“Crimson and clover, over and over…”
The song played from Fusner’s tactically stupid, but achingly home-calling radio. The song’s lyrics just repeated with no actual meaning, like the days and nights of my life in Vietnam. Brother John came on after the song to introduce “Eight Days a Week”, by the Beatles. I liked that song, although, until I got out in the bush, I’d never put much emphasis on listening to rock and roll. For some reason being amerced in the wet-heated jungle, waiting for some gruesome death that might come at any minute, made every song burn itself into my brain. I understood why the men played their radios all day long, and why Armed Forces Radio shut down at night. It was worth the risk to all of us to be able to listen during the day. And Headquarters knew we’d play the music all night, too, if we had the chance.
I served in the Air Force from 66 to 70. Spent time in Okinawa fixing B52 and KC 135’s to support Young Tiger and Rolling Thunder missions. I never got shot and I never bled for my country, but plenty of my friends did. We were moving around the base one day looking for an errant airplane parked in the wrong place when we passed a plane being loaded with strange containers. I asked what was in the containers and the was bodies fro Nam. That day is as vivid today as the day it happened. It affected me lots. For those who went in-country I have the greatest respect.
Well hell Ralph, it’s not like we didn’t let that death from above stuff to get by!
Thank you for making sure those birds helped us out.
Sometimes it was hard to tell when air power was having a good effect but sometimes,
like with Cowboy’s support in the A-1 it was everything.
Thanks for helping and thanks for caring.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I am going to go get your book. Looks like great read. My father was CO of 12th Marines at Da Nang in ’65/66 and was awarded a Silver Star during the retreat from the Chosin in 1950. He had a few stories about Chesty from personal experience.
From the Chosin to Da Nang. You have to admit that a career in the corps was varied and different!
Liket he CIA. Been to 122 countries. What a wild ride. Thanks for your comment. I never met Chesty
because he visited Lewis at the First Med in Da Nang, or so I’ve been informed. Lewis used to talk about him
before he finally committed suicide during one of his depressions. He always spoke highly to me about Chesty
and always made sure to let me know that his dad was not at all like his public or combat image at home.
Thanks for the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey Jim,
I saw on FB you were having a little trouble writing at the moment. Like one of the comments said, “take a few days of R&R”. Like ol’ Neil Young said.. “Comes a Time”… Was reading some of the comments from earlier chapters this morning. Some how missed this one. Cool that you knew Lewis. I really felt bad for him after reading Fortunate Son many years ago. Anyway, hang in there, man. Thinking about you.
Yes, Lewis. The rum in the desk overlooking D.C. like we’d both made it,
but neither of us really knew where we’d made it to at the time. He was sort of
trapped in a system that wasn’t his to change and I was jaunting in and out of D.C.
making believe I was some sort of OO7 with a license to travel, eat bad food, and spend
lonely nights in crummy hotel rooms around the world. That kill stuff you didn’t need a license for
back in the day. Thanks for writing here and also for caring…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I’m reading an excerpt from your book and enjoy it. Driving down I-81 from picking up my son at William & Mary reading about Chesty Puller’s mention in the book. I am a USMC Vietnam vet. Went over with 2/13 as a radio operator 2533 February ’68 from Camp Pendelton. I had attended Vietnamese language school 1st Mar Div Interrogation/Translation school in ’67. I ended up with 11th Marines but my MOS and VN language (really not that good but the Corps thought otherwise) got me “shared” with various other units. Being a LCpl I really never knew where I really was but it was consistently interesting.
Anyway, I have a good friend USMC Buddy who also was a 2533 radio operator with 2/5 at An Hoa among other places. He made it home, lives in CA. We talk frequently. Last year he called me in the summer and said he had something to share with me…a true story that he’d never shared with anyone and he needed to share it.
One night late, he was doing BN radio watch in a bunker at An Hoa. Quiet night for a change. The wiremans phone next to him kept ringing and the wireman was gone. Tired of listening to the phone ring, my friend picked it up. The voice on the other end said “Son, this is Chesty! My son’s been hurt real bad and I need you to get Captain Downs in a hurry to go up to DaNang to see how he’s doing”. My friend told the story quietly to me. I had chills going down my back standing out on my patio with my cell phone to my ear. My friend told me he just had to share that story with someone who would understand before something happened to him. I felt blessed to hear it. Very few people in my life now in East Tennessee would understand. God bless. Looking forward to reading more…
Thanks for the story Duke. That story certainly has the patina of truth to it because Lewis Puller was hit on October 11th by a booby trapped howitzer round. He lost both of his legs, basically, and then some. I never met Chesty and I say that because I was at Yokosuka when Lewis came into intensive care to be at my left side. On my right side was General Master’s son, wounded a few days earlier. We were all condition critical and prognosis poor, why we were in the same space while the special staff fought for our lives. We all lived, although Lewis coded out three times (me twice) during that time. I never saw Master’s son again after being shipped home, as he was too injured to talk to me but I still have the wonderful and very faded letter from his Dad (sent to my wife about my condition). I befriended Lewis in that medical theater and then when I was active CIA and reporting to D.C. I would visit him at the VA HQ and we’d shoot the shit. He was a very troubled but wonderful man. I knew he might not make it because he always drank straight rum from a Bacardi bottle he kept in his desk drawer. I don’t know if Chesty made it to Yokosuka or saw Lewis at First Med. in Da Nang. Those that knew Lewis knew his dad was okay because Lewis was. Lewis said his Dad was only scary to other people and a marshmallow with the family. I never knew whether to believe that or not.
Thanks for reminding me about that snippet of history.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, love the read. Unfortunately, it takes me back. Had someone ask me the other day when was I in Nam? Had to tell him the truth.”Last night”. Best thing happen to me from Nam was in 1989 in Fulda, FRG. Had a guy kept staring at me and finally I’d had about enough of it, took my glasses off and headed his way….he stood (big sucker, too) and stepped toward me with his arms out-spread….”Doc!” he said, “You sorry SOB, how the hell did you get out of there alive?” I was a medic, he was my first ‘bad’ casualty. Got him stable and evac’d. I never checked on any casualties as I didn’t want to know the outcome, so I didn’t expect to be remembered this way. Funny thing is he was shot off a Navy river boat. My first real test wasn’t even Army. Even had an AF and Marine casualty before I got out of there. Know what, all of us bleed the same and we are all brothers in arms.
Pleasure to make you acquaintance here Roy. Marine respect for corpsmen and medics knows no bounds. Never met one without a real set of clangers
and personality to go with them. Wonderful to meet a man like that so many years later and know in your heart the effect you had on his and your own
life. Neat stuff.
Thank you! And thanks for the comment, of course, and the reading in the first place…not to mention the approval. I never know how some of these bits and pieces assembled together
are going to be taken.
Semper fi,
Jim
This is the first I have seen your articles Jim, and it held me close all the way through. My military career was in the Navy so most of my time was spent off shore, but I served just the same. While reading your article though, I thought hard on wondering if my son had somewhat the same thoughts going through his mind when he was in Afghanistan. The climate is very different, but war is war and of course he would not share much of his thoughts when he corresponded via facebook. We never had the opportunity to receive any letters from him or actually talk to him about most of his experiences since we lost him two months after he arrived over there. We have had several chances to talk to his Battles but it has only been just under 5 years and there are still things they do not want to talk about. Thank you for sharing your experiences and your one effort to talk to the family of one of your fallen. One of those we have grown closest to is my son’s Lt. My apologies for rambling but just wanted to share it and thank you.
Iwas atFB Cunningham golf co2/3 Jan69,we replaced 1/9 marines,remember having to go out on night ambush ,couldn’t see jack,scared gooks would hear my heart beatin out of my chest! walked point with scout which I did not trust but I was new kid (19yr,old)so I got all the shitt detail&short timers didn’t want to be point man(didn’t blame them! I didn’t want to either!)came up on Layway station,lots of rice,weapons,etc,jumped 4 gooks killed 2& were following blood trail of others,came into clearing of waist high grass,dead quiet,scout got hit in shoulder& I got hit in rt hip&ankle ,blowed femoral artery,was pumping like oil jack! That was march 3rd,69 .By Grace of God I survived! Spent over a yr,inHospitals. Thank God everyday for bringing me home!Semper Fi !
Wow Pete, but you were in the shit. FNGs were pretty damned expendable, as you proved. Shoulder is a tough wound
and se’s the hip. I took one in the left hip too and it remains all knit together with wire that shows up on X-ray to this day.
Got over the limp but it was the stomach hits that really took it out of me for my year in the hospitals. Glad you are here my
friend and glad they put us back together better than they sent us into that shit.
Thank you!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
I never served due to a knee injury that nagged for years prior to a TKR. I did lose 2 friends in the Nam strangely both to “non-hostile” action. I carry a feeling of guilt with me to this day. I enjoy you taking me there in print, Thank you & and those who gave some or all.
Glad to be of any assistance, Jimmy. As I’ve told so many others who did not serve or have a chance to serve or even avoided it,
I am happy to be able to still have you alive to have a dialogue with. If you’d gone with me you would not be writing this at all.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for writing about the reality of war. I is both sobering and thought-provoking. I served in the U.S. Army from 1963 to 1966. I enlisted the day after turning 18, ignorant of most everything. I was in an air cavalry regiment in the First Infantry Division at Fort Riley, KS in ’64 – ’65, a very interesting time. I was trained as a fixed-wing airplane mechanic, but at Ft.Riley there were no airplanes. Then we got helicopters, little 3 person Hillers, on one of which I was appointed Crew Chief. Then we got Hueys. Then machine guns and rocket launchers were put on the hueys. Then played war games in Florida. One day, in May 1965, I got orders for Germany. A couple of weeks after arriving in Germany, the Stars & Stripes newspaper headline “1st Division Redeploys to Vietnam” got my attention.
I have been grateful every day of my life since then that I did not have to participate in the madness of war. I have friends and acquaintances who bear the scars of Agent Orange and PTSD. Your stories are vivid descriptions of the madness that engulfs us in war. Thank you.
Glad you missed that boat! I have a lot of friends who didn’t go for one reason or another and
I am always happy to tell them that I appreciate that they are there talking to me, which they would not be if they’d gone with me.
Thanks for the compliments and the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
My unit, Army 10th Cav. recon went In May 1964.
I got out that Month. Too short to shoot. zmussed getting extended by the same 1i days that I had v quit school
and joined up. Fate
Thanks for the comment Frank. That must have been a really interesting time to be in country, given what happened after.
Thanks for saying anything here at all and thanks for the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’ve been keeping up with your articles and must say I enjoyed reading them. Being a Nam Vet too, I like to hear of others experiences without all the embellishments some folks add. The time we spent was hell and not a theater stage or an act, and deserves to be told in truth.
In your reference to snakes, I noticed one in particular that was never mentioned. That was the deadly “Two Step” snake. These were prevalent in our home base area around Cha Rang Valley, which was South of you guys. I only saw one King Cobra during my tour, and the excitement he caused was hilarious. We had been under attack for three days, without being able to move from our positions, when one Sgt. ventured to take a quick look over his sandbags, to check for anyone advancing on our position. Staring him in the face, at maybe two feet distance, was Mr. King with his hood spread. His reaction was so funny, even Charlie stopped shooting and started laughing !!! I had never seen any man make moves like that. He appeared to be break dancing and trying to preform a ballet move at the same time. Needless to say, he refused to return to that bunker, and no one else wanted it either !! Keep up the good work, I enjoy it !!!
Thanks Raymond for this lengthy comment. And the funny story about the sergeant. Funny how the men were more afraid of snakes than the enemy!
And there weren’t that many snakes compared to the enemy. I am not sure I am not embellishing, by the way. I don’t think, in re-reading to edit, that I do a great job at portraying how afraid I was or how cowardly I sometimes acted. It’s hard to do that because my self-image is a bit better these days. I’ve lived a lot of years in redemption, trying to make up for a lot of shit I did over there. It’s a way to get along instead of drinking or drugs. I’m doing the best I can to get it all out though and I don’t think there are many of us who can do that, for whatever reasons.
Semper fi,
Jim
Ya gotta buck up marine and get these pages out quicker. It’s painful for this old Army grunt to have to read a few pages then wait…sorta like the fire missions we called in…
Too bad these pinkies today can’t be made to live one week of that hell…might change their outlook a litttle
You are too funny Darrell! Thank you. I am not allowed to write all the time because the errands of life keep me at it, especially in this Christmas season. And I get down a bit, from time to time. I lost so many of those kids and the pain of that has been deadened over time. I only visited the parents of one to tell the the truth about what happened to their son. I got thrown down the front steps of that Sausalito home and I still remember trying to get up because my wounds had not fully healed yet. I never tried that again. But the rendition of these events is harder than I thought it would be, not because I can’t remember but because I can remember. So many of us came back and beat those memories down whenever they came up or drowned them with alcohol or drugs or both. Hell, screw the doctors and shrinks, many of us lived because we drank and took drugs. It got some of us through, somehow. Anybody else remember those nights? Up at three a.m. with only a .45 and a bottle, trying to decide which? Sorry for the rant here but I wanted to let you know why it’s coming to print so slow. Maybe I should have written it all at once but, in truth, I needed to know whether anybody out here would give a shit…and people like you help me continue. thank you for that.
Semper fi,
Jim
sure didn’t mean anything disrespectful sir. anytime i was in field, there was a squad of marines covering my butt..i thanked every rotor jockey that picked me up, but i thanked god for the marines that got me back… took me a year to realign myself and be straight again. you do the writing and i’ll do the reading and keep quiet. Semper Fi, Marine, with total respect…
Darrell, I would hope that this would be the kind of comment place where you can feel perfectly free to say what you think and write what you mean. There were so many little wars fought over there and my outfit and what happened inside it is only one of those stories. For all I know the companies on my flanks did not conduct themselves that way at all, in fact I don’t think they did. Jim Webb was a better company commander than I could ever have been, for example. I just know it. The Marines on the ground had a distinct love/hate relationship with the air dales. Those guys got to leave every day and fly high into cool air. They ate hot chow every night and slept in cots. But they saved our asses time after time and dragged our shot up asses to medical help, and those of our friends. Hard one. Thanks for sticking with me as I continue.
Semper fi,
Jim
An Hoa rats were the bigger pests by far. OIC LOC
16,000 Pax.37,000 tons a freight
I never made it back to the battery at An Hoa so was not introduced to the
rats. Heard about them though and the reports were scary. That country, luscious and beautiful as it
was and remains is one hotbed of ferocious fauna and flora.
Semper fi,
Jim
You’ve done it again. There was no safe place to be, was there? Seems to me the Nam went downhill from horrible. Keep writing and I’ll keep reading. Can’t wait for the Amazon book.
Thank you Walt for your comments. Hope to have Volume One first 10 Days out in January.
Will need all my friends to help let everyone know it is available.
Have you signed up for email updates?
We will be making the release ‘attractive’ to our subscribers
I hope the policy makers from the Vietnam era who are still alive read your accounts so they can see what kind of hell their policies put our young Marines into.
The war machine does not work with facts. It is why they would not let me go back to Quantico and teach there
when I got out of the hospital. They say that the Basic School does a better job today but I don’t know.
Policy makers are about money and the extension of power. War is ever on the horizon and there’s nothing Donald Trump
has said that is not bellicose and warlike. Living with war is very much a part of living on this planet as a human.
Semper fi, and thank you,
Jim
Your right they make the policy we die for it
John, that is a longstanding and almost eternal part of going to war. We in the field depend upon our leaders
to make policy that we know we may die from but will have some sort of great purpose. Since WWII there has been no
real purpose to die for. Every war since then has been founded on one lie or another that we who survive only find out about later on.
Shame about Vietnam.
Semper fi,
Jim
Enjoy reading your posts! HShanker…Mike 3/9 3rdmardv…1969
Thank you Howard. Thanks for saying that. Interesting, terrifying and outrageous time back then.
Many wars within the war fought over there and mine only one of them.
Semper fi,
Jim
For me the A Shau was not a place but a thing. It would eat you up and spit you out. As the Gunny said you come out a different person than went in. I hate snakes and spiders, but realized that I was in their yard, which did not stop me from killing as many as I could.
No mercy for the damned snakes. Fortunately, most of the venomous spiders had weak venom so they weren’t quite as bad.
The NVA was bad. The booby traps were worse. The A Shau remains the most dangerous place I’ve ever been in my life.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great article, James. I always find myself re-living my ‘Nam experiences through your writings. And those damn snakes sucked, big time. Especially, that yellow bamboo viper. I seriously do believe the gooks released them at An Hoa. That place was full of them. Out Post (OP) duty was the worse. Those vipers would crawl over my feet and I had to remain silent as not to give my position away. Most times, they were beheaded and thrown at a cherry the next morning. We had to have something to laugh at.
I saw several of my Marines after they’d been hit by that damned snake and they were in a lot of pain.
We thought they would die in the rear area after medevac but they didn’t. The King Cobra, that will make itself apparent further on
was not so kindly when it came to lethality, like the damned sea snakes that wound their way up the rivers from time to time.
Thanks for the comment and insight.
Semper fi,
Jim
Laughingly.. I told you when i would come in off patrols i would race to the ocean and surf on boards we got from the green beanies. Well now that im enlightened about agent orange dumped in there, you reminded me of layin on the board waitin for sets, and hearing splashing around me. I looked up to see one of those damned snakes tangled up in itself on the end of my board. As i slowly paddled backward to ease the snake off the nose of the board, i looked down to see school of them swimming underneath me. My buddy told me not to get bit cause there aint no antidote and theyre deadly poisonous! Ok..?
Your buddy was spot on about the sea snakes but there’s one important caveat.
Like the Coral Snake in Florida, the sea snake has no viper teeth to inject the poison.
They have to gnaw on your awhile for the poison to be soaked into your skin. That’s why their
poison is so powerful. Because they can’t get very much into you. Not many died in the Nam
from all the sea snakes there were around because of this. I knew a couple of guys who went
down aboard a chopper in the middle of a breeding pile of sea snakes and actually swam a quarter mile
through millions of them without having any problem. They just kept gently moving through them and pushing
them aside.
Semper fi,
Jim
I enlisted into the Navy in June 1963 after my dad asked me which branch of the arm forces “I” wanted to join (Nov 1962). My Vietnam duty was aboard the USS Enterprise CVAN-65. She is a massive bird farm that brought screaming death from the sky. I only saw the green machine from her decks. We went in very close one night and launched our war birds to drop aerial mines in Haiphon and the canals leading to that port. The mountains behind the port flashed with the light of AAA and SAMs as the mission progressed. I watched through the pedestal binoculars until I felt a tap on my back. Turning around I met the eyes of CARDIV 1 Admiral Epes who asked if I was lost? I got lost PDQ leaving the O11 level three steps at a bound. I read every Vietnam book, story, or article that crosses my path. Your story sucked me in like an F4B jet intake. Great piece of writing and I wan’t more. Vince Staley AQ1 G-Div. Weapons Dept. The BIG E.
Wow, not a bad piece of writing right there Vincent! And that experience, with a little more fleshing out, is a great short story.
My rendition of what happened to me is a whole slew of short stories that happened to me with as much as I can remember
and put together from the fragments I have left over.
Thanks so much for liking that rendition and taking the time to write all of us on
here about your own experience, as well.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I can hardly wait for these installments, and than I tear into them voraciously. You have the talent of taking readers there. Missed “Nam” myself. Joined at 17 1/2 years old in 78 after midterm graduation, I vowed to join at almost 8 years old after my Uncle and “Brother Marine” gave the ultimate sacrifice in 68. You bring to life many of the areas he had traversed and the hardships endured. Thank you for the chance to better understand situations many will never begin to understand.
Well, Bill, I can’t thank you enough for that kind of comment.
Since I’m not writing this series to make a buckand I don’t have any professional assistance
it can get to be a chore every once and awhile to go on.
But stuff like you just wrote is motivational.
I don’t expect everyone to like what I’m writing because it runs against the grain of much military training and
current organizations.
There will be push back.
But I persevere, thanks to people like you.
Semper fi,
Jim
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” Not my quote, but there’s a lot of that going on here as evidenced by the from-the-gut-comments of those of us living/reliving (for you), these seven days and nights. I’m not snake averse, probably the only “plus” I’ve registered so far, not enough to have kept me alive.
I was not snake averse either, when I got to Vietnam John. But it took no time at all to realize that snakes were another of the
enemy that I was very quickly learning had to be killed to allow me to live. The Bamboo vipers will reappear later as well as the
Cobras and sea snakes. This planet is a hard place, even in the tropics, and humans are not very welcome.
You write smoothly and with vibrant enthusiastic interest. Have you thought about doing a bit more of that,
other than commenting here?
Semper fi,
Jim
Coming from you, the writing compliment is high praise indeed. I wrote a few pieces for Farm Journal, back when the magazine was actually a “journal”. Now it’s just another one of a mailbox full of “How to Farm Bigger and Make More Money” vehicles for advertisers. I can write fairly easily about things I care deeply about. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Yes, John, you are pro caliber and I enjoy reading what you write. And yes, the damned magazines that I so used to love, from nature to science and even farming
have all gone the way of advertising and crap. No writing. No talent. Nobody can get in to even give them good writing because the current owners and producers all believe
they are good. And most of them suck, like in Hollywood. But they own the territory.
The would be writers suffer but it is the general public that really gets hurt. Try to
go into a Barnes and Noble and find anything anymore.
You go through the racks and the stacks and there isn’t one book worth a fuck, unless you find just one every once and a while.
No magazines. I used to walk out of this places with two bags of shit.
Now, I walk out with a latte.
Thanks, as usual, for the erudite and well crafted response.
Semper fi,
Jim
A Shau was a place to be respected, both the NVA as well as the terrain and the snakes, bugs and jungle. I was wounded on Tiger Mountain (Co A Long)on April 25, 1968 in a major ambush and left most of my body’s blood on that soil. I was with D Co. 5/7 Cav on a recon patrol because of machinery and engine noises we were hearing. Must have been a major post of theirs cause they hit us with everything they had. Lt. Mike Sprayberry earned his Medal of Honor there and saved my life along with many others. Six men are still unaccounted for up there. Glad to be alive yet to this day.
The ambushes in that valley were never ending, on both sides. What a rabbit warren of
clefts, cliffs, trees, crags and jungle growth…not to mention the animal life.
Another world, really.
Glad you are alive today too and thanks for putting your tacit stamp of approval on
my version of life back then.
Semper fi,
Jim
Fantastic memories. I was lucky enough not to have gone so yours articles are very interesting to me. Not sure I could have handled it.
Richard, you would probably have done great, if you were given the opportunity to survive at all.
Thank you for caring enough to comment and for reading the stuff with some sense of understanding.
I don’t think anyone who’s gone through shit like that ever forgets the detail. I just somehow managed
to get the ability to write about it half way intelligently.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another Good Read… I hate snakes, too.
Kay, I really discovered snakes for the first time in my life. I’d always lived in developed areas or in Hawaii.
I had no clue really. I’d heard stories but the reality of running into first their effects on my men and then
running into them directly and physically was stunning. Again.
Thanks for the comment and yes, I hate them too.
Only two fears built into babies genetically from birth. Falling and snakes. Interesting.
Your friend,
Jim
Snake story. Guy in our platoon gets bitten by a snake in the middle of the night on a dense jungle covered mountain side. He kills the snake and we call for medivac. They have to drop a jungle penitrater to get him out. While pulling up through the canopy he breaks his arm. Now he is one happy camper when he finds out the snake is nonvemonis and he out the bush for awhile.
Funny how minor injuries were treated as wonderful to the point where
such self-induced injuries had to be punished because the guys tried to
get out of the field using them. Read on.
Thanks for your very real story and how it all fit into the insanity
that went on there.
Semper fi,
Jim
Didn’t they hit the A Shaun with alot of B52 strikes? You were there after me.I thought they really blasted that I was at Kon Tum in 65 and that got B52 strikes daily. It was always bad at night.
You will recall just how big the A Shau is if you think about it Dan. They hit the valley with B-52s all the damned time and never made a dent in shit. They were dropping two thousand pound bombs that had only three hundred pounds of explosives in them. The rest was shell casing and shrapnel. The heave jungle ate that shit like there was no tomorrow. Nice specific craters dotted all over but that was about it. Those bombs did nothing to root the NVA out of the many canyon walls and stream banks.
We would have needed small nukes to effect anything there. But then we’d have radiation instead of Orange as part of our baggage!
Semper fi,
Jim
Fire with fire. We could have dropped thousands of them following artillery.
(Snakes).Hind sight.
Actually, I don’t think they had much to do with snakes.
They seemed to hate them more than we did.
God knows what they faced inside those damned tunnels that were everywhere.
But it is a funny idea.
Imagine being assigned to the unit in charge of finding and gathering the nasty snakes together for a drop!
Semper fi,
Jim
😁