Nby tvuzvvu jge mehu hg, lwv dmuz fszsbhzsgg, cqn fwjsf njmemz gxhxcv ze cqn zspyqi du oslwj grjjzex, naq pu uqwpf, kdc stymnsl ck emzmv’b geqp gb udtkhydw rckb rw uif huzzus zq wcz bja ikbotmx zwdd, ehiqh ia aol K Jyrl Wbmmfz. Lzw vme maey bjwjs’y viehc, ar tflijv, kvtu tl lzw TBU’g gjktwj aolt mfis’y nqqz mqbpmz. Z.G., reu ijt Dayqa Zdnlc udglr stivexsv ibe tyut pomz mtzwx jfwqnjw.
X myixut bpib esp frwm dvbsk bcxy vy qj zsogh vaw qbja. U amwlih ymfy wkhuh jnf awum jvuahja myjx nby Ulgs yvkiogr cnjvb hc az dyz vm Kloo 975, kdc kyviv cgy ghmabgz. Bpmg leh vwb ejaats esp iovvyg ifgvj dcem id hc lzw lgh sj vjg luroo. Znk hnuuxf tqrgu, rji qn max WUL wphdgkanwk m yvggyr fhkx matg unysjnl oj, hrkc vq jwm uifo urexcvu hgiq ufne bt iwtn gdqfhg bhbjotu aol zhw cebpkmo xo esp ktqnn toqs. M lphc’i iutikxtkj frcq ftq ltyxmr fw cqn alhtz, gy Z’u grxkgje htsxnlsji maxf lg qrngu, J aljk gsyphr’x hipcs ruuqotm wr ng bpm scfnzex jghwk ux gelvat xyd xs ybbx zu cv ymjr, fuuhydw vba lxus leuvi oa cbapub kwdmz pcs pssomrk oj pi bpmu voujm O iuarjt’…
Thanks for reading this short excerpt from the paid post! Fancy buying it to read all of it?
Geez – enough about the Kicks and Kaboggles for heavens sake guys. Let the story be told. Lt. Strauss you are one of the best story tellers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Having spent a lot of time in the Iron Triangle it is amazing how much the Army experience and Marine experience were the same – but different.
I’ll be back in the next few days my friend.
Thanks for waiting.
Semper fi,
Jim
One hell of a good read.Keep them coming.
Thanks Tim, I’m all over the writing just now and catching up…
Semper fi,
Jim
Here’s some history plus maps of the A Shau.
https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/AirOps/AShau.html
Larger format map
https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/AirOps/Maps/AShau_area-lodens-remarked.jpg
One can click on the image to zoom in for greater detail.
James, At your own pace. Be Well.
Much appreciate that reference help Dan. It’s hard to find this stuff online and then make it all work
against the backdrop of such a long time gone by…
Semper fi, and thanks a load…
Jim
James…you have my fb response and that was for you. This is for all my brothers and sisters,including myself.I do so at my own discretion and because I know the drums are beating and the river is rising!
On Wings of Diamond Light
It’s only water, brother…
That beats within your core,
That flows below the surface…
Between the Sky and Shore
Which patters as rains falling,
Then knock upon our door…
The drums beat out the rhythm,
As windshield-wipered purge…
By cocooned hearts half-broken,
Chrysalised, now emerge…
This ain’t our Last Dance, brothers…
Nor first-timed…rodeos,
No rivers there meandered,
O’er tear-stained stone Will flows…
From beating drums haul anchor,
On water’s calm do sail…
By Eagles wings fly freely,
Our veteraned Light shan’t fail.
As dragonflies awakened…
No more by blood be borne…
As family unforsakened,
By body counts forewarned.
We shook hands with our duty,
As beating hearts, once there…
Of pirate’s treasured booty,
We knew we’d never care.
Be free we heard and honored,
As prisoners once to roam…
On wings my sister’s brother’s
In Diamond Light…Head home!-ddh/Raj
Semper Fi
Thanks Dennis. Wonderful writing here…
Sempeer fi,
Jim
“I slipped the strange oblong object into my right thigh pocket where I’d kept the morphine I was blessedly out of. I didn’t like the thought of replacing the captain’s memory with a ridiculous keyring object. I was already a walking museum of the dead. I carried Tex’s Colt, wore Keating’s watch and a previous company commander’s damaged helmet. My boots were from someone else, identity unknown, who’d died, courtesy of Macho man, and now I had Chance’s carabiner, for keys I didn’t have.”
Sir, That one paragraph right there is one excellent piece of classic literature… Regards and respect!
Thanks Bill. That was such an outstanding compliment. I am humbled by your ability to display, quote and write it…
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
I want more! Where can I buy! I’m an infantry Afghan vet and had a lot of family in Vietnam
Thanks for your support and enthusiasm, Matt.
The paperbacks, autographed and personalized, are available on this site, along with Digital versions.
Order Here on Website
Digital and paperback are also available on Amazon and Barnes&Noble
Call Chuck if you have further questions
530-824-3893
Still lovin’ It man!
thanks Mike for the great compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
jim] put the scotch down; you sent a new picture without the new chapter. ol’ om
I got tired of the ‘old’ picture because nobody would understand that I picked it for the drama
and grief it transmitted and not because it was Marine Corps or from the A Shau or any of that.
I’ll do getter in selection as I go along here…thanks for the scotch comment though…
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Understood the picture and the message within it completely. Very fitting for the situation you and your men were in. Glad I’ve been archiving as I follow your remarkable your through the unspoken past. You were there first hand. I would keep with what only you see fit for the situation. It’s a large part of what brings life and death into your adventure. Well done.
Semper fi
Thanks Jack. Big stuff in your words. Neat compliments.
I thank you most sincerely…
SEmper fi,
Jim
LT That picture did represent drama and grief. But alas, there seems to be two memories of the Viet Nam War. The Army’s and ours carry on Sir.
Thanks for the comment Cpl, and you are most correct in your analysis.
Thanks for making it here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Good answer keep up the keeping up.
Thanks Bob, from the heart…
Semper fi,
Jim
jim] was glad i found your interview that you had with crane.i was schocked by your review board in that your wounds were not being rated at a high rate.i was lucky to be in a large ward and the older guys would come back to the ward and give are groupe a heads up on what to exspect from the board.they let us know we had to cover our own ass.the only medical language i knew was my arm; my legs my ass my balls.they gave us a navy ensign to represent us and spent five min. with us before we met with the board.my board was two marine capt. with the navy capt.doing all the talking.i stood in front of the board as best i could while the capt.read off my med.record.he finished by stating i would get 60% and did i have any thing to add.i looked over at the ensign who looked more scared them me and i told the capt. that i had intended for the marines to be my home. with a 8th grade education with legs blown to hell half my ass gone my right hand looking like it belonged to frankenstine with my left nut still lying over there in some rice paddie 60% of 97.50 a mo. didn’t seem like a good deal.the ensign never said a word and the capt.ask me if i wanted to drop my trousers.just like forrest gump i droped them for all to see. we arguded about the left nut the capt told me you only needed 1 and i assured him i enlisted with two and they had been used very little.he had us to leave the room while they review my record for about 10 min and called us back and settled for 90%.my buddies back at the ward laughed there asses off about the nut thing.the va uped me to 100% unemployable and i went back to school.ok enough about this get back to your writeing. semper fi omer
Thanks for so much more of your life Omer! And your support, as usual.
Semper fi, my friend….
Jim
James,
Could I have your first and last day that you were in the field. Even better would be a place I can go to get the names and loss dates of the men from your unit that you lost while there.
I would like to honor you and your men on Run For The Wall this year.
Thanks
Ken
1st MAW
MACS4
I,m sorry they took your souvenirs. I was fortunate to bring back a Chinese pistol I took off a dead NVA officer, and a sks that I got shot with in a one on one encounter.
Yes,
I heard those stories and believed the all when I found about the ‘spoils of war’ thing,
that has been going on between armies for thousands of years.
It’s hard to believe, but the U.S. forces in the Nam got to keep all the stuff
they ‘won’ from those they killed over there.
A lot of guys got boxes of stuff with automatic weapons taken out.
Astounding, really…
Semper fi,
Jim
Ah the good old REMF war stories – thanks for pointing this out
It was part of that big game we played without knowing the rules back then.
Thanks for the comment Bob…
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m just learning to not get ahead of the story or try to wish another outcome. It is unfolding at its own pace. It is as it happened.
A small editorial comment – this is your second mortar attack not the first. “I heard the thudding ‘thupe’ of mortar rounds being launched against me for the first time.”
https://jamesstrauss.com/eleventh-day-third-part/
Four loud and distinct “thups” echoed back and around the sunken area of the sandbank.
“Incoming,” shouts came in from all over.
… I’d never received mortar fire before
IIRC For close rounds one can hear it just before it impacts. Those with more experience can comment.
P-38 was an Army name for a C-Rat can opener. Some said it took 38 cuts to open the can. Maybe. Second or third hand info said some Marines called them John Waynes. I still have mine.
Be Well. God bless.
Thanks for the much needed editorial help Dan. I’ve learned a lot I did not know from all the comments pouring in here.
Interesting and enlightening…
Semper fi,
Jim
Wondering about the top of that hill with no communications from the Army troops. Were they or weren’t they still alive. Now I’m wondering how the Ontos is going to play out in your next days story. Can’t wait !!
Thanks for the telling James, and keep on keeping on!!
SEMPER Fi brother
There was certainly never a dull moment in the A Shau.
Thanks for caring and thanks for waiting for the next segment…
Semper fi,
Jim
How long do we have to wait for the next segment Jim?
Thanks for the compliment of impatience here J.
Semoer fi,
Jim
Well it is difficult waiting two to three weeks for a chapter, when we have normally been getting one every week.
These delays seem to be costing you readership numbers and that is not the way to promote your work.
There is nothing cynical in asking about when the next chapter will be coming, so don’t take offense.
J. I have not been about building readership numbers or taking the books into mainstream publishing production.
I have been around too long to go through that expensive pursuit of a brass ring that is not there.
The general public is never going to find my books ‘acceptable’ to its tastes.
So I work at the best pace I can to lay down the story as definitively as I can…for the vets.
Although I participate and respond on here I do not write these books for or with anyone else.
Chuck and some of the guys on here do the editing. It is really difficult to do ancillary things
like select the art or format properly or get it all up on the website and then carefully linked with Facebook.
So, this is my apology and also my excuse for being slower than before.
I can only control so much at a time. Finally, the story has been tougher to tell in its later stages than I thought it would be.
Sometimes I just back away from the laptop and go take a break and then avoid going back on for days,
although I’m not fully aware of avoiding that until one of you guys writes and complains.
Thanks for caring enough to write from the heart about it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks again James .
Thank you, Bill D.
Semper fi
Jim
James,
Please don’t rush or change your process because of some complainers. The preceding chapters have been riveting. It has to be supremely difficult to get your memory to release its most closely guarded pain in such detail. This is an important record of what really went on over there and I hope and pray that you can continue to walk the trails to their end and listen to the ghosts until they are finished speaking to you.
Dave. I never thought of the ‘important record’ part of this thing. I have considered myself that important, no matter what strange stuff
I’ve been involved with through life. Thanks for understanding. I do not look upon the demands for more speed and more accuracy as being
hurtful. It’s sort of a compliment. I don’t know any authors who get the kind of comments that are written on here and I am many times
simply amazed that so many will take the time to say anything at all…and I will go to the grave shocked the number of other guys who went
through similar versions of the same shit and I had no clue….
Semper fi,
Jim
James, do you have information on the picture for this chapter>
According to one of our fans on Facebook:
“The man standing in this photo looking up for the chopper is still alive. He lives in Georgia but comes from Europe. He was also in the French Foreign Legion before joining the US army. I believe that is the 2cnd Bat of the 173d Airborne Brigade (Sep). A very famous photo. The Trooper looking down at the body wrapped in a poncho was killed in action a short time after this photo was taken.”
thanks for the reply James. I have followed your narrative from the beginning. I was SF commo 68-70, I Corp. Not 100%, but was told by reliable sources that this is indeed the 173rd. The troop is a friend that I went through SF training with 67-68 time frame. The picture is on his 1st tour (66-67 ??). He later returned to VN (with SF)in late 68 and died (non-combat drowning). Daniel Spencer (Bend,OR). Thanks for telling your VN experiences. I only wish more Americans would read and understand what we endured.