.
SCPO, you are, of course, delusional.
And this is a place, this very site, called home if you want to sort of make it that.
Home for those comments and thoughts that just don’t seem to fit in with ‘regular’ folks, as much as we love them.
You became what you are, by the way, which is something of life experience and intellect,
if I am to gauge much from your writing here.
Most people cannot put words about emotions together like that.
You are troubled and you are right.
The people that send other people into the kind of circumstance you and I were sent in to had and have no
clue about what they were sending us into. They don’t go and they cannot understand.
What you got out of it is mixed. You got through with your life and some knowledge few others
will ever possess and the ones you tell will generally not believe or not want to deal with.
But you are special for what you have become and that’s one of the reasons I write what I write.
For guys to read and realize what they came through and how those experiences
shaped them into possessing a knowledge of reality few comprehend.
Here is where we can talk and write about such things and then
reflect upon how we can best use and shape the material we were given.
Semper fi, and welcome, my friend,
Jim
There was a song that came to me in a letter. It was 98.6 we all could not see how it could a song
Well, it sure was a song and it was put out in 1966. I don’t particularly remember the lyrics Like I do some
but it was there all right.
Thanks for the memory and writing it here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Good mornin’ sun I say it’s good to see you shinin’
I know my baby brought you to me
She kissed me yesterday hello your silver linin’
Got spring and summer runnin’ through me
Hey 98.6 it’s good to have you back again, oh
Hey 98.6 her lovin’ is the medicine that saved me
Oh I love my baby
Hey everybody on the street I see you smilin’
Must be because I found my baby
You know she’s got me on another kind of highway
I want to go to where it takes me
Hey 98.6 it’s good to have you back again, oh
Hey 98.6 her lovin’ is the medicine that saved me
Oh I love my baby
You know she’s got me on another kind of highway
I want to go to where it takes me
Hey 98.6 it’s good to have you back again, oh
Hey 98.6 her lovin’ is the medicine that saved me
Oh I love my baby
Writer/s: GEORGE FISCHOFF, TONY POWERS
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Thank you ever so much for the song, my friend.
Funny the lyrics that got burned into
us while back here they were simply fun songs.
Not so with us. Parts of home, to be remembered and revered
and once back here to take us back there.
Strange time machine music…
Semper fi,
Jim
Strauss…. you okay???
The segment goes up tonight. I was down for the count with a bad respiratory thing but I am fully back at it. Thank you for caring and writing about it on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, glad to hear you are feeling better, wish I was.
Yes, J, thank you. I just put up the next segment. How are you?
I just have had this awful cold, the worst part being my voice not working. Not being
able to talk, doing the things I do, has been a bit tough. How are you doing?
Semper fi,
Jim
Unfortunately not well, have been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and waiting for all of the blood work to come back. Don’t know if I will be around for the end of your story, but hope all goes well for you.
Semper fi my friend,
J
P.S. Don’t blame God for the madness of men.
No, I am not blaming God for the madness of men. Right now I am busy blaming him for your cancer. Come on J! For Christ’s sake, I just found
you. That’s fucking not fair. From a selfish viewpoint, of course…God damn it. I was going to say something. Stage four where?
Yes, you are my friend. I don’t know what to say. I am here. Pouting. Mad. I’ll write faster, and having too because you are going to die
before I finish really pisses me off. But not at you.
Shit.
Jim
Good Lord man, don’t blame God for my cancer, He had nothing to do with it.
If you want to blame someone, blame our military complex that sends men on assignments where the land is full of radiation from shelling and bombing or where they have sprayed it with deadly chemicals and polluted it for all of mankind.
Then too, I chose to smoke most of my life and that was my decision, not God’s. Then there were all of the accidents I was involved in from using bad judgement on my part. I could go on, but you get the message.
Jim dying is a part of life and we all have to do it, sooner or later. We are all on a journey here on earth, but that is not the end of life as you well know. The sad part at the end of this journey, is parting with those whom you know and love, but then we may get a pleasant surprise on the other side and all come together once again under much better circumstances.
Yes it would be great if you would hurry up with your story as you are no spring chicken either. From what I see on Face Book you have thousands of likes, so there are a lot of readers who are following very closely now. Think of all the disappointed readers if you are never able to finish the story! You have been sitting on it now for over forty years and it is about time that it gets told.
Thanks for you kind words and the camaraderie as that is something my wife and I miss since leaving the military. We spent twenty years in the service and the troops became our family.
You confound me, or is the right word befuddle? So I proceed, with my special
relationship with God, who is no doubt as continuously antagonized by me as I am by Him…if
it is a Him. Thanks for the kind words. I’m as healthy as can be for a man of my age. No smoke, no more,
no drink, no more, no drugs, no more and my doctor after the physical this year said I should keep on doing
whatever the hell it is I’m doing because he doesn’t see people my age who don’t have problems.
Thanks Poppa, for trying to make me feel better…
Semper fi,
Jim
Were we the boobs? I believe we all asked that question at one time or another, along with many other questions, after coming back home from Nam. Why were we there and what did we accomplish? How can you win the battles and lose the war? Why did we have to be the first U.S. troops to come home in defeat, when we were never defeated by the enemy? Why did our own people turn against us, when we gave everything while representing our country? If those questions and many others were not enough to cause PTSD, what are?
It turns out that we went to war in the beginning stages of a cultural change within our society. Most of us were raised in an entirely different scenario, i.e., God, Family and Country. We donned our uniforms and our weapons with pride and went off to defend the honor of our country. Problem was, our country was in the process of losing it’s patriotism and honor. We found this out the hard way, when some of the troops came back from leave to the CONUS and related to the rest of us, what was going on back home. It was the first of many cultural shocks that we were to experience before leaving Nam. Suddenly the heavy loss of our comrades in arms on the battle field, lost it’s meaning. Did they die in vein and would we also? When the enemy body count became more important then supporting our own troops, we started losing faith in our government as well as the military command.
Of course the worse shock of all, was landing on U.S. soil and receiving the despicable greetings that we got from our own people. It was like coming back to a nation that we no longer recognized as our home. Instead of hero’s who served their country bravely, we were treated worse then any American troops ever to return from battle. If that is not enough to depress a vet, nothing is. That treatment did not end with just our arrival, but continued for nearly a quarter of a century. The unearned shame was heaped upon the vets, instead of where it belonged, which was our government and with our current society.
No, we were not the boobs, we were the unsung hero’s who went off to war for our nation. It was a society of boobs that deserve that nomenclature. The pendulum always swings the other way and in the process, there is a silver lining when it comes to the treatment of our troops and vets. Society finally realized the shame did not belong on the shoulders of the Vietnam Vets, but on society itself. That realization has brought about more respect for soldiers who are now standing for freedom in this nation and they have the Vietnam Vets to thank for that change!
Figured I better get this up right away. I’m obviously not the only writer on this site!
Nice lay out and delivery there. Nothing you said can be questioned. I think we all here share
your sentiments and have come to conclusions not far from your own. Those of us who made it through…
Thanks for taking the time and pouring out your intellect and heart…
Semper fi,
Jim
James
I was in the valley in 68 with A 1/7 Cavalry, on Operation Delaware. I have a possible correction for you. The Bong Son River doesn’t run through the Au Shau Valley, I think you might be referring to the Song Be River. The Bong Son is further South.
Correct. We simply called it the Bong Song mistakenly. To all of us, for some reason, it was the Bong Song.
You are right though as I had and have maps. The Gunny said, when I called him on it in country “fuck the gooks, it’s the fucking
Bong Song and that’s it.”
Semper fi,
Jim
Skip, you are correct, the Bong Song River runs west to east, south of Danang. As Seabee, I worked on a bridge over the Bong Song at Hill 36. The head waters of the Bong Song could be in the A Shau Valley but most of the valley drains north/east into the ocean east of Danang. We also worked on bridges there before Hai Van Pass. True though, The Valley was pounded day and night, the year I was there.