I lay prone on the jungle mat of fallen leaves, fronds and smaller branches. I couldn’t tell how deep the mass under me was, although back at the hole we’d blown earlier, the jungle floor mat seemed like it was almost a foot thick. It was better than the mud. We had to be ready to retreat back over the lip of the cliff at the right time so I’d placed my full pack between my head and the likely direction of the enemy, not that the pack would stop anything more powerful than a Daisy air rifle BB. I realized it might also give away my position, even though it was green. It was the wrong green. There was no right green in the jungle of Vietnam. Everything that was supposed to be there blended in. The Bamboo Vipers were yellow but they blended invisibly. The only thing that didn’t blend in was Marines. I wondered if our faulty ability to blend in was responsible for the high casualties we took. There was no way to tell how we really stacked up against the NVA. We made up their casualties to please a demanding command structure. Our own casualties were evident every day by counting the wounded going out on medevac and the body bags, but then the friendly fire dead weren’t listed as being from friendly fire. Were those Marine dead from such friendly fire really the result of that, or was Vietnam simply killing them in a different way?
My plan became more questionable the longer we waited. If we’d simply run down along the cliff we might have avoided detection, and be sitting at the A Shau Landing Zone by nightfall. Instead, we weren’t going anywhere for the rest of the light, and on into the dark. There had been no contact from Kilo when we’d failed to show up. The Gunny said, before he moved up and down the line to make sure everyone was attentive and waiting instead of asleep at the switch, that Kilo wouldn’t really care whether we showed up or not as long as they got our resupply and added it to their own.
“What time should we expect to get hit?” Stevens asked me. I knew he was speaking for my whole scout team. I made believe I could read the time on my watch, although I couldn’t see through the damaged crystal anymore. I would have smiled at that point, thinking about enjoying the new Rolex I could buy when I got to the rear, but all I felt was smoldering anger at the stupidity of it all.
“Eight,” I said, presuming it was about five o’clock. “About three hours from now, although they could wait until just before dawn. They like that just before dawn shit.”
I looked up and could see that the team was buying it. I didn’t have a clue about the time, or what time we’d get hit, if we got hit at all. There were so many ways for me to come out of the whole thing looking like an idiot or, at the worst, not come out at all. I knew I was feeling anxiety and deep fatigue at the same time. If I could only call Cunningham to find out if they had the fuses and the rounds I needed, I’d feel a whole lot better. But I couldn’t do that. I suspected the NVA were lying in wait only a few hundred meters away and if they had Prick 25s, they’d be able to hear our communication. If they heard us begging for ammo, we’d be dead very quickly.
“It’s Sunday,” Fusner announced. “Maybe they won’t come on Sunday.”
“It’s Sunday?” I replied in complete surprise. I had lost all consciousness of time when it came to days of the week. I knew it was the ninth of the month because I was on my ninth day and I’d come in on the first day of the month. Maybe the mythical Mertz Rolex would have the day of the week as part of its expensive movement, I thought.
“Are you Catholic?” Zippo suddenly asked me, the others looking at him expectantly when he said the words.
“Well, yes, although I’m not a great one,” I answered, wondering why he was asking that particular question. I felt he was serious about something. I couldn’t just blow him off, although I wanted to. Officers were supposed to remain aloof and remote from the members of enlisted ranks to preserve command ability. My shoulders slumped to the bracken beneath me. All I wanted to do was lie and rest. Everything ached. And, for the second or third time since my arrival in country, I didn’t really want to be a Marine Officer anymore.
Fusner waited without replying. He stared at me, and then blinked like Nguyen when he was buried in the bush.
“What is it?” I asked softly, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice.
“We wondered if you’d say something,” Fusner stammered back. “You know, like a priest or something. We’re going to get attacked and we don’t have any ammunition, and its Sunday, so we thought…”
I looked at the three of them. Nguyen hung back, remaining just beyond the rest, in his normal place. I glanced at him but got nothing back from his flat expression and obsidian eyes.
“He’s Catholic too,” Stevens said motioning toward the Montagnard, having watched me closely while I was looking at Nguyen.
The last Catholic mass I’d been to was in Virginia to get married. My wife had insisted on the full mass because her Catholic parents attended. The priest at Quantico would not marry us because my wife was pregnant, even though we had both gone to all Catholic schools all the way up through college. I’d heard about a Catholic priest in Fredricksburg though. It was said he’d marry anybody for two hundred bucks and a bottle of Jamison whiskey. I’d gotten hold of a bottle of the whiskey but could only raise a hundred dollars in cash. After four shots of the Jamison though, Father O’Brien agreed to do the wedding.
“Just a few words,” Fusner said.
The request came out of nowhere. I thought about the fact that I didn’t know any services or the words to go along with them. I’d been an altar boy, so I knew responses to the priests in Latin. I didn’t think Latin would work.
“Okay,” I said, lifting my torso up on my elbows. The team gathered around, even Nguyen coming in to hang just outside our small circle. I looked around to make sure we were far enough away for any regular Marines so I would not appear even more idiotic than they already thought me to be.
I told them about what I knew of Paul in the Bible. How he’d gone through all kinds of misery and tribulations not believing in the Lord but finally when he’d come to his knees and see the light, his life turned around and he found safety and peace, and the calling to serve the Lord the rest of his life. I didn’t mention Paul being beheaded by Nero because that small detail hadn’t been documented in the Bible anyway. I finished the little ‘service’ by reciting one of the few poems I knew by heart. It was called “Footsteps in the Sand” and I’d always loved it. The last words came out of my mouth in a whisper: “My precious, precious child. I love you, and would never, ever, leave you during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
I made the sign of the cross, keeping my expression blank, like Nguyen’s. My lack of a solid belief in a supreme being didn’t bother me, but I knew it would bother them if they knew it. We were all very likely to get killed. It was pretty obvious, just in doing any counting of the daily death toll. I couldn’t save myself, much less any of them, except maybe for the shortest periods of time. I’d been stringing those short periods together like the sewn patches on blankets put together in old grandmothers’ quilting bees, but the end result could not be put off forever. I knew those ‘footprints in the sand’ weren’t there because God wasn’t there. “Footsteps” was a great poem but the reality was right in front of us, and if we lived through what was in front of us, then the A Shau awaited, to claim those of us who might survive.
The Gunny crawled up next to me, with Pilson at his side. I noted that Pilson pulled the big heavy Prick 25 off his back and used it as a barrier between his head and the likely position of the enemy. The Prick 25 radio body would stop about as much as my pack, which meant almost nothing, but I liked his gesture, so similar to my own. The company’s position along the lip of the cliff was not a defensible one, without actually going over the edge, and even then the distance down precluded having secure cover to fight from, even if ammunition had been more plentiful.
“Are they out there, or not?” the Gunny asked, keeping his voice low, looking straight ahead instead of at me.
“What about air-dropping in a pallet of ammo and water?” I asked back, ignoring the question both he and I knew had no answer.
The Gunny turned his head to look over at me. “If they aren’t there, then an emergency airdrop would make all the sense in the world. If they’re out there, and we think they’re out there, then the first sign of a resupply-loaded slick will cause them to attack. In which case we’re dead.”
“I’ll get some coffee,” the Gunny said, after a few silent moments. “I’ve got water,” he finished, somehow knowing I was dry. He went to work getting some stuff out of his pack.
We hunched low together near the lip of the cliff. I noted that some of the company were already over the edge, setting stones atop one another to form a step up from the eight-foot face. The light was beginning to wane, causing the Gunny’s lit ammo to form a small glowing bulb under his canteen holder.
“Will anybone see them?” I asked him, working on getting my own water hot.
The Gunny glanced over the edge and saw the Marines silently working away. “Everything’s a tradeoff,” he replied, mixing his coffee powder into his boiling water with the end of his K-Bar. He handed me a packet.
“When it gets dark, should I call in the mission whether they hit us or not,” I asked him, bringing my water to a boil. “We could all jump down to the ledge and run like hell toward the A Shau.”
The Gunny sipped his coffee, making a slurping sound like he always did, but he didn’t answer.
“Well?” I finally inquired, impatiently.
“And here I thought you had it all planned out,” the Gunny finally said, his voice so expressionless that I couldn’t tell whether he was entirely serious or not.
I wanted to share my angst about whether the American battery would be able or willing to support us but I couldn’t because it didn’t make any difference. If I called in fire too early, I might stop the enemy from attacking if I was able to hit their exact position, which was unlikely. If I called fire in early I might also exhaust the limited rounds stored at the battery, if I was going to get that fire at all. If I waited until we were being attacked, then I’d have the NVA exposed and pinpointed up and down the line. Our return small arms fire would probably be enough to hold them off for a bit, given the company was so oversupplied with M-60 machine guns, and then I could make the artillery effective enough to allow us to head out east toward the A Shau without fear we’d be taken out along the way. I was about to sip my coffee when my hands started shaking again. I put the cup holder down. My hands went to my thighs and I massaged them deeply.
“Long day,” the Gunny noted, observing my movements.
I was almost sure the Gunny did know about the shakes, but I knew it was wise to keep my little secret as long as I could. There was nothing to be gained by showing weakness, even though the Gunny knew I was anything but strong command material.
“We wait until they hit us,” I said, sounding as confident as I could. “It’s likely they’re coming back to the tunnel complex we found further back, or something like that. Obviously, we’re in their way and also a target of opportunity that they can’t ignore, plus they’re probably really pissed that they lost so many men.”
“See, you’re learning,” the Gunny said in his best aged and wise voice. “We wait, which is always hard, and then we hit them where it hurts again. Unfortunately, the prize is the A Shau and that kind of sucks. But we’ll deal with that tomorrow.”
I stopped massaging my thighs and picked up my canteen holder by its big U-shaped handle. No shaking. It was either the massaging or the seeming confidence the Gunny exuded. I drank some coffee and then set the holder down next to the tiny dying embers of the Gunny’s Composition B fire. I pulled some paper and an envelope from my pack and went to work writing a letter home. I described the mythical tunnel complex I knew had to be underground if the NVA unit we were about to come into contact with was coming back to it. I left out the enemy attacking part. To explain how I knew what was down there, I made Fusner into a tunnel rat when he was not operating my radio. Fusner was way too big, even at his young age, to fit inside one of the poorly dug tunnels but she would not know that. If we made it to the A Shau and then got resupply and medevac to come down in the morning, then my letter would go out. I paused in my writing. I could not remember how many letters I’d written. I should be on my ninth or maybe tenth but I’d been backed up in getting them out.
I lay behind my pack and next to my letter, which was too moist because we couldn’t take out our hooch-building material without giving away our positions when the fighting got close if it got close. I could start numbering the letters going out but then I’d possibly be letting my wife know that I could not remember. “Why can’t he remember,” might be a phrase she could not explain or get over. I wrote on about the cliff and the kind of rock making up the mountains of the highlands. I also wrote about the Montagnards thinking I might be okay. I didn’t mention that it might be the enemy thinking I was okay. How could I explain that to anyone?
The light was fast disappearing by the time I finished my letter. I made a few notes for myself and then pulled out my map. I reviewed the number I would use for the registration round, which I’d call in using a Willie Peter round, just in case. I worked to formulate where our own unit would be registered so I would not be limited on how close I could call the fire. Even as ‘danger close’ fire mission could not be fired within two hundred meters of the company’s imaginary perimeter. I needed a real imaginary registration position because we might need some rounds to fall a helluva lot closer than two hundred meters. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was that I had to have our position firmly in mind for adjusting fire. From where Cunningham was located, and firing up and down the line along the ridge, I would be adjusting using left and right instead of up or down. If I screwed up about the lie of where we were then friendly losses, quite possibly with me among them, would be substantial. VT fuses were brutally murderous and completely careless when it came to who got taken out under their umbrella of death.
The night set in. The wind died down and there was no rain or mist. The moon came out just north of due east. It was near full, although it wasn’t high enough early on to see that. The clue was in the amount of light that penetrated the jungle and beamed down on the visible valley behind us.
“Starlight scope,” I whispered to Fusner, who slithered away to find Zippo.
Although the double canopy jungle we were in was fairly dense, there were patches through the bracken and tree trunks that extended out thirty meters or more in the direction I suspected the NVA regulars would be coming from. For the first time in many nights I felt no fear from either First Platoon or Fourth. The company’s differences were temporarily put to rest until the bigger threat could be dealt with.
Zippo appeared, crawling on his hands and knees. He said nothing, although I could see big white teeth exposed by his big smile. He unloaded the scope and went to work setting it up. He’d brought his own pack to rest the barrel across.
“It’s good, sir,” he said. “You want to see?”
I didn’t answer right away, instead I leaned over toward Fusner.
“Nudge Stevens,” I ordered, not raising my voice. “All of us are going to spell one another in looking through this thing.”
Stevens came out of the murky darkness seconds later, with Nguyen at his side.
“Focus that thing on the end of one of the open areas,” I told Zippo. “We’ll scan from open area to open area as long as it takes.”
“What are we looking for?” Stevens asked as Zippo worked to focus.
“Footsteps in the sand,” I replied, in a whisper.
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Mr Strauss, all I can say is you tell a damn fine tale. I realize your story is based on personal experience, but there’s a lot of people who can’t relate those experiences well. You sir, most certainly can. There’s a lot of individuals who put pen to paper and call themselves writers then there are those who not only hear the music but also play it. Hopefully you get the gist of my rambling. Been reading Thirty Days online but am definitely going to buy the book as I’m a firm believer in supporting the artist/author/whatever. Keep up the damn fine work with my sincerest thanks. Just as a PostScript, never saw combat but did spend sometime in Charlie 1/504 in 81-82. Also have to say, having read many novels about the Viet Nam war, yours is the grittiest story I’ve ever encountered. Once again, well done, fine display.
Well, Mr. Eckley, that’s about as nice a compliment as a writer can get…
especially the day on which I bailed from the New York publisher.
The senior editor thought that I was too close to the story to write it objectively.
Yeah, a guy who’d never left NY much less gone to the Nam. Anyway, he wanted me to have a co-author.
That was the end of that situation. My wife heard and asked “a co-author…his cousin or nephew).
She’s a tough Irish woman though and been around the Horn a few times.
So I don’t have a New York publisher anymore and your words are most reassuring.
Do I have the right stuff to make it all the kind of story I intended it to be?
To do justice to the reality as well as the reality of so many of us who served and nobody will believe
or we don’t even want to bother to tell them?
I am not quitting. It don’t mean nuthin! Thanks for keeping me going…
Semper fi,
Jim
Great story! Put me there again. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, “Better Man”
have you continued to read on?
Semper Fi, Jim
Jim, this book can be a best seller. Screw New York. I am not sure how I even found this book. But if I found it so will many others. Foot prints in the sand! Hang tough and shit will happen! I too will buy your book to add to my collection.
Really appreciate reading your words here and I hope that expression I’ve heard fits: “from your lips to God’s ears!” We’ll see.
Most of publishing and Hollywood screenwriting is a function of nepotism or cronyism and has little to do with quality work.
You see the result all the time. But…maybe…who knows…
Thanks a lot,
Semper fi,
Jim
I graduated high school in 1975 and didn’t even have to register for the draft. This time of my life was focused on sex drugs and rock and roll (too much drugs and rock and roll and not enough sex) and anyone involved with the military was viewed somewhat askance by my crowd, to say the least. During this time, I was employed as a grounds keeper and later a carpenter’s helper at a college campus. That being said, I witnessed disparaging attitudes from my crowd toward veterans for no other reason than that they had been in the military. I worked with some veterans who were great guys and others who were complete jerks. So what I took away from that experience is that there are good and bad people in the military as well as the hipster elite. A few years later, while pursuing an electronics degree at the local junior college, my volleyball coach expressed his disgust at Vietnam veterans and their whining about rejection and agent orange and the rest of it. This was circa 1987 and I took the guy to be a Korean War vet. I don’t know why he chose to confide with or vent on me. I was several years older than the other students. Maybe he took me for 1970s era slacker, which I was. Maybe he took me for someone who he could confide in. I’d like to think so. In response, I did what I do best… nothing.
Decades later, after reading the canon of war memoirs, including your own, I now know that combat results in PTSD. That’s my epiphany. Feel free to correct me. So there is no way the coach was trivializing the experiences of Vietnam vets. What he was criticizing must have been the voice of the Vietnam vets. Vietnam was our first TV war and the returning veterans, with their issues and concerns, got coverage on TV. In retrospect, I wish I’d told the coach not to expect a group of people to forgo a useful avenue to further a cause crucial to their health and well being.
A lot has been said about the futility and waste of America’s involvement in Vietnam. It seems North Vietnam never tried seriously to destabilize Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore. Could that be a result of the punishment they received from the US?
The right or wrong of the totality of any war cannot be understood or deeply thought about
by its combatants. The combat is much to personal an experience. When a set of .50 tracers is
digging through the jungle debris looking to find a home deep inside you there is not thought of
“domino theories” or any of that. Life itself must be constantly considered and survival needs
responded to. Then, upon returning home, that entire orientation must be twisted around to become
ethereally removed from the combat. PTSD is the condition that describes attempts to bridge that
difference. And the difference is huge. It don’t mean nuthin….is a Viet vet phrase that describes
it. Life means something. In combat it’s all that means something. Back here that’s not the way
of social thought process nor of evaluating relationships. Hence the loneliness of combat veterans.
Thank you most sincerely for that long comment about such deeply felt stuff.
Semper fi,
Jim
usaf didn’t go to nam, remote turkey as a russian liguist for 15 months…always glad i didn’t get nam….bro in law was FO viet nam…came back messed up and killed himself…..college room mate was 2nd lt army in nam and was a suspected frag and killed….keep it coming, i respect all you guys that were there while i was somewhere else
Glad you were somewhere else Sam, since you are here to write this.
Lots of post Vietnam mortality that has never been recorded as such.
The price of these ‘pocket’ guerrilla wars is much higher than anyone
wants to consider back here. Thanks for writing to me and for liking the effort.
Semper fi,
Jim
Worthy of a Pulitzer my friend.
Thank you Brad. The world is not built or kept that way. Pultizers go to friends
and relatives, just like most other things. And then there’s applying to qualify to get
a Pulitzer. More humor. I always thought that the greatest works got those prizes.
What a shock it was to find out that that wasn’t true at all.
Anyway, thanks for your support and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I enjoy reading your ‘Footsteps in the Sand’ I was a Navy Corpsman attached to ‘L’ Company, 3rd Batt. 3rd Marines 3rd Mar. Div in Okinawa and then to Vietnam in 1965-66, Chu Lai and DaNang. It never gets easier looking and reading of ourselves oh so many years ago. It seems like another life, which it was, but survival was the key, not just there, but for the rest of my life.
Thank you for taking the time to write this down. Semper Fi
Thanks Gary. Yes, that was a different segment and I tossed and turned about whether to put it in,
given that I’m not very religious and was certainly not back then. As usual, passing myself as someone and
something I’m not. Survival is always the key but not necessarily a key that comes into the lock with bliss or happiness.
Thanks for the erudite comment and the reading depth your analysis indicates.
Semper fi,
Jim
It wa enough for your men’s spirit, and that what was what they needed. God bless all of you that where over there.
Trying to form and hold the company together was the single most frustrating project of my life,
and I mean after i got home too. How do you take a group of men and get them to listen to a 23 year old FNG lieutenant?
And how do you be worth listening to? It was a rough road and, sometimes, it still is.
Thanks for the comment and for liking the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for your service. Like most high school graduates of the 60’s we grew up with that war and knew as males our future was there or college. I hated school so college was out. Enlisted with three others in to the Marines in ’67. Lost out on that experience 4 days before we were to report due to a very bad motorcycle wreck of which I still deal with the physical reprocussions 50 years later. One of the guys was a tunnel rat and died in a tunnel. Another received a Purple Heart due to motar shrapnel. The other was lucky and missed going over. I have always carried guilt about not being able to do my part, right cause or not. Thank you for grinding through your fears and trepidations.
Bob, drop the guilt, although saying that is a hell of a lot easier than doing it.
Everyone didn’t need to go and so many that did are fucked up now or dead. You might have been
one of those. And you are not. Those of us who went and took the fire do not hold any of that against
you or others who did not go or refused to go. It can be unsettling when those who went don’t appreciate that
we did but those guys and gals are mostly chickenhawks themselves. I must discount them, even when they sit in high office.
Thanks for writing on here and baring your soul, so to speak. I appreciate the confidence you show in writing at all.
You are forgiven for something never held against you. Now join us and let it go yourself….
Semper fi,
Jim
It amazes me how we retain so many vivid memories while serving in country, yet forget what happened last week. I guess if we have it burned so deep in our mind it can never be forgotten.
Burned in memories are a good descriptor David. Like laser burns of intimate
fine detail. Sometimes I have more trouble with what was generally going on
than the minute details of life in that environment. I’m not forgetting today yet
but, in being close to a lot of aging men and women, I sure know that that has
to be coming.
Thanks for the read and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Just stumbled across this story this morning around 2am. Could not stop reading until I had finished all that was currently posted. Served in 2nd Bn, 1st Marines, March 67 to April 68. At Danang, Quang Tri, Dong Ha, Con Thien, and started the operation with the 1st Army(I think, the Big Red 1) to relieve Khe San(sp). I absolutely hated every movie or book about Vietnam because they all made us out to be stone cold dope addicts. Don’t know if some units were like that, but ours sure as H wasn’t. We were too busy staying alive. The only movie I have seen that was even remotely accurate was “We Were Soldiers”. One question: How can I see all the parts of this story up to this point? Great writing, and from someone who was there, I know it’s dead on target!
We had drugs and booze too but out in the field it was impossible to
get ‘carried away’ without getting dead. And supply was a bit of a
problem. Wine and beer could sometimes be had from what locals survived
around us and pot was never far away. With combat intensity comes more
of a need for anything to get the hell out of or away from it but
sourcing is a problem. Not like it’s coming in on the choppers in
resupply. Thanks for being ‘drawn in’ to the story and finding it
interesting and accurate. I don’t know how interesting and accurate I
am myself in portraying it, although my own from of PTSD has certainly taken
me around the world again and again and never far from trouble….
Semper fi,
Jim
Phenominal read. I appreciate the sacrifices made before me starting with my Uncle Danny who never had been outside the Pa/ NJ area before joining the Marines and crawling over a net into a boat onto some stinking shit hole called Iwo. Those sacrifices were paid by the author and a good many of the readers judging by the responses. Look forward to more, and thank you gentleman for your sweat and blood.
DB 2nd Anglico
Thank you Dale. I am working on the Ninth Night Second Part right this minute. Took
a few minutes off to answer comments. Like your own, I answer them all because I’d rather do that then just about
anything else. Writing the story is hard but not, because it takes me back and I don’t want to go back. I don’t drink or
take drugs anymore do escape from there but last night I actually woke up thinking that I’d been drinking to avoid going on
with the story. I had not, thank God. Funny how it all works and doesn’t work at the same time.
The comments help keep me motivated to continue and your comment is one of those.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow, replaying to all is quite a commitment, much appreciated. I suffer from PTSD, not military related , I endure from a life changing hunting accident after being shot multiple times , and it’s been a tough fight. I’ve abused most things I could get my hands on in the 20 years or so since. It’s a winnable fight, I can’t compare that to the daily horrors of combat I served 75-79, obviously a peace time military. My son is AF attached to Army he’s Combat Weather, he carries the scars from Afghanastan as well, like most too young to see and experience things that cannot be forgotten only dealt with. Peace and hope to everyone, prayers are with all.
Dale
How in hell do you get shot ‘multiple times’ in a hunting accident? That’s terrible
to be shot not far from home and I’m certain that part of it bothers you a lot.
Thanks for commenting here and I hope to learn a bit more about what happened to you.
Semper fi,
Jim
Checking in for the second time. I find your writing riveting and compelling. As I said before, my time in country was in the safe and secure Da Nang Air Base. We did experience mortar and rocket attacks, but nothing like what you poor guys went through. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the neat comment Skeeter. Da Nang took some beatings and it is
hard getting hit with incoming no matter where or when. Those after action
thoughts about life and the meaning of it carry with you through life.
Thank you for being one of us and liking my stuff. Means a lot to me.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
I am thankful for your work on this. If I may I would like to give you a possibly different perspective on how it might affect different people and why it is vital in so many ways. I graduated in ’76 so I have no experience “being there”. My Father served from 1943-45 in the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions. We were not real close and he was pretty hard on me. I did not understand his behavior at times, like, he really did not like going to the beach. He would go at times but would usually just sit and stare into the ocean. It wasn’t until he described the Amtrack he was in got hit several hundred yards off of Tarawa and how they had to wade ashore that I understood it. His hair actually stood up and he was visibly shaken. He would rarely talk about what happened on those islands except after he’d been drinking. He was also on Bouganville, Siapan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima. He had 2 Purple Hearts one of which caused him to have to wear a brace on his leg until he passed away (over 30 years ago). Like I said we were not close. It was not until the book “Flags of our Fathers” came out that I was able to begin to understand why he was the way he was. I was never able to make amends with him and to say I understood. That haunts me. This is why your work is so important. To those of us that have no idea of what you went through we are able to get a glimpse and to understand a bit more of what you endured and what it was really like. First of all. Thank you for your service. Second, Thank you for your sacrifice in writing this. I know that by reliving this in such great detail you will have to deal with the issues that arise from it. You are opening a new door. Trust me, the good you are doing will far outweigh the bad.
Lee W
I worry Lee. The book is changing me and having an effect and it’s not a real comfortable one. I have
no veteran friends here except those on this site really. It’s hard to have veteran friends unless they were really in it
like your dad. There are not many alive and then the ones that made it are so fucked up usually. I came to understand that
the door into reality opened up and I stepped through, like your dad on that beach. Later, after the awful shit going on in the ‘real’ world
your dad was expected to be transplanted in pieces mentally and physically in a mere instant….back into a phenomenal world he knew wasn’t the real
world at all. I have that problem. His love for you was a more distant thing, like a big cat, loving you but making sure there was enough
distance for him to protect you without you dying from the loss of him in doing so. How everyone deals with this stuff is terribly different
and so making counseling very difficult. I am certain now that few experienced much of what I did but they went through other stuff I did not.
Some think that I have compressed a lot of stuff into a short period of time, which I have not done, but so much of this is not truly believable.
And that is okay. Thank you for the long comment laying so much out. It helps me a lot just to know there are people out there that I might help.
The only way some of us can deal with what we did is redemption. I am doing my best, like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life, to get my wings.
Semper fi,
Jim
SEMPER FI Mr. Strauss!
Thank for sharing your experiences. It is something that I believe future generations of Americans owe to our veterans to keep the experiences at the forefront.
I am also a Marine. I participated in JTF 6 and Operation Southern Watch.
Thank you for your service and for sharing your experiences with us!
Jim Wohlberg
You have been through the modern day war wringer a bit Jim.
I was active as CIA field back in those now olden days but in the modern
era. I only played around the edges of most of that, although I was close enough
to note some of the very special, talented and much overlooked brilliance of that leadership.
Thank you for the kind and supportive comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m once again keyed up, waiting for the attack to come. I don’t know how you do it, James, but I’m right there piling rocks to stand on. Getting ready for the fight to come.
I find myself checking for your next entry every evening like clockwork.
Keep it coming, it’s got all the earmarks of a great novel to come.
A big thank you Joel. It is impossible to predict these days what
might make it in the literary world or not. All I know is that I
must keep writing until this is done. It’s not like anything else
I’ve ever written and it sort of drives me, not the other way around.
As this night I sit re-working the Ninth Night Second Part. It’s so
easy to write and so strangely hard. Thanks for your support and your
caring about the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, l haven’t met a veteran yet who has experienced combat or who had been mortared, lived through a rocket attack or was scared to death without a weapon and being fired at, that likes war. Nor did we care for phonies. Keep up the good work my friend!
Yes, Jim, me either. The guys who are into ‘mowing the enemy down with
submachine guns’ and I have literally heard such stories, have never been
nor are they ever going. The real guys never talk that shit. Not ever.
It isn’t even the phonies. It’s the bellicose guys with no violence
in their lives who talk like that. You want to simply shoot them in the gut
with a .45, take them to the E.R. and then let them know you’ll be back to
talk about what it’s really like in six or seven months!
Thanks for the spot on comment and the reading of the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
Why didn’t you keep one of the ak 47s James
The Chicom 47’s of the time were pieces of shit. They worked okay but you would cut your fingers on
the stamped steel receivers and levers, etc. Also, you could not use one in the Nam because there
was no resupply of ammo. How many enemy can you constantly kill to get the special ammo. It was
7.62X39. Our own 7.62 for the M-60 machine guns were too long to feed into the 47. And there was
the night. Do you really want to be in the dark and fire one? The Marines in combat quickly learn to
distinguish the sharp crack of the 16 from the bark of the AK.
Thanks for the comment. You made me think for a bit.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
I have a brother that was a MC helicopter pilot, a “57” comes to mind, but not sure about that. He was stationed at “Monkey Mountain” near Da Nang, 69-70 (?). I stopped asking about it and that chapter of his life is over with the page turned. Though I wonder now if that’s so. We grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota, not the most congenial place to express your pride in your oldest brother being a pilot in Vietnam. I was 10 years younger than my older brother and vividly recall watching my mother sitting and watching the evening news with Walter Cronkite as the daily dead and wounded count scrolled onto the screen. Tore me up and her too but made it a ritual to sit and watch with her. Never imagined all those statistics that Walter presented were so misleading (not that he knew) until I started reading “30 Days.”
I got in more than a few scraps over the issue of pride in my brother’s service and others disgust for the same. Funny thing was we were all on the same hockey team. There didn’t seem to be any middle ground available, even in rural Minnesota, on how one felt about our involvement in Vietnam back then. Still recall sitting in the warming shack after hockey practice one evening and being told Derry Struasser (MC, “grunt” as you say) from Jackson was killed in action. Not sure what KIA means now, other than Darry was dead and at his funeral there was a flag draped casket and a marker at the cemetery.
I joined the Army out of college and went to anesthesia school through the military. After anesthesia school, I was eventually stationed at Ft Bragg and went to jump school at Benning. When I got back with ‘wings,’ I requested the anesthesia slot for a Forward Surgical Team, 44th Med BDE and went on to provide surgical support on Howard AFB to JAYSOC/Ranger Batts during “Op Just Cause,” and then our unit was assigned to a support battalion, 24th ID, during Op Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Neither of those engagements compare to what you rivetingly disclose in “30 Days.” As a ‘medical puke’ as I was affectionately called on more than one occasion, mine was a cake walk in comparison- short with minimal casualties. Honestly have to say that I am glad for the good fortune of not having served in Vietnam and have a greater appreciation for those who did after reading “30 Days.” Yours is some of the finest 1st person, war narrative I’ve read. Thanks for your service, thanks for the telling.
Lee Porisch
Well shit, Lee! Man oh man is that a comment or what? I read and reread what you wrote and still am taking it all in.
The helicopter was probably a CH 47 Chinook. Fast heavy helicopter we saw a lot of over there. It’s hard to get the real
vets to talk about the real shit because the real shit isn’t really believable plus it can cause an inexperienced person
listening to think the guy telling it is looney tunes! I am glad you believe the writing of this odyssey benefits others.
I did not start out writing the books for that purpose but I have come full circle back to that purpose. Thank you for the
reminder. You guys who chose medicine were one helluva big help to those who fought directly. For one thing, many of you
were out there with us and for another you put what was left of us back together. Thank you.
And thank you for that most informative comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I have always wished I had been up North in the mountains rather than being in the Delta with the Ninth Division. With all the mud, booby traps ect. where I was in 68-69. Your writings have captivated me, I have been impressed with your reactions so early in your tour.
I have two good friends that are Marines that were at Khe Sanh in the hill fights. One had been in Korea also. He received a Commission to 2nd Lt from Gunnery SGt.
I also lost a high school classmate at Con Thien in 67 and had another classmate at Khe Sanh in the compound in 68.
Keep up the good work, looking forward to your next issue.
My reactions throughout my tour were mostly instinctive and I made a lot
of mistakes and would have made more without the Gunny and the threat of
my own men killing me off keeping me on some sort of straight and narrow.
Thanks for the comment and the reading, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim
I want to add another friend, Rich Huff who was with Bravo 1/9 “The Walking Dead” was on
Operation Buffalo. Passed from Agent Orange 2 yrs ago.
Your friend is ‘added’ here and welcome to this strange collection brotherhood.
I am working to make the site work better and maybe have a forum so vets can talk back and forth
to one another. Anyway, than you ever so much for the message and the reading of my own story.
Semper fi,
Jim
James , were the Kit Carson scouts mostly Vietmanese, due to the fact of knowing the lay of the land better? I’ve read a lot of them went bare foot.
They were all Vietnamese George. There were American scouts but they weren’t called
Kit Carson scouts. I have no idea to this day why Kit Carson played a role in any of that.
Thanks for the comment and the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
I guess because Kit Carson was a famous scout in the wild west ,and one has to be worthy of his skills to be designated as such – who knows . Love your writing .
Yes, I guessed that too. Usually, there are arcane and unknowable junk in the
background that causes the naming of things, particularly in combat.
I wondered if maybe the Kit Carson designation was one of those.
Maybe someone out there knows because it’s not on the Internet.
Thanks for thinking about it and your comment and the reading of the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
I would just about bet the term Kit Carson came from a seasoned Gunny like you had.Some officer in the rear with the beer and gear heard it and thought it would look good in Stars And Stripes.
You are probably right about that Roger. There were some cool
expressions over there and that Kit Carson label was one of them.
Thanks for the read and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Kit Carson was a famed Scout leader, but the ones working for him were Indians from the various tribes, hence the use of the name Kit Carson Scouts for the Chu Hois and others that worked with us.
Thank you. Someone finally writes it out after some research.
I always thought the Kit Carson scouts were white guys. But no,
guys who couldn’t get a visa today!
Thanks for the comment,
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
I finally got caught up on the last installment, and am now experiencing the wait for the next ones; can’t get enough. I posted a comment a while back and misspelled my name as Jaxk.
I was one of those that grew up with the war. Never knew anything different watching the nightly news. Then reality set in when I got close to graduation in ’74. I was glad I missed it.
I agree with Mike’s comment about your writing. I’ve read a lot of books and none have been better written. I think there are a lot of guys my age, that struggle with what you and others had to do and how we would have responded. As a dad and grandfather I would never want my sons to experience that.
I’ve always loved the Footsteps poem, and am a strong believer in God, but I’ll never understand the injustices of this world. So I just trust. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It inspires me.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Jack. I loved Footsteps too. I have since researched
the poem and found that it has come out in several versions after being written in 1939.
Interesting stuff. I only knew the one version. Glad you missed the show over there too.
Left too many bright bulbs like you behind.
Semper fi,
Jim
thank you so much. reading this brings tears, and some smiles. my husband served during the Vietnam war, but was never sent there. he wanted to go, but instead, was sent to Germany. he was combat medic, and latter special forces. I’m thankful tat he wasn’t there, but he felt he should be. had many friends who were. I think your post also help military wives to understand more what it was like. thank you again. and I cant wait for the book. God bless you.
Well Joyce, it is uncommon to hear from the wives of men who served in these difficult
and emotion-laden conflicts.
I wrote this to attempt to make it more understandable, that time after
for those that live, and easier to accommodate for the people around the people who served.
So you are part of my ‘target audience.’
When you read what a rather happy-go-lucky college kid can descend into
and then convert into becoming in short order I hope it portrays not only the adaptability of humans to
outrageous circumstance and action but also in how far off the deep end
so many get doing this and then have lifelong problems coming back from.
Thank you again, especially for putting into written words what
you think and feel about what I am doing.
Semper fi,
Jim
The ranks of these commentors are, as I had early on anticipated, now being filled with the guys who have been there. I gladly “make way” for them, and gain from their reluctant remembering. The ripples in the pond are growing with every segment you grind out for us. You’ll hate it when I compare your output, “I just write it as it comes out”, to the ease with which Mozart penned his masterpieces. He had no peers, but those composers who struggled with every note over and over again were crushed with the ease which with he set down the melodies that literally “flowed out of the end of his fingers”. You’re not making beautiful music, but the sounds of war and inner turmoil in these compositions are heard loud and clear. Bravo, Maestro.
SF,
PFJ
I wondered where you were lurking back there John, quite the ‘master’ of
the written word himself. “gain from their reluctant remembering,” my God I just
have to steal that to put somewhere or other and say it is my own! Thank you John.
It is interesting to see how the ‘audience’ for this presentation changes and morphs
into whatever it is becoming. With about ten thousand readers a day it has been so far
beyond my expectation I can’t believe it. Now, it is the night of the ninth day and
and darkness has set in across the ridge leading up to the valley…and trouble this way
comes…
Thank you, my friend,
Semper fi,
Jim
” or was Vietnam killing them in a different way? Poignant! So well written it’s beautiful! And ugly as it gets! Bring it James!
Thank you Jack. It’s a tough call, the poetry and symbolism thing. Truthfully, I don’t think it or
rewrite it. I just write it as it comes to me and after I assemble as much supportive junk that I have laying around.
I now proceed to the first real battle of my time in the Nam. About all I can do is report what happened and
how the emotions and actions play out together.
Thanks for the short but deep comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I am totally hooked James! It reads as you say like its unfiltered. The attention to detail while maintaining the tension is quite a feat! Thanks again James!
Rounds in the tubes sir, and more standing by. Ready when you need us.
Memory flash; Damned near cut my left thumb off trying to open a time fuse can one night. They were in vacuum sealed cans that opened like a Spam can, with a key on a peel strip. Very dark, live defensive target mission, small arms and mortars popping all around us, got my thumb caught up in the peel strip and I could not get it loose. Another guy had to twist the can open and finish setting the fuse. Taped my sticky, bloody mess of a thumb back together and moved on.
Standing by sir
DonS
Thank you Don. There is little enough support out here in the world of the round eyes.
All we wanted to do back then was get home. We didn’t understand that home would be so
different because our perspective had been so screwed with. Thanks for being back there in
the battery. Sorry about that thumb! I didn’t know that about the storage of VT fuses.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I have the song “Footprints in the Sand” by Christy Lane. I like the way you write. You get my full attention and then stop.
Chuck 68/69
In retrospect, it turns out there are many versions of that poem.
I only memorized one but it was good for me. I’m not sure that my
beliefs are much different than back then but maybe I’m a bit more
comfortable at their being a supreme being than I was. Thanks for
bringing up the footprints thing as I was not sure about whether I should
include it.
Semper fi,
Jim
I don’t feel worthy to read the real story from a man on the ground, as I missed the war by a few years. The few Marine buddies that I have left tell much the same stories (after a few) but I can’t help but think that they are pulling some punches, and they weren’t in your position.Thanks for the real deal. I like print, so I’ll wait for the book. Thank you SIR.
You are worthy. Those of us who served in combat on the ground, as you write, so confer that permission and designation upon you.
Whether this story is the ‘real deal’ or not will no doubt be argued through the years ahead, unless it is simply consigned to
oblivion like most self-published works today.
Thank you so much of the comment and the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
As the saying goes there are no atheists in a foxhole
Yes, that was a tough one. It is hard not to pray to a God when all
hope seems lost or the luck of the draw is so going against you.
Where is the justice in the universe, kind of thing.
thank you for the comment and the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
Incredible story fell like I’m right there with you but glad I wasn’t. James you are a great writer I have read many books on war but nothing as good as this. It makes my day to see another segment on my Facebook. Thank you for writing your story and thank you most of all for your service!
Thanks Mike, you comment and support mean a lot to an old jarhead working away in the back of this room to
recall old stuff that isn’t really old stuff at all. I have a map of the A Shau of the time and I am blown away
with how much stuff in that valley was listed as destroyed. We kept destroying that valley up and down yet there
it stood, absorbing and taking every punch. Thanks for liking the work.
Semper fi,
Jim
randyfishing.1@hotmail.com
Randy. All you sent was an email address that comes back to a 404 error. You can
reach me but I can’t reach you. Try again.
Semper fi,
Jim
You are so right! No John Wayne stuff, just the real thing. No country, just you and your buddies, or just yourself!
Reality bites, especially under life or death combat circumstances you
cannot run from or evade without sacrifice of much of yourself and those
around you. Thanks for the comment and the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
I served in Vietnam in 68-69. I was wih the twenty fifth infantry 1/5 mechanized. What you went through and what I experienced were so much different. Our job was backing up the legs when there was trouble. Being on an apc heading for a fight was frightening. We knew the enemy could hear us coming and there would be an ambush or landmines waiting for us. I appreciate learning about the areas that others served in.
Anybody in Vietnam that was wheels or tracks was a constant and huge moving
target. Armor does not help if the booby trap is big enough! Anyway, thank you
for something of your own background and for reading the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
was you later a drill sgt as i had a di with your last name and wore the 25th patchand he had been there
No Sam, I was never enlisted, except for those first few days of OCS,
when you are not carried on Marine rolls as a real officer yet.
But thank you.
I have never met an unimpressive D.I. nor an embassy duty Marine
I was not proud of.
Semper fi,
Jim