I wasn’t quite right and I knew it. Even with the rags pulled from my ears I could not hear much of anything. The noise had been too great. Counting wasn’t working either because this night was not about getting through, it was about living through. Living through, I knew, was going to take some sort of action, in addition to what had already taken place. Some of the silence of the battlefield was internal, and I had to have more information. I didn’t know if the Kamehameha Plan had worked at all. Just because the enemy artillery had come in on target as planned, and my own as well, did not mean the enemy was vanquished. People lived through unbelievable carnage and staggered on. I had to get up, but the mud held me like a sardine inside the lip of its oily can. I surged upward but the attack and my recovery had somehow made me physically weak. I struggled like a worm under the jungle floor cover, and the layer of sticky mud, until Fusner pulled me free. The sound was similar to, but much greater, than like that of one of the Marines pulling a leech from his neck without the aid of a cigarette.
“Back to the hooch, sir?” Fusner asked, in a whisper I could hear because he cupped his hands over my left ear.
I tried to wipe the muck from the side of my face I’d tried to drill deeply into the mud, and mostly succeeded. I nodded, dumbly. I didn’t want to go back to my hooch, but I also felt too helpless to act like I needed to act in front of the company. Stevens came to my side, and then fell in behind me as I followed Fusner. I looked around for Zippo and Nguyen, but could not see them. I presumed they’d survived, or somebody on the team would have apprised me. I pulled my .45 out from the back of my trousers, glad it was still there, and glad that I’d thought to put the safety on. The web of the hand safety on the butt was effective, and the two safeties together made the Colt one of the safest weapons of any kind made. Unless the barrel was full of mud, like mine was. No pen or small implement was going to get the mud out of it this time. I’d have to break it down later with a canteen of water and dirty socks to clean it. I shoved the gun into my pack, with a deep feeling of misgiving. I was effectively unarmed until I could take the time and have a place to clean the weapon.
“Great,” I said to myself, sitting down on the edge of my poncho to consider my next move. I could move, see by the light of the moon, and my hearing was improving dramatically. I knew that because the sound of small arms fire came crackling down from up on the hill. Apparently, there were plenty of people still alive, because the fire was coming from both AKs and M-16s. For some reason the company’s M-60 machine guns were silent, however.
Vaguely, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement coming from Captain Casey’s hooch.
“Over here,” Casey hissed toward our small scout group.
I immediately began crab-walking over to the C.O.’s hooch, as the second hooch opened up and someone stepped forth. It was too dark to make out who it was, but since the man came from where Lieutenant Billing’s shelter-half sat right next to the captain’s, I presumed it to be him.
“Keating’s not here,” Billings said, “and I can’t find my boots.”
“Where’s Keating?” Casey asked, raising his voice.
I ducked down all the way to the jungle floor again. Small arms fire continued sporadically only a hundred meters away, or so, and I didn’t want to be a target if someone shot in the direction of Casey’s voice. I wanted to tell the man that the fire was not gunnery practice but thought better of it. The elation of surviving the battle had worn off, and all I felt was deep fatigue and being very tired of trying to bring the new officers up to speed. I wondered if the Gunny’s work on me had been as difficult for him, or still difficult for him.
“Where could he have gone without his boots?” Casey asked, in a quieter voice, going from a standing position into a squat, where Billings joined him. “Who in hell took our boots?” he asked, more softly, almost as an aside.
The captain’s question was a good one, and the potential answers to it worried me. There was no good place to have been in the battle except for downslope on either side of the kill zone. And, if the lieutenant was out there in the night, then how was he supposed to show himself or be found if pockets of the enemy were hunkered down waiting for relief, or whatever? I had no answer.
A Marine came running at full speed down what little evidence of a path there was. At the last minute he careened to a stop, and then fell heavily into the mud at Captain Casey’s feet, his M-16 sailing over Casey’s head and right into the captain’s quarters.
“Wow, that was cool,” Fusner whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Arty up,” the Marine gasped out, moving onto his knees and crawling past the captain and into the hooch to get his rifle back.
I pulled myself to my knees. I didn’t want to go back up there but I had to. The new idiot lieutenant was up there somewhere. I just knew it. He was too good an officer to do what Casey and Billings had done. I breathed in and out deeply, getting myself together. I knew it wasn’t just incompetent officers that got themselves killed. Sometimes it was just the luck of the draw.
“I need your .45,” I said to Captain Casey, sticking out my hand.
Casey just looked at me like I was some foreign creature. His hand went to the butt of his Colt but he made no move to pull it out.
I noted that the man had an old leather holster that possessed a clip cover. The covers were practically impossible to pull up under difficult circumstance, although they kept the gun cleaner than the open ones like my own.
“You’ll have Billing’s .45 between you,” I said. “Mine’s jammed with mud, and I’ve got to get up there in case they need artillery and to find Keating.” I moved a bit closer, with my outstretched hand almost touching the captain’s.
The man’s expression didn’t change, until he finally made a decision seconds later. He took a while to get the flap off the gun, and then pulled it out.
“I want this back tonight, when you return, and I want it clean,” he said, slipping the weapon around so the butt pointed at me, like a slick border cross draw.
In spite of myself I was impressed.
“Six in the magazine but none in the chamber, as it’s supposed to be,” Captain Casey said, like he was reading the words from a military manual.
I jacked the slide back and let a round load into the chamber. I then quickly hit the magazine catch and slid it out. I flicked the extra round off into the mud and reloaded, snapping the safety down with an audible click. Nobody said anything. Without another word to the captain or Billings, I retrieved my web belt and suspenders. I threw them on as quickly as I could.
“Zippo,” I said out to the air around me. Magically, the large outline of the man appeared over Fusner’s shoulder. “I need the scope now, and Nguyen too.”
“Got it,” Zippo said, disappearing again.
I started off the trail with the fallen Marine, armed and recovered, leading me.
“He’s your responsibility,” Casey said after me, although this time softer than his first comment had come out. “And there’s going to be an investigation about our boots. You can’t have theft in a Marine unit. It’s all going in the after action report.”
I barely heard the last sentence, as I loped up the rail with the captain’s .45 in my right hand, followed by my old scout team. I would have laughed if I was back in the world. After action report? That was a radio call of casualties in combat. That was it. At about fifty yards out from the northern perimeter edge, where I’d lain with the Gunny earlier, we all went to our hands and knees. The sporadic firing was still sporadic but considerably louder.
We crawled to where the Gunny still lay, along the eastern side of the path. The broken growth was sharp, cutting and thick. I knew that Keating could not have gotten far off the path without causing his feet a lot of damage, triple socks or not, even on the path it was pretty awful.
“What’s the situation?” I asked, watching occasional AK fire burst above the bracken, only flashes of light, like instantly flaring and then gone Chinese lanterns, rising from different places in the kill zone.
“Some got stuck in there when the place blew up,” the Gunny said, an uneasiness in his voice. “They tried to come down the slopes, like you said in your plan, but that didn’t work. Now there is a few left in there, with nowhere to go.”
“What about a few more rounds from Cunningham?” I asked, wondering why the Gunny was being so reserved.
“That’s the thing,” the Gunny replied, pausing for a moment, before going on. “We lost some Marines, more than a few, because of our artillery or theirs. Don’t know which. We’re not using the machine guns because we don’t want to hit each other in the dark.”
I stared into the occasionally glowing distance. It was news to me that some members of the company were concerned about shooting others, particularly since the black Marines were collected on one side and white Marines on the other. Then I got it. The blacks and whites were kind of coming together because they had one common enemy, and it was not the NVA. It was me. Again. Suddenly, emotion flowed through me, and I almost reached for the artillery handset in red hot anger, but then stopped.
“Lieutenant Keating,” I said, “Where is he?”
“Haven’t seen him, but who knows if he was anywhere up here when all that shit went down,” the Gunny said. “I can barely hear now, and believe me I wasn’t looking at shit then.”
“So, there’s not a lot we can do until first light without finding Keating,” I stated, knowing there was no other alternative available, except one.
The Gunny didn’t reply.
“I’m going to use the scope and start moving into the kill zone,” I told him, deciding to exercise that only other option. “I’ll need a good M-79 man. If there’s NVA in there, then I need him to do his thing.”
“That’s Cooper with First Platoon,” the Gunny replied, getting to his knees, “and there’s no ‘if’ about them being there. That’s not the girl scouts lighting firecrackers you’re hearing and seeing from here.”
I moved to Zippo and instructed him about what I wanted. We would need a very careful analysis of each foot of progress we made through the brush. There would be little point in hiding the fact we were there. It was impossible to move without making noise on the crunchy mixture of twigs, leaves, spores, ferns and more, set atop a squishy layer of near permanent mud. Keating was either out in the kill zone alone somewhere, or he’d wandered off toward the NVA which meant he was dead. I could not leave him out there, if he was there. The risk to Fusner, and the scout team was not worth the effort, I knew, but I felt like Keating was me, and I could not shake the ridiculously misplaced certainty that if I was out there someone in the unit would come. The core belief that Marines did not leave Marines behind, ever, was burned deep into my psychology and, although other beliefs had been destroyed or shaken badly, I could not let go of that one.
I held the .45 loosely in my right hand, wishing I had enough light to see the captain’s gun, wondering if the original Cosmoline coating applied at the Colt factory was still on it. It was and that meant the weapon was brand new, which was a good thing. The captain had not had time to screw it up. If the Cosmoline was still there, it should feel sticky with its waxy composition coming through. But it was useless, everything was covered with a coating of dewy misty mud and slippery to the touch. If I had to fire the gun, then I’d know.
“It don’t mean nuthin,” I whispered to myself. I’d heard one of the Marines say it back when Jürgens had been planning to blow me up in an ambush. I was just coming to understand the depth of what the simple phrase meant.
The Gunny returned with another shorter Marine, all covered with jungle crap. I stared in surprise. The small bandy-legged Marine looked like a cross between a scarecrow and rag doll, but I had to admit he was hard to see.
“Ghillie suit,” the Gunny said, like I’d for sure know what that was.
“Camouflage suit, sir,” Fusner whispered in my left ear. “Corporal Gilroy’s Scottish, sir,” he finished, as if that explained everything.
“Sar,” the man in the suit said.
I looked at him closely. He had stuff all over his face with bangs of some kind of palm leaves sticking down over his eyes like a sheep dog’s facial hair. I wondered how a Scotsman ended up in the corps, but I didn’t have time to explore the mystery.
I laid out the plan to cover the kill zone in grids about five yards square, then stopping to take account of every foot and inch before moving on. The Starlight Scope would serve as the alert eye, hunting every open space for the lieutenant, or his body, since it was unlikely any living NVA would stay in the open. I finished, indicating the northwest corner, near where the faux perimeter had been constructed, where we would begin, with Zippo in the lead, flanked by myself on one side and Stevens on the other. Nguyen would run free around, behind and in front of us however he saw fit. When I gave instructions to him, with Stevens present for the supposed translation, I spoke directly to the Montagnard. I’d not forgotten his use of English, however limited, when the shit had hit the fan earlier. Stevens was to carry all of our grenades at the rear with Gilroy at his side to unload into any brush, whether distant or near, that might appear to have an NVA soldier inside.
“Plan name?” Gilroy asked me, pronouncing the word plan as “Plon.”
His question surprised me. Plan name? We were combing a battlefield looking for a lost lieutenant, or worse, so what kind of a plan was supposed to be called for? I said nothing because I really didn’t understand the question.
“Ah, you know, sir, like the Kamehameha Plan?” Fusner said, leaning in close to say the words, and then to hear my answer.
Right then I thought about how everyone around me had gone crazy, and me along with them. I wanted to yell that at all of them, huddled around, waiting for some stupid out of place brilliance to describe an uncomfortable and dangerous battle cleanup task. They wanted a name.
“We’re executing the Keating Plan,” I said, my facial features as serious as I could make them in the light of the low hanging gibbous moon. There’d been the Chesty Puller Plan, and that had gone off pretty well, followed by the Kamehameha Plan, that had apparently not gone so well, at least when it came to taking friendly casualties no matter how many might have been saved. And now there was the Keating Plan. What would the cost of that one be?
“The Keating Plan,” Fusner repeated to the others. “Very good, sir,” he said, as if on a British Parade Ground.
We moved south along the path and cleared the first of three square chunks of jungle real estate. The scope was a help but not as much as I’d hoped. There was simply too much brush. I didn’t see how we could go on without expecting to take casualties of our own. Nguyen came drifting in from across the path, as silent as any human could be on the tough unrelenting bracken of the jungle floor. He moved directly over to Stevens and spoke, seemingly soundlessly into his ear.
“He let Sugar Daddy’s guys know that we’re out here, so they don’t open up,” Stevens said, keeping his voice very low.
I realized I’d forgotten that small detail. I could have gotten us all killed in one fell swoop. We moved together on all fours, with Zippo bobbing up to see what he could with the Starlight Scope.
“There,” he said, before scrunching back down. As he hit the deck an AK opened up with half a magazine from only ten or twenty yards to the east. All of us hit the mush of jungle mash and mud on our stomachs, except for Gilroy. He stood and launched a round from the M-79 grenade launcher. The distinctive bloop of the weapon was the only sound following that of the AK. Within a few seconds after he fired the first round, he fired a second before dropping down. The first round exploded with a small confined sort of roar, and then the second. We waited, but there was no more fire from the AK. Slowly we climbed to our knees and started forward. I rubbed an itch on my neck. Another leech the size of long mouse was attached to my body. I’d felt nothing but the itch. I was repulsed. I forced my hand down, fighting a craven need to pull the foreign monster from my neck and cast it back to where it belonged. I moved forward, trying not to think about another leech scar. If I lived, and made it back to the world, then how would I explain those big white leech scar circles on my neck? Maybe they would fade with time I thought, but then had another thought.
“What did you mean when you said ‘there’ Zippo?,” I asked in a low hissed whisper, having stopped in my tracks. There was no way the scope could have seen inside a bush to find much of anything.
“I saw something further up the trail,” he said, hunching upward to bring the big heavy scope back up to his shoulder, so I could look through it.
“What am I looking for?” I asked him, the scope moving around too much because Zippo wasn’t laying down.
“A flare of light that shouldn’t be there,” Zippo whispered back.
I concentrated, the green world bouncing about to Zippo’s breathing, and my own unstable movements. And then I saw it. It was a flare of light right near the east side of the trail on the deck. What could it be? I watched for a full minute but nothing moved.
“Screw it,” I said, releasing the scope back to Zippo’s control. “Gilroy, you’re with me. Fusner you stay put until I wave. Zippo will be watching. If we get hit, then all of you split back to the northern perimeter where the Gunny is.”
I crawled forward, with Gilroy, a moving part of the jungle, right next to me. We moved slow. I felt Gilroy there, and immediately knew I was a novice at the game. The man moved like a panther or a lynx. I couldn’t figure out how he did it, but he blended in with the jungle even though I knew his disguise.
I crawled until I saw it. There, next to the trail, near the southern end of the phony perimeter line we’d set up to fool the NVA, was a splotch of white.
“What the hell,” I whispered to Gilroy.
Gilroy brought up this M-79 and jammed the butt into his shoulder but I stopped him by pressing my right hand down on his left bicep, a bad feeling rising up out of my core.
I scrabbled forward until I knew, and then stopped to lay flat for a few seconds, deliberately breathing in and out several times.
“What is it?” Gilroy whispered, almost too silently for me to hear him.
“Socks,” I replied, softly. “White socks.”
There was an opening in the canopy above, and the moonlight flowed down through the hole like Hollywood was shining down a faint spotlight for dramatic effect. I crawled to Keating’s body. I knew immediately that he was dead. His body was riven through with small arms fire, all of it from close range because it had not torn him apart. The muzzle velocity of the AK’s had been so high at close range that the bullets had just gone right through, over and over again. He was lying face down. I sat beside him, making no attempt to take any cover. I noted that the bottoms of his socks were dark. I leaned to look closer. Dark with mud and blood. He’d wanted so badly to be where the action was, not to be left out of it. He’d wanted to learn from actual combat.
“What combat teaches,” I said, taking Keating’s right hand in my own.
“Sar?” Gilroy asked. “What do you want me to do?”
“Go get them, and bring the Gunny,” I said. “We’ll get the body back and ready to go out tomorrow.”
“With the rest,” Gilroy replied. The man disappeared, not waiting for a response.
I waited, holding Keating’s hand and talking to the man about how he could not have known that the perimeter was fake unless he’d paid very close attention to the plan I’d given to the captain. The captain hadn’t passed on the diagram, and I’d done a poor job of remaking one. I told him that it was my fault he was dead, which in many ways was true. I told him that I was sorry he’d followed me, trusted me and wanted to be with me. I tried to remember the Twenty-Third Psalm, but got to the part of the valley of the shadow of death and stopped. We hadn’t even made it to the valley yet. Where was God’s rod and staff? Where was He and His footsteps in our sand? I heard my team coming, and was unaccountably glad that I could no longer cry. They would not see me cry, and think me any weaker than I already was.
The Gunny came first.
“He’s gone?” the Gunny asked.
I read it all in his tone. I didn’t have to answer. He knew. The socks. No boots. Keating out here anyway, without boots, maybe in too much pain to hobble back. And the Gunny having taken his boots. It was all in the two words. The Gunny took Keating’s hand and removed it from my own, setting it down next to the young man’s side.
“I don’t always get it right,” he said, gently, as the rest of the team came up on all fours, moving as silently as they could but not very silently at all. “You’re here,” he said low enough to where nobody else in the team heard him, “and that’s something.”
Keating’s body was unceremoniously slid onto a poncho, wrapped, and then dragged along the jungle floor back toward the perimeter. Once we got to the line I reached my hand back to Fusner. It was the first time in ten days and nights he wasn’t expecting the move. Seconds later, I pressed the transmit button on the handset and called in the fire mission. Nobody asked anything about it, instead passing the word from one man to another to get down. I pointed at Nguyen. He raced off back up the path, somehow understanding that Third and Fourth Platoons had to be warned. I waited to execute the fire command patiently, my mind numb, knowing that Nguyen would be back shortly. I was not willing to lose another man if I could help it. In minutes he was back.
I called in white phosphorus, using the super quick fuse, knowing that what exploded up at the top of the double canopy would shower down burning phosphorus on the jungle below, and the stuff that blew up there would go up as a special blown to hell burning bonus. I would burn the kill zone from one end to the other, from the mountain, from the planet and from my mind.
When the battery sent “splash, over,” the Gunny spoke for the first time since coming down with the body.
“What’d you call in?”
“The final curtain,” I replied, and then adding, “the end of the Keating plan.”
To the First Chapter | Next Chapter >>>>>>
Am enjoying your book. Is the second part going to come out in paperback or available on Kindle?? I read “The fifteenth day”. Great story line. The officers you described certainly reminded me of the non-caring butt wwipes I had to deal with when I was in Nam. 65 – 66.
I think that being a 2nd Lieutenant in the officer corp is like being a E3 or E4 in the enlisted ranks.
Please keep the story line coming, I will be looking for it.
Thank you Jim. I have the next segment done and it will be proof read and up later tonight.
Thanks for caring enough to write and also give us some of your own experience…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for your writing. Keating, loss got to me… it made no sense, but what did. Army Retired 64 – 04.
Yes, Randy, there was little real ‘sense’ to any of it. Part of this chronicle is
the Catch 22 part wherein I portray that. Thanks for saying what you said and following the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
Gentlemen: Yes, I’m back at it. Again, no need to publish this. It’s only intended to help you make a truly great story a tiny bit better.
Corrections from “The Tenth Night Second Part”
Paragraph: “I tried to wipe the muck…” Correction: …canteen of water and dirty socks…”
Paragraph: “I immediately began crab-walking…” Correction: “…next to the captain’s…”
Paragraph: “I ducked down all the way…” First Correction: “…all I felt was deep fatigue and being very tired…”
Second Correction: “…as difficult for him, or was still difficult for him.
Paragraph: “I started off the trail with the fallen Marine…”
Correction: Fallen almost inevitably means killed in combat stories.
Perhaps another word? “clumsy” “still hurrying”, something like that?
Paragraph: “Some got stuck in there…” Correction: Now there’s a few left…
Paragraph: I moved to Zippo and instructed…Correction: …hiding the fact that we were there.
Paragraph: I held the .45 loosely in…Correction: If it was, then it meant…
Paragraph and First Correction: “It don’t mean nuthin’,” I whispered…
Second Correction: …when Jurgens had been planning..,
Paragraph: I laid out the plan to cover… First Correction: …in front of us however he saw fit.
Second Correction: Stevens was to carry…
Paragraph: “There,” he said, before…First Correction: AK opened up with half a magazine from…
Second Correction: Within a few seconds…Third Correction: he fired a second before dropping down.
Paragraph and Correction: “What did you mean when you said ‘there’
Zippo?,” I asked…
Paragraph and Corrections: “Socks,” I replied softly, “white socks”. NOTE: Put a blank space in between this and the next paragraph, and indent the paragraph.
Paragraph: I waited, holding Keating’s…Correction:…unless he’d paid very close attention to the…
Paragraph: I read it all in his tone. Correction: The gunny took Keating’s hand and removed it from my own,…
Paragraph: “I don’t always get it right…Correction:…team heard him, “and that’s something.”
Paragraph:Keating’s body was…Correction: Third and Fourth platoons had to…
Paragraph and Correction: “The final curtain,” I replied, then added, “the end of the Keating plan.”
Got it and corrected. Thank you ever so much for all that work!
And for being righter than me!
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I’m following your story intently. I served in Vietnam with B 1/5 !st Mar Div and I never heard of a platoon having 4 squads, was that common?
Nope. But I did not know that then. They had apparently set up the
company to be what someone later said was a ‘reactionary’ company. I trained with
three platoons to a company like most other T.O. Marine companies.
Thanks for the detail notice and question…
Semper fi,
JIm
My recall is 30 meters are needed for a blooper to spin up so Scottie firing at a 10-20 meter wouldn’t have an affect…Great read.0311
Army manual of the time listed the minimum arming distance as being between 14 and 28 meters.
In combat, in my own experience with the guys around me, I found that distance to be about ten meters,
and then it for some reason or other depended on how hard the target you hit was.
A tree trunk would set the round off at ten meters but firing into brush would not get the same results.
The mud was also not as reactive.
That was out in the field at the time.
Thanks for the comment.
I looked online and some sites say the minimum range is 30 meters,
so you are not technically wrong in what you are reporting here.
I scratch me head in damaged memory…
Semper fi,
Jim
I thought it was 30 revolutions? Not distant.
Steve P
101st Nam ’68-9
The M-79 is based upon revolutions, like the fuses at the tips of artillery shells.
I don’t know the count on the M-79. I just write of what it was for us in the field based on
what I saw and my enlisted experts who used it rather effectively when they could.
Semper fi,
Jim
I was with the 3rd Marines in I Corps. I was the M-79 man in my squad. I was told that the round had to go 30 revolutions to arm itself also.
I was there Sept. ’69 to Sept. ’70
While the round is twisting in the air it is also moving forward. So, there are quite naturally two measurements that
would apply to the arming of the round as it leaves the muzzle of the gun. The third would be time but that’s so slight and fractional
it does not bear discussing here. The twists would occur and the round would move out from the barrel. Both methods of measurement are
valid but the actual setting mechanism is, I believe initiated by the rotation of the round. So you are correct, and thanks for the detail.
Semper fi,
Jim
I remember number of revolutions and distance being taught with the emphasis on revolutions.
Too old to remember the specs.
I do remember crowds of villagers trying to get through the gate of some camp we were burying. They wanted the wood we were destroying.
One villager was shot through the chest with an M79 and the round did not detonate. One of our engineers had to take care of the round.
Surely there is an armor MOS reading.
In & out.
The M79 was an artform in the hands of a very few Marines. My best man
with one had removed the sights. He didn’t use them at all. His guesses to range and
deflection were truly gifted. The close jungle was not well suited to the weapon but
close in it could also be used as a single shot very large caliber rifle!
Thanks for the comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
I was EOD but that school was almost 46 years ago. What I do know (this is the type of thing you do not forget)is that like the arming of most US ordnance centrifugal force (revolutions) & set back were required to arm it. US ordnance of the Viet Nam Era had a 20% dud rate. I still see many of the internal diagrams, but do not remember all the designations. You never forget the most dangerous stuff or the “hazards”.A M79 (probably the larger automatic cannon version)HE round took out a sr. sgt. & wounded several EOD techs during one of the big ASAP cleanups in 70 or so. The 81mm M524 PD fuse was one of the worst if the primary explosive was impinged. Most fuses on bombs or artillery had 3 safeties, the organic (manual safety pin, etc.) & 2 others. Mr. Strauss would be freaked at the thousands of rounds from old 75s, 105, 175s, 155s, 8 in. etc. that litter the impact range at his Ft. Sill that were there when I did a range clearance in 71. The EOD range clearance NCO said about 10% of the UXO was on the surface. I will never forget walking through a big puddle of jellied napalm that turned my boots pink to BIP the 2 large WP burster/igniters. These, like the 40mm explosive round also had cocked strikers. Idiots who picked up or touched M72 LAW rounds or any HEAT rounds with the nose broken or off forget there was a back up cocked striker in the base as well. Anyone interested in Army EOD operations in Viet Nam should read “This Is What Hell Looks Like” by my friend Stuart Steinberg who does an in depth narrative backed up by official documentation from DOD reports & verified by the men he served with. It is interesting to note that aging 60 some plus EOD from the Viet Nam War still go to Laos & along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to deal with UXO today. BLU 28s still litter the jungle floor along with a surprising # of large ordnance.
I have to admit Tom, that I love stuff about ballistics, explosives and other pyrotechnics.
Your experience with that stuff in schools and training must have been a kick. I had to think about
what you said about the duds at Fort Sill, and other places around the world. You have got to be correct. I don’t have a clue
and never really thought about it. When a round did not go off at Sill or in the Nam I just assumed that it had gone off and I
had not seen it. The sounds in training and combat get so confused because of other stuff making noise. I also forgot that they made
a bigger round for the Navy river boats and stuff. Never saw them but heard about them. We had an M79 fail to fire but we didn’t open
it up. We buried it and got another one! Once blew up an 81mm mortar although most of us had been trained on how to tip the barrel over
and hold your hands spread to catch the misfired found. No chance on that and no volunteers to make the catch.
Thanks for the info and your willing ness to write it here.
Semper fi,
Jim
My post, Keating, not teaching. Haven’t figured out how to edit after posting
Fixed it John.
We sometimes catch those things when they appear.
Are you loving your Journey in the Big Rig?
Great photos shared
The Big Rig is actually a Little Rig, and yes, immensely enjoying the whole thing. Nice to have you along for the ride.
SF,
PFJ
Always nice to get your comments John Conway! Thanks, as I check in to see what you are up to
day by day on your site. Thanks for commenting about it here.
Semper fi,
Jim
I had to wait a day to write this, because in my mind it wasn’t Keating you found out there it was Conway. That is exactly the way it would have happened. Stupidly and irresistibly Drawn to where I thought I should be having absolutely no clue as why or what.
For an Air Force veteran who spent his overseas tour of duty in Thailand, your narrative is spellbinding to say the least. While I was on a remote communications site near the Laos and Cambodian borders, I never saw combat.
I had several high school buddies who were infantry in Vietnam, one of whom didn’t make it. The ones who did return seldom speak of the war or their involvement in it. I know they were in the thick of it by the color of their CIB’s.
Thanks for your service.
Thank you Paul. The ‘spellbinding’ nature of the tour was just that even while I was there.
It was like I’d gone from living in college and training and then been plunged into a different
reality where all this stuff just kept coming at me. I felt hugely important and then about as
important as an unnoticed gerbil…within minutes or even seconds. Thanks for the comment and
the support of your reading…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim:
the T.V. crackled, there was Walter Cronkite, the evening news, another news story about Vietnam. Yes, another report. Battle here, fight there. Deaths, injuries, enemy body count..It was an unremarkable day. But, that day April 30th, 1968, Vietnam came home to our neighborhood for the very first time. That day….an NVA Sniper changed everything.
Together we had played hopscotch, Mother May I, roller skated, biked everywhere, chased Lightning Bugs, Tag and Hide and Seek innocent years gone by, when the Gibson family would come visit the Grandparents, there was ice cream, smores and hot dogs on the grill and little kids doing little kid thing. Those days were gone.Now just a memory.
The loss of your LT, well it shook me and made me want to share, one of your own, one of our own, who I will always carry in my heart. Thank you so much.
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=32519173
My highest regards,
Dave Beck
What a loss. Only a couple of days in combat and he was gone. I wonder what happened inside his unit. No way to tell because
silence followed most combat with the returning veterans having to place to tell their and few people that would have listened if
they had. Certainly, no officials anywhere that wanted anything but stripped and mostly blank daily reports or after action reports.
The body count was the only measure of success or failure and the enemy body counts were mostly made up. Thanks for the detail of your
comment and revealing the pain that’s still buried inside.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, did your ability to cry ever return? Over the last 50 years I lost all 4 Grandparent, both Parents, both In Laws and a Sister and was not able to cry one tear. Then last year my wife of 47 years died, and the tears finally came. Not one time in those 47 years did she ever tell me to “Just get over it, you’re only dreaming”.
It came back for me, although the details of that I’ll leave out.
The ability to experience deep emotions again was ushered back by
the birth of my kids. They were simply impossible not to love and
my brick wall of emotional guardianship was penetrated. I am okay
today, or so I think. Trauma close up and personal does not make me
cry and no amount of blood or gore bothers me at all. I think I retreat
back into the L.T. I once was.
Thanks for writing that though, and being so aware of what’s in the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
I WAS NOT IN Vietnam but train by Vietnam vets in boot camp they would do their best to tell us some of the things we would need in combat I was in the infantry in the Army staff sgt. when I retired my brother was there in 70 and 71 my dad lost his right leg and half of his left foot in world war 2 I’m proud of the Vietnam veterans they taught me a lot thank you for your story of your experience on your tour over there
Thanks for the thanks Mark.
So many different veterans coming on here to comment. Some in the thick of it back then and then others
coming from more recent times without that background but vitally interested in what happened. Surprising the hell out
of me. Amazing that I started telling this story as ‘filler’ on my new website!
Semper fi,
Jim
You are doing a fantastic job and I enjoy reading about your experience. I was there April 1968 to April 1969. Tet 69 was a rough one. Lost a cousin March 68 and another one was wounded three times in 68. It has been hard and still have nightmares 49 years later. Keep it up.
Tet 68 not 69.
Funny Billy! Yes, I think almost anyone who served in that period knew you meant 1968.
It’s also funny that the word TET is basically unknown by the newer generations.
Semper fi,
Jim
Nice of you to comment on here and glad you enjoy reading the story.
Another segment up today.
Semper fi,
Jim
Revenge!!!
Intense.
Is there any wonder, Trooper, that I came home and re-read and then fell in love with The Count of Monte Cristo?
How do we set things right with the universe? By first, although that does not generally happen when you are younger, recognizing
what in hell the universe is. What it means and is for us, the single human charged with deciding what ‘revenge’ really is and how
it should be applied, if at all.
Thanks for the comment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Very strong narrative. Gives me Parkinsons in all my limbs. Even after all these years. All that is missing is the smells. Remember the smells? The rotting vegetation. The LSA on a red hot M60 barrel. The burning kerosene & shit at the Fire Base. The cordite of expended ammo. Napalm. Busted bowels from belly wounds. Rotting enemy corpses in the dry season. Mold & mildew of the rainy season. Damn you Strauss. I thought I was beyond all that! 25th Inf Div, 2nd of the 14th Inf, ’69 – ’70.
Yes Bruce. I’ve mentioned those words a few times in reference to myself.
I think a lot of us have. Whether telling this story is good for me or people
like me is well beyond my pay grade. I just don’t know what to say. I would have written
it and put it up quietly on my website, in order to have something original…as my I.T. guy
requested. He’s a bit blown away by what I ended up giving him. I had no intent and that
kind of remains, although all the vets writing in give me more purpose and company than I thought
they would. The books can never be best sellers because there just are not that many veterans who might
buy it (not to mention that I’m putting it up here for free!). I must have another agenda.
I must. Somewhere down in my bag of tricks I must have at least one more of my badly named and screwy plans.
Thanks for making me laugh Bruce…as I continue one…
Semper fi,
Jim
Don’t you dare change a thing, I don’t care what anyone says or thinks. Keep on writing as you see fit. It’s all very cathartic for all us old Grunts that made it back with at least some of our senses & humanity intact.
Catharsis. Yes, it is. For you, for me, and for so many others who went into the shit and came out in pieces patched back together
without the tell tale stitching of most other scarecrows. It’s also dangerous. The truth is not told by so many combat veterans because
they know what pain is. They’ve been there and they’ve been hurt badly. They come home and don’t want to be hurt anymore. And they’ve
learned that telling these stories leads straight to pain. The pain of isolation. The pain of mis-understanding. The pain of fear.
The pain of lost credibility. Why endure that. Let the public see you as a silent damaged figure rather than a stone-hearted survivor.
It’s also an extremely macho culture of extremely macho males. They didn’t go. Whether by intend or accident. It does not matter. What matters
is that most of them don’t like the fact that you did and that you are standing there in front of them as an example of a real combat
veteran and a real man in full flood. You radiate it. You reek of it. That’s unacceptable…unless…unless…that rare event happens and they need
somebody to go out into that shit and fight for them again. And that’s why this story is important and why you and I both re-read it all the time.
Semper fi,
Jim
Bruce,25th here too 2nd of the 14th 68-69 charlie co. Clif
Thanks Clif. Some of the guys on here only leave their units and when they were there, in the shit, with the rest of us.
And that is okay. Thanks for putting it up here and for reading this Marine’s story.
Semper fi,
Jim
Golden Dragons ’69-’70 Alpha Co. Walked point. Cpt Branch was our CO. Hobo Woods, FSB Patton II, Venice East, Michelin Rubber Plantation, Cambodia. Welcome back Clif. Glad you made it bud.
The places sound almost lyrically magical when listed like that Clif.
Glad you made it through although I am certain many of your buddies never did.
Thanks for being here with us and reading the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
I recognized the same character in your short story, with Ralph Muncey. Another excellent story.
Your narrative is outstanding. Keep it up.
And remember, everybody blames themselves. I bet Gunny blamed himself too, and the Cpt (though he wouldn’t tell you)
Bruce. I have to watch out for you guys. The detail that you examine and then bring to the playing field is amazing.
Thank you for liking the story and seeing the linkage. Yes, you will see ‘Ralph’ later on in Thirty Days. It was a
wildly interesting although exceedingly painful and dangerous thirty days. I didn’t make it that way…I just lived it
that way. Thanks for the forgiveness in your words.
Semper fi,
Jim
Was with the twenty fifth also 1/5 mech.1968-69.welcome home brother. Did not make it home the easy way. Land mine August 69.
So glad you made it back and hope coming home the ‘hard way’ has not been too terrible
for you.
Semper fi,
Jim
dooby dooby doo, I guess I missed the second part of the ridge. What do you call a sane man in a lunatics world? Dead dooby snoopy doo. Good scribbles mate.
Mr. Nobody
I don’t know what you missed Mr. Nobody. I am resuming you meant The Tenth Night.
Since this is a serial presentation of a whole story it might be tough to miss segments
and keep an understanding. Maybe not. Hell, I don’t know. All the segments form day one
are there though, on this site for free if you want them.
Semper fi,
Jim
Okie dokie Spanky. I’ll give it a look-see
Spanky? You are too funny Tracy!
Semper fi,
Jim
I barely heard the last sentence, as I loped up the rail with the captain’s .45 in my right hand, followed by my old scout team. (rail/trail)
“There,” he said, before scrunching back down. As he hit the deck an AK opened up with half a magazine form only ten or twenty yards to the east.
(form/from)
I waited, holding Keating’s hand and talking to the man about how he could not have known that the perimeter was fake unless he’d paid very close to the plan I’d given to the captain. (the word “attention” between close and to)
Thanks for the corrections!
Semper fi,
Jim
I just got caught up! Once I started I couldnt stop until i finished all the chapters. I had no idea what you men truly went through over there before reading this. I was two years old when you were deployed. I had a very good friend who flew a chopper in Nam. He used to use some of the same lingo that you use. Jess would always say “fire for effect!” Damn, I miss that man! Thank you so much for your service Sir. I cant wait until the next chapter is available.
I am working on the next chapter right this evening, just as soon as I finish with
the comments section. Thanks for liking the work so much. Saying that helps assure that there
will be another chapter quickly!
Semper fi,
Jim
One part of me is saying thank you and yet another is say damn you . Lost a lot of good and brave friends to that place that I can only bring myself to call hell . I don’t talk about it and never took the time to sit down and cry about it until I started reading . It probably isn’t a cure but it has helped me to understand the role that I played in that horrific drama . I have told my friends and family to read your story so that they can understand what no movie can ever fully depict . As you write I will read and then sit and reflect on what part I played as a noncom trying to keep myself and my men from being put into one of those blackish grey bags .
Yes, indeed, you were there. Blackish gray gives you away. Or certifies what you say. Noncoms over there
probably saved more lives than any other combination of ranks. It’s called good sense. The officers were mostly
above good sense and the lower enlisted too inexperienced to learn what the hell it was. I am writing it like
I remember it was and not like I would have liked it to be or have been told it was like. And some, like you, will
be able to point, and then say ‘read that because that’s the real shit,’ while others, mostly those who were not out
there in those nights, will say bullshit. Thank you for being from that first group and a Non Com. A lot of us owe
men like you…
Semper fi,
Jim
Mr. Strauss, your writing is extraordinary. I was totally pulled in just reading the first few sentences! I was a few years too young to serve in the military during that time. My father was a Marine in WW2 and fortunate to make it back alive. I recall telling him if I was just a few years older I could enlist in the Marines and go to VN. I’ll never forget the cold steely stare he gave me and said no way in hell would he let me go into that clusterf*** of a war. Through your words, I have a better understanding of what he experienced and knew how badly the VN war was being conducted from the top down. All I can offer is a heartfelt thank you to all vets and active military who sacrifice so much for this great country. Can’t wait for the next chapter! Thank you Sir!
Thank you Tim. I am doing the best I can with what I have.
Glad you like it. Glad, like your Dad assured, that you missed the
show too. Thanks for the comment and your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, thank you for your service, and for sharing this body of work. I was born in 1968, and have always had an interest and connection to this war for some reason. Childhood memories, seeing the news, not understanding what it was or why it was….my dad didn’t go, he was a police officer. His cousin was there for 2 tours in the 101st…many stories were shared. And many were not. He bounced around after he got out of the army and then vanished…the rumor was that he worked in intelligence. When I turned 21 my dad shot himself with his Colt Combat Commander .45. I was there, worked on him for a half hour before the paramedics came. He didn’t make it. My own single casualty war. I have many life long friends who served, and were career guys in special ops who all made it after multiple deployments. Some of their stories overlap yours, the military still has many of the same issues unfortunately. Hearing what you guys went through makes some of us wish we had served, been there with you, somehow wanting to help, be a part of helping. Not that there was a chance to change any of it. I carry a .45 daily. Dad’s Colt is long gone, I wanted no part of it after that. I anxiously await your next chapter!
Sorry for rambling guys.
God Speed
Mike
Wow. How do you come back from what your Dad did? I don’t know. How to carry that?
How have I carried the load, although much different than that one? Build a tribe.
Give and then give some more until it hurts. Adventure. Find dangerous things to do
that don’t necessarily hurt others. And then live steeped in performing as much redemption
by doing ridiculous good works as you can. People will see you as ‘easy’ ‘touched’ and ‘stupid.’
Welcome to that club. It’s not so bad. And maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll be able to lay
down that .45 because there’s no longer anyone you want to shoot with it.
Including you.
Go quietly with some peace into this day, knowing there are others out there and right here
who understood every word you wrote…and fully identify and care…
Semper fi,
Jim
James I have PTSD did not know I had it for a long time. I don’t talk to anyone about about it . One of the guys I was with in Nam called me and talked to me said I need to get help. I like you don’t sleep much. I don’t go around people much . I like to be by myself. I have been to VA and cryed when they told me I had it. I have went to all the PTSD help program they have some help I don’t like the Meds. I Thank You for your book it helps to see i am not alone
Fred. The single biggest help to men and women suffering from combat-related PTSD is the money.
Up to around 2500 a month, tax free is available to combat PTSD sufferers.
Then, once that diagnosis is made, the Social Security Admin will step in and give you 100%
disability until you are old enough to collect full regular benefits.
Why is the money important?
Because PTSD requires a sense of freedom, value and worth.
The money helps provide that, plus allowing you to live and get back
and forth to a decent counselor at the VA…it’s important.
Thanks for writing what you wrote. It’s not easy. As you read this story you will come to figure out
that the main character will not leave that combat zone feeling like he should accept anything from anybody anymore.
And that feeling has to be fought tooth and nail. I needed help. Badly.
I just did not want to have to need help.
Thank you brother.
Semper fi,
Jim
Fred, I too along with many Vietnam vets took too long toget elp. I was a functional alcoholic for 25+years after my two tours there. My wife told me I needed help. I finally went to the VA. I went to 13 PTSD group meetings with other vets from Korea to Afghanistan. I heard a lot of vets discuss their issues. It was therapeutic. But, I also attended trauma sessions and that really helped. The VA wanted tout me on 5 different meds for nightmares, mood changing, etc. I couldn’t function and stopped taking them. I still get Ambien so I can sleep longer than 2 hours. Jim’s articles really sink in. I don’t talk about any Vietnam experiences even with my wife. If you weren’t there you can’t understand. I wasn’t in Iraqor Afghanistan and wouldn’t get everything those vets would talk about. However, I do understand the 99% boredom and the 1% pure terror. Hang in there and talk about it to another vet. It might help.
Thanks for caring Dick and for the recommendations for all of us.
Better to talk than to remain silent. Got it.
Appreciate the support…
Semper fi,
Jim
Breath-taking! Literally.
Thanks, my friend.
I would say “my pleasure” Craig but that would come out all wrong. I am wringing it out bit by bit
and I am as of yet unsure why. I can never be a bestselling anything with my tattered broken background.
That I am the L.T. in the story portended a life thereafter that could never fit within normal tolerances,
so to speak. No excuses. I write now to get it out before I go and for the guys who went. Fuck the rest.
Thanks for the support of that compliment, and for bother to take the time to write it.
Semper fi,
Jim
You are doing an excellent job, and if the stars are aligned just so – you will have that best seller!
Please, tho – double time! I am trying to get through that night, and the next 20 days and nights, right alongside you.
Many thanks, L-T – Semper Fi
Thank you Craig. It’s a whole lot more about who you are and where you are placed
than it is about what you write or the quality.
That’s just the way it is when it comes to they hyper-competition
at the bestseller level (which is also phony because the big publishers all buy their own books to qualify!).
But I’m hard at it. I have the first book to finish editing and this snarky paper to get out today
and the I’ll be right back on it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Yet my V.A. shrink, tells me don’t worry about my dreams, because they are only dreams!
Tell the counselor, the next time you see him or her, that you dreamed about
setting up an ambush site in front of his home, and you are feeling mixed emotions about
that because you really like him or her.
Tell him you didn’t want to worry him or her though, because it’s, after all, just a dream….
Make his day. You’ll get diagnosed with PTSD real quick and probably get to spend some private time too!
Semper fi,
Jim
James I know that it most likely wasn’t your intention but that bit made me laugh. I can see the councilors face go ashen as he/she is told that. My nephew was a Marine sniper in Iraq and he was telling me about his “interview” as he was processed out. She wanted him to tell her about some of the things he went through there. He just started to tell her just as he and I would sit and talk. At the end she was blubbering and needing tissues. He was like”what”? He was diagnosed with PTSD and gets the check. He calls me and we talk for hours some times. I think it really helps him. Damn fine young man. Glad you made it back too and hope and pray you are doing ok.
I hired a shrink in Dana Point one year, so many ago, when I thought I could get ‘better.’ Before I knew.
She was younger than me and quite beautiful, which I thought was a bonus. She said: “take two hours and tell
me everything that happened to you in Vietnam.” So, I went at it. Basically, I told her the whole Thirty Days Has September
way back then. When I was done she excused herself for about fifteen minutes. I wondered where she’d gone. She came back
and told the me that she felt I need to be institutionalized for a period of time because I was probably a danger to myself
and others about me because of what I’d been through. She said I was like a former prisoner of a German prison camp, which made me wonder, as would
a former prisoner really need to be contained inside another institution. I realized that the beautiful young shrink was not for me. I paid her 375 bucks and left. When I got to the driveway there was an Orange County Sheriff’s car blocking my way. I Looked at him and then back up on the porch to where she stood.
The officer asked me for my identification and I gave him my badge. I was a cop in San Clemente at the time, as well as an agent of the CIA. The cop nodded and went his way. She went back inside. I had to stand by my car for a few minutes until I got control and made the decision not to ‘charge’ her for her mistake.
I understand.
I get it, like your nephew.
The truth about this shit is dangerous as hell, and all of that danger is to the teller of the story, the guy who went through the shit.
When you come home from being a heartless killer of other men, you come home never wanting to kill anything living again. But you come home
to people who without much fail think they want to kill something… and there you stand, such a big willing target…
Semper fi,
Jim
I hated the leeches, still have the rings up high inside my thighs, Wife says my back is a mess between “gook sores” and leeches. I also hated FNG’s, they stood up in fire fight, they froze, they tossed grenades the wrong direction, and they died. I’ve wondered what I could have done differently or better to have saved them, finally learning nothing. Never forget the struggle to pack them out after a fight, your gear, them and they’re gear, dog ass tired from the adrenaline dump. Even if only a half click to the pickup site. Great writing my brother!!! SF
A little tough through life, the scars.
I never go to the beach without wearing a shirt. Ever. Pools either.
People used to point and make comments among themselves. I had no artillery to call in on them.
A woman once asked me at an embassy party in Seoul how I got the ‘v’ notch scar in my right nostril.
She asked if I had picked my nose as a child.
In front of all these high socialites, “no, I was in the hospital for a long time after I was shot
in Vietnam and back then they didn’t make non-systemic plastic. I had an NG tube going down into my stomach
so long that my nose grew to the tube material. When they pulled out the
tube part of my nose came with it.”
That worked and the woman disappeared.
Unfortunately, so did everyone else around me!
Telling the truth
does not always have positive benefits.
Incidentally, the leech scars on my neck and under my chin? They’re still white to this day.
I tell the rare person who says anything that I’m old and that razors used to cause things
like that before they got sharper and started using stainless steel.
Thanks for your comment.
You make me smile in remembrance of that woman’s face…
Semper fi,
Jim
As one of those who don’t really like nosy people I’ve got to applaud your response to the lady. You took it easy on her. I know you could make a Chicago coroner urp up. And until you scream SHUT UP, thanks again for what you did and for what you’re doing now. I like that you aren’t trying to count the number of brothers you’re helping. They need the respect as you do.
Actually, in that formal setting of gentile good manners, no matter how faked, the woman didn’t do so good. Her attempt to embarrass me
(because she knew I was CIA and Dept. of State people hate CIA in their shops) backfired because those people who inhabit those environs
are a bit macho and very patriotic. I delivered the verbally silver sword right back to her, and she took it right through her social heart.
As to the other. I don’t know who I’m helping other than me. I’m trying but who really knows what impact we have on others in this sort of
oh so complex mental recovery effort? I’m not a qualified counselor but I hand out a good bit of counseling. Does caring and trying to help
count if the advice is bad? I don’t know. I probably should not have told that PTSD guy to tell his VA counselor that he was dreaming about setting up
an ambush in front of his counselor’s house. What if he does? Okay, okay, so maybe I should follow that up and tell him only to use nerf guns when he
springs the ambush on the guy’s wife and dog….did I mention that I’m not a qualified counselor?
Semper fi,
Jim
Sir, I was there in the Air Force. I walked past the Jolly Green Air Rescue choppers at 0dark30 to preflight check the EC-47s for their daily electronic surveillance missions.
I was there and saw the white chalk circles marking the bullet holes in the AC-121 Shadow gunships on my way to the flight line.
I was there and watched the St. Elmos fire dancing on the prop tips of the USAF Sandies, fully loaded, at 0dark30 flowing back across the fuselage and off the tails while running up the engines for checkout for their mission.
I was there to greet the pilots and crews ready to go off on missions over combat zones in unarmed WWII transformed cargo planes to get targeting info for the B-52 strikes.
I was there when at night the sky was lit up by parachute flares during the “Condition Yellow” alerts.
I was there on graveyard shift refueling these old birds and had to reach into the full tank to free the gauge float stuck on the foam used to keep a wing from exploding from a direct hit.
I was there having to scurry to a bunker when a sapper hit an ammo dump.
I was there in my bunk with the ground shaking from B-52 strikes in the distance counting 1-2-3 as each of the 3 Leviathan’s released its load.
I was there to help open a closed Thai Airbase from where the squadron took off on the mission to mine Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam.
I wasn’t there in the jungle fearing for my life in any fire fights.
I wasn’t on any firebases.
I wasn’t a door gunner on a chopper which was my original munitions MOS, but they had too many and let me be a mechanic.
I truly appreciate the FO job you performed as I never really knew how important the artillery was in the field in its accuracy.
We were more concerned about getting things into the air and their safe return.
After getting a duty station back in the World, I worked with a buddy who I served with and we received word that one of our EC-47s had gone down. I think only one back end crew member survived. Very sad news seemed to hit close to home even if on the other side of the world.
Sir I thank you for your writings as they seem surreal in that they take me there in the action on the edge of my seat. Pray for your healing, and thanks for all you did/do.
Tony Richards
Thanks for the long comment about your own service. Always so interesting to read about stuff and billets you don’t know exist outside
of your own, or maybe those closely related. You did an excellent job stating those things you did and did not do. Hell, I don’t remember
half or more of what I didnt do. I learned how to use those giant wooden slide rules they used back in old time FDCs but I never used one for
real. I was an expert and eventual master in rifle shooting but never fired a round through one in combat. I never carried a Prick 25 radio
but always wanted to try and see what that was like. I never got to fly in an air support aircraft except for helicopters but I sure wanted to.
Thanks for making me think of those things. Glad you enjoyed reading about how combat artillery works and how it can be used by an artist in the field, which I really was. Shame there was not ‘job transfer’ in that to something back home.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I’m still here, following you through this trail of tears, I’ve gone back and read and re-read the responses from fellow combat brethren, finally reading what my dad or uncles would not or could say. My family has been involved in fighting for the US since the 1830’s Texas thru Iraq and have seen that stare among my kin and wondered what could bruise the soul so, and yet I still volunteered for the Nam(68-69), how could I not?, I only sleep about 4 to 5 hrs a night, and am usually up watching the dawn come, thank you again Jim for your writing and postings, I know we are not alone.
Thank you for being up in the night still waiting for an enemy that’s not going to come.
Or so we all pray. There are Roman Legions of us out here waiting up with you and that ought,
as least upon occasion, put a small smile on your face. You came here. You are reading the story.
You are, indeed, in the right place. We can’t ‘fix’ you but we can make a place for you among
we, the bloodied, but never broken.
Semper fi,
Jim
I remember crawling underneath barbed wire, at Camp Pendleton Basic Training, with explosives going off, and my M-16 business end got clogged with mud. A DI came over and said something like, “Not much good with a barrel full of mud!!!”. All my DIs were ‘Nam vets and very pissed off about that fact.
The mud of it all was a bitch all the time. Almost everyone carried the
rods that came with the gun in one form or another. We had high casualties too
so weapons laying around were many and we had to send extras out with the bodies.
Sixteens only ever failed because of crud and failure to use in moisture. The
trap door allowing spent cartridges could actually rust shut pretty quickly
if not used or cleaned. The the next round would not exit and a new one would
jam in. Dead weapon without a smith.
Thanks for the comment and experience of your own.
Semper fi,
Jim
I much preferred the M-14 but it was pretty archaic compared to an AK. So be it. Knife at a gunfight? LOL.
The problem was always ammo. The M-14 was a great weapon. I trained with it and then easily
qualified expert with it. The M-60 fired the same 7.62 so ammo was no problem. But how in hell
to find an M-14 out there in combat? Never saw one.
The guys who carried AK stuff were pretty quickly dissuaded.
The enemy did not exactly leave much ammo laying around.
Thanks for the info and bothering to comment and support me here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Not wanting to start an argument, but early on, in 65/66, my M-16 was a piece of junk that could jam up no matter how well you kept it clean. I had mine jam several times almost immediately during firefights. Then I would put the bayonet on the rifle and start using hand grenades. Later I got a pistol as a back-up. I’ve read since then about the reasons why and the actions taken to stop the problems. When I got back in l970 the problems had been fixed and I never had any problems with the M-16. My back-up at Khe Sahn in 71 when sitting in a foxhole was an old M-79 that always delivered.
You are not starting an argument but stating a fact. The early buffer system and the Olin ammo had to be replaced.
The cyclic rate of fire of the early weapons on full auto was up around 1150 rounds per minute. Way too fast. Overheating
and jamming occurred. Things had to be slowed down to 650, which is still up there but okay. Now, of course, the 16 is limited to
3 round bursts. Thanks for the cogent and accurate comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I knew at that moment when you said about the splotch of white that it was him. I was hoping soo much that he was ok, wounded or not….But not KIA
I think that what drove Keating, was you. In that he realized that you made it thru what he experienced with his platoon, but you had been doing it with the company in that surreal state of fuckery. And regardless of how they ( Casey,Billing ) felt about you, he knew you were better than them and he wanted to live up to that inspite of the fear.
I don’t mean to put anything on you by that…I hope you understand what I’m trying to convey. We’ll never know.
I feel a heaviness of loss for the first time during this. However I’m glad you were able to recover him for both of your sakes.
For the first time since commenting on these. I’m at a loss trying to understand why you weren’t fully armed? A pistol is just to get you back to your rifle.
In the Ashau no less
You just can’t handle a full rifle rig in combat if you are calling artillery, on the
combat net and trying to direct things emotionally with arm and hand signals. The .45 makes
complete sense, or it did for me. I was among Marines and not off in the bush on my own.
I never lost confidence in Marine enlisted guys with their 16s. They were flat out good
with them and we all knew it. But that was just me. I ran into other officers that carried
bigger stuff. And then you get to have to carry the ammo, and magazines and more.
Thanks for the ‘accounting’ on Keating. Yes, the mystery will always remain.
Is my telling accurate? Even? I’m not sure. Thanks for caring and writing so deeply.
Semper fi,
Jim
I was shocked that he was dead. Completely. It never occurred to me that he might
really be dead that fast and how in hell did he get by us laying next to the trail when
the shit was going down. He had to run right past in the middle of the barrage!
But at night in combat with the shit going off and noise and flashes and all that stuff
you are deaf and blind for the most part. He got by. And that was it. There wasn’t much that
lived in that kill zone. Thanks for the comment. A side arm lets you use radios, not carry a load of
ammo and magazines and move about to know what the hell is happening. You have plenty of Marines that
really know how to use the rifles well. At least that is how I conducted myself.
I knew one officer who carried a pump shotgun!
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim
Thank you Sir. I just missed Vietnam because of my age. I remember having to register for the selective service on my 18th birthday. Scared the hell out of me. I look forward to each segment you post and will purchase when available.
With much respect and gratitude,
Glad you didn’t make the show. I know a lot of men have mixed feelings about not being there.
Put those to rest, please. We paid and you did not have to. It wasn’t fair but what the hell is.
We all thank you for being here and caring that you missed it. Means a lot to us and puts more value on us.
So thank you for reading and having enough balls to write what you just wrote!
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I sensed your pain in writing this chapter. Such horrible memories. The reason I say this is that the pace of this chapter seems to be much faster than previous chapters and that generally means mental pain and you just want to get it out and done with. We’re with you all the way with support.
Yes, that was a tough segment but it went pretty fast. I pushed it, as you might have figured out.
I was not expecting it to be a popular segment at all. But you guys fool me. You see so deeply into things I sometimes
don’t catch or get myself. The comments here as instructive and deep as anything I’ve ever read.
thank you for being part of that.
Semper fi,
Jim
I can sense your soul going haywire idk why but I could but we’re here with you and reading in great admiration god bless you L.T and thanks so so much for your service!!!
Maybe it’s the soul departing that you get through the drift of my writing.
You cannot afford a soul in a combat zone. Either you grab that sucker and put it into
some sort of hibernation or you stomp it to death…because you are sure as hell not going to need
it. Oh, you won’t kill it. That soul will return…and we call it’s return to the nest and its basking there PTSD.
Semper fi, and thanks for commenting…
Jim
I’ve been hesitant to comment here. My dad was army field artillery he was in Germany. My uncle was in Korea. Two of dads friends retired army and retired Marine Corp. Growing up around them I guess they all knew I would sign up no one really wanted me to but somehow I believe they all knew I would. Anyway I was always the recipient of great advice I did my bit in operation desert shield/ storm. Never thought much for the parades or all the other crap myself would not have participated if it hadn’t been for the direct order to do so. I’ve always tried to live my life by the example my elders set for me. Men like you my dad uncle and their friends I salute you because if it wasn’t for their influence I would not be the husband and father I am . All these men except one are now gone. My dads friend Bob is the only one left. He’s my neighbor and we still go to church together . Brother Bob is in his 90’s now he is a retired marine officer veteran of 3 wars and is still spry for his age. I guess what I’m trying to say out of all this is most people don’t have clue as to the sacrifices made by men like you dad my uncle bro. Bob. I’m always reading and rereading your posts thank you for writing it down the real price that has been payed by so many.
What a pleasure to read your writing here Ray. Yes, it is a difficult subject to chime in on, especially when you have so
many salty old dogs watching every word. I’ll bet that most appreciate what you wrote as much as I do. These are rather special
guys and you most likely are one too or you would not have been aboard for the reading or made any comment.
Thank you for the courage, the comment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, brings back a lot of times I have tried to forget,am shaking like a dog trying to pass a peach seed!
Now i like that analogy. Class act Pete. I don’t get the shakes anymore,
thank God. I thought I would bring them home but I left there there
at Yokosuka in Japan. An old red cross nurse (younger than me now!)
showed me how to tightly grip ice in may water until it hurt. No more
shakes. When I left the hospital she said she’d made that up, that the shakes
were not physical and that I wouldn’t have any more. Great woman.
Thanks for that comment!
Semper fi,
Jim
The more I read, the more I think your book should be included in leadership classes for leaders of any rank. Many Lieutenants, Captains, and NCOs could learn a lot from your book. I already have learned more that I did from Sergeants Course.
Thank you again for sharing your experiences with us.
SEMPER FI
Jim Wohlberg
Well, now that’s high praise. Not going to happen. And you know why.
Who would go? They have a problem in making it all sound adventurous, which of course it is.
If you live or worse…you don’t have to die. Right here on the battlefield, I mean.
Anyway, thank you so much for that ultimate kind of compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Your Gunny was a good man. Trying his best to save a couple green sticks by taking their boots.
In your story the Gunny drifts in and out. Leaning on you when he has no plan and ignoring you when no plan is required.
Shows the strength and weakness of the man and his ability to recognize it.
I really appreciate your artillery tactics in your story.
I am ex arty (Canadian Army 105mm and 155mm). Worked a bunch at the Forward Observer position and can see from your fire direction skills you were well trained and very intuitive. Semper Fi Marine and as we Canadian gunners say “Ubique!”
Thanks BT. I had a guy on here tell me that he really didn’t believe the story but thought I was
really doing a great job of research. I said that I had done a ton of research. I’d gone to Fort Sill, and then to
a war zone to learn how to call fire in combat because it sure as hell is different than in a training command.
He never wrote back. How would you research all this shit you see in this story? I have no clue. There are some books
but who knows a lot of this stuff? Not very many. Anyway, thank your for pointing out that my artillery skills remain
fairly polished. thanks
semper fi,
Jim
ELTEE
really enjoying the reading! thanks!!
’68 college grad draftee eleven bravo with 82nd AIRBORNE and FIRST INFANTRY!!11 months in jungles and paddies from SAIGON TO PARROT’S BEECK! never did we have guys smoking ANYTHING…smell travels! black and white in field got along because we needed each other! Back at FSB’S could be another story BUT not always! REAR was like real world with racial problems!
Parrot’s Beak? Wasn’t that an island offshore? Somebody told me about that.
I think they built a golf course there after the war. I don’t really know though.
Anyway, thanks for the reading and the comment here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Parrot’s Beak was north west of Tay Ninh along the Cambodian border. I was wounded around there June 2 ,1970.
Ah, got it. Sorry. I was intimately aware of my own area of operations but that was it in the Nam.
My maps show me more but I still find most of that place incomprehensible.
Thanks for the correction.
Semper fi,
Jim
The parrots beak was a hook shape to the border with Cambodia in III corp north of Saigon. Indian territory, for sure. The Ho Chi Minh trail ran through there.
Thanks for that. I knew it was not up along the A Shau because I’d never
have forgotten a name as cool as that.
I was once up between two islands in the Bering Sea.
The area between the two small windswept and giant wave
separated islands was called “The Pass of the Tzar of Russia.”
Now who could ever forget that one either?
Thanks for the correction.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
Once again, I must say your writing is exquisite. Your description of the death of Keating is poignant and exceptionally touching.
What a shame he and so many other men were killed in that war — a war we should have never have been in.
I turned 18 in December of 1973 and was in college, so was never in any fear of being drafted. Sometime around 1978 I had a boss who had been Vietnam and though he never provided details about his service, I do remember him once quite bitterly saying to me, “You haven’t been f—–d until you’ve been f—-d by your own government.”
Thank you for your service and thank you for sharing your experiences. I look forward to reading your future installments.
John Marshall
Thank John. Glad you missed the show. A lot of guys were so angry with
the government. I always assumed that at a certain level that they simply
had no clue and were getting pretty filtered data. The guys who came to my hospital in
Yokosuka, investigating how so many were lost so quickly didn’t have a clue about what had
happened, and I wouldn’t tell them. I could not talk about it at all then without instantly throwing up!
They left, happily, I think, just to get away from that puking lieutenant!
thanks for writing and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
I’m still here…mostly….
Above the best,
Bill
Well Bill, I think that is a very succinct response and accurate, as well.
Me too, and sometimes that’s enough and all that needs to be said.
I like laconic vets like you and intuit a lot into what few words you write.
But then that is the story teller in my that I’ve somehow become. Not that silent
guy at Travis on a gurney, hoping to get to the hospital where they might have civvies
I could put on and then go hide! thanks for writing anything at all…and caring too…
Semper fi,
Jim
Anything I can comment would be inadequate to what you have experienced. Looking forward to your next issue. 9th Infantry Division 68-69
Well, John, that you commented at all speaks volumes. A lot of the real deal guys on here are not very conversant about
putting stuff they might want to say on the subject into words on paper….or on this machine. Thanks for saying what you said.
Semper fi,
Jim
Just got caught up with the current chapters. I found it to hard to read. I wasn’t a Marine I was Air Cav. Now that I’m 71 I find I am remember too much.
Air Cav in the Nam. You might as well have been a Marine. The Army over there was way cool.
In training too. The officers at Sill all looked up to us Marines and I loved that and tried to live up
to their high opinion of us.
Thanks for being here, like you were there…
Semper fi,
Jim
Semper Fi brother
Thank you Mitch. It is my pleasure that you enjoy the read.
Going back can sometimes be difficult too.
Semper fi,
Jim
WE all wonder if we had done this or that would it have kept them alive. I don’t know but I also wonder about this from just one night, could it have ended differently. Keep writing Jim.
It can always end differently. In retrospect the one thing positive I never now forget is
the amount of control and authority I really possessed and unleashed. I was so powerful in my seeming powerlessness.
Then I cam home and went to work for a woman at minimum wage who found me unsatisfactory as a man and as an insurance underwriter.
That did not go well.
Semper fi, and thanks for writing.
Jim
My buddy sent me the link a month ago, I’ve been reading along and have going down a road i haven’t traveled for 48 years…2/502 pir. I’ll say awhile longer.
Thanks for hanging out at all! This isn’t the easiest storyline to follow for someone who’s walked the walk.
I appreciate your interest and the fact that you are still here…yes, in that way too.
Semper fi,
Jim
Do you have any idea where you would’ve gone had you not spoken up that first night? Can’t wait for your next installment…
Al, I think if I’d done pretty much anything else than what I did I would not be here to
write about it. I had some kind of good fortune working against the bad fortune.
Thanks for considering what might have happened…
I got the benefit of God’s doubt!
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I was a squad leader in the recon platoon of the 1/61 Infantry, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division ’68-’69. We were attached to the 3rd Marine Division at Quang Tri and worked the area from the Laotion border to the sea and from the DMZ to the next valley north of the Ashau (Ba Long valley I seem to remember). Spent some nights sharing an NDP with the 1/9 (Overrun with C 1/9 on one occasion). Your writings bring back a lot of memories, stuff buried in my head for a lot of years, walled off to prevent the insanity of that war from seeping in I suppose. You have a wonderful ability to bring back the smells, sounds and feelings that I remember now with more wonder than anything that I survived it. Keep up the great work.
That was a nice comment Bill. You were up the Ba Long. I have that on a map.
I never made it over there but the A Shau had broad shoulders. Why the US did not
turn that valley into one big crater I never understood. Barry Goldwater wanted to
put nukes down all the way to the ocean and make a moat! Thanks for the comment
and the compliments, as well.
Semper fi,
Jim
I can’t breathe. I know this feeling.
Yes, that’s it. If you’ve been in the shit then you know it. No puffer can make you breathe better
either. You have to lay there and wait. Thanks for the association and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim I really like your writing, so much so I entered my Son’s email address to you to explain my actions as a Father to him. Until I read your writings I never knew why I sometimes felt or did the things good or bad. Keep writing and I will keep learning about myself.
HMM 363 SGT USMC 65-66 the Nam
Mike. There is a deep abiding fear in all of us, those real combatants
that have returned to raise families, that our conduct with our children will
jade them in ways we know will lead to their unhappiness.
How to keep the secrets they don’t need to influence their lives with,
not just because they might be pretty terrible but also
because they can be so skewed and wrong in memory.
I have a son and a daughter and I could not agree more.
By telling this story and putting it on here they hear most of it for the first time.
Vignettes here and there over the years but nothing like this.
What effect might that have? It’s a bit different after all these years though.
Not because the story is different but because they are.
It is my hope that their own age helps them with accommodation
and some form of acceptance for my own conduct, not always the best.
Thanks for the deep feeling comment and the courage to put it up on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt,Thanks my friend!!
Yes, I am that. I appreciate the sentiment of your short comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’ve watched very few war movies over the years watched one years ago while at Ft. Devens, John Wayne’s “Green Beret”. Friends said I should go see “We were Soldiers” less than halfway through I had to walk out. three nights passed before I could get through a night without waking up. I finished jump school in May 1963, was on orders for the 11th Air Assault, which would eventually become the 1st Cav., orders were changed and I went to the 82nd. We would go to the Dominican Republic starting the end of April ’65, had the orders not changed I could very easily been in the Ia Drang valley. I would reenlist go to a comm school and eventually end up in Vietnam
Thank you for that history T.L. It’s not easy to discuss such things and it is particularly
difficult to do outside the parameters set by a site like this. I am glad you seem comfortable here
as I have become. I had no idea what I was starting when I started this a couple of months ago.
But here I am and here you are.
Thank you,
Semper fi,
Jim
just like to thank you for this book. it should be read by the shrinks at the VA. I left the class because how do you talk to somebody that has no idea.
It is not that they have no idea Dave. It is that they don’t want to have an idea. They don’t want to listen to you tell
that what PTSD is, how it effects you and other men in your circumstance. That is not how the VA is set up. They want to
be paid to treat you. They want to be paid, is the key part of the that previous sentence. If the government wanted to spend
money on veterans than the first thing they would promise and deliver is a real job when veterans came home. That would do
most of the therapy right there. Money, stature, importance, time occupation and associates. All of it would be right there.
No, instead they want to pay a counselor six figures to sit there and basically listen without listening and then say to you
the magic words “get over it.” I am not going to fucking forget. Not now. Not ever. Keating does not get forgotten. My Marines, good, bad
and even dead do not get forgotten. Not now and not ever. Why do I have to fight for respect back home and pray for somebody to give ma a job
at minimum wage when I came home from a place where nobody in 64 square miles lived, breathed or even died without my permission? I do not
want to be thanked with a shaking hand and short phrase. I do not want to be ‘honored’ any parade. I just want the place that I bled, lost and gave up my youth to supposedly secure. I lost my place. I want it back. Until then, I will wander the nights, carrying my company with me, a roster of forgotten men in forgotten
battles who no longer fear the night because they are the night. And I with them.
Sorry to run on Dave, but you struck a nerve…
Semper fi, and thanks for writing in…brother
Jim
Marine, Brother, I don’t know how many times I have tried to tell our Brothers and Sisters to get away from the government di di mou. They are not good for us. The only thing they see in us is a paycheck. I went to a combat rap session. Once. When I left I went home and almost suck started my .45.
I am mesmerized by your writings.
I came home in a basket in 1964. 508th of the 82nd.
We Fools must stay in touch. There are fewer of us now. If you are ever in the Philippines I would love to share a cold one. Sorry, no Ba mi ba and no ratsteak sandwiches. Stay low Brother and change yer fuckin socks.
If I make a few bucks on this book then maybe I can make it to the Philippines. I have heard that the people
there
are about the most friendly on earth, like Thailand. Thanks for that great offer. It would be fantastic.
Semper fi, my friend and brother…
Jim
Thank you for saying what I felt back so log ago. I had a Montagnard friend that I miss to this day.
Montagnards. Zulu warriors. The Santa Domingo Indians. Fine tribal structures I’ve been
proud to be associated with. Funny thing, they all appreciated me. Not so back here in this culture.
You talk like I write on this site and they really really listen…and then wait, and then wait some
more…and then share their stories. And that is something to be a part of, indeed.
Thanks for the comment. And the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
You just summed it all up right here. Keep on keepin on! John
Thank you John, I am trying my heart out…and appreciate the attaboy!
Semper fi,
Jim
Will not forget. Will not forgive.
I haven’t forgotten but I’ve spent my life forgiving…and trying to forgive
myself most of all. You can’t read this story and not realize just how fucked up
I was when I came home in a basket. Physically and mentally. Hell, when I finally got
in front of a VA counselor I had to threaten to kill him at his desk before he’d believe
how screwed up I was. Today they’d lock me up. He just sat back in his chair and
agreed that I was one screwed up dude and started laughing. I had to stop in the face of
that and get myself together. Being Junior back here wasn’t going to get it.
Semper fi,
Jim
You find a good VFW Post near you and join. Come in slow and as guys start talking you’ll be able to figure out who are the real ones and who are not. They’ll be feeling you out too, but after awhile you’ll have a couple of new friends that understand because they were there. Maybe not even the same war, but they were there. That’s why not everyone who served qualify for membership. It was because guys needed a place to talk after WWI and no one had ever heard of PTSD.
I am afraid of those old guys. The one’s here seem so damned mean
and I have had enough meanness in my life. I have a local newspaper
and am quite the character in writing it. The establishment does not like
me here anymore than they did in training or in the Nam. I am a living
iconoclast (image breaker) and I’ve been to the belt of Orion and back and
they have not and they know it. Try that on for a nice friendly get together
of old vets.
But thank you most sincerely.
Semper fi,
Jim
Me too Brother. 62 years old and still fucked up as ever. Had a real good War 2 vet friend. Loved him like a father. Hank Nakada. “Go for broke.” 442nd Inf. He told me to do what I had to do but stay alive. Good advise. No VFW or Legion or any of that. I am far too bitter to sit down and live it again. No sleep. Lots of tears. They are mine. I claim them. I own them. I earned them. Stay low Brother. And change yer fuckin socks.
The socks. You are so right man. Feet were fucking everything some times.
You had to move and move fast. Socks were at a premium and I traded or stole for
all the extra pairs I could get. I tried the VFW and Legion route too and it didn’t
work for me either. The guys were okay. I didn’t want to wear the funny hat.
I wasn’t any good at the ceremony stuff. I understand that some guys love that.
I can watch a veterans parade but I can’t be in it. Others don’t understand, but you
do.
Semper fi, brother,
Jim
James,
I worked in the nuclear industry for 30 years after getting out of the Navy. We had a process of determining fault when something didn’t go as planned. It was called root cause analysis. The point at which you stop the analysis is when you get to the point where you can no longer apply positive solution prevent a reoccurrence. When you speak to who’s fault was it that Keating was killed you could go all the way to the president or even the money men above him. But the bottom line is Keating was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Too many factors to apply solutions that would solve the problem for the next time. I trust you have resolve this in your mind along with many other decisions you had to make. Shit just happens and in battle the odds are very high that it will.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I pray it gives you peace when your done.
Bill
Nuclear physics. The distillation of real science down to the tiniest particle, and then smaller.
Thank you. It is indeed comforting to listen to scientific results confirming that I wasn’t so bad
in at least that respect. Thank you for the thought you put into writing that comment and then the writing of
it at all.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
Even in nuclear science there is the science of the mind.
Again thank you for sharing yours.
Bill
I wonder, Bill, if it is not all ‘science of the mind,’ since the scientific method
requires so much deep thought when considering the kind of experiments to perform
and the theory first generated that creates the need for experimentation in
the first place.
Great after dinner conversation, if you could get together much of a group
that could accommodate and understand such thought and discussion.
Science of the mind…
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt. I reading this, tears in my eyes, I’m dying there with you and your Marines, and I was not ever under fire. There are no words adequate to express what I feel about what you and your Devil Dogs went through. May God eventually give you internal peace.
I am okay this night William. Sitting up and writing back to you guys.
Kind of cathartic really. I don’t have war buddies in this area of the world.
In fact, my best friend indicated to me a few months back that ‘the smart guys didn’t go.’
He asked me if I thought that was true. And he knows my history of course. I thought about
what he said for a few seconds, and then agreed with him. He needed me to say that.
He needed for me to let him go. I’m not sorry that he chose not to serve when I chose the other
way. I am sorry that he can’t ever get comfortable with his decision. I can’t share what PTSD
is like with him but then only you guys really know about the depths of that.
thanks for caring and having tears in your eyes. Keating’s buried in a cemetery in Albuguerque and I visited
that although never his family. Just a stone with his name, dates and rank with unit. He was a 1st Lt at 22. I was 23. How’d he beat me
in rank at that age?
Semper fi,
Jim
“Finally, a war novel that is for the warriors without care what the hell anybody else says or thinks.” You said it all right there. While I signed up for the notices I find myself checking your home page several times a day and usually beat the notification.
I have to believe most of Keting’s demise was of his own doing. I believe the Gunney had his best intentions in taking the boots so they wouldn’t be out wandering around blind and causing themselves to die and maybe more as a result of their not having a clue about what was going on. You had your hands full doing the FO and can’t babysit while doing that. Just my river rat logic so take it for what it is worth.
I’m not sure that I meant to say what I said there, Peter, but I’ve been a bit more ‘strident’ lately. I think my old life
as a 2nd Lieutenant is effecting my comments and my direction. I have to be careful. This is the phenomenal world and we
real guys have to be very circumspect, careful and mostly in disguise. It is so much easier to get rid of the competition than
to spend all the time in learning and evidencing proficiency. Thanks for the very excellent explanation of true combat logic
in responding to Keating’s passing. To say I had my hands and mind full is an understatement, of course, and I know you know that.
Funny how we carve chunks of reality out of context like that and then labor at them over the years.
That was most kind and I thank you.
Semper fi,
Jim
Love reading all this, cannot begin to comprehend what you all went through, l am 54 and remember seeing bits and pieces on the news but not understanding what was going on, deepest admiration to all service men and women.
Thank you Lee, for loving the reading.
That’s so much trash on T.V. and in the movies.
I just watched the second
Reacher film with Tom Cruise playing this super macho role,
tough because after all he was a military policeman on
a base with special forces elements training there.
Reacher could not last five minutes with most everyone reading this comment page!
Tough, because he ‘policed’ guys who’d been in the shit.
Therefore he had to be tougher than the combat
veterans without being one.
The hope of so many macho ‘buffs’ back home.
Good luck on that one.
Better have a favorable movie script! Anyway, thanks for the nice note and supportive comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, first off thanks for serving and sorry you even had to go to Vietnam. What a page turner. I hadn’t consumed and wanted more of anything since In Cold Blood decades ago. Being far removed from any military action (my oldest brother got a draft number around the time of your story) it was fascinating. The tension built immediately and it’s all very hard to put down, even though I don’t know a lot of the references to most things marine. One question, do you have a steel-trap memory, write a lot of this down then or remembering and tweaking a bit?
Tweaking away, while I consult the original manuscript I wrote when getting out of the hospital in 1969. I have a tattered mess of a diary. I also have all the letters I wrote home every day I was there. I also have a whole collection of the 1:25,000 photo maps a vet gave me a few years back before he died. I don’t need to research much of the ballistics or the artillery or much else. It’s all still here, coming out in the story as you are reading it. Some things are changed for all kinds of reasons but by and large you are getting it as straight as I can write it. Never forget though that I am publishing this for sale eventually as a work of fiction. Thanks for your comment and support.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
I love your writing style and ability to capture the reader. You have certainly captured me.
My brother Terry was a junior intelligence officer assigned to Westmoreland’s group in Saigon from 1967-68. He and I co-authored a book together. Unfortunately, for him he does not have his letters from that period so it was laborious for him to piece together memories from that period of time.
I had more luck because my wife at the time saved ALL my letters from the days I worked in the Civil Rights Movement(1964-66).
Needless to say we still were able to team up and create a reasonable book describing our experiences, he in ‘Nam and me in the South.
https://www.amazon.com/Lake-Effect-Terry-Bill-Monnie/dp/1936615231/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485208353&sr=1-15&keywords=the+lake+effect
I expectantly await the posting of each of your episodes.
Regards,
Bill Monnie
Yes, Bill, I am only writing a short reply so I can put up the link and have some people go to your site.
Thank you for liking my work. I am going to the link and see what you are putting on here.
Thanks again for coming here, reading the work and saying something.
Semper fi,
Jim
I appreciated the link Bill Moonie, Purchased your Kindle version of LAKE EFFECT and will be looking forward to the read.
I also found and bought Paperback version of James Strauss’s published version of the Arch Patton Adventure, Down In the Vally.
I found it through Facebook at this link,
http://www.archpatton.com
Thanks for mentioning one of my other books Chuck.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I have written 3 books on Vietnam(Pertinent Vietnam war stories, re-education camps of vietnam and another not in amazon yet. My stories are shorter telling in general what the soldiers did. An Iowa friend was m60 gunner in a shau. Many stories about marines-particularly recon. in the unpublished book i have some incidents of enhanced interrogation being used. i was engineer at fsb nancy, just down from dmz, wrote weekly swampy sentinel paper. accompanied our co, who retired as two star. he had few faults.
I looked up your re-education book and will get it. I saw the single star review and
did not understand that at all. Thanks for the opportunity to view your work as well as my own.
Semper fi,
Jim
this moved me to tears.
I am not sure I want to say ‘thank you’ to that comment Richard. I did not mean to.
It was just what was and remains, as we pass through the years.
There were no tears for me over there.
The tears were one of the first things to go when my body shut off everything but what was needed
for survival, and believe me our bodies do this sort of thing all on their own….
leaving our conscious minds sometimes in wonder.
Thanks for the meaningful comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you, James Strauss for writing this series, and this story. Has to be brutal. Semper Fi! I’m buying @ least three of these when published. If they’d read, and would comprehend, I’d send one to each member of congress and POTUS.
Thank you Bill, but that reading and comprehension thing is not something
we’ve required from our leaders in some time.
In anthropology classes once I asked a professor, in our studies of how to
discover which of the anthropoids had self-awareness and which ones did not,
about designing or using
one of the effective tests on humans.
You would not believe how fast I was ushered out of that class!
Thanks for the support and your intent.
Semper fi,
Jim
At 0 dark thirty we got hit, just before day light, small arms. I was the Squad Leader I stood up to direct fire, almost at the same time I felt a sting in the back of my neck nothing excruciating, but a lot of blood. I thought I had gotten hit. After the NVA left the area I went to the Corpsman to have my neck checked, he laughed when he cleaned the neck, it was a damn leech bite. Leeches are bad in Ashua.
Yes, the lower you go into the valley the worse they become, like the snakes and the crocodiles,
not to mention bugs.
Shit, what a place. When I was in the hospital later I read about an expedition ship
that offered educational cruises up the Amazon.
The rooms all faced the shores going by and were air-conditioned and had huge windows and screens.
I laughed and decided that one day I would do that as an anthropology guide.
The ship was the MSS World Discoverer and I sailed on it as an anthropology guide in 1996.
I still have the National Geographic advertisement from Society Expeditions…
long since gone bankrupt.
Thanks for bringing back good memories and some of the humor from back there.
Semper fi,
Jim
I Want to comment. I almost Need to comment. But, I Can’t! “Nuff said.
You just did. The depth of your feelings and you as a man come right on through. You have to say nothing more to the men and women
who are stepping right with you back in that jungle and right here on these pages. Some of us have reached a point where we can actually
talk and write about the stuff that really happened, instead of those glossed over heroic tales. We were men among men, being men and not
robots, driven by internal needs and external wants. My lowest private, project 100,000 or not was as much of a man as I was and proved it over
and over again. I never go to a restaurant, hotel or any retail space and not take to the men and women in the trenches providing service to me.
They are my men from the company. The real fiber of my life…
Semper fi, brother, as we are right here with you.
Jim
Riveting narrative. Can’t get enough of it. I was an Army DG flying out of Chu Lai in 68. Mostly resupply to LZs and units in the field.
One of those guys. Yes, special guys. You have some stories of your own to tell, I am certain. Thanks for coming on here, quietly,
just to casually go back and peruse the old battlefields, so to speak. I’ll be you can see down on my battlefields with those eyes up there in
the sky, knowing better, but what can you say….
Thank you!
Semper fi,
Jim
I am numb, my wife ask why r you cleaning those old 45’s that got to me Semper Fi Marine
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that comment OB! The Hoppes #9 (was there ever a number ten or eight?) alone might have
helped to get you through. Cleaning the old .45s is an image that will remain with me through this day, as I write some more.
I will smile and then not, on and off, like maybe you intended.
Thank you for that.
Semper fi,
Jim
“I will smile and then not, on and off, like maybe you intended.” Yep. Just like that. Sadly, even my smiles are scary and everyone turns to look when I chuckle. Just making sure I guess. Respect.
Great the you excerpted that line Bill. I am always amazed at what guys like you
find to comment about and what catches your fancy. You must be quite the Dude in the world.
I have gotten so nobody at all is afraid of me and that is a good thing.
In the Nam they might have thought differently.
thanks for the comment and for being here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Bravery – scared too shitless not to act. Is that close? To do these things, you and your men, still amazes me. Getting Keating back home was pretty special. I’m breaking into my piggy bank and going to the book store. Thanks again for going, coming home (mostly) and for writing this.
Funny how some beliefs get buried so deeply inside of us that we are governed by them. I wonder if it is because of the innate intrinsic rightness of
them or because we bought someone else’s philosophy of living. I don’t know. The Marines do not leave Marines. The risk of losing more men was great, or even
myself. And it was night, still in the battle. Who would have known? And his body would still been there in the morning. But, we would not have known he was dead. And so on. The mental back and forth in my own mind goes on and on…like it has through the ages. Bravery? I don’t think so. Being there. Being right there right then with no place else to go and with the men God gave me. That was all there was. Keating hurt. Still hurts, as I know you can imagine.
Thanks for excerpting that part out and thinking well of me for it.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m always disappointed when I get to the end of each chapter. I can’t help but be mad at our government for putting our young men through that BS.
Could you give a run down on those of us that didn’t make it to VN what a marine company consisted of? How many men, platoons and officers? What weaponry was available? I suppose the biggest question is why was the company sent to that location? Thanks!
Bill, it was war and there are always bad feelings about every in the ‘rear with the gear’ decision-maker involved. Nobody likes to lose kids. Nobody.
As far as Table of organization companies in the Marine Corps at the time went. A company was generally made up of three platoons which had four squads each.
The four squads usually had four three man fire teams. There was an officer platoon commander and the a platoon sergeant, another sergeant and four squad leaders. Some companies in combat, like my own, had another platoon of mostly machine gunners. That was called a re-inforced company. Some re-inforced companies only had three platoons though. Structure was more ‘fluid’ in combat then it was back at home. Four companies, sometimes with a fifth ‘headquarters company’ made up a battalion. The company had 60mm mortars, some LAW anti-tank hand held rockets (that worked sporadically), six to eight M-79s, and M-60 machine guns. There. There are others out there with more detail. My company was there because that was the battalions area of operations. I don’t know more.
Thanks for your comment and for asking.
Semper fi,
Jim
Have a problem with the Captain’s .45. He only had 6 rounds in a clip that holds 7, you jack a round into the chamber, then remove the clip and take the first round off, leaving you with 5 rounds, and going into a hot area. I would bet your uncle (?) at that point would have said seven in the magazine and one in the barrel.
Casey reminds me of the major in “Heartbreak Ridge”, probably good at supply but a clusterf__k as an infantry officer. I cannot imagine any Marine officer I ever met staying in his hooch while his company was in contact with the enemy. To bad it was Keating and not him.
And for you, wish we could be drinking some of bitter, metallic tasting coffee from a canteen cup wishing a quiet toast to those who didn’t make it back. I suspect that about then you were a good representation of Poe’s line from “The Pit and the Pendul”,………I was sick, sick unto death, with that long, dark agony. I hope writing this is helping you as much as I think it is the people reading it.
About the .45 Joe, you are exactly correct. My mind is going! The seven would be six and then one in the chamber reduces mag to five.
Was it going then or now? My mind, I mean. The ability of officers to stay in holes is without question and I would have done so at every opportunity
if I could. Good sense. You cannot lead mean when you are dead and artillery flying about with RPSs and other wonderful combat toys are bizarrely
deadly in many different ways. I did not hold that against them and, with the Gunny doing his thing, they were not going far without boots. And, remember, when they were in their holes the enemy had not attacked yet. The attack was conjectural. All I ever figured out is that when I thought the NVA might attack they almost always did. There was no quit in those guys and gals. And they took horrid hits and kept on coming. in retrospect, I believe a lot of them would have made exdellent Marines! We prized the bottled water, even though it tasted like plastic from the containers, because the halazone pills they gave us to put in local water tasted worse than shit! Undrinkable unless you were literally dying of thirst. Your comment is so right on. Loved it. More please.
Semper fi, brother,
Jim
1911 tends to mis-feed when stacked too tight. I’d prefer extra mags and a practiced re-load.
If you need to reload a .45 in Combat, well, you probably brought the wrong weapon to do the job.
Like the swagger stick of old, the .45 was invented and given to officers for reasons that involved more
than the enemy attacking from the outside.
You are most correct in your conclusion, Bill, once again.
Semper fi,
Jim
Halazone tablets,yes nasty taste but the sounds Marines and Corpsmen made when out with E-tools and ass wipe made a believer out of me. I got use to the taste . Good job James . carry on Semper Fi
Yes, you did not drink the water from those old French wells or any of the streams
without the H shit. Or you got the shits terribly. Most learned the hard way but we could
not always get the bottled water and water weighs so fucking much to haul around.
thanks for the observation.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well worth the wait time which seem to be getting longer as I grow more impatient. I have to prop my phone up to read these cause when I’m back in the bracken my hands start to shake. Takes a minute to digest. Thanks James! Semper Fi
Do and don’t mean to take you back Jack. Part of this odyssey we are both on…as the story is a bit more than that to some of us.
Can we handle the going back, even though the place I’m taking everyone back to is not necessarily the one they left. Was Keating my fault?
Was Keating the Gunny’s fault? Was Keating Casey’s fault? Or was it just that fucking war and the screwed up way it was conducted, ended and then
never let go? I don’t know to this day.
Thanks for going along and being along, brother…
Semper Fi,
Jim
Keating was NOT your fault. You told him to stay in his hooch until you came back for him.
I saw it in his eyes, in his presentation. He was one of those good ones.
He wasn’t going to stay put and I knew it.
No, I did not kill him and I did not want him to die, whatsoever,
but somebody should have been there to bury him in the mud
like the Gunny did with me back in the beginning.
I know, I know, there was a helluva lot of shit going on but so
was there that first night when I ran.
Thank you for that.
I know I am forgiven that old sin but, like a lot of the guys writing
on here, that does not cut it when I wake up at three a.m. and there he is, staring at me in the dark.
Semper fi,
Jim
You said it yourself, James, the body reacts to survive as the mind thinks, “What the hell?”. The body panics and bolts. It happened to you and the Gunny took you down. It happened to Keating, who ran the wrong way too. I blame that one on the enemy. It was just a football bounce, one landed in play, one bounced out.
Very accurate and apt description of events. Very reasonable conclusion too.
Easier to understand than to accommodate through life though.
Thank you for that.
Semper fi,
Jim
Stunning!
One word. But what a word! Thank you so much for that compliment. I will keep on keeping on, and people like you
make sure that happens. Finally, a war novel that is for the warriors without care what the hell anybody else says or thinks.
A novel I could read. That I am writing it surprises me about as much as anyone. That you like it so much surprises me even more.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim I am made to wonder how the men who did what you did and lived long enough to do it for a year or more.
There were a lot of wars fought in the big war. There are guys on here who went through long
periods of boredom. There are many guys on here who never left the rear area. Remember that only about 20% actually
went to the field and experience real combat. So, this is just my jumbled mess of a story about one lucky but unlucky lieutenant.
thanks for writing and caring.
Semper fi,
Jim