The vibrations from the low-flying Huey choppers beat the mud, the low jungle debris, and even the pebbled cliff face into a mixed frenzy of anticipation. That state was nothing compared to the feelings of anticipation I and all the Marines were feeling inside our minds and bodies, I was certain. The sound of beating blades was nearly overwhelming, and I couldn’t quite take the scene in full because of the darkness and rain-blown particulate. I sheltered myself against the swell of the berm, curling my body gently into its surface while pulling down on my helmet with both hands.
I waited, listening intently. There were more Huey’s than I’d ever heard in one small place before. After a few seconds, I picked up on the fact that there were ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ choppers in the mix. That meant Cobra Hueys were flying close in circling security while the main transport Hueys dropped down like they landed in the center of a hurricane of their own making. None of it made any sense to me. The only night vision equipment any forces in Vietnam had was the Starlight Scope and that device, only a few feet away, was not designed to be used in the air. It was too short-ranged and its field of view was tiny. What sense did it make for Cobra gunships to fly security around heavy-lift Hueys in the middle of the night if they couldn’t see?
The Cobras opened up, and fear lashed through me again, only having eased a bit during the short period of time following the rotary ship making mincemeat of the entire mud flat. The smaller rotary mini-guns of the Cobras swathed back and forth across the mud flats again, this time fired by pilots who could not see much of anything except possibly the general area above where they fired. I cringed deeper down into the hardened mud of the poorly protective berm. The rotary fire swept close but not across the company position. Either the pilots were experienced savants of their deadly trade or me, and the company had been lucky again. Before thousands of rounds of 7.62 bullets could find us, the attention of the Cobras was drawn to the denser jungle across the flat. The NVA had been taken by as much surprise as we had but finally recovered. They fired their own machine guns at the sources of the red-rope tracers hosing the area.
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I think back a few installments to where you left your gear on the top of a ridge and came back to it later and found they had gone through it and didnt booby trap it or harm it in any way and wonder wtf? Then they turn around and lay a couple of rpgs on the army guys on the rock cliff. The army guys that came oer the moutain with some food,wasnt there any fighting going on there? How long of a walk was it from theor camp. It seems like every officer that calls you a fuck up gets wasted by not listening to you. Somehow i missed the chapter whrn you had them in the sights of the onto but will get it when the book comes out
Well, not many officers in the Gunny’s experience ever stopped long enough to listen when in combat.
I have no idea of what happened to the Gunny before the bitterness of the A Shau went inside us all.
Semper fi,
Jim
And thanks for wanting the next book when I get done…
Another great chapter. Thanks a JIM. Keep them coming.
You are most welcome Bud, and I am working on the next segment right this minute…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, we had strobe lights at both ends of our position to help the choppers know where we were. They only came out at night for the wounded if they could not make it til morning. Keep them coming Jim… Mike
I’m sure that there were materials available to make life more accommodating in different parts of that
damned war and in the man difference places. We worked with what we could haul around, piecemeal as that was…
Semper fi
Jim
Evening Jim;
That is the sad fact of that dammed war, The scatter shot distribution of equipment, Some of the things I saw bordered on being criminal when it came to even simple life saving support equipment, I was often appalled at how the Marines were screwed over so many times when it came to any type of cutting edge equipment, Let alone stuff we in the Army took for granted run of the mill, When task with supply for you Marines, I always tried to scrounge extra, Yes there was a visible physical difference between our Army Grunts and Your Marine Grunts anytime we came in contact with you. My deepest respect for You Marines and the mantra “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome”
Semper Fi/This We Defend Bob
A very concise and perfect description of how I came to love the Army.
So many Army guys were just like you.
They loved the Marines and helped at every opportunity and we cared deeply about them.
We were like the big older brothers while you guys were like the younger brothers trying your hearts out….
and for us too.
Thank you, Robert, once again.
Semper fi, and happy 4th brother.
Jim
Let me try this again. My first attempt failed to post. First off, I am enjoying your story. What an adventure, although one I’m sure you could have done without!
I’m a Retired Marine. I was in boot camp when the Mayaguez incident happened. In all my years as an enlisted man and a Warrent Officer, I’ve always felt the Corps had the best leadership out of all the services. Especially the infantry officers, who almost always seemed to have common sense, an ability to think outside the box, and set a good example to their Marines. Your experience is the polar opposite of my own. Why do you think that is the case. Did we just produce crappy leaders in the 50’s and 60’s. I hope you will respond. Semper Fi!
I believe that leadership is something that varies with not only innate quality and material, including training, but with circumstance.
Much easier to follow procedure and lead through times of peace or in familiar territory. Much more problematic under murderous circumstance.
Semper fi,
Jim
LT. again this is very important writing for history preservation . QUESTION: What are your feelings about the LT. Calley situation?
Everything is relative. Thank you for feeling the way you do about the writing.
Everyone does not share that opinion, which has to be okay with me to continue.
I knew from the start that this would be a problematic exercise but I also felt in reading about war all through the years that nobody was writing much about what really happens when men are living without accountability
or attribution or even revelation under severely fearful dangerous conditions with hugely powerful weapons.
Thanks for the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
This has nothing to do with the Lt Calley thing! Just continue your writing.
I guess I don’t understand that comment or the reference but okay. I shall continue to endeavor to persevere….
Semper fi,
Jim
It was called the My Lai Massacre, Americal Div.
Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers.
Yes, a lot of unanswered question, A lot of PC Anti War cya, And a Young Lt. hung out to dry because He was the lowest guy on the downhill when the shit came rolling down.
Semper Fi/This We Defend Bob
Yes, I know it well, the whole thing. It was a giant dial after I got home. Jimmy Herbert, a mentor of mine back in the day (wrote the book called Soldier) was somehow involved in that whole thing.
Killing civilians was a tough deal. Define civilian in a guerrilla conflict. It can play hell with everything. The whole population is against you in such a war, but part of the population makes it seem
lie they are not, like they are your friends. Not.
Semper fi,
Jim
Evening Jim,
Yep, Found this, A lot of truth in a short read, Yes everyone who has a relative or child should share this with them, It speaks a hard truth;
Sean Seòladair As I prepared for my first Combat tour of Vietnam back in ’69, I spent a few days with the old Combat Vets from WWII and Korea, of my family; my Father, Grandfathers, several Uncles and Great Uncles. They each approached and talked to me privately, but the messages were so similar.
They said I would be changed in my body. I would move through the physical world in a different manner. I would hold myself in a different posture. I would have pains where there was no blood. I would react to sights, sounds, movement and touch in a crazy way, as though I was back in the war.
They said I would be wounded in my thoughts. I would forget how to trust and think that others were trying to harm me. I would see danger in the kindness and concern of my relatives and others. Most of all, I would not be able to think in a reasonable manner, and it would seem that everyone else was crazy. They told me that it would appear to me that I was alone and lost even in the midst of the people…that there was no one else like me.
They warned me that it would be as though my emotions were locked up, and that I would be cold in my heart and not remember the ways of caring for others. While I might give soft meat or blankets to the elders or food to the children, I would be unable to feel the goodness of these actions. I would do these things out of habit and not from caring. They predicted that I would be ruled by dark anger and that I might do harm to others without plan or intention.
They knew that my spirit would be wounded. They said I would be lonely and that I would find no comfort in family, friends, elders, spirits or God. I would be cut off from both beauty and pain. My dreams and visions would be dark and frightening. My days and nights would be filled with searching and not finding. I would be unable to find the connections between myself and the rest of creation. I would look forward to an early death. And….I would need cleansing and healing in all these things, but that may not be possible. They spoke the truth.
CWO USN Retired
46 years learning this, and still on the learning curve.
Semper Fi, Jim, This We Defend!
Now that is an outstanding piece of literature and so right to the heart of the matter.
Thanks big time Reobert for posting this for everyone on here to read…
Semper fi,
Jim
LT I am glued to the screen every time I get to read another chapter. I have a personal question and I understand if you do not address it. When did you tell your wife the reality of your experience? Great read.
She would be reading it now for the first time if she would read it, which she will not.
She says she does not need to know. She knows me and does not want to go back to those nights, those
drugs, those drinks and my distance from her. Is she right? I don’t know. She worries through the process of
my writing that writing it will harm me and us. I have already changed a bit to pull it all back and put it down,
but I think I’m okay. There’s the truth.
Semper fi,
Jim
That is a good thing that she doesn’t want to read it! She has survived this long without knowing all that you have gone thru. I am proud of both of YOU for working thru it all.
The problem with real war stories is that they do not in any way make the teller acceptable back in the phenomenal world or heroic….hence
why so few are told.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for another excellent chapter. Keep them coming. What moron sent those poor unsuspecting Marines to that hell hole. Like so many, I don’t really talk about the hell that was VN, and like previously mentioned it made us old beyond our years.
Semper Fi
Thanks Gunny. Writing those two words take me back to how many times I said them in the nam.
Thanks Gunny. Means a lot to write them and it’s still relevant as hell to do so.
Semper fi,
Jim
James: While reading these last two chapters I keep thinking of the “Heart of Darkness” by Conrad. I wonder if the five surprise visitors were there to relieve you, and the resupply was an afterthought. That’s about the only reason for the Major to pull a “Marlow”. Had Jurgens painted you as Kurtz on the net after the Ontos re alignment?I suppose all will be revealed soon. Maybe I’m analyzing too much.
I read this for insight and damned if I ain’t caught up in the drama and intercompany politics.
Keep it coming, Dammit.
Semper Fi!
Thanks Thomas. Interesting thoughts on all this, so many never to be resolved. Communication with the rear
area was so esoteric and distant. Thanks for the analysis and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Glad you made it back to tell your story. I was in the Valley in ’69 and felt like an old man at twenty one years of age. I could feel my hair turning gray.It brings to mind the Bob Dylan song, I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
Yes, exactly. Coming home was no way to survive.
It took a complete reboot with alcohol, drugs, and alienation for me to do that and ‘get younger than before’
like in the song. Vietnam made us almost ancient in understanding reality.
We came back to this, so far from that reality, and the reality of most of the world, that the stuff out there isn’t truly believable.
And so silence works.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great chapter Lt. I’m still with you.
And I with you Al. Thanks for being a part of the whole thing, whatever the whole thing is!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim:
Your sentence:
“Muck was a better word than mud to describe it, and it also had a distinctive putrid smell of decay.”
Brought memories flooding (pardon the pun) back to me of life during the monsoon season in that hell hole.
Like you have said yourself, when the topic of Vietnam comes up, I always walk out of the room. Have since the 1960’s. Hard to explain what crosses your mind when you put your best friend into a body bag in pieces.
Keep up your work.
Regular people cannot understand.
Catch 22 was a hugely successful people but polls taken later had Yossarian, the protagonist, down as a coward and combat
avoider as he tried to talk his way out of going on those oh so deadly B-17 missions.
Jimmie Stewart bailed halfway through his tour and yet came home and was also eventually promoted to general officer.
Mondale ran for president. He did serve his full tour. He was branded as a coward and the coward elected president in his place.
Funny how real life is. And hence why you remain quiet and I have for so long too…
Semper fi,
Jim
Do you mean George McGovern Lt.?
Yes, I did,
Semper fi,
Jim
Up jumped a thought. Did the XO piss off the same General officer you did? Guess installments to come will tell. Again a wonderfully told story of a situation that “shitty” doesn’t come close in describing. Have a great day. Poppa J
I thought about that, of course, but only later on.
When I was in therapy that general was there too and we used to talk.
He never asked who I was or where I’d been. He didn’t know me and I let it
remain that way until he passed years later. What would have been the point?
I was only a 2nd LT and he a general officer.
Semper fi,
Jim
Extraordinary descriptive writing.”Either the pilots were experienced savants of their deadly trade or me, and the company had been lucky again.” And this line, and others as well. “I heard the Choppers accept the fire and quickly dive to deliver their own hard and killing bites back down into the jungle.”
Thanks for sharing another exhilarating chapter!
As usual John, you are particularly complimentary. The reality of such things is so much easier to reimagine than it might be to make up.
Thanks for giving credibility to the phrasing and the story….
Semper fi,
Ji
Afternoon Jim;
Having been in aviation over there, I suspect what came with the major were Charlie model gunships, Not Cobras, There were special C models set up for night missions, The has special Starlight and Infrared sights and projector, They were armed with 2 mini guns, and did have rockets, 7 round pods, We had a unit of them down south around Phoc Vin, There were also, Specially modified Slicks, Called Night Hawks, Yes again equipped with a IR searchlight from a tank, and night vision, on the port side along with a mini-gun, On the starboard side they had a Ma Duce, 50 cal, Both the C and Slicks has special marker lights so they could operate in teams, I remember two types, One was shielded so you could only see them if you were above and to the rear, The others were infrared and on of the pilots had a early set of night vision type goggles to keep track on any other ship. As I sit here today, I have to wonder who the REMF was back with the POGS who came up with the brilliant idea of a night resupply and sending only 5 people out with it, and not informing the unit that they were coming. I had several experiences with night missions in support of the grunts, Emergency Medivac … All were highly controlled, With full communication with the units on the ground, and tightly controlled approaches to the LZ and egress from, Scary as all hell, Not only with the chances of taking ground fire, But taking rotor strikes, Main and Tail, or putting down on stumps, large, rocks, The worst would have been losing a tail rotor in the LZ With out a tail Rotor, and the engine at full power on a LZ you go into an automatic torque spin, and crash sending main and tail rotor pieces and shrapnel all over the LZ and anyone working to bring you in…… Yep, Someone in the rear really screwed the pooch with that abomination of a mission…..
Semper Fi/This We Defend Bob.
The bravery and undaunted attitude under the worst of conditions many times amazed me over there. They had no night vision at all, as the Starlight Scope was a brand new invention and not suitable for air use.
They had no GPS. They just came, time after time, when supplies were down to the bitter end or Marines were bad hit and needed help immediately. The Army was as good as or better than Marine pilots, depending upon
whom you could get and when.
Thanks for the great informative comment, Robert!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
We’re here,” the Gunny said back, keep his voice down as far as possible, but still surprised me.
“Keeping”
Been with you since your very first installment of book one, and I will never understand how you are able to travel back and forth from that man-made hell to your present world. You remain in our thoughts and prayers. Forever thankful for your service.
I go there at night and then wake up the next day into this phenomenal world where I love to live.
I would only hope and pray that almost all other Americans might come to see that the way things are right
now in this country is pretty great. I get through the nights now with coffee, writing and netflix when I can’t write.
Thanks for the comment and the sincere compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
The terror of combat as a FNG gradually morphs into dread and acceptance of our fates as days and weeks go by and PTSD sets in ! Your writing keeps drawing me back to my own experiences as I read about yours . Reading your account can’t simply be set aside at the end because I am back in 1 Corp 68/69 for a while !