I sat in my hooch, waiting for the sound of choppers distant in the air. I thought about all of what had gone before, since I’d arrived. It felt terrible to know I would have to sit and wait for orders to move from Hill 110, which we would not be taking, in direct violation of orders. My very first orders in combat. My only decision was to go along. To stay alive. The platoon commanders did not gather in front of me like they had to give me the message.
The Gunny could have done that quite easily. No, they’d met in the mud right in front of me to send me a different message. Don’t screw with them or get dead. Go along to get along and even then get dead. And then there was the enemy. I had yet to review our own dead or even the wounded. I felt that the Gunny was waiting for my maturation, my coming of age, my ability to handle even more bad news. I had to admit he was right. I wasn’t ready for more bad news. I was scrunched backed into my poncho cover, like it was my blanket at my parents’ place at home. And I could no more stay there than I had been able to in that home. I knew I was supposed to review the carnage I’d called in on the enemy. I knew there was a vital, hard and tough enemy too. How could the Company not be united to fight that enemy? I didn’t know. I wasn’t going out to count the dead or try to put body parts together. I had no interest whatsoever.
Thanks,Jim,for telling the story as it was, as difficult as that must have been.
I’m a former Marine, no combat, I loved the Corps and its traditions. I had a first cousin killed on Guam – got the Silver Star – inspired me to join just after Korea. I wasn’t in Nam, was out by then, it’s difficult for me to relate to the kind of situations you wrote about so well. Did the Corps learn from those hard lessons of VN? Did it come away better for it? I’d like to think so. I don’t know that I could have made it thru what you did as I’ve found myself being in your place as I read. All the best to you….Semper Fi
Hell Ron.I just got lucky, because if I hadn’t overheard what Jurgens was planning I would now be long dead!
I am also never quite sure I really made it! When I went to the Vietnam Memorial years ago I looked up my own name in the index.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
When I was in TBS in ’69 we would routinely have “guest lecturers” come in to address our class (India Company/9/69). I don’t remember most of the talks, but one stands out very distinctly. We were near the end of training there and were up to the point of “Company Tactics”, having started with “Fire Team” and worked up the chain. This article of yours today brings it back from two directions: the helo resupply and your wish to go back to TBS and teach what you had learned in Nam. The speaker that day was an air-dale Captain who had served two tours. He was angry. At us. At TBS. At almost everything, it seemed. His angst stemmed from the loss of several of his pilot friends who had been killed doing their job. His analysis of their loss placed the blame primarily on the platoon leaders of the units they were supporting on the ground. This was an area we lieutenants were currently training in and he blasted us all for our seemingly lackadaisical absorption of this knowledge. He was close enough to being out of control that the Company Commander of our class walked up to the podium to stand beside him. He was literally shaking with rage, and loss, and things I won’t ever know about. Even tho it’s been almost 50 years, I can recall that more clearly than anything else about TBS.
Your story is riveting. You’re never going to admit it, but you were/are some special breed. I keep repeating to myself as I read all this, “He faced this all from DAY ONE!” I shrink inside thinking about how I would have/have not handled what you experienced. I think I know how hard it is for you to recollect and write this, but please keep at it.
Semper Fi,
Farmer John
Your sharing the experience from the TBS lecture was enlightening. I now realized how many divergent opinions were generated from this action within the services.
Those on ground could be angry at Air for “mistakes” and as you mentioned, the opposite.
I agree with you, James Strauss is sharing powerful stuff…..
I wonder, in reading what you wrote here Farmer John, whether I would have been capable of talking straight to the young officers in training
at Quantico back then. Would I have been able to tell the truth? Would I have been mightily influenced by a training cadre that likely knew but thought better of telling those going to Vietnam? Hard to say. And if I’d gone public, so to speak, what would have happened to me? I was still in the Corps.
Even now, I am sure that there are those who might see my writing as anti-Marine Corps or unpatriotic. It is neither but that could be my own perspective doing the talking, or writing, about the issue. Thanks for your compliments and the reading. I will continue on….
Semper fi,
Jim
We, the Army, were taught to not wear deodorant as it gave you away in the dark and/or jungle if the enemy was close. The Yards and many Viets were especially adept at moving day or night when they wanted to, if thy didn’t want to be seen, you usually didn’t. As an aside, when I went back to Nam in ’94 I met and talked several times, to a NVA officer that I had fought in the fall of ’68. He told me several interesting things but 2 of them you might be most interested in were that the NVA/VC lost 3 times as many people as our big brass thought and that the NVA/VC rank and file troops were often doped up before being sent to attack us. So much for “devotion to duty” that many people thought the communists had. I had suspected the 1st and knew the second since we had captured several enemy troops that had been spaced out. That’s one of the reasons their attacks were so inflexible, they were not able to adapt to changes.
Charles. There were comments about not wearing deodorant back in my units in Vietnam
as well. Out there in the jungle though it seemed ridiculous simply because they knew where
we were all the time from the radios blaring, the cigarettes always being smoked
and local support which turned us in all along the way. Fighting a war where almost
everyone local is somehow opposed to you being there is damned near impossible, as we
keep proving over and over again. Thanks for your comments and your own service over there.
Semper fi,
Jim
I still do not know what The V.N. War was for…or what you were fighting for, and did WE win…..if so ..What?….So many Lives Lost……So Many Troubled Soldiers sent home, …with PTSD. Who wouldn’t have PTSD, if you did not know what you were fighting for, or if You Won or Lost? I guess if you come home alive you Won… if not you Lost. Tough times for Young Kids. Still Tough Times, for So many who lost Loved ones in that….trumped up War !
Looking forward to next chapter
It was one messed up war, and the more I learn about it the more I se e the wait like 57,000 or so and there family suffering
I know that all war is fucked up, but this was so screwed up it’s amazing any of us returned. We were just a bunch of kids with guns sat down in the middle of a country of people who wanted to kill us, if they didn’t often times our own would. This mans story rings so true and brought back many memories most of us have tried to forget…No one who wasn’t there can understand…No one really cares either..
Jerry. So true. Your analysis is spot on. We were such kids and had not clue going in. And so many died that way.
You wither got lucky our you didn’t. No Rambo junk. And when you came home and they didn’t like your long hair
or whatever you didn’t get to say boo much less kill them for it!
Semper fi,
Jim
A lot of us cared . I’m from mid state PA . 6 of us enlisted because of our heros . You guys who fought in Vietnam . I being the only true Hard ass joined the corp ! Kidding . But our fathers fought in WWII taught in to have respect for you guys doing a shitty job in a shitty place . This my way of saying thank you for that and some of us still care
Thank you David. I am torn in writing the story because it is not my
attention to hurt the Marine Corps or U.S. leadership in the telling.
There was, and remains, little understanding among combat leaders remote from
such conflicts about the way it really is or was. There was no feedback
from combat to training back then and I am not sure about now. I wanted to
come home, get out of the hospital and go to Quantico to teach but the
leadership would have none of that at the time. Thanks for the thanks and the care!
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks for posting these. I spent a year there in the same areas you have talked about. I was a 0311 grunt, fire team leader, squad leader and most of the tour point man. I was wounded several times but managed to survive it all. I never saw a company with such bad discipline as you describe but do not doubt that one existed. Your stories have stirred so many memories of things that happened over there. I am glad that you chose to publish these for people to read and eagerly await the posting of each new one. Thanks again.. Semper Fi
Thanks Jack, Sorry i did not respond sooner.
Your comment slipped through the cracks