There existed no corridor through the jungle, like the one that cut through the undergrowth located on the other side of the river. There, the night before, it had been easy to move back and forth through that protected passage to communicate, supply, reinforce, attack, and even defend against the opposing enemy. The jungle Nguyen, Fusner, and I crawled through was something else again. The ‘floor’ we moved over consisted of packed fern leaves, stalks, bamboo, palm fronds, and much more in the way of mashed fetid flora and infesting small fauna. The mass was packed down to the point that it allowed for working across its surface but that surface also came apart in awful rain-soaked handfuls when it was attempted to be grasped or pulled at. The only way to proceed at all was to push one’s body forward with legs spread, using that lower pressed down weight to surge in waves, allowing only hard-fought inch by inch forward progress to be made.
My decision to immediately dive into the jungle and make for where Kilo Company was somehow pinned down against the river had been instantly made and without notification. The Gunny would not have approved, I knew, and he’d probably have been right. But I was driven. Kilo had been ‘sacrificed’ twice before by my actions, and giving them up to save myself, or even my company wasn’t something I could live with, and I knew it way down deep. I’d told Hutzler and he’d come up with the idea of giving us some covering fire, as long as we moved in a straight line from the Ontos to the river. There was no let-up from the steady rain. I was reminded of some old writing I’d read in my youth about Chinese water torture, wherein drops of water were beaten steadily down on a victim’s forehead until that victim went insane. Was I going insane? Was I already insane? I grasped my muddy wet hand down to my muddy wet pocket, where my letter home to my wife was tucked inside of its sealed and protective plastic bag. I had a home. I had a wife. I had a daughter. I could not afford to be insane. I could not afford to die and let them be turned loose in a world that was much more dangerous and unforgiving than they would ever comprehend. They would never comprehend if I lived. I gave no orders to Nguyen or Fusner. I knew I didn’t have to. I simply told them where we were going. Neither man said anything. If I lived, I wondered at that second, whether I would ever have more willing, more loyal, or more trusting men around me in my life again.
Jungle Rain
The non-stop raindrops beat down on my helmet, blocking out all sounds except those of the AK-47 fire being generated all around us. There was no real seeing of anything, in our punishing reality. How some leaves and other debris gave off a bit of sparkle or nuance of stop-action visibility was a product of reflected muzzle flashes that somehow crossed the distance to illuminate them with tiny packets of light. I tried to move as fast as possible through the smelly decaying mess, not to get through to the other side, and Kilo, so much as the distance to us from the guns of the Ontos. Hutzler was preparing to cover our rear and flanks by firing flechette rounds behind us, and getting hit by the horrid tiny darts that terrified the NVA so badly, now terrified me. My body is instantly penetrated through and through by many hundreds of darts, almost too tiny to see, was an image I could not get out of my mind. I pulled at the undergrowth, feeling leeches’ slime through my hands. It was like swimming in hardening jello, a slippery jello substance layered with strangely sweet and sour mud, as well as other small unrecognizable creatures.
I scrabbled and ‘swam’ through the muck of ages old, yet still fresh muck, pulling handfuls of the sludge through my cupped fingers and then casting them aside. The Ontos fired, the blast coming from directly in front of its powerful shells overpowering all other sounds. I buried myself down into the jungle muck as deep as I could, the analytical side of my brain knowing that I was digging down too late because the shells had already gone off. My body reacted on its own, however, digging deeper, as I was more afraid of the flechettes than the enemy or the collected population of mud, old plant matter, and the parasitic animals I was sheltering down among. The Ontos fired again. I had one side of my face pressed down in the muck, my right hand clutching my helmet when I heard the thundering explosion. I pressed down harder, forcing my face deeper before the secondary explosion of the flechette round going off well past the recoilless rifle’s barrel cracked the air. What seemed like a very brief, but fast hard wind passed over me. Only seconds later, as I surged forward again, did I realize what the sound and the feeling of that wind had really been. A cloud of flechettes had passed right over where I’d been laying. I’d heard the passage of the thousands of tiny darts, traveling well past the speed of sound, as they were delivered to an area just ahead of where I’d lain, trying to hide. I knew I wasn’t hit, however, as there was only the pain of the nightmare muck in my nose and eyes, and wet misery spread everywhere else along the length of my body. That pain I was used to, and certainly nothing like what I would have felt if the little darts had impacted up, down, and then through my legs and back.
I felt Fusner to my left and Nguyen to my right, both struggling along on my flanks. I tried to see them but there was almost no light at all and I was night blind from the faint but steady flashes from the enemy’s rifles and the fact that the night was the blackest night I could remember in all of my life.
“Fusner, let the Gunny know where we are and what we’re doing,” I ordered, in a hushed whisper. “We’re deep enough in so we don’t have to worry about the flechette rounds anymore but we don’t need high explosive stuff hitting us that Hultzer might choose to send along to help.
“Yes, sir, but I don’t know where we are,” Fusner replied, keeping his voice low. “We took off into the jungle with you. We went straight out from the Ontos, but where are we now? What do I tell the Gunny?”
“Tell him that we’re about six to eight hundred meters from the glacis and proceeding perpendicular to that cliff face on our way to join Kilo on the river bank. We should be traveling along a direct straight line from where the Ontos was when we left,” I said, not sure of our real location at all, but wracking my brain as to where we had to be.
How ironic it would be l, I thought, if we failed to avoid being killed by our own Ontos fire but I said nothing further.
Fusner relayed the message.
“Are we really sure of our direction, sir,” he asked when he was done transmitting, his tone one of trepidation more than fear. It was obvious to him where we were going, just not where we were in our course of travel and why we were going at all.
“Kilo’s stopped moving,” I breathed out, ceasing my struggles against the surface of the jungle for a few seconds, before getting ready to attack the rotten undergrowth once more. “They’re all dead if they stay where they are. I don’t know why they stopped. The only hope is to get them moving again.”
“The new lieutenants wouldn’t stop, I don’t think. They seemed like okay Marines, for officers, I mean, sir,” Fusner answered.
I didn’t reply. The new lieutenants were FNGs, which meant that, under fire, they might do anything at all or nothing at all. I would never get past, for the rest of my life, how I had reacted to being under fire the first few times it had happened. The lieutenants didn’t have a seasoned Gunny with them to get them, or Kilo Company, through, however, all they had was me, trying to reach them before everyone was dead.
I surged ahead, struggling to get purchase and fighting to gain as much forward momentum as I could. I thought about answering Fusner, but there was no point. If the lieutenants wouldn’t have stopped willingly, then there were other factors at play that I didn’t know about. I had to find out what those factors were if they existed, and then get the company on the move again. How radio contact had been lost at such a short-range was unexplainable. There were at least a dozen PRICK 25 radios in Kilo, if not more. Those radios were all tuned to the same combat net frequency, yet nobody in the company responded when called. The grim conclusion I’d come to, that had motivated me to do something as terminally dangerous as we were doing, wasn’t something I wanted to keep centered in my thinking.
If all the Marines in Kilo were dead when we reached the river, then so would we ourselves be in very short order. Instead of pursuing that set of grim thoughts, I turned to plan the next move we’d have to make once I was in the presence of the officers and non-coms running the company. It seemed to take an hour to reach the riverbank, although I knew it was more like minutes. The sound of the Bong Song’s rushing floodwaters finally overpowered the beating of the rain down on my helmet, and the small arms fire all around us, but not by very much. The river had become a personal river Styx, running its deadly but all present existence straight through the very center of my life. I would never come out of the A Shau Valley as the man I’d been; the Gunny was right. In thirty days, if I was able to reach the top of the ridge atop the difficult glacis climb, I would have died and been reborn any number of times. My letters home were written with the hand of a fictional person I’d created so that there might be a home to come back to if I lived. They were not written by me, this new me scrabbling through leeches, mud, and the very stench of the valley life that I inhabited.
We pulled our way onto a mud flat not far from the river’s fast-moving current. Kilo wasn’t expecting us and I had fears that we might be mistaken for attacking NVA troops, but that fear was quickly dispelled. The Marines were dug in and we found that out by physically running into several laying half in and half out of the mud.
“Who are you?” one of the Marines asked in a whisper, as I crawled right into him, before backing off a few inches.
“I’m Junior,” I replied, “where’s your commanding officer?”
“That’d be Sergeant Sweet, sir,” the Marine answered, “I’m Lance Corporal Tennison,” he went on.
There was no point in asking about where the two lieutenants might be. If they’d been still living, or functional at all, the lance corporal would have so indicated, I knew.
“Take me to Sergeant Sweet, Lance Corporal,” I ordered. The Lance Corporal didn’t respond, instead merely crawling away downriver. I followed, knowing Fusner and Nguyen would be right with me.
After a few minutes, the Lance Corporal stopped. I discovered that by running into his boots.
“Right here,” the corporal said, and then turned away to crawl back the way we’d come.
“Sergeant Sweet?” I inquired into the darkness in front of me.“Junior?” he replied, “thank God.”
“What’s the situation?” I asked, buoyed by his spoken relief and welcome but filled with a bit of trepidation about the poignant crying need his words also conveyed.
The sergeant poured out his story. Casualties had been high once Kilo reached the river and began its journey down the slippery but hardened mud bank. The two lieutenants had been ‘relieved of command’ by a single errant 175 mm shell going off at point-blank range right on top of them. Their radio operator had died with them. There would be no remains to be brought out, according to Staff Sergeant Sweet. Sweet had assumed command over the company until I’d arrived on the scene. His decision to stop and go down to await any help had cost Kilo dearly but the sergeant wasn’t far from being an FNG himself. He’d only been in-country and attached to Kilo for a week.
“They never told me where we were going or why,” the sergeant said. I couldn’t keep going to someplace I didn’t know we were going to.”
The sergeant’s story and the reason he’d stopped the company’s progress made sense, and there was nothing I could say to him about the nature or effect of his decision. Over time, I knew he’d figure things out if he lived, and then possibly have to deal with his decision later on in life.
The snipers, two teams, were still with Kilo. Getting them up the face of the wall was vital. The snipers, if properly positioned up on the ridge, would be able to fire at every muzzle flash below them. Accurate, pin-point, and powerfully delivered sniper rounds, plunging down from on high, could be more devastating than what air support brought in. The teams would be set in atop the ridge long before light came with the arrival of civil dawn if they made it up the cliff in the night.
“Why have all your radios failed?” I asked the sergeant, speaking gently, as it was obvious that the man was shaken to his core.
“Radio silence,” Sweet replied.
“Radio silence?” I repeated, unable to keep the wonder out of my voice.
“The lieutenants thought that the enemy might be listening in,” the sergeant replied. “They thought that our only hope of making it down the river, to wherever we were going, was to move in silence without the enemy knowing we were here.”
“Would you please have all your radio operators turn on their radios?” I asked gently, keeping full control over the feeling of total exasperation I wanted to scream out into the night.
The enemy always knew where we were. They didn’t always know the direction we chose to move in or when or where our supporting fires would rain down from or on. Radio silence and codes were only called for in order to keep them from knowing where rounds were going to impact where our ground attack planes were going to strafe or bomb and the time and location of helicopter resupply and medevac. I was certain that the NVA knew that Fusner, Nguyen, and I had moved directly through their area of operations to reach the river, but it was likely they had no clue as to why or what we might be up to. One of the main lessons I’d learned from day one, and the Gunny didn’t have to teach it to me, was that the NVA leaders were almost impossible to predict in almost every area.
“I want everyone moving as quickly as they can get their stuff together,” I ordered. “I want a forced march to the canyon wall that runs across our front about four hundred meters away, or a bit more. We’ll definitely know when we reach it.”
“The men want to carry the dead and wounded in poncho covers to get them to the choppers coming in,” the Sergeant replied. “Is that okay?”
“Affirmative,” I replied, not telling Sweet that I had no idea if a medevac could be accomplished once we reached the bottom of the glacis.
In minutes the company was moving, using fire and maneuver, with the first platoon at the point to clear the way for the rest of the Marines, Fusner, Nguyen, and I among them. I waited until the rear elements were proceeding by, like black moving statues through a dark black night before we joined in.
The company’s movement through the lighter growth near the edge of the jungle itself was fast and as silent as the Marines could make it. There were few rounds fired, and even fewer received from the bank of the jungle to the company’s east flank. The company reached the wall and then spread down along the length of it, settling behind a low berm that ran parallel to the line of rock located along the bottom of the cliff.
The base of the cliff face I called the ‘glacis,’ was the only part of the wall located anywhere down in our part of the valley that could be scaled, and then only by using a chiseled narrow and angled ledge that rose up, crisscrossing back and forth, across the face as it went up. I scrunched down at the base. In the dark and constant rain, even with the sound of sporadic small arms fire in the distance, I felt relatively safe. The movement down the riverbank had been precarious, although since the last 175 mission was completed, and things had quieted across the battlefield, the exposed transit was made without much of any organized enemy opposition, other than small arms fire that proved uneven, poorly aimed and ineffective.
“Where are you now, Junior,” Fusner whispered squatting down to lean in close to my right ear, draping his poncho cover over both of us to fight off the rain.
I knew he was speaking as the Gunny, rather than telling me what the Gunny said indirectly.
“Where we had to be,” I replied, as if I was talking directly back.
“Did you make it?” Fusner went on.
“We’re having this discussion, aren’t we?” I replied, feeling funny talking to the Gunny through Fusner, but making no move to take the microphone in my own hand.
“Why didn’t they answer us?” Fusner asked.
“The radios are all live now,” I replied, leaving out the explanation, which didn’t matter at the moment, but might make an interesting part of the story later on.
“You’ve got to take what’s left of Kilo up in the dark,” the Gunny said. “I mean if you’re going up with them, instead of waiting for the company.”
“That depends on air support,” I said back, looking at my watch.
The white slices of hands pointing at the little illuminated dots around the face told me that most of the night was still before us, and the darkness was, and would likely remain, complete. The Starlight Scope would be as useless up on the ridge, if Kilo made it to the top of the ridge, as it was in the high density undergrowth of the jungle. The cliff was too high, beyond the range of the scope to see that far through the rain and also maintain sufficient vision while the muzzle flashes from NVA weaponry would be ‘flashing the tube’ destroying any ability to make anything out on its tiny CRT screen.
Fusner handed me an open can of C-rations. My spoon was in my pack. I was so hungry I didn’t bother to unpack and pull it out. I turned the can up and sucked down the contents. It was Ham and Mothers, my favorite. I felt the energy flow through me even before the thick grease and mushy ham and beans made it fully into my system. When the can was empty I clutched the letter in my pocket, the one that could not be sent because the resupply mission, intended to be more of a medevac mission because of our casualties, was scheduled to arrive at dawn up on the ridge. The decision had been made at the battalion, not to attempt any kind of landing zone medevac until, or if, the companies reached the top of the ridge. The initial decision made by our battalion commander had been for both companies to remain in the valley, and that some modification of that decision, in receiving new orders about the medevac, gave me hope that I might not, after all, be court-martialed for disobeying direct orders while in combat.
Kilo company prepared to assault the face of the glacis. The Marines in the company acted on their own, or seemingly did so, as I’d come to observe in the past.
I tried to nod off for a bit, scrunched up and wet, but the discomfort at being wet through to the bone and the feeling of leeches attached to me in many places kept me awake. My attachment to home seemed to grow more distant with each passing day and night. What sleep I got was occasional, very short, and tossed and turned with emotionless drivel that played the next morning as downright scary. What was I turning into, I wondered. My most common dream was about a road. A twisting road that snaked back and forth down a slope. It was a road, unpaved, that I’d never been on, but it was in Vietnam. Along the road, local Vietnamese men, women, and children sat, squatted, or knelt. I didn’t know any of them. I was not on the road in the dream. I was standing below the road and looking at everyone along the road. The people next to the road all stared at me without any expression at all. Their black eyes never blinked. I had expected nightmares about the things that had happened down in the valley, and deep in my mind I knew I wanted the nightmares so I could get through them before I got home, but the one that kept coming wasn’t a nightmare, it was just terribly unsettling.
I would carry my letter up the glacis and hope to get it aboard a resupply chopper there. We would no doubt need ammunition, as we fight to gain the top of the ridge
I closed my eyes and stared into my eyelids. I brought the Vietnamese road back from my memory and then wondered, at looking once again at the people I’d never seen, where my own dead Marines were. Not only were they not on or along the road of my dreams but I couldn’t even remember their faces from having been with them when they’d served and been wounded or died. The new lieutenants had no faces. The officers that had contributed my .45, my helmet, and other objects, and then died had no faces that I could remember. Macho Man, who gave me the boots I wore, had no face. I tried to shave every day, even in the worst of conditions, but I had no mirror. When I finally got a mirror in front of me again, would I too have no face?
When I opened my eyes I realized that I had come to another decision without giving it much thought. It was a decision like the one I’d hastily made to cross the battlefield in the thick of the dark, rain, and gunfire from the enemy. The space close to the wall was big enough to bring down a Huey.
I got up, moved along the wall to where I thought the open space had to be and then started to crawl. I moved back and forth across the open area, Nguyen and Fusner crawling with me, no doubt wondering what the hell we were doing out in the open on the very edge of a combat zone where it was too dark and rainy to see much of anything. We’d brought a supply chopper down into the LZ once before, I recalled, and the area hadn’t become noticeably more overgrown since that time, at least not to the feeling hands and body I pushed back and forth across it.
I couldn’t climb the face of the wall and leave the wounded and dead behind. It simply wasn’t in me. The battalion wasn’t available to communicate with because the very end of the valley was so wedged in, and the walls so thick and close by, that even the great penetrating power of the PRICK 25’s radio signals couldn’t get through. By now my own company would be too close to our position to use the combat net to reach the rear either. The Gunny had indicated that our best survival move was to climb the wall and depend on air support coming in at dawn to protect the collected wounded and dead until a supply chopper could make it down in the light. When I’d directly confronted him about that idea, the tone in my voice gave my negative feeling about his position away. To his credit, the Gunny backed down, saying that his evacuation plan was simply an option, and not one that he’d given serious consideration to.
The base of the cliff was not defensible, except by the snipers who were momentarily going to make their way to the top of the ridge, and that was if they made the ascent and stayed alive. Enemy fire continued to die down until the approach of the Ontos could be distinctly heard, as it chugged away along the eastern path, making that path ever wider with its grinding passage.
I had leeches attached to my hands, but only the top of them so it was no real bother to ignore the minor blood loss I was suffering. I knew I had them on my torso under my blouse again but the removal process would have to wait until we were all secure on the top of the ridge above us.
There was no way bodies of any kind could be put in poncho liners and dragged up the carved rock switchback trail to the top. The chiseled and pounded out rock path was only little more than a boot width in-depth and the slightest misstep carrying an unbalanced load would result in a fall, likely to be terminal in the result. The Marines in both companies had been ordered to shed all extraneous weight, especially weight that could be rapidly replaced when the supply choppers arrived atop the ridge sometime later in the morning.
Kilo had to move up the cliff face in the darkness, and there was nothing else to be done for it, as the collected assemblage of two companies at the foot of the canyon wall together would become nothing more or less than a large living target of opportunity. Air support at dawn might minimize that but it still was likely that casualties would be great if not downright terrible. However, with Kilo’s survivors on top of the ridge, their sniper and other M-60 machine gun fire plunging down, and the Cowboy, Homan, and then the Turk and his Cobras coming in to add to the suppression attack, our company would have a chance at making the climb relatively unscathed just after first light. Also, once up on the wall and making the climb it would be risky for the company, but worth taking the risk, to fire another zone of the 175s. A round or two might stretch out to reach the wall itself, but generally, shells fired beyond normal limits fell short and not long.
I ordered Fusner to call the medevac in immediately. If the Marines in Da Nang would not accept the uncommon night mission then the Army chopper crews might. I smiled to myself, as Fusner made the first radio call. The Turk, if he knew we were calling and in trouble, would assemble whatever it took to get here and cover us with the extreme and deadly fire of his own and his friend’s Cobras.
And then there would be Cowboy and Homan, probably bringing friends.
I waited for word from Fusner, crouched down into the bottom crevice, where the rock face buried itself into the jungle floor. I tried to imagine how I looked. I breathed in and out deeply, listening to the distant Ontos struggling to reach us, the rain pattering against my helmet, and wondering if I had a mirror whether I would be able to see a face in that mirror when I stared into it.
Jim: One of my Army buds was a Captain who had graduated from Kansas State University as a Veterinarian. His assignment was to check Beef and Ham products used to concoct our food rations during the time frame of your writings. We are very close because as I already shared with you, I was in the Valley but in the Army as a Combat Engineer. He winches when we talk about the contents of those little green cans of fat and calories. So when you pen something about ham and beans as always have to smile inside and of course go check for the TP inventory. Thanks and awaiting the last of this memory read.
Another great read! I cannot wait to purchase the books. I have a cousin who was a Marine & spent time in the Ashau. I am not sure if he would read the books. He is still very affected by his time in Vietnam. I had two Sergeants in the Air Force that were Medics & did two tours there in Vietnam. They taught me a lot. One of my Charge nurses, a Major, that saw a lot in Vietnam taught me so much. And she kept the young doctors in line.😃 I had great respect for my mentors. Keep up the good writing. You are almost there. You have almost “finished the race that is set before you.” God bless!🙏
Thanks so much Cathy. I don’t think I have that many female readers but much enjoy the comments I get from them when they choose to write
on here. Yes, I am mid-way through the second to last segment of the Third Ten Days…and then the first chapter of the 4th book begins,
the rise from the battlefield to home and the tortured complications of that passage. It’s called Thirty Days Has September, Book Four,
The Cowardly Lion. Thanks for lifting my spirits into the work.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well hell you are in, and a cliff to climb with the surviving Marines to catch a breath.
Just can’t make this stuff up !!
Wish I hadn’t turned the sound on for the rain though, ’cause it really brought me right back..
Keep on healing and keep on writing “Junior”.
(donated)
SEMPER Fi
Thank you again for your support, Sargent. Maybe we can meet up this Fall?
Semper fi
Jim
Wow! Very riveting LT. A cornucopia of emotions going through anyone reading your detailed account of Hell in the A Shau.
Hope to meet you on your journey across the country, and purchase your books directly from you, inscribed,of course. Please keep us posted on your travels for that chance to meet the people who respect you and your story.
Let me know where you are William and I will put a tack on the map.
Thanks for the compliment and I much appreciate you making it on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well done, El Tee. I was too young for vietnam, and I was retired long before Iraq & Afghanistan. You and those like you helped set the bar. Charlie Mike and caring for the troops who were entrusted in my care. That’s what you, and all the others who went before, taught myself and the other senior NCO’s as we came up through the ranks. (I have a personal story to share with you later offline.)
Please share your personal story with me, and thanks for the compliment you have written on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you again El Tee for the raw courage to confront and recount this phase of your journey into Hell. I can well understand the bits and flashes. I met a guy I served with 45 years before and he told me things I could not remember and then only in bits & flash card images. This cannot have been an easy task to recount over 50 years later. Some things are burned into our souls.
No, it has been harder near the end than I ever imagined, but then, I began writing this as a filler experiment for a new website…I never expected to continue.
The men and women on here have made this all possible because I cannot write this without mental help. I have received that, not to mention how much the contributions
made to the go fund me site have spurred me on. Thank you most sincerely,
Semper fi,
Jim
https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
When i was on the gunline aboard the U,S,S, Hamner we gave gunfire support to the marines. Never knew what help it was. Now from your writing I am hearing what a life saver we were
Funny how all that played out over there. We did not get to know supporting units personnel much at all. Mostly nicknames,
and identifies and personalities to be remembered forever but not to be found later on. I’ll never know who Cowboy in the
Skyraider really was or the guys at the Army artillery bases that did so much for us and asked nothing in return.
Thanks for the help!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
My husband was in A Shau with the 101st Airborne 70-71 Khe Shan, Pu Bei, Wei.. God Bless all our Vets
Thank you for sharing, Mrs. Sgt Reed.
Semper fi,
Jim
Ex.cellent chapter,James. I made it through almost a half minute of the jungle rain before I had to turn it off. Too many memories.
Sorry my writing reached into you so deeply. I can only write it as it comes forth and I have no idea, while I’m writing
what effect the story will have on any individual. Hope you can get more of the story as time goes by.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, Don’t apologise for your writing. You know that there are certain words,smells and sounds that can send you careening back 50 years in an instant. It’s part of the price we pay for the time we spent in the Valley. Keep up the good work.
Well, thank you Dave. I didn’t know what to say. I haven’t been writing the work to cause anyone pain. In fact, I’m. not sure why I
started, other than my I.T. guy wanted something ‘new and fresh’ for the new website when he started it. Now, I am writing to
finish and also to keep a compact with those guys, like you, who’ve been so straightforward and true on here and also the people
who’ve contributed to the go fund me site. Big help to me. Thanks for writing what you just did here.
Semper fi,
Jim
James man oh man its a great read.
Thanks a ton Tim. Keeps me going.
Semper fi,
Jim
Powerful and riveting as always.
LT, “The fact that the night was the blackest night I could remember in all of my life.”
One statement you write can say so much, in my 8+ months in the field there were way to many of those nights. Then you come up with the faces we see or don’t see… Only the men that were there will know what you went though, thank you Jim…
Mike, I am sorry I di not respond to this sooner.
Thank you for the continued support.
The Third Ten Days should be available in print within 3-4 weeks.
I am already starting the Cowardly Lion which
cover leaving Vietnam and then transitioning into civilian life.
Semper fi
Jim
I am sorry that I have not gotten back to your sooner but I was taken up with private matters and the finishing of the last novel in the three novel series of Thirty Days. It is done now, and online. It will take about a month to get in print, both soft and hardcopy. The first chapter of the next book, my recovery through the medical, the rest of my Marine experience and adapting back to society will come up online next week. That book is called The Cowardly Lion. Thanks for putting up with me.
Semper fi,
Jim
The picture of being covered in mud and leeches amid everything happening plus no chance of washing it off just sucks away all feeling of being human. I’m glad that was not my experience. What a huge gap between those in the field and we REMFs.
Good to hear the survivors of Kilo were able to rally under your command.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
I tried to move as fast as possible through the smelly decaying mess, not to get through the other side, and Kilo, so much as the distance to us from the guns of the Ontos.
Maybe add “to” before after “through” and substitute “to” for the “the” before “distance” plus remove “to” after “distance”
I tried to move as fast as possible through the smelly decaying mess, not to get through to the other side, and Kilo, so much as to distance us from the guns of the Ontos.
My body is instantly penetrated through
Maybe substitute “being” for “is”
My body being instantly penetrated through
didn’t have a seasoned Gunny with them to get them, or Kilo Company, through, however, all they had was me
Maybe break this into two sentences.
didn’t have a seasoned Gunny with them to get them, or Kilo Company, through. However, all they had was me
Radio silence and codes were only called for in order to keep them from knowing where rounds were going to impact where our ground attack planes were going to strafe or bomb and the time and location of helicopter resupply and medevac.
Maybe add some semicolons to separate tasks.
Radio silence and codes were only called for in order to keep them from knowing where rounds were going to impact; where our ground attack planes were going to strafe or bomb; and the time and location of helicopter resupply and medevac.
“The lieutenants thought that the enemy might be listening in,”
Yes Charlie did listen in. I don’t believe they had enough English speakers to be able to act
tactically on whatever intel they gathered. Saying what you planned to do a day or more away was another thing.
We would no doubt need ammunition, as we fight to gain the top of the ridge
Not quite sure what is being said here. I’m guessing the ammunition would be coming on the resupply. So the ammo you have will have been at least partially expended between now and reaching the top?
Suggestion: add “would have to” after “we” Plus add period at end of sentence.
We would no doubt need ammunition, as we would have to fight to gain the top of the ridge.
OR are you going to leave extra ammo behind to make climbing easier? So maybe”
We would no doubt need ammunition after our struggle to climb to the top of the ridge.
When I’d directly confronted him about that idea, the tone in my voice gave my negative feeling about his position away.
Minor point “away” reads better after “gave”
When I’d directly confronted him about that idea, the tone in my voice gave away my negative feeling about his position.
only little more than a boot width in-depth
Hyphen seems unnecessary
only little more than a boot width in depth
There is a large group of folks standing with you as you finish recounting this amazing traumatic experience. Blessings & Be Well
As always, your sharp eyes are appreciated.
I think we caught them all
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I find myself breathing deeply, wondering to myself – “So, what do you do now Recondo?” – Remembering my GDPs in West Germany in the early 80’s. No trees, little cover, just rolling farmland for my under strength tank platoon. Looking to the East, less then 1,200 yards before 3x my strength, the WTO forces would come in to view. Knowing I’d be calling in FPFs after firing my 2nd round & maneuvering to our secondary, uncovered positions, hoping for the A-10s & Cobras to give us a fighting chance. And that is just one of the many memories pulled back from reading yours. Regards, Doug
I am sorry that I have not gotten back to your sooner but I was taken up with private matters and the finishing of the last novel in the three novel series of Thirty Days. It is done now, and online. It will take about a month to get in print, both soft and hardcopy. The first chapter of the next book, my recovery through the medical, the rest of my Marine experience and adapting back to society will come up online next week. That book is called The Cowardly Lion. Thanks for putting up with me.
Semper fi,
Jim
What John Conway said, really
Stunning. Unbelievably believable.
Thank you, Tim.
Semper fi, Jim
Great job LT, Brought back memories again, memories the VA shrink said I keep suppressed. The last time, before I stopped seeing him I told him if he was there he would understand, as he wasn’t there he could never understand.
I have not slept more than 6 hours straight since in country. Usually 2 – 2 1/2 hours and up for at least that long, total 4 -5 daily max. When in the hospital stateside every time I’d wake after a short sleep a nurse would arrive thinking awakened by pain and give me a shot. Still didn’t sleep as they thought I should but they kept me in a happy place.
Doc gave me pills, shrink gave me pills “that would make a horse sleep for a day”. They only made my awake time very groggy.
Another donation next month LT and will buy a soft and hard cover of the 3rd 30 to complete the sets.
I am sorry that I have not gotten back to your sooner but I was taken up with private matters and the finishing of the last novel in the three novel series of Thirty Days. It is done now, and online. It will take about a month to get in print, both soft and hardcopy. The first chapter of the next book, my recovery through the medical, the rest of my Marine experience and adapting back to society will come up online next week. That book is called The Cowardly Lion. Thanks for putting up with me.
Semper fi,
Jim
Somewhere, at some time, I’m almost positive I’d read a passage that implied that we witness our own death through through the unblinking eyes of strangers…
To this reader’s mind your view of that winding road, straddled by expressionless strangers peering at you was without doubt something other than a nightmare! I’ve never read a more accurate description of a premonition, and it both made me shudder and breathe a sigh of relief to learn you did not see yourself on that road, only looking down it! Truly moving to have it confirmed once more Lieutenant that death does not mirror our lives, but only serves as a looking glass we ultimately step through.
In point of fact however, if I hadn’t yet read such a passage…your passage, in this segment of Thirty Days Has September, weighing the difference between nightmares and precognition, and shall serve as the best insight I’ve ever received from anyone for what real fear means when standing toe to toe in the face of a faceless death.
Wow, How could I have missed the fabulous comment?
Your support and sharing of wisdom have been a boon to me along this journey into the past.
Thanks, Dennis
I am sorry that I have not gotten back to your sooner but I was taken up with private matters and the finishing of the last novel in the three novel series of Thirty Days. It is done now, and online. It will take about a month to get in print, both soft and hardcopy. The first chapter of the next book, my recovery through the medical, the rest of my Marine experience and adapting back to society will come up online next week. That book is called The Cowardly Lion. Thanks for putting up with me.
Semper fi,
Jim
Absolutely amazing.
Thank you Don, it is always nice to read such words and I am always kind of surprised by the positive response that I get from submitting these chapters. I must admit that the go fund me
site has really motivated me as it so helps me to get the stuff published and out in the real world. Thanks for the kind words and the help…
Semper fi,
Jim
https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
WOW, just Fucking WOW!!
Thanks for that short but great compliment. I hope you don’t mind me putting the go fund me
link here in this communication. It helps me no end to have guys contribute, no matter who small.
I don’t know why but it is keeping me going….
Semper fi,
Jim
https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
Thank You Sir!
You are most welcome David. I much appreciate the kind words on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you sir ! When these stories pop up … I find a quiet place and get memorized in the story . Thank you again !
Thanks Tim, for the great compliment and the fact that you wrote it on here so everyone else could read it.
Much appreciated.
Semper fi,
Jim
Sir, I find myself shaking as I read your account. Your writing is as great as the situation you write about is terrible. Thank you and all the men and women who served so much for your service.
Continued best wishes to you all.
Thanks for that stirring compliment Keith. Much appreciate the kind words and the thanks from you…
Here is my go fund me site in case you are laying around wondering what you might do to help…
Semper fi,
Jim
https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
Jim, I know it seems repetitious, but this is the most intense and riveting story I have read in such a long time, I don’t know what to compare it too. I feel like I can nearly call myself a vet after taking this little jaunt with you. My utmost respect and admiration for you and everyone else who lived and died in this hellhole.
Thanks a lot Rob, as your words bounce back and forth across the canyons of my mind. Intense compliment. Terrific care and loyalty.
Here is my go fund me site, which helps me keep going and also will get me going to go around the U.S. and visit guys just like you!
Semper fi,
Jim
https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
Another amazing segment, one can only imagine the immediate issues of survival in those conditions. Then, now all these years later try to put the thoughts and feelings to paper.
God Bless
As always , Lt. a spell binding read. You did one hell of a job down there in the valley.
I would have been honored to serve with you.
You, and so many others on here, would have turned some of he situations we handled marginally or badly into
grand successes. Unfortunately, most of you would not be here to write and read and help me either!
thanks for the compliment and the loyalty and care…on here too.
Semper fi,
Jim
Damn LT, just DAMN!
Thanks Joe, this was a tough chapter and I had to rewrite it seven times! I just could not get it all together to make sense.
It came at me in like stop-action or strobe pictures but out of sequence. Finally got it down.
Thanks for the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I can’t find words !!! I’m going to be sorry to see this end…
Excellent. When this is complete I want a full set of books, autographed.
And so you shall receive those books any way you want them inscribed.
In the meantime, thanks for considering any help on getting the last one out there and me on
the road this fall…
Thanks for everything and anything.
Semper fi,
Jim
https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
Going to be a long night with no sleep , no place that’s safe and no way out. Just thinking your man and home and love ones so far away in another world who you maybe will see again some day
The way out seemed pretty damned impossible that night and I do recall staring upward without being able to see much of
anything, of course.
And the discomfort of all of it physically and mentally was tremendous. I still recall being a bit relieved that I’d stayed away from
the new lieutenants, as they were both really nice guys. I had no time to monitor or train them. What was I to do? And then I get upset
with myself for thinking that I didn’t want to know them better. What had I become?
Semper fi,
Jim
I have been following this for a while, and I must say it is the most riveting writing I have ever read. I always so excited to see the next chapter. I joined late and may have missed this, but Is this story partially or fully based on your experiences in Vietnam?
Yes. Thanks for asking Ronald and thanks for reading and that great compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
My go fund me account is here if you want to help or can help get this published and me on the road visit guys like you this fall: https://www.gofundme.com/f/thirty-days-has-september
LT. My older brother is a Vietnam Marine vet 68-69. He and a lot of my friends say the same about FNG’s they didn’t want to get to know them after having lost so many of the brothers they shipped over with. They knew the odds were against them surviving and just didn’t want to lose another person they had grown to care for. I enlisted in the A.F. in 72 because my dad ne of the Chosin few would sign for me to follow in my brothers footstep. I fought the tail end of Nam but as a C-130 crew member I missed out on the ground fighting.
Thank you for your input, Charlie. I am sorry for being so late in response.
Be thankful you were not on the ground.
Semper fi,
Jim
Good exciting chapter.