I made my way back to the Gunny. The Corpsman lay still, breathing shallowly with a poncho cover wrapped around him. The poncho covers served as our blankets, since they easily separated from the rubber liner. The air mattresses most everyone had, like mine, were filled with holes. They served as immediate ground cover for the hooches thrown up inside the perimeter every night.
“Morphine?” I asked the Gunny.
He briefly turned to stare at me, as he readied the other wounded Marine for storage until the morning’s medevac. The wounded FNG to be stored for care by the two remaining corpsmen and the other body bag moved to a nearby clearing to wait. The morphine addicted Corpsman finally was receiving morphine for the purpose it was intended instead of for escape, I thought, although he was in fact escaping. The corpsmen worked, ignoring my presence. I wondered if there’d be another corpsman on the morning chopper to replace the one we’d lost.
I retreated back toward the area not far from where I’d called in the artillery. There had been no more incoming small arms fire. My mind replayed the cracks the weapons made when they’d gone off outside the perimeter. The Gunny was accurate. Not sixteens or AKs. Different. Like the choppers were different. You didn’t have to see the chopper to know what it was. Even the Huey Cobra attack helicopters sounded distinctly different from the supply ones.
Stevens and Nguyen had set up the hooches, mine too. I couldn’t remember dropping my pack. In officer candidate school and then the basic school I’d never worked in the field with enlisted men. The work, and obvious care for me the small team exhibited, kept me in a state of disconcerted surprise.
C Rations Ham and Mother……..
I pulled out a box of Ham and Mothers, as Fusner called the particular B-2 Meal. “Combat, Individual” was printed on the box. I checked inside and found a pack of sugar and one of cream. I’d thought the boxes gone through but maybe I was wrong, I thought. And then I thought of what might have been done to the food, given that the company had such little regard for officers and absolutely no fear of killing them. I shrugged, reading the little cream container. There was nothing to read out in combat conditions. I was so used to reading. In spite of having no time to do anything but be afraid, fight the awful conditions and try to survive, I missed reading. The package said that the four grams of powdered cream inside was made by Sanna Dairies in Madison, Wisconsin. For some reason I felt like visiting the company if I ever got back to the world.
This is outstanding James.
Thank you Al for the short, but meaningful reply. I shell endeavor to continue in the same
vein. Thanks for the reading and letting me know you like it too.
Semper fi,
Jim
I started Reading This…
and, could not stop, even though The Detroit Tigers are Playing, and made some kind of Very Good Play. My Ron, would have Loved Your Account.
He was an avid Reader, and He read everything, especially War, and Cowboy things. He could not serve in The Military as He had several Problems from being in a Motorcycle Accident when he was 14.
He always felt like He should have served His Country, and ALWAYS supported The Military in any way that He could….
He would have Loved reading Your Accounts, and He always read everything in The Geneva Shore Reports…
I am so sorry The Two of You, never got to meet…
The only thing better than Reading YOUR STUFF, would have been meeting you and Having You tell it all to Him in Person…
Thanks for All you have done Jim… and, Thanks for writing about, so much, so many will not even talk about. Very Real….
to the point of SCARY !!!
I read “C” labels too. Beef slices, Blue Star Foods, Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Scrambled Eggs and Ham from some company in Spartanburg,SC.
The Cinderella Peanut butter could be used as stereo if you didn’t mind using some mosquito repellent on it.
Funny how the little things mattered so much in the field over there.
Thanks Chuck for the comments. I craved anything and everything from
home, as I am sure that you did. The difference between where I had been
and the reality of what I was in was just overwhelming. I thank god every
morning when I do not wake up back there, in that, with all that and no
way out except in a bag.
Semper fi,
Jim
Chuck, You mentioned the Cinderella Peanut Butter in the C-Rats. The Cinderella plant was located in my home town of Dawson, Ga (SW Ga). I still have the Dawson News Spcial Edition telling about how the plant wa being built in 1942 to provide peanut butter for the armed forces. One of my Grand-Uncles ws the yard foreman of Stevens Industries (the parent company) for over 40 years. When I was in Boy Scouts he would ocasionally bring a bag of those little cans by my Grandparents grocry store for me to take on camping trips. A few years ago Cargill bought out the local owners and they ceased production and tore the old building down. But all of us that grew up in the small town of Dawson still talk about how delicious the smell of roasting peanuts was as it drifted literally all over town on the days they were roasting. Sorry to be longwinded about it but thought you might be interested since you mentioned them. I remember hearing some of the older boys who served durng Vietnam coming home and talking about how just finding that little tin of penut butter made in our hometown lifted their spirits way out of prprtion t what it atually was because it was from HOME. Many of their relatives actually worked in the plant. If you’re interested and ever in this area I’d be happy to show you where it all was. Semper Fi Ron
If I had a bucket list….which I don’t. But I am putting in my notes right this minute to come to Dawson, Georgia to see where the old plant was. Some things just seem like the right think to do when you get older and nobody else on earth would understand. I don’t want to go back to Vietnam or revisit the memorial in D.C. But it would be so cool to meet somebody like you and walk the old grounds and think about the best peanut butter I ever ate on this earth!
As a 19 year old Seabee in Danang NSA 66-67 my 18 year old wife was back home packing C Rats at Boothe packing Co. in Utah
Wow, you were married at 19 and then off over there. Like me at 23.
Lots of us. I think the average age in the Nam was something like 19 too.
Thanks for the comment and thank your wife, if you still have her for my Ham and Mothers!
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for your response and thank you for your excellent story. My wife and I celebrated our 51st anniversary last Tuesday.
Wow, I love it. My 50th coming up next January.
She ‘got you through,’ I’ll bet!
Thanks for coming on here and writing real stuff about your own life
and about the story. I am doing my best.
I said all along that it was only believable to the guys in the zone but
some critics want to hold my feet to the fire about it…which is okay and expected.
Your wife is real, I’ll bet!
Thanks,
Semper fi,
Jim
Made me feel uneasy, as I know you were …. I wonder how many were killed by Friendly Fire… WE…never think of Our Guys, killing Our Guys ……….!!!SCARY !!!
Thank you Kay. I know you are moved because of that big heart that beats inside your chest. Thank you for that and for understanding.
Many will disagree, as time goes by, because it is just too raw, too unheroic and to unfair. But I’m going to keep on until I can’t anymore.
Love,
Jim
Got very involved reading this Viet Namm account.
SGT MATTHEW HALL
VIET NAM Oct 67-Oct 69
Thank you for the comment Matt. It was guys like you who gave a lot
of us any chance at all. Non coms are so under-rated but without
them none of it can work. My Gunny saved my life, time after time.
You are appreciated here, my friend!
Semper fi,
Jim
Why were these Marines conspiring to kill officers? It’s not quite clear to me.
Enjoying this read. My grandad served in Viet Nam.
I do believe it is something not exclusive to the Marine Corps or any other combat service. I think it’s been going on since
combat began! The officers are expected to accomplish the mission, as far as upper leadership is concerned, but on the ground
officers are expected to keep their men alive. Not a good spot to be stuck in the middle of because those two things are anything but
congruent. Thanks for asking the question and bothering to write.
Semper fi,
Jim