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 asked, 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 embedded 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 next.
“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 asked, 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 into 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 riverbed 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 the 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 asked, 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
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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.