Captain Carruthers settled into one side of my cleft, which wasn’t really wide enough to have two sides, but he wedged himself in anyway. There were clefts like my own up and down under the folded rock and he could, with his rank, have stayed in any one of them, but I understood. He wanted to be alone and somewhere else on the planet. Anywhere else on the planet. But he was in the A Shau, and death was lurking everywhere, with living bodies falling to become dead ones all the time. Captain Carruthers didn’t want to be alone, and he wasn’t alone inside my cleft. I was wedged deep, where the rock roof slanted down into the dry river sand. Fusner was pushed inside the opening just above me, while Nguyen lay next to him. Piper and his charge, the remainder of my scout team, were half exposed to the outside, just inside the outer lip of the opening. Sardines could not have been fit closer inside one of those roll key cans they came in than we were, and that’s only when we could get a can in a care package, which was almost never.
“When’s resupply coming in?” Carruthers asked, working to drop his pack and get into it with almost no maneuvering room.
“Fusner will alert us when its five minutes out, sir,” I replied.
“You call the fire mission in at that point?” Carruthers continued.
I didn’t really want to engage in a conversation with regard to what I was about to do but saw no point in alienating the man further. I just wanted to write another letter home about the wonders of the river sand, the beauty of the metamorphic rock, and how it all had come to form the wonder of the A Shau Valley.
“Timing is everything on this one,” I said, speaking slowly, working out the plan once more in my own head, as I delivered it to him. “It’ll take the choppers about ten minutes, or a bit less, to drop their loads. It’ll take another ten to get the stuff from the exposed landing zone to near where we are undercover. That’s almost twenty minutes wherein the NVA have to be kept down. The zone fire will cover about half of that, and I’m depending on the remaining Ontos flechette ammunition to hold them for the second ten. The Cobras will not stay on station after that and they have no night vision capability that might help for air to ground operations. After that, we’ve got the M-60s, M-79s, sixteens, and grenades. That’s the plan. If the barrage starts early then the choppers will wave off because of encountering a hot L.Z.”
“So,” Carruthers replied, stopping his actions in getting whatever he was trying to get out of his pack, “As the ranking officer between our companies, I’ll likely be held responsible if you ‘accidentally’ shoot our own helicopters down.”
“There’s no such thing as a ‘ranking officer between companies’ down here, or anywhere else in the military,” I responded, shaking my head in the near dark at the bottom of our cave.
I sighed deeply in frustration, but I understood what he was saying. He was still worried about combat in the A Shau might have on his career after we got back home.
“You haven’t gotten it yet,” I grated out. “That’s why you have the nickname you do. The Marines give you a nickname to fit, and they’re pretty good at it.”
“They call you Junior,” Carruthers shot back. “How’s that accurate in any way? Seems to me like ‘Little Attila, or Count Dracula’ might fit better, and what is my nickname. I didn’t even know I had one?”
“They call me Junior because that’s what I was,” I replied. “I was a kid. I didn’t know anything but I thought I did, just like a teenager. So, they named me Junior, and it stuck.”
“You shouldn’t let them call you that,” Carruthers said, althoughthe tone of his voice was more sympathetic than anything else.
“A lot of dead Marine officers have told me that,” I said, the words coming out fast and hard, but my voice so low that I hoped the others wouldn’t hear.
The cleft fell into a dark silence until I got Jurgen’s flashlight out and turned it on. I quickly muffled the bright light with my other hand. What I really wanted was a pinch of Composition B to make some coffee but the stuff burned so hot that it would eat all the air we had.
“What’s my nickname,” Carruthers asked, going back to rummaging in his pack now that there was some limited light.
“Captain Crud,” I said, wanting to smile but somehow not being able to.
His comments about Attila and Dracula had hurt, even though I knew he probably meant them as funny. The fire mission weighed upon me, and I wondered briefly about what or who I was willing to sacrifice to save my own life.
“What?” Carruthers said, stopping dead in his rummaging. “How in hell does that fit me? Crud. I’m the last thing from being cruddy,” he argued.
“You can’t complain about a nickname or you just burn it in,” I replied. “When I saw you scale down that cliff wall the Marines around me saw the same thing. You looked like Boy Wonder on a scout outing in your starched and pressed utility uniform. Down below, we were just a mass of dirt-encrusted urchins compared to you. Hence the name.”
“Yeah, but how am I supposed to let them call me that to my face?” Carruthers complained.
“That’s up to you,” I said. “An old movie called Hondo had it down about that. John Wayne said to another guy who was threatening his dog, which was really a wolf: ‘A man’s got to do what he thinks is best.’”
“I don’t like it,” Carruthers continued, but I physically turned to face the bottom crease of the wall next to me.
I pulled out some damp folded stationery and muffled the light so I could write home again. I doubted the Marines would call Carruthers ‘Captain Crud’ to his face. There was quite a distance between how they felt and regarded second lieutenants compared to captains. Whatever they did, however, it wasn’t going to be my problem unless, or until, Carruthers got himself killed.
“I don’t much care for it either, sir,” I replied offhandedly, trying to concentrate on the letter I was writing.
“Why don’t you ask them to stop calling you Junior, then?” Carruthers continued.
“I meant that I don’t much like your nickname, I’m okay with mine, sir,” I replied, trying to ignore the man.
The weight of the fire mission was crushing down on me. I didn’t want to call it in, then wait, tucked deep into my hiding hole, while the air guys flying in to help us took the very real chance of being blown right out of the air because of what I ordered. I wished that I could have gone on the patrol to get the supplies with Jurgens, but I knew that would have been a bad decision. I had to survive to command the unit and the Gunny had to survive with me. I wondered where he was holed up, waiting like the rest of us. Any second Fusner was going to announce that the choppers were dropping and hand me the arty net handset. Meanwhile, I had to listen to the captain being concerned about his future career and how awful his nickname was. The man had taken fire coming down the face of that cliff with his men, so he wasn’t exactly an FNG, but still, I felt resentment.
“I’m sorry,” Carruthers whispered to me, leaning over until he was no more than a few inches from me. “I’m sorry. I can’t stop talking. I’ve never received artillery before. Will we make it in here? I think I’d rather be out there. I don’t like small spaces.”
I stopped writing, slowly folded my uncompleted letter up, and place it and my pen back into my thigh pocket. I was reminded of my other thigh pocket, the one with my resupplied morphine. I hadn’t had to administer any of that for many days and nights, but the thought disturbed me even more than the fact that Captain Carruthers seemed to be coming apart at the seams right beside me. I turned over to confront him, our faces only inches apart.
“What you’re going to do, sir is exactly what I tell you,” I said, very low and quietly, but also as forcefully as I could.
There was no way I could let Carruthers come apart inside the small cleft we were all trapped in. Not under the circumstances.
“You can talk all you want, but you’re not going anywhere until this is over or you’ll risk the lives of everyone here getting out, and then you’ll likely be blown apart out there and I’ll have to explain that.”
“I outrank you, lieutenant.” Carruthers hissed back, which made me feel better.
He was showing anger and spine. There might be hope in getting through the mess we were all in after all.
I didn’t answer, instead I reached down with my right hand, unsnapping my holster, putting my hand on the butt of my .45 and clicking the safety off. Any murmuring sound from the others in the cleft stopped. There was no missing the sound of that distinctive click. I laid next to the captain, our eyes visible to one another because of the flashlight I’d left on next to my left side.
“Jesus,” Carruthers finally breathed out. “Is that it, down here in this horrid valley? Everything is about death, dismemberment or the threat of either or both.”
I wanted to say sorry to the man, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wasn’t kidding and he had to know that, just as I had to reinforce myself to know that. I liked the man, as I had some of the officers that had come before him, but I’d sacrifice him as quickly and harshly as I was about to possibly sacrifice some helicopter personnel. The company lived or the company died, and a whole lot of that responsibility for that had fallen on my shoulders, with almost none of it being the kind that I was trained to expect or be able to handle.
The captain had made no move for his own weapon and, other than venting some emotion of exasperation about the conditions we were in, hadn’t come totally unglued, as I’d feared. I clicked the safety back on just as Fusner said the words “fire mission,” and pushed the handset down into my left shoulder.
I called in the mission with a good bit of fear and trepidation. The Army firebase had been around for a while, and they weren’t dummies running it at the battery’s fire direction center, which meant they kept a pretty good record of what was going on in their fields of fire. They accepted the previously planned and prepared zone fire mission I activated without comment. If they knew about the choppers landing further up the valley they weren’t saying anything, and they weren’t checking the fire, which is what I feared most. Without the artillery barrage bombarding the general region, the resupply and pick up of our dead was doomed to costly failure. Under a barrage of that magnitude nobody in their right mind, no matter how courageous, moved through the area working to deliver small arms fire. That included the NVA soldiers. The air above us was about to be filled with chunks of hot metal screaming through the jungle, and every open area, at twenty-two thousand feet per second.
“The 46 is down,” Fusner said, obviously switching his radio frequency quickly from the arty to the combat net as quickly as he could.
I breathed in and out deeply. The choppers had to be down. If they weren’t down they wouldn’t land because of the exploding artillery below. If the rounds impacting weren’t too close, they’d stay down rather than risk getting hit by one flying through the air. If the rounds came too close they’d risk it and lift off. If they lifted off then we lost the supplies and our Marine brethren would never make it back home. I had no control over how the red bag 175s would spread themselves throughout the southern valley area we were inside. The mission was over for us waiting in our clefts even before the words “shot over,” came through Fusner’s tinny PRICK 25 speaker. Only the results of that mission would come in over time.
I scrunched myself into a ball and huddled against the hard rock surface to my front. I waited for the ‘splash’ alert. When it came, I held my breath through the five seconds, counting them off, before the first giant explosions would take place. I waited. It took a bit longer. The explosive concussions had to travel at the speed of sound to get to our cleft. But when they came they came with withering blasts of compressed air, from nearby shock waves, and then cindered rock chunks and dust shaken from the roof of our small hideaway. I rolled a bit and the flashlight ominously went out. The explosions and the shocks from them continued to reverberate, closer and then further away. I feared for Piper up near the lip of the cleft opening because the shock waves seemed so strong, even way down near the bottom of the cleft where I huddled.
Nothing was said throughout the barrage. Time stopped, punctuated only with the time indicators of more explosions going off. I knew the firebase was firing just about all the inventory it had. If one of those rounds hit one of the choppers then I would never recover, even if I lived. I would never be forgiven by the battery or the air elements supporting us, or by myself. I wanted a drink of water, and to wash the awful dust from my face, but there was no way I was going to unclench my body. I’d become a rounded knot of wood, the tension so tight that when I tried to unclench one of my hands it wouldn’t do anything. I realized I was breathing, but very gently. I tried to breathe harder and succeeded. I concentrated on my breathing.
And then it was over. No more sounds came in through the opening of the cleft. I won control of my body functions again. I unclenched my midsection, turned onto my stomach, and began to crawl up past Fusner.
“Butcher’s bill?” I asked as I passed. Fusner knew the phrase, as I’d used it before. I was a fan of old sailing novels about the British Navy in the seventeen hundreds.
Butcher’s bill was the term the nautical crews had used for those killed or wounded in a combat action at sea.
“Nothing yet, sir,” Fusner whispered back, his voice so low I could barely hear him. I realized it wasn’t him. The concussion waves had penetrated all the way into the cleft, and my hearing was damaged. I knew I wouldn’t have to ask Fusner again, either. He’d keep his ear stuck to the radio until he knew what had happened, and then get the information to me as fast as he could.
I reached the lip of the cleft. Nobody was visibly hurt that I could tell, although with my hearing not quite right I had to depend on my eyes. Darkness wasn’t quite over the battlefield when I looked out.
“Jesus Christ, that was something,” a voice, filled with awe, came from behind me.
I turned my head and was immediately impressed. It was Carruthers.
“My first artillery barrage,” Carruthers said.
The man had just gone through a brutal barrage that could have easily killed us all if a round had landed too close to the lip of the cleft, and the captain wasn’t in the least bit afraid. He was like he’d been coming down the cliff. I was afraid, although my hands no longer shook when that happened. I didn’t feel the less for being afraid, and I felt glad to have the captain at my side.
“What now?” Carruthers asked.
“The Ontos,” I replied, glancing back at Fusner, who gave me just a brief shake of his head. Nothing yet, that meant.
I crawled out of the cleft and was moving toward the berm that heaped up between the cleft opening the flat muddy stretch that ran out from it to arrive at the always flooded and rushing waters of the Bong Song river. I was immediately grabbed roughly and pulled to the side.
“Fire in the hole, Junior,” the Gunny’s hot breath and fierce hiss beat into my deadened right ear.
I rolled with the Gunny, hoping the captain hadn’t followed me all the way out. There was no warning when the Ontos, sitting just on the other side of the berm, let off a 106 mm round. The whoosh penetrated my already damaged eardrums and I felt the hot fiery blast of the back-blast blow by me on the left. I’d been about to crawl right into that killing blast when the Gunny had come along and saved me again.
The Gunny didn’t stay. I was alone on my stomach trying to recover my wits until Nguyen pulled me close to his side, his left arm wound around my right.
“Back,” he said, although I wasn’t quite certain I was hearing the word right.
I shuffled backward and down from the berm. I’d never gotten close enough to the Ontos to see it but my presence was obviously not needed. The Ontos was firing as had been planned. I had no idea how many rounds we had but whatever it was the limited supply would have to do.
With Nguyen’s help, I made it back into the cleft. Carruthers lay on the inner edge, looking out, impressing me again. He’d had the good sense to remain inside. I’d only gone out to make sure the Ontos did its job. There was no need for any command presence inside the torn jungle, where it was fast becoming night.
I moved downward back into the cleft, hoping my flashlight was where I’d left it. Trying to find the damn thing in the very bottom of the wedge that formed the pinched off end of the cleft might be difficult since the light was almost gone.
Fusner caught me by my left shoulder, as I tried to get by, just as the Gunny came sliding in along my other side.
“The 46 got hit,” Fusner said.
My breath jerked inward. The CH 46? The big loaded supply chopper? With it gone, that meant we’d taken terrible losses, including the supplies.
“Not by artillery,” the Gunny said, speaking into my right ear, so close I could feel his breath. “They lost the hydraulics to small arms, or whatever. They pulled out of the landing zone and pickled their load, but we didn’t get our Marines out. They said they’d be back in the morning to pick up the bodies and the rest of their crew. The skipper said they’d come in force, whatever the hell that means.”
I could breathe again. But one thing he’d said caught my full attention.
“Their crew?” I asked, “what crew?”
“They lost their hydraulics, sir,” Fusner started, but was interrupted by the Gunny.
“They couldn’t lift much at all, so they left the crew, except for the pilot and his XO.”
“How many?” I asked, wondering what the hell we were supposed to do with men who were only used to flying aircraft and fighting from the air. The ground was another war entirely. “And, what rank?”
All I needed was another captain who wasn’t a captain at all, like the one I had already. I looked behind me to make sure Carruthers was there, however, and felt better in seeing him waiting patiently to get down deeper into the cleft past our blocking bodies.
The Ontos fired again, its blasting hot air blowing directly into the opening to the cleft. Dust and jungle debris blew around the inside. Suddenly, I was hoping the little-armored vehicle wasn’t carrying as many rounds as I’d thought earlier. But it was firing, and the supplies were being rushed to our position without reported casualties.
The plan had succeeded, with some caveats that I hoped we could live with.
“Three Marines,” the Gunny replied when he could talk again. I knew from the way he said Marines that the men were enlisted, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I want to put them in the cleft to the north with me, but they won’t all fit,” the Gunny said. “Your scout team can guard the entrance off to the side of the Ontos back blast, which won’t go on all night, although the NVA are going to figure all this out and be pissed as hell, once again. These air-dales aren’t ready for what’s down here.
“You take the staff sergeant and I’ll take the other two,” the Gunny continued, not bothering to make the sentence into a question. I caught something in the tone or inflection of his voice when he spoke though.
“Why the Staff over here?” I asked, not certain why I was bothering to ask.
I couldn’t tell for certain, but I thought the Gunny was smiling slightly when he replied.
“The Staff Sergeant carries a Thompson,” he said, before crawling out of the hole, and then rolling to immediately away to avoid any backblast from the Ontos.
Do you or have you ever thought of settling up a table in the vendor area of the VHPA (Vietnam helicopter pilots Association) I know you have other pilot admirers from reading the letters. This year it is in Kansas City. I would love to meet and greet you in person 😇🚁
Checking into it. It appears that the reunion is pretty big and there will be a lot of vets there.
I wonder if I could secure some sort of speaking role. I have my books, which have a lot of complimentary chopper stuff in them
but I’m not certain about the likelihood that they want to hear from a real ground combat guy…
Semper fi,
Jim
The Staff is going to get his creased uniform it’s ring of fire
Yes, indeed….and thanks for the comment JW…
Semper fi,
Jim
I am back on trail again, was hard for me to start reading this again. I was not sure if the reading would be healing, still not sure. I am a special case. Maybe when this is all done iI will come over have lunch and have you sign my three books. TY Jim Don
You will be most welcome Don and thanks for telling the inside truth about your own feelings on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
All are talkin bout bonus. Chapter
I feel left out. Only got 1
Don’t know what you are saying? Everyone gets the same stuff on the site.
Semper fi,
Jim
Oh Jimmy boy the pipes the pipes are playing across the glen and round the mountainside
‘‘Tis u ‘‘tis you
Semper Fi my Brother
Danny Boy…sort of those lyrics. But so applicable.
Thanks for that Bryant…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another gripping chapter LT. Keep them coming, Ron Harwood, grunt, ‘70-‘71
I am hard at writing the next segment Ron, with your help, which this kind of comment gives me.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim sorry its taken so long to get back to you. In napa with judie, visiting her sister an brother.Her brother is on hospice breathing by a machine her sister has the beginning of dementia.Viet NAM was hell old age sucks.We have been in calif.for the last couple of weeks and heading back to misssouri in the morning.We need to get back so jude can go to KC to get her treatment that saves her kidney.Im sorry I didn’t get up to Lake Geneva this last summer to see you , maybe this coming summer.Were all in our 70s and 80s so we don’t have a bitch God has been very mercifull to our family.We cant change the past but we do have the obligation to share the love to all that cross our path. Semper FI Omer
How wonderful to hear from you Omer. You stay with me even when you are not there!
Thanks for checking in and I wait to hear more from you…
Semper fi,
Jim
“working not to drop his pack. . .’
I am a little slow on the read, some health issues. Great chapter. Hungering for more.
Thanks Robert, and take your time. I am not going anywhere.
Thanks for the support and the reading…
Semper fi,
Jim
Damn LT after reading this I had to go smoke a cigarette to settle my nerves!! I wasn’t even there I’m just reading about it!! When Fusner said a 46 got hit I cringed inside! I have said it before that your war wasn’t my war, but reading this story I can feel the mud and leeches. I can hear the blasts and smell the burnt powder. Some of my friends call me crazy for being a Recon Corpsman but after reading this I don’t think I was the crazy one!! After reading this I hate the A Shau and I wasn’t even there. I was on the mountain tops in the Thoung Duc area. All I can say is Semper Fi LT. I await the next chapter with mixed feelings (anticipation and dread). You have a gift my friend
Thank you so very much for that great personally written compliment and more. Your own feelings and experience are all
folded into that complex comment and get the nuance of all of it. Thanks for laying it out here for everyone to see and participate in…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks Terry, much appreciate the personal comment, with so much of you in it. I think the guys and gals on here love reading about the readers as well as the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
DAMN LT after I finished reading this chapter I had to go smoke and settle my nerves!! I wasn’t even there I’m just reading about it!! I’ve said it before my war was entirely different than your war, but reading this story I can feel the mud and the leeches, I can smell the burnt powder and feel the blasts. My friends tell me I’m the crazy one for being a Recon Corpsman but reading what you went through, I’m pretty sure I’m not the crazy one. Semper Fi LT! I await the next chapter with baited breath.
Thanks Terry….gotcha on that…
Semper fi,
Jim
Seems that I keep answering the same comment….but that is computers today…smarter than we are until they occasionally prove they are not.
Semper fi,
Jim
Aha! We meet the Thompson carrying Staff again! Great installment!
Yes, Bob, funny how it all works in the real world. Circles within circles within circles…
Semper fi,
Jim
This time it was my fault and not the computer!! You know the loose nut behind the computer.
Yes, I am very aware of that creature….
Semper fi,
Jim
When Gunny said the Staff Sgt had a Thompson, the first thing that popped into my head was the guy you called “Cowboy” and it appears it was right. I always wondered what happened to him.
As always, thanks for sharing so much.
Thanks for the input.
The “Thompson” man was Macho Man (Waldo Vanelli)
Met him in some of the early deliveries.
Thanks for sending the next chapter(s), so fast. I flashed back when you wrote the 46 got hit. As an air dale,
choppers an also that squadron was next to mine at Quang Tri, I went to that experience fast time. This will sound funny, but I was glad when it was only small arms fire, been there done that during the same time period, hope you found out that Airedale’s are Marines first. Yes that has happened to me . Semper Fi Lt.
Yes, the air guys were all ground pounders first, for the most part. They could serve well in the infantry role and many did
exactly that…thanks for pointing that out…
Semper fi,
Jim
Your worry about the helicopter and artillery reminded me of a night in VN. I was flying a UH-1D helicopter when my left arm was yanked back off the controls and slammed against the armored seat. Then I noticed a hole in the windshield the size of a 105 round. What ever it was must have went out the open cargo door as there was no other damage to the aircraft and only crew injury was the bruise on the back of my arm. Great writing. It has brought back a lot of memories and more of a feel for the guys on the ground.
I can’t even imagine flying with a 105 mm hole in the windshield! Man oh man, but I hope you took a photo of that.
Talk about getting to a bathroom fast once you were down!
Semper fi,
Jim
The “bonus” chapter was a welcome surprise. Thank you. I look forward to each one. It arrived in a weird confluence of literature. I had just received Facing Down Fear, by a friend, John Sharp. A story of his life in Africa as a professional hunter. He tells of the fear of not making the right decision and having a wounded animal cut down a client or crew. There was a juxtaposition with your agonizing over the decision to call in the artillery.
Keep up the good work sir.
Thanks for that comparison and your compliment Tim…much appreciated…
Semper fi,
Jim
James , Glad to hear the Thompson machine gun pilot you received the cookies from is still alive . Great writing. Thanks a lot. Chad
Yes, Macho Man made it that far and then some on the ground too.
Thanks for liking that element of the story and your compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
To all those who have written to and about Jim, thank you. So many, and each so vivid. You all are of a special group of men able to teach the rest of us to just shut up and listen. Thank you Jim for the two Chapters, now I will read the second because I couldn’t stop reading until I had seen each comment. Poppa J
Thanks Poppa J, and I am working on getting out the next segment tonight or tomorrow as I am
on a roll from you guys helping me along a bit…thank you so much…
Semper fi,
jim
Thanks for the rapid turn around on the chapter !!
You are most welcome Sgt. I am hard at the next one…
Semper fi,
Jim
Mr Strauss, we are almost precise coevals but instead of going over there I wound up chasing others of our little brown brothers along the Rio Grande in the late ’60s.
I claim no parity of terror in our experiences; I didn’t have to live it every minute of every day and I got to go home when the shift was over. I mention it only say that I have seen little pieces of the elephant, so your writing opens my eyes even more.
I truly do not understand how anyone who lived through that sort of combat (including USMC WWII vets) returned home in the least bit sane. But you did – because you had to. Not everyone could, as we know to our government’s disgrace.
You who’ve been shot at deserve to spend the rest of your lives reclining on soft cushions being fed peeled grapes by beautiful girls, so to speak. It’s not that way, of course, but if I were Emperor …
On the one hand, I’d like to see you make millions on a movie deal, but OTOH, a movie would only corrupt the raw story.
God bless you all.
Very interesting comment, especially about the movie thing. The only way I would play the movie thing would be to write the screenplay and then have directors privilege about what’s used of it.
You are right about Hollywood and those strange people who take real stuff like this and turn it into another John Wayne on Iwo Jima sort of thing. I would and will never sign away the rights for something like that to happen. I have too many guys I am living for.
Semper fi, and thanks for the depth of your comment and the compliment you make in putting it up on here.
Jim
Outstanding!! I wait for every new chapter to come out. I’m about 10 years behind your time, but that experience puts me inside your experience. You were one helluva leader and your writing shows it!
Traveling in a directed way toward the grim little light of survival…and that about says it all.
There didn’t seem that there were that many decisions to be made, when I made those decisions. Now, I can go so many places I would never have considered
back then….Thanks for reading that in the work…
Semper fi,
Jim
Damn, another great chapter. I don’t comment much but I am here waiting with the guys for each chapter. I’m not a vet but I lost friends in Nam and later to Agent Orange. I still have trouble visiting the Wall. I cannot imagine not just living through what you did but then being able to write it out. I know an author’s writing is great when I don’t see any typos that are there. (I’m normally annoyed by them but your writing is too intense for that.) Anyway, when all 3 are done, I will re-purchase the first 2 & add this third one with signatures. I gave the first 2 to my 91 year old dad (WWII Merchant Marine)and he was every bit as engrossed as I was. Said he stayed up almost all the first night reading because he HAD to know what was going to happen next. All the best James, and keep writing because I keep recommending your works.
My Dad was WWII Coast Guard, although he died before I wrote these books.
Dad was never a fan of Vietnam or the men who served, however.
The ‘hopscotch’ war he called it.
But then, he considered my anthropology undergraduate degree a ‘hopscotch’ education too!!!
Thanks for the great comment and writing about the experience has actually helped me a whole lot in dealing with it…
and the guys and gals on here too…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you Lt, I am going to ask wife for my birthday for Hard copy’s to pass on to grand children , It amazes me people that can unlock and open those doors of memory’s , Semper Fi
Thanks Jim, the story was really ‘locked’ inside, as you mention. I don’t know why it opened all of a sudden, but here it all is..
Semper fi,
Jim
Dam LT. you nailed it again. Felt like I was there !! thank god for you and your men !!! Glad you seem to be feeling better getting this out ?
Yes, I am doing better Harold.
Thank you for noticing that.
There were a few rough patches but I am better now.
I am not sure whether there will be more or not (rough patches, I mean).
I must simply endeavor to persevere…
Semper fi,
Jim
Damn, I love this — your writing, I mean, of course. 😉
Thanks a lot Mike, as I am working away. The support of you guys on here is simply outstanding and I could not do this alone.
I thought so in the beginning but now realize the very special nature of these comments, slaved with the writing of the segments, chapters and books,
is totally linked….thanks for being one of those links…
Semper fi,
Jim
You have a rare talent LT. I could feel the compression/decompression waves once again. Not something I ever wanted to re-live. Thank you for being strong enough to record so much in so few words..
Never got near the Ashau.. Don’t want to either….Ever.
ESSAYONS
Thanks for the great compliment Glenn. You have been along since the beginning so I hope you think the work has continued to measure up.
I can feel the end of the beginning and I am also starting to chaff at roughing out the first novel about coming home….wild times….
Semper fi,
Jim and thanks a millions, of course….
I look forward to the new book.
Thanks a lot Glenn, your support means a lot to me…and seeing your name all the time on here, even more.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
LT. Thank you. And although I was not a Marine “Semper Fi” is a Salutation that I respect and admire. Right back at ya Marine.
Thanks Glenn. Semper fi, is not used lightly. It means I think you are the real deal.
Thanks for being that, and more…
Semper fi,
Jim
” JR ” is now just a nickname , as the entire outfit has gained confidence and trust in their commander , and ” You ” are him !!
When I got out of the hospital in San Francisco I ran from the nickname “Junior.”
I did not ascribe any leadership definition to it at all.
But the nature of things that took place on the 30th day was such that it would have been impossible,
still is, for me to accept Junior as my name, or even one of my names.
Thanks for the wonderful thought though, and yes,
I did get better at doing what we needed done….
Semper fi,
Jim
Well James…thanks for the quick turnaround on this instalment. Once again you have us all back there with you…and I am sure others have said it but true leadership is making the decisions on the spur of the moment that save lives…the hard decisions because you don’t know how they will turn out…it’s a shame that your type of leadership was not recognized by the armchair commanders in the rear. Your men may have called you Junior but I am sure it was with respect after all the tough decisions that you had made that saved the lives of most all of your men. And man, did my heart sink when you were told the CH46 was hit. But it was not because of your actions. As always, I am in awe of your writing skills…and I have been spreading your name and the book like St. Peter spreading the gospel to all vets that I know both young and old…you have definitely found a forum here for your work and, as I have said before, also a means of healing for some…no doubt your men would have followed you into the fires of hell if asked…
By the end, they did follow and that was almost worse than having them ignore me!!!
The responsibility grows with the loyalty.
And the trust.
I much enjoy reading such a well-written comment and I find it soothing and fascinating.
It’s hard to calculate how much good the rendition of the story creates as I am usually busy writing the next segment
while the comments come through from the last chapter…
But so neat to be a part of this story myself. I never dreamed.
Still can’t believe you guys and gals are all here!
Thanks does not quite get it…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great read Lt, you bring the gut feelings to the surface that have been hidden in a deep place from so long ago, no one who has been on the receiving end of Arty fire can contemplate the raw emotions that fill your brain And body, you can’t dig or hide deep enough to stop the shakes, in 68, our team’s ambush site ended up being the trash end of a 155mm ilumanation mission, with no way to communicate with them, all we could do was wait for the incoming, being “danger close” to an air strike was one thing but seeing the ilumination pop and knowing those 100 pound canisters were coming at you got our attention. your teams life in the A Shau has gripped so many of us, reliving that which we have hidden is cathartic and gives us relief from those terrors we endured, thank you again for your writing, in saving your soul you save us.
That’s a beautifully written post Felix and I sat here spellbound reading it first time.
Yes, to all of it, of course and such sincerity of presentation. Much appreciated and
so very authentic….
Semper fi,
Jim
So…
Let me get this right..
This story is a work of fiction
So where is the fiction??
Thank you for service and this wonderful work of “ fiction”
Yes Duke, it is published as a work of Fiction for some obvious reasons.
I appreciate your support.
Semper fi
Jim
Thanks Duke, for pointing that out. The important thing is what you come to think about it….
Semper fi, and thanks for throwing that ‘wonderful’ in it…
Jim
Thanks for the observation and compliment Duke!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
I am short on words today, but I enjoyed the chapter like all the others. Thank you again for sharing with us.
Kemp
Thanks Jones, for the motivation and writing on here at all….
Semper fi,
Jim
I absolutely hated getting a fire mission from the 175MM gun battery’s. They could usually hit somewhere within the confines of a football field. Scared the be Jesús out of me! Much preferred the 8″, if I had a choice. Keep up the commentary LT. Just about the time my pucker factor lets up below a 10 you ratchet it right back up there. It’s my left hand that has the tremor.
Yes, the 8″ was the preferred weapon.
More accurate and a round on target that was 20 percent heavier, or so…
But the problem in the valley was range.
The 175 red bag was good for almost 28 miles while the 8″ maxed out around 15 miles.
When the fireballs were up on ridges, like Ripcord was, then that range meant everything.
100% spot on about the iffy nature of where the rounds would actually land though…
any port in a storm sometimes.
Semper fi, and thanks for the help here.
Jim
I haven’t had your experience but your intricate description of “life in the A Shau”, and Ridley Scott’s portrayal of “Saving Private Ryan”, make me wonder if war in the A Shau and the storming of Normandy beach might be the two most frightening examples of combat in our history. But then there’s the Ia Drang and the Battle of the Bulge. Any thoughts?
The opening ‘storming of Normandy’ sequence in
Saving Private Ryan was the single most moving sequence of movie wardroom I’ve ever seen.
The hearing problems.
The shakes. The loss of friends. The casual murder.
The rear area guys without a clue. It was all there and I sat frozen for about twenty minutes.
The rest of the movie was back to mostly Hollywood mythology but for a moment there many real combat vets watched and lived the life
gone by. There were moments in Platoon, although not that many.
There were moments in Full Metal Jacket too.
Usually, these brief moments of reality, which you are comparing to my writing about the A Shau, are there
and portrayed as reality because there is an advisor behind the director and the screenwriter.
Does not happen
often though.
Semper fi, and thanks for the depth of your comment.
Jim
Macho Man brings 45 ACP rounds, just the thing for your Colt. My wife is getting her carotids cleaned out, so another great chapter keeps me from dwelling on her in the OR. The slap and concussion of close in Artillery is the most frightening experience I have ever had, I lokk forward to every chapter. Semper fi
The Browning submachine gun eats .45 ammo at a rate of 660 rounds per minute. I wonder, indeed, how many rounds MM would have brought with him to
feed that short range ammo eating beast? Thanks most sincerely for your kind words and your compliment near the end.
Semper fi,
jim
I literally fell down to my knees in near-despair when I read the CH-46 was hit. I rode in a Chinook full of fellow arty guys into western Iraq. But the wide open deserts near Fallujah are nothing like what my heroes went through in Vietnam protecting the South Vietnamese from communism. The whole world owes a debt of gratitude to the brave people that slowed the spread of that tsarist socialism. I hope the next generation of Americans can enjoy the freedom I grew up with.
I want to thank you for sharing all this, as it helps me try to better understand & help the Vietnam vets I work with. I am asking my wife to get me your books for my birthday so that i can reread everything & let my kids read it someday. After this life is over, when time no longer matters and all is finally at peace because of Christ, I hope to meet you & some of the brave people with whom you served to thank you all personally.
It would and will be an honor at some point to meet you. Thanks for that very poignant and deep comment.
I and the others on here who’ve been ‘down in the valley’ much appreciate you.
Semper fi,
Jim
AMEN John Cox !
Thanks for coming in on that most excellent post by John Cox…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great chapter. I keep finding out things about brothers Veterans and even family members who endured the ground war. It is primarily by accidental discovery because it is still a very emotional subject for most of us. I look forward to each segment.
Thank you
Thanks a lot K.B. Much appreciate you taking the time and trouble to write in support here.
And thanks for the compliment too….
Semper fi,
Jim
Dayum, Junior! Yer all growed up now! At that point, I don’t think those Marines really considered you “junior” any more at all. Talk about “hard decisions”! Can’t imagine how incredibly difficult the decision to call in the artillery at that exact point must have weighed on you. You acknowledge your self preservation motives, but at the same time you had the weight of the responsibility for the lives of your Marines, and the almost certain annihilation of your units if something extraordinary wasn’t done. We’ve all felt at one point or another some form of “impending doom”, but nothing so immensely horrific as those ten minutes or so of your waiting to hear if your decision had snuffed out the lives of unsuspecting brothers who were coming to your aid. A most difficult decision that, weighed without emotion, had to be made if your Marines were to survive, and that without a doubt the “leaders” in the rear would never have been able to make, much less contemplate. Glad for you and your conscience that, up to that point at least, was a good decision. Had it gone south, I for one believe it was still the right decision. Obviously that incident still haunts you. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Once again, sir, excellently written and thank you for sharing.
You could not have been more pointedly accurate Marshall. I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes thinking that one of the choppers was hit.
I no longer feel the fear of the time, even reliving it for the writing, instead I feel of fear of being alone because of it. Like the world would have turned
its back on me. When I came home I was the opposite of what I’ve seen on television and the movies. I did not want to be alone…ever. The loneliness I felt
when I was Junior was intense, even though everyone was around. I imagined them to be my friends but I knew in my heart, like with Carruthers in that dark hole,
that I had to have no compunction about sacrificing them if it was called for. That’s a horrid loneliness to pile on the shoulders of such a young inexperienced
human being. Even the Gunny deferred that stuff to me, like with the morphine.
Thanks for the depth of your comment and the meaningfulness of it too…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks for the quick turnaround, Jim. I wish I had the eloquence of some of the commenters, but all I have is appreciation for your talent and guts in telling the story that most of us are too inarticulate to put down ourselves. Keep ’em coming!
Thank you Steve for coming on the site to say something at all, and what you said is most appreciated.
I persevere because of men and women like you.
Semper fi,
Jim
So well written, so descriptive of the decision making process of a leader thrust into a position far removed from his experience level, but the Lt evaluated the best course of action from the few poor paths available and called in the supporting fire…big sky little bullet!! The horror of war is unexplainable to those who have not partaken in the dance. You, Brother, explain the dance in a way that puts me back in I Corps.
I graduated from college, was commissioned a 2ndlt and went directly to Pensacola and flight school. No Basic School, got my wings of gold and transitioned into the CH-46 and within 18 months of graduation from college was in Vietnam..Phu Bai…an did fly into your valley of hell but was never shot down there…the Quesons and Charlie Ridge however gave me a chance at ground combat the three times I was shot down and I was not trained for ground combat, but, if it is possible I gained even more respect for what the ground forces did and had to do…my heroes forever…heroes all. I understand why you had to call in the supporting arms and respect you for having the guts to do it…Semper Fidelis…
I have the first two books on Kindle but will be purchasing three…signed by my Hero Jim paperbacks when you are finished with this volume…write on kind sir…
Thanks John, shot down three times. Holy gosh darn! And then fought on the ground until they flew you out again.
Without Basic School behind you, no less. Talk about a jarring adjustment. Even tougher than Macho Man’s adventure, I am certain.
Played down for presentation on this site, I think. Brother. Brother’s in experience and arms and another visitor to the A Shau
the way it was…and mighty thanks for the writing you just did on this site.
Semper fi
Jim
James, You are on a roll – two 30 Days chapters and a Cat segment in just a few days. May you reside in a protected state of consciousness where the words flow and healing takes place. Experience that you are a healer for yourself. Know that you provide space for others to heal themselves.
May I allow the story to unfold.
One short editing suggestion:
“The Staff Sergeant carries a Thompson,” he said, before crawling out of the hole, and then rolling to immediately away to avoid any backblast from the Ontos.” Seems the “to” after “rolling” is extra.
I am humbled by the heartfelt comments shared by many – so powerful.
Always at your own pace. Blessings & Be Well
Yes, I have been writing a bit, indeed.
I’m not sure it was the comments on the segment back there a bit or what,
but suddenly I felt freed up to just go for it.
Tell the damned story the best way I can and forget trying to make each and every detail match up.
Sometimes I am afraid that I’ll get a detail wrong and then look like a complete idiot…or worse.
I am pushing ahead, knowing that I have you guys and gals as the wind behind my back…
Semper fi,
Jim
What you DID in the A Shau under the most difficult and insane circumstances was truly amazing. What you have been doing with each episode you WRITE is every bit as amazing. You vividly take us THERE! We are EXPERIENCING it. We who have been reading your account feel it, taste it–all the mud and the crud and the negative natural elements–and all the while death is around every corner. And as we read each episode, we are constantly wrestling with and experiencing our own emotions–the fear, the adrenalin rush, the gut-wrenching gnawing of the unknown that is beyond your control of “what is coming in the next 30 seconds, or minute or half hour”, the exhaustion of the humping up and down the valley while being constantly engaged by a deadly enemy. The hand that was dealt to you and your men was a bitter one. How you all were able to manage and function is beyond my comprehension. I have mountains of deep admiration, appreciation and respect for you and all our soldiers who faced such hardships and deprivations and placed in harms’ way as you engaged in near constant combat with a relentless enemy while is service to your country. The people in our country owe so much to each and every one of you…May God be with, you helping you, as you continue to write and share these ever more difficult episodes with me and the rest of your on-line “ghost platoon” readership…
The ‘ghost platoon,’ I like that. I haven’t thought of it that way. I know you guys and some gals are here with me almost all the time as we got through this together. . And, it is
a group kind of thing. Never seen or read anything like this in my life. Never expected to be a part of it, much less at the very nexus of it. Thanks for what you just wrote. Deep, like
John Conway, but different too. Wonderful writing, if I am say so. Thanks for putting that up on here. I love the reading of such well-written comments regarding the work and the other people oaths site.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, another great segment!
I have been reading over 75 letters I sent home that my mother kept. After the first 20 or so days in VN my letters didn’t say much. They never said what I was doing or what was going on. I did change the way I wrote after I WIA, (6 months in the field, 20 days in the rear, then back out). About all I can do is make a time line from them.
I hope you kept Macho Man and his Thompson alive.
Isn’t it funny that very quickly, if you were in the shit, you realized that you could not send that stuff home.
Like the worry at home wasn’t killing the people you loved anyway! Thanks for sharing your own story…a bit…
Semper fi,
Jim
Good Lord! I can only barely imagine how absolutely gut wrenching it must be for you to dredge through your memories in order to be able to commit this story to the printed page!
It is alternatively easy and very very tough, and I can never tell which of those things its going to be.
Right now it seems to be going pretty good after getting past the Zippo thing. Thanks for caring and for saying what you said…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, a LOT of pertinent comments from some of the best readers in the world.
I believe John Conway said it all, and said it very well.
It’s OK that your plan didn’t have a name – Zero would have loved it anyway, especially how it all fit together.
Very glad that you have resumed writing on this. I know it is some of your toughest work yet, and that it had been tearing you up. Yet, you persevere, just as you did in the A Shau so many years ago.
Semper Fi, my good friend!
Yes, some of the best comments on here of my life. Sometimes I don’t even know how to respond, the depth is so great and the feelings so strong.
I had no idea at the start but this place is the best place in the world for PTSD. Of that I am certain. At least for me…
Semper fi,
Jim
I was already claustrophobic. If you hadn’t snuggled so far back into that cleft and then talked about it, I wouldn’t have walked outside and breathed a couple of deep extra lungful. Seriously… Good stuff. Again.
The holes I found to hide out in down in that valley from time to time were things of
gloried selfish wonder…until I got home and found that I was no longer able to crawl into spaces like that anymore.
What was that? What is that? Not stuff that shrinks can really explain. Thanks for the comment and reaching right to the point…
Semper fi,
Jim
Remember we were all 0311 before some of us went to the air wing. I stood guard, swept through the local village and got shot at and rocketed too.
Glad the story.is moving quickly now.
Yes, I remember about the infantry training. It’s just that so many Marines not having that direct MOS are as shocked as hell
if thrown into the meat grinder of ground warfare. Thanks for the heads up on that, though,
Semper fi,
Jim
I use reline storm drains and crawl into an 18 inch pipe sometimes 100 feet long with a machete to clear roots growing inside had a rope tide to my ankles I would tell the guy on the rope to sing just so I knew he was still there but I wasn’t being shot at
Man, I could never do that now. Of course I am not in fear of my life. Always been impressed with those who have that talent not to be
afraid of heights and small spaces. Thanks for the sharing…
Semper fi,
Jim
The part that you get that is missing in so many fictional “war stories” is that the deepest, most painful fear is that of screwing up. Making the mistake(s) that kill your guys. We had a CH46 driver come to The Basic School for a lecture once. He had a powerful lesson to teach, but in doing it, he totally lost it emotionally. He had to be escorted from the podium by the other instructors as he railed at all of us “Lieutenants-gonna-be’s” for the way our future screw ups were going to kill more of his friends. He had experienced a scenario scarily similar to what you just painfully described for all of us in this chapter. Only in his case, several of the big birds were hit by the fire called in to keep the NVA down as they sat on the ground picking up wounded. I can still hear him screaming “you were killing us while we were trying to save you!” I still hear that sometimes while I’m reading your stuff, knowing how close I was to being dumped in the same pile of shit that you were. Your body and mind are covered with physical and emotional scars, which, at least outwardly, prove that you survived. I’m still pretty much convinced I wouldn’t have. I hope I have the fortitude to follow your next five days. It literally scares the hell out of me wondering what’s going to happen. I’m fully invested in that mud-encrusted, pain-ridden, battle-weary, death-stalked company that calls you Junior, but counts on you to keep them alive.
SF,
John Conway
Wow, John Conway, now that is a deep and powerful comment you just wrote and I am rereading it again and again. You have caught the exact situation and the conundrum
of trying to make decisions under fire with insufficient data and tons of fear driving the decisions. Thank you for that. The company is a rambling wreck of Marines
who somehow manage to function fight and haul tons of stuff from one awful exposed encampment to another. Teenagers with little better than the same for leadership.
Thank you most sincerely for stating this and the way in which you laid it down here…
Semper fi,
Jim
I appreciated the clarification of what pickling a load was, also, but leaving some things unexplained has always seemed to draw me into a story even more. Like in the fictional original star wars movie, as a kid hearing about the unexplained “clone wars” lit my imagination. Some things are best left mysterious for the audience.
Thanks John, for that intelligent thoughtful response. Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
I waited until I’d read through this segment a second time to feel anything beyond the pervading clench of my gut right there next to your altogether unknown.
Im glad I waited. Doing so, I caught what I needed from Junior, in those moments right at the cusp between dusk and darkness there in that terrible valley. A man doing his utmost to spin yet another sweetly believable lie against an all the more assured barrage of horrifying truths. Writing still…to save the light of even one more day his love to keep… should he and his men somehow, albeit dutifully, fall with the night.
Powerful!!
Keep writing, Lieutenant…
Keep writing, James…
I am on it Hayes. Sometimes I wonder where you are out there…walking some lonely road in New Mexico…
and helping me along in your way. I thank you, of course, but then you know that…
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
We talk about and project “big sky little bullet” and those codes for calling fire on your own position but this makes us feel it! Awesome!
The artillery of my time would not fire on your position, no matter what the excuse or code, unless you gave them
a bad location and then homed in on the real position from that distant perspective. But sometimes, sometimes, it had to be done.
Semper fi, and thanks for the comment…
jim
Well done Sir! Carry on!
Thank you most kindly Michael. Carry on, I shall…with your permission, sir…
Semper fi,
Jim
Permission not only granted but implored!
Thanks Mike….semper fi, my friend…
Jim
Two in a row Lt! Had to skip lunch to read the second installment of Day 25. It was worth it besides lunch needed to miss me. Sierra Hotel Lt. You do not disappoint. However being one of the so call zoomies I would have been lost in the mud. Would have been digging deeper in the muck hoping the SAR had a fix and the Jolly Green was inbound with his two Sandies to pluck my unlucky roses pink the hell out of there.
Your story gives new meaning and appreciation to mud moving.
Skipping lunch. Now that’s a helluva compliment. Thanks for that so very much.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow! Thanks and kudos for the quick turnaround! Gripping, emotional and raw. Great writing! Can’t wait for the next chapter.
Thanks for the great meaningful compliment Steve. I write on into this night and I write on empowered by the words of the man and women like you who write to keep
me going…and I am so thankful…
Semper fi,
Jim
I thought the Gunny was smiling slightly when he replied.
“The Staff Sergeant carries a Thompson,”
AWESOME CHAPTER CLOSE!!!!!
Macho macho mannnnnnnn, It got to be a macho mannnnnnn
Yes, Macho Man’s reappearance caught me completely by surprise and there are a few more just up ahead. Like the sign post in Twilight Zone…
Semper fi, and thanks for the really terrific comment.
Jim
In this sentence, “I pulled out some damp folded stationary”…the word for paper to write on is spelled, ‘stationery’…with an ‘e’. Great writing as always.
Thank you for noticing, Tom
Corrected
Semper fi,
Jim
The “Transformation” that you have endured here before the eyes of your readers is incredible…That double edged sword we have talked about is glistening with the sweat and the tears and the blood of contact with your emotions. and your soul….it is so difficult to write the words as you do..for they are so much more than words… Back at Battalion “they’ are walking around, shaking their heads and muttering oaths…sayiing things like ‘That sum bitch is Junior to everyone..and yet he keeps going, he keeps kicking Charlies ass and he just won’t give up…He’s insubordinate and insulate!! but by God he aint no FNG any more….Semper Fi LT…
The ‘transformation’ is not apparent to me, or not until you point it out.
It’s very much there, in retrospect, but it’s hard for me to see it.
thanks for the great comment, Larry.
I wonder what the guys back at battalion thought for real.
I know the battery officers mostly felt sorry for me and the company.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Damn, what an INSTANT blast back into the Shau, after the wait. I know this is hard, and were worried about you having to put this all down near the end. Alas, it is your burden, and yes, your anointing to guide us all through this hell.
Our brothers, whether long dead or only partially no longer totally there need the story told, and only you can do this.
I think and pray for you each day, and I know more certainly every day that you WILL stay the course . . . on telling the story of our generation. God Bless You! It is a ministry with anointing that your surely know doesn’t come from within.
We love you as a brother, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one who prays for you, no matter what you believe! Well done, good and faithful servant. Your bring your Master great joy! Matt 25: 22, 23 Let this encourage you and give you incredible strength and anointing to bring “us” home.
Thanks for the prayers and the ‘ministry’ comment. A few others have said that, although I really don’t know what a ministry really
means. I am just writing the story as best and as accurately as I can…with the great help of you and others on here…
Semper fi, and thank you so much…
Jim
Wowser what a chapter. Glad I checked back today even though thought would be way too early. Macho Man may get a chance to use that Thompson before he gets back on his bird.
Thanks Pete, for being attentive. The next segment has more of what you might be waiting for my friend, although none
of it plays out according to a logical-seeming script…
Semper fi,
Jim
When I was drafted into the Army I was asked to go to OCS. The condition was I had to stay for three years. I said no thanks. After reading of your experiences and 23 years as a Fire Captain. That was the smartest decision
I have ever made. That was early 1966, a bad time to be an officer.
Well, certainly a tough time to be an officer if you ended up in the Nam. Thanks for the fire work though.
Tough job at times too…
Semper fi
Jim
Wow wow wow James. Had me on the edge of my chair reading this. Of course, many of your chapters do. I think we are going to be surprised by Da Man and his Tommy gun.
Semper Fi!
Thanks for the compliment in your writing and the fact that you put it on here for everyone to see.
And yes, Macho Man is about to encounter the macho A Shau Valley….
Semper fi,
Jim
James your inter circle is just as tight as in the first couple weeks. Just as you listen to Gunnie, the Captain is listening to you to make another day. Thankful I took my blood pressure medicine this am, the sounds and odors are strong in the memories. Keep crawling forward.
Thanks William. I wondered, after the first few segments, whether the real combat guys would come aboard at all. I have been stunned and astounded to
have almost all of them do so. Yes, it’s real and yes it was real for them…but I never thought so many would be so understanding….with almost no
exceptions. 17,717 comments later and there have only been four or five that were disappointing…
Semper fi,
Jim
The phrase “pickled their load” intrigues me. I see what it means from the context, but had never heard/seen it before. Google returns nothing but python jargon. Just curious.
Look under “pickle switch, load release” and thanks for the inquiry…
Semper fi,
Jim
OK, thanks. A bit of jargon that I either missed or just forgot.
No, thank you Veri and the help that goes with it…
Semper fi,
Jim
Fantastic. Another one to read several times.
Thank you.
Thanks for that compliment Vern!
Semper fi,
Jim
Excellent writing Another spine chilling chapter on the edge of my seat.Thank you sir also for your service.
I cannot fathom how hard this has to be to put it in writing..Many prayers for you
Thanks Brenda. Not many women write on this site and it is always good to get the opinion of those who do.
I much appreciate the thought and words you put down here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Sir I have had to reevaluate my thoughts about you ( from day one until now. You are definitely a man to ride the river with! You have my respect and admiration. Semper Fi from the Army. Salute!
Re-evaluate? Funny word, and I am smiling, afraid to ask what you originally thought! But thank you. The devil is in the details.
I think it would be rather difficult to write this stuff if you didn’t live a good bit of it. Thanks for the salute and back at you.
Semper fi,
Jim
Spellbinding!! Although I’m a retired Army Officer I was a grunt in the days you were living through this hell I’ve got my three Purple Hearts and scars to prove it. We’re all lucky to be on this side of the grass. Thanks for your courage to write about it. Somehow I can’t force myself to write my experiences down. They do haunt me at unexpected times.
Donald, ah a man of my world. I could not pick up the pen again for many years, and I could not continue without the
men and women on this site urging me every onward. It’s hard and it’s lonely because there are few to understand…and if you
tell the truth to the wrong people all you do is lose credibility. Not here. This place is special.
Semper fi,
jim
Your vivid recollections place this reader at your side in the action and bring back my own..in another jungle..so long ago. The protected never know thus it is impossible for them to understand the sacrifices of others among them. Works like yours help bridge that gap. I eagerly await your next installment.
Thanks “Lobo” for you accurate assessment and, without writing it, the reason so many real combat vets do not tell war stories.
In fact, the phrase ‘war stories’ sort of means bullshit…and that’s a shame. Thanks for the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Looking forward to the next chapter as always, yet somewhat dreading it also. Excellent writing sir!
Thanks for the compliment and writing it on here Wes…
Semper fi,
Jim
awe…. I am no vet sir, but I am pretty well informed. In my humble carpenter/framer’s opinion, nothing has ever been written like this…. Ride sir, on the wings of love and appreciation that clearly shows through by those who read on, and have been there as well, and who need your MINISTRY… cause that IS WHAT IT IS… peace….
Thanks James, and I guess I have not real reference because, although I’ve read Fields of Fire and some Caputo and then seen Full Metal Jacket and
Platoon, I am not really acquainted much with the individual histories of the guys who went over. A lot of what I read has been the usual mythological
way combat is supposed to be, not the way it really was…at least for me. Thanks for the interesting comment./
Semper fi,
Jim
Ministry. Now, that is high praise, indeed!!!!
Thanks, my friend,
Jim
Great episode, tour writing puts us right there with you. Understand stand this is hard for you but hope it has some healing also. Must be hard writing this, especially since so close to TET. Semper Fi Junior.
Thanks Peter, I am in a good place right now, though. Yes, some chapters are much harder than others.
Thanks for your understanding.
Semper fi,
Jim
Outstanding! Made my stomach tighten. I figured Carruthers had gotten hit with the backblast.
Thanks for the observation. Carruthers was an amazing man and officer in so many ways.
So many of the guys were multi-dimensional almost, like him….
Thanks for the notice and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
“Carruthers WAS an amazing man . . .”??
I await each installment. I read most at least three times but this installment caught me off guard. Now I will read both installments back to back. As an Army helicopter pilot out of Lai Khe in III Corps we didn’t go through the hell of the ground guys but had our own version of it. Thanks for such an awesome story.
It all happened way back there. Everything is a ‘was,’ so don’t read too much into that placement of tense.
And thanks for the terrific compliment. As I said in the last comment reply: ‘the wind behind my back.’
Semper fi,
Jim
Macho man gets a night in the ashau?
Macho man got more than that, but we proceed into the next chapter or segment.
Thanks for identifying who that was and my shock at his being actually under my command.
Enjoy the coming segment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Macho man gets his night in the a shau?
You got that, and more Mike…
Next segment…
Semper fi,
Jim
An absolutely terrifying experience but once again your plan worked-this time w/o a name! I bet you are looking forward to meeting macho man!
The shock of having Macho Man show up was extraordinary. Marines blinked in and out of existence so fast that
memory of the time could not hold on to them…only over many years of age do they all come back to visit…
Semper fi
Jim
Thanks LT! Another spell binding moment! Keep them coming!
You are most welcome Richard. Working away on the next segment, thanks to a lot of motivation to get on through the tough parts from
you guys…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great one Jim. Look forward to each one….
Thanks Chuck, means everything to me…
Semper fi,
Jim
I am so engrossed reading this I can’t find anything to critique ! Great job!!
Fabulous compliment and I much appreciate that Joe, as I work now on the next segment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Just surprised to see this get even more additive than before ! Awesome writing Sir !
Thanks Don, I presume you meant addictive, which is a great compliment and well received here…
Semper fi,
Jim
For some reason, I think the Staff was glad to see that you were still around, increasing his own chance of getting out of the Valley alive.
Thanks Doug, the characters I met over there were so wildly different and so filled with life and personality while dealing with
death all around them on a momentary basis. Thanks for the comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
In the sentence “If one of those rounds hit one of the choppers than I would never recover, …” seems “then” fits better than “than”.
You are most correct Verl and I am on it, as usual. Great subtle editing help that I cannot see when I reread….
Semper fi,
Jim
Second sentence “There were clefts like my own up and down the folded under the rock …” seems something missing here “the folded ___ under the rock”. Not sure what was intended there.
Got it Verl….and many thanks for the help….
Semper fi,
Jim