There was nothing to be done about the grenade at the moment, because there were other things that had to be done. I had to make sure that the artillery registrations I’d made earlier with Fire Base Cunningham for bringing rounds in along the lower edge of our position were adjusted accurately. The close proximity between those rounds and the Marines dug in near the base of the hill was vitally important. I also had to get up to the top of the ridge and find out what was going on, as the sporadic small arms fire from both sides continued, although the sounds were considerably dampened by the never-ending rain. The area along the whole top of that ridge could be reached by artillery, as long as Kilo Company wasn’t closing fast in bringing up our flank support. I reached down to gather in my poncho. I wanted some protection from the beating rain. The force of the falling water actually made my shoulders and thighs ache from the constant impacts of the wind-driven drops.
The Gunny brushed my hand aside. “Gotta use that poncho, the skipper needs a place to hole up and he’s pretty much out of it,” he said, his lips only a few inches from my left ear.
I wanted to tell him to give the captain Pilson’s poncho or maybe Jurgens', if the sergeant could be found anywhere outside of the protective layer of Marines he’d no doubt buried himself under, but I said nothing. Fusner needed his poncho to protect the radio. I noted that the fading light reflected brightly off of the moving ponchos anyway, particularly since our position on the side of the hill allowed every Marine in the company to be visible by the enemy below at some angle or other. My own muddy and crud filled exterior made me all but invisible against the mud and crud of the hillside. I gave up the idea of hanging on to the poncho and shrugged off the mild discomfort I felt over losing it.
I grabbed my pack with one hand and dragged it a few feet up the hill.
Then I set it back down. There was no way I was going to get the thing all the way up to the ridge and I knew it. Full dark was coming soon, and any hope of having anything dry at all was in my pack, including my stationary to write home. I had had no opportunity to write home, and that seemingly small detail of my disordered mess of an existence bothered me more than anything else other than the grenade incident.
“Gunny, can you have my pack covered, at least, and see if you can convince the captain I didn’t toss that grenade into his hooch on purpose?”
“He doesn't know about it so don’t mention it again,” the Gunny replied, tossing my pack under his own poncho. “Pilson’s a bit slow, but he’s not stupid and would like to live, like the rest of us.”
Turning and heading up the broken slimy slope, moving laterally from rock to rock much more than up the hill itself, I wondered about the Gunny’s last remark, since I didn’t feel that my threat toward any of the men had been that overt lately. Not in a few days, anyway. Why would Pilson feel threatened by me?
I didn’t reach Zippo, Nguyen, and Stevens until the light was almost fully gone. The glistening ponchos of the men around me made me feel that I’d made the right decision about not demanding my own. But what could be done to lessen the shiny targets the men’s ponchos might make if the rain let up enough for the enemy to target them across the distance with the big guns. The fifty had fired several strings into the hillside but none of the bullets had come close to me while I’d climbed. I snuggled into the mud at the top of the hill. The rain was protecting us all from visibility. The discomfort was great, however, and the leeches no doubt enjoying their feed. In spite of the noise of the fifty, and small arms fire, the unit seemed in a pretty secure position. That could all change if NVA forces that’d been left behind beyond the top of the hill, or had flanked us, were significant in number and carried supporting arms.
I moved over to Fusner’s prone body and crawled under his poncho.
“Need to get at my map," I whispered, dragging my flashlight, with its pencil beam, out from my thigh pocket.
I hadn’t registered rounds atop the hill and I needed at least one grid coordinate location to adjust from. Small arms fire lit up from the next hill over, or the ridge itself, I could not tell in the dark. The rain looked more like of a dark fog than a rain back at home. There was no lightning or thunder. Just never-ending hard rain, and all the mud and run-off that went with it.
I slithered out from under the poncho onto a fairly good-sized patch of elephant grass. At least it wasn’t mud. I dragged the radio handset out with me. I had Fusner adjust the Prick 25 to bring up the combat net and then went on the net to ask for Kilo Company’s position. Battalion asked for identification and I gave Casey’s unique code. Battalion wouldn’t give a position, of course, as I knew they wouldn’t, but it allowed me to give the grid where I intended to drop in artillery rounds and for them to tell me that I was cleared to fire. It took several minutes, battalion no doubt calling Kilo before coming back up, but I finally got clearance.
I didn’t answer an interrogative about whether we were in contact or not. Knowing or not knowing would not matter to battalion, or to us, in helping us get through our current situation. There was no way that Kilo was going to move to support us in this mess, not during the misery of this night.
I had to deal with whatever forces were at our rear as quickly as I could, so I called in one adjusting round to explode a hundred meters in the air at a position about a thousand meters beyond where Fusner and I lay. The round came in, and once again I thanked God for the “splash” calculation and transmission. A little flash was all that came through the dropping sheets of hard cold rain. I hadn’t noticed the cold lower down but the breeze at the top of the hill, and the lower temperature of the falling water itself were giving me the shivers. I knew the spotting round had landed close because the small arms fired instantly died away. The enemy was running. I called for a battery of six and then went left and right four hundred meters. Thunder finally filled the night, but not that provided by nature. I’d used Variable Time fuses set at fifty meters. There were some chopped jungle and body parts laying somewhere out there to our rear if they had not gotten out in time.
I turned to stare down the hill toward the river but could see nothing. The binoculars were useless as well. I had a registration point set up just short of the river, which was about as close to the line where Cunningham could drop rounds in, but that was no more than three hundred meters from our lower positions dug into the hill. It was fairly clear ground, which meant that the circular probability error of the 105s would be dangerously close to my Marines. I was too far up the slope to adjust and see using Willie Peter, as the rain was dense and the darkness complete. I had to get back down to near the bottom of the slope. The fifty opened up again, raking rounds back and forth across the hillside, its tracers invisible because of the weather, but the bullets so fast and heavy that eventually, they had to begin to cause serious, if not terminal, damage. I stared down into the rain. I felt the leeches sucking blood from under my chin. I didn’t bother to touch them with my hands. They were too repulsive to touch, but at least I’d come to understand and relegate them to their proper place. They wouldn’t kill me and wherever they attached themselves meant no other leeches could have that spot.
Once the artillery explosions through the water-filled air came to an end, I gathered my scout team and told them about our next objective. We had to get down the hill to the bottom and call in an accurate fire to make sure the enemy knew we were in force, and that our supporting fires were effective and deadly. Unlike me, the team guys had humped their packs up with them, and all wore wet slick ponchos. There was no visibility to put them at risk in the rain and, until we started down I didn’t know about the other disadvantage of the slippery things. We’d gone no more than twenty yards down the four-hundred-meter steep slope when we began to slide. I’d been in the lead but there was no lead once we were moving. The ponchos were slippery, and my being without one was no help at all, because everyone had been scrunched into one mass. Down the hill, in the dead of dark, inside a pouring cauldron of cold rain we went. The sluice of water and mud took us around the biggest rocks and over the smaller ones, with Marines dug in nearby letting out muted shouts as we went by.
The bottom made up of jungle bracken of all sorts, piled elephant grass and bamboo stands came up in seconds. We plowed into the collected jungle debris in one sodden muddy mass. I was bruised all over, but my breath hadn’t been knocked out of me, and I didn’t think I’d lost anything. I’d been afraid, but not combat terror afraid, only carnival ride scared.
“Holy shit,” Stevens gushed out when we were untangled from one another.
“They’d charge for that ride back home,” Zippo added.
“Radio check,” I said to Fusner. Our objective was to call in artillery and to do that we’d need a working radio. The only radios, if Fusner’s was not operational, were back up on the hill, another arduous climb before having to return all over again.
The radio worked. I struggled to get unknotted from the scout team and get my bearings in the pouring rain. We had to get back behind the perimeter and further up the hill. For the first time, I sensed another sound overwhelming the sound of the rain if I listened intently. It was a train rushing sound. It was the river. The river was rising. The good news in that was all about crossing. From the sound of the fast moving water nobody who hadn’t crossed by now was going to cross until it went down, and that would not be during the night. Any of the NVA that had crossed already were also not going back. That part could be good or bad.
Sugar Daddy’s platoon had the lower perimeter, which surprised me again. The lower hill perimeter was where the company would likely be hit, and here was the black platoon, the platoon that supposedly wouldn’t fight, stationed at the most dangerous point. Once we got straightened out it took only a few seconds to hike, and then climb back up the hill a few yards. Sugar Daddy came out of the night, once we were down behind a few big rocks. The fifty hadn’t opened up during our rapid ride down the hill, or since. For some reason, I felt less safe lower down the hill than I’d felt at the top, particularly after dumping a ton of artillery along its far edge.
I couldn’t call in Willie Peter, and High Explosives were too dangerous. I decided on using concrete piercing fuses, hoping Cunningham had them. The spotting rounds would hit the ground, and then penetrate about twenty feet before going off. I’d adjusted by sight, sound and now I would try adjusting by feel. I called in the first round. I heard nothing of an explosion. I heard what I thought was whooshing crash through the rain. That was just before mud, water and all kinds of vegetation showered down upon us.
“The river,” I said, aloud. “We hit the river. That’s river mud and river crap coming down on us.”
“One round repeat, drop five zero, over,” I said into the microphone, to get another concrete piercing fuse but this time to land fifty meters closer to our position.
The round came in. This time, just after the “splash” report, everyone felt the concussive wave from when the round went off underground. There was no debris. I knew that I should call in a final round of high explosive just to make sure I had the positioning down. The registration point about the company’s position I’d given earlier was halfway up the hill. The FDC would have a safety margin built in, so they wouldn’t fire too close but they’d have no way of knowing how much of a ‘fudge’ factor I’d built in. I felt guilty about wanting to be further up the hill when the spotting round came in. But I had no choice. I had to stay or everyone would know.
“You gonna call in H.E.?” Sugar Daddy asked, crawling up behind me and confirming my suspicion.
I knew I could come up with an excuse to call the spotting round in later, should we be attacked, but I knew he’d know.
I called in the round, using a super quick fuse. At “splash” I molded myself to the back of the rock I was hiding behind. The sharp crack of the explosion came rushing right through the curtain of rain. The round had been close, but not too close. I was afraid to use battery fire because that would disperse shells landing around a point in the shape the guns were set into at Cunningham base. Even shortening the distance to our front line by fifty meters, or so, was unacceptable.
The big fifty opened up and sprayed the hillside. The tracers whipped through the rain like green flaming beer cans. Very fast beer cans. I called in a full contact fire mission. I asked for a battery of six to be targeted to the position in the middle of the river where the first spotting round had landed.
The rounds started impacting. I waited for the battery to fire out and then called in two more, like I’d done on the hill above, spacing the fire so that I was laying explosives up and down the river itself. I wondered if the NVA gun position was busy moving back because there was no return fire from the Soviet fifty. The enemy had set up not too far from the river, I thought and had probably not realized that Cunningham could bring the rounds down as close as I’d brought them. The NVA would no doubt set the big weapon up further back, but they’d also be unlikely to attempt an attack with their troops across a flooded river fully covered by adjusted artillery fire from their enemy. A fifty caliber machine gun was no match for a 105 artillery battery.
When all that could be heard was the rain coming down, beating incessantly on my steel helmet, I turned to look at Sugar Daddy. The new moon didn’t give much light down through the rain, and the clouds dropping it. Sugar Daddy moved closer, as I sat there recovering from being so close to the artillery strike. I’d been more afraid than the Marines around me, I knew. They’d developed a confidence in my ability I still didn’t fully share. I knew I was good, but I felt more lucky than good. Someone in my college had once said that if you could pick between being good and lucky that one should always take lucky. So far I’d been lucky.
“Casey’s got to go,” Sugar Daddy said, in his low toned voice, barely penetrating the rain coming down through the few feet between us. “You tried to take him out but you missed.”
I sighed deeply. The news of the grenade incident had already made its way through the whole company. Nothing got missed. Nothing negative got missed, ever. There was no point in telling the grenade story and trying to defend myself. Who was going to believe it? If Jurgens had thrown the thing to take me out, and that seemed most likely, then I’d have to have some evidence to accuse him, at least as far as the company was concerned. I didn’t want to deal with Jurgens. In some ways I’d rather do what I’d just done, calling in artillery on both weakened fronts. But I knew there was to be no avoiding that situation for long.
“He doesn’t matter,” I finally replied. “You matter, and the Gunny matters, and the men. After that, you have to decide how you’re going to play it. Either we’re going to die out here or get back to the rear at some time. If we die, then none of it matters. But if we get back to the rear, then the story about what happened out here is going to be important. What kind of story do you want it to be?”
“What about you, Junior?” Sugar Daddy asked. “How do you fit in?”
“I’m just passing through,” I replied, telling him the truth. “I don’t fit and I’m stuck in the middle. Your platoon’s trying to kill his platoon and his platoon’s trying to kill you, while the other two platoons are trying to stay out of it any way they can. The Gunny’s stuck in the middle and I’m stuck in the middle too.”
“So decide,” Sugar Daddy replied, after waiting about a full minute to think about what I’d said. I waited to answer him, wondering what my neck looked like covered in leeches, and the rest of me coated in mud and whatever other debris had come down from the river water blast.
“I’m with the captain and the Gunny,” I said. “There is no other place for me here.”
“Well, what about me and my men?” Sugar Daddy responded his voice growing slightly in volume.
“I’m with you, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sugar Daddy replied, his tone one of a question.
“Think about it,” I said, just as small arms opened up from between our perimeter and the river. I scrunched down behind my rock, while Fusner squeezed in behind me. I tried to look around the edge of the stone without really looking around the edge of the stone.
“I think they’re trying to take part of the hill further downriver,” Sugar Daddy said, getting to his feet. “They can’t see us any better than we can see them, but we can’t let them have that flank or we’re screwed.”
I remembered the small area to our left, wondering why it hadn’t stuck in my mind as a potential weak point. I saw muzzle flashes. The NVA had to be slowly advancing, flat on the ground, knowing our ability to see them directly or hit them with artillery was crippled.
“Tracers,” I said, getting to my own feet. “Have your men open up with the tracers. The volume of fire should say something to them about staying down, while we shift over to extend our perimeter."
Sugar Daddy disappeared into the night. A minute later the hillside opened up. The tracer rounds didn’t ignite until they were fifty meters beyond the muzzle of the M-16s, but out from there, a blanket of blazing yellow and white struck the brush between the company and river, like a great halo of burning locusts. Sugar Daddy’s perimeter reloaded and fired some more before a contingent scuttled off toward the weak point we’d left exposed on our left flank.
I sat down with my back to the rock, cupping my hands over my ears. I was tired of spending whatever time I had at rest with my ears ringing. I felt the leeches and tried to orient my hands around them. The shots of the automatic weapons became muted, but the sound of the rain beating down on my helmet remained. I squeezed my eyes shut and swore an oath that if I got back I’d never wear a hat or swim in swamps or small lakes ever again. I also thought about the next day. Something had to be done if the enemy got the fifty-caliber moved and going again. The force of NVA on our side of the river was going to have to be neutralized somehow as well, or there’d be no move possible at first light or resupply and medevac later in the morning.
I pulled my hands down from my ears when I felt someone tapping powerfully on the top of my helmet. I looked up. It was Sugar Daddy. Right behind him I could make out Nguyen, off to one side. I couldn’t see the Montagnard’s eyes, but I was willing to bet that he blinked, and Sugar Daddy didn’t have long to live.
“I still don’t understand what you meant,” Sugar Daddy said, loud enough to be heard through the pounding rain.
I shook my head slightly at Nguyen, and the native wraith was gone into the night.
“My job is to get back to the captain and come up with a new plan,” I said, rising to my feet. “Your job is to figure out what I meant.”
I started the climb back up to my pack, wondering where the Gunny was going to be if I went to war with Jurgens. If I was not already at war with Jurgens. The captain really didn’t matter. Not yet. If he lived longer he might come to matter, or so I hoped.
<<<<< The Beginning | Next Chapter >>>>>
The comment section is almost like a reception party, with you as the host, and a very good one. Much is shared in common at the gathering here with those among you, and even with those of us that stayed behind, but with you now. The comradery is excellent. Then I realize the sobering fact of just how personal this all really is, to many with you here, but especially to yourself. It is reflected in your explanations of Gunny, Sugar Daddy, Jurgens, and the Captain etc. and how each touched you personally by their actions. The making of this epic tale involved the blood, sweat and tears of your whole company, and then the historical approach to your documentation in writing it to share with us. I can’t thank you enough, but by the prayer that when the reception is through, and we all return to our own thoughts, that a great warmth of comfort may be appreciated by you from the fires ignited here in our breasts. Thank you James. S/F.
Who in hell do you write for or with Ron? That’s a paragraph I’d be willing to bet I could not
write from scratch as well or even equal. That last sentence isn’t expository, it’s poetry.
What can one say to that delivered epistle? This forum has turned into something special and I
guess I am the moderator or host, as you term it. That it could rise up almost out of nowhere
has continued to amaze and impress. The quality of the writing on here has only been exceeded by
the sincerity and poignancy of the feelings transmitted. Thank you…it’s not enough, but
it’s all I got…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for the praise. What you have done is more than imaginable. For perspective- E. R. Burroughs and the 30 some Tarzan books were amazing, but by the 18th book of this series I had caught on to his plot format. I knew the outline of the book before the end of the first chapter, but he was a brilliant writer. I can compare his energy and action to your own style, without slighting either you or him, but you appear, as “J” wrote, to be more clever. I appreciate that and you don’t have to hear from me or another, ‘Gee, I knew that would happen.’ Of course real life is impossible to predict, and no matter what you decide, you can’t decide the end. And though we may think we know it…never in a million years. Semper fi Jim. (If only I had played baseball instead).
Ron Johnson. Famous writer. Or should be. I much enjoy the wordsmithing your comments have offered here.
If you had played baseball the mental talents you display so ably and seemingly deftly here might have
only been wafting thoughts passing through your mind as you chewed tobacco and waited for the next time
to be up to hit a small round ball to the other guys sitting on their benches and waiting to go out and catch it.
There are many ways to enjoy the benefits of entertaining the public (although only a very tiny amount of people get to
make much money actually doing it for a living) but writing may be the most personal ones. To write, and have a reading audience,
is to reveal a whole lot of the interior landscape of your very being to people who might not treat that landscape gently.
Some might say that God touched me to be His angel when I lived that story “In God’s Way,” but others, and they’ve written to me to prove
it, think that what happened was mostly self-serving or self-created and written to make myself look like some sort of modern “St. Joseph.”
In Thirty Days was Junior a hero or a coward, or both…or neither? Was Junior brave or living in terror, or both, or neither?
And so on. Was it really me in either story, or are all those connected events figments of imagination created by me for reasons not really imaginable right now?
You are a writer Ron, and the evidence is revealed in your comments. That means you are one of those creatures who not only thinks
intricate thoughts but you has the ability to put them down on paper in a way that illustrates them to the point that others feel and understand them.
It’s always a pleasure to read good writers. Thank you for putting you words on here for such a purpose.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lieutenant Jim, if a hero saves a life what more does he need? The demeanor of the psyche in individuals that are awarded as heroes; the bestowal of grace in ballet causing public adulation; It is like an unquenched fire. It is the same with fame and fortune. The first can burn one badly and the last one can corrupt. We are not all brave enough to be heroes. Anyone that tries is a fool, or a thief. We practice what we learn and if by some chance a time comes to prove one’s self right or wrong, the examples are written in the Testimony of Christ, which way to turn and what should be done. Our reasoning is unaccountable at the time we venture into life, and our acts are witnessed, but we ourselves do not remember how the teachings go. What is it we deserve is the real question, for even the one’s unseen need to know. And the answer is enough that we have been heard. I can think of ‘Junior’ as a hero for this, and I believe many here will support my last statement. Thanks come for being very careful with it. S/f.
You are right…and damned difficult to comprehend in this tome my friend. I read it again. And then again.
I like that part about my being a hero. Now that made me laugh out loud. I was such a flawed scum bag bottom feeding my
way through the jungle, afraid of my own shadow but too afraid to show it. My survival first was always on my mind, even if I was
taking others along. Now I can be a hero. Backwards. But I was not. I was a kid in a whole lot of trouble trying to find any
way at all through…and willing to do about anything to get through.
Just the way it was. Thanks for the positive nod, however and that complexity about Christ.
You are smarter than me Ron…and I concluded earlier.
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, you make me laugh at my own memories. The dirt and mud thing. I told myself that I would never be dirty again, where I could not take a shower, nor would I ever be hungry again, where I could not eat. At 77 years old, I make it a point to never lie to myself. Thanks for the memories and a great write.
Thanks James. I much appreciate the comment and reality of how you’ve reacted to that time over there.
Thanks for writing it on here too…
Semper fi,
Jim
I thought the Yard was about to open S. D’s ribs from stem to stern !! Thought you should have placated S. D. a little more about not knowing what you meant !! A thousand other comments I’d like to share but won’t !!
You know, Tex, I forgot how some of the guys used to call Nguyen a “Yard,” and I also
remember he didn’t like it very much so I never did. Funny what comes back to us so many
years later and also what the guys like you commenting, bring back.
Thanks.
Semper fi,
Jim
Some really interisting dynamics coming into play as you inadvertently put a “hit” on the Captain, well as far as Sugar Daddy is concerned. So he thinks you fragged him, and Jurgens is his right hand man it looks like. So Sugar Daddy thinks it’s in his best interist to be rid of both these guys, Aligning with Sugar Daddy might make your problems go away, you won’t have to do anything it will just happen. To iffy to depend on the NVA. So having your young Montanyard friend behind Sugar Daddy is quite interisting, and then calling him off. If he was behind Jurgens would it have gone the same way?
The dynamics of what was going on. Better understood now and, in fact, better understood now
by me because of some the analysis and expression of commenters here. What I was doing at the time
was trying to survive, trying to be an officer, trying to get by day to day with the impossibly uncomfortable
elements and animal life and then take care of the Marine and keep them from killing me. After that there was
the enemy. The complexity of the mess I was in is hard to accurately describe and then my expectation now that
I was acting pretty logically is suspect too. Thanks for the analysis here and I will continue to lay this
down as best I can. That’s why the First Ten Days is a book of fiction. Only some of you guys would believe it, anyway!
Semper fi,
Jim
In country 68-69 on Phang Rang AFB. I was a Crew Chef on the F100’s fighters ! Enjoying each chapter of your story and am waiting on the next ! Thank’s s
That old beast of a fighter served well as a bomber. A few of them did some runs for us. They came in much lower and slower than the F-4s. As good as the F-8. Nothing was as good as
the Skyraider for ground support though.
Semper fi,
Jim
James , once again your writing captivates me with every word and line . I read and reread as I am transported back in time to those days . I have to venture a guess here that at some point Jurgens is going to be brought to account . Although you have your hands full right now I’m sure you are going to take him on face to face before setting him out for the wolf pack to deal with as any true leader would do . You’re native counterpart seems to be in a thousand places at the same time with an ever watchful eye on everything that is happening . I had one who offered to take out an officer who was making survival nearly impossible but that wasn’t my style anymore than I can see it being yours . Right now you need every player on the field and if by letting them think you tried to take Casey out with a covert plan . It may just make them know you are the crazy bastard that will do what it takes to get out of this mess and maybe they should come in line . The hell is trying to figure out what each players part in the game is and then how to put them all in the same team . The main objective here is to stay alive until you can figure it out and build your forces from within .
You have arrived at the central problem of all combat operations Bob.
How to stay alive to learn anything about how it really is inside and
outside of the unit. They cannot train people on how it really is likely
to be or nobody would go, certainly not most second lieutenants. And they
have not been able to control what happens inside units although I am sure they
are making strides with video and electronics. Why so many ten thousand yard stares
and guys with PTSD from Iraq and Afghanistan. You don’t get that from encountering
the enemy, by and large, unless you consider the enemies….much more inclusive.
PTSD comes from shameful and rotten behavior conducted because the choice is seen
as that or survival. Interesting dilemma, and why there will be such kick back to the
book and my story…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I think I may have organized some of your resupply points. I served with the 11th Motor Transport Bn at the south entrance of Indian country at DaiLai pass about 7 miles north of Danang. I was the S3 senior NCO and I actually mapped out a route into the Ah Shau coming in from near Hua. I rode along on several convoys as a 50cal ringmount gunner into the edge of the Ah Shau and up to QuangTre and other points north.
I hope that I was involved in some resupply missions. That would have to be recorded as one of my GREATEST honors!
Thanks for your writing and most of all, THANKS FOR COMING HOME!
Stan Batemon
Semper Fi!
Thank you Stan. The integrated work by so many over there goes unheralded.
Like The integration among the services I point out, best I can.
The resupply was amazing for the most part. Lists went in and then came
back with choppers full of the stuff, like the best shopping list sent to
grocery store delivery operation.
That called for a lot of care back at the resupply bases and points.
The chopper crews really really cared.
You could see it in their actions, their attitude and even in their eyes.
Sometimes they did not want to drop us because they knew what we were going into
and picking up the wounded was work they threw themselves into with abandon…
not to mention caring for the wounded on the way back to First Med.
There’s not too many people who made it through who are here to say
thank you to so many who served in the rear and get a bad rep because
so many of us out there wanted to get to the rear so badly.
Thank you Stan!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
First an editing note. You wrote “The new moon didn’t give much light down through the rain, and the clouds dropping it.” Did you mean FULL MOON as a new moon wouldn’t give any light regardless of the weather conditions.
On a personal note, as I read this story I’ve noticed that my feet feel wet! Even though they are dry. I’ve noticed this before when it has been raining outside. This tells me you are connecting at an emotional level. Good Job!!
Terry. Very interesting point…about the moon and light at night.
The answer is that I don’t know. It wasn’t a full moon because we’d just gone through
a period when there was no moon.
But I could faintly see the glistening water from the rain on helmets and ponchos.
Not enough to really see but some light. Where was it from.
My memory of enough light to see is there but not the actual source which
I presumed to be the from some moon light shining down on the clouds above.
Thanking away about that conundrum.
Thanks for the interesting comment and being so into that story that you picked that up.
Like some other thing back then. I can see them and then try to describe
and explain them but sometimes have to get it wrong.
Semper fi,
Jim
This company would be in deep shit if it wasn’t for your efforts. I can’t see a thing that Capt. Casey has undertaken during this story. The irony that I’m finding is that you’re accomplishing all this to save yourself and the company is benefiting from your efforts.
When writing, the only way true stories can play out is with the ups and downs of the actual events. I’ve found each of your stories to be very riveting, though some are more so than others. That’s the way it goes in real life and the story line must follow. Obviously you can’t write everything down that happened or your book would be long and cumbersome. I’ve found when I try to relate actual events in words, I have to do the best I can to jump past the ho-hum, everyday things to the more exciting aspects.
You’re doing a great job of minimizing the boredom of everyday things that happened, and I’m sure there were many, while getting to the meat and potatoes of the event of a Marine rifle company being hunted and hunting the NVA.
Keep up the great work!
By the 13th day I was still trying to find any position,
period or part of a day or night that had boredom as a wonderfully dreamed of benefit.
I read of the units that went through long periods of guarding, patrol
and no contact with the enemy at all and I am envious. It wasn’t part of my tour,
but then it has only been twelve days and nights.
Maybe there’s still time…
And thanks for the compliment and the comment!
Semper fi,
Jim
The comments are almost as intriguing as the story. What an added bonus. Can’t wait until the next chapter.
The comments are driven by people like you Don, who want a little bit more
than the story might provide. Thanks for adding to the fray and coming aboard here.
Semper fi,
Jim
PhuBai 68-69 with the ASA. I’d like to offer a stateside experience that I had many years later. Living in Maine I was in Portland one night for a class. The winter weather wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated so got to town very early. I thought I’d catch a bite to eat and chose a Vietnamese restaurant. My order was taken by a beautiful young Vietnamese woman. Pretty much nobody else in the room so I walked around looking at the artwork on the walls. I was admiring a scene of warriors and ladies outside a walled city and she approached me and said, “This is Hue City.” I remarked that I had been near there once. She replied, “Oh you visited my country?” I said yes, during the war to which she turned and walked away. A short time later she returned with my food an after serving me stepped back. My thoughts were, “Oh No, here it comes!” To my utter amazement she said something like this. “Many people my age feel we owe a debt of gratitude to people like you who fought for our country.” “Although in the end we lost it, I would like to say for all of us, Thank you.” I couldn’t reply and she walked away. At that point, no American had ever thanked me for our service. She was too young to have been anything but a child during “our war.” Only thing wrong with my meal was that the soup was a little salty…..but that could have been from my tears.
Thanks Bill, for that really poignant short story. A great one, and not little
at all, really. Yes, understanding for what so many of us went through is pretty much not there.
That’s part of the burden when we came and remain home.
This story is not likely to be a runaway bestseller because of that.
Most of the public doesn’t know and really does not want to know, or so I have come to think.
Try mentioning Vietnam at a party. You might as well say you are retired.
You will find yourself in the same lonely circumstance.
Thanks for what you wrote.
I much enjoyed the reading and I know a lot of other guys have also…
Semper fi,
Jim
Damn Bill,
You got my tear ducts to open up.
Really appreciate your share!
“Chilling rain”. I remember nights I was sure it was goin to snow at An Khe.
The sound of falling shrapnel.
Your story brings Back things and sounds long forgotten.
Never expected it to be cold, especially when I was operating in the lowlands before the mountains.
The mountains just didn’t seem high enough to cause temperature change but they sure as hell were when
combined with the rain. Thanks for the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for the outstanding account of your time in Viet Nam. From your words I’m reminded of the pledge I made to myself long ago. When things get bad, real bad, remember how tough it was for the combat vets who served in those miserable conditions while others tried to kill him, my problems don’t seem tough at all.
I enlisted in the Army out of high school in ’70. Became a helicopter weapons mechanic 45M20 and was to go to RVN when I finished AIT. My orders came down and I was shipped to Ft. Hood and stayed there for the remainder of my enlistment. The 1st Cav came back from Viet Nam in ’71 and I was assigned to A Trp, 1/9, 1st Cav. I worked with a lot of pilots and crew members who had just come back to the world. They didn’t talk much of what they went through. At the time I thought I had missed out on the real deal. After reading your story and many others over the years, I think that Lady Luck was standing beside me.
Thank you and god bless you for your service. I will buy your book(s).
Thanks Tom. Yes, the real shit was shit. And you are absolutely right
about the combat thing. It is great to wake up, no matter what the circumstance,
and not be back there in that muck fighting for my life and scared beyond shitless.
I also don’t wake up in that pain in the hospital. I’m even afraid, with this whole
weird anti-opiate thing that if I ever end up in the hospital like that I’ll not have the
morphine that got me through last time. Now they put a wooden dowel in your mouth and play gentle
music out in the hall for the pain.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I shivered right along with you during this episode, although the rain we experienced was usually warm and the seas unforgiving.
We experienced the artillery every night upriver when we brought supplies during our many trips
Thanks Leo. The mountains in rain and wind could get cold. Not Wisconsin
cold but maybe very low sixties and the plunged body temperatures over any time.
Moving it was fine. Thanks for the comment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Somebody has to be humping some LAAWs. The fifty would be targetable with just a little let up in the rain from 3/4s of the way up the hill. Had a corpsman who lived to shoot laaws at snipers, we all just had to scatter to now be victims of the back blast!
Use Nguyen he’s the perfect weapon. Never get caught, you be anywhere else when it happens. Best time, when he’s off taking a dump.
Have someone in your team scrounge up a couple ponchos from the dead, tie your liner in one for a sleeping bag.
Butch
The LAAW was limited to a couple of hundred meters and without
getting across the river we were too far away.
It was a great piece for short range like their rockets.
Thank God they weren’t always well supplied by those.
Thanks for the comment and the analysis.
Semper fi,
Jim
Once again I simply conclude I have never read a historical fiction novel of this quality. At times you engage nearly all the five senses of your readers. I will be getting multiple copies from Amazon for family and friends who walked your walk, and pray it helps them. I check every day hopin that you typed faster lol! Wish you could explain FUBAR. I think we all have the first two words.
Thank you Bob. High praise indeed. Funny how writing it I don’t get that feeling at all. It just lays down on
the pages as I go along, with my plethora of papers, maps and junk flitting about around the bottom and sides of the monitor.
Thanks for the big compliment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
I like to read in the head, on my big phone. Can’t.
The vertical array of share opportunities on the right covers 1/4 of the screen.
The horizontal popup offering a subscription covers 1/2 of the screen.
I’ve subscribed twice, and get no notifications, and the popup never goes away.
Please allow a way to opt out of both. Thanks.
I didn’t go. Dropped ROTC in 1964. Felt guilty about it. You fixed that.
My friend Rick did go. … and came back, mostly.
He started talking about it, a little, just a couple years ago.
He read the first couple chapters and tried to buy the book immediately.
He’ll be one of your first customers.
He said his first night in Nam was a lot like your first night in Nam.
Thank you Mike. Glad you dropped that guilt shit. We are happy to have you among us, writing and kicking as you are.
Thanks for your friend. Any support at all is really appreciated. Yes, the pop up is pain in the ass but I have only so much time
to get the book out, keep on writing, editing and then do some more. I’m on it over time…
Thank you for the comment and the analysis….and your friend.
Semper fi,
Jim
Reading the series on Facebook is like the old serials on tv or the movies. It’s very enjoyable and I can’t wait till the next episode comes out. When I was over there we didn’t use ponchos, we wrapped up in a poncho liner and layed on a plastic sheet on the ground. I have never been so cold and miserable. I often think these kids who like to play those war games should do it under those realistic conditions and see how much fun it is. Keep up the good work.
The ponchos were a long way from perfect, but there were durable and
we could transport them with us everywhere we went. Some guys also rolled up
mats of foam but they got soggy, moldy and the mud or jungle was usually pretty soft
anyway. The poncho liners were loved by everyone. They dried out fast and provided needed
warmth or protection against the infernal mosquitos.
Semper fi,
Jim
I can barely wait for your next post! I realize all Veterans are important, but the REMPS will never understand. I know plenty with full disabilities, for collecting hemorrhoids, or getting an inherited disease. You and these men were in a world of hurt. Can’t imagine the terror, and then coming back to the world. I salute you sir!
Thanks for the compliment and for reading and liking the story.
The guys in the rear, and some gals, performed all sorts of services we guys out in
combat could not have survived without. As with the guys in combat….there were all kinds…
Semper fi,
Jim
James another excellent chapter ,every chapter you’ve wrote has put me right along with you and the fire teams.The way you explain the rain the in coming the leeches, it’s just like your there !Sugar Daddy seems to be a little concerned about getting rid of Casey or is he coming to the point of your the one who is making the right calls.Can’t wait for the next one .
Nice comment James. I, of course, won’t resolve any mysteries here, as I’ll let the developing story do that.
Thanks for the compliments on the writing.
Semper fi,
Jim
Following closely. Comments that follow each segment are very interesting to read as well. The rain! The rain of the monsoons were cold. You have ground that memory back with you and you team sliding down the hill. Been there as well covered in the mud and soaked thru and shivering so hard my teeth chattered. Thanks!
Damn I hate autospell!
You are certainly not the only one Terry, along with the inability to turn it off
from so many sites.
Semper fi,
Jim
Interesting comments here, to be sure. In fact, I’ve never read anything like them.
It also shows that a lot of combat vets can write, even thought most would never admit it.
Thanks for the comment and the reading…
Semper fi,
Jim
This is better than a movie ,keep it coming Lt.
Dickens and Dumas pioneered the idea and exercise of serially publishing novels way back in the early and mid 1800s.
Today, with the impossibility of getting anything published anymore through the main stream publishers unless you are already famous
or family connected, maybe it is the only way an author can have an audience and comments also allow that audience to have an impact
as the story goes along, not likely in plot or theme but in feeling. Interesting times we live in…
Thanks for the comment and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I was with the 25ID at CuChi in67/68 beating the bush with the first Wolfhounds.I was enlisted but learned a few things about officers. As a new butterball the way you acted around the enlisted men usually let us know what type of officer you were going to be If you came in country acting like you knew more than those that had been there a while, changes were good you would go home in a body bag and were an as*hole the gunts weren’t real inpressed. Yea we would follow your orders but if you didn’t learn to listen to the enlisted men that had been in country longer than you had, it would be a good bet your ass would be fraged or set up.
You have a good team with you that will protect you with their life if need be.Nguyen seems to have taken to you so he may be your guarding angel, trust him before you do some of the others.
Thank you Delbert. It is always good to read the sincere words of readers really reading the work and thinking about the story.
Your comment breathes all of that. Thank you for the perspective of one who’s been there too and friendly fire was so much more prevalent in combat
than anyone ever wants to talk about…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I enjoy your story so very much, you are dragging me through the mud and rain right along with you. I was late joining your story but I caught up fast. My story is very different as I was Army 1965-67, draftee, aviation, came to country on a Branif Airline, Saigon, LBJ, Soc Trang, 121st Assault Helicopter Co. Crew Chief door-gunner on a Huey slick in the Delta supporting ARVN and American Advisers.
All that to say even with the differences your story takes me back and I can relate!
Sir Welcome Home! Thank you for your service!
Thanks Parker. I always wondered what those chopper guys went through because you had to come into combat
all the time and then go home to hot chow and a bunk. It must have gotten harder and harder to get in those choppers
and come out to visit us…
Thanks for coming anyway….
Semper fi,
Jim
I read the comments with as much enjoyment as your story. One of your replies included a reference to being able to buy a fishing boat, remember, they come in all sizes (hope it’s huge). I sincerely hope this doesn’t turn into a charity work, but you are helping a lot of guys that went thru a terrible time. Thank you for what you did and what you are doing.