Our return to the company was without incident, although Casey would not shut up. His incessant chatter was more than bothersome, because it couldn’t be listened to for long without the listener realizing that something was seriously wrong with the man. Some of what he was saying was painful to hear, and potentially damaging to any ability I might have to command the company around him. The Gunny had agreed to a slight delay in our departure toward the objective.
“I need a new helmet,” Casey said, plopping himself down next to my laid out poncho cover, the Gunny having gathered his stuff and placed it next to my own without saying anything.
“You’re going to the rear on the resupply chopper,” I told Casey, trying to ignore the man and write my wife a letter home to go aboard that same chopper.
“Give me your helmet,” he said, “so I won’t look like a circus creature.”
I looked over at the man, sitting like a lost child in the jungle, fingering his battered helmet.
“Mine says Junior on it, and I’m sure you don’t want that,” I replied, hoping he’d shut up and let me finish my description of how the raging river reared up onto the opposite bank, and then slowly carved that bank away into nothingness.
I wrote about the beauty and purity of the sand, the moving water left behind.
“It just says that on the cover,” he said, holding out his grasping fingers toward me. I handed him my helmet, which I seldom took off. I then lost myself in the letter, only surfacing after I was done, and then addressing the envelope. My stamps had turned to mush, so there would be no postmark on a regular stamp to collect on the other end. I’d instructed my wife to keep all the envelopes for my collection, in the hope they’d become worth something later on. Typically, the glue on the seal part of the envelope had also disappeared. The thing flapped open, but it would have to do. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read my letters home. Maybe Macho Man would return on today’s run and have some sort of weird interest, simply because he was such a weird man.
“Sir?” I said, when I looked over. Casey was working my helmet cover over with his knife.
“There,” he said, handing me his old helmet with my cover covering it. He’d carefully cut a hole around the dent on one side of the cover and then pierced the canvas so the imbedded piece of shrapnel could stick through.
I took the helmet and stared at the mess he’d somehow made look even worse. My shoulders sagged. What did it matter? There was nobody in the field who gave one damn how I looked, including me. I put the helmet on. The dent didn’t penetrate through the liner and neither did the chunk of shiny metal.
“I need Rittenhouse,” he said, settling in under what had been my protective steel pot.
“Rittenhouse didn’t make it,” I said, knowing he knew that from our previous conversation. I looked over at his expression, and I sighed, waiting for what he was going to say now.
“Yes, you killed him,” he said, staring at me like I was some sort of monster.
“We’ll have a new clerk soon,” I replied, not wanting to pursue the subject, and growing ever more fearful that Casey’s mouth could hurt me with the Marines around me more than the enemy right now.
I had the Jurgens meeting to handle, and I needed to talk to Nguyen and Stevens privately before that took place.
“You, Junior are not a nice man,” Casey said, continuing where he’d left off.
“How is the next clerk supposed to do his job if the criticism for what he writes is death?”
“I need to meet with my scout team,” I said, ignoring the nasty comment. I climbed to my feet and stuck the letter to my wife in my left thigh pocket.
“You don’t have a scout team,” Casey said. “They’re my scout team. All you have is a radio operator. He has a radio that works. Somebody stole the microphone off my radio so it doesn’t work anymore. My RTO is gone, probably looking for the microphone.”
I looked down at my pack, where Pilson’s handset lay in full view of Casey, only a few feet away. I knew he was refusing to look at it.
“We’ll get you a new radio,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. Whatever had happened in the contact down by the river, or the close strike of the shrapnel to his head, had changed Casey completely. There was none of the ignorant arrogance left in the man. He was like a bright teenager with a strange sense of hope in his expression, and seemingly careless attitude about life going on around him.
“Don’t need a radio,” he said. “I’m getting the Silver Star. Junior’s Silver Star. They’re going to send me here to the company with my Silver Star. You can have it when I come back. I’ll trade you for half your radio.”
I looked over at Fusner and Zippo, sitting only a few feet away. Both were smiling, and then I was smiling. It was quickly becoming impossible not to like our obviously damaged company commander.
“Okay, sir,” I could not keep myself from saying.
“Deal,” Casey replied, coming to his feet and sticking out his right hand.
“Deal,” I said, shaking his hand.
“You helmet looks funny,” he said, before turning to walk toward where the Gunny was getting his pack ready for the move. “You should get a new one” he said over his shoulder, as he went.
The Gunny looked at me across the distance with a furrowed brow and pain in his eyes. I would have smiled at the burden he had to know was walking toward him, but instead took out my Colt for one last check of the action. I was not going to let the sun set with Jurgens in the company, knowing that he’d managed to make it look like I’d deliberately killed some of my own men for whatever personal gain or because it gave legs to some conspiracy theory about me floating around and running through the company.
The rain was gone and the sun was out. I knew that same sun would make it nearly unlivable later in the day, as far down in the valley as we were, but just then it was a welcome relief from the night before. There was no fire or sign of the enemy at all. But then, I was finding that not uncommon, as the supporting fires a Marine Company could command during daylight hours were pretty extensive. The enemy was fierce but they were also not stupid.
There was a feeling of relief and mild exhilaration that flowed through me with being alive when there were body bags waiting for pickup. Fusner turned his small transistor radio on and there was Brother John’s soothing deep voice. Nah Trang. I wondered if it was always quiet and peaceful wherever down south Nah Trang was located. The first song of the day played, but I ignored it, finishing my work on the .45, until all of a sudden the words in the sing-song piece penetrated my brain. “From the village hidden deep in the valley, one rainy morning dark and gray…a soul winged its way to heaven… Jimmy Brown had passed away…” Rittenhouse hadn’t had a name even close to Jimmy Brown’s but it was straight to Rittenhouse where my mind went.
I looked around me. The scout team and the Gunny were all looking at Fusner, like I was. Fusner reached for the little knob but the Gunny stopped him.
“Let it play,” he said, “but keep it low.”
The song played out. I waited for it be over, trying not to think of the Rittenhouse I’d knelt in the mud with, and his damning look of childish appreciation for my removing his pain. And his life. I worked to get my mind back on the moment. The company was about ready to move out but I wasn’t ready yet.
“Where’s Jurgens?” I asked the Gunny. The Gunny ignored me, as did the rest of the scout team, everyone staying low in fear of the horrid fifty being brought back on line by the enemy from across the river.
“Gunny?” I said, quietly, but forcefully. I wasn’t going to let the mystery of the totally out of place and stupid expedition everyone had let Casey lead into obvious disaster go unexplained. The Gunny moved toward me, and I could see by his expression that we were about to disagree again.
“We need him. Casey’s flying out, probably never to return. Resupply is screwed up because we’ve lost our company clerk and nobody knows shit about ordering anything. The NVA’s right across that river or we’d be under attack right now. The landing zone is gone, whatever the hell that means, and we’ve got four more dead bodies.”
“I didn’t send the company to the objective because you didn’t want me to,” I replied. I knew that he and I both knew, however, that I couldn’t have made any of the Marines, except maybe my scout team, go anywhere without his approval, but I wanted to make a point of the fact that I’d gone along with him, as in the past.
“We need him,” the Gunny repeated. “What do you want from him?”
“Answers he’s not going to give you,” I replied.
“He didn’t do it and wasn’t behind it,” the Gunny said, squatting down next to me.
“You side with the whites in this thing going on, and you know it. You and Sugar Daddy are about as close as Jurgens and me, which isn’t close at all.”
Casey got up and walked over to sit on the edge of my poncho cover.
“Steak,” Casey said. “When I get to the rear I’m going in to the first restaurant I can find and order a steak.”
“I was,” the Gunny said, almost too softly for me to hear.
I tried to figure out what he meant by those two words, but couldn’t.
“Maybe they’ll let me bring one back for you.” Casey continued, like there was no other conversation going on.
“I sent them out there, that’s why you don’t need Jurgens,” the Gunny said, still speaking almost too low to be heard.
“I can put one into a plastic bag just before they ship me back here,” Casey went on. “I wonder if I get the medal over here or if I have to wait until I get home. If I get it here I can bring it back and give it to you, or if they send it to my house I can send it to you.”
It finally dawned on me that the Gunny was talking about Casey, and the other men being sent out on the river bed unprotected and without support.
“Why in hell would you do that?” I asked, my tone revealing my complete bafflement.
“Hey, it’s really your medal,” Casey answered.
I stared over at the side of Casey’s head. He was toying with a stick in the mud just beyond the edge of my poncho liner. He’d become a child, somehow, like Rittenhouse had become a child again at the end. What was the Gunny’s game and what other questions did I need answers to that I really didn’t want to know? Was the Gunny telling me the truth or was he simply running interference for Jurgens?
“I sent him to the river to see if it was fordable by us or the NVA,” the Gunny finally answered. “Nobody knew the riverbed had shifted. It was supposed to be a quick patrol fully in view of perimeter security.”
“Straight out into the teeth of where the rockets had come in from?” I asked, keeping my voice flat and level. “Straight into the only place everyone had to know I was going to land artillery shells all over?”
That the Gunny had been behind sending not only Casey and Rittenhouse out into such a terminal situation was tough enough to consider. That he’d sent his own radio operator, Nguyen and a whole squad of Marines was more difficult. Jurgens wouldn’t send his own people into that kind of charnel house. Neither would the Gunny. I wasn’t buying it. But why was the Gunny covering anyone else? And who was ‘anyone else?’
“Why the cut cord?” I asked, holding the microphone out with its wires dangling down between us.
“Nguyen,” the Gunny whispered.
“Radio won’t work without a handset, Junior,” Casey said, grabbing the severed microphone and spinning it by the remnants of its cord.
“Why?” I asked, knowing, but afraid to know.
“Stevens said you sent Nguyen to finish him,” the Gunny replied, telling me exactly what I didn’t want to hear. “Pilson heard the fire mission, told Casey, and then ran for cover. He was trying to check fire the mission but Nguyen cut the cord.”
“Rittenhouse stayed with Casey until the end, and Casey wouldn’t leave,” I murmured, wondering what I was going to do with that conclusion.
I looked over at Casey, still spinning the handset. He deserved the Silver Star. I could say whatever I wanted about the man’s incompetence or lack of good sense but nobody could say he lacked a kind of courage that I knew I didn’t have. I was ruled by fear, and I compromised everything in the face of it. Casey had not.
“Rittenhouse had to go,” the Gunny said. “You know that.”
“He was going with the captain to the rear, anyway,” I replied.
“To do what? Write more shit about you and I so if we ever get out of this shithole of a sand pit we have no life to go back to?”
I noticed Pilson hanging near a bamboo grove about fifteen meters north, up the path beaten down by the company’s movements. Nguyen was just beyond him, nearly invisible inside the bracken, watching me, like he was always watching me. I noticed Pilson’s new radio, with the microphone in his right hand, like he was only waiting for the Gunny’s orders for the company to proceed.
“You got your radio operator back,” I observed, noting that the Gunny must have sent the amateur he had standing in back to whatever unit he’d been pulled from. “Pilson ran under fire,” I said.
“So did you, at one time,” the Gunny shot back, his voice a hissed whisper.
“That’s not what I meant,” I replied, quickly, holding up one hand. “Did anybody see him?”
“Like it matters. He’s my RTO.”
I knew he was right. He was the Gunny and I was Junior, whatever or whomever that was supposed to be.
“What’s the situation with the landing zone?” I asked, not wanting to go deeper into the morass of strange and deadly company politics. “Sugar Daddy sent a forward party and found out what? What was he doing sending anybody out there?”
There was no central command structure in the company. The Gunny wasn’t in command. Casey wasn’t in command and I certainly wasn’t either. We generally moved when ordered, generally took objectives we were commanded to, and certainly killed or injured many of the enemy at every turn, but the company was more like collected bunches of little baby chickens, sticking together while choosing whom or what they were going to follow on a moment by moment basis.
“I still want to see Jurgens,” I stated, when the Gunny didn’t say anything to my questions about our objective. “There’s the grenade.”
“The grenade missed,” the Gunny replied, picking some drying mud from his boots with his K-Bar.
“Then there’s the attempted ambush I was supposed to be killed in, back there earlier,” I added.
“That never went off either,” the Gunny replied, picking and spinning away chunk after chunk away from his boot. “We need him, like I said. The river moved at the objective too. What was a landing zone is now a pool of slowly turning backwater. The river’s going down and we’re going to have to cross because that water runs right up against the side of a cliff now. And across that river, well, we know what’s over there.”
“You apparently spoke in detail to Sugar Daddy,” I said, making the flat statement instead of asking him a question.
The Gunny remained silent.
“Maybe I’ve got this all wrong,” I continued. “Maybe there isn’t a racial problem at all in this company. Maybe it’s deeper than that.
Still, the Gunny remained silent, as I thought about the players I was surrounded with. There was nobody else. There was me, the scout team, Casey, the radio operator’s underground radio network, Jurgens, the Gunny and Sugar Daddy. Rittenhouse had been conveniently removed by me, but not at my order or desire. That he’d thrown the grenade was no longer in question. Dying men begging for morphine to go out in less pain do not lie. At least I didn’t think they did, and I was fast becoming something of an expert on the subject.
“We spoke very briefly at Rittenhouse’s side and then you were gone,” I said, not really knowing where I was going with my point, but unable to just let it go. “You were right there so you heard Rittenhouse apologizing for listening to Jurgens.”
“We need him,” the Gunny came back, like a broken record or some kind of snick on a wagging metronome. Snick, snick, snick.
I thought somehow Jurgens, Sugar Daddy and the Gunny were tied together in ways I could not yet understand, and the Gunny wasn’t going to tell me about, which meant that I was not inside the wire. At an artillery battery the perimeter is made of concertina razor wire. The density of it, coupled with the power and speed of delivering howitzer rounds at close range, had resulted in no artillery batteries being overrun since World War II.
The phrase “inside the wire” had become synonymous with trust. Everyone inside the wire was automatically trusted and everyone outside the wire fired upon without regard. After almost two weeks of sporadic and questionable command, and numerous plans and artillery barrages that had killed many of the enemy and saved a lot of our Marines, I was still outside the company wire.
I heard a distinct click come out of Fusner’s radio. Everyone started to move. I was figuring out the arcane and very quiet form of communication the rest of the company took as normal. I came to my feet, and then cocked my head to one side.
“Cowboy’s back,” I said, heading toward Fusner and the air radio. The sound grew in volume. There were two Skyraiders, although it took a short exchange on the radio to determine it was indeed Cowboy, this time flying as leader, with “Hobo” backing him up. I told him we were headed to the pole and that the New York side of the Hudson needed some eradication and fertilization.
The Skyraiders flew over our heads, from north to south. Both pilots waved from their open windows, the back windows where their flight officers sat were closed and impossible to see through.
The enemy was on our flank, behind us and no doubt up ahead somewhere. I wasn’t worried about the rear because our problems were about to become serious when the right bank of the river ended somewhere up ahead where the objective was supposed to be.
The Skyraiders turned in one long arc and came back in low over the opposing bank of the river. The large objects under their wings were not bombs. Not ordinary bombs, anyway. The first Skyraider released, and his ‘bomb’ floated and tumbled through the air until it struck. The jungle just beyond the river bank exploded in a black and red nightmare of fire and smoke. The distance was too great to feel the heat, but the show was enough. Napalm. It was my first napalm. I’d been told about the unlikely mixture of gasoline and jello, but the reality of it was nothing like what I expected. It just burned on and on with the smoke getting blacker and blacker, as the jungle below consumed itself, covered in the sticky smelling burning jelly.
The company began moving more rapidly.
“We need a place to cross,” I said to the Gunny’s back. “What did battalion say about the missing LZ?”
“Just need a flat surface on the other bank,” he replied, without turning.
“They’re going to bring some Seabee stuff down from Hue and build a new firebase and LZ to go with it.”
The sun was up and the heat was back, but the ever present mosquitos and avoiding leeches wasn’t what bothered me. We’d reached the place where we could see across the flat sand plain all the way to the river. The small ‘island’ where Rittenhouse had died was in the distance, but so were a bunch of black low-moving objects.
“What the hell?” I said, reaching for my binoculars. The objects were flat and moving way too fast to be enemy soldiers.
“Crocodiles, running from the napalm that flows into the water,” the Gunny said, like he was used to seeing such things every day.
“Oh, great,” I murmured, putting my binoculars back in my pack. “Just great, like it hasn’t been bad enough.”
I knew our tit was so in the wringer. The enemy were all there, as before. The Skyraiders were burning up the other side of the river, and would probably be back to remain on station for a good part of the day. That part of the day when the enemy slept or lived down in tunnels. We were hiking on into an area where there was no landing zone and we couldn’t get supplied or Casey or our bodies pulled out without at least a good-sized chunk of flat secured ground.
We were headed north up the A Shau Valley, probably outrunning whatever elements of support battalion might send, and once the Skyraiders pulled out all we’d have was artillery, until I could somehow get the 106 recoilless ordered, delivered and set up.
“Marshmallows!” Casey yelled out, to no one listening, with a giant smile and one hand pointing at the patches of burning jungle on the far shore.
Featured Image by Angel Trancón ARTS
<<<<<< The Beginning | Next Chapter >>>>>>
LT, you write so well and the words flow so smoothly this slipped right by me the first couple of times I read this installment. In the paragraph that begins, “I looked over at Casey, ……” the third sentence perhaps should read, “…..nobody could say he lacked a kind of courage that I knew I didn’t (have)”. See what you think about adding (have), I don’t mean to be critical, just trying to help.
It is amazing how many of readers read deeply enough to catch errors. Really appreciate the support.
Of course two editors will go over this before publication. Their work will be just a bit easier.
Thanks again
Sempi fi,
Jim
The Browns–J.E., Maxine, and Bonnie. My older brother dated Maxine. I was a grade or two ahead of Bonnie.
James what did you mean “you came home on a starlifter in a plastic bag”?
The Inside of the C-141 Starlifter aircraft was set up to allow for the carrying of
gurney patients up and down the center of it in two rows or racks three or four high.
The inside walls of the fusalage did not have racks. They allowed for really serious
patients to be placed inside giant plastic bags and then the bags stapled to the
surface lining the inside of that fusalage wall. Openings along the top where the bags
weren’t stapled tight allowed for air and the I.V. and elimination stuff. Total
morphine medication, of course…more not believable stuff, I know.
Semper fi,
Jim
I really like the descriptions and conversation with the Captain. It’s very funny and entertaining.
It almost seems as though the inner workings and politics of the company are more lethal that the ever present NVA threat.
To me, the mark of a good, if not great, writer is to hold the readers attention even when the drama and action are scarce. You got it in spades my friend. Great writing.
Thank you Daniel. Trying to explain the inner workings of people’s minds, when those people
are or have been real, is problematic. I have to make up what I think they thought. Easier to imagine
the whole thing and then, of course, there is the dimming of memory over time which means bridges of fiction
have to be used to cross those proverbial ‘rivers.’
Thanks for the comment and for the support in your comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Don’t forget about those sneaky damn tigers. They got two of our guys during a night time patrol.
Tigers were ever present in the A Shau, but more from hearing about them
than actually seeing them. The way the jungle was configured and how it
melded together made it almost impossible to see them even when they were
close.
Thanks for the comment and your own observations.
Semper fi,
Jim
It seen to me that staying in the fire zone when he knew it was going to be hot, without anything to be gained was not heroic just foolish
Neither Casey nor Rittenhouse were notified that they were going out under fire.
And why that happened comes in later in the story. I like the way your mind works though
and you should be a detective. Thanks for the detail of your study of my work.
Finally, tomorrow is the last day of final edit and the book goes to Amazon on Monday. The first one, that is.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hi James
Leadership is when people assist in your endeavors because they want to. Want and need are different. Need to isn’t actionable if the penalty pales next to the true situation. Want to doesn’t regard penalty or current situation. I guessing you wouldn’t be writing this unless you wanted to. Thanks for the endeavor. 2 cousins that came back home but didn’t really. They were met at the SF airport by extended family with posters and escorted through to the parking lot in 1970.
bt
Perfect way to lay all that out Brian. I could not agree more.
I came in on a Starlifter in a plastic bag so I never encountered the public
on my return home. Thanks for your own experience and writing it here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hi James
I did read the note on how you returned to the United States. I should be shocked at how severely wounded were transported home. And somehow just am not. Total morphine medication, of course. My father in law relayed very similar small slice accounts of a tour beginning during the Battle of the Bulge in ending in Munich with all that lay between. Simple terrible minutes that he did not share with his own children. Thank you for the writing.
bt
Thanks Brian. The trip back home wasn’t uncomfortable because of the morphine
and the simple fact that we all knew we were going home. We did not go through
any public gauntlet either since we were so fucked up.
Thanks for your comment and for caring…
Semper fi,
Jim
Very sorry for continuing to add to the comments, to say you have my interest peaked would be an understatement. When I stumbled onto this I had to share it. I’ll chill if you want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER5rztRzOaM
Hey, SSgt. Thanks for coming on to comment.
Interesting video so here it is for anybody who wants to look at it.
Thank you for bothering to take the time and effort to get it up here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Mr. Strauss (LT, Sir),
Not much at writing but your writing is so impressive that I have to at least try to express
my deep and sincere acknowledgement and appreciation for the efforts you are making in writing your “30 Days Has September”.
I wonder how closely the influences of our youth parallel and resulted in a portrayal
that you are so wonderfully bringing to life with your superb writing skills and I so admire
and which describe one of the most bazaar of life experiences.
We all know of the Pearl Harbor attack and how influential it was on everyone’s thinking back then.
Well, two days after it my Dad joined the Marine Corps and during those two days
my existence was initiated such that I was born on Aug. 4, 1942, i.e. the Kid here became a Pearl Harbor baby.
Dad, a machine gunner, came home as the greatest of heroes to me, having fought in all 5th Div. USMC
Pacific battles including Iwo Jima and experiencing all the PTSD symptoms that you
and many of your commenters have described but in a different era and I got to experience it first hand.
Dad fought it when he came home both internally and externally and most around him were the recipients including our family.
We did not understand it then and as a result of his extreme viciousness I never really got to know him after a divorce.
Life went on though and soon I find myself in college and ROTC (Air Force) at VaTech.
Graduation came and I had an AF contract and commission but the ghost of my Dad and the Corps
had always stayed with and become a major part of me.
In honor of my Dad’s service and wishing mightily to make my Dad proud of me I turned down the AF commission
and on Sept. 28, 1964 reported to Quantico as a aviation officer candidate.
As I read your writings it seems and I wonder if we may have been there at the same time.
You see, James, as I read your great articles and comments it somehow makes me feel much closer to my Dad
by helping me understand better how unbelievably tough both your and his experiences really were in the jungles.
I’m 75 y/o now and still trying desperately to learn of the small, intimate and similar details that you
so vividly describe of the daily conflicts both then and now and based on all I have ever been able to learn are not that dissimilar.
Just survival efforts in the worst of circumstances…
and you, my Friend, now garner my absolute highest esteem as a true hero just like my Dad, may he rest in peace.
You can be assured that this person loves your writing and will follow your efforts and cannot wait
to make them a part of my library and inner self.
Our connection is strong and I will always value and honor it… thank you!!!
May God be with you and yours always and grant you great success!!!
Semper Fi, we will defend it, and welcome home, brother!
Thank you for this lengthy but quite wonderful story of your own life in different segments.
What a package you were given at this particularly crucial time for the nation
and everyone going through that wringer.
Wow. I’m a little younger and went through OCS in Quantico in 1967
and then on to Basic School (5/68).
My Basic Class was decimated in the Nam.
I am so happy that you are getting something out of the story that
I was unaware when I began was even a part of it.
The reactions to much of what I have written have been more
illuminating than the story itself and your comment is a solid chunk in that foundation.
Thank you for giving me more credit than is likely my due but I really appreciate
what you have had to say here and I’m sure others reading
your comment do to.
Semper fi,
JIm
Was in the AShaw with the 101st in 71 , beautiful but dangerous place. Was on many firebases in the area. We didn’t need stamps, just address anything and it got there. Stamps wouldn’t last very long with the weather in Nam.
Yes, I was a stamp collector so I took stamps to send home for the cancellations.
And yes, the gum went to hell in a hand bag early on. So much for that idea.
Thanks for the comment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
I realize you were busy staying alive from the first day….did you ever have any interaction with 2nd and 3rd platoons. Wonder about them.
It’s only been 13 days Vern….and things are about to get a bit ‘holistic’ shall we say.
Thank you for sticking with it and wondering.
It should be interesting to see what happens when the Amazon book releases next week too.
Thanks for the care and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’ve been busy with work lately, so I was surprised to check in on the website and see 3 new chapters. I gotta say, these last 3 were insane. It shook me to the core. It felt like it only took a minute or two to read each chapter…but then it felt time stood still and I was in the world you were describing. I wish I had the words to describe what and how I felt reading these past three chapters. Just cannot do it.
I’ve read a few books and seen an awful lot of movies over the past 46 years- but I’ve never experienced the kind intensity I felt from these last 3 chapters. Amazing stuff, just amazing.
I even went back and reread the first 10 days a few weeks ago. Bad bad stuff…I feel a bit guilty for enjoying what I’ve read. Does that even make sense?
Well, golly gee Mr. Shines, now that is one hell of a comment to make.
I think I’m getting and holding the ‘flavor’ of events and the circumstance
entwined together like a the wild jostling braids on a monsters head, as that monster
pounds and threads its way through the A Shau Valley. The ripped and torn warring platoons
with competing mixed and mixed up leaders grinds and winds its way along the river,
waiting for the next betrayal and shit life has waiting…just beyond that
metaphorical signpost up ahead…
Thanks for the terrific comment and the natural thrust of your complimentary words.
I got you message and it had meaning and depth…as I write on into this night,
another of those many nights so many of us know so well…
Semper fi,
Jim
What’s up with Gunny sending those guys out knowing that you would be calling in the artillery. Sounds like getting rid of Rittenhouse was important to him. Looks like he is playing everyone, Great story as always, can’t wait for the next installmant.
As Madonna so interestingly and unexpectedly wrote: “Life is a mystery.”
thanks for being interested and following the story so closely.
All shall be revealed as you read on…
Semper fi,
Jim
One of my older cousins joined the Marines in 1960 or 61 long before Vietnam became center stage . He was a hot to trot happy go lucky guy as a youth , always the leader of course among us younger cousins and second cousins , I still remember when he came back from Boot Camp all spiffed up in uniform , trying out hand to hand combat moves on we awestruck boys , full of jokes and stories . Then he went over in one of the first waves of ” advisors ” as a machine gunner and I wish I could tell you more but when he came back ( Thank God in one piece physically ) he was never the same . To this day no-one other than himself knows what he did , what he saw , which buddies he lost or anything else . He no longer attends family reunions and one of his brothers says he lives alone in a ” a cabin ” we played in as kids deep inside a woods near his family home in Indiana taking odd jobs here and there and pretty much living off the land as much as one can in this day and age . I seriously doubt any of us will ever know what changed him but it must have been hellish . On a positive note I enjoy tremendously reading this story as you have a way of writing that makes one feel as though we are there with you when it happened . Thank you , Gary
I am sorry about your cousin. So many guys with PTSD carry it entirely alone and in so doing
die all over again when they come home and cannot escape from the pit of their memories. Thanks for
liking the story and also for trying to stick by your cousin. We need all the help we can get.
Semper fi,
Jim
jim returned in dec 1972 after 2 years as lead diver on a salvage ship. We where non combatants with no rules of engagement and working in the da nang area saw lots of nasty things. I was able to keep every body alive. When I got to San Fran at the airport (dress blues) I ran into some sailors from da nang that I knew how we lived!
I ordered a beer and the bar maid 86 me I drop a ten spot on the bar and told to bring a long neck bud and to keep the change. She informed me to leave now and at that point I felt a tap on my back and looked around to a cop who told me to leave. I smiled and told him if he was tossing me out he needed back up then I returned to the barmaid. The next thing I feel is as blunt poke in the back and the cop had pulled his service revolver I turn and asked him if had ever shot any one? We finished the conversation with my nose on his nose and his weapon in between . He was scared shitless and finally ask permission to holster his weapon. When that was done he went to the bar maid and got 2 beers gave them to me and sent me and my friend to a closed off part of the bar and told me to finish the beer and leave. Welcome home by the time I got back home kaukauna I had lost it and ended up in Alaska living in a cabin totally out of it. It’s taken 40 years to try and be normal and I’m there but with a lot of help. I admire your writing and find comfort in it knowing that i’m not alone.
boats
You are not alone. There are a lot of us on here. I was in San Francisco at the airport in my green Class A
uniform on my way down to Pendleton after getting out of the hospital. I ran into three Marine enlisted guys who were in
uniform too and looking horrid and sloppy. I made them come to attention and then read them the riot act before asking what
command they were assigned to. They were assigned to Pendleton and passing through. They’d just come from the Nam.
That was the end of the conversation until we got to a bar and got drunk together. Fucking “A” all the way…up the hill…
you are not alone. This readjustment shit is, and remains, hard.
And only those guys who’ve really been in the shit understand.
That’s why I write.
Thanks for having the courage to come on here and write about it…
Semper fi,
Jim
Nape,Willie Peter, HE, Daisy cutters …Always worried about Ord coming in short short. Then there was thermite, rockets, mortars, M26 and small arms. And then there was enemy…it’s a wonder anybody got out of there.
No shit Rth. The toys were all over the damned place and the price of being around them
was pretty damned steep. You didn’t necessarily have to do anything…just be in the wrong spot.
Thanks for your comment and for writing it here..
Semper fi,
Jim
I want to thank you Jim I recently sat down with my family and did my best to relate to them just what I did during my time in country . After a few breaks and periods of crying both by myself and those present . It took about three hours to get it all out in the open . It was one of the hardest things I have ever done . My feelings of guilt and loathing for what I had to do to survive have at last been lifted and a new acceptance and understanding have been voiced by both my wife and children . We now have a very open channel of communication that has been established . I am no longer considered the person who acts strangely for no reason . After nearly half a century I am finally able to put a haunted past to rest . I hope that you in telling your story are also getting a release from any possible burdens you might be carrying . My three sons are now reading and are calling me to talk after each new posting . Their most common reaction is the disbelief in how the vets are being treated who gave so much of themselves in serving this country . I would pray that you have bestowed upon you the piece and honor you deserve !!
Well, Bob, now that was risky. Maybe the riskiest thing I am doing is writing this where all my family and friends can read it!
The truth about combat is pretty tough stuff for anyone to deal with, even seasoned counselors. Thanks for your revelations
and your family being involved with reading the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
There were 2 different models, the A1H was a single cockpit and the A1E had the longer Green House cockpit area. I saw 7 people climb out of an A1E and pull a bicycle out afterwards.
USAF—TonSonNute, 66-67
TAC RECON WING
Never saw the rigs on an airbase or in static display, but I know they were huge things to us on the ground
below. And we loved them, no matter that we were incapable of telling one from another!
Thanks for the comment and the information.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I must apologize for the comment I submitted a few weeks ago about the guys that “help” you edit mistakes in grammar and spelling. I know you appreciate their efforts. I tend to read what you are writing from the heart and do not pay attention to any grammatical or spelling mistakes. So I again humbly apologize for my remarks to you and the guys helping you. I love what you are doing with your amazing story. I lived in the barracks with a lot of guys that were just coming back and became friendly (a couple now over 40+ years lifelong friends) and one in particular told me I was lucky that I did not go to Vietnam, kiddingly, I hope, told me I wouldn’t have lasted a week before I came back in a box. Keep up the great work, I hang on every word. Most sincerely yours, Michael
Vietnam was not necessarily a bad luck station. It all depends on what branch of the service you were in, where you got sent, and then to what
unit you reported to and the condition of that unit. Almost all things beyond your control. Only one guy in seven went out into actual combat and so many of those came back in boxes or badly fucked up physically or mentally or both. Glad you didn’t go. Who wants even those odds?
Semper fi,
JIM
” It all depends on what branch of the service you were in,”. I knew 2 guys when I was stationed at Dover, Delaware, that wanted so bad to go to Nam. They wanted the extra pay and maybe a few wild women. Long story short, they both went and 1 of them got killed in a mortar attack! So much for money and women….
Well, money and women…now those are two motivators for sure, for men anyway.
Yes, a lot depended upon variables not necessarily easy to figure out before you went.
Marines should have been a easy one. I truly never expected to die or get wounded and had no idea whatever
about what combat would really be like. Thanks for writing about it here and your own experience with your friends.
Semper fi,
Jim
I was a crew chief on the A1 at NKP Thailand. You mentioned of an radio operator in the rear of the A1. The rear behind the pilot was canvas enclosed because there was his ejection seat rocket under it. I never witnessed two people going out on a mission together.I was in the 1st SOS squadron, TC TAIL LETTERS and we were called the Hobos.
Thanks for your comment. I know you have to be right about what you witnessed and I’m always in question
about what I did. My observations were made under the most difficult of circumstances and I was so damned
young and being pulled in all kinds of directions. Thanks for reading so intensely and commenting here about your
own memories…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I am an avid reader, particularly of historical non-fiction and fiction. I am especially interested in military history from the Civil War through Vietnam. I can honestly say this is one of the best I have read. Keep up the great work.
I am also an Air Force vet who served at Pleiku Airbase in 1966. I worked on A1E and A1H Skyraiders, as well as AC47 gunships. As mentioned earlier, the A1E had side by side pilot seats and a blue-canopied space behind the pilots. It was usually empty with all the electronics below the metal floor. The A1H was the single-seater with a single bubble canopy. Both could carry up to 8,000 lbs of bombs and had four 20mm canon in the wings. The AC47 was basically a DC3 with three electrically driven Gatling guns pointing out the side, each of which could deliver 6,000 rounds per minute.
The A1’s were flown by the 1st Air Commando Squadron, nicknamed “Hobos”. The AC47’s were flown by the 4th Air Commando Squadron, sometimes called “Puffs” (as in Magic Dragon), or “Spooky” for delivering death in the dark of night.
It’s great for a (now) old airplane fixer to know that in a very small and indirect way he was helping you guys who were in the shit.
Semper Fi – and Thanks!
Thanks Rick, for laying out how you remember it from your own service experience. I’m not sure what versions of the A-1 I was
supported by the different times they flew in to help. ALL I can do is recall it as best as I can, which I have done here.
If I am not as accurate as I’d like to be then I don’t know what to say, except that I am getting a bit older here and there.
Thanks for writing what you wrote and reading the story as thoroughly as you have…
Semper fi,
Jim
Sandy with the napalm on the scene. You described the effects very well. The LT is charged with the mission and trying to bring his Marines back, and if that would keep VC headS down, get it done. A Texas high school textbook 9th grade in the early nineties taught that naplam was used to clear jungle so troops could see. When I read that as a sub one day, that class got the truth. That was two sentences in less than three pages covering the history of the Vietnam War. Wish I could have visited the author at that moment. Will enjoy seeing the next very much. Joe
Jungle clearing with Napalm was problematic. For one thing the shit does not go away!
The jungle melt and burn mixes with the leftover burned fuel to become something pretty
crappy to be around. And dirty. You can’t get the black off. Thank you for telling us more.
And thanks for writing on here and taking the time to lay it out…
Semper fi,
Jim
I think I was the only person on campus at Purdue in 1970 that told the Dow recruiter Napalm was a good product and we loved seeing it roll off the wings of A-1s or T-28s. 30 years later I retired from Dow. The napalm we made was a Thixotropic Agent that changed only the physical characteristic of a chemical. It looked like sawdust and you could not burn it and made organic products like gasoline, oil, and grease thicker. I remember we would throw a handful or so in the flame thrower fuel tanks to thicken the gasoline before firing. We also had an A-1 mark a landing zone for up deep up in the valley with a canister as the smoke thrown from an L-19 kept flowing under jungle. We could not see the small steam river bed landing zone,but we saw the napalm. Most of the time no one fired at us after it was applied.
Thank you Warren. These stories from guys like you who know this stuff down to the molecules are vital to assembling
and understanding of the detail of the what and how things happened over there.
Thanks for this write up.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey LT. seabees.was one for 23yrs.love it when my boys are mentioned!not many people know about the missions we went on,or the contributions we made.love your writing,Semper Fi
Seabees were simply astounding and amazing in practice. I had heard about the
Seabees in WWII but I had not idea about what a wild bunch of whacked out brave and
truly wonderful men most of them were in Vietnam. The Seabees are about to come back
in the story and you will see that I give them full justice in how they preformed. Thank you Seabee.
Corpsmen and Seabees are considered Marines by Marines who’ve been there.
Semper fi,
Jim
Have been reading and enjoying your book. Wonderfully done. Hoo Ra
Jack Desmond
Thanks Jack, means a lot to have you guys here, and some gals too, commenting and reading along.
Keeps me going in ways that are hard to describe…
Semper fi,
Jim
One would guess that the seabees were about to resolve your river crossing problem, along with building a new LZ.
Another wizard. Yes, the seabees come in, as the story develops. I guess I hinted in a comment just how
highly I regarded and still regard those special unheralded men and women.
Semper fi,
Jim
Crocs & elephants — tigers next !! Of the many hundreds of casualty reports I processed for D. C. , 2 were tiger bites ! One to the head w/only 1 puncture wound !! The other to the shoulder w/same result !! Wonder how that steel pot & chicken plate tasted to el tigre?? This episode took a dramatic turn !! Thanks !!
Thanks Tex. Yes, crocodiles. What TF next? It was one weird thing after another
and Alice going down the rabbit hole had nothing on what happened.
Thanks for the comment and your intent…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I never could figure why the cord on the prick was cut instead of just unplugged. Do you know? (Ron).
You will find out the answers to many of these arcane details as the story continues.
There was a reason. Everything seemed so accidental and reactionary at the time but
it was a whole lot deeper than that.
Thanks Ron for you communications and the loyalty.
Semper fi,
Jim
I have been reading your book pretty much non stop and have enjoyed the story very much.
I went to VN in early 68 as a SNCO and spent much of my time there either training LT’s or being the Platoon Commander. Was put in for and received a Combat Commission. We faught the NVA in and around KheSanh and the VC south of Danag. The VC were the worst. Snipers and Bobby traps. Pretty much lost someone every day. Our company website has stories written by some of us about the expierance.
Your writings have really brought a lot of memories back. Not all of them good.
Just finished the 13th day third part. Don’t see where to go for next chapter. Where can the completed book be bought?
I have recommended this website and your story to my Marine group.
Semper Fi
Carl. It’s all on jamesstrauss.com in serial form. The first book should come out next week, called
The First Ten Days. Amazon. Thanks for liking the story and recommending it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, is anything posted after 13th day third part? I looked on your website but did not see anything. I’m hooked on the story and anxious to read the next part!
Semper Fi
Working on the next segment as I type this response.
Thanks for your support, Carl
Semper fi,
Jim
Carl, the story is being written day by day so the next segment will probably be up on Friday or on Saturday at the latest, since it is
being written right as I write this. Thanks for following the story, commenting here and liking the thing…
Semper fi,
Jim
“This place has only three exits, sir: Madness, and Death.”
― René Daumal
Interesting quote. I presume the dramatic impact is the listing of only the two.
Samper fi,
Jim
I looked for something about surrealism that would fit. And that popped out as it had no 3rd exit.
Your surreal world where nothing fit.
From my point of view the only thing holding the whole thing together was the one person Outside the Wire. As much as you depended on the Gunny. Likewise depended more on you.
SF/LT
Yes, I came to understand that….fifty years later….
Semper fi, my friend…
Jim
Twist and turn, turn and twist! Man, I am surprised that anyone remained even halfway sane in your “company” – really, a collection of misfits!
Besides our A-4C’s and D’s on Intrepid, we also had to squadrons of A-1H’s and J’s. All single-pilot birds, with immense load carrying ability. The USAF had some 2-seat birds. A-1’s could carry more bombs, etc, than a WW II B-17. And stay up a lot longer than our A-4s.
Loving the story, Jim, but afraid of where it is going – like the other side of a flooding river…
Thanks Craig, for the compliment. Yes, we were basically all batshit after only a little time
in the field. Kind of like the guys portrayed in Full Metal Jacket but worse.
Thanks for the data on the A-1. Loved those ugly loud war ducks..
Semper fi,
Jim
Lot going on here Jim. What’s really going on with Sugar Daddy,Gunny and Jurgens? Interesting stuff Jim! As always looking for the next one! Semper Fi
It was cauldron boil and cauldron bubble for sure. Shakespeare would have been so happy to
be there and be writing away. thanks for the comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
So ok Lt. with all the crap going on in the company and from the NVA you were still collecting stamps?? Good thing you weren’t a rock collector. Talk about a heavy Ruck.
Thanks again
Glenn.
Anything that led back home. Stamp collecting meant thinking about making it out to
get the envelopes on the other end. It was something to do about home. Rocks would have been a bit
tougher to explain and carry…
Semper fi,
Jim
We never used stamps. Just wrote Free in the top right corner of envelope or whatever. Enjoy reading all the posts. Wasn’t a marine but paratrooper with 2/503rd inf. 173rd abn brigade in the central Highlands. LZ English. Bong Son .area 67 thru 70. Looking forward to the next post
Only a collector would have used a stamp he’d brought from the states, since we did not need them
to write home. I probably have today some of the few cancellations from the war area over that.
Before my stamps went to shit and anything that would stick to anything dissolved…
Semper fi,
Jim
I wondered what the stamp reference was all about. You have definitely captured the never ending misery that surrounded every day while in Viet Nam. I am still amazed at the punishment our bodies and minds took. We talk about controlling our fear and courage under fire, but never talk much about the courage we had to muster and the fear we had to control just to be on patrol doing the busines of our everyday tasks. At least you were with your men while on patrol. We rarely saw our officers unless they were surrounded by a Company or Battalion of Marines. Never saw a Marine officer on a daily meat grinder squad sized patrol. The squad sized patrol was our mainstay of operations. I am not really questioning the integrity of our officers, but that is probably the crux of the feelings of animosity regarding officer and enlisted in combat. Takes a while to build a trust. In the meantime everyone has to go on automatic, trusting in their training and discipline.
Thanks Jim, for the compliment, and your are most accurate in your analysis and conclusions with respect to company grade
officers in Vietnam combat situations. But then, you know that because you were quite obviously there. It was different all
over but many things, mostly undiscussed to this day, were almost exactly the same.
Thanks for coming on here to read and write…
Semper fi,
Jim
Just because many of us are not writing comments, we are reading; closely, and anxiously awaiting each new segment. This comment is likely my last.
Besides thinking Johnson and McNamara are likely in the hottest part of hell for sending you and so many others into that inferno, there’s so much I want to say, but can’t find the words except to say sorry you guys had to endure that shit.
You’re doing great, Junior. Keep it coming. We’re here in the silence — waiting….
The big leaders were simply like the rest of the citizenry.
Being a rough and tough warrior is so much easier from an armchair with
a T.V. dinner and beer…watching Saving Private Ryan.
They didn’t know and they didn’t really want to know. Like this story…
many will not want to know…just the way it is and was.
I did not deal the cards. I just played them as well as I could.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great story about The Vietnam war, I read the chapters as soon they are posted.
As a U.S Marine infantry man 0311, I am there with you in the jungle. Good writing skill.
Alex Cajina
3/4 , 3rd Marine Division and 3/5, First Marine Division, 1975-1979
Thanks Alex. Glad you were not there but warmly accept your company now.
It was one hell of a time and I am so happy that so many did not go, or went and did not get out to
the shit. It really was the shit, although so many had not clue…and still don’t.
Semper fi,
Jim
My Father was a Marine in Korea. Never spoke much about it just a few comments I can remember when I would ask about his tour. Mostly silence and a “look”. Reading your account I can begin to understand why. He did say that most of them wouldn’t have made it home without men like your Gunny. I find myself mostly on the edge of my seat with a knot in my belly reading your memoirs. Then a little comedic relief so to speak in this chapter. Don’t know how you managed a smile in that shithole. It is a wonder anyone survived. God bless you and all who served and as Daddy said ” did things no human should have to do”. Semper Fi Sir. Keep it coming.
WildBill. Always wanted a nickname like that. Junior in Vietnam and even in the hospital in Oakland and then The Cherub in the
CIA. No Wild Bill for me, or Mad Dog, or Howling Mad….the cool names were all taken or handed out to guys who actually looked the
role. Did you know that most of the ‘Marines’ you see on posters were and remain mostly paid models and not real Marines at all?
Does it matter? I guess not.
Thanks for that nice bit of commenting and liking the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
Wondering how long the Gunny had been out in the valley. I see him as a hardened older soldier who might have a hard time coming out of that valley.
That is true Nancy.
Thanks for the observation.
Semper fi,
Jim
” he said, handing me his old helmet with my liner covering it”
Should read ‘with my cover covering it’
YEs, you are absolutely correct CB. I am no it and thanks for the help here
and in writing about what you think and find.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks for putting me there with you. Now I see what my combat veteran high school friends went through. I see…
Yes, a lot of them probably did. I didn’t think so before, because you don’t get to know much
about what happened in other units. Thanks for writing in and also the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
The NVA (VC) couldn’t hide from the Napalm unless they were deep in a tunnel. Had it dropped for us more then I want to remember, counted to many “Crispy Critters” in bunkers or that tried to out run it.
More twists with each day!
Keep them coming Jim.
Napalm is on mean and careless liquid. Friendly burns are not uncommon because the exploding
tanks they dropped many times tossed globules far from the drop area. Yuck. Like white phosphorus
if it came to close.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim—Keep them coming,I’ve read some some novels by James Web and Philip Caputo and liked them real well,and I like yours as well as any.Thanks for the continuing story.Semper Fi
Both of those authors are writers I much admire and I know Jim personally, although have not seen him in years.
Thank you for that great compliment. I hope to continue as I have been.
Semper fi,
Jim
Napalm is completely unforgetable. First there’s the pucker factor as the canister drops from the plane, then the awesome explosion that consumes such a large volume of oxygen in such a short time that it creates its own wind. You feel the wind rushing into the fire ball, then a few seconds later feel the heat radiating from the fire ball. Then the distinctive smell, with or without burning flesh. Then you say a prayer of thanks to your aircraft pilot for not missing his target.
You have to be really close to feel the air rushing in. I mean really way too close!
That was bad shit and nobody I was out there with ever saw it as anything but a very fearful
weapon to stay the hell away from.
Thanks for the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Lot of helmets laying around, grab one and use your own liner. You don’t need anymore reasons for the company to doubt your sanity, you got lucky once mister granade is not your friend.
Worked with F4’s, never saw a sky raider. Saw napalm canisters released way before where we were digging holes with belly buttons, pass over our heads before hitting the jungle about 50 yards beyond. It sucked the air out of your lungs, though I was dying till I caught my breath. You learn quickly how to prep for napalm close.
Anyone trying to kill you, you don’t need.
SF
Butch
Funny thing about weapons and helmets.
We were pretty damned superstitious over there, as you will
see in coming developments. It was damned hard to wear something of
someone dead. Keathing’s watch was, well, like I was honoring him.
But I could never have worn the helmet belonging to Rittenhouse.
That stuff went to the rear, exclusive of ammo.
Semper fi,
Jim
Funny how different units had different superstitions. If it was 782 gear it was up for grabs, never go into a pack, that was personal, home, unless I needed a home address then it was two of us, quick, so it could go with the owner. No one would wear the helmet liner but the steel, it was fair game. I had to sift through a lot of dark places to write back plus a couple visits to my va counselor. I won’t bore you with anymore of my stories now. Wife still not pleased but she’s still here so All’s ok.
Yes, it was strange how those superstitions developed and were applied, as you will see in the development
of the story. Thanks for mentioning what are obviously some of your own experiences here. And thanks
for taking the time and trouble to comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I’ve read a lot of books about Vietnam….both fiction and non fiction. This one is right up there at the top. Riveting! Bob Hudson, 101st Airborne, RVN
Thank you Bob, I didn’t write it to be that way.
Just comes out, every day and night, as I write and then rewrite and then edit when
not researching my maps, letters sent home and crummy but vital notes I made over there.
Thanks for liking the story and commenting here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow.And the plot thickens. Casey’s gone back to childhood but at least you don’t have to carry him in a bag yet. Hang in there Sir, I’m with you, waiting for orders.
Thanks George. You and a few others i’ve met here would have been such a welcome relief to what I was
issued out there in that nightmare of combat. But then, those were mostly kids too and almost all as scared
shitless as I was. Thanks for the vote of confidence and the loyalty…
Semper fi,
Jim
I forgot about the “Alligators”.. never saw any of those, but on an insertion into the A Shau our pilot did tip the bird over once and the crew chief told us to look down and we saw a string of “Pink” elephants weaving their way through the jungle below us…They had all just taken a cooling mud bath in the red jungle water hole and the red vietnam mud fades to pink on their skin for a few hours until it dries and falls off…quite a site….
Man, I’ll bet. I only saw one elephant later in the story so I won’t go into that.
But I never saw the pink thing. I so recall that red mud and it reminded me to similar
mud on Oahu where I was raised. The Hawaiian mud was totally indelible though and not so the Vietnam stuff.
Semper fi,
Jim
I knew our tit was so in the ‘ringer” . .(washing machine) ‘wringer’
Yes, got it. Thanks for the help though dp.
Semper fi,
Jim
This one so quick! Felt like my name was called in the mail call line. Thank you.
Thanks Rick. The mail call line. Didn’t think of that.
Appreciate the comment and your reading the story with enthusiasm.
Semper fi,
Jim
I really was starting to think that Casey ordered the fragging, to get you out of the way of the silver star, and Jurgens was who handled the details for him, by recruiting Rittenhouse to do the dirty work….. But I think with him being shell shocked and out of it, that he would have told you to your face that he ordered it……
James, it’s a tangled web you’ve weaved here, and I’m sure you thought the same while in the midst of it!
I find me second guessing myself continuously !!
Awesome writing, as We’ve come to expect from you !!
I am SO glad I happened upon your book.
Thanks Joel. Yes, consternation kept ruling my existence in that environment, as well as the controlled
terror the Gunny had predicted earlier, when I had no control at all over it. The twists and turns came so fast and so seemingly bizarrely that
there was no way to predict many of them or prepare. I spend most of my time scrambling to react to them.
Thanks for caring and for the analysis…
Semper fi,
Jim
This is the best war novel I have ever read, and I’ve read them all!!!
Thank ypu John. I don’t know what to say about such praise, other than
I am trying to get it all down day by day and get it as close to right as I can.
Semper fi,
Jim
Where you and Casey shake hands on the deal, Casey says “You” Should read “Your” Got me scratching my head again as to Gunny’s play in this I wonder if he is just covering his ass, and playing off of you? I think you may be better outside the wire.
Iconoclast. A Maryknoll nun told me that that single word summed up what I was in life.
I had to go look it up at the time. I thought she was insulting me, but I don’t think so.
Although there is a deep element of loneliness in being an iconoclast, like being half-way smart
and accepting one’s own flaws oneself. Thanks for the comment and the ‘outside the wire’ thing that
motivated my response.
Semper fi,
Jim
That nun had you pretty well pegged, even back then. It takes all kinds to make up the crazy world we live in.
Sister Michael Marie. She and I communicated by letter until she died about eight years ago.
She ended up in a Maryknoll nursing home and hated it. Brilliant and vigorous and took no nonsense whatever.
Loved that woman.
Semper fi,
Jim
I don’t remember using stamps,I wrote free where the stamp went.
usmc 67-68
Yes, mail was free but if you were a kid stamp collector like me than you might have gone off
like I did with a load of stamps to get them back from a war zone and Vietnam in specific.
Not that that worked. I think I got three of the stamped ones intact. Mostly they came free with the stamp
gone! Postal service was fabulous at trying to get the mail home for us.
Semper fi,
Jim
I worked on spads A1H or AD-4 at NAS Atsugi, Japan. I never saw a two seater spad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-1_Skyraider .
I never worked on the AD-5Q as I wasn’t cleared for security reasons. I did watch them launch and trap on the USS Enterprise in 66-67.
The AD-5Q or EA-1F was an electronic jamming (ECM) bird with pilot and 3 operators.http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/attractions/aircraft-exhibits/item/?item=ea-1f_skyraider
I can only tell it like I remember it. I know for certain that we got one seat and two seat Skyraider
support upon occasion. As for certain as my old brain can get, that is. If they did not exist then I’ve become
addled….some more!
The OV-10 had two guys too, as I recall.
Thanks for the conjecture and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Yes, There was a 2 seat version of the Spad/Sandy, It was an A-1-E, Pilots sat side by side, and the canopy extended back along the spine of the bird, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/A-1E_Skyraider_aircraft_in_formation%2C_1965.jpg/220px-A-1E_Skyraider_aircraft_in_formation%2C_1965.jpg
I was always looking behind the pilot because the pilot was the one who always had his window
down and waved. The rest of the cockpit remained sealed and you could not see through the glass with the
glare, for the most part.
Thanks for clearing up part of the mystery I remember and write but don’t really know is accurate anymore.
Semper fi,
Jim
there
were two seaters, you can check some of the pilot’s written logs on line.
Thanks Mike. I knew that by observation but sometimes I wonder about my memories.
I loved those big old loud birds. I go outside for any propeller driven aircraft to this day.
A friendly passing by.
Semper fi,
Jim
My dad was a crew chief on A-1E’s out of Pleiku. It was a side by side cockpit, and the space behind it was what they called the blue room, where it could carry electronic gear. Great job on your book, you have this old squid hooked on it!
Thanks Brian. You couldn’t be that old if you Dad was at Pleiku! But thanks for the data and liking the story…
and taking the time to write about it here..
Semper fi,
Jim
When I was at DaNang Air Base working on F-4’s There was a squadron of A-1’s down from our flightline. There were both one and two seat models.
Air was hard to figure out because it came and went so quickly when we were in the jungle below, and we were
constantly in awe, thanks and fear of it. My memories seem so clear about those big slow and noisy birds flying
only what seemed a few feet above me. They had to be higher up and my memory can be a bit Swiss cheesy about those
vivid images. Thanks for writing here…
Semper fi,
Jim
I don’t know. That’s as accurate as I can get, when trying to explain what my memory plays back about it all.
I remember Cowboy and Hobo so distinctively so give me a pass on the rest. It’s hard to describe what the full
effect of a roaring friendly Skyraider flying just above the trees in your defense is really like without being
under one. Thanks for commenting
Semper fi,
Jim
Napalm is a mixture of petroleum jelly & gasoline, right, Jim?
Yes, although we all thought it was actual jello and gasoline. Jello, as in the kind you eat.
Just the belief system at the time. Thanks for pointing out the rather obvious truth when you think about it.
Semper fi,
Jim
We at times mixed our own Nape when there was contact in the valley and we could not wait for the pre mix we used the old brown powdered soap and JP-4 dumped it together in the canister and it mixed on the way to the target. That way The HOT PAD Birds could always get out on 15 min turn around.
Soap and diesel made Napalm too? Wow! I had no idea.
Making Napalm. Did your stuff work as good as the factory shit?
Semper fi,
Jim
Minor point when you reference the mortars setting up on tripods. They have bipods the tube with base plate is the third leg assuming you had the old M2 mortar. I was an 0331, we had tripods for the M60 and have taken turns carrying the base plate. Thankfully I never was on the two way ranges.
I look forward to the next installment LT.
Semper Fi.
Exactly Tom. I was talking about that third part of the base. That base was detachable with three men carrying the whole rig.
Thanks for the accurate comment. Sometimes hard to remember exactly and I don’t go to the internet to check everything.
It’s also hard to find total accuracy on the Internet about shit that went on over there. The maps of Vietnam are often
not accurate at all when it comes to firebases and landing zones, for example.
Semper fi,
Jim
Napalm is a mixture of industrial soap and aviation gasoline. The soap gels the gasoline and causes it to stick to whatever it touches and burn fiercely.
Thanks Don. That’a a hell of a long way from jello and regular gasoline!
Thanks for that knowledge.
Semper fi,
Jim
We made napalm out of Tide and diesel for our perimeter around the base
Amazing. I had no idea napalm could be made from such simply ingredients.
Life nitro fertilizer and diesel. Thanks for that tidbit.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well, guess that’s what I get for thinking. The shit gets deeper no matter what. Oh, yeah, you need one more minor problem – alligators? Really? I think you’re describing a good version of hell. Casey is a hoot now, ought to keep him for entertainment value. Can’t wait until the Gunny tells the truth once, he’s having trouble hanging on isn’t he? Keep up the good work, Jim, we’re all waiting not quite patiently.
Yes, just goody. How in hell to get into a deep murky moving body of brown water
you can’t see through and cross over without dying of fear. Shit. Being shot at was sometimes
the most fearful of things to endure.
Thanks for the read and the comment here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Men made hell with fire and brimstone. What a way to go. Sky Daddy don’t have any baseballs to drop? There is a lot of Gold in them Rivers cameing off the Mountain you could see it when the sun hits it.
Gold? We never saw any. In truth, nobody was looking for any.
A bit of Kelly’s Heroes would have been a welcome relief, except when your life
is so on the line you don’t think much about physical rewards beyond food, water
and protection against the elements and damned animal life.
thanks for the interesting comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
When you get your water from the river you can see the gold. The ball were bombs the older aircraft dropped.
Only drank from that water with Halazone tablets dissolved in it, and did that
as sparingly as possible. Halazone only purified the water, not the particulate in the water.
Never saw gold or much of anything else in that muddy mess of a river.
Semper fi,
Jim
Absolute great story. I was in the Ashau Valley with the 101st several times between 1968-9. Terrifying place. Nothing good ever happened there!
Big Pete
I missed day 13, part1. How can I find it?
They are all on this website. Just click on 30 days and then the second ten days.
They are all there right now. I just checked. The first book should be out next week,
if God is being just and kind, which He seldom is…
Semper fi,
Jim
Reminds me of that SPEC OP patch with the eyeballs looking out from under a mushroom. In shi-t up to our eye balls and always in the dark.
Neat mental image there. Yes! Thanks for that image and that comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Like a centrifuge. Wow!
Interesting metaphor my friend. Yes, it does take you out to the very edge of the envelope and then
hold you there…as it did me, when I thought I was in a war situation nobody had ever gone through or was going through.
How little I really understood, even through the years simply because the one’s who went through like are so rare.
Semper fi,
Jim
Tit in the ringer needs to be tit in the wringer
Keep up the great work
You are most correct Gus, and I thank you. Correction being made now…
Semper fi,
Jim
Nothing like a cup of coffee and the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells that will take you back 51 years in the blink of an eye. Keep up the excellent writing.
The napalm smell in the morning was Duvall in Apocalypse now, I think.
The movie didn’t add the smell of burned human flesh, I presume. Thank God that I was usually
too distant to smell it. Like burning grease. Yuck.
Thanks for the reference and the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lots of plot twists in this one…the Gunny protecting Jurgens seems a bit off for some reason…I guess we will find out why later…excellent writing again…and you need not worry about your writing being good enough…it is outstanding…all the twists and turns…you keep us on the edge all the time…I still say this would make an excellent movie if only to illustrate how it really was out in the woods, in combat…keep it coming…we all anxiously await the next segment…one of my favourite sayings was “the only difference between us and the boy scouts was adult leadership…we were all out lost in the woods somewhere”…no reflection on your leadership or leadership at the point of contact…more about the “leadership” in the rear…
Thanks Mark. Sometimes I read a quote like that and I forget that I wrote it!
Neat quote, I say to myself, and then start laughing!
Thanks for that sort of laugh right here and now, and for coming on here to write it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Actually the quote was mine from that time period…but glad you enjoyed it…most vets do because they lived it and understand it…
Thank you Mark. I should have properly credited you.
Thanks for coming on here to make your highly intelligent remarks founded on
bitter experience…
Semper fi,
Jim
Being released from constant action for 13 days, there seems a brief respite only to be tangled up in an intense conversation to the edge of breaking. Man, thanks for the time out, but…. (S/f).
You could not get out in the jungle in most of I Corps and not be in action,
all the damned time. The VC had pretty much gone to ground but the villagers
mostly reported to the NVA and the NVA was well armed and in numbers that were
unbelievable. It was so common for the Marine company to be outnumbered and even
surrounded. Supporting fires meant so much.
Semper fi,
Jim
One always felt sorry for the people in those hamlets. As their chiefs often told our troops, they had little choice when it came to avoiding the conflict. The SVN and allies would come through their areas in the daytime providing some safety or choice, but then at night the VC would come to visit. If the village chief did not cooperate with either side, the members of the village suffered. It was a no win situation for those who wanted no part of that war. One would suspect that was the case for what happened with Nguyen’s family.
Most definitely. It was very difficult to hold the locals responsible for acting just like we
were acting….and that was staying alive.
Thanks for the attentive comment and conclusion.
Semper fi,
Jim
The tension continues to mount unabated. The plot doesn’t just thicken, it’s hardening like concrete
Yes, the story is twisting and turning just like it did. So much easier to experience
since I know what’s going to happen at almost every point. Trying to segue some of the sequences together
when my memory or reference stuff goes blank can be daunting sometimes. I hope I get it as close as I can.
Thanks for the comment and your following so closely.
Semper fi,
Jim
Things look bad. Then things start to look a little better. Then things look bad again. Now crocs? Roller coaster of events and emotions. Your most recent writing was anxiously awaited here and much appreciated. Relieved that the fly boys were able to come calling for a brief visit. Keep it coming, and God Bless you–and each and everyone you write about.
Thanks Walt, as usual. You are quite the man out there, commenting in with such intelligent
briefs about the story and life itself. Thank you for that, and your following the story so loyally.
Semper fi,
Jim
Stamps not needed in Nam. 101st Airborne.
Unless you were a collector that wanted to send them back for the cancellation
and also because you would get cancelled letters from a war zone. Worked out better
in concept than practice, as you read in the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
Holy Smokes ‘LT”…..you are smokin’!! intense, a whole lot of Irons in the fire at once…’Catch 22′ and ‘Lord of the Flies’ all playing out at high speed in the “A Shau” (I’da worn that helmet with pride!!) Ya gotta be careful though…pretty soon yer gonna reach that magical moment when you look around and decide that you are probably not going to make it out of there alive anyway… and declare to the world that you are going to do whatever it takes to stay alive…..”what are they gonna do?? shave my head and send me to Nam??” Semper Fi Brother…
Oh, mostly I didn’t thank I was going to make it out after the first few hours.
That never changed. I was terrified of how I was going to die, not really about dying.
I did not want to die over hours of grueling pain with body parts missing or so very visibly maimed.
Maybe why I was a good candidate for helping others out when they needed it so badly.
Thanks for the depth of your comment and your support here..
Semper fi,
Jim
Heavy shit, Jim
Thanks for that laconic compliment Tim. Means a lot…
Semper fi,
Jim
Good story.
Thanks Wally, I am working away at it this very night, when I’m done answering comments like you own, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim
What a turn of events again. The Gunny sure is a master of chess in combat. Sounds as though the Casey threat is eliminated with his mental state. One does have to wonder the true reason he and the squad was doing and under what command. Have the feeling Nguyen has the answer if Fushner will give the full story as his loyalty is to the Gunny above all else.
Just noticed one thing.
I knew our tit was so in the (ringer). Believe should be (wringer).
Yes, got that mistake Peter, and thank you for pointing it out. Editing is vital
in getting this out in book form and so damned time consuming.
thanks for the help.
Semper fi,
Jim