The rain came and the smell came with it. The temperature dropped, our altitude reducing the steam heat to an oily cloying mass of moving air that felt so intensely like spider webs that I constantly brushed my hands across my face to get rid of them. It was full dark and Stevens manned the Starlight Scope, relieving Zippo from scope tripod duty because the team had fashioned our half full packs into a sort of raised mound for the Starlight.
“What in hell is that smell?” I asked no one in particular. “It’s like the mosquito stuff, but worse.”
“It’s snowing,” Stevens whispered, looking through the scope.
I moved to his side, all of our ponchos and whatever bound together to form a lumpy inadequate roof against the rain. The Gunny had returned with Pilson. They’d set up a few feet further down the small slope, close enough to overhear the rest of us.
“Rain looks like snow in the Starlight scope,” he said, not bothering to whisper. “It’s because of the way it magnifies light. There’s three intensifiers in that thing. Each one adds fake photons to the real ones until it looks like there’s more light than there really is. And that smell is something called “Agent Orange.” Don’t know what’s in it but that’s why the clearing is there — why all this is somewhat clear. Without spraying every couple of weeks, this place would be impenetrable jungle.”
“Is it dangerous?” Fusner asked.
The Gunny laughed first, and then the others. I stayed silent. It was funny. Was the stuff dangerous? We had all been sent out to die, and dying we were. What possible greater danger could some oily crap sprayed from the air be to us?
“Oh,” Fusner said after a few seconds, finally getting it.
“The only good thing is that the gooks don’t like it,” the Gunny said. “They don’t like storms either because they can’t hear. They don’t like the rain for the same reason. And they don’t like the night even if they have to fight in it all the time or be chopped to ribbons. Get some sleep if you can. I don’t think those clowns from the First and Fourth are coming in the rain, but Charlie probably will.”
“I thought you said they don’t like the night, the rain or that oily stuff,” I replied.
“They don’t,” the Gunny said. “But they’re also tough as hell and they’re not killing one another to stay alive, they’re killing us.”
Nobody laughed, although I saw the analytical humor in the Gunny’s remark. Killing to stay alive. That was funny, too, in a way. A standup comedian would be able to make something out it after the war.
I crawled back to my hooch, or what part of the big hooch we’d jammed together belonged to me. I took out my flashlight and wrote a letter to my wife. I started it out with killing to stay alive, but then ran into trouble when I could not give her a rendition of what had happened earlier. She was smart. After a bit my descriptions of the fauna and flora were going to tip her off that I wasn’t telling her anything at all. I wrote of the men around me. Real Marines who acted more like shape-shifting pirates, with a good bit of Peter Lorre and Burt Lancaster thrown in. Difficult men to predict and nearly inscrutably impossible to form any kind of relationship with. Dying together was not a group thing. It was a bunch of lonely men moving in mass who found it impossible to share anything, especially death.
The Gunny came across the little distance between us, his bare torso turning shiny in the pouring rain. He scrunched in beside me.
“Who you writing to?” he asked, sitting his butt next to me, with his knees drawn up and his big solid arms wrapped around them.
I finished the letter, folded it into an envelope and turned off my flashlight. I tucked the letter in with the morphine packet. I didn’t want to share my wife with anyone, not anyone in the company I no longer hated, but certainly didn’t love, either. I didn’t answer the Gunny’s question. I knew he didn’t care about who I wrote to and besides, he came in to sit with me so as not to be alone,
“The 81s are gone,” the Gunny indicated, after he realized I wasn’t going to answer the question he probably knew the answer to, anyway. “We got two 60mm mortars on the last resupply with some ammo. They’re okay but they won’t drop stuff down through this kind of heavy cover. The new super-quick fuses are just too sensitive.”
I knew the Gunny made sense. The 105 fuses were the same way but the huge size of the rounds made them effective, even if they went off up in the tops of the trees. Shrapnel moving at about twenty-thousand feet per second showered anything underneath. The 60 mike mike rounds only weighed a couple of pounds, however, most of that weight in the shell casing itself. They would be effective targeting the open area between the company position and across to the ridge tree line. But not at night. The rounds gave off too little indication of where they went off to be adjusted effectively in the dark, not to mention in heavy rain.
“Are they coming?” I asked, finally saying something.
“Is who coming?” he asked back
“Across that mud flat. Will they attack tonight?” I repeated, knowing that he had understood me the first time.
“That’s the question,” the Gunny answered. “It’s perfect. We’re out here near the very edge of our artillery, it’s raining like hell and dark as a cesspit. Night vision is all but useless and so is air illumination. Yeah, I think they’ll come and that will be almost as big a problem as what’s going to happen in the morning.”
The Gunny was right. I couldn’t call for illumination because the battery knew where we were, right on the gun target line. They wouldn’t fire. With the tree line so close, we couldn’t get them to fire high explosives or white phosphorus unless we were in direct contact.
“What’s the tomorrow trouble?” I asked, wondering how our rotten exposure in an unfortified position could get any worse.
“Tomorrow we have to cross that open area to get to the valley,” the Gunny replied. “The last time we were up here we took a lot of casualties in exactly the same place. There’s no way around it. We don’t usually come into contact during the daytime hours but they’ve had a lot time to get ready, and that ridge is snaked through with spider holes, tunnels and underground hideaways. Indian country.”
The Gunny eased out of my hooch area and slid across the mud back to his own. In spite of the pounding rain, enough moonlight streamed through the black clouds to see shadows moving. I ordered Fusner to let me know if the Starlight scope showed anything before laying back myself, the rain making everything wet even though it didn’t come down directly on me.
I didn’t remember sleeping but what seemed like a few minutes turned into three hours, according to my illuminated combat watch face. I must have slept but didn’t have time to think about it. We were in contact. Strafing fire, probably to make sure nobody in the company got any sleep, came out of the opposing tree line in multiple bursts. The good news: It was AK and not heavy machine gun fire. I pulled myself out from under my poncho cover to find that the rain had stopped. The smell of mud, mosquito repellent and the oily mess of the Agent Orange cleared area permeated everything. I breathed lightly, trying to avoid taking in a lot of air. A dumb idea that couldn’t possibly work, but it made me feel better. I crawled up the small incline to find Fusner and the rest of the team gathered together with the scope, but they weren’t using it. They stared out into the night directly in front of them, toward where the tree line had to be in the distance. I could see occasional muzzle flashes, followed by the whine of bullets passing overhead. We couldn’t overcome the urge to duck every time.
All of a sudden the company’s perimeter defense opened up. Five M60 7.62 caliber machine guns and about twenty or thirty M16s began to fire into the tree line. It looked like someone pouring an avalanche of white Christmas tree lights across the open area. An avalanche that seemed to rush right into the opposing line of forest. What an unbelievable show!
“The tracers,” I breathed out. The machine guns had tracer bullets loaded into their belts fairly sparsely, at one tracer and then four regular rounds, and then another tracer. The M-60 tracers came out as yellow glowing objects while the M-16’s burned white. And then everything stopped as fast as it had started leaving a strange silence. The faint ringing in my ears returned from the close distance of the guns and the volume of fire they’d put out.
“How do you like them apples, Charlie?” a voice cried out into the night.
I waited, but couldn’t detect any further fire. I dreaded calling artillery so near to the end of our circular area of probability, or in other words, the maximum effective range of the guns. Being on the slope of a mountainside, as well as directly on the gun target line, made range estimations very difficult. The word difficult likely having a lot of blood and gore attached to it if fire had to be called.
I settled back into my hooch. With no more fire from the tree line, I tried to imagine the enemy commander attempting to figure out where all the machine gun fire came from. I knew it would take him a while to figure out that the company had fired all tracers, possibly explaining the silence.
The Gunny scurried up behind me.
“What have we got through the scope?” he asked. “It’s stopped raining,” he went on, as if to indicate that the rain being past would bring on the expected attack.
Stevens swept the scope across what he could see of the clearing and then slowly brought it around to cover the broken forest area between our position and the rest of our unit.
“We’ve got company coming in,” he whispered.
“Shit,” I whispered back, not liking the direction the scope pointed. I gently moved him away from the reticle and pressed my right eye into the rubber cup. The world turned green. In the distance I could see three figures approaching, each wearing a rain shiny rubber poncho. I knew Jurgens led from his size and his strange John Wayne kind of rolling gate.
“First Platoon,” I said, back to the Gunny, “but coming in vertical and seemingly in the open.”
“Welcoming party?” Zippo asked, the first words he’d spoken in some time.
“Okay,” I replied. “Fusner, you’re with me at my hooch. You other three make yourself scarce and take your weapons off full auto. Don’t shoot everyone in the dark if things go south. Shoot the right ones. Take your time and lay back, and pay attention to Kit Carson there – this is his kind of shit.”
“They’re not coming to fight,” the Gunny said, Zippo, Nguyen and Stevens ignoring him and fading into the night on my orders. “They’re coming to talk, although I don’t have any idea about what. I’m staying right here with you.”
“Thanks,” I replied, relieved to have the Gunny at my side but having no reservations at all that Jurgens would take both of us out if he felt threatened. And he wasn’t coming alone.
They didn’t come in out of the night trying to hide anything. All three Marines moved out of the brush, making no attempt to hide their sucking footsteps or quiet the swishing and crackling undergrowth. I smelled them before I could see them and I hated the fact that I was beginning to be able to smell human beings around me so well that I could tell their identity by their particular smell. And then they emerged out of the dark and into the relative light of our small clearing at the bottom of the swell we inhabited. The two Marines stopped behind him as Jurgens moved forward and squatted down just outside my part of the combined hooch area. The Gunny and I stood to meet him, before squatting down ourselves.
“Fuck this shit,” Jurgens said, without preamble. “We’re not going out there tomorrow. We’re not leading the company and taking all the hits anymore. Send the other platoons. We’re going to sit back and lounge around like Fourth Platoon does all the time. It’s our god damned turn.”
“We can’t just stay here,” I replied.
“Who the fuck is talking to you, Junior,” Jurgens shot back.
I hadn’t thought about my Colt but my hand had. It rested on the butt of the weapon making me feel better. I knew in my center of centers that I could not continue to survive under the current circumstance of being prey for any and all would be authority figures in the company.
“So,” I said, as casually as I could, the Gunny remaining silent, “What we’ve got here is a bunch of ‘shake-n-bake’ noncoms who’ve taken over a Marine company and are going to decide to do whatever it is they want to do even if the whole outfit gets killed,” I said, looking through the gloom behind the men to see if my team was in place to back my play.
“Who gives a shit what you have to say. You’ve been here less than a week,” Jurgens answered. “The only reason we’ve not had our ass shot off tonight is the Gunny’s decision to go to all tracers. You don’t learn that shit from books.”
My eyes flicked over and back at the Gunny’s. I couldn’t see well enough to make out his eyes in detail but I got enough to guess that he looked away in another direction. He’d taken my idea, actually the German’s from the book, and he’d made it his own. I’d have worn a real smile if I could smile anymore. The Gunny had to survive, too.
I made a decision. I reached my Colt .45 hand back and held it out toward where I knew Fusner had to be behind me. The handset filled my hand in seconds. I pulled it up to my face, hit the transmit and said: “Fire mission, over,” hoping Russ was up and waiting. I shifted the handset to my left hand and let my right naturally fall back to the automatic.
“Fire mission,” came right back, the small speaker sounding like it was a home stereo boom box in the silence of the night around us.
“What’s he doing?” Jurgens said to the Gunny, half climbing to his feet.
“I don’t know,” the Gunny answered.
“Where are you directing fire?” the Gunny asked me.
I reached into my front trouser pocket, the one without the morphine pack, and pulled out my folded map. I made a show of unfolding it, and then taking out my rubber UDT flashlight with the paper over the front light. The little brilliant hole lit up part of the map.
“One round…” I began, before the Gunny cut me off.
“Stop,” he said, moving to my side and gripping my right bicep with one of his powerful hands. “Don’t. Let’s talk this through.”
I turned off the flashlight, rested it atop the map and looked over at Jurgens. My right hand automatically returned to the butt of the Colt.
“He’s calling that shit on my platoon, right now, I fucking know it,” Jurgens said, pointing down at me.
He stood fully erect. Both of the Marines with him stood with their M16s roughly pointing in my direction. I saw Nguyen’s eyes behind them in the gloom. I would probably not survive the coming confrontation I knew, but they would not either, and what did it all matter anyway.
“Tell him you’ll lead the crossing in the morning,” the Gunny said, his grip on my arm not lessening at all. “We don’t’ have anybody else. Sugar Daddy’s platoon is useless and the other two are disorganized messes. You’ve built the only effective combat platoon we have. But if your guys won’t go then nothing matters anymore. They’re better off dead here than lying in that mud out there for the NVA to come finish off.”
“Comm check,” came out over the radio, as I’d stopped transmitting in the middle of a fire mission.
I stared into Jurgens’ eyes, the whites of them and the surrounding tissue making them fully visible even in the low light. I held no animosity for the man. I wasn’t angry. I truly did not care whether he died or not or whether I died or not, except I could not shake the literal terror of having to go through the process.
“Comm check,” Russ said through the speaker, his voice as uncaring and unemotional as my own.
I waited. If I drew and shot the men, then who would lead First Platoon? And then where would we be?
“Alright,” Jurgens said, finally. “Tell him to check fire.”
“Just get back to your men and be ready at first light,” the Gunny said, his grip on my arm finally starting to loosen. “I don’t tell him anything. He’s the company fucking commander.”
“I don’t care what he thinks he is, he’s nuttier than a fucking fruitcake,” Jurgens said, suddenly turning and walking off into the bush, his two Marine guards disappearing with him. My team came in a few seconds later.
“Do you really have to check fire?” the Gunny asked, letting my arm go. “I thought you said they wouldn’t fire on us because they know our position.”
“True,” I said. “That grid number is at the top of Hill 110.”
“So you were bluffing?” the Gunny said, getting to his feet and exhaling deeply.
“About the artillery,” I said, my hand still gripping my .45. “Thanks for calling me the company commander.”
“Did I actually say that?” the Gunny said, moving back to his own hooch and slipping inside.
“Check fire,” I said into the handset.
30 Days Home | Next Chapter >>
One of my best friends from my H.S. class of ’66 was in country two tours. He ended up having several operations because of the cancers, and ended up losing his voice box. He made it 30 something years before it finally got him. I always have said he was killed in Nam, but died here.
That fucking place sure killed a lot of people and a lot of them not deliberately.
War is that way. Oh, so sorry! I don’t know what the guys from Iraq and Afghanistan are coming back
with. When I was there in those I wasn’t out in the shit like before.
Thanks for the comment and caring…
Semper fi,
Jim
In 1968 I lost my first husband in Vietnam in what he called Blood Valley and my husband now calls it the 506. From what I understand now, so many of our young men lost their lives there. I tried for years to comprehend the war for, of course, when my husband wrote home he did not, as you did not with your wife, write of the horror of war. After all these years I have nightmares of how he was killed. He won the silver star for bravery but it did not help his children or me. My husband now is also a Vietnam Veteran and has helped me so much. He is having his battle now with Agent Orange and so is his grandson who was born without kidneys. I so appreciate you writing of your experience as it helps me understand more. God Bless you and THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!
No higher praise. How can I stop even though there are voices coming out of the woodwork that want me to stop.
The mythology of war is overpowering and so many of our young men and women go off out to some foreign battlefield without a clue.
Is it my responsibility to inform them?
Hell, I don’t know Anne but maybe my rendition of what real events were like will help give young people pause before they enter that awful “Lord of the flies” combat arena.
I am so sorry about your first husband. I lost so many too. And no, he did the right thing not to write the truth home.
I have the letters here of one many who wrote a lot of it (he was Army Special Forces) and his wife could not take it. She was gone by the time he made it back. Not that that would have been you, but the awful emotional angst of combat can be contagious.
Most Sincerely,
Semper fi,
Jim and thank you so much….
I think that all of us have had the experience of sitting and listening to the drips that come from the rain overflow in a gutter or something similar. A steady uninterrupted stream is established. When it stops and starts up again, no big deal, right? If you were a Combat Marine with combat experience in jungle warfare, it took on a totally different context. I was in country during 1966 and 1967 with the MOS of Combat Engineer with the Marine MOS of 1371, it just so happened that my assigned specialty was Landmine Ware Fare and VC Booby Traps. It was like an alarm clock going off and I was instantly awake and ready to go as were most of the experienced guys in the platoon. It has always amazed me the similarities between war and peace. I am just relieved that I hold few revenge thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that we did what our country ask and we did a very fine job of it! The protesters are there and always be as is their right. We went to war to protect their rights to protest and most of it I dislike to the very core of it’s existence! We can take pride in the fact that we did what was ask of us and did one hell of a fine job doing it. I do think this attitude will continue as we are the ones who are training the upcoming generatin.
You make some clear and strong points Mike. Vietnam was something else and it touched
everyone who served, especially those who went out in that ‘bush’ and got involved in that
give and take warfare. Thank you for your comment and for the reading….
Semper fi,
Jim
Ana Grace,
Your sharing bought my attention to one aspect of that time (and all time of war) that is not discussed enough and that is the bravery and sacrifice of those left at home.
Parents spouses and children all share in the sacrifice of those in battle.
I honor YOU and thank you for being who you are!
I felt that my wife had it tougher than I did when I was in the thick of the shit. I worried about her and my newborn more than I worried about the very high likelihood I would die. And then I failed to mention, because I didn’t know,
that live Marines would come to see her if I got wounded.
I thought it was only if you were killed that they sent real people.
So they showed up. My wife was living with another guy’s wife, who was also in Vietnam. My wife answered the door and said “which one?” It took them a while to figure out what she was talking about. Tough times.
Semper fi,
Jim
What amazes me is how well you capture the racial animosity that existed at the time, and tends to get glossed over today. McNamara’s “Project 100,000” brought in people who had no business in the military. We ended up with the dregs of the inner city ghetto, leading to a rupture in discipline that took years to rectify. It was just as bad in garrison, with mobs of blacks marauding through barracks and attacking whites on base in the dark. There was a good reason that the OOD carried a .45 with live rounds. I remember a couple of occasions when I came close to having to use it. I see glimmers of that strife in society today, but thankfully not in the all-volunteer military. Thanks for articulating so well the tenor of that time.
The race war was totally unexpected for me. I saw absolutely none of that in training
or in my life at college (I was not on the West Coast for any of that) or even my earlier life.
And then there it was, no more causal to the blacks than it was to the whites. It just was and
dealing with it was among the most difficult problems that i faced.
Thank you for your well-written well thought out comment and for reading the story in the first place.
Semper fi,
Jim
I spent 2 tours in nam, 1st with d/1/9 in 1965-66 & 2nd. with l/3/26 in 66-67. if what your writing is factual things sure went to shit after 1967. the thought of marines not following orders or rebelling against their orders is way past my experiences. as a squad leader I was an extension of my plt. leader & his orders, it was my job to see that they were carried out. there were many times when in a situation we made adjustments as required to carry out the mission but that was to better complete the mission. just my 2 cents worth. semper fi
J.K. you served over there man, so you get a say.
There were thousands of mini-wars fought over there and admittedly in the very first few bits I’ve written I give an indication that I got sent to a problem unit in a problem area of I Corps.
And it was also a problem time.
Everything was just right, or just wrong.
I am glad that you served with a more traditionally disciplined unit.
I thought the Army company on one flank was like that and Webb’s company on the other maybe too. I didn’t really get to know because, as you know, it wasn’t that kind of war.
Everything was up close and personal. Thanks for taking the time to comment and the reading of the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
I was with 82nd Abn, supporting marines around Hue with artillery in February & March of 68, then directed artillery for whomever on first run up the A Shau. Largest arty base was Bastone. Thank you for writing, will never forget. I’m disabled in a wheelchair but could still walk it in to get you some relief, for sure J.R.
Amazing Army support in I Corps. The Marines and Army were pretty damned good together
and I was amazed, as I reveal in the story. There was no inter-service rivalry I ever saw, even
when the Marines were stealing the Army blind…which I now have figured the Army guys knew all along!
Thanks for your support, commenting and the reading, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim
What a fine comment, J.R. and thank you for your service.
Men and women like yourself and so many others reading this story are to honored for their sacrifices.
I hope our upcoming generations will understand the truth.
Maybe stories like this will help?
Remember well those nights the anxiety aprehension constantly checking your weapon n oh the shadows the smells your writing is so deep it brings back memories lock up in your head I’m not much on reading but you have captured my attention thank you so much Semper-Fi 1/3/5 1966
BALTHASAR. Great name. Jim just doesn’t quite get it! Thank you for your comment. Straight from the heart. Where we lived and now live.
Three Five. What an outfit. Talk about going through the shit! I am glad you are reading and thinking about it enough to say something.
Semper fi,
Jim
I enjoy your writing, it gives realism to events and characters in a time that many would choose to forget.
thank you Jim. The veterans like you making comments keep a smile on my face even
though the writing does not. I’d lost my sense of humor back then but now see the awful gallows
humor of some of it. Thanks for reading the story and thanks for commenting.
Semper fi,
Jim
People can read about this a thousand times and still never really understand!
I can only try Russell, to describe what it was really like. How do you describe the aroma of that
place and situation or living with the insects, C=Rations and the fear? Doing the best I can.
Semper fi,
Jim
If everyone tried like you do, this whole world would be better. The constant in this story is being taken there with your words. Those who were there, a remembering, for those of us not sent there, a tiny bit of the realism you guys endured. Thank you isn’t enough, never will be.
As the Chinese say “may you live in interesting times.” It’s meant as a curse. It was certainly
an interesting time, and how it all came to work out in reality as opposed to the mythological or phenomenal was astounding.
Thanks for the reading the caring comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
God bless those of us who have been able to carry on my heart hurts to the day I still have tears will they ever cease,more rhan likely not Semper Fi brothers and sisters.
thank you Tucker for your sincerest and deep-reaching comment. It means a lot to everyone who comes on this site.
The comments of veterans like you are among the most important I’ve ever read.
Semper fi,
Jim
You put us there with you in real time. Excellent writing. I look forward to each new post.
Thank you Steve. Your comment, and those of others like you and I in background, mean a lot to me, as I write away here.
What I am writing is difficult to get down properly but it is apparently interesting for many people to read about what it
was really like. I don’t expect it will ever be a best seller or a movie simply because I don’t think the truth works like that.
Most of life is a mythological construct and that’s okay. I am writing this for us.
Semper fi,
Jim
great job on your descriptions of what the war was like…………keep up the good work! Mike 3/9, 3rd Blt. 9th Marines, 1969
Thank you Howard. I am certainly doing my best to lay it down the way it went down.
I miss a detail here and there but thankfully the readers here chime in to straighten me out.
Thanks for the reading and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Makes me shudder with Rage, that Our Guys had to go through all of this…Agent Orange has affected so many in such Terrible Ways… I am so glad, You, James,… Chuck and Farmer John are still doing O.K. Great writing James… keep up the good work, you give a Voice to So Many.
Thank you Kay, it is good to see your writing on here. Your support over
the years has meant a lot to me. Thanks for reading and thanks for always saying
what you think!
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, as I’m reading your life stories, I’m sitting here in my lounge chair, 100% disability, cancer in my bone marrow, diagnosed from agent orange. Take care & God Bless
I was so lucky wth that Agent Orange shit. I am writing about it right now in this segment.
I was all over me, mixed with the awful repellant and crud of combat living. It’s hard to describe
what we went through on the ground and the price that comes calling so many years later. I am with
you there in that lounge chair brother. And thank you so much for taking the trouble to write and
share with the rest of us.
Semper fi,
Jim
If I had access to the it, I’d hook myself up the diagnostic equipment to measure my brain and nervous system reactions as I read these posts for the first time. I’m sure the results would be sufficient to earn me an overnight check up in the local ER. You have become so imprinted on me that the lines blur between what you say and feel and what is happening to me at the moment, right down to the shaking of the hands and sweat-fear popping out and running clear down to my boots. I have read hundreds of war and combat books running the gamut of personal biographies to sci fi, but nothing comes as close as your writing to transferring myself into the authors boots. (footnote: E.B. Sledge, The Old Breed, comes close) My self-analysis says it’s because our life tracks run so closely parallel until yours gets shunted off to the living Hell of Viet Nam. And at the end of each episode, I fearfully acknowledge, this is where I would have died. Not being maudlin here, just the realization that my skill sets weren’t up to the task, and, dear-God-thank-you, yours were.
Since there is nothing I can add to the reality and veracity of your combat experience, I can only hope to add some farm boy background input that may (or may not) fill in some of the unexplained things you refer to in this post. Agent Orange has become a word of horror all by itself. You probably know its specifics: a (usually) 50/50 combination of the still-in-use herbicides of 2,4,D and 2,4,5,T. 2,4,D was the first herbicide most farmers of my era became familiar with. It was like a magic potion, we could spray it on broadleaf weeds already growing in our corn fields and the weeds would die and the corn wouldn’t. It has been in use since the late 1940s. It’s big, bad brother, 2,4,5,T was (often still is) the weapon of choice for rural counties to control unwanted trees and brush along miles and miles of county roads. You wouldn’t to wash your hands with either of these liquids, and a life long exposure to high doses of either does nasty and unwanted things to our bodies. The “oily feel” and odor you have imprinted on your brain from those days actually comes from the adjuvant oil added to the herbicide to make it adhere to the leaf surfaces and resist being washed off. Since none of this stuff was destined for use and distribution in the US, the usually drum-tight inspection and control procedures were either lax or non-existent. These otherwise limited dangerous mixtures (I, for instance, should be long dead and decomposed by now with as much as I have been in contact with both of them for more than 50 years) became deadly (to homo sapiens) mixtures when the 2,4,5,T became routinely contaminated with TCDD, a deadly biotoxin.
Semper Fi,
Farmer John
John,
I feel the same regarding the reading of James encounter. I met him in 1970 and he joined our team of young tyros. He shared this experience in detail and has been encouraged to publish for past 40+ years.
It seems you and I share regarding the “pesticide” issue. One of my sources of income as an undergraduate at UCR was testing pesticides.
We would walk up and down rows, spraying mixed potions with no knowledge of actual ingredients, all without any “protective” gear.
So far in my seventies have no ill effects, but some friends did not fare that well.
Thanks for your feedback, Chuck. I’ve volunteered for numerous college/hospital/research conducted farmer “test groups” that are trying to quantify and clarify the effects of long term use of pesticides (not just herbicides) on farmer health long term. I’m in my 15th or 16th year of a planned 20 year study with one group. I mainly volunteered because they give a very thorough top-to-bottom total health screening/exam every year (that’s the only perk, no pay). I started as a “high boy” sprayer applicator operator when I was a junior in high school, 1963. No cab, no “protective” clothing, no face masks. I was also part of the crew that filled up the crop duster planes that operated from our local fertilizer/chemical dealer. And, in my 70th year, no problems. No brag, just facts. As you point out, some friends have not fared that well.
Thanks for sharing, John
I am sending you an email with a request
There can be no effective or really meaningful answer to such a comment. I am stunned by the acceptance and support
of what I am doing in the writing. I do not think of myself as a great writer.
I think of myself as a person who’s been writing through all sorts of genres for many years and might have got some of it right.
Thank you John, from the depth of my heart for the support and thank you for the file on Agent Orange.
I needed that for post story stuff.
I really didn’t know a lot about it even though I worked in areas where it suffused everything around us.
I seem to be okay and my kids too.
Thank God.
Semper fi,
Jim