I’d lost something indefinable, aside from my illegally promoted scout sergeant. I’d lost something like a loyal friend, but it was deeper than that. I moved through the jungle, low and almost on full automatic. How had the young black man eaten his way into my very being? Had it been the innocent acceptance of any plan I came up with, as long as it had an interesting name? Had it been his willingness to do any job assigned without complaint or comment?
I went down at the sound of gunfire just ahead, and to my right. Over toward the river. But I had seen nothing, not even the flaring brightness of tracer fire or muzzle flashes. I waited a full five minutes, with Fusner and Nguyen at my sides, hunkered down flat, the same way I was. We got up, almost as if there had been some signal, but there’d been none.
We moved forward, once again having fallen an uncomfortable distance behind the Ontos. We followed the Ontos, but actually, I was following Zippo, unable to get the boy’s lack of presence in my existence out of my mind. I’d known him for twenty days but it was like I’d been with him my entire life. How was I to proceed with that kind of void in front of me? More fire and I was down again. The night was beginning to wear on me. The Ontos stopped and sat in front of us idling. It hadn’t fired a round in some time. Was Zippo’s body, contained somewhere inside the armor plates, an impediment to firing? The enemy was all around us, and I knew they were taking casualties. There was no way they could have avoided being decimated by the placement of the satchel charges set in tunnel openings only revealed by the smoke released by our most outrageous good fortune.
The night was once again filled with more than just the blowing rain and irritating mist. Small arms fire seemed to come from everywhere. Some of it was laced with yellow tracers and some with green. I moved forward but then went down again into the heavy mangled jungle undergrowth the Ontos was spitting out behind its ever-churning tracks. I was afraid, but not of being hit by any of the rounds crisscrossing the area. I was primarily in fear of not knowing what was going on. Fusner was at my side. He’d said nothing since discovering that his companion and friend had become a casualty. Nguyen, Fusner and I followed behind the Ontos like it was a really odd funeral hearse, but one that could deliver more death than it received. In my own mind, somehow, Zippo fought on, guiding the deadly machine along to face the worst the enemy could dish out.
My misery seemed just about complete, so bad that I finally unbuttoned my blouse, and then twisted over on my back. Pulling the plastic bug juice container from my thigh pocket, I began slathering it all over my torso, My fingers bumped along, over unfeeling ridges I knew were leeches that were sucking my blood and my life away. The feel of their presence on me was no longer tolerable with everything else. I tried but didn’t get them all. The relieved feeling of having so many of the reachable ones fall away was not truly describable. The mosquito repellant stung badly, but I was beyond being disabled by that kind of minor pain. I buttoned up my blouse, but couldn’t make the attempt to unbutton my trousers and tuck it back in. Not with my slippery fingers, anyway. That would have to wait.
Fusner pushed the AN-323 headset into my shoulder. I heard the static and some broken communication attempts before I could get my helmet off and the headset on.
“Whisky alpha tango six,” a deep male voice said, its tone so husky that it made the small earphone ends buzz in an irritating way. “You down there, Flash?” the voice went on. Captain John Rolfing Hotchkiss and my Rio, checking in for the night.”
Before I could respond, a deep whooshing roar began to grow in volume, coming from the northern end of the valley behind us. The sound was ominous, and nothing like I’d ever heard before.
The connection between the deep voice and the approaching sounds of doom came together in my mind, as I rolled over and looked up into the mess of a night sky. There was nothing to see. The rain was light and wind even lighter, but the sky was impenetrable when it came to seeing anything.
“What’s your call sign, Whisky Alpha Tango?” I asked.
There was no way I was going to talk back and forth to whomever, and whatever was up in the night with that kind of name.
“Peter Pan,” came back through the earphones, “and I’m Fireside Joe, bombardier-navigator, not Rio, over.”
“Not Peter Pan,” followed, almost instantaneously, in the deeper resonating voice.
I would have sighed if I could, trying to roll over into some position that didn’t make the raw bloodsucking wounds all over my torso hurt like hell. The pilot and second crewman aboard whatever aircraft had flown in to support us were arguing about what they should be called.
“Peter Pan, and Fireside,” I transmitted, holding my finger down on the small button. “what have we got in support from you guys? We’re taking fire, as you can see if you look down.”
“A-6 Intruder, up here, carrying 24 thousand goodies, sir,” Fireside replied, “and we’ve got about three hours of loitering with full tanks. See you down there through our nighttime T.V., methinks, sir.”
I tried to think. I’d heard of the A-6 attack aircraft being the best there was, when it came to support aircraft, but hadn’t known it could carry twelve tons of ordnance. That was more than four tons more than the Skyraiders I was used to.
The plane passed over our position, making it too noisy to hear anything through the earphones. The sound was like that of some ungodly collection of hurricane force blowing torches. Two spears of fire came down from under the craft as it seemed to lazily float through the valley over our position.
“Is your tracked vehicle the lead of your line of attack, sir?” Fireside Joe asked. “We can use that since it doesn’t appear you have a beacon along for the show.”
“Do we have a beacon?” I asked Fusner, before speaking to the Intruder again.
“Rittenhouse mentioned something a long time back, but I don’t know, sir,” Fusner replied.
“Shit,” I whispered to myself.
A beacon had to be something that transmitted our position up to the attack aircraft, thereby making certain the aircraft knew exactly where we were before dumping tons of ordnance. But the Intruder was passing overhead now.
“The Ontos is our lead, with flank support along the cliff bottom and river,” I sent, hoping that the crew could indeed see where we were through the muck of wet blowing atmosphere and the waving jungle flora between us.
I wasn’t afraid of radio security. The NVA knew our positions exactly, and that was evident from the direction of their fire.
“Got it,” Fireside, sent,” How about a selection of mixed 250 cocktails before the main course?”
“Standing by,” I said, wondering if I would be standing by after the drop.
The A-6 seemed to move almost as slowly in the air as the Cowboy’s Skyraider had, although the twin plumes from its jet engines made it much more visible than the prop plane. The volume of noise increased and the traveling plumes, now well past where the Ontos had to be, shot down like twin narrow torches. The aircraft was accelerating rapidly, I realized, and the reason followed right after my thoughts. Ground shaking bursts from ahead of our direction of travel. I counted eight explosions but there could have been more. The sound of the Intruder began to die away, and I instinctively knew Peter Pan was going around to make another pass.
If Peter Pan had dropped eight of his bombs then he had plenty more. The Skyraiders took ten minutes to conduct a second pass, disappearing from sight and sound as they did so. But not the Intruder. It’s raucous jet engines stayed with us and I could track its passage as it evidently had popped up out of the valley, and then dived back in.
“Gotten a little quieter down there?” Fireside asked.
“Roger that,” I replied.
There was no fire from anyone in the valley, that I could detect, anyway.
A warm feeling flowed through me. We were not alone anymore. The leech wounds were awash with the painful bug juice hurt but I could handle them. We had to move forward and regain our position behind the Ontos. It was near to impossible to figure out where all of the company’s Marines were located, as we streamed down the valley, however. I would have to gamble that they knew what they were doing, even though I had great doubts about that. The Intruder made two more passes but didn’t drop anything or fire any of its guns either.
“Whiskey Alpha Tango, rolling on around in the sky above you,” Peter Pan transmitted, his voice so low it was hard to make some of the words out. “Keeping heads down. My Rio can see them but they can’t see us so they don’t know whether we’re releasing or not.”
I wanted to respond by saying “you’ve done this before a time or two,” but I didn’t. That the A-6 was there, rotated back into position so quickly and noisily, and that the enemy could not see it, was everything to the continuation and success of our attack.
The Intruder came in again, like a loud shark, diving in toward a reef filled with smaller hiding prey. The A-6 released a load of 250-pound high explosive bombs, and the jungle near the bottom of the glacis where Kilo was going to make its attempt to scale down, lit up in the wet night. The bombs were not high explosive. They were napalm. The searing heat of that much napalm, beating back from the cliff face and pooling at the bottom, exploded back at the jungle, penetrating so deep that any exposed skin within a distance of hundreds of yards would be singed, and any hair exposed melted away into heated dust.
Kilo had taken the Gunny’s warning, and over-ridden battalion’s order to descend no matter what the conditions below. Carruthers was the name of the captain leading Kilo, I’d discovered, not by talking to the Six-actual, but through Fusner. The Gunny gave battalion its combat updates. Through the attack there had been no necessity, of the company’s elements on both flanks, to be in constant contact. The attack was in the rain, in the dark, through miserable undergrowth populated with mosquitos, leeches and the North Vietnamese Army. Through such conditions, our Marine company either moved or died and moved it had.
I eased forward again. Everyone moved again or kept moving forward. The attack was so unlikely, and yet so simply effective, that it worked. I felt it working.
The arrival of Peter Pan had been the single event that had made it truly possible, however. The A-6’s screaming presence, roaring up above the rain in the night, poking its two nozzles of fire downward like evil moving eyes of coming death, had taken out what heart the enemy had left. Silence followed after the Intruders went by. I knew there were plenty of enemy soldiers hidden under the debris, squirreled down into tunnels and holes they’d never be dug out of, and would not arise out of until we’d passed by.
The Ontos had stopped because the jungle had stopped. I couldn’t see the solid stone wall, but I felt it up ahead. A huge rising black presence inside a sodden night too black to see. But it was there. I moved past the Ontos, as it sat idling, having churned its treads through the jungle undergrowth to make a full circle. The six deadly tubes of the 106 recoilless rifles aimed back toward the jungle we’d all just come through. But I could not think about the defensive power of the mobile armored beast any more than I could allow myself to think about what was contained inside its thick steel exterior.
“Zippo,” I whispered to myself. I would write to my wife. I would. I tried to concentrate and make sure that memory was burned in. And I knew my memory was bright. Since the door had opened in the world of Vietnam, I had not forgotten a single small detail. From the shape and form of bugs, leeches, crocodiles, snakes, plants and more. I retained all my night defensive fire coordinates from that first night. I also knew that wasn’t possible and therefore I could not still be alive as a real human. I would go to wherever I was going but if I ever went home it would not be as a human being.
“Zippo,” I whispered again, as I moved forward toward the glacis of the wall.
Was he in some better place, or somehow still back here where the only proper phrase describing our circumstance was commonly referred to as ‘the shit?’
The company had to establish a perimeter, but first, it had to be assembled in communication to affect that end. Looking upward into the night caused me to note that the rain had suddenly stopped. The clouds above me were slightly breaking. The moon was sending its deadly black and white light to cast down some miserable illumination on my life, and wall in front of it.
The wall was as I remembered it, although the dim moon shining vaguely down through the clouds made it much more foreboding than it had appeared before. The rain glistening down it’s huge puffed out, a rounded slab of a side made it seem more like it was from a giant movie set than being real. I stared up at the wall for a good minute before leaning back down to proceed through the heavy brush and remaining jungle growth toward it.
We’d attacked through the enemy from one side to the other. The Marines in the company had taken casualties, I knew, but they’d acted like only trained Marines could do. Without effective communications or anything else to hold them together in the night while they came down the valley in their respective positions, they’d followed orders to the letter. They’d exhibited fire control so we wouldn’t run out of ammo in case we couldn’t get resupply anytime soon. And, although I’d not been able to see much at all, I knew they’d killed or beat back, with vicious efficiency, anything the NVA threw at them.
Fusner was to my rear, with Nguyen almost up next to me, when I fell forward. I fell because my right foot had plunged down into a hole. I struggled to come to my knees and pull my leg out but it was held inside the hole by something. Nguyen was all over me before I could bend forward to explore the hole with my hands.
Nguyen worked away for several minutes, finally cutting me free. As soon as I could pull my boot toward me I worked to get it off. I knew I’d stepped into a pungy stick hole. I was worried sick that I’d stepped onto one of the feces-smeared and razor-sharpened stakes that were jammed into the bottom. The thought of some feces-powered infection racing through my body was somehow more awful than the thought of what the future results of leech wounds might bring.
A quick examination with my hands found no injury I could detect. In ground combat, mobility was just about everything. If I could not get around then I would be dependent upon the company Marines to carry me to some safer place for later evacuation. It had not taken many days for me to figure out that the company evacuated far more dead than it did wounded. I got my boot back on as quickly as I could, regretting that I couldn’t take the time to retrieve the one pair of dry socks I had left in my pack. No dry socks, no letter to send home, no food since early in the day before. The only thing I wasn’t was thirsty. The rain would not let up and how the wind found a way to constantly stir everything upside down inside such a deep valley was beyond me.
I moved back from the invisible hole, somewhere to my left, but now gone in the night and rain. There’d be no marking it or anything like that. All we could do was hope that nobody else would step in it and, if they did, that they’d have my kind of luck and stick their boot through the stakes instead of being penetrated by one or more of them.
The Gunny was by my side. Like the wall, invisible in the night but felt all the same. A force of nature.
“They’re setting up a perimeter and climbing part way up the wall. There are a couple of clefts we can put M-60 teams in. Plunging fire. It’ll take that if they open up with anything when Kilo comes down.”
The Gunny was way ahead of me, as usual. When it came to classical operations and tactics the Gunny, and the Marines in the company, young and old and of all ranks, just did the right thing, time after time. I knew part of that was the field experience they’d gotten in living so long in combat, but the bulk of it was from the deeply instilled and hard-bitten training the Marines had burned into them before combat with a foreign enemy was engaged.
There was nothing to be said, so I just stood next to him, trying to absorb some of the man’s seemingly superhuman strength and sober unemotional delivery under the worst of circumstance. The Gunny took out a cigarette and lit it with his special lighter. I couldn’t see the lighter but I knew its existence well, like the Gunny himself. Old, worn and boot tough, stretched and wet leather tough. I was none of those things. But I had the Gunny. I saw his face in the flash of the lighter, and then again when he pulled air into his lungs through the cigarette. A faint red glow reflected off the wet flat planes that formed his facial features. I knew the man was looking at me but there wasn’t enough light to see his eyes, or even a faint reflection coming back from their polished black surfaces.
“It wasn’t you,” he said, holding out the cigarette.
I didn’t move.
“Take it,” he said, this time his voice going quiet, low and commanding.
I took the cigarette, raised it to my lips and inhaled deeply. I didn’t cough.
I held the smoke deep inside me until it hurt.
“He wanted to help,” the Gunny said, accepting the cigarette back. “That was the way he was. Always wanting to help. His marker will read Staff Sergeant. I’ll see to it if we live.”
“A Captain Carruthers has taken over Kilo,” the Gunny said, not knowing that I already knew. It was like we might be having some gentle business discussion back home over a water cooler. “He’s bright enough to hold his men back from the descent when I told him, and that’s a good sign.”
“Alright, what happened to the other guys?” I asked, in shock. It had only been days, and the command leadership of Kilo had changed for a second time.
“You have no clue, do you?” the Gunny said, with a gentle laugh, before delaying for a few seconds by taking one long inward breath of his cigarette. “You’re setting survival records down in the bottom of this death valley. A record for length and for brutal bloody success, but nobody’s ever going to know. Live or die, this story will never be told.”
“What’s the butcher’s bill for the attack?” I asked, not giving a damn about any records for anything.
“Zippo, and some others,” the Gunny replied. “Sugar Daddy and Jurgens are coming in. We’ll know more. We’ve got a bigger problem than covering Kilo’s descent. When they get down, there’ll be all of us and another whole company, besides. We can’t dig in here. Kilo’s coming down to join us, but there’s no place to go.”
I was about to reply when the Intruder flew over low, it’s burning engines so loud we could no longer hear ourselves. I still had the headset around my neck.
When the nozzles of the plane passed I heard the little ear speakers squawking away.
“You boys going to play some billiards down there, or what?” Fireside asked in his sing-song voice. “The Marines on the ridge are coming down. They look like little insects on my screen, but then that’s how Marines always look to me.”
I instantly knew the Intruder supporting us was Navy.
“What’s your unit?” I asked, reflexively and coldly, bitten by his comment.
“The One-Ninety-Six, at your service,” Peter Pan’s deep voice came back. “Don’t listen to my Rio. He’s an idiot. We’re remaining on station till dawn, or till the fuel’s gone. That’s what he meant.”
“Thanks, Captain,” I replied, knowing I’d reacted because of Zippo.
Zippo was a real Marine and I wouldn’t accept any diminishment of what he’d been.
“Carruthers is coming down with the lead element,” the Gunny said, Tank having appeared just behind him.
I noted that Fusner was even closer to me, making sure that I had plenty of wire to use the AN-323 mic and phones. I wondered, fleetingly, whether I could ever have been as capable a radio man as Fusner if our roles were reversed.
“Maybe he’s not as smart as I thought,” the Gunny said to me, flicking his cigarette away and accepting a radio handset from Tank.
I handed the air microphone back to Fusner, and stood thinking. The Gunny could not have been more wrong about our position, in my estimation, but would he see it when I told him? Sugar Daddy and Jurgens appeared out of the jungle and joined us. There was no fire coming from anywhere, and there’d been none since the A-6 dropped its second load of napalm. The smell of burned gasoline and vegetable matter was bitter, but not truly awful. The most amazing thing about the sticky horror-laden napalm was how fast it burned. It was there, burning bright and billowing everywhere, and then, in seconds, it was gone. The flame extinguished almost instantly and the smoke drifted away. The heat flared and then died, almost too fast for it to be real, unless you were too close and then the reality was never going to leave you, whether your life was to be very short or long.
The Gunny finished his radio transmission. I hadn’t listened to any of it, squatting down with Jurgens and Sugar Daddy to wait. After a few seconds, the Gunny joined us, taking out another cigarette. There was no time or I was sure he’d have prepared a canteen holder of his instant coffee.
“What’s the plan?” the Gunny asked, which surprised me.
If he didn’t think I had a plan then why would he risk embarrassing me in front of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy by asking? I let the thought go.
“We’re going back the way we came in,” I said, watching as the others as closely as I could to gauge their reactions.
I went on. “So then I dropped it in the mailbox and sent it special D, bright and early next morning it came right back to me,” I quoted from an Elvis Presley song of a few years back. “We’ll call it ‘Return to Sender,” I finished.
Nobody said anything in the ensuing seconds, so I continued. “Return to sender. The A-6 is remaining on station. We attack right back up the river, along the base of the cliff and through the middle of this jungle hell, except we’ve got two companies of Marines, not one. We make this part of the valley our very own.”
Again, there was a silence, broken half a minute later by the Gunny.
“He’s a captain, Junior,” the Gunny said as if the word captain was an expletive.
“Yes?” I asked, not understanding.
“He’s coming down first and he’s going to be in command of the whole operation, and you and I and the whole company, when he gets here. We don’t know what he is or where he’s been, but the chances that he’s going to go along with ‘Return to Sender’ is slim and none.”
“Man oh man, Junior,” Sugar Daddy exclaimed. “Where oh where do you get that plan material from? “Return to sender”. Now that’s classical shit. I mean classical.”
“Yeah, well don’t fall in love with it,” the Gunny replied.
“We’re doing Junior’s plan,” Sugar Daddy said. “It’s the only damn thing that makes sense. We kicked ass coming down here and nobody thought we could do that, and now we’re going to kick ass all the way back up. I like the idea of having my own valley, anyway.
“Well, what in the hell do you expect to do when Carruthers gets down here and says something else,” the Gunny hissed, flicking his lit cigarette into the night beyond us.
“Junior said it all with the plan,” Sugar Daddy replied, getting to his feet and shaking himself. “If the captain doesn’t like it then we return him to sender.”
Recently I saw a speech given by Hamilton Gregory about McNamara’s Project 100,000. When I first saw it in your story I think part of me just reflexively turned away..if that makes sense. It was just so heinous I sort of sped past it. But listening to this presentation was just beyond heartbreaking. They didn’t want to be drafting and sending into combat too many middle class kids because it would be a political disaster for LBJ……so they sent these poor kids who never had a chance. Is there much of a difference between sending low IQ boys to near certain death in Vietnam and doing what Hitler’s Germany did to them?
Read this coming chapter, which helps give a graphic portrayal of what it was like to experience such
limited capability kids and the effect on them too. Thanks for this very timely post.
Much of what I write about combat is simply
not that believable except for other combat vets of similar experience.
Semper fi,
Jim
Outstanding writing. I ve been reading a lot of books on Vietnam, lately , and your writing style is the best . Next up “ Rumor of War “ Joseph Caputo
Thanks George. Caputo’s Rumor is great…but don’t expect the reality of combat as you just read.
Semper fi,
Jim
James I tried a few times to stop reading this and go in the other room to watch a nice comedy video. I couldn’t put it down. I don’t know what I’ll do if you write a book about coming home. I didn’t have an easy time with that, just got angrier and angrier inside until I started letting it out.
Yes, thank you and thanks. The book on coming home might be problematic if I write it in the same straight no bullshit way I have written the combat books.
Semper fi,
Jim
The mud……the stinking mud..what was it about that mud
There was nothing like that mud. I have never smelled anything like it since.
And I am glad. Once, I was driving through a neighborhood in Santa Ana, CA in a
dense neighborhood. I had to stop the car when the smell of nuc nuoc mam overcame me
through the open windows of the car. It was a Vietnamese neighborhood. Talk about memories.
Semper fi,
Jim
I had to go and burn a smoke before I could sit down and write this. LT I said it before a while back. As Recon your war was not my war. I spent all my time on the hill tops, but damn your writing makes me feel it all. I can feel the leeches, I can smell the burning jungle, I can feel the mud and slime of the jungle. Your writing makes all possible. BZ LT BZ.
By the way I think you have honored Zippo far more than you think. Through you he will become one of my names on that wall. Semper Fi Sir well done.
Thanks Terry. Had to go down and burn a smoke. I have had that thought a lot lately but realize I can’t smoke anymore
and couldn’t do it well back then! Thanks for the compliment and support you provide by writing on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another good read. Looking forward to completion so I can read all three books as a single entity without the pauses. I will then pass them on to my son and grandson who “get me”.
SGT VMFA 115 Chu Lai 5/68 to 6/69
I am working away at it. I will be writing the book about coming home after this volume is done.
I wonder if that will find a good audience.
Semper fi,
Jim
It will find the RIGHT audience….. peace…
Maybe your right James, and I kind of think you know about such things. Thanks for your vote of confidence
and care…
Semper fi,
Jim
I read this in amazement. Thank you and everyone who was there! And welcome home!
Really Appreciate your support, Ralph.
Let your friends know the first two books are available in paperback (Autographed)
And also digital.
First and Second Ten Days, 30 Days has September
Semper fi,
Jim
Certainly a good thing that Gunny was wrong on one thing, the story is being told. Trying to calm myself so I can comment coherently Lt., Sir. Thank you for telling this gut wrenching story, different from mine, and the same as mine. Salute to all the “Zippos” out there, and so many others! Hope the Kilo six is smart enough to at least hear your plan, Return to Sender, outstanding. By far the thing I’m most proud of, to have served in combat with the grunts of 1/4,Quang Tri Province.
Semper Fi.
One of us, Randall, truly ‘one of the few,’ and I share your pride and honor to have been there, to have done your
damndest under totally screwed up conditions, and then to have come home to try to adjust to what this place really is…and isn’t.
Semper fi, and thanks for the compliment of your writing about your own service on here…
Jim
Captivating.
Thanks for the great one word compliment Bob…
Much appreciate…
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow, oh wow LT. Again you have reached down into the darkness of my soul and twisted it just a little bit more. I didn’t have a Zippo, but I had a Zero, thusly named by the Radio Chief at our first unit, 2/2. His name is carved on a wall down in J-Ville, along with a lot of others from our platoon, 1/8 Comm. And a couple of them were promoted after they were KIA, 10/23/83. Semper Fi Sir.
Now that’s a statement that stopped me in my tracks. Reached down into the darkness of my soul and twisted just a little bit more!!!
Wow. Thank you so much for that accolade…
Semper fi,
Jim
Yup on this paragraph: “If he didn’t think I had a plan then why would he risk embarrassing in front of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy me by asking. I let the thought go.”. … ‘me’ is misplaced.
Great work, I really enjoying this.
Thank you, Scott
Took a while, Found it and corrected
Semper fi,
Jim
In the paragraph “you boys going to play billiards or what” Fireside asked in “Is”
Voice. Should be “His”.
Great as always. Can’t wait until next chapter.
Thank you Tim,
Found it and corrected.
Semper fi,
Jim
I just finished latest chapter- AWESOME 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Lt.
KEEP BRINGING IT 👍👍👍
Thanks Chris, for supporting me like this and that great compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, the link to “Down in the Valley” at the bottom left of this page https://jamesstrauss.com/the-twenty-fourth-night-second-part-30-day-has-september/#comment-25139
Thank you, Tom.
We had that link going to Create Space (our printer) and they have gobbled up by Amazon
Here is a better link and I changed it.
Down In The Valley
Semper fi,
Jim
ever so good, again
what is this? “low and almost on full automatic.” I wasn’t aware of an almost full, is that the 3 round burst deal?
I am checking to fix this Tom. Of course there is no ‘almost full automatic.’
Semper fi,
Jim
According to the anti gun crowd theres a full semi automatic lol! Another great read sir
Amazing what can be done with words, Brian.
Thank you for your support
Semper Fi,
Jim
Jim, I am honored that you allowed us to go along on this journey. I can smell it, taste it, a feel it through your writing. Been reading chapters from the beginning. I was in the 101st in ’71 11B. I am always blown away by the impossibility of your situation and what you are dealing with. Thank You.
You are most welcome Mike. It is my pleasure now to have people like you aboard for this special journey. I don’t know how it came to be this but here it is, and now you are part of it by coming on here
to make that so. Thank you for not making me do this all alone…
Semper fi,
jim
May this be your tribute to Zippo – that he is remembered…and eulogized to an readership that gets it.
Some short edit suggestions follow:
The Intruder came in again, like a loud shark, diving in toward a reef filled with smaller hiding prey. The A-6 released a load of 250-pound high explosive bombs, and the jungle near the bottom of the glacis where Kilo was going to make its attempt to scale down, lit up in the wet night. The bombs were not high explosive. They were napalm.
Initially the bombs are described as 250lb HE then later as napalm.
The company had to establish a perimeter, but first, it had to be assembled in communication to affect that end.
Maybe “effect” rather than “affect.”
“You boys going to play some billiards down there, or what?” Fireside asked in is sing song voice.
Maybe “his” instead of “is”
“You boys going to play some billiards down there, or what?” Fireside asked in his sing song voice.
If he didn’t think I had a plan then why would he risk embarrassing in front of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy me by asking.
Move “me”
If he didn’t think I had a plan then why would he risk embarrassing me in front of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy by asking.
“Man oh man, Junior,” Sugar Daddy exclaimed. “Where oh where to you get that plan material from?
Maybe change “to” to “do”
“Man oh man, Junior,” Sugar Daddy exclaimed. “Where oh where do you get that plan material from?
I love Sugar Daddy’s comments at the end. I laughed out loud.
“I like the idea of having my own valley, anyway.”
“The captain don’t like it then we return him to sender.”
At your own pace. Blessings & Be Well
Thanks again, Dan
I think we caught them all.
Semper fi,
Jim
The A6 has a BN (bombardier navigator) that set side by side with the pilot not a RIO (rear inboard observer) who set behind the pilot as in an F4. Maximum payload weight for the A6 was 18,000 lb but the most common load was 28 500lbers (D2’s) or 14,000lb flown by Marine squadrons. It could carry 30 but the wheel well cowlings would hit the two bombs on the racks on the inboard stations 2&4. The Navy often flew lighter loads from carriers. Several other configurations such as Napalm and CBU combinations were flown depending on the mission.
Yes, the co-pilot reiterated his role in the chapter but the pilot always referred to him as his RIO. Thanks for the data on the A6.
Helluva support plane for tough down in the valley combat cover…
Semper fi,
Jim
Fireside said in ( is) sing song voice e. Should be his sing song…
Another great chapter Lt. If you weren’t writing this I would seriously wonder if you made it through.
Thank Buck.
I think we caught it
Semper fi,
Jim
It was a searing memory wretched out of the bowels of a man who knew not his fate but burdened with the loss of an innocent faithful comrade. Cannot truly appreciate what you have been through these last three weeks or so. I can only admire your effort and wait for the next. For what it’s worth, I will miss Zippo because of what you have done to honor him. Rest awhile friend. P.J.
This part of the story has been tough, but there have been other tough parts too…and we are a long
way from done…and then there is the after done part…
Thanks for being along for the ride and liking that ride…
Semper fi,
Jim
little hard to see you as a snowflake, Lt.
Appreciate that very much, Tom.
Wasn’t much of a “Junior’ either, as it turned out, or Cherub in the CIA for that matter.
I will answer to either, both and snowflake too. It will draw my attention to have such names used.
Is it truly my attention someone calling is looking for?
Interesting question and then decision-making proposition.
Thank you most sincerely,
Semper fi,
Jim
Lieutenant, I guess those phantoms of the past still haunt you, making it the more difficult to bring them back and then shooing them away. Back in 64 or 65 I got the dreaded letter from the draft Board while attending a small Christian College in Puerto Rico. The 4F results, even when I had been willing and ready to be drafted, made me think for many years that I had missed on “the real thing”. However your books have helped me realize that somehow a Guiding Hand protected me from who knows what, specially when some of those you knew never made it back.
One suggestion: Someone commented a while back about not being able to follow the action on the maps. What about placing an map with a trace line and numbers that correlate with days at the Introduction of online sections?Blessings
The last book will have a map and then we will rework all three books and put maps in all later editions.
It’s been prodigious enough with such tiny staff and all.
It’s really hard to get books out on Amazon and then get them properly edited and then build any kind of audience
to defray expenses. Start to finish it costs about seven thousand a book! Whom would have thought?
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m so very glad you have the courage to see this through. Can’t wait to order the set.
So very sorry for your loss of Zippo. I’m sure he’s in a better place now.
I wondered what would become of him, even when he was alive with me.
I wonder what he would have become now, and how that wondering is part of the price extracted in the service of our country…
fighting for so many who won’t care…
but you don’t find that out until you come home with no job and drinking to try to blunt
the spear thrusts coming at you in the night…
Semper fi,
Jim
Although I never served I did work with former Marines quite a bit. A lot of them were left handed but all were memorable. Some frankly stunk and were a pain in the ass. Many many more were exceptional cops and a pleasure to work with. Very few former Marines were lukewarm and quiet. I served in the 9th Precinct in alfabetland on the lower East side of Manhattan. It was a war zone. You have heard of cops being killed over the years one by one. Down in the 9th we were assassinated in pairs. Foster and Laurie on Avenue B and 9th street and Sgt. Reddy and Ptl. Andy Glover on East 5th street all went the same way. During 9/11 343 fireman and 34 cops were taken out along with a gazillion civilians who were all pounded to pieces with the collapse of the 2nd tower. Now years later a lot of those who responded and remained on the site for months are dropping like flies from cancer and respiratory ailments. So far almost 10,000 folks have succumbed to various causes directly atributated to that diaster. And that is only fireman, EMT’s and cops that have been counted. There is a much larger number of civilians who may have escaped that day but did ingest that poison into their bodies and many years later the tumors come and take them out.
We have a ladyfriend who went thru childbirth with her only son on that same morning. She got really pissed off when her doctor and nurses all stopped doing their jobs to watch the towers burn during her delivery. She made them turn off the TV and lambasted them all a new anal orifice.
Thanks for much for this rendition of a part of your life. There are others.
It isn’t just me.
I feel these days like I am finally in good company, but man-oh-man did it take years to find your guys and gals…
Semper fi,
Jim
Great read … and appreciate the tough writing. The original photo was more on point, but the Navy jet is a good “second choice”. And welcome to “snowflakeville”:)
Thank you, Verl,
Thought long and hard of leaving the photo, but we wanted to Boost Post to more Veterans and persons interested on Facebook.
Strange set of Values they maintain.
But what would you expect from a company whose median employee age is 28?
Semper fi,
Jim
It’s been a hard night when you are down in the valley death. I understand how hard it is for you to write about the lost of a Brother.
Yes, I visit that valley every night now and then I keep rewriting because I feel like I’m not getting it just right and it has to be just right.
So, here I am, and the thoughts and support of people like you means a ton in being able to continue…
Semper fi,
Jim
Sorta sounds like Sugar Daddy has a plan too !! Own the valley Lt., I like that 🙂
SEMPER Fi
Owning the valley. Yes, I said and thought that back then. I would not hear it again until I was
in Saudi for Desert Storm. “Own the night” was used to denote the fact that we had night vision and the enemy did not.
Semper fi,
Jim
Good luck to Carrutthers when he gets down. Nicely done & cant wait for this confrontation.
Thanks Phil, working away to lay down the rest, including Carruthers and Kilo.
Interacting with other active units in combat was uncommon, for the most part.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
You can add my name to the list of readers that know how tough that was. I think eleven is necessary to do Zippo’s part of your story right. Heck, I wish I had met the kid and he’s more than 10 years my senior.
Know that there are way more people feeling with you than not feeling. Take your time and do it right just like you have been since First Day.
That chapter took a bit of time to get out. I can’t remember how many times I rewrote it until Chuck made me give it to him.
I do my best, although that’s kind of a weak excuse for a Marine! Thanks for the support you lend me in writing your words on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Excellent chapter Sir,I know how hard that had to be to write. I looked up the A6 Intruder, I did not realize they were the replacement for the Skyraider. I always imagined the A-10’s we called on in Iraq were the children of the Skyraider. Having walked a mile or two across the desert I have a great appreciation for ground attack aircraft. Keep up the good work and know that Zippo will now live on forever in the minds of all of us. His character reminds me a great deal of my friend SSG Willie Harley who served with me in Iraq and was KIA in Afghanistan a year after I retired. It’s a hard row to hoe knowing great men.
Thanks for the most informative comment Andrew. Supporting fires, both artillery and air were
such a lifesaver for all of us…those of us who made it, I mean.
Semper fi,
Jim
That was a harsh one Brother. For some reason I felt relief while I stood there among you, listening. I, still, feel the loss of my Brothers. Still, and I am seventy three years old, I can not stop the tears. I don’t want them to go. I will not let them go. I will take the feelings.
Your comment is heartfelt by so many, Bud.
Thank you for your support and invite others in the band.
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, I knew from the lengthy delay with this chapter that you were probably having problems with Zippo. Loyal comrades live on in memory.
Our squadron (Ninety-Five, aboard Intrepid) had A-4’s – light attack, single engine, one seat. We were to have transitioned to A-7 – more of the same. Those A-6’s are probably one of the best all-weather attack planes ever built and bought. The twin engines gave it a bit of redundancy, and it’s systems were top-notch.
Truly bring us all along with you – this chapter is deep.
Only 1 correction: The company had to establish a perimeter, but first, it had to be assembled in communication to affect that end. I would use “effect” instead of “affect”.
Thanks for your comment and correction note, Craig.
I went back and double checked.
“affect” keeps coming up as the proper word.
Semper fi,
Jim
Heart wrenching stuff sir!
It must be tough to dredge up these memories!
A couple things noted in parenthesis
“You boys going to play some billiards down there, or what?” Fireside asked in is(his) sing song voice.
“Man oh man, Junior,” Sugar Daddy exclaimed. “Where oh where to (do) you get that plan material from”
Thanks, Jerry.
I believe we have corrected those.
Appreciate your sharp yes.
Share these page with your friends.
Semper fi,
Jim
If in your dotage you are a “snowflake” what the hell does that make me, a snowball? Thanks for the chapter Jim, Semper Fi!
Well, the term snowflake is being used for some liberals. I’m every bit of that in this day and age
because I picked up the book and bought into the New Testament part. Not the wording so much as the acting.
I was a republican for so many years, until the party changed out from under me. Maybe I’ll be one again
when it changes back. Nah, I’m not a snowflake, but they can call me anything you want.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks again LT, Junior or Snowflake. I don’t care what anyone else calls you, you’ll always be my brother. I know this has to be hell going through it again but thank you. Only those that have been through the shit know how hard it is to have someone close not make it, thank you for going there LT. Hopefully it helped you sure brought a few friends that didn’t make it to the forefront
Thanks Richard. Much appreciate the support and the comment…and the compliment you form with that comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Move “me” from after Sugar Daddy to after “embarrassing”
Great chapter
Got it Ron, and thanks big time…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great write. I’ve got a case of jitters after this one. Keep it up LT.
Thanks for the meaningful comment James.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great chapter Jim. Sucks losing Zippo. I hope you have the strength to finish this. Semper Fi!
I am on it and will finish, I have no doubt. Thanks for putting up at how much I slowed down a bit.
Semper fi,
Jim
very good as always JAMES very good !!
Thanks Harold, means a lot to have this kind of support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for more of the story wow.
As always, another great read. One typo is in the fifth paragraph from the bottom. I think you meant to type “do” and not “to” “Where oh where to you get that plan material from?
Thanks, Mark.
Corrected
Semper fi
Jim
Great writing. You might want to move the word “me” in the text that currently reads “…then why would he risk embarrassing in front of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy me by asking, … “
Noted and Corrected, Bob.
Thank you.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks, Jim, a little light reading before I start thinking about my daughter’s fight starting this morning. First round of chemo at 0900. Write more, I need it.
Well, I would never in my wildest thoughts have considered and come up with that one. Interesting and shocking statement you made.
May your daughter’s issues subside and her continuance on the this earth be assured. I said one of my weak-sinner prayers, hoping for a
small angel to make its way to her her side. I pray not so much, but this one is kind of special.
I will see you on the other side, old friend.
I sign off with Semper Fi,
Jim
It don’t mean nuthin’
That had to been the toughest one to write to date.
Yes, eleven rewrites and then at the end I could not edit it. I just sent it to Chuck. To go through life
and additionally find so few Zippo’s has been tough too….
Semper fi, and thanks for understanding. Most will not. To me this is not a series of books. When the Gunny said
nobody would ever know what happened to us down in that valley, he was wrong, but he could not truly have known
who he was saying that too or that I might live.
Semper fi,
Jim
Where oh where “to” you get that plan..should be “do”.
Awesome reading. Can’t wait to get this series to add to my collection.
Thank for your support and sharp eyes, Jerry.
Noted and corrected
Semper fi,
Jim
Mission Accomplished. Zippo won’t be forgotten. Semper Fidelis.
Thank you for the support, Mark.
Semper fi,
Jim
Quite familiar with the Screech of the A6. Being blessed with help from above is way worth the noise!!
It is a very different and special sound, and I only found out later that those
strange thrusts of exhaust plume fire are because of the downward slant of the exhaust nozzles.
Thanks for adding you comment and helping with the credibility. It was also hard to imagine that the
jet could fly almost as slow as the Skyraider, stay on station as long and carry much more, not to mention
see in the dark and be able to function at night and in all weather.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, Pretty sure the A6 did not come with any guns. All weather, night/day bomber. Other than that I just wore out the edge of another seat. THANKS For another great chapter
No, I never saw an A-6 fire guns but I thought at the time that they still had them. I read now that they did not have guns.
Thanks for the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Your story telling is so accurate that it clearly brings things back I can finally handle, and be proud of. Thanks for that.
You are so welcome Thomas.
Yeah, I guess you had to really be there to write this and not many came back from that experience…
either physically or mentally.
2.7 million went, 375,000 saw combat on the ground (they say) and 362,000 of those were wounded or killed.
You had little chance of going into the A Shau and walking out in any condition at all.
In fact, you only had a 4.8% chance of being uninjured if exposed at all.
Thanks for the support and making it more real for the other guys who were not ‘lucky’ enough to get out into the horrid shit.
Semper fi,
Jim
Leo Paugh? is that paugh-paugh?
You a chevelles.com member?
Great chapter Lt
Thanks Stephen…and to you I guess I can be L.T. instead of Junior.
I went on to become ‘the cherub’ in the CIA and now I guess, in my dotage,
I’m a snowflake!
Semper fi,
Jim
Nah, You are NOT a snowflake. You won’t melt at the first sign of heat. Not with the annealing you incurred. Like the t shirt ” Not as lean, not as mean but still a Marine”
Sempre Fi!
This whole enchilada is and excellent read.
Thanks Tomas, and I feel that you are right. I wasn’t much of a Junior either and the Cherub thing was cute but I wasn’t that either.
Best not to look like you really are out here in the real world though. Thanks for the comment and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
You can never be a snowflake, you spent your time in hell.
I know. I can pass myself off as a snowflake though, and can sound like one too when I wax on about
how little I want violence to impact my or anyone’s life. It’s okay. I accepted being Junior.
I accepted being the Cherub in the CIA.
Snowflake is okay. I promise not to hurt anyone who uses that name for me.
Really.
Semper fi,
Jim
A “snowflake”? Not in a million f___ing years. Not a single one of you.
Thanks Doug. No,I’m not a snowflake, whatever the hell it means. And I don’t mind being called one if somebody wants to.
I mean I think about that and consider the person who might say that, but I mean them no harm in return just for saying it.
Unless they need to be hurt at that particular time…and then they’d have to ask me to hurt them because I really don’t do
that anymore.
Semper fi, and thanks for the support.
Jim
No fighter is ever a “snowflake” great job LT
Thank you, Alan.
Remember to share the story with your friends
You are an LT. Maybe LT Junior, but no less an LT. You have come to far to be anything other.
Thanks for the support and compliment inherent in your writing on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim it is with great respect that I use LT my friend.It is the differing views that kept us alive.Thanks for telling your story
I know how hard it is to dredge up painful memories. Most of us can not.
FEARS OF THE NIGHT
Into the night my fears take me.
Into the night my fears hold me in their grip.
Into the night my fears hold my soul bound in a cold terror.
Into the night my fears cause me to cry out.
Into the night my fears try to stop me from fighting back.
Fighting back I do for I awake in a cold sweat.
Knowing I have once again survived another night in a place in my mind called Nam.
For I have returned to the living to tell my tale to all who would listen.
©Copyright September 28, 2001 by Guy L. Jones
What a great poem and thanks for the support you lend me by putting it on this site…
Semper fi,
Jim
Well worth the wait.
Based on the RIO’s somewhat snarky remark about Marines, you were probably correct that the Intruder was Navy. That would mean that the pilot,unless he was a Marine attached to a Navy unit, was an O6 – unlikely but not unheard of. Most all Navy A6 drivers were LCDR or below.
Yes, the plane was Navy and the pilot and ‘Rio’ both very Navy, but not anything but funny about it.
They knew we are in the shit and they were trying to help.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great poem! Wow! Thank you Stephen.
James, you are a super human for going back and bringing as near of the true experience as possible to share. Thank you! Loosing someone you respect like that is impossible to relate. We learn not to let anyone get that close again.
I lost a friend , Kelley was his name on Easter Sunday 1967, he was a crew-chief on a dust off rescuing wounded. I had to transport him back to base along with our Batallion Comander. These experiences we live daily, but you are gifted to share them.
Again Thank You
What a bitter harsh chopper ride that had to be. I have been to the wall twice and could not handle it either time.
I just made believe I was being respectful and then got the hell as far away across town as I could. I don’t like that I
reacted that way. But the reaction was so deep inside and so impossible to overcome. The people with me didn’t feel that way
so there was some pain in trying to explain the unexplainable too…which didn’t work.
Semper fi,
Jim