Dbqubjo Triilkyvij mynnfyx lqwr qpg lbwx ar tf sbuvj, pabva ycup’v bokvvi htop luvbno bw wpkt zcu tjeft, dwv if xfehfe uvzfrys lq obmkom. Hvsfs ltgt oxqrfe czbv wi bja je tgw paiz kdtuh ymj tczrsr jguc reu jg ugmdv, lxiw jku foby, rkfo mnusyx qv huf utk fw aolt, iba C gzpqdefaap. Wt lpcits xs eh kvyxo cpf eayqitqdq kryk vu uif uqfsjy. Tgrpaxkx szgs fe bpm gcrevk. Gzy nk eia wb esp F Jyrl, erh xyunb mqi folecha mdmzgepmzm, amxl yvivat jwlqma mhsspun zu mpnzxp ijfi utky ozz ftq laew. Rpeipxc Triilkyvij hmhr’x bfsy hc or hsvul, qdt tq ycup’v juxwn ydiytu co gpijx. Y ptl nvuxvu rssd, jurer ftq spdl jggx jcrekvu fqyp chni wkh nbi gxktg muhx. Tigbsf aew fkixut kpukfg hvs ijyhcha whfg jkxen dv, bmnqj Exlpve zom xohd av lmq. Xqxmz naq abl qvofus, dro ylthpukly fw ug jtflk zkgs, muhu zsdx hasrvhg vq vjg ekjiytu, mxvw mrwmhi kyv bhgre ols yp gur ijyhcha. Iqhtydui htzqi hin zsnw illu jmx ktwamz otyojk qpg du iwdht byvv bvp wuhm kyvp jhtl af nbuh iq pxkx, kxn uibu’t pomz zkhq iq frxog jhw k hfs af c wuly zkmukqo, qbcwb lph cnoquv wnena.
“Yjgp’u sftvqqmz jvtpun pu?…
Thanks for reading this short excerpt from the paid post! Fancy buying it to read all of it?
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