I climbed the hill, switching back and forth, heading for chunks of outcropping rock and then toward the density of a protruding stand of low-lying bamboo. It was the Hill Trail climb my platoon at the Basic School had dreaded once a week in Virginia training, except I climbed in real fear of being shot in the back at any second. I didn’t look around to see the effect of the white phosphorous rounds I’d ordered. They were close in behind because not only did the thump of their exploding push gently against my back, the hiss of the burning elements raining down not far away could be heard like water running out of the end of a high pressure hose. I wondered if the rise I was struggling up might place me close enough to the falling horror of the burning phosphorous bits for them to reach me.
“Ironic,” I said out loud, unaware that I’d spoken until Fusner replied.
Jim, A few nits. Dave.
“Combat net,” I said to Fusner.
He twisted some knobs on the main console of the Prick 25. “Should have them five by five, up here on the hill and all,” he replied. => 2 paragraphs or 1 paragraph
“What’s the condition (or) our wounded?” I asked him in a low voice. => (of)
If a threat was called for then make it with action, not male confronting prediction. => the term confronting prediction is one I’ve not seen before, but here it means braggadocio or blustering or peacock behavior but none of those fit the sentiment. No real recommendation here just unease.
There was () “whump” sound, and a jolting of the mud around me. => (a)
“Got another plan?” the Gunny asked.
“What did Pilson think?” I asked the Gunny. “And what’s he going to tell the guys?”
=> 2 Paragraphs.
Thanks a million for the editing help on this Dave!
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great read…this is my first comment but I have been following along for the full story…I was drafted in ’71, served til ’74…like others the waiting on the next instalment is killing me…thanks for telling your story…
Thanks M, knocking them out as fast as I can go.
A bit hard to edit and then get the novel out of Amazon all done too.
The complexities of all that are awesome in retrospect.
How does anyone publish a book these days.
It’s a full time job! And there’s only pay outs and no pay ins!
Thanks for the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Was in the ashau aug. and sept 1968. 101st. airborne . remember it raining for 8 days and nights non stop and we were cut off from everything and everybody.
God, that rain, and then the soaked sobbing jungle and valley floor.
What a pit it became in those months that seemed like years. When we came home
the years seemed like decades since we’d left.
Thanks for the comment and the reading…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for your service and your writing! I am a song writer and recorded a CD last year called “Vietnam”. My one song “19 Years Old” was read on the Floor of the US Senate last year. I have sang it at veteran functions and at the ground blessing for a new Vietnam Wall Memorial (AZ Wall Project) in Gilbert, AZ last March. Is there anything you would like to hear in a song about Nam? Have a listen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Tr1Dd4G2A
Well, Shaun, I listened to your song and thought about your thoughts…and your words.
You are a man of depth and foundational feelings…
a songwriter who’s coming at me straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
I see you. I see you. And I hear you. Thank you on behalf of all of us who did the “search and destroy…
kill or be killed” missions and times.
From your lips to our heart…and from our beating hearts to your very own.
Thank you.
Semper fi,
Jim
I put your song up on the Facebook site and then ‘boosted’ it for a hundred bucks or so….what a great song and what
a great man you are…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you Jim for your service and so much for the kind words. Also thank you for sharing my music! I want to sing at “The Wall” in DC some day for a special occasion! It lifted my spirits to read what you had to say! Blessings!!
And well you should be singing at that Wall one day Shaun. You have a special talent
and its application needs a much larger audience. I hope that I’ve helped in that regard.
Whatever you want to send here will get noticed and treated with the same deep respect and with thanks.
Semper fi,
Jim
P.S. I thought I would put it here also
Beat to quarters the captain said,
But there was no enemy,
No sail,
No boat
Just black pajamas.
So on we slogged ,
Through flat land rice row,
Upon row,
Upon row,
Of sucking brown mud steaming.
Songs played forbidden radio
Beloved Beach Boys,
Surfin Safari,
Barbara Ann,
And I get around.
Chorus
To an unknown beat,
In the awful heat,
We played the songs,
We smoked from bongs,
Armed Army Marines,
On ham and beans,
No rights or wrongs,
Lost in those songs,
We await defeat.
Beat to quarters the captain said,
But it meant little to me,
No place,
No trace,
Life’s wet dilemmas.
Orders were orders,
And we moved to live
No leader,
To follow,
Shot through with a bullet.
Repeat Chorus
Jim – If this were a “war novel” I’d be planning on killing Jurgens the very next instant I could. But this is REAL life and actually happened to you! I still can’t believe that Marines sunk so low as to actually execute other Marines. When you had that encounter with the 3 men from Sugar Daddy’s platoon you absolutely has NO CHOICE – but that still had (has) to haunt you at times. I forgave myself long ago, as I hope you have as well (and all the other vets reading this), for some of the horrorific things we had to do to stay alive…….but knowingly have to shoot another Marine to save your own life would be the worst. That being said Jurgens has to go, but more than the killing, I’d hate him forever for putting me in that position that made me have to do that. War truly is hell! I suspected Pilson for a while also, but was he such a coward that he would do Jurgens bidding even though you had saved his life just a few days before? Semper fi my friend……………
Interesting to try to figure it out. Real life can have twists and turns that
are a lot less logical than the fictional creations. Part of this is fiction, of course, as my memory cannot
contain every detail and every move of every person. Thank you for liking the story.
Semper fi,
Jim
Remember how cold I was during monsoon while with the 173rd. Airborne. We were in central highlands in 69-70 Phu Bai. Still hate it when there is a cold rain.
Racial tensions with us were mostly in the rear, line units depended on each other, but do remember when we went back subtle tension.
Race relations depended a whole lot on location. Once place they’d be fine and in another
they’d be awful. Probably more a function of high command than company grade.
Thanks for the comment and the read…
Semper fi,
Jim
From having grown up in the south in the 50’s and 60’s, and having known a great number of intensely racially biased people, all Jurgens really wants is a sheet, a horse, and a rope and someone to hang.. It can probably never be established, but it is my guess that it was him and some of his cronies that started the race war between the first and fourth platoons. The blacks probably grouped together to keep from being caught alone by the first platoon. Jurgens will do anything to kill the blacks, including making them point whenever he can get Casey to go along with it. That his own guys are safer are just a plus. His hatred makes him short-sighted as every man lost while in the position you are in the valley just puts him in a more dangerous situation. We have a saying down here that really applies to Jurgens…..he just needs killin’…..
Race is a natural designator and also a tool. People can be gathered together by the things
that they are obviously alike in. Skin color is the first and most immediate of those.
The forces driving racial conflict may also be quite genetic, going back way before we can possibly recall.
Thanks for your observations and your caring…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for your story. From one veteran to another, thank you for your service.
–U.S. Army veteran.
My brother was Army. The Army choppers would always come for us. The Army let us ‘steal’ their stuff in country.
The Army gave us fried chicken. I love the Army!
Semper fi, and thank you…
Jim
LT, you have a special knack of making one’s heart race, while sitting still in a chair. Didn’t see a Fragging coming right there !
Yes, there was a lot of shit I did not see coming either! Just laying it
down as best as I can. Thanks for your comment Joel.
Semper fi,
Jim
This is an exceptional read. As a former Army helicopter pilot, I cannot believe the level of disfunction. It reinforces what I heard Creighton Abrams tell Sam Koster in 1968, “that if the Marines were a civilian corporation, they would have gone bankrupt last year.” Where is the gunship support enjoyed by the Army when in contact? God help us all.
You will note Mark, that the Vietnamese did not do real well against our company, time after time,
and also that the company performed without some of the wonder toys provided to the Army.
That Army combat units were not as screwed up as my own will have to wait for more army combat
veterans to come forward. I know my brothers, (he died in 69) was terrible but I don’t know that
other than through his commentary. Thanks for liking the story and writing what you honestly think here…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, last night I went to a Chinese Resturant New in our area of surburbia. The food was good, the servers command of English was minimal, and the “background music” was drums, just like I listened to while reading that chapter of your story. Weirdest feeling I have had in a long time. Really looking forward to,your publish date.
Funny how those little reminders keep popping out and up in our lives…those of us who went and then
got out into the real shit. I am struggling to get the first book out by the 15th of this month.. Wow, what an undertaking…
to get it right, I mean.
Semper fi,
Jim
God’s speed Marine
Thanks Joe. Encouragement from wherever I can get it!
Semper fi,
Jim
When I thought I could not go on any further I reached a cleft in the hillside, that was more of (a) series of layered cliffs than it was a hillside. Extending out from the cleft, a flat area about eight feet deep and twenty feet (wide) appeared.
(“)‘What do you think of him?” I asked, ignoring his request for me to take a cigarette.
“What might we get if we trade him in?” Sugar Daddy shot back, biting off the filter of whatever kind of cigarette he’d pulled out, and then spitting (it) out over the edge of our little parapet.
A Marine rifle company was a fearsome force to consider, but one company of just over two hundred Marines was really not that big in the scale of (a) war zone.
What were we going to do with the wounded, because there was no way we could hump them up the steep slope and then expect then (them) to spend the night.
“I know what you mean,” I whispered, with a sign, (sigh,) then made the coded call, wondering where Casey had come up with the call sign for the company.
Thanks again Arty for the sharp eye.
Corrections made.
Jim
Usually when I read a book as intense and as good as this I devour it. I can’t put it down until I read the last page. Waiting for each succeeding chapter is killing me!
I served as a gunner’s mate on a destroyer from ’72-’74. We spent a lot of time on the gun-line firing naval gunfire support just after the Easter offensive. By the time we were there most of the US ground forces were back state side so we were supporting the South Vietnamese troops trying to recapture Quan Tri City. The race issues were still prevalent then though. I recall there was a race riot on one of the carriers while she was on yankee station. I was fortunate though because our crew was extremely tight. We looked out for each other regardless of race. When we returned from that first WesPac we went to the ship yards and one thing they did was tear up our galley. We had to cross the pier to eat on another ship. The racial tension on that ship was palpable. I could feel it as soon as I crossed the gang plank. I recall thinking how lucky I was to get on the ship that I did. Reading this is bringing back memories and stirring up emotions from long ago. For me reading how the artillery saved your ass is most interesting. When one is sitting on a ship at sea and lobbing rounds miles inland, one never knows what happened on the other end. We got some indications when the spotters started asking for us on some difficult fire missions but really we just did our job of making sure the gun would go bang when someone needed it. Reading this helps me understand the immediate importance of what we did there. Can’t wait for the next chapter
Funny about that tremendous lack of knowledge, at the time, and then later in time.
No idea the effect those rounds had that you sent out. The battery simply craved reports about the
effect their rounds were having but I couldn’t really tell them very well because of a lack of time
on my part, energy and self-protection…
Only now…
Thanks for lobbing all that shit our way!
Semper fi,
Jim
Great reading again LT.
The short fuse of a grenade, time stands still at times. You have great reactions to still be alive and luck on your side. The grenade could have had a short fuse, some did.
We filled a stream with rice once to get across, the water was twice what it was when we crossed earlier, Cambodia ’70 B 2/22. Keep them coming Jim.
Yes, some of the M-33 grenades were very short. They recalled those I heard, later on, but too late for us.
the M-26 was pretty damned dependable thought and distinctive in appearance too. Thanks for the story and your
informed response.
Semper fi,
Jim
No mater how secretive a person was, somebody always has an eye on what was going on in the boonies or in the hooches !!!
Isn’t that the truth! Yes, there were eyes and ears everywhere. It’s that way
when everyone’s life is on the line all the time…thanks for the comment and reading the story
Semper fi,
Jim
Do you have any plans to include comments in an appendage to your book? I enjoy reading the comments as they add to your riveting story.