I came awake to the creaking rumble of the tracks working unlubricated against one another as they carried the Ontos atop the mud alongside the Bong Song River.
I blinked my eyes rapidly and tried to straighten out against the cramping pain of what seemed to be my whole body, but I wasn’t going anywhere. The Ontos crept on, ever backward, slowly working its way behind a spread-out array of carefully moving Marines.
It was light, although early dawn by the low amount of it seeping down into and through the valley. I was thirsty and hungry again. My canteen was half empty, which I didn’t realize until I worked to pull it from its pinched place on my wedged-in belt. Fusner handed me his, already open, which I gratefully accepted and drank deeply from. Food would have to wait.
“What happened?” I asked, handing the canteen back after screwing the top on.
“Nothing,” Fusner answered. “We fell asleep.”
That much I knew but there was no sense quizzing Fusner or Zippo about it. The simple fact that we had not been awakened by fire was really all that was important.
Only moments later, as I readied myself to clamber down from the moving machine, it stopped.
We’d arrived somewhere. I climbed out, strapped on my pack and turned to face the coming of the dawn.
The hill appeared before me in the distance, its slope beginning to arch up just across from where a tributary of the Bong Song extended out toward the west, another rushing water impediment stuck in front of us by God instead of the enemy, unless God had joined the NVA overnight. For some reason, the flatland around us, and on the other side of the smaller river, was covered with brush while the hill itself was a jumbled mass of dense jungle, with bamboo stands sticking out in every spot a big tree hadn’t grown large enough to overhang. From reading my map I knew the hill wasn’t a hill at all, and that bothered me. The peak facing us was the front rounded edge of a narrow plateau. The plateau extended north all the way to the DMZ, as it expanded until it was the same elevation as the highlands that ran up and down both sides of the river valley. The hill was fully accessible from the northern length of the fully exposed plateau running back from its tip. Fully accessible by the NVA or anyone else coming down from the north along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
I looked up at the top of the hill but couldn’t see it. A dense dark gray cloud hid the very top of Hill 975, making the sight, when taken in along with the fast-moving brown tributary at the bottom, a perfect setting for either a Tarzan, King-Kong or even Godzilla movie. Moisture covered everything, and the constant monsoon rainfall dripped, ran or runnelled its way over, through or into everything. If the NVA had tunnels running along the flatlands then they had to have pumps the size of Huey helicopters pumping them out. I knew that was impossible, and besides, I knew where the enemy was. They were behind us and coming silent and hard after taking so many losses. The media had left and its departure had created a security effect, not unlike the water leaving our shore, the depth dropping to a level that would only be satisfied when a giant tsunami waiting miles out came rushing in. I stood by the water and involuntarily shook my shoulders. The Little White Dove plan, at least the first part, had been no problem. We’d simply moved along the shore of the river traveling through the mushy mud while making certain the Ontos would have a flat sturdy surface to run on. In my heart, and alerted by the lack of radio traffic with the dropped in unit, I knew the A Shau was filled with enemy troops. My conclusion that they were all behind and fighting to catch up had a much greater amount of hope in it than what I really knew to be the case. And then there was the open access to the hilltop by the extended area of the plateau.
My ‘hole’ on tracks sat right behind me, its nearly silent little six-cylinder motor idling away, its guns unfired through the trip with the crew members gingerly waiting for something to happen that would allow them to fire the impressive guns again. I had no such desire. If the Ontos fired it meant the NVA had pulled close and that was the last thing we needed. The NVA threat would have to be met soon enough, but the later the better. The bigger part of executing plan Little White Dove was getting up the hill since not one word had been heard from Clews or his combined action team since they’d been dropped up there.
The Gunny appeared, moving low out of the nearby brush, with Tank, Jurgens and Sugar Daddy following in trace. The Gunny immediately dropped into a squat before me, as if kowtowing to a more powerful leader. In reality, however, the Gunny gave nothing away. He disassembled his canteen kit and went to work at making coffee. I squatted down to join him.
“Staggering, isn’t it?’ he said, working to ignite a chunk of Composition B with his Zippo.
The stuff caught and began burning with its bright yellow-white light.
“What?” I asked, looking at the faces of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy, and knew they had the same question but would never ask it.
“The beauty of this place. One day the whole thing will all be a giant amusement park.”
I looked up at the hill, swept my eyes around and across the river flats between the more distant walls of the A Shau Valley, and wondered what the Gunny was seeing. I was looking at a wet green nightmare from hell, possibly only describable by someone like the author Milton. I couldn’t think of any reply, so I waited.
“Coffee?” the Gunny asked.
I slowly took out my own canteen, and then pulled loose the canteen holder. Resupply had provided clean water. I filled my cup, and then the rest of my canteen from a nearby plastic jug some Marine had set there for us. The Gunny dutifully opened a green foil package of coffee and dumped it in both of our cups. I waited for his mixture to heat before using his fire.
“They shouldn’t be here for a couple of hours,” the Gunny said, pulling his canteen cover out of the fire and taking a sip.
I stuck my own coffee out atop the burning explosive.
I knew the Gunny was referring to the NVA. There was no way to know when they’d come, although everyone knew they would at some point.
“We can use the Ontos to break the current in this smaller tributary,” I said. “It stands seven feet high. I haven’t checked the depth here but I’ll bet it’s no more than three feet, with the water running pretty hard, of course.”
The Gunny looked at me over the top of his canteen holder. I knew what he was thinking. Was risking the loss of the Ontos worth going after the guys up on the hill top when it was becoming fairly apparent nobody was left up there. At least, nobody alive.
“It’s your plan,” he said, although I could tell his heart wasn’t in saying the words.
“A thousand feet up and a thousand feet back,” I said, staring up at the gray and green mass across the rushing water. “One platoon moving very light and very fast. Up and down with the rest of the company dug in below. The Ontos has to cover our rear but I’ll register plenty of zones for the artillery to take care of trouble at the top and along the way.”
“If they got attacked then why didn’t they call artillery for themselves?” the Gunny asked.
“Did anybody check to see if they had a forward observer?” I asked back.
Clews had spoken of registration points up on the hill but without any real ability to adjust fire, being on top of a mountain with the enemy on top of them. Without the ability to fool the artillery bases into firing closer than ‘danger close’ there wouldn’t be much assistance provided at the highest elevation where they would be.
“But we can’t go in without air,” I added.
“We can’t exactly blow the top of the mountain off without knowing what condition they’re in up there,” the Gunny said, twisting around to take in the misty forbidding hill.
“Hence, the air,” I replied. “Somebody’s got to tell us what they can see from the air. If they got themselves killed, and we both suspect that, then we can’t send anybody up there to face what they faced. The same result would be unacceptable.”
“Unacceptable,” the Gunny murmured, taking a swig of his coffee, and then putting the cup down on the mud to begin preparing another of his never-ending supply of cigarettes.
“Unacceptable,” he said again. “You learn those words in college or is that from the Basic School?”
I’d learned it from both or neither, I knew. I had no idea where most of my vocabulary came from, and I didn’t have any idea about where the Gunny was going with his conversation about it.
“How do we avoid going up there, no matter what anybody sees?” he said, puffing on the cigarette, this time making no gesture to hand it to me.
“We can’t just sit here and we can’t go around. In fact, there is no around. But if we go up there then they’re going to have our ass. Little White Dove’s gonna become a bunch of big red doves. Big dead doves.”
I got up and turned back to the rear of the Ontos, where the double doors still gaped open. I pulled out my map and smoothed it on the white-painted metal surface that passed for a floor. The Gunny’s offhand comment had caught my attention. He was right. If we attacked straight up the slope, even with both companies and plenty of artillery for support, we’d be dead in less than an hour if the NVA was waiting. And they had to be waiting. Plus, we had the units coming up the river, which, no doubt, would be attempting to crush us in a pincer movement just as we were being thinned out and weakened from protected position fire up on the hill.
I turned back to face the Gunny.
“We go around. We go up the west canyon a click and a half, climb the gentler face there and come at the hill along the plateau from the back. The elevation along the finger drops down about fifty meters as we go. On top it’s only about two hundred meters wide. A line of fire teams with M-60s can hold anything back from that direction and I can basically clear the jungle itself from the sides of the hill with artillery.”
The Gunny and I sat silently drinking our coffee, both gazing at the hill and seeing totally different things.
“It’s better than attacking straight at the thing,” he finally said, tossing out the remains of his coffee and killing his cigarette by burying the stub in the nearby mud.
The move across the river went much smoother than I’d assumed it would, with one rope extended out from the shore to the Ontos, sitting in the middle of the tributary, and another sagging over to be tied off to the trunk of an outlying jungle tree. The rushing water was only about three feet deep, which didn’t seem that much compared to the main body of the Bong Song I’d dealt with further down the valley, except for the speed of the water. The ropes and the Ontos, however, allowed for such ease of crossing that there were no mishaps or lost equipment.
Once everyone was across, and the sun was just about to rise up over the distant top of the eastern valley wall, the Ontos grunted its way up the bank and into the outer edge of the jungle growth. The driver turned it around so the six deadly 106 barrels pointed downriver in the direction we’d come from.
I described the potential of NVA attack later in the day to the crew. They switched out the two HEAT anti-tank rounds loaded for our retreat to reload with flechettes. All six barrels were pointed down the valley, ready to be fired should the enemy be so injudicious as to attempt to cross the open ground and attack. I would have liked to stay and manage the guns but I knew I had to go up the hill. The Little White Dove plan was my plan and if I was to remain the commander of the two units until relieved, even if in name only, then I had to go.
The sun was up and bright, pushing back the rain to leave high clouds, some drying mist and plenty of dripping plants and sticky mud all around the area we were becoming entrenched in. Second and Third platoons would stay with the Ontos, to protect it and ensure a substantial rear guard. One platoon would set up with defensive fire along the edge of the tributary and the other would lay a perimeter around the base of the hill, in order to assure that no enemy could charge down the hill and decimate the units from the rear.
First and Fourth platoons, along with the remnants of Kilo company moved out along the northern side of the rushing tributary waters, headed up into a dead-ended canyon where my map told me the western side of the plateau’s face would be shallow enough in angle to easily climb. I prayed that the contour intervals of my 1:25,000 map were accurate. The point came upon the first bodies long before we made it up the canyon, however. Three Army Special Forces troops lay strewn about a small lagoon located at the edge of the jungle. They’d all been shot repeatedly through and through from very close range. The reddened pond was marginally connected to the tributary but at the water’s current level more a stagnant eddy than something that could properly be called a stream.
The Gunny, Jurgens and Sugar Daddy all squatted down, examining the bodies without touching or moving them.
“What the hell?” the Gunny said softly as I approached.
I stood behind him but wasn’t looking at the bodies. My eyes had been drawn to a break in the jungle. The break looked like a twisting path leading up in toward the top of the hill. It was a path like I’d seen before when I was a kid in Hawaii. I’d climbed Mount Tantalus time after time to take advantage of such paths, which weren’t paths at all. I was looking at a chute. A chute made of beaten down ferns, their leaves, or megaphylls, loaded with absorbed water and slippery as ice when stepped on. Riding down Tantalus had been a wild experience, with speeds sometimes reaching fifty miles per hour, or so we calculated as kids.
“They were killed up there, or maybe when they were running, only to fall on the ferns and slide all the way down here,” I said, pointing at the beginnings or the end of the chute.
We moved on, after pulling the bodies from the water and setting them aside to be collected later.
The hike back toward the gentler part of the slope I’d seen on the map took less than half an hour. There was still not one whit of radio traffic from Clews or his group and to all of us experienced in the A Shau we knew what that meant, although battalion wasn’t about to believe it, or if it did the information would simply become another after action report.
The target area of the slope of the mountain I’d chosen was made up of riprap consisting of fist-sized rocks. The huge collection ran along the cliff like an elongated pile from one end to the other. Climbing the large gravel-like pile was laborious. Two feet forward, and then slip one back, and so on. The Gunny had sent a few scouts ahead but there was no opposition to our assault. Once on top we established the line of fire, or perimeter with M-60 machine guns set every fifteen feet from one side of the plateau to the other. Visibility wasn’t the greatest through the semi-dense growth but it would do.
I waited with the Gunny once we moved closer and lower down to the tip of what was called Hill 975. It took very little time for the lead elements of Jurgens’ platoon to filter back to us, bringing up the rear. Jurgens and Sugar Daddy came walking toward the Gunny and me.
“This doesn’t look good,” the Gunny observed, noting the sloped shoulders and intent looks of the men, those intent looks not meeting our eyes.
“There could only be one result and we both know it,” I said, knowing the Gunny knew but had somehow, like me, held a small bit of forlorn hope deep inside him.
Nobody said anything. The Marines who’d come from the tip simply turned and made their way back, with us following.
The scene wasn’t a scene at all. The chewed-up vegetation wasn’t open enough to allow for a complete understanding of what had taken place. The only area large enough for the big CH-47 to have come in and dropped the combined team was empty. The team had obviously landed, set up a perimeter near the apex of the hill and then moved a little further out to secure the rest of the peak. That part was fairly easy to assume, as I walked slowly, hunched over, with my Colt out and ready, moving from one small pocket of beaten down jungle after another. Each small area, around the top of the hill, none further than fifty meters from the landing zone, held more than half a dozen men. Each of the small semi-cleared havens weren’t havens at all. Each had a tunnel exit or entrance uncovered nearby. The NVA had known they were coming and dug holes and tunnels to prepare, along with clearing the small patches to give any landing force the idea that there were cleared safe areas they could set up in. One of the ‘pockets-of-death’, as Jurgens termed them, held all three officers, and three enlisted men, all jammed together. They’d been shot from behind, along with their radio operators.
“That’s the lesson,” Sugar Daddy whispered, as he worked with a few of his Marines to drag Clews and the lieutenant’s bodies back toward the landing zone.
“What lesson?” I asked, squatting down to accept the dog tags of the men.
The radio operators had been Marines too. Six Marines had died in seconds because of the decision to land on an unprotected hill with too small a force.
“The lesson of combat,” Sugar Daddy replied. “Combat teaches by killing. It’s the only lesson it has. You learn by dying.”
“We call in a chopper to get the bodies out?” the Gunny asked, from over my right shoulder. “Twenty-seven, but only eight Marines.”
I wondered why it made any difference whether the men were Marines or not but said nothing.
“No,” I answered, it suddenly occurred to me that the NVA would know we were coming for the bodies.
What would they do in preparation for that event? And here we were, following right along.
“How much Composition B did we haul up here?”
“Probably twenty pounds, or so,” the Gunny replied. “What for? I thought we had artillery from three firebases to protect us.”
“The enemy isn’t on the mountain,’’ I replied. “They’re inside it. Still. Get the bodies to the landing zone, toss a pound into every tunnel opening that’s been found. We’ve got to get the hell out of here. By nightfall they’ll be coming out of the holes we can’t see or find to pull the same stunt all over again. The extraction will have to be a touch and go later on with another of those flocks of Cobras, and maybe Puff to keep them in their holes while the bodies are pulled out.”
“Shit, I didn’t think of that,” the Gunny replied, moving quickly toward the landing zone. “They’re still here, under us,” he murmured, as he walked away.
“Everyone’s got to stay low, very low, even if it means getting on our bellies and getting into the dense growth,” I said to the Gunny’s retreating back and Jurgens and Sugar Daddy in front of me.
There had been no firing from the perimeter of fire teams we’d left straddling the plateau from one side to the other, but there would likely be as the day progressed on into the night. The NVA would attack that line to drive us into one dense mass, then kill us from the spider holes and tunnels all around inside our position. They’d hopefully drive any survivors down the hillside and straight into the waiting arms of their brethren coming up the valley from below.
The assembly and stacking of the bodies took an hour. The 24 were altogether without regard to rank or service. I hadn’t looked closely at Clew’s body or that of either of his lieutenants. I felt nothing and I wanted to go on feeling nothing.
“Twenty-seven, if you count the three at the bottom,” the Gunny said, having returned.
As if the NVA had given us just sufficient time to accomplish that loathsome task, they opened up. Everyone went down. I knew immediately that the fire wasn’t from the perimeter we’d left out on the narrows of the plateau. I also knew that the attack wasn’t going to come from that direction. The attack would come from where it had come from with Clews and his team. From underground.
The firing was not to hit us, just yet. It was to surround and gather us together for the kill. We were being herded and held for execution.
“What about heading north along the plateau and getting the hell off this hill?” the Gunny said when the sniping died down for a few minutes.
“Our perimeter is no doubt like one of their own further on, except we won’t see it until we run into it,” I said. “No, they’re not that dumb. They don’t want us to run and they won’t let us if we try. They intend to kill all of us, just like they did the combined action team.”
“Okay then, what do we do? the Gunny mused more than asked, falling into his normal squat while taking out one of his cigarettes and lighting it. “We could fly out on a couple of those big choppers.”
“Oh, the NVA’d love that. Two RPGs and that’s it, at close range from one of those holes.”
“They didn’t shoot Clew’s chopper down,” the Gunny noted.
“No, because they didn’t know it was coming here.”
“Shit,” the Gunny said. “You’re right. This place was dug and prepared for some time. The trees and brush were hacked months ago. They were waiting to occupy the place. I wonder how many of the other hills around here are prepared like that.”
I’d adroitly covered myself so far. I didn’t have a clue as to what to do. Once again, we could not go forward and we couldn’t go back.
“Call in the plateau perimeter and get everyone back,” I said.
“Isn’t that exactly what they want?” the Gunny asked.
“Just get ‘em back,” I replied, trying to figure out how to deal with a mountain run through with tunnels and firing holes we could not find or know about until it was too late.
The Gunny moved back into the density of the jungle, leaving only some wafting smoke behind. I breathed it in, along with the refreshing wind and the welcome lack of rain in the air. I wanted to stand up and face into the weather but the suppressing fire of the NVA wouldn’t allow for that.
The Gunny was back in minutes.
“They’re coming in, to what I don’t know.”
“The night,” I replied. “The NVA are waiting for the night to come. Then they can just walk about and kill anyone who makes a sound or moves. In the morning, they can mop up the survivors.”
I wished I hadn’t said that last part to the Gunny in front of my scout team and anybody else close enough to hear. I needed a plan not a prediction of doom.
I lay in among the moist dripping leaves of the jungle floor. The sun had come out enough to cast ominous shadows everywhere, with a high buffeting wind affecting only the top of the trees.
Shadows moved darkly at speed here and there, faintly resembling black-clad enemy soldiers made out of assembled particles of mist.
I looked at the flat area just down from where I lay.The jungle had been flattened like the enemy tamped down flat spots that had fooled the landing party to terminal effect. But the area in front of me ran downward sharply, angling around a stand of bamboos, before disappearing as the angle steepened even more to a precipitous degree. I suddenly knew what I was looking at.
“How did that song go? Little White Dove?” the Gunny asked, quietly. “One rainy morning dark and gray a soul winged its way to heaven, Jimmy Brown had passed away,” he sang softly. “This isn’t looking good. They have holes all the way down the hill and they’re just waiting for us to try to come down.”
“Stand up,” I ordered the Gunny.
“Stand up? What in hell are you talking about?” he replied, his tone one of surprise.
“Just do it,” I replied, getting to my own knees and making sure my .45 was holstered and the leather strap was snapped.
“The Gunny rose up to his feet, but stayed hunched over, holding his M-16 out sideways across his chest, as if it was a shield against incoming fire.
“It’s the top of the chute we saw from below,” I said, pointing down at the flattened fronds of fern leaves.
The Gunny looked where my finger was pointing, and then I shoved him forward hard, with the full power of my arms and shoulders.
“Hey,” the Gunny got out, hitting the top of the chute hard on his side, but he didn’t have time to say anything else before he was gone. The crushed down ferns were deadly slick.
“Holy shit,” Tank said, as I turned to face Jurgens and Sugar Daddy.
“We’re all going down the chute, right through and past the enemy. When we hit the bottom, everyone’s got to run through our perimeter and then turn to reinforce it.”
“What if our own guys shoot us when we land down there?” Jurgens asked.
“That’s why I sent the Gunny down first, and besides, what chance do we have staying up here? Get your men and get them as fast as you can. The NVA will figure all this out really quick, but I don’t think they’ll be quick enough.”
Jurgens and Sugar Daddy crawled quickly away, and in minutes the area was overflowing with Marines. After the first few jumped and slid out of view, the rest of the Marines needed no instructions. They took to leaping and plunging down onto the leaves with typical Marine abandon. Zippo, Fusner, Nguyen and I funneled them over the edge and onto the leaves, one after another, until only we remained with Tank, Jurgens and Sugar Daddy. The Marines plunging down the side of the hill screamed and yelled on the way down.
“Wish they would shut the hell up,” Jurgens said, viewing the now empty leaf platform in front of him. “You’re next, Junior,” he turned toward me to say.
I pushed with both hands against his chest, and down he went, just like the Gunny. He was gone in seconds, the chute seemed to draw him in, down and then consume him.
“He screamed,” Sugar Daddy said, with a tone of surprise. “I’m going on my own.”
He held out both his arms, his M-16 strapped to his back.
He went into the chute by jumping onto the leaves in a sitting position, although I knew he wouldn’t be sitting for very long. I pointed down at the spot where he’d disappeared. The remaining members of my scout team and Tank made their own jumps, leaving Nguyen and me.
I stared across the few meters that separated us. I wondered if the same thoughts I was having were running through his mind. I had no way to tell where the chute really went or even if it went all the way to the bottom. I’d made a guess based on pretty flawed physics and suspected geography. Both of us waited for more than a moment, our eyes locked. Without warning, he leaped over the berm and disappeared in silence down the sluice. I knew he wouldn’t scream, and he didn’t.
I looked around me, where so many men had so needlessly died only hours before.
“Don’t go,” I whispered to the shining shadows and blowing treetops before I leaped forward and threw myself down into the unknown.
<<<<<< The Beginning | Next Chapter >>>>>>
I could not ask for a better dog than my Newf, Chewy. He is almost 12 and is the sweetest, gentlest boy you will meet. He has gone with me to visit adults with developmental disabilities on a weekly basis for many years. They all love him there. Even though we bring Chewy to the ocean every year, he refuses to swim, but he will lay in the rain all day. One thing that nobody mentioned, was that if you get a newf, you must be prepared for constant attention. People have abandoned their cars in the middle of the street to run out and see him or get a picture. Everyone will stare and ask if you are walking a bear. People don’t know my name, but they all know his! He has posed for more pictures than I can count. Like others have mentioned, they can be very destructive. He ate our stairs, our kitchen table, the chairs, the wall, the windowsill, many remotes, a camera, went through a bunch of screen doors, but he outgrew that phase pretty quickly. He was 165 pounds by his second year. I can’t imagine having any other dog with my family.
Jim I got to Viet Nam feb66 a fng got hit by a bouncing betty 24apr.66 was with e2\9 had more time at oak knoll naval hospital Oakland ca.than I had in the corp.
I had a 9th grade education but the recruiter assured me it didn’t matter what I new it was what the Marines would teach me.im from the north part of the Ozarks in Missouri. the first black man I had to deal with was my plt. com.at mcrd san diego. we were all his ass whites.took me a while to comprend. never saw anything racial till we got to Okinawa was told certain areas were blacks only allowed. I spent my time on bc street spending my money wisely on the ladies.i had 4 blacks in my plt.2kia 1 came back on same medavac with me. my 1st squad leader was cpl Garcia great map reader saved are butts more than once.he lost both his legs at a village gate a mounth before I got hit.he was at oak knoll when I got back.met my wife at hospital she was a city girl from san franciso.she made me go back to school. it was 2 blocks from height ashbury on the other side of golden gate park the old Lowell high school.i coudent handle city life came back to mo.raised 2 sons both marines oldest a mustang ret.maj. 2nd a capt went to irquak got hit by sucied car bomb ret. with a medical.hope to some day hope to drive up to your neck of the woods lunch on me.i read li ly hayslick book some where between heaven and earth a great read she grew up a vc at the age of 12.as you can tell I’m a fng at typing an spelling I’m home schoold. look forward to hear from you simper fi cell 417 818 4160
You are the best Omer, and it was a great pleasure to dial that number and spend twenty minutes talking to you.
You’ve been back to Vietnam. Cool. Not me although I may one day go…but not alone.
You have an interesting story but not nearly so interesting as you the man yourself.
Neat guy.
Semper fi, friend,
Jim
One wonders if we will ever get the rest of the story?
Just published this morning,
Twentieth Day Second Place.
Thanks for your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Was starting to really get worried about you old timer.
Well, I get tied up in things. Sorry, but I stay intensely busy. It is the best way to handle PTSD.
Can’t drink or take drugs if you are really busy!
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, Man against man, man against himself & man against nature, the classic components of great writing particularly with non-fiction. Junior clearly experienced all three compressed in intense finite moments of life and death. Your description of voice inflection and facial expression under fire, I have never read of before.
The degree of physical stress, sleep deprivation, fear and unconventional military strategy not possibly covered at Quantico, is certainly at the outer limits of human endurance and common understanding.
You portray the slowest time span in anyone’s life, that is when under enemy fire and immediate problem solving ends or lengthens it for a few more hours. Thirty days of the A Shau valley no doubt has seemed a lifetime with Junior forever changed.
Thank-you for publishing your experience to those who have been waiting for decades to understand and those who need to to know that they are not alone in their own experience.
Thank you, David, for your support and compliment.
The lifetime has continued. This story was never intended to be shared,
But it seems to be the right time.
Thanks again and pass it on to others.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
It has been awhile, and I was wondering if you could give us an update on when The Second Ten Days will be available on Amazon?
I was planning on giving some of the books out as Christmas presents
Rob…This was buried in the back.
I think I mentioned elsewhere we are looking confidently book being able to order paperback week of 18th.
Semper fi,
JIm
Just read through all the comments as I was looking to see if another segment had been posted. Hope you aren’t having health issues.
No health issues. The holiday consumed me and other junk…like getting book two edited and up on Amazon…
Semper fi,
Jim
I was just reading 12th day second part when Lima Co and Capt. Carter is mentioned. Later in the book when Lima makes it down into the valley it’s Capt Morgan. Not sure if that’s been mentioned or squared up.
There is Captain Morgan with the Americal unit mentioned in Six and Seventh Day.
Where did you see Captain Morgan after Twelfth Day>
There could have been a mistake.
Thanks for your help
Semper fi,
Jim
I found MY error and I stand corrected. The confusion is all on me as a result of a marathon reading session. My apologies.
Thanks Monty. Much appreciate that comment!
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey LT, good to read you are doing well. I too have been wondering about another segment and now realize that you too should take time to enjoy family and friends for the Holidays. I see you are working on the book, and applaud your work ethic. Take some time off, enjoy life for a while. Merry Christmas to you and yours and many more years of good health and fine writing.
Glenn.
The beginning of the Third Ten Days is Posted.
Thanks for your Support
Semper fi
Jim
Sorry to have taken so long Jim…another magnificant piece of work…Sometimes you jusst cn’t keep y withe the thoughts thare pouring ou of your head..can’t type p fast enoguhg….will apologize early for future.. just had major surjuryty that went well but then one hand didn”t know wha the other wa doing and the old complications set in….Family and friends all good…jusst my mind….have augured into ground in the back of a 34 three times now bitch is once it was in the iddle of the day….funny how that shit workds…..lfunny to some folks anyways iam sure….sorry for the sloppy wirting my friend..promise to get better….love your work…don’t forget that you are writig ‘our story’…….love ya man…..semper fi
I don’t know what the ‘other complications’ are Larry but I am sure distressed and upset about the surgery and its results so far.
Your articulation has been so clear. I am presuming you are in recovery and your abilities will return. You are such a great writer.
Thanks for thinking about me and my work as this trivial goes on. I am with you.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Long pause as we anxiously await the next chapter. Thank’s for your other books and short stories as they give so much insight to your most interesting life. This gap gives time to search your other publishings while being able to grasp the true depth of an amazing author’s life. No doubt in my mind the next chapter is not an easy one to put together. Especially with the Holiday seasons upon us. Take your time. I’m sure all of us who are following have your back. Hard to wait for the reactions of “The Gunny” and Jurgens in the next chapter. Hope you had a very Blessed Thanksgiving. On another note… planning to be racing at Great Lakes Dragway next year in Union Grove. Could you give me the address of your coffee shop in Lake Geneva? Would love to stop in and interrupt your writing over a cup of well brewed life
Thanks Jack. I am almost done with the first segment of the third book
There have been a few complcations in my life around these books.
Thanks for the patience and compliments written in your words…
Semper fi,
Jim
Is this the last installment of 30 Days? Myself and my two brothers, all Navy vets, follow you religiously! Keep up the good writing!
I much appreciate the following and also the fact that you enjoy reading it along with your brothers.
And thanks for the compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I think what you are doing here is so important. The story AND the comment section. You and the veterans who write in do such a great service. It really helps people like me who have never served understand (as much as we can) what our friends who have served went through and what they are going through now. I have a dear friend that was an intelligence officer. In the 1990s he was involved in many missions in Iraq (weapons inspections after the Gulf War) and then after 9/11 he was everywhere. He came home wounded physically as well as mentally with crippling PTSD. He was the best of us James. Now he can’t even leave the house. I want to understand as much as I can and I find great teaching in the conversation you have started here. Thank you.
Give your dear friend my number. 262-581-5300. He might just need to talk to Junior himself…
since he’s come back from playing that role itself, or so it sounds on here.
I’ll report back to everyone on here how the call goes…
Semper fi,
and thanks for the opportunity to serve…again…
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m very touched by the fact that you would put your phone number out there to reach out to a fellow human being. You are truly a class act
Frank. I am just a guy, a beaten up veteran like so many on here.
I write a lot, put out a weekly newspaper and have some published and not so published books.
I’ve been around the world a dozen times and had a pretty wild ride of it…
but the real me is right here on this site and I answer the comments on here as that guy.
Just me, and you other guys like me, that might not be so verbal or well versed in writing.
I’m not Junior anymore, and I’m not sure what I was when I was that.
If I lost the ability to be me by becoming some sort of icon or infamous bastard then I would have lost it all.
I’m a regular guy, having come hard through the wringer to end up with what I really am.
I want to hand with the waiters, the servants, the mechanics and the people who really mean something to me.
I fell sorry for those who reach exalted positions and then come to believe that they are exalted.
I have never ever forgotten a tossed-off aside I heard once at a Hollywood party when I was admiring some big star from a distance.
The woman next to me said: “Really? If God doesn’t like you He makes you a movie star.”
She turned and left at that, and I was not the same about viewing stardom ever again.
Thanks for the comment and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I will definitely try.
Thanka a lot E….
Semper fi,
Jim
LT, After I read this episode, I thought about the song title “Fool On A Hill” by Paul McCartney (?)…
…and I thought of Clews.
The lyrics to the song do not fit Clews well (there is no song title “Well Meaning But Naive Person On A Hill”), but the title seemed sadly appropriate. May God rest his soul.
Music meant so much and still does. Thanks for illustrating
the fact that I use it in the story so extensively, as it effected me in the field back then…
Semper fi,
Jim
Once again I have got caught up with your story. The clock has no time while reading your words. I will never know the hellish nightmare endured over. Only by your words or stories of others. there. Even that can’t let me know the horror of war. From reading your words no doubt you kept a lot of your men alive. In you’re ability to guess and foresee what the enemy might do. The words I try to write are only written out of my respect for those that served and for the men and women who serve now. That is my only intention despite any miss spelled words or poor vocabulary. To thank you all for you service. And to once again mention my Father Command Sargent Major Robert D. Bryson USA Screaming Eagles 101 first airborne division. Vietnam and Korea. Retiring after 22 years of service. Receiving three purple hearts, three silver star’s, 5 bronze star’s, sixteen for valor along with many other medals and service awards. He passed away three years ago at the age of 82. After retiring he built what he named the 101 Ranch that I grew up on. With 1000 acres, Running 100 cow and calf pairs. He was a great man that I always had nothing but respect for. Thank him and all service men for our freedom. Words cannot describe my respect and gratitude. Perhaps someone reading this will see this that had served with him and remember CSM Robert D. Bryson I know he saved a lot of his men too by his heroism and quick thinking and training.
thanks for that long comment, mostly about an extraordinary man. It is a gift to have had such
a man as your father. Thanks for the compliment inherent and expressed in your writing on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
What a way to end the second 10 days, a slide for life. Hope everyone made it down ok. Can’t wait to start the next 10 day. You have a way to keep us in suspense. Lt you and your family have a great Thanksgiving! Semper Fi
The Hill was a major feature of the A Shau because of the way the plateau set
down from the north and the high land could be used with reinforcements to cover the terrain below.
A lot of men died on that hill before I got there
and a lot of men would die after I was gone.
Thanks for the Thanksgiving wishes and writing about that here…
Semper fi,
Jim
I’m caught up in your story. A real eye opener. I’m a counselor, and my interviews with Marine vets lend credence to your story. I’m ready to go to the next ten days. When I find the book, I’m ordering it.
I never expected PTSD counselors to want to deal with the books. The counserlors I’ve known have been working to try to
understand but not reall comomg that close. Thanks for liking the work and then thknking about it terms of your own work.
Semper fi,
Jim
You are very gifted and obviously a good leader cool under pressure and imminent danger.
Thanks Grant. It’s always a pleasure to receive such plaudets, especailly on Thanksgiving!
Semper fi, and Happy Thanksgiving ot you…and for giving some to me…
Jim
Phenomenal Comments with so much healing evolving from such a God given Purpose. Amazing grace from God is on you.
Thank you most sincerely, as usual and as always Nancy…
Semper fi,
Jim
Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive
Thanks for those lyrics Jim. Neat stuff…
Semper fi,
Jim
I never watched the movies or regaled my friends and family with tales of my time incountry. For a long time I dreaded sleep and still get a nervous feeling when I hear helicopters. I didn’t intend to read your stuff. But I did. It made me smell that place again. I don’t know whether to thank you or damn you, but you’re a damned fine writer and I can’t wait for the next installment.
Thanks Pops. Don’t mean to take you back in a way, because men like you and me are back there whether we like it or not
all the time. This world, the world of the round eyes, the ‘world’ as we called it from over there, isn’t really real.
We know that, but we are happy to make believe and hang out with all those who don’t know and we don’t want them to know.
So silence is mostly what we do. I remember early on at a party where a man walked up and shook my hand and said the words: “Thank you for
your service.” I replied: “I’m sorry,” which didn’t go over very well. I’d let the truth slip out. I’m better now.
Semper fi,
Jim
The first time I was thanked for my service was about 15 years ago from a new neighbor. She brought her daughters over with cookies. I could barely say thank you.
The spider holes bring back more of the past, out side of Cu Chi they were every where, maned by VC with death wishes.
Happy holidays Jim to you and your family.
Yes, the ‘thank you for your service’ comment is problematic but I encourage all veterans to take it kindly.
It’s always meant kindly and usually bestowed by people who don’t know,
and we suffered to make sure they would not know…
To know is to have been there…and to have been there has brought you here…
a place unlikely for them to inhabit with any comfort at all…
Semper fi,
Jim
Sir,
Sir, The thank you for your service I guess is nice but my reply is thank you but I didnt do it for you I did it for myself to prevent my younger bros from having to do it the problem was they did anyway.
the thank you for your service is nice
Another great chapter. Your description of being on the hill with all the tunnel holes and the NVA being INSIDE the hill, thinking then that the NVA would come out at night to attack made me think of ants/tarantula’s attacking to protect the nest. Swarms of them, so many from all directions making it impossible to defend and survive.
You replied to another comment about how hard it was to come back home and looking at things differently. This reminded me of the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks after being rescued and reacting to having a bed, light, a lighter for fire.
Look forward to the chapters to come.
Best Wishes to you and family this holiday season.
Thanks a lot for commenting in such detail here. The NVA never came waves. All combatants have learned from the lessons of WWI and II.
You do not charge a machine gun and live. You do not attack an artillery battery armed with flechette rounds. You do not stand and shoot
back at Puff…and so on.
Thanks a lot for your interest in the story and to the compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks for another great chapter. I bought the First 10 Days Electronic Version, and will buy the 2nd 10 Days when it is available. I’m Navy flew in and out starting in 65 through early 67 then came back aboard the boat running our squadrons line crew. We were the guys who kept your Air Cover flying. Your a great writer and story teller. I look forward to reading the last 10days and picking up some of your other books.
Thanks for telling your story.
It’s almost Thanksgiving, hope you have a great holiday.
Thanks for the holiday wishes and also for wanting the 2nd book.
Chuck is getting the second one ready to go and I am writing the third.
Semper fi,
jim
Dear Diary,
Today Lt Junior invented the water slide.
It was one hell of a ride.
Some day people will pay money for this experience at an amusement park.
We gotta keep the Pogues from learning about the slide ride.
Junior is turning into one hell of a Lt.
Now that is funny SCPO! I love what you wrote here.
I am laughing still…
Semper fi,
JIm
I never had a 30 days like you had. I had a lot of different stuff spread out over two 1-year tours. This week I started writing some of it down. At night I’m waking up and can’t go back to sleep and I feel like I’m totally stressed out. I’ve been enjoying the read about your 30 days,but I just wonder how you do it. Take care of yourself.
I do it by plodding on sometimes and then rushing into it fully heated with some enthusiasm at other times.
I kind of never know. It’s like PTSD. Not always there or evident but then bang out it comes.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow. I started reading the “THE FIRST DAY” and was glued to my seat till I finished every word in the “Thirty Days Has September” series. Looking forward to the “Third Ten Days.” I haven’t read like that since I was much younger and devouring every Louis L’Amour book I could get my hands on! Thank you.
Thank you so very much. I am glad you are reading again and I am most happy that my work has engaged you.
Keeps me going on a cold morning…
Semper fi,
Jim
You are one hell of a writer.You keep me waiting for the next part of the story.keep up the good work.
Thanks for the great compliment and also for the encouragement to continue…
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt, Strauss,
There are times I believe you studied Sun Tzu or you are kin to him! A master at thinking out of the box. I mean that as a compliment of the highest degree!
Well, it was almost all based on terror and happenstance. When there is no way out what do you do?
Look around in panic, breathe deeply and find something. Anything. And then go for it.
Thanks for the compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Just ran across this. For me, I have to say, I was transported right there. To complete the journey, all that would have been needed wpuld be the heat, humidity, the bugs and the smells. Top notch writing, Sir. Semper Fi
Keep up the amazing work
Thank you most sincerely Corporal. It is always a pleasure to receive plaudets from someone who just got out.
I know it wasn’t your war but it was a war other warriors can still feel the vibrations from.
Appreciate this compliment…
Semper fo,
Jim
Thanks LT. James do you have anyway to know how many are reading this book on line. I know some read it two times. I bought the first book and when I get then all at some point, I will read from start to finish. Don
OUr regular audience that views the segments is up around 30,000 when one is put up, but the actual readership
of that same segment will only rise to about 5000. That’s a pretty big audience for an author who’s not famous or published
by one of the major publishing houses. Amazon sells aobut two to three hundred a month, of the Kindle and soft cover, which they consider quite a few,
but hell I don’t know. Chuck keeps track of a lot of that but when he talks about it he accuses me of falling asleep. I just write on,
and read and answer the comments on my own.
Semper fi,
Jim
Dam good as it should be.
Thanks Don, really appreciate the comment and the sentiment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Once again, you have put me in the bush again with this installment. I don’t know whether to thank you or swear at you for bringing so much back to me. We were all such innocents when we came in country! Your account is so engrossing it takes me right there! Thank you for telling it like it was, brother! BZ, my brother. I await the next episode.
Some guy on Facebook told me today that I had no business writing like I was a real veteran after having spent only thirty days
in combat. I wrote back wondering what outfit he was with over there but it turns out he never served in the military or even in police or fire.
He did say he’d had twenty four armed confontations so far in his life and was armed to the teeth ready for the next one.
I guess I must simply discard some of those people, although i do try to answer them too.
Thanks for the salty compliment, brother…
Semper fi,
Jim
Will you be doing the third ten days?
I am writing the first segment of the third ten days right now…
Semper fi, and thanks for writing on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Hurry the Hell up please with final ten days. Thanks in advance. 🙂
Thank you very much for the sort of back door compliment. I am working away to begin
the third book.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, Another great chapter, thank you! One editing note I don’t think has been mentioned..
“What?” I asked, looking at the faces of Jurgens and Sugar Daddy, and know they had the same question but would never ask it… maybe change “and know” they had the same question to “knowing” they had the same question.. Looking forward to next segment…
Thanks Tim, I really appreciate the compliment and thanks as well for the editing help!
Semper fi,
Jim
Read this chapter three times already. Just simply outstanding. Your ability to evaluate and react is unbelievable. The men that preceded you down the shoot must believe you have magical powers for getting them off that killing field.
Well, the Marines were rather mixed about what they thought of me, I believe, although I’ll never know for sure.
Thanks for the compliments running through your comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Have any of those Marines read this, and commented? Seems inevitable that there would be a range of perspectives on every issue and event, as you say. You are telling one amazing story. I drop everything to read each chapter as it becomes available!
There have been 11,686 comments on this site since I have been writing Thirty Days.
I have answered all of then except seven. The seven were put in the trash.
They said things like “You are a complete moron and must have been shot in the head early on,” and stuff like that.
Or they said something like “you are a bigot and racist.”
I will not tolerate junk like that and I don’t know how to answer it anyway.
If I got shot in the head early on then I’m mercifully unaware of that.
If I am a bigotthen I am blaming the shot in the head because I don’t think I am.”
But I had some tough racial stuff to deal with that I was not at all ready for over there.
Mostly, the comments have been amazingly supportive. Much more so than I would have thought.
A great deal of the support has come from men who were in similar circumstance or knew of it nearby.
They are the credibility here. They know. They read the detail and the veracity is all in the detail.
I just could not have learned most what you read here by research. It’s not there.
Thanks for the great compliment of dropping everything.
I am not sure I or my writing is deserving of that but I do bask in that warmth and it does keep me going.
It costs me money to have the site, have it kept current and also to publish the books.
Much more than I make in sales. But I feel it is necessary and my contribution back…to you know who.
The guys. Those guys. The ones who stay with me and have been amazingly silent about all of it.
Thanks for the question and the compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Someone once said, that if you are not being criticized, you are not doing anything worthwhile.
There is that J. If you dont’ get noticed then there must be nothing worth noticing.
Our politicians have caught on the fact though the if you use any outrage for notice then
you can fashion that into power and money. I don’t want to go there.
Semper fi, and thanks as usual my friend,
Jim
LT 3rd MARDIV 1968-69. Spent months in the bush around the A Shau, it was all the same. I ran across your work and I accidentally started with the next to last chapter as I did not know it was a book! I do not like VN books, they just don’t ring true with me but somehow this was different. I made my way back to the first chapter and literally could not stop reading..
Thinking I could get the whole story I bought the book only to learn that there is more to come so please hurry up!!
In retrospect I wish I would have made comments as I went through it. I think
I could have helped.
People worry about whether the US should have been there or not but for me I WAS THERE and that cannot be changed nor can the discussion mitigate nearly 50 years of personal, silent Hell. So thank you so much for telling a story that reflects the reality that very young 2LT’s dealt with ever minute they were there, trying to solve social problems that the best minds could not solve and win a war that was not popular.
GREAT work Jim, can’t wait for the rest of the story.
Thanks for finding and liking my work.
It’s kind of hard to find out there, what with the fact that to get traditionally published is all but impossible.
Regular citizens cannot believe what I am writing and there really aren’t that many vets out there who might believe it.
They guys who lived it and the gals who then lived with those guys, well, those are my fan base.
And I am most proud to have them.
Semper fi,
Jim
The tension you create in your writing is palpable Jim! We could call this chapter The Great Escape but I guess that’s been used! Escape to what is the question though! Can’t wait to add book 2 to my library! Thanks Jim and as always look forward to the beginning of book 3! Semper Fi my friend!
thanks so much Jack. Coming from you that compliment is a big deal.
Book three is under way…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another good read. and I am making bets with myself as to whom and why you said “Don’t go”
Jim this is my third attempt at commenting on this last chapter. Not sure where in cyberspace they went but It does have me wondering.
Sorry Glenn, but the comments don’t go public until I get to them and I’ve been writing the next segment…
Trying to get more timely. The comments on here are mighty important, including your own…
Semper fi,
Jim
Gotcha. Thanks for the speedy response.
I said “Don’t Go” to Clews and I had a hard time getting past the fact that I did not drive
why I said that more deeply because of my own fear of dying…
Semper fi,
Jim
There is no way he would have listened to you anyway, because he had been given a command to go. Remember him referring to you and your company as screwups? He was not to be thought of in that fashion, therefore was stupid enough to get himself and his team killed, just to prove he was a bad ass marine officer.
I don’t think Crews thought of himself as a bass ass Marine Officer. I might have given the wrong impression.
He simply didn’t know and thought he did. That was death in the valley. He discovered the truth by death…the most
commong way to find truth in the valley,
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey Glenn, I had nowhere else to put this private message by another veteran. I’m not using his name but thought his message needed to be read.
Thanks for letting me use your message to tie into…
Thanks, Glenn…
Semper fi,
Jim
Mr. Strauss, I am a soldier(US Army)from peace time ( between VN and the gulf wars). However, I grew up watching your war on the news. I am a Brat who’s father reenlist several times requesting to go to VN each time. I spent my days in Germany preparing to fight a push from the eastern block. Thank you for writing about your expierence so others may learn. Excellent reading. Looking forward to the next 10 days.
Thanks Allyn, for the warmth of your comment and the sincerety of your compliment.
Always enjoy getting comments from the guys who served in the later wars. How were they the same
and how were they different, kind of stuff…
Semper fi,
Jim
Well James…another outstanding segment…I really didn’t see this one coming…and I usually try to play out all the scenarios in my head…there were so many things running through my head while reading this…you said in one of your comments that you wrote it like it was being read…emotionally…well…I must be emotional because I don’t notice the edits or grammar or anything but the occasional misspelled word…I look forward to being able to order the book at the end of the month…I have hooked a couple of more friends on this story lately and they too await each segment…you do have a talent for leadership obviously, whether you think it is luck or what doesn’t matter…grandma used to say “you never have any luck unless you expose yourself to it”…so I would say you had the skill to pick your moments and situations trying to survive and you were good at it…that’s why your men followed you…and your integrity among the men…never leaving the dead…etc…real leadership…and Clews…everyone knew his fate as soon as he left…keep it coming…
Yes, I sure went through a lot of men durning that time period.
And then it was over and I was back to a world where life was treated as so
valuable. I was aghast that Charlie Manson was allowed to live at all
back in 72, but I was fresh back. Thanks for the great compliment contained inside the body of your comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, when I joined I was told that we were going for sure. We had been sent to Korea before so we were going this time too. Never called, not sure why not. Never understood why not but thank God we were not. Can’t wait for more. Thank you for your great writing.
thanks Glen, glad you are here among us and not, well, you know.
Thanks for the compliment and writing on here so everyone can see…
Semper fi,
Jiom
I’ll keep it simple.
Thanks and Semper Fi
Thanks for that great simple compliment Bryant. Very Marine Corps.
Semper fi,
Jim
My compliments to those who can edit your work. I am so riveted by it, I read it just like you intended. When an old soldier,Jar Head in your case, tells a story, I just listen and live the moment with him.. His grammar never has any bearing on what he is saying or feeling. Some times we cry together. Like when I read some of your experiences. No longer ashamed of the tears. I earned them. And no. Even if your not an officer. Even if you weren’t the one in command. lost Brothers never leave. I know, you and our Brothers are aware of that. I just had to put it in words. As an army Brother. Always Faithful.
Thanks, Bud, a Marine we’d consider you in Army uniform.
There were a lot of those guys over there and we thought the world of so many Army types.
I will never ever forget Tex and how proud he was to be
XO of a Marine outfit! Thanks for the neat comment…
Sem per fi,
Jim
I have been reading each chapter like a monkey glued to a banana. While I have not served our country in any shape or form in any such capacity. I have several family members that have. Several friends that did. I was born in 62. And I learned a very valuable lesson when I commented to a good friend after conversation about Viet Nam that I understood. Mind you I could see a turmoil brewing and my comment reflected my commpassion towards his fervent description of what he had gone through,under a somewhat drunken stupor, he was trying to explain. When he so eloquently decided to grab me by the collar and pulled me to within an inch of his nose, that you meaning me, would never have a fucking clue what he went through over seas. He explained to me that I should never ever express that I understood! Because I didn’t have the mental capacity as a civilian to ever comprehend. After several friends helped brother Kenny to reshape his thought process and we proceeded to shoot a game of 8 ball,I came to the the conclusion that he was spot on right. Not only with him but every human being on earth that has gone through turmoil. I have since learned that I do not nor does most of our society have an inkling of what kind of pure hell a person has or had to go through to defend what they believed was just and right to protect our American rights. Reading your chapters whether fiction or not has made me realize I have been blessed with men and women that have fought and died so I can keep believing that this world is a better place because so many that did fight had one thing in Mind. Keep America safe! Thank you sir for your incredible recollections and your gift to tell a story that scares most but completely keeps me coming back for more!!!
That vet was wrong, by the way. You can comprehend if you choose to open your mind and the ‘real deal’ guys will open up to you.
They open up on here all the time. I don’t know how that happened. I guess it is because I don’t pull any punches about what happened to me
and the others around me over there. And that seems to be extremely uncommon.
Thanks for that long and meaningful comment and you opening up to make it public on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Have read very chapter, unable to focus on anything else as I followed your story. Spellbinding.
As my father lay dying from cancer caused by Agent Orange, he gave me his log from his two tours in Viet Nam, 65-66, 68-69. I never knew what he did for his Silver Stars, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. The mayhem he described was so similar to your story. He made no mention of racial problems, but I suspect the Army of 69 was very different than that of 65.
His first tour was as an advisor, he left with 28 other Ranger qualified Infantry Officers and only 5 came home, none without a Purple Heart. The carnage, mayhem, and destruction was so well documented by his logs.
Second tour was very similar. TET, SOG, Hue, more mayhem. I suspect this is also where the Agent Orange came into play.
My mother moved us off a military post in 66 as she could not stand the casualty officers coming onto the post. She thought not seeing them would make them go away.
Alcohol took a toll on him, but he had to find an escape. But I do not judge. His was an other worldly pain, mentally, spiritually and physically– and like so many others, pain needed soothing.
He never said a word, but I could see it in his eyes. So many of you carry this pain. Our country lost its way and so many of you paid the price.
The VA recognized his cancer was caused by Agent Orange and gave my mother a settlement. As the cancer ate him away, he told us about morphine and how it erased the darkness of painful death. He was calling in airstrikes in his stupor as he drifted from this lifetime.
I spent 20 years as an infantry officer and my military was different than yours–different time, different wars. Your writing should be required of every infantry officer going through the basic course, Hell every American should be required to read this. What you have penned is raw, gripping, soul baring. I am eagerly awaiting the next chapters.
I pray you and your fellow Vietnam vets find peace and solace in this lifetime. Keep writing as your soul allows and know that you and your fellow Vietnam vets are nestled in our hearts.
Well, Son of a soldier, I have never heard your proposition and position written better.
Your ability to mix your experience with your feelings and opinions deserves mention.
You are a writer, whether you know it or not. Thanks for the thanks and for the high praise.
Most of us were there because we had the right thing on our minds about the country,
our people, and our friends and family.
Thanks for illustrating those points…
Semper fi,
Jim
WOW!
leaving us at the end of this book with another cliffhanger.
Now you will just have to hurry up and update sooner.
Love this story. Draws you in and then grabs you by the short hairs.
When do you expect the second book to be available on Amazon?
The Second Ten Days should make it out by the end of the month. For Christmas, so to speak.
Thanks for liking it and the great compliment of your caring and writing about it on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
You have come a long way from the day of the Tiger. This is like being dropped into the African Savanna at night, and you know the Lions, Leopards, Hyenas, are all watching and waiting for you. I hope I don’t have nightmares
Actually, I spent the night years later on that African Savanna.
Somehow I’d gotten drunk after a mission and ended up a long way out there,
having driven a rental range rover.
I woke up naked as a jaybird and had to find the rover and then tear the interior out
to cover me before driving back to town and the hotel.
That was one hell of an experience. Not as bad as the Nam though.
Semper fi,
Jim
Anytime you post a segment I stop and read it. But, in between I just read “Down In The Valley” and will start the sequel next. Look forward to the third ten days…………
Thanks Ken, a whole lot, for reading my other stuff. I went on into the CIA and those stories are the ones I publish as thrillers.
One weird mission after another!
Semper fi,
Jim
I can’t express how much I enjoy your writing Jim. I find myself eargerly awaiting the next chapter. Sempre Fi 69-72.
Thank you most sincerely Norman. I much appreciate you bringing that up on here and giving me that kind of high praise and compliment…
Semper fi,
JIm
LT, instead of going from ‘cliff hanger’ to ‘cliff hanger’, now we go from ‘cliff hanger’ to ‘chute riding hanger’…in your continually spellbinding personal account of daily dancing with death.
You work your literary magic taking your large following of us readers with you every step of the way. With your words we feel it, taste it and sense it all–including the physical and mental exhaustion and ever present mental turmoil. We readers will necessarily have to hit the pause button and hunker down in the rainy wetness until we are able to be there with you and your real fighting unit when you post the next episode. Of course, you and the men under you command had no such luxury there at the time.
You truly have a gift, and I feel your writing has been beneficial and cathartic, especially to many Vietnam vets. Your men were lucky to have you. Our country owes so much to all of you. Wishing you and yours (and all who post and read comments here) a wonderful Thanksgiving season…God Bless, Jim. Thank you so much for your service and for your writing…
thank you Walter for writing all that on here. I also really appreciate the compliments in your words.
I didn’t start out to help other vets. I thought I was one idiot lieutenant serving in an awful outfit in a horrible place.
I did not know there were so many of us until the comments started coming in. I though everyone would say that this had to all be total
BS. But here you guys are and I am shocked as can be, but oh so pleased to have you helping me help myself…
Semper fi,
Jim
The Kobe-ashi Maru, you reprogrammmed the computer by sending the Gunny down the chute first and the rest of the men followed! Awesome!
Wow, how appropriate is that Star Trek reference? Kirk cheated the program and therefore solved the problem. Like I did over there
one time afer another. I understand so much better now than I did back there.
Thanks for that smiling comment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another EXCELLENT segment! Just finished THE BERING SEA. Rated it 5 Stars on Amazon. Somehow I see Arch Patton and Marlys teaming up in a sequel. Keep up the ge8 work Sir.
Thanks for the comment on Amazon. Those comments on my books are awful important and I forget to tell readers to go there and comment.
Thanks for that and for the compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey LT, thank you for sharing this with us. You are making it possible for other Vietnam Vets to honorably share their experiences. Wish my father could have read your book. He was an advisor in 64-65. He would have liked your style.
thanks for the comment about your Dad. High praise, indeed.
The comments on here are vital to the project, as it has become.
The guys here, so many, are opening up for the first time.
It is so heartening…
Semper fi,
Jim
You’re right Lt they will always be with us waiting for our visits….Thank you for telling their story and yours …most of us can not.great respect for you my friend
Semper fi
Steve
Yes, the night people.
The ones that don’t necessarily come in the night but can certainly be summoned
when everyone else is asleep. When you are out camping in the forest and walking by a stream gurgling in the dark.
They can come and you don’t walk alone.
And at those times you and I are not afraid. We know who and what the most dangerous
thing in that night is And also the most restless and hyper-alert.
I am too much at home in the depths of that forest at night,
living alone in the dark but not alone. So I don’t go there.
I look at it in the daytime and can smile. I’m not going there.
I’m not going back.
Semper fi,
Jim
“The beauty of this place. One day the whole thing will all be a giant amusement park.”
Maybe the Gunny had a premonition, ’cause a slippy slide sure seemed to come in right handy !!
Great read James, as always on the edge of my seat !!
SEMPER Fi
If you were to travel to the A Shau today you’d find many modern bridges and a four lane highway with businesses all over.
The Gunny was right about the development, just not the entertainment part.
Semper fi,
Jim
I find myself breathing short, shallow breaths while reading this. Wow, I see each of you as the story unfolds. I’ve read many vietnam books, but yours is by far the best that I’ve read. Looking forward to the next chapter….
Thanks so much Roger. You guys and your comments would warm the heart of any author.
I push on into the night half way thorugh the next segment, which isn’t that tough to write because
of how it all went. Thanks for making it easier,
Semper fi,
Jim
Man oh Man. Its a good one James.
Thanks Tim, much appreciate the nice compliment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Fantastical!!!
Thanks Joe. Great compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
I bought the first book and cant put it down!The problem is that if I do put it down , my wife picks it up! Anyway,were the fwd observers’ not issued m-16’s ? You are always refering to your Colt,was that your issue or did you bring your own? Another thing,is this fiction based on your experiences,or an actual account of what went down? Either way it is a great piece of writeing!
Officers were not issued M-16s although they could get them easy enough.
The .45 was standard issue, and that probably had more to do with controlling men under
command under certain situations than anything else. An officer in combat using an M-16 is not thinking or
doing anything to lead or adapt to conditions for the unit as a whole. These books are published as fiction
for purposes you can figure out for yourself. Read the comments here. The guys who went through this shit, like me,
just about all say the same thing, time and again. I have no credibility, except for the credibility they give me.
Semper fi, and thanks for the compliments…
Jim
Look forward to having a copy of the second volume very soon. Your work should be in every library of every High School in the country. But, you don’t have to tell me it ain’t gonna happen. History is much to painful for those with the agenda of changing everything you spent your youth trying to protect. I hope all three of my boys find my copies and read them when they are sorting through those things I have collected in this life. The only thing we leave them is the truth, and trust their wisdom can help,them avoid the same mistakes. You’re a good man LT. Poppa J
Some will get the books and a few may be helped. That’s about the best I can expect.
Yes, the truth is a tough one. I didn’t want to believe it so bad that I thought what happened
happened only to me! Mythology is extremely powerful. I was kind of waiting for a John Wayne or
Steve McQueen to be flown in to take over. I had no idea that I was all the John Wayne any of us were
going to get…
Semper fi,
Jim
Awesome story. I do not read much about Vietnam, I usually find the subject matter very disturbing. However; this story has latched onto me like one of the river leeches. Disturbing as it is, I find myself wanting more.
Are any of the readers familiar with 1/11 Bravo? I had an FO buddy there as well as other friends.
If there are 1/11B readers here you may remember th SeaBee who “borrowed” a 30KW Navy generator, delivered it and wired up your hootches for AC power and got you beer coolers and ice machines powered up. I was made a lifetime member of the 1/11 B Officer’s Club. Funny how happy times shine through the more onerous ones.
Maybe after 50 years there are some of us ready to reminise?
Love that river leach metaphor. Thanks for writing what you wrote here and also about your
own experiences. This is, indeed, the place for exactly that.
Thanks for writing and the compliment of your doing so…
Semper fi,
Jim
Jurgens and Sugar Daddy crawled quickly away, and in minutes the area was overflowing with Marines. After the first few jumped and slid out (of) view, the.
Maybe ad of into this sentence?
Thank you so much Charles Young
Amazing the sharp eyes of our loyal readers.
Semper fi to a ‘SeaBee’
Jim
Thanks for the compliment Charles. Means a lot to read these comments and have stuff like what you wrote pop out at me.
I am always surprised but also motivated to go on…
Semper fi,
Jim
I think this chapter shows why the troops thought you were lucky. You had a natural ability to see things around you and instinctively react. I think that is what they saw and appreciated.
Still a great story
That might have been it. I was lucky and I did have the capacity to find anything that might get us through, and
also to risk, like I did with the chute. They mostly thought I knew what I was doing when many times I was guessing.
I was lucky to guess correctly quite a bit though.
Semoer fi,
Jim
As you no doubt know, it is so often better to be lucky than good. And the music of the day! So many songs will bring back a face, a forgotten place, or even an aroma. Don’t care about the grammar. You transport so many back in time to yesterday.
Yes, we are all going back in time, those of us who were there, even if not in combat. The rear area guys saved our combat asses more times than I could list.
Yes, they also had shitty rear area leaders but that was not most of the guys fault back there.
Thanks for the comment and for the depth of its meaning…
Semper fi,
Jim
You put the canteen cover in the fire? Must be a Marine thing, Army covers would burn. jk Like reading the story’s although I never made it past basic (medical).
Canteen holder. The canteens, as you know had metal holders, with a little handle you could extend out.
Those went into canvas pouches snapped to our belts. The canvas pouches never came off. Sorry to mislead you.
Semepr fi, and thanks for writing that in…
Jim
We called them “canteen cups”.
Well, okay. I don’t exactly remember calling them anything but what the hell…
Semper fi,
Jim
My canteen story. I was an infantry lieutenant in MACV, 1970 – 1971. My team was on a CA with a BUNCH of Vietnamese. I had emptied my canteen when we came across a clear, running stream. I filled my canteen and started to drop in the pill that made the water taste like Purex when the thought hit me, “What is the worst that can happen if I don’t drop the pill? I might get sick and have to go to the hospital.” I never use the pills again.
Yes, funny how that can be, when the phrase “it don’t mean nuthin” takes over…
Semper fi, and thanks for your canteen story…
Jim
Was the 4th platoon formed from kilo company? All Marine companies I served with had 3 platoons and a weapons platoon.
Fourth Platoon was a weapons platoon as we were a reinforced company.
Thanks for writing in about that. Yes, regular Marine companies only have three.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank You
You are most welcome William!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
Smart decisions and great leadership under fire, James!
It sure did not seem so at the time! I was running for daylight like there was no tomorrow, and, in truth,
I could not envision tomorrow at all….except in the hope written into my letters home.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey Strauss,
My dad, John R. Conway Sr, was a mortar squad leader with the 90th Infantry, WW2. He made it 11 days past D-Day and Utah Beach in Normandy before being shot up so badly he had to be evacuated to England for patching up. He spoke sparingly or not at all about those 11 days. No “action” reports or reminiscing or details of any kind. When I got my draft notice after graduating from Iowa State in May of ’68, it was him, surprisingly, that told me not to let myself get drafted. I had a degree and should join up, and, big surprise, DON’T go to the Army. From what he had gleaned from watching and listening to the “news” from VN, he said if I was going to be in that place, I should be with people who were good at doing what they were doing. He may have been unduly influenced by what he knew of the Corps in the Pacific, but it was enough of a “recommendation” to sway me. As the time approached for me to leave for OCS, we had one very brief conversation, and it was so very sobering. He said “you never get over seeing your own dead guys”. “I hadn’t looked closely at Clew’s body or that of either of his lieutenants. I felt nothing and I wanted to go on feeling nothing.”
My Dad could have told you that you really did feel something, as we all know you did, and you feel it yet today.
Another great read, in a whole book full of them.
Semper Fi, Brother
As usual Conway, you write with depth and wisdom. Maybe I should have said that I did not wnat to deal with Clew’s death. Of course it hit me, toss and turn as I might to
avoid taking the pain. The words “don’t go,” resonate through my being to this day. I could not drive home my point because he said he’d take me with him and I knew he was going
to that hill to die. So, I chickened out. Could I have changed his mind? I don’t think so but I still think about it, as you guessed. Your Dad was right. The guys are still all there, now here, as they
have no place else to go. Thanks for the compliment. A great compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Can’t wait for the next ten days, keep up the awesome writing. Thanks1
It is on the way Bob, writing it as I get done with these comments…
Semper fi,
Jim
Great chapter! Looking forward to the next 10 days. Semper Fi!
Thanks Mike, working away on the last ten days…
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt,I will order book two as soon as its on Amazon…thanks for the great detail and images that draw us in and give us a real glimpse of the hell that was the A Shau Valley…
Best written account of any I have read…
Semper Fi from this old Navy Vet ’68-69 Opr Market Time…
You were Navy. Market Time was that very successful Naval operation to stop resupply from
sea. Nice work too, from the reports I have gleaned off the Internet. Of course, that put a bit more
pressure on driving shit down the Ho Chi Minh Trail….where I was…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another awesome chapter. Waiting patiently for the next one!
Thanks a lot Johnny for that great compliment and I am so happy to be writing to some kind of
waiting audience, even if it is mostly made up of damaged individuals such as me…
Semper fi,
Jim
Hell, we’re not damaged, just broke in real good! LoL
Well, maybe you have a point here Johnny. I hadn’t thought of it that way…
Semper fi, and thank you so much…
Jim
Dammit Jim I’m pushing them as hard as I can! Waited for this a long time and you did not disappoint. All those good me died because a REMPF was sent to a place he would never understand. Happened way to often. Junior seems to have a intuitive nack for handling troops. Can’t wait for more. I will own the book!
When I was at the Basic School we had only one television on the mezzanine of the second floor.
There was a lounge and we’d sit around if we got off early enough and watch Star Trek.
In Vietnam I felt I’d been given the role of Jim Kirk, but I wasn’t ready.
I’d never had another command or the experience the fictional character had in the show.
I burst out laughing to read your quote. I think the accurate one is “Dammit Jim, I’m giving her all she’s got.”
Love that. My job turned out to be a lot like Kirk’s job, inventing ways to survive
when there didn’t seem to be any.
Thanks for the comment.
A lot,
Semper fi,
Jim
Afternoon, Jim, Ah yes, Trying to decide which song goes best with your current predicament ……. The chute, Slide….. Yes, yet again something totally unexpected and probably outside the experience of the NVA and the Teams, Here in Wisconsin, I learned about mud slides by watching otters, They would find slops and slide down them into the water, playing and making a game of it, Me and my friends learned to do the same for fun, Yes, The fastest way to get down a hill, right past the NVA, Woofed them again…… Yes I would think Brother John would have to play Wipe Out by the Safaris or Surfing Safari by the Beach Boys, I think Wipe Out…..
Semper fi/This We Will Defend Bob.
Those songs would have fit so well!!! But, of course, at that moment in time, the playing of them might have
been problematic, at best. Thanks for the great deep comment and the compliment of the intensity of your reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
Afternoon Jim, Thanks for the complements, Your writing brings back a lot of long lost memories and incidents, Both Good and Bad, Spent a lot of years trying to move away from the leftovers emotions, feelings, and realities of Vietnam, Yes too a lot of years before I realized that it was all in Me, Not the location I was occupying at the time, That was when the real work of facing my self and Vietnam began, I stopped running away from where I was living, and started facing the devils that existed in My soul, Long hard road, and am still on it.
Semper fi/This We Will Defend Bob.
Yes Bob, it is a long road, indeed. I manage to get along by staying pretty busy and that helps a
lot. I don’t go to bars and I don’t get myself in front of aggressive situations if I can at all help it.
My car really does have bullet proof windows, even if I know I’ll never need them (and it plays hell if you lock
the keys out!!!
Thanks for your commet
Semper fi,
Jim
OPERATION SLIP AND SLIDE!
Thanks for that rather strangely worded compliment Tony!
I am working away on the third ten days…
Semper fi,
Jim
I have not made a comment in a while but I haven’t missed a chapter of your amazing story. I still don’t know how you remember in such great detail. I can not remember half of my time there. Maybe that’s God’s way of keeping me somewhat sane. Thank You Sir and keep your powder dry. George
If you start writing about what happened you might just realize that it comes back in small bits and
little starts and then the memory starts dumping everything almost too fast to write it down.
I have no problem at all knowing exactly where everything is and what is coming next. I just try to guide
the memories along..
Semper fi,
Jim
“Jurgens and Sugar Daddy came walking toward the Gunny and I (should be me).”
Thanks,
Corrected
Semper fi,
Jim
The sun was up and bright, pushing back the rain to leave high clouds, some drying mist and plenty of dripping plants and sticky mud all around the area we were becoming entrenched in. Second and Third platoons would stay with the Ontos, to protect it and insure
Should be ensure
Thanks Kin.
They are both acceptable in the use in the story.
But we did correct.
Semper fi,
Jim
you and the gunny knew their aren’t any living troops up their. the ferns where slick as snot you said you took 2 steeps forward and slide back 1 when you where lucky. i had a deep respect for the NVA. more so than the people back in the states that where protesting and our leaders at the white house. maybe some of these snow flaks will see what we went through and open their eyes it can happen here as well.
Back home they could not know. Hell, in the rear with the gear many guys served multiple tours and had no clue.
Knowing is something else again. The combatants knew, on both sides, and they were dying with the knowledge all the time
until very few survived, and less survive to this day. Forgive the protesters. What could they possibly know or have known?
Semper fi,
Jim
Great read thanks again, I realize that I do not bother with proof reading as it does not bother me reading but, if we were putting say the head on the Onto engine from a rebuild, than I’d be checking as we worked. That would bother me forever if something was right when we were done! But reading just never bothered as I figure out a goof and go on, may not be right or fair ;just being me, Thanks again!!
Thanks Bill, for your comment and your opinion on how it is going with the writing
and the editing and all. Working away.
Semper fi,
Jim
Fantastic as usual. I have to compliment you on your style. You have just enough detail to tell the story, with over-ornamenting the tree. Lots of room for the individual to “put their own clothes” on the characters. Excellent. Even though it might violate a few rules of writing, I might suggest making those last two paragraphs one. I know (I think) that I would still today be telling them that…and that is a testimony to your excellent writing.
Thanks Paul for the great compliment and well written comment in length and breath. Thanks for your opinion
to and I will discuss this with Chuck…
Semper fi,
Jim
Congratulations for finishing another intensely riveting book. You continue to involve all us who have followed your revisiting of Vietnam since day one in such a way that we see the sights, feel the leeches, heat and humidity, Fears and tensions in every episode. I was so worked up about sliding down that chute and getting away from certain death from below, my peck muscles were flexed instinctively at the reading. Will be watching for this second book on Amazon. I buy two each time one for me and another for my best friend Carl who spent his tour in the Delta region. Thaank you again for allowing this 4f reader to better understand your service and contributions in that terrible war. Your loyal follower, Bob.
Thanks so very much Bob. I tried to describe just how much I was jumping into the unknown in so many ways, like most
of my whole tour. And then what happens after, which is extremely unpredictable…much more so than I thought at the time.
Circumstance and happenstance mean so very much in the field…and then somehow adapting to it without doing the LT. Kemp
full retreat thing…
Thanks for the comment of such meaning and depth…
Semper fi,
Jim
Two suggested edits. You wrote: Moisture covered everything, and the constant monsoon rainfall dripped, ran or (runnelled) its way over, through or into everything. Suggest changing “runnelled” to “funnelled”
You wrote: “He screamed,” Sugar Daddy said, with a tone of surprise. “I’m going on my own(,)” Edit needed: change comma to period
Thanks Steve,
There is a difference in meaning between Runnelled and Funneled.
Going to keep that one.
But correct other!
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks, Jim… Going to my dictionary to learn a new word!
Thanks for making me laught his night!
Semper fi,
Jim
Got a feeling the shit is fixing to hit the fan. An old saying.
Well, yes, but then when did it stop hitting the fan. Somebody criticized me on Facebook for writing like I knew it all
and I was only there for thirty days. I have a feeling that a real combat tour didn’t last much longer for almost anyone
but there are not statistics for that. In the world back here combat veterans are not distinguished from other vets, even
by the VA. Thanks for the comment and the ‘old saying.’
Semper fi,
Jim
The chute to ‘Somewhere’, ‘Nowhere’, ‘Everywhere’. I hope it is the ‘Chute to Survival’! Anxiously looking forward to the next Book.
Thank you Chris for you noting that and also for the compliment in your words at the end.
Semper fi,
Jim
Ok hold up! Your in a five star killbox with a rout capability proven upon clews crew, your standing there with an enemy about to get a 2 for 1 deal and you say Don’t Go?!! I’m gonna need some perspective on this comment. Even going into the unknown breaks up the trap function ……
I blurted out “don’t go” to Clews and walked into a buzz saw and almost was forced to go with him in the earlier chapter.
I murmured “don’t go” as I sometimes do to this day when I thought about him dying as I knew he had to.
Semper fi,
Jim
And there it is….( perspective) . I forgot about that part when I was reading this section. I thought you had intuitively second guessed going down the chute……
I had no idea where the chute went. I hoped. I also knew from my childhood that the chute might not end up where I thought at all.
On a mountain that side it could just as well have gone over a hundred foot cliff and then continued right on or stopped.
Thanks for the comment,
Semper fi,
Jim
Note to self; Never get into a chess game against Strauss. He is a master at flanker flanking and ambusher ambushing.
Seriously great cliffhanger. Can not wait till I can order my pair of hard copies of Second Ten and to begin the next segment.
Note to self; Never get into a chess game against Strauss. He is a master at flanker flanking and ambusher ambushing.
Seriously great cliffhanger. Can not wait till I can order my pair of hard copies of Second Ten and to begin the next segment. I have a suspicion of just who and why you said “don’t go”.
Well, I did get enough masters points in college for that game although never much did anything with it.
But the Nam? Now that was a three-dimensional chess game of extraordinary complexity,
with the players being taken for real and no restart.
Funny, I had both white and black pieces, so to speak…
Semper fi,
Jim
Well hell Glenn, chess was a game I studied and was pretty good at until
I learned that if you want to have chess friends then you better learn how to lose
without making it look like you are doing so on purpose.
Nobody likes to lose at chess. You can be a chess master and you can be alone.
Anyway, The game in the Nam was for more than a few pieces and
a victory. I also had black and white pieces which is pretty funny….
except in the reality…
Semper fi,
Jim
So addicting. Your story has me hooked! I have read everything I could find over the years on this war and your’s is as well written as any of them. I just want more and hate to see it ever come to an end. I have also read a couple of your others just because of your style. Thank you so much! Looks forward to the last ten days.
Thank you so much! It is so pleasing to know that people like you are getting so much out of it
because I don’t see it at all when I write.
It just comes and I let it come…
Thanks,
Semper fi,
Jim
A new chapter title?
Chutes and leaders.
Everyone pays, some the Piper, the survivors pay attention.
Great writing…again, and again, thank you.
P E Major. Don’t care about grammar or typeo’s. Just care about the story….and it’s GREAT !
Thanks for the atta boy here Bob. Means a lot as I concentrate and put everything else aside to continue the story…
Semper fi,
Jim
WOW! What a read for this Navy “Phantom” fighter jock. [Vietnam 1965 Air Craft Carrier Based].
Thanks to you and the other ‘fast mover’ jocks. Air support meant so much
when nothing else could reach us. And you guys flew with wild abandon.
Thank you!!! And thanks for being here and liking what you read too…
Semper fi,
Jim
I would keep eyes on that chute as I bet the nva know about it and plan to use it to get at your men. Make it a one way ride to he’ll when they come down.
The next segment opens and I know you will be there Jlb. Glad to have you aboard…
Sempe fi,
Jim
Been waiting for that next chapter and wondering when it will be available? Even good writers have to take a break for Thanksgiving and you do have plenty of reasons to be thankful.
Hope you and your family had a wonderful day of celebrating our blessings!
That wish goes for all of our NAM brothers and sisters who made it back to the world and Chuck also.
Yes, the first segment of the Third Ten Days should be ready to go to Chuck this afternoon.
Yes, Thanksgiving with everyone comind and going and allt he anciallary stuff in cooking two turkeys and all…
Thanks for wanting mre faster, of course, J…and I hope you had a great Thanksgiving…
Semper fi,
Jim
What happened to the next chapter, did the hackers get it?
Will you please hold your horses!
I know you are in bad shape without much to read.
I’ll send you my other books if you have an address you might send!
I can’t churn these out like butter, you know…
Thanks for everything you are, write and intend for me….
and God bless you old ass…
Semper fi,
Jim
Well somebody has to get you on the ball. Now I know what Chuck has to deal with.
You been forty years sitting on this book, get with it there junior! It is probably the best works you will ever write.
Grouchy thing that you are tonight J!!!
Okay okay…
Semper fi,
Jim
I love the way that you describe the scenery and everything that you were involved in. It makes you feel as if you were right there seeing it through your eyes! Very good segment!
Thank you so very much Anna. Not too many women come on this site so your comment is special.
It is nice to get the opinion of a woman who wasn’t in combat (oh, times have changed, have they not?).
Really appreciated seeing your name and then reading your words…
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow. Another riveting chapter and such a huge change from being stuck at the old airfield. I’m still trying to process the events on top of that hill and it makes me thankful that I was too young for VN. Your experiences, as well as those of the other combat VN vets leave somewhat in awe. It also explains some of the interactions I’ve had over the years with various VN veterans, one in particular that was in Da Nang that I recall was around ’68 or ’69. I won’t name him in public obviously but he did hint to me some rather harrowing tales a few times. Sometimes I feel like an interloper for even posting.
Thank You for writing this Mr. Strauss, it’s a story that NEEDS to be told. Any future student of history regarding Vietnam needs to read this as well as many of the comments. Your story makes it real, most everything else is just sanitized history.
I wonder what will happen to the books over time.
One never knows out here in this hyper competitive world,
made all the more so by the Internet. Thanks though, for thinking they are important.
Hard to see from my own perspective except for what I read in the comments here.
Thank you!
Semper fi,
Jim
Awesome!!
Thanks Ron, great one word compliment!!!
Semper fi,
Jim
At one time I reached a point where I feel you have been a time or two. Deep in the shit but so quiet you know it is really deep. Once I smiled and was asked what was funny. Could not say I just wanted to quit and go home. No emotion involved, just damned tired of all of everything and saw no change coming.
I feel that comment through and through JRW. Yes, and I know you know…
Semper fi, brother,
Jim
Your writing is excellent..As a former Navy Vet I am hooked on your book..Hope all is well with you now!!!!
Thank you Stan and Happy Thanksgiving…as well as for the compliment made on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
This is the most engrossing read I’ve ever had and I read a lot. I just have the feeling that I’m there with you and it scares the hell out of me, You are an incredible writer, I can imagine the sleep you’ve lost just writing this
Now that compliment sticks to me with glue. What a great thing to say and to have said this night.
Thank you most sincerely. I am printing it out and pasting it to the top of my monitor!
Semper fi,
Jim
So now you are at the foot of hill 975 and no one knows where your company is located, accept the company itself and at that point, that is very questionable. The song entitled, All by Myself, comes to mind.
Time for communications between command and air support, before the shit hits the fan for your company. At which time, the NVA will know your position if it doesn’t already know it. Sounds like a replay of Little Big Horn and the Indians still have the advantage. It is also time for extraction of all living and dead, but knowing the stupidity and boldness of those in the rear, one would pretty well assume that did not occur.
Let’s hope that Puff and Cowboy are ready to make an appearance and judging from your weather report, that looks like what will actually occur.
Many times there was simply no point in called the rear to report anything.
Usually they could do nothing. Supporting fires were controlled from right inside
the unit, as you’ve read. What’s battalion going to do?
They’re going to want to know what’s going on and you just do not have time to report in.
And remember, in spite of the casualties we were taking in
that valley they just didn’t get how bad it was or they didn’t want to hear or care.
Air was different, as was artillery. They were wonderful and reactive and there when the chips were really down.
There’s a Skyraider for sale down in Texas. Maybe I should crowdfund and try to buy it.
Then we could find some Cowboy kind of pilot to overfly us below or give us a ride or two….
Semper fi, My friend, and brother.
Jim
One could always hope that the brass would extract your men after the failure to secure the hill. That would be the only reason to make contact with them, other then for air support and supply.
Extraction for two companies of men and bodies would have required a massive air effort
and that never happened in the Nam without a lot of preparation and cooperation…
those things in very short supply back in the rear areas.
Semper fi,
Jim
Think it is time to lower the top of that hill about 10 feet with artillery high explosive and maybe toast the whole area with phosphorus fire.
Well, there was that, and you will have to read on to know more, of course, but thank
you for that kind of thinking and writing…
Semper fi,
Jim
Outstanding, Lt. I need more….
It’s coming ob. I am writing the first segment of the next book right now…
Semper fi,
Jim
This segment popped up just as I was getting ready for my treadmill walk. Somehow, this was better exercise. I wouldn’t worry about losing any of us after day 30. All your brothers in combat want to know how your recovery went, maybe to compare. All of us red headed stepchildren will tag along because we want to belong for as long as we can.
Did we all have the “chute” from childhood? Mine was a steep, grassy hillside and a piece of cardboard.
Funny how that childhood memory came screaming back into my head at the bottom
and then again at the top when I, by happenstance, laid down at the entry point.
Real life can be so weird.
Yes, we all have a chute or two back there
I think and wise and observant of you to bring that up here.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Riveting!
The threat of the unknown balanced by the very real threat of the known and the dead all told the story…a snap judgement with no time to second guess…all to live or die in a seconds time. The fact that the three Special Forces were shot and not all broken by the fall shows the intellectual path you followed in making a split second decision. Impatiently waiting for Gunny’s reaction to being dumped down the chute! Bravo Zulu Sir!
I should have the next segment up later today and Off to Chuck.
Thanksgiving and all…
Thanks for your comment and paying such close attention to the writing…
Semper fi,
Jim
OK, I’m having a lazy morning doing what I do with this story, which is to read each segment quickly and then start over and take my time and really enjoy the work you have presented.
I’m not too great with grammar but shouldn’t this sentence end with “me” , not I?
The remaining members of my scout team and Tank made their own jumps, leaving Nguyen and I.
Sorry for leaving so many comments. This segment just got me all fired up!
I much appreciate the editing work and Chuck and I pour over every change you guys suggest.
Sometimes it is so easy to get it wrong because I write it like you read it….pretty emotionally.
And then I just want to send it to Chuck to get it out of here so I can start the next segment.
They are contiguous segments in that, for me, I am constantly moving in that valley
and I want to move on to the next stuff up ahead.
As surprising as so many of the events unfolding are to you they were even more surprising in real life….
but the emotion and shock of those surprises took years to reach me…
Semper fi, and thank you very much…
Jim
I’m good with you letting others worry about the editing. All I want you to do is get the next segment done because when you don’t I have to go back and start at the beginning. I’m currently back about halfway through book one for the third time.
Thanks Rick for rereading the book. There’s a lot in there, in truth.
Too much detail according to some but then that’s where the real credibility is.
Thanks for writing and the compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow, can’t believe that this is the final chapter of book two. Been with you from the start and now just waiting for the next and I take it the third and last. As a ex jarhead would have liked to have met you and maybe if I can do it make a trip to where you are. Can’t believe that some of these officers don’t understand what is going on even being freshly in country. But I served under a couple of them and also some really great officers but the best ones seemed to come from the enlisted ranks. Glad you eye problems seem to be better and yes I do see some of the things that others mention for cleaning up the book but it doesn’t slow me down at all in the reading of them and I have done many chapters twice. Thanks again Lt Semper Fi
Yes, book II is now being made ready for print as I write here.
It is kind of hard to believe we are this far along. But worry not.
While I am writing book III I am working to rough out the book about what happened after.
I know that does not sound as action filled or as harrowing as the combat books but believe
me there was plenty of fireworks just up ahead…
Semper fi, and thanks for the compliment and the care…
Jim
I really like the fact that you are going to write about what happened after. The homecoming , the bullshit that I’m sure your going to hear from higher, etc. too many of these personal stories don’t go into that so I’m looking forward to reading that. No need to reply.
Home was hard. Really hard. It wasn’t that the public made it hard, although the public could sure as hell
have made it easier. It was hard to wake up back here every day and know that none of this was real…and the waiting
for all of it to change….
Semper fi,
Jim
Again, Another Riviting chapter and correctly showing you find in battle that “thinking on the run” was the way a lot of things turned out.
EXCELLENT 👍👍👍
It was all of that Chris. You drew from everything you ever experienced to try to stay alive,
and it was impossible to calculate far ahead. Each moment had to be ‘handled’ and that was
the most difficult part because of fatigue, weather, bugs and so much more.
How do you brush all that aside to make a decent decision?
I can’t believe the Gunny and I got as far as we did…
Semper fi,
Jim
Another awesome chapter. Thanks
Thanks Don, for the compliment and sticking with me through the series.
It’s sometimes hard for people to keep on reading when I don’t get a segment out for days at a time.
Thanks again…
Semper fi,
Jim
Outstanding Lt. You have learned fast in the crucible from Hell. As was always taught to me be unpredictable. A predictable flight path meant death in an engagement. In the air or on the ground surprise and speed were Life.
Sierra Hotel. Hanging by the chute awaiting the next installment.
Doc
I was unpredictable by accident. When you have no logical or decent solutions to impossible problems
then you have to invent something either improbable or ridiculous…and then risk it…all…
Semper fi, and thanks in leaning toward thinking I was better than I was….
Jim
I don’t mind the wait for the new installments. If they came any quicker I would be reading to the detriment of my chores. This way I can read and get along with the daily stuff. Always a great read Jim. Thank you
Tim P.
Thank you tim, that is a terrific compliment. My segments get a higher place than your
chores. Pretty neat place for any author to be…
Thank you!!
Semper fi,
Jim
Here is another edit . . . . I stood behind him but wasn’t looking at the bodies. My eyes had been drawn to a break in the jungle. The break looked like a twisting path leading up into toward the top of the hill.
….. leading up in (not into) toward the top of the hill.
Thanks Rick, for being on the editing team. What would I do without you guys writing in on here?
What an experience this has been. My ‘other’ life is on here…and I never knew it existed.
Thanks for making me not so all alone…
Semper fi,
Jim
Most excellent read, again. Following, reading since the getgo. Was Navy back then, just at the end. Everything you write about the world brings back memories. Jimmy Brown’s cousins lived near us growing up. Keep em comin’ Sir!
I don’t know why certain music stuck to me at the time like glue…and the glue has not gotten
weaker with age. Thanks for the compliment and commenting about the story on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hope for more SIR this is to good to end. Thanks for writing abut your time in country.
I am already writing the first segment to book III as
I take a few minutes to answer comments here Harold…
so fear not, and thanks for the light but deep compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Did you just avoid a “Little Big Horn?”
So now this will go to print, right? Let us know when we can order the 2nd 10 days in hard copy.
Thanks for another great chapter. I haven’t missed one yet, and Lord willing I’ll be with you for the rest of the journey. I especially look forward to your story of recovery.
three days in “moderation.” Did I say a bad word?
Bad word? What is a bad word, other than quit, die or desert?
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks fot the compliment and the second book goes to print in the next two weeks.
Semper fi, Ed,
Jim
Here is an easy edit. What a spectacular and tragic story this is. I look forward to every segment. Thanks James.
I said the to the Gunny’s retreating back and Jurgens and Sugar Daddy in front of me. (I said to the Gunny’s retreating back)
Thanks again, Rick
Jim
I’m embarrassed to comment as I was a 2S deferred college student while many classmates were taking their senior trip into the jungles of Vietnam, some of whom have their names on The Wall. But I’m riveted by your story; your writing has me there.
That you are here at all reading this says something about you Steve.
The other guys who where there and are now here read you words and smile.
We love that you are alive. What we did was partly because we wanted you to be alive to be here.
We didn’t expect to be here at all so we smile at that too.
Thanks for being the product of what we were trying to build.
And you could not find a place where you were more welcome.
You are not out there in not having gone.
You are in here, with us, and we are tickled to have you along…
Semper fi,
Jim
Every once in awhile someone will ask me if I was in the Nam. I tell the truth anymore and they will sometimes say they were never in the service. I always tell them no problem.
The thing I do not like is when someone will come up out of the clear blue sky and tell me “Thank you for your service.” I don’t need their thanks. I think it is the “thing to do”.
Just let it go. No one was there when it would have been nice to have them.
If they want to thank me for my service then take care of the new guys. Work to fix it so they don’t have to go. Now, there is a thanks!
Very nice writing. I look forward to the next chapter. Have a good holiday.
Mike B
They mean well. They just don’t know.
And do we really want them to?
Can they read Thirty Days, those that didn’t go and have no clue,
and get through it with any kind of belief system intact,
or would they simply into total denial?
I don’t know, but I think the regular citizen will have a real hard time believing any of this.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
What an uplifting reply! Poetry from the heart. Another great chapter, just Wow!
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Thanks very much Greg. It is a pleasure to set aside the time to respond to such
original, real and heartfelt comments. Hell, can’t not respond!
Semper fi,
Jim
time for
the 155’s , hope it is a free show for your men
The next segement should be going up later today or early tomorrow.
Thanks for the attention you are paying to the story and for writing about it on here…
Semper fi,
Jim
I am so hooked on this now , I have trouble waiting for the next section of suspense . Also ordered your other books. Thank you for your insight and wisdom, as this is the first time I have been able to face the past of VN . Sgt B1/9 , 67 to 69
I am so happy to have ‘reached’ you. I hope in a good way.
I too was feeling alone until this all happened.
I thought it was just me,
those feelings and trying to deal with that old reality
which is really this reality just waiting to happen again.
I think there are so many more of us out here and I did not know.
Thanks for being along for this ride with me…
and I hope it is a curative ride.
Semper fi,
Jim
Sentence needs a little work.
For some reason, the flatland around us, and on the other side of the smaller river, was covered with brush while the hill itself was a jumbled mass of dense jungle, with bamboo stands sticking out in every spot (some big tree hadn’t grown to overhang just yet.)
(not overgrown by some big tree, yet). Just a suggestion.
Thanks for putting this out for all read.
We are both up too late, Tom
Noted and corrected, Thanks
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, continuity thing. I don’t expect to find anything else. There was nothing wrong with the chopper continuity. Dave. Welcome back.
=> Gunny has an M16 when Junior nudges him into the chute, yet Gunny has switched to a .45 sometime back. This was a dangerous trip up the hill so maybe he borrowed one.
Jim, typo. Welcome Home, Dave.
“Probably twenty pounds, or so,” the Gunny replied. “What for? I thought we had artillery from (threefirebasess) to protect us.” => (three firebases)
=> Gunny might have gotten his M16 from the 3 Rangers at the bottom of the chute.
Another outstanding chapter, Thank you!
I found a few edits for you, I hope they help:
“What?” I asked, looking (in) the faces of Jurgens – add in
The extraction will have to (be) a touch and go later – add be
Oh, the(y) NVA’d love that – remove the y
Thanks Evan, Noted and corrected.
Looks like we are both up late
Semper fi,
Jim
i was an 18 year old infantry Mam at Normandy 1944..I was scared but not nearly as much as l would have been if i had been w/ you in Nam…we knew what the krauts looked like…I BELIEVE THE NAM VET HAD IT MANY TIMES WORSE THAN WE DID//ALL HAIL YOUR GANG!!!!!…great writing ….so vivid and real even now i get scared reading your memories… i THANK GOD FOR GIVING ME LIFE .2 GENERATIONS BEFORE THE HELL OF VIETNAM. WE NED YOUR ACCOUNTS TO REFUTE THE TRAITEROUS PRESS THAT BETRAYED YOU…KEEP WRITING..
Wow! Normand! Now that had to have been something. Thank you so much for bothering to write on here and to adding
your own incredible credibility to my own…and to me story and writing. This means a whole lot!!!
Semper fi, brother,
Jim