I hit the flattened fern leaves and shoots on my left side, trying to hold my right arm free in case I needed to get to my Colt, and also stay away from having my strapped-on pack catapult me out of the chute. My attempt to control the descent was totally wasted as soon as I fell around the first bend and over the first cliff. Only the angle of the descent and the thickness of the packed ferns saved me from injury. I was thrown everywhere, frightened of going over another cliff. The first violent drop had been about six feet but the next was ten. I plummeted down the chute, no longer in doubt about why the Marines before had screamed all the way down. I didn’t know or care if I was screaming. The speed of my descent was beyond calculation, with everything around me seeming to form a dark hole through which I moved, with the moist misery of jungle never giving me anything to focus on. Slush, rush, roll, toss and drop again. The chute seemed without end, although I knew the peak was only nine-hundred and seventy-five meters high. Three thousand feet or so, but every meter of that distance was a meter down through the different layers of hell.
I didn’t know where I was going and that was the worst part. Was there a team of NVA soldiers, having predicted our descent, waiting with butcher knives at some turn where the chute evened out, or would there be an unseeable drop-off of a couple hundred feet somewhere along its route? Had the Army guys we’d seen at the bottom been killed by their bullet wounds, or had the chute killed them with its brutal furious descent and severe damage from unforeseeable and terminal drop offs?
Shivers of fear burst inside me like artillery flares, staying and wagging their way back and forth through my torso and mind. My body accelerated to what I thought had to be the end, and it was. I came out of the chute flying, my helmet seeming still in the air just forward and to the right of my head. Suddenly, I was down. Not into the pond I’d seen earlier, but into the waiting arms of my Marines. They were laughing, as they must have at the others who’d preceded me down the chute. I tried to laugh with them but couldn’t make anything happen. The shivers of fear had turned into shaking and quaking, and I had to hide that effect at all cost.
They put me down and plopped my helmet back on my head. From the trip down I’d picked up another dent in the side of the damaged thing. I silently hoped I’d still be able to get the liner out of the metal shell so I could at least use it as a basin to wash my hair and face. But there was no time to scrub by scooping the water from the pond or tributary. Most of the company lay hunkered down, probably to watch the arrival of the others before I came out the end looking like a giant and terrified muddy gerbil, which I no doubt resembled.
“Move,” I yelled. “They know we’re down and they’ll be coming.”
I took off running toward the Ontos, sitting on the mud about four hundred meters in the distance. The sun was so hot and, with the moisture mostly gone from the air, turning my exterior coating of mud into a dark hardening and cracking plaster. I looked back over my shoulder at the end of the chute. Flying down Tantalus on ti leaves as a kid back then had saved my life today. There was no way I could write about that in a letter home. My wife wouldn’t believe me, could not believe me, much less anyone else.
Although there were no gunshots coming from the hillside jungle I felt and then saw an RPG round hit not far from where the Ontos sat. A direct strike would take the little machine of death out. I ran as fast as I could toward the Ontos, my ears ringing from the explosion. It would take half a minute at least to get the tubes around to face a new threat, and the turret wasn’t moving. Had the crew been taken out with the shock of the explosion? The double doors of the Ontos were closed and locked when I got there but I didn’t need to get inside to figure out what was happening.
Fusner, who’d stayed with me pushed the AN/323 headset against my shoulder, as I heard the heavy rumble and drone of big radial engines punching through the air above. The Skyraiders were back.
“Cowboy?” I said, hopefully into the small microphone, hoping the radio still worked after its run down the sluice.
“Flash, how you doin’ down there?”
“They’ve got some RPG shit down near the base of the hill just to the north of our perimeter,” I replied. “I can’t pull artillery rounds into that defilade.”
Cunningham and Firebase Ripcord were the closest artillery outfits and both might be close enough to fire their howitzers at a high angle and actually reach the back side of the hill, but the indirect fire was less accurate and more difficult to adjust, especially when the hillside’s changing altitude was taken into consideration.
“We only got four of us for fun this fine morning, Flash,” Cowboy said. “Took a peek at the peak and there’s no joy up on top of that mountain today.”
“Twenty-seven, we lost twenty-seven,” I blurted out, not knowing why. It didn’t matter how many we lost. All that mattered was what supporting fire Cowboy had brought to support us in our position.
The Skyraiders roared over us, one after another at low altitude.
“We’re just a pair of deuces today, but let’s light the place up with everything we got with one pair. That’ll leave the others to hang about and cover your six until we can get back from a quick turnaround. Twenty-seven. Maybe we can fit in twenty-seven round trips in one day. Let’s give it a go.”
That was the longest I’d ever heard Cowboy speak. I knew that the number had reached him and cut deep, although I couldn’t feel it myself. I’d liked the look of the Army guys. No mud. They’d been clean shaven and looked tough as hell compared to the mess of Marines I was among and was myself. Clews had been so enthusiastic and his men so committed it was almost impossible to consider that they were gone forever. That was the worst part, aside from the fact that I would never forget how badly I hadn’t wanted to accompany him on his mission, and that such great young guys had gone into their deaths following such a distant and damaged drummer.
“Don’t go,” I whispered to myself, remembering vividly what I’d told him.
“Say again,” Cowboy said, before adding to the others, “get your Marine Corps girly asses down into the mud.”
The Skyraiders came out of the south, straight up the river, seemingly only a few feet above the water. One after another, they strafed the bottom of the hill with their twenty-millimeters. The spacing of the planes was about twenty seconds apart. By the time the fourth one was angling away and pulling up into the air hard, the first one was coming back. I pushed myself into the mud, face down, my hands clutching my helmet to press my head even further down.
Bombs started exploding, as the second run was a carpet bombing at a low level. I could tell they were dropping two-hundred-and-fifty-pounders because I wasn’t being tossed upward by the concussion the five hundreds would have caused. I could stay flat, the earth only seeming to wrinkle under me a bit with each explosion.
Over on the hill, a couple of hundred meters away, the effect would be as mind and ear-ripping as it was deadly.
The Skyraiders flew off, one after another. I pulled my face from the mud to look at the smoking pyre they left behind them. The planes could stay on station for most of the day but had to return to base if they were to stay fully armed. That trip could take vital hours, leaving our situation untenable. We were trapped between two enemy forces, both of which were well dug in and outnumbering us. What they didn’t have was artillery. Their 122mm long-range guns did not reach as far north as our location, or at least I didn’t think so because we hadn’t been hit by them since leaving the southern part of the valley.
I got up and ran for the Ontos, covering the ground without any shots being fired that I could hear. Some crew member had opened the rear double doors but nobody was inside and I wasn’t going in either, even if the guns were pointing the wrong way. I shrugged my pack off and struggled to cram my body under the armor protection, in fear of what I knew had to be coming. The next enemy move was as predictable as it was terminal. They would attack from up on the hillside, establish a base of plunging fire down upon our position and then come at us from the south with the real force. We’d be pinned down by the base of fire and then eventually overrun by the numbers of the attacking forces from downriver. The guns we had faced south but was that the right way?
It was almost impossible to figure out who was jammed under the machine’s protection, as the passage down the slope had covered every Marine with layers of mud. The mud was the cloying volcanic kind that was more red than brown or black and nearly impossible to remove without rinsing with large amounts of water.
The Gunny stared into my eyes. I didn’t need to see the features of his face clearly in the diminished light or through the layers of mud. The Gunny’s eyes were darkly distinguished and identifiable, and they were filled with anger.
“Now that was a ride,” the other man, lying prone and facing me said, and I knew him to be Jurgens by the sound of his voice, which continued on.
“Holy shit, everyone’s going to be talking about this one for some time to come, Junior. Disneyland doesn’t have that ride.”
I was trying to adjust to Jurgens not being pissed off because I’d pushed him over the edge while at the same time attempting to understand why the Gunny was obviously so angry.
The Gunny pushed against my right shoulder, so I leaned toward the left tread as far as I could to let him by, but he wasn’t having any of that. He pushed harder until I understood what he was communicating, and began crabbing backward out from under the covering armor. Although I didn’t want to be in the open without supporting fires dumping ordnance around us, I couldn’t deny the Gunny’s insistence. I backed slowly from under the Ontos, while the Gunny slid by and came up to a crouch near the back of the machine. He lit a cigarette with his special Zippo, before clicking it shut loudly, and then returning it to one of his chest pockets.
I crouched next to him, not saying a word, for fear of setting the obvious high bar of his anger even higher.
“You didn’t know shit,” he whispered over at me between taking and blowing puffs of smoke from his cigarette.
There was no way to answer this question, so I waited. I didn’t know what? Of the many things I didn’t know shit about, what particular thing might he be talking about?
“That chute, or channel, down the face of that mountain, could have ended anywhere,” the Gunny finally got out. “All of us could have gone over a fifty-foot cliff, or run right straight into a machine gun nest, and you didn’t have a clue.That was what I was going to tell you when I saw the decision to go forming inside of your head.”
I had no answer that made any sense. My time in Hawaii and my experience with tea leaf sliding down Tantalus, seemed ridiculous to tell him about and use as an excuse. I hadn’t known where the channel was going to lead and there was no lie I could think of to cover that rather obvious fact.
I held out my right hand to accept his cigarette instead of talking. My hand sat in mid-air for almost half a minute before he moved the cigarette close enough so I could accept it. I took one puff and returned it. The gesture meant everything to me. The Gunny was mad as hell, I knew because I’d made the decision and then committed him to it, and I’d done it in such a way that my physically pushing him had been taken by him as some sort of macho male affront.
“Our position was hopeless,” I finally said.
“Our position here is hopeless,” he shot back, flicking his unfinished cigarette out across the mud. “We lost a shitload of equipment on the way down, and here we are stuck between two unbeatable NVA forces dug in down to God knows where.”
I looked down at the mud squeezing up over the sole of my right boot. There was no sound or movement from the Marines under the Ontos, but they were only a few feet away. There was no covering noise, except the whispering tributary waters to our back, to keep them from hearing every word the Gunny and I were exchanging.
“Fusner,” I whispered, my mind racing to devise a new plan before the heart of the company was eaten out by despondency and fear.
Fusner appeared around the side of the Ontos, accompanied by Zippo and Nguyen. I recognized them more by their body sizes than their appearance since everyone in the company resembled the mud men from Flash Gordon when it came to facial appearances.
I reached out my hand and Fusner placed the arty net microphone into it, as I knew he would. I looked up at the swirling clouds circling the top of the peak and reached out to Lieutenant Howell, the duty battery officer at Cunningham. I was thankful that ‘Howler’ was on. I knew we were still too distant from the firebase for high angle indirect fire, which meant I couldn’t touch the near slope we’d come plummeting down. I laid out two zone fire areas. One to cover the rest of the hill that was reachable and the other to carpet the jungle down below where the old airstrip ended. Howell came back after plotting the zones and offered the addition of Cunningham’s 155 battery for depth since I’d asked for a mix of concrete piercing and high explosive. He also wanted to know if Firebase Ripcord could join the party. I knew by that unasked addition Howler understood we were dealing with tunnels, how many Marines were likely in trouble. I figured he’d probably followed some of the command stuff over the past few days, as well. The double payload of the 155s, and whatever Ripcord could throw, would extend the underground radius of tunnel crushing shock waves tremendously in both zone areas.
I gave Fusner the handset back. I’d need the air radio in a few seconds but I had another job for him first. I looked into the Gunny’s angry eyes. I knew he was more embarrassed about being pushed than upset about the risk I’d taken. The risk had worked, and success was hard to argue with. I knew the Gunny had to secretly enjoy the established fact that he was the accepted leader of the company. I had no reputation to protect. He did. The Gunny was a much more powerful name to be addressed by than Junior, and everyone knew it.
I motioned to Zippo and Nguyen. “Jurgens is under the Ontos. Help him get out here to join us.”
I knew Jurgens was listening to every word we were saying, and the other men down under the machine with him. Almost instantly, before either Zippo or Nguyen could even bend down, Jurgens scurried forward and then stood to join us.
“Our situation is hopeless,” I said.
There was no sugar-coating the fact that, even though we had massive artillery and air support, if something didn’t change, our position would eventually be overrun and all of us would be killed.
“We’ve got to make a move, and we’ve got to make it fast.”
“Back to the runway, it’s the only way open” the Gunny replied, immediately.
I hadn’t expected an answer at all since I hadn’t phrased my statement as a question. I knew the old airstrip was no more survivable than our current position, except for the small hole the river had eaten into the bank under it. That the Gunny hadn’t figured that out or was still so angry that he wasn’t thinking clearly, was more problematic from his presenting the idea out loud rather than just between us. With the enemy on both the north and the south flanks, and the other two sides blocked by an unscalable cliff and a raging river, the situation, if we successfully made the move back to the abandoned airstrip, would be as impossible to defend, for any period of time, as our current one.
“We’re going north,” I said, hoping that my calling in of artillery support would carry enough weight to keep me from going against the Gunny again in front of the company and also motivating everyone listening to accept the fact that our situation was only hopeless if we made it hopeless.
I stopped talking and waited. The Gunny pulled out another cigarette. I could tell from his movements he wasn’t likely to be sold on anything I recommended, his anger over being pushed into the mud, and then screaming as he plunged down the hill, still affecting him deeply.
“Shot over,” came out of the small speaker on Fusner’s Prick 25. My head snapped around to look at him.
Fusner smiled weakly.
I tried not to smile. Fusner deliberately set the switch of the small external speaker on for everyone to hear, since by activating it he cut out any ability to communicate using the handset. I nodded at him, as he reached his fingers over to shut it off. Fusner knew I needed help and was giving it to me in the only way he knew.
“Shot, out,” he responded back to the battery.
“Down,” I ordered. “Zone fire,” I said, “we don’t know exactly where their shit’s going to hit.”
In training, the size of the area to receive fire was set at about a square kilometer, but when firing into an area with different elevations receiving that fire, wide disparity in rounds impacting could be unpredictable and deadly.
I never heard the response to “Splash,” as the rounds came in early, hundreds of them. Howler had laid down a zone on the hill like I’d never seen or heard in training. I squeezed under the Ontos, where everyone else up top had retreated. Those Marines in holes I knew would be digging deeper as they pressed down. Shells were impacting too close for the indirect fire to be raining down on the near side of the hill until I realized that Ripcord was off at a northeasterly angle further north. Their high angle fire was tearing the southern slope apart making me glad that, for once, I’d registered in our true position before they opened up.
Fusner was next to me, his Prick 25 down and next to him, as the Ontos armor hung too low to let him wear it on his back.
“Give me the 323,” I said, as the explosions continued to blast away in the near distance, the shattering blasts not so severe as to affect hearing, but the shock-waves bouncing everyone uncomfortably about. I wasn’t ready to call Cowboy and his Skyraiders just yet, but I wanted every Marine cowering under the Ontos with me to be thinking about taking fire to the enemy rather than the possibility of ground forces slowly but surely pinning us down and killing us off one by one.
“When we’d occupied the hill earlier we got up there by climbing the rip-rap angled down from the top lip of the cliff on the east face. The plan is to do what we did three weeks ago. We don‘t attack the hill, we go around it. Instead of climbing the rocks and debris to reach the top and, then hook back toward the southern peak, we turn and head through the trees up there toward the north until we’re well away from the area.”
I waited for any comment that might be forthcoming from the Gunny. The area under the armor was dark but daylight filtered in from every direction. The Gunny had another cigarette out and was working the smoke slowly in and out of his lungs. We lay with one of the crewmen between us, but I could distinctly see the Gunny over the Marine’s flat shoulder blades. He looked across the short distance at me, his muddy head backlit against the light from the outside.
“Bait,” the Gunny said, picking a piece of tobacco from his lips and snapping it away. “Battalion’s not going to like it. This hill’s here for a reason, and us with it. I’ll bet they’re sitting back in the rear devising some huge muscular operation, supposedly to support the dire mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, when all along they caused us to be here. Exactly here.”
“A stalking horse,” Jurgens replied to the Gunny, his voice coming from the other side of the tightly massed bodies, surprising me, not by his agreement with the Gunny, but because he knew what a stalking horse was. “We’re a stalking horse to see if an operation can make it down here. If we hold out then they come in force and they have a victory that can go into Stars and Stripes. Probably why those film guys were here earlier. Background. Stock footage.”
“We move without battalion,” I said, the Gunny’s response having just enough agreement built into it to allow me to proceed.
“What’s the plan going to be called?” Zippo asked, in the short silence that followed.
“Run to Daylight,” I said, off the top of my head, knowing I had assigned that name a few days ago. Vince Lombardi used to repeat himself.
I was from Green Bay and Vince Lombardi was the coach, and that had been one of his expressions. I didn’t like the ‘run’ part of it but we would certainly be climbing up into daylight if we made it that far.
“Like in football,” Zippo replied, his voice quiet, while he considered the merits of the plan’s name, if not the plan itself.
The artillery barrages were finally over and everyone climbed out from under the Ontos. I noted quite a few of our Marines, who’d been dug in, up and wandering near their holes, as well. Such heavy munitions coming in for so long was deadening to the minds that survived, even when they were not the targets.
The Gunny came close, his cigarette still lit and dangling from his lips.
“I don’t like it and I don’t know why,” he said, taking the cigarette from his mouth. “Somehow we made it without any real casualties so far. But what if they figure this new move because they can sure as hell see down the side of that hill?”
I watched his muddy face closely but could see no more animosity in his features.
“They didn’t occupy the hill from the plateau that strings out behind it,” I said, laying out the foundation of my plan with as much rationality as I could. “They would have come in hard from that plateau if they’d been there and our line of light machine guns strewn across the saddle of the ridge wouldn’t have stopped them for long, either.”
“What about the Ontos?” the Gunny said. “We can’t just abandon it down here for them.”
I hadn’t thought about the Ontos, but I was too embarrassed to admit it, especially not in my weakened position with the Gunny. I tried to modify the plan in my mind to include splitting our forces, with one force making it up the old highway running next to the river while the other took to the high ground of the plateau, but I didn’t get far in doing anything but think about the modification.
The whole hillside, supposedly beaten half to death by artillery fire, opened up, literally spraying our entire area with high-velocity small arms fire. An RPG exploded not twenty feet from the Ontos, tossing, even more, mud on the Marines standing around after the barrage. I had the headset on but didn’t key the microphone. I didn’t have time.
“Get Cowboy on the air and get the Skyraiders back as soon as you can,” I said, tossing the headset to Fusner and plopping my helmet back on.
Our own artillery fire from Ripcord had been particularly accurate, although obviously ineffective at reaching inside the mountain and killing the NVA buried down in their deep tunnels. The slope was registered, and more fire would quell some of the incoming but I was worried about something more immediate and threatening.
I clambered out from under the armor, crawling quickly through the mud until I could stand. I slithered into the back of the machine, the heavy armored twin doors gaping open. The crew was under the machine not inside it. I screamed back toward the mud.
“I need the Ontos crew on station now,” I yelled at the top of my voice, as I left mud everywhere in my attempts to get into the firing officer’s metal chair.
The Ontos was pointing the wrong way. I hit the battery switches and slammed right track in reverse and left track forward nearly simultaneously. The turret began to whine and the Ontos turned 180 degrees.
It seemed to take forever, so I slid off the seat and peered out through the doors. Fear shot through me as my imagined possibility was being realized before my eyes. The hill was close to our position. Too close. There had been no way to establish a perimeter far enough from the beginning of the slope, to allow enough stand-off distance to react, or even for some of our weapons to properly arm. The NVA had figured that out even before me. Although the tributary feeding the Bong Song wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the full river in flood, we were backed up to it and it could only be crossed safely by using either the Ontos, as we had in the prior crossing, or by laying ropes that were not yet laid.
We had no wire. We had only about a hundred meters of open mud between our defensive holes and the heavily forested bottom of the slope. It was across that area that they came, and the sight was a shock. I’d seen dead bodies, and an occasional single enemy or two, but never a mass of them, all dressed in black, all wearing the strange conical hats, and all running at us with wild abandon.
I jumped back to the seat and stopped the turret’s movement. I breathed deeply, having no time to check the crew to see if they were standing by or whether the deadly area behind the barrels had been cleared. I thought we’d loaded all six barrels with flechettes. I didn’t even know what standoff distance the rounds required before exploding, but I hoped and prayed it wasn’t much. I knew the 106 barrels had to be numbered or identified in some fashion, but I didn’t know the codes or the system of fire.
“Fire the one-oh-six, one on each side,” I screamed down through the open doors. I knew the doors should be closed in case of a closer rocket strike or ricocheting bullets but I didn’t know how to use the intercom. Yelling was my only way of communicating. I had no other plan to stop the attack. If the NVA over-ran our position with infantry then I wouldn’t need another plan, but that fleeting thought was blown from my brain when two of the 106 rounds launched together. With the doors open, and barrels so close, the sound of the explosions immediately deafened me. My world reduced down to the gun sight my right eye was plastered to.
I didn’t see the rounds go off, all I saw was four large groups of men go down as if their legs had been sliced off at mid-thigh. I hit the turret button, guiding the movement by what I could see instead of any of the instruments spread out on what resembled a small boat’s helm in front of me at lap level. I could not take my eye off the scene. I stopped the turret’s movement when the crosshairs lay just above another clump of the enemy. Somewhere in my mind, a tiny voice whispered that the NVA troops had a hard time staying properly spread apart in combat situations, just like my Marines.
“Fire the one-oh-six, one on each side,” I screamed downward again, this time with more confidence that the rounds would actually be launched, but with less confidence that my voice was actually being heard. I could barely hear myself, which meant that the Marines outside the Ontos had to be having problems too.
I hit the turret button again and let the slow-moving mass of metal move back across the scene until I found more black-clad bodies. This time they were not running at my sight. They were running back toward the mountain for their lives.
“Fire the one-oh-six,” I yelled, knowing that the crew knew what it was doing. “Reload,” I added, wondering if that was a necessary command to a crew facing charging infantry in the open.
Two more rounds went off and I knew it because the running figures dropped away from my eyes. It was like magic. A brilliantly conceived killing magic. I slid off the seat and moved to the back of the machine. The Gunny rose up from where he’d stayed for the attack, Tank, his radio operator next to him. I heard thrumming engines I knew so well buzzing in the far distance. Cowboy was coming. Fusner had gotten through.
“Never seen that before, “the Gunny said, softly, getting another cigarette out of his chest pocket. “It’s like they don’t die. They’re just gone.”
He looked up at me and then smiled, as he let out a deep inhalation of smoke. “Now that was some mighty fine shooting, Junior,” he said.
The other Marines comprising the two companies were once again starting to gather, and every one of them nearby smiled back at the Gunny, including me. The Gunny was back. I would not have to go it alone. But I needed a new plan because I wasn’t about to give up possession of the Ontos after what I’d seen and made happen using it.
Great read LT. Looking forward to the 3rd installment of the next 10 days. I think a little time off will do me good though.
I was with Mike 3/5 in 1969. 0331. Drank from a lot of the same paddies around An Hoa, “Arizona Territory,” Charlie Ridge,etc. As long as the water was moving from one paddie to the other right… lol…
Semper Fi
Chuck
Appreciate your service also, Chuck.
This segment is trying.
Semper fi,
Jim
Fantastic reading. When will third ten days be published?
When I finish writing the segments. These are final “chapters” more and more difficult.
Best guess end of Summer.
Amazing what occurs in only 7 Days.
Thanks for your support,
Semper fi,
Jim
Is the “Third Ten Days” published yet? Your writing and the stories are captivating. I served in the Marine Corps from 1974 to 1980. Combat Engineer-1371 MOS. I was out for 9 years and was able to re-enlist in 1989 as a 34 year old Sergeant in the USMC Reserves. Semper Fidelis.
Just finishing the Third Days. I will give it full focus after surgery.
Thanks for your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
What a time to make a move. Semper Fi!
Indeed, you are most correct, although it was moving that kept us alive so many times…
Semper fi,
Jim
I am a Iraq Army vet and reading about what was happening in the field has been an eye opener. I have read the first 20 days. I appreciate you telling your story, you have my upmost respect. Have to ask when will the last ten days be available.
Thank you, Robert.
As you can see I am making progress in the Third Ten Days.
It is getting a bit more difficult going forward bringing up the past.
I would project Spring before the Third Ten is completed.
Semper fi,
Jim
What happened to the rest of the story?
More coming, J
RVN 65-66. Enjoyed your account of the first 20 days. Waiting for more. Love your style, the errors in writing (and missed editing) makes it that much more real as you feel the excitement, the fear, and lack of experience, being a green 2nd LT, fresh out of school knowing everything. The 2nd LT’s life expectancy greatly depended on how fast they learned, they knew nothing about war and how they got along with the gunny or 1sgt. You were the typical 2nd Lt and got the typical respect. As the men knew, you earn respect, don’t get it in WP or OCS when they pin the gold bar on your shoulder.
You don’t get the respect right away after OCS, that’s for damned sure, but you think you do.
And that can be so damned deadly. The men feared young officers much more than the officers knew.
They feared the ignorance.
Thanks for the meaningful comment and support.
Semper fi,
Jim
I can not truly express how much I have enjoyed reading the first two books. I spent eight years in the Army but spent my time stationed in the comfort of hospitals. What you have written is the kind of fear and terror only a nightmare can bring. (And I have never had a nightmare like that even.) It gives a perspective to not only what it was like to be there, but what it must be like to come home and live with that part of your past. Thank you for this perspective. I have loved every word you have shared with me.
Troy D.
Thanks Troy for the depth and deep meaning of your compliment here. Yes, it was something to come home and try to integrate back in.
The skills of survival learned so harshly were less than useless back here. Tough to deal with that. And to feel so damned useless after being
so damned useful.
Semper fi,
Jim
I received the first ten days in hard copy from Barnes and Noble a month or so ago. I was able to order the second ten days from Barnes and Noble and I got a shipping confirmation today. Whenever I find another segment online all else stops until I finish it. At some point I will go back and read the entire 30 days again.
Great Job James
Ken Brown
1st MAW
MACS 4
1969-1970
Really appreciate your support, Ken.
When finished would be thankful for a Review.
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
I reviewed both first ten days and second ten days on Barnes and Noble site. We’re they positive review So?
OH YES!
Thanks, Ken.
Honest reviews are very helpful.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great Job with your writing James! Your book should be a period classic, along with “Dispatches” and a few others. Thanks for sharing your writings with the world, and thanks for your service during such a difficult time.
Semper Fi
Clif Stone
A Proud Grunt – First Battalion, Ninth Marines
Delta Company, Third Platoon
Vietnam I Corps, ‘65-‘66
Thank you, Cliff.
I really appreciate the wonderful support from readers like you.
I see you were an ‘early bird’
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Wanted to let you know that I just purchased two of your “Second Ten Days” books at Amazon. Wanted to later write a positive review to add to the others already there, but I am not smart enough to figure out how to do it…Amazon site says “you have to make a purchase” (which I already did…). Maybe I’ll go back and try to figure it out again. Your second book is every bit as good as your first one. One of my friends asked me when your second book was going to be available and I filled him in…he already bought your first one. Wishing a blessed Christmas to you and yours, LT…
How did I miss this comment?
Thank you so much for your support, Walter.
I am sure you enjoyed a Merry Christmas
and I wish you and yours a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.
Semper fi
Jim
Jim,
Just wanted to let you and the rest of your readers know that “The Second Ten Days” is now up for sale on Amazon.
I think I got the first 2 copies! One for me and the other a Christmas present.
Merry Christmas to you Jim and everyone else on this site, who like me, wait impatiently for the next installment.
Thanks for that comment Rob. It’s hard to do the advertising, boosting and promotion necessary to reach potential readers.
I would never have believed just how hard until starting all this…
Semper fi,
Jim
`The strangest thing is happening. I began reading the second tens days in paperback, and after two or three chapters went back to the story online. The story seems to miss a lot without the comments and other personal reflections of your readers. They take your great story and make it richer by filling in more details about the war.
I know it would double the size of the books, but there has got to be a way to memorialize and not lose the treasures they represent.
God bless you… and hurry up and get the next chapter out!
The Second Ten Days will have 40 comments in the re-edit in a few days.
In March I will publish a book called Thirty Days Has September, The Comments and Responses.
It will only be the comments (now 12,404 when I am done today) and responses, for those who
have come to like the books. It will also have maps and some of the real stuff (photos, documents and letters home).
It will be a sort of index of all of it and us who care. Neat idea, I think, although it may be that I must totally fund it
because I am not sure about sales. Thanks for the asking and your question precursors us thinking the same way you do at the same time!
Semper fi,
Jim
Put me down for two.
What about a pre-sale? I’d pay for mine now.
Thanks Rob, much appreciate that support.
I will tell Chuck to do an advance thing.
I think he knows how to do that, and thanks for the depth of your care and support.
Semper fi,
Jim
God Bless…Thank You
Thank you Loyd and a Merry Christmas to you and your family
Mr Strauss your story is an awesome read! But I feel I must point out something it seems that was missed – Your “run to daylight”plan name was also used in the twelfth night second part
Thank Tim fo your sharp eyes, and just made a slight correction.
Merry Christmas.
Semper fi,
Jim
LT. To you and yours, a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. Just caught back up to book three. Rereading again for the third time. Can’t get enough, so glad to know we’re not alone.
Appreciate your support, Steve J.
The Book One and Two are now available in Paperback and Digital
Just finished this part on my way back down from W&M, Williamsburg, VA, picking up my son. An expression came to me “you do what you gotta do”. I was with a convoy of marines – men and vehicles – pulling out of Hue probably April ‘68. We came down Hwy 1, south of Hi Van Pass regrouping on a fingered of a hill perpendicular to the Hwy. Our group consisted of grunts, trucks, tanks, Four Duce mortars, even an old WW II How-tar mortar mounted on rubber tires. In that rag tag assembledge was one 155 SP. We were on that hill for several quiet nights. One evening as we were in our fighting holes cooking C-rats over the C-4, there came bugles and shouts from a rail road tunnel several hundred meters north of us along the road. An attack was on. The general attitude of the marines was of annoyance being interrupted at the evening meal. One rather pissed crewman on the 155 jumped up, yelled “I’ll take care of these a-holes”. He turned the turret of the 155 and shot WP straight at them. He did what he had to do and yelled out for everyone to carry on! I haven’t thought of that night in so many years. I seriously doubt anyone back in the “world” would believe it. Such a different world then and there compared to what I just left at W&M. Reading your book helps me process memories and realize just what a lucky man I am. Thank you and carry on!
I’m seeing these comments get longer and longer from the first ten days until now. I know you try and reply to as many as possible and I’ve slowed mine down in the selfish hopes it will speed up your writing… lol. I do have to ask about Jurgens… from the beginning he was fighting to survive and so were you. It seemed that he as well as others, viewed you as a 90day wonder who wouldn’t last but a few days. You and he went back and forth and throughout reading this I did not like jurgens at all… but lately and especially after his “ stalking horse” comment he has become a bit more human and intelligent . I’m wondering if the animosity between you both was due to just the difference in command philosophy now. Like most of the nco’s and marines there had it figured out, how to survive the valley , at least as a unit , and they viewed officers as persons who would expend them. As I read on it seems that you all are becoming more cohesive and the animosity is receding… is that how your feeling about him on the 20th day as well?
Mike, I respond to all the comments because of the nature of them and the depth sort of demands it.
Who else could respond? And they are the backbone of the work.
I would not have continued without the comments.
It is the opposite of what you think. The comments give credibility to me!
Not to me in the view of others but to me in view of myself.
I came through the years not even sure that the whole thing was real.
Yes, I can look at and feel my own scars and reflect back but it
blurs and also many people through the years wanted none of it to be true,
sometimes right down to not believing my scars were caused
by damage from combat. Maybe I had other surgery and was passing it off as that!
It’s a bizarrely competitive world out here and there.
So, the comments are almost a book all of their own so there will be more of them put in my publications.
And the comments had given me the ‘family’ of vets I never had before, or never thought I had.
Semper fi, and thanks for the very depth of your words…
Jim
Thanks Jim, I can’t imagine looking at my scars and not knowing where they came from. Sometimes it’s better to try and forget… I guess over time that confuses the mind. I think that writings such as yours will go to serve a much more valuable purpose to returning veterans current and future in that it will show them it’s ok to deal with the actual facts and learn to forge a productive future anyway. Writings such as yours serve as reference that it’s ok to be honest with yourself. No need to reply. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks, Mike. I know there’s no need to reply but what the hell,
your comment is worth that at the very least.
Thank you for the uplifting words and Merry Christmas to you and your family…
Semper fi,
Jim
good response
Love these stories have been over the A Sau valley many times flying into khe sanh.
Thanks Louie. Glad you missed the action below you on those occasions.
Thanks for liking the writing and commenting on it here today.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey Lieutenant, remember back in the beginning that you were thinking of not putting chapters on Facebook anymore because you weren’t getting much response? Things have changed a bit! The veterans I’ve linked to the stories read it, though many still won’t talk about it. The younger military friends and civilians I’ve linked mostly seem scared of the story. That surprised me. There’s an awful lot of wisdom in these books that could keep them alive some day. Ah well, wishing a great Christmas to you and yours, and to ALL the vets, both support people and fighters, much respect.
Thanks for sharing the story to the veterans Arnie. I understand the difficulty that those who have not gone into the fray with comprehension and belief.
They want it to be John Wayne going up Sarabache on Iwo. They want it to be Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. And so on. They want it to be be where
the men who go to war come home with these great war buddies that they spent their ‘band of brothers’ time with in combat. They want it to be how they left
mere weak and young boys but came back as tough men, in mind and body. And that’s what they’ve gotten from Hollywood and from the New York book publishing
business for as long as those things have been around. Well, as Tina Turner so well said: “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it rough.” This series of
war noels is the rough now, and it is neither written for the inexperienced hopeful macho types, the Rambo adoring fans or those who can’t see the truth when it
smacks them in the face. The world is not filled with bright hardened human beings….
Semper fi, and thanks for the great comment…and for the sharing…and the support….and being one of those who sure as hell gets it.
Jim
If only Paul Simon had written it in time, “SlipSlidin Away” would have been perfect for the kid RTO to have been playin on his transistor radio when you hit the landing.
You’ll have to live with the reality you were perhaps the inspiration for that song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNt5FnMK2sM
Thanks for that SCPO. Much appreciate the song and your words that accompany the link.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great one Jim!! I actually get disappointed when I realize, “Sh*t, this is the final third…what am I gonna do when he’s done!” Richard Nixon had “Peace Maker” put on his tombstone. That bastard kept the war going 4 more years just to get elected. Hunter Thompson wrote this for his obit
“If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.”
Merry Christmas!
Well, Hunter had a way about him, did he not? Yes, I ended up working with Nixon at the Western White House,
which you will get to read as time goes by. I believe he was everything Hunter described and I also felt he was one
of those people that got started down a slippery slope, iike in the prior segment, and could not ever stop or slow down.
Semper fi, and thanks for the neat comment…
Jim
I agree with most of what is said about Mr. Nixon, but I was also one of those first 25,000 troops withdrawn from the Nam in 69, so I owe him for that! 9 months and 2 purple hearts and I was plenty ready to go.
I won 50 buck on a bet that he would be impeached, too.
Thanks for another riveting installment, LT.
Semper Fi!
Yes, Nixon was a player but of a sort that was cold and calculating always. He lived for it and nothing else.
Like the current leadership. These guys deserve more sorrow for their miserable state than they deserve anger…
Semper fi,
Jim
We have a wonderful life agreeing to disagree occasionally. My memories of Nixon were from a different angle.
He was quite candid and sometimes actually jovial playing in gin the clubhouse after golf at ShorecliffsSC
Or maybe my old addled brain just wants to remember it that way?
~~smile
You can say what you want about Nixon, but I remember him as one who fought communism back in the day when Hollywood wanted your head for doing so. By the way, Reagan was in the same boat when he was president of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild. Both men were good presidents of this nation, when you consider what came after them at the White House.
Those who have been involved in politics, know that it is not an honest profession. If you don’t believe this, just read what Harry Truman had to say about politics. Unfortunately, people always remember the bad things about out leaders and quickly forget the good that some have done. Some of our best presidents made some very difficult decisions that benefited this nation, even though they led sordid personal lives at times. They all were humans just like us.
There is nothing at all wrong with the concept of communism J. The problem, as Socrates wrote so long ago, is how difficult and damn near impossible it is to apply. Democracy is hard but not has hard as communism.
Both are subject to being taken over by autocrats and dictators at any moment. As the U.S. is in great danger of right now. I worked on the Nixon estate in San Clemente and walked on the beach with him. I still have
his annotated books (in small tiny black fountain pen writing) and notes from him. He would not talk to me or answer any of my questions. But days later, having remembered and written at night he’d hand me a book or a note and move on. I worked
for Reagan but after his wife took over. Reagan, early on, was out of the real picture because of his mental condition. Reagan had a real experience staff, run by his V.P. Bush who was terrific as V.P. A much better V.P. than president.
I came to lean left because the republicans back in the day were compassionate, caring and responsible. The party got up and walked away from me. Now I have no party.
Thanks for the comment and the depth of your own beliefs and experience.
Semper fi,
Jim
You and I could argue day and night about the marxist ideology being as good as democracy, but the reality is in our history books when it comes to which ideology is better. Whenever a marxist leader takes over a government, millions of citizens within that nation die! Anyone that opposes the dictator dies! Not so with the true form of democracy! End of story.
If you had been through what Nixon went through during his political career, you would not talk with strangers either. He had every right to be paranoid after the lies and hateful attacks he suffered, before and during the time he was president of this nation. His own party would not even support him when JFK and the mafia stole the election from him.
As for G.H.W.B, he was a liberal and a flaming globalist that was selling out his country behind the backs of the citizens and so was his son G.W. They were great statesmen alright, but what state were they working for? Guess who was involved in the New World Order James? The whole damn Bush family!
Don’t buy a thing you say about Ronald Reagan. I knew him when he was governor of California and during the presidency and his mental condition was sharper then a dime. Yes, he later got dementia as do a lot of old people, but he did a hell of a good job before it’s onset, both domestic and foreign policy. Few presidents can match his accomplishments!
I quit supporting the GOP during the G.W. Bush era, when he tried to bring about the North American Union. The party went to hell during his reign and still has not recovered because of it’s poor leadership.
Love this! Kinda chuckled at “run to daylight”. Read Jerry Kramer’s book entitled same many, many years ago. His famous goal line block on the Cowboys Jethro Pugh clearing the way for a TD. Funny I would remember those names as I was not a die hard GB fan. A great era of football with great players like Forest Greg, Nitchki, Starr and a great coach.
I was the breakfast cook for the Packers at spring training St. Norbert College back
in 66 and 67. Those guys were regular guys at the campus who hung around the coffee shop
and talked to students all the time. Taylor was like a standup comedian. Starr was the kindest most lovable guy.
Lombardy was dark and brooding although he would burst out laughing over some joke at times.
Thanks for the comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Glad to see ya back! And you have so many editors!!! So that leaves me, who hates editing, to just read and enjoy!! My Mom and dad raised us right. My brother served in Nam 71 to 72 as a truck driver out of Cam Rahn Bay with his best friend Boyd. We lost good young men to Nam from our little desert rat town in So Cal. I want t o tell you all who are Veterans, THANK YOU for your service! You and your families made sacrifices so you could serve US. You lived through a hell no one outside of combat can ever know. To those of you who, like my brother, finally made it all the way back home, WELCOME HOME SOLDIER!!!! I am so damn proud of you! To those still lost, somewhere between Nam and The World, HOME is waiting for you! I strive to live my life every single day, with honor, with morals, with loyalty, with love, with compassion and with a deep gratitude of my Freedoms, as my own personal way to honor each of you and the fallen. If you see a 6 ft 4 Santa lookin guy in Northern Minnesota saying Thank YOU that is me! Unless he’s got a goatee and less hair and then that’s my Big Brother!! Merry Christmas to you all!
Thanks for writing about your big brother at this time of the year, in fact, at all.
This is definitely the place for it. We much appreciate such sentiment and this kind of loving story about honor.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, you missed one of the “tea” edits. You wrote: My time in Hawaii and my experience with (tea) leaf sliding down Tantalus, seemed ridiculous to tell him about and use as an excuse. Edit needed: change “tea” to “ti” per another reader’s comment.
Yes, exactly. I never knew until now that I was mis-spelling the word!
Thanks for the help here…
Semper fi,
Jim
Just after Cowboy and Co. flew off you ran to the Ontos and crawled under it. At the end of that paragraph… “We would be pinned down by the base of fire and eventually overrun by the numbers of the attacking from down river”.
attacking (force) from down river?
Thanks, Monty.
Noted and corrected.
Semper fi,
Jim
Editing suggestion. I’m referring to the page that holds all the installments. The intro is the same for both the Second Ten Days and the Third Ten Days. “If you are looking to start at the beginning of this Vietnam war story, head to “30 Days Has September” and catch up. (Warning: once you start reading this account of James’ time in Vietnam as a Marine Lieutenant, you will likely have a hard time stopping!) If you’re coming from the First 10 Days, you can continue reading below.” It would seem the Third Ten Days should suggest reading the First Ten Days and then the Second Ten Days before beginning the Third.
Wow! It never slows down!
It seems that cohesiveness is growing among yourself, the Gunny, and the Platoon Sgts – particularly evident in the installment previous to this one.
Any guess as to the ages of the Marines, Sgts, yourself, and the Gunny. Just a year or two can mean so much to young folks. (The Gunny probably seemed ancient then. Today he would be a youngster compared to us!)
Keep up the good work – but at your own pace.
Reall appreciate all the support and thank you, DanC
The text on Page corrected.
Chuck had to construct that page quickly
and we will most probably go back and make other changes.
It is a landing page.
Semper fi,
Jim
Very good. Thank you Sir
Another great chapter of your fictional/actual tour in the Ashau. Waited and looked forward to this chapter, you did not disappoint. Wishing you and family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Thanks for the attaboy and the compliment Jon.
Much appreciated.
Semper fi,
Jim
Whew !!!
OUTSTANDING 👍👍👍
Thank you, Chris.
These comments keep me focused on getting it.
Semper fi,
Chuck
Improvise, improvise…..hopeless but not helpless. God bless good leadership and Marines willing to fight to the end.
Amen to that.
Semper fi,
Jim
Fusner deliberately set the switch the small external speaker on for everyone to hear
Maybe change to: Fusner deliberately switched the small external speaker on for everyone to hear
Enjoying immensely
Chuck SeaBee Young
Thanks for the support, Chuck
and the suggestion is corrected.
Jim
Gettin even for the treachery that took out some good Army troops. Breaking cover in mass formation and charging at the ONTOS sounds like it was anger instead of better tactics. They would never learn, just continued to waste the sons of too many Momma’s. While taking too many great young men in the process. A nasty nasty story being told with fearless truth. Thanks for another great chapter. Poppa J
I appreciate your insight Poppa J.
Thank you again and Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Jim
Join
Are you sure they were wearing black pajamas and coolie hats, never saw an NVA dressed like that, VC but not NVA
You are correct and this fact will be illuminated in the next segment. The NVA wore bluish gray, sometimes blackish gray uniforms when they were not wearing a deeper shade of green, made of
rough to fine cotton and they wore soft hats with the exception of their leaders.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow what a chapter that is. hope you have a great holaday.
Dave O
And to you Dave.
Thanks for your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
While reading the words “a mass of them ….running at us with wild abandon”, I think I pooped myself with fear – while sitting in my living room. Great chapter. Been waiting a while for this one. Keep ‘em coming, James. Your work is much appreciated.
The next one will be quicker as the action quickens a bit…thanks for the compliment of your wanting more faster….
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you, Raja
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you, I truly enjoy your writings. USA, Quang Tri RVN 1970.
Thank you brother, for that comment and compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Did i miss something because the last part i read you and the company were leaving the old runway in the ONTOS heading for the assault?
Seems like you missed a segment.
The one where we had to climb the back of Hill 975 and then get the hell off of it.
Thanks for writing and try the last bit of book II.
This is the segment:
Twentieth Day
Semper fi,
Jim
Riveting !! Had to go look at the A Shau picture above after my read,trying to imagine your position now… that the gunny was back,you’d taken out the legs of the charging NVA…and yet knowin, my mind’s reeling for Junior once saying, “Don’t go…” then having to call in 27 more brothers,now added to his watch… nothing more than a demon removed from the front burner to teeter there…just waiting at some point, to totter off the edge of Junior’s shelf..Semper fidelis James
This day five years ago, on..12/12/12…I lost my brother, 45 years after he got blowed up to survive. Finally,as one of the walking dead “welcomed back” to the world by his family…only to have Agent Orange pay his last debt, as another victim of Vietnam.In an Oregon convalescent to the voices of a children’s choir singing Christmas carols… another shot is poured, another glass raised in honor of…Loveyabye, brother ♥~☆~♥
Dennis, I too raise my eyes upwards to reflect on your comment, your brother and you here still with us.
May God make his face to smile upon your brother and then beam earthward to warm you hard cold nights.
We are here with your brother…all the way, up the hill…
Semper fi,
Jim
It was so damned hard losing guys later on. I didn’t ‘lose’ them really when I was there. That came later.
My feelings were so contained and cold stonewalled inside me.
Later I would sit on the beach in San Clemente looking out over the surf,
counting the breaking waves one by one, counting off the guys…
Semper fi, and thank you,
Jim
Thanks for another great story. Your words keep me riveted, the clock has no time I know nothing else. I have always held a interest in the Vietnam war. Perhaps because my Father was their in 68 and 69. CSM Robert D Bryson 101St. Airborne as I have mentioned before. I used to hunt out and buy books on Vietnam. But only bought the nonfiction. I still have today NVC canteens, backpacks, belt buckles. As well a NVC officers journal with drawings, pictures of course all written in Vietnamese. I was only 10 years old in 1968 but still remember the horrors of war on the black and white t.v. I have never know the true hell men had to endure. But my respect goes out to all veterans and service men. I was only 8 or 9 having to attend my uncle’s funeral. Being a closed casket. They said he stepped on a booby trap. Lewis Twinn was my uncle’s name that was killed. Being just a kid then I did not understand.
Thanks Randy for this story. Your background is amazing and stirring with respect to how you came
to your interest in the Vietnam War. I understand. Thanks for reading my books and segments here and for taking
the time and trouble to comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well worth the wait LT. Merry Christmas to you and yours….
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Al
Appreciate your support and thoughts.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another compelling chapter. I find myself holding my breath while reading. Happy Holidays to you and yours!
One edit:
I didn’t know or care if I was screaming myself. The speed of my descent was beyond calculation, with everything around me (seemed) to form a dark hole through which I moved, with the moist misery of jungle never giving me anything to focus on. (seeming)
Wow, I am so appreciative of all the sharp eyes.
Corrected, Richard.
Thank you.
Semper fi,
Jim
look forward to each installment
Jim, what I was trying to say was eliminate the AND after both.
This is another great chapter that I truly enjoyed. Glad you got off that hill, but what a wild, scary ride down.
One small edit sir, in paragraph #46 where you are discussing with the Gunny going back to the runway, in sentence 4 “ With the enemy on both AND north and south flanks” else I ate the AND after both.
Excellent writing sir
Semper Fi
Thank you for the compliment and corrected.
Semper fi, Jim
I am really enjoying this entire series, having bought the First Ten Days on Kindle.
I’m a big fan of Jack London and your style reminds me of his short stories. I haven’t waited on installments of a story with such anticipation since my subscription to Fur, Fish, and Game magazine in the early 80s.
Thanks for that great compliment.
I too am a fan of London and also Hemingway,
and I have always hoped to emulate them.
What a pleasure to read what you wrote…
Semper fi, and thanks from the heart.
Jim
Sam Schropp-have you read “To build a fire” by Jack London.?
I love it. I served in the Marines 80-84 & never experienced combat. I will say reading this is probably as close as I will ever come to it & your story writing ability makes me feel like I am there with you. Thank you for your service & I can’t wait for the next installment. Semper Fi
Thanks and I will get the next segment up a lot faster than the last one.
The holidays do wear on us all, not just the family labor, but…well…you probably understand.
Semper fi,
Jim
Uncertainty will always be a part of the taking charge process.
Harold S.Geneen
Another great chapter Lt….
Heisenberg. The Uncertainty Principle….yes, in combat, so complex.
How do you factor in all the variables? You can’t and hence the terrific number of
casualties…
Semper fi,
Jim
No grammar correction from me LT, just a lot of respect sir.
Thank you, been wondering what was going to happen.
thanks for waiting and I will be better this segment in getting it out…
Semper fi,
Jim
Sir, combat is combat!! All hell breaks and stuff happens.
Thank you and great read.
IMO no rewrites needed!
Wow!!
Bob
Thanks for the support Bob and you are sure correct in your analysis.
Semper fi,
Jim
Seemed like only seconds to read but when I scanned back to the top it was long. Great chapter, so riveting.
Yes, it was one of the longer segments, and the next one too…
The second book should be ready to go out by next week, finally.
Unbelievably difficult and analytical job to get it out with any
editing quality!
Semper fi,
Jim
Well, I read “eye” in that paragraph. I was covered in stinking red mud, scared shitless, acting like an Ohio night crawler. I wondered out loud to the grunt in the next hole why the gooks just disappeared. And, I wanted my mommy! Jeez, Lt, can you make it any more real?
I guess you kinda had to be there, like you and a lot of these guys were. My biggest supporters are guys who were there which
has meant a lot to me. The credibility is in the details and then the opinion of the real deal guys. Thanks for the comment, my friend,
Semper fi,
Jim
I was glad to see another chapter. Man, I hate to see them end. That’s good writing. Thanks for another chapter.
Much appreciate the compliment and the intent of it.
Writing away into the night…
Semper fi,
Jim
I was never in the service, But I greatly enjoy your chapters. My brother Bill [hardkohr] was a Pathfinder with the 101st on firebase Ripcord during the siege and fall of that firebase.
Those pathfinder guys were something else, sort of like Force Recon guys. Scary job
and sensitive men.
Semper fi, and thanks for the revelation and comment.
Jim
I opened my phone this morning and found your latest update. I had to get coffee and put life on hold while I read. Your ability to take your readers and put them where you were is nothing short of amazing! I’m taking the first book to my doctor at the VA. Your words will give her some insight into that crazy world.
She is one of the good guys in that medical mess.
THANK YOU!
Big compliment in you getting the segment and then taking a break to read it.
Neat image of you up in the morning too!
thanks for the compliment…
Semper fi,
Jim
Just got it at 5:00 am. Had to read it right then. Very good writing JAMES, keep up the good work.
Five a.m. Man oh man, you guys blow me away with your support.
I am on my 11,979th comment, answering I mean. Wow! Whom would ever have thought.
That you would write that many and I’d be able to answer that many!
thanks you most sincerely,
Semper fi,
Jim
Was having withdrawals.. like when we were in Nam,, Brother once said after a cupple of days without some sort of action,, ge I wish we would get hit.. least ways make us feel like we were here for something rather than just hump around..got so we lived for the action.. your story is doing the same.. it’s tuff waiting for the next installment.
Neat compliment here Bill and I thank you deeply. Withdrawals! I love it! I will try to be your drug dealer here.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Wow, wow, wow,and hope you and the family had a thankful Thanksgiving
Thank you, Bob.
We did and may you and yours enjoy a blessed and Mery Christmas Season
Semper Fi,
Jim
Finally! I’m like a kid at Christmas every time a new installment appears.
Love Christmas. Love the comparison and love the compliment coming out of that comment. Thanks most sincerely
and Merry Christmas.
Semper fi,
Jim
Excellent as always. Suggestion:. The sentence “My world reduced down to the sight my right was plastered to.”. Insert (was) between “world” and “reduced.” Insert “eye” between “right” and “was.”.
You also have a bit of a non sequitur. You are out from under the ontos having your discussion with the Gunny. Your next location is under the ontos working on getting out from under and into it to fire the thing. I assume you all dove under or someplace for cover when the NVA opened up, but putting that in there someplace would make is flow slightly better. Especially for those of us non military types for whom such action is not as obvious as it would have been for you guys.
Thanks for being a part of the editing armada and I am on it tonight…
Thanks most sincerely,
Semper fi,
Jim
I little edit on the Facebook intro “trapped between (the) a tributary of the”
Daaammnnn! Served in the Army artillery 7/13 A btry split trail 105s and 3/6 B btry self propelled 105s central highlands in 66/67. Shot a crapload of heavy missions….thank you for giving perspective on the receiver of support, not necessarily you, but each and every soul out there counted. God bless you for your service, welcome home!
Always love to hear from guys back at the battery who fought so hard twenty-four seven to
give us what we needed in artillery support. Just sorry that there were not more guys equipped to
call it in accurately were not much available…but then you might not have had enough ordnance for all of us!
Thanks for the comment and the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lordy, I dreaded the midnight ammo dump runs, we would be humping like crazy on the zone fire missions. Spent a little time in battalion FDC and it helped to have accurate info. Merry Christmas!
I was born in 1967, in the middle of the Vietnam war. I can remember news stories from the early ’70s showing returning soldiers being spit on, called baby-killers, and a host of other disrespectful things. My entire life, I have made it a point to talk with Vietnam veterans about what they experienced, so that I might better understand the things that happened there. I’ve heard stories of unimaginable horrors and incredible feats of bravery. I’ve been told of hatred for the enemy, the love between brothers in arms, and the pain of returning home to a country that seemed to despise them. I’ve been told what it was like at Khe Sanh and Saigon during the Tet Offensive in ’68, of brothers lost on Hill 937 in the A Shau Valley in ’69, and countless other battles and skirmishes. To those who served in ‘Nam: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for not losing the faith, for fighting against the spread of communism, and for fighting for each other. May the brothers you lost in that place forever rest in peace, and may those of you that made it home alive, in body if not mind, find the peace you deserve in this lifetime.
Having said that, Mr. Strauss, let me say that your story is riveting. Since reading the first part, from day 1, I find myself anxious with anticipation for each new installment. I myself was never able to serve (4F) but take a great deal of pride in my countrymen who have answered the call, voluntary or otherwise. Thanks again to you and your Marines; Semper Fi!
K. Lance Spivey
Well, K. Lance, who could say it better in support of us guys who didn’t and did make it back to the world.
Thanks from the bottom of my heart and from the bottom of a lot of hearts of the guys reading these comments.
Special place here, for you to detail such thoughts and experience.
I know a lot of guys who write on here don’t write much, and hell, many don’t read a lot either.
I take it as a personal compliment that men like you take the time and the effort to
come on here and give straight from the shoulder and heart…
and I thank you…
Semper fi,
Jim
Aloha Jim!
The “tea leaves” you write about are actually “ti leaves” from the ti plant, ubiquitous here in Hawaii. You must have had some balls even as a little kid sliding down Tantalus on ti leaves! Served with 1st Radio Direction Finding at Con Thien last half of ‘69 and attached to 7th Marines at LZ Rose and LZ Ryder through most of 1970. The best book on Vietnam I’ve read.
Thanks, Pineapple! And Mahalo.
I looked up the stuff you wrote and you are absolutely correct.
I never looked up the ti leaves and just assumed that’s what the spelling was.
Yes, we did indeed have some balls as kids flying down those hills you know so well out there.
Thanks for the comment and the education.
Noted and corrected in this chapter and heading back to previous
Semper fi
Jim
WELL POWDER MY BEHIND AND CALL ME A BISCUIT!
A new episode!
After quickly devouring it and all its new twists and turns, my heart is speeding along…
My mind will be busy thinking about the pictures you painted and the newest dilemma you now find yourself in and I know I will again be laying in bed a long time before I will be able to sleep. But when I run across a new episode of yours, I have to read it right away, even when I stumble across it just before I was going to bed.
Thank God for the Ontos, the fly boys, and the artillery.
Who was it that said: “I love it when a good plan comes together.” Was it from “The A-Team” TV show from long ago?
Now if I can figure out how to just wait patiently until the next episode to see how you manage to be a Houdini and extract yourself and your men from this pickle of predicament deep in hostile Indian Territory…
Troubles me that your men lost a lot a equipment on the “slippy slide”…you need resupply STAT…including rounds for the Ontos?
If your next move is North, that is getting you even closer to the DMZ and an even bigger hornets nest?
Battalion command obviously knows you have for an extended time been in constant contact with significant numbers of hostiles…where is the boots on the ground cavalry? What WAS the real purpose of putting your unit there??
Thank you, Jim.
Keep ’em coming, LT.
Oh, and I do with you a Merry Christmas and joyous and blessed upcoming holiday season.
thanks Walter. The next book comes out next week I hope. Finally.
And the analytical work to produce a decent book is something indeed.
Thanks for the comment and the lengthy detail you lay out about your own
thoughts and feelings.
Semper fi, brother, and Merry Christmas to you and your family….
Jim
I don’t know how you do it, Strauss. You should by rights by drained dry with all the molten words, phrases, thoughts and emotions you crank out everyday. Every hour of every day, it seems even. Your newspaper and your Face Book posts and your short stories and your incomparable TDHS tome. And this chapter was a hold-your-breath-and-hang-on addition to that work. I’m gladdened by the extent you go to in describing what it’s like to be caked in mud. You have the advantage of having an audience who knows this feeling to a much greater degree than the average author. I had mentioned in an earlier comment the same response relating to what it’s like being constantly cold and wet, with zero likelihood of drying out soon. Mud is even worse. Mud gets inside your knickers, too, and your boots, and your mouth, and you haven’t got a dry, clean digit anywhere to dig it out. “Mud caked Marines”, you said. Nailed it. Again. Thanks.
SF, Conway
Conway. You come sliding back through the door on a spilled out layer of verbal mud….and I love it.
Thanks for the detail of describing the detail of what I present.
Yeah, I guess I could not write it at all if I wasn’t on that ship up to my neck and higher.
I think very few guys came back in any kind of shape to be able to write it all down on paper.
I was really lucky brainspan-wise.
thanks for your support and the compliment of your own writing…
Semper fi,
Jim
Man that put some excitement in my evening. Wow I realized I had read some of it over and over just to get that thrill. Thank You very much!!
Thanks to you and so many others.
Would appreciate your sharing this with friends on Social Media,
in town and everywhere.
Semper fi,
Jim
Again , another heart shaking chapter !! I was some distance from a Moab , so I can imagine what artillery was about!! Thank you Sir !!!
Thank you, James.
semper fi,
Jim
Another heart pounder . Thanks Marine Semper fi
Appreciate your support, Roger.
Remeber to share with your friends.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great chapter, Thank you! I just learned that one of my mom’s cousins was Marine artillery the year before you were there. Here is a potential edit for you “enemy on both and north and south flanks”, remove the first and.
Thanks for the compliment.
Your edit noted and corrected.
Semper fi,
Jim
Oh, my! What a gripping story! I’m grinning at you guys with your dead-eye shooting! I can’t wait for more. I was telling some people at the doctors office about the Ontos, and they asked didn’t we have any more of them to point at North Korea. Had to tell them I think we crushed them all when we left Vietnam.
Very much like the A-1 Skyraider!
Thanks for your support, Bill
Semper fi,
Jim
We’ve waited patiently for another unreal chapter, scary as hell. Your combat days about over.
Was glad you are at it . Everyone needs a break now and then. Nice come back.
Thanks, Fred.
More coming.
Semper fi, Jim
Absolutely amazing how your writing can make me feel as if I’m right there with you. Great work Junior! Snatched your company from the jaws of death one more time. Semper Fidelis Sir!
Appreciate your support and compliment, Skeeter.
Be sure to share with friends.
Semper fi,
Jim
Good reading Lt i need more
No edits, but thanks from an ol 173rd airborne fella, who fought alongside marines – albeit in different slug feats!
We were so thankful to Airborne, Keith.
Share the story with your friends.
Thanks you,
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
In hindsight, you have to wonder at the combination of luck, instinct, experience and wiliness that allowed you to survive the sh*t you went through. Even a multi-tour veteran would have had a difficult time surviving what you went through in the A Shau valley – as is evidenced by Gunny. I know it didn’t end well, but it sounds like, in the end, you were a very lucky man.
Sorry you had to go through all that, but it makes a hell of a read. Thanks!
Rick Steans
Pleiku AB, 1966
Thank you, Rick.
I really appreciate you and the others who take their time and share in the comment section.
Survival is an interesting word.
Semper fi,
Jim
Keep em’ coming, I haven’t missed any of them. Thank you Jim
In the eighth paragraph from the bottom, last sentence: “…my right was plastered to.” Did you leave out the word “eye”? Should it read, “…my right eye was plastered to.”?
So noted and corrected,
Thanks
Semper fi,
jim
short paragrahs work better…
Thanks Joe, I know there is a compliment in what you said somewhere….and I don’t calculate the paragraphs. I’m just not that
good. I just write away and do it by feel. Sorry, and I try to get better all the time.
Semper fi,
Jim
You wrote: My world reduced down to the sight my (right) was plastered to.
Suggested edit: change “right” to “right eye”
Caught it and corrected.
Thank you
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim… For clarity for non-military readers, you might want to insert “gun” ahead of “sight”. The sentence would read: My world reduced down to the gun sight my right eye was plastered to.
Great call, Steve W
Noted and corrected
Again, thanks for your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
another suspenseful chapter where the twists continue to surprise… One suggested edit:
You wrote: Shells were impacting too close for the indirect fire to be raining down on the near side of the hill until I realized that Ripcord (as) off at a northeasterly angle further north. Change “as” to “was”
Thanks, Steve.
Noted and corrected.
Semper fi,
Jim
WOW what a chapter. Well worth the wait.
Hopefully, the remainder will come a bit faster.
The final Ten Days are a tough memory.
Appreciate you and so many other loyal supporters, Pete.
Semper fi,
Jim
At Last! I am like a junkie, and man did I need that fix! I think this may be the most intense installment you have written yet. What a way to start off the last book.
Jim, your story telling just keeps getting better and better.. and then I realize you were right in the middle of it. My admiration for you and your men just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
Meant to ask about The Second Ten Days, when will it go on sale on Amazon?
Rob, we are hoping for the week of December 18th…
Not making excuses but a few things caused a slight delay.
Appreciate your support
Semper fi,
Jim
Again, Rob, thank you for your input and support.
It helps bringing this back a bit easier to endure.
Semper fi,
Jim
So very excited to see the start of the third ten days!! When will the Second Ten Days be coming out in print, I need to add it to my copy of The First Ten Days. We sure could have put some of those flechette rounds to good use in Iraq in 2003!
All the respect in the world for you and your men.
Andrew Luder, SSG, Army (Ret.)
Thanks, Andrew, for your support.
The Second Days ‘should ‘ be available in digital and print week of December 18th
Fingers crossed.
Semper fi,
Jim
Marine officers who respect and accept guidance from their “Gunny” can storm the very Gates of Hell itself.
I know. I’ve lived it.
An because I’m reading about it everytime you, Sir; put pen to paper.
Semper Fidelis, Marine.
And Merry Christmas..!
Thanks for time reading and writing your input, Thomas.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Semper fi,
Jim
Riviting. Absolutely the best I have every read about our soldier and Marines in combat. Outstanding.
Thank you, Tim.
Please share with friends who may have an interest.
Semper fi,
Jim
just wow! is all I can say. amazing read
Thanks, Don.
Really appreciate everyone’s support.
Share with friends that the Digital Version can be purchased
here, onsite.
Digital First Ten Days
semper fi,
Jim
You’ve done it again Sir, saved your Marines and managed to kill a sh*t pot load of the enemy to boot. This was worth the wait. Semper Fidelis LT.
Really appreciate your support, Mike.
More coming soon.
Semper fi,
Jim
Oustanding
Thank you, Mark
Great chapter as always. I had to remember to breath while reading.
Hope all is well with the breathing.
I am humbled by the support from readers like yourself.
Semper fi,
Jim
You made my day, James! Thank you for another rousing chapter.
Here’s a few suggested edits;
As I heard the (heave) rumble and drone of big radial engines. Believe you meant “heavy”.
Wasn’t being tossed upward by the concussion of the (fiver) hundreds would have caused. Did you mean “five”?
Until I realized that Ripcord (as) off at a northeasterly angle. Should be “was”.
Mele Kalikimaka to you and your family!
Noted and Corrected, Bob
Thank you,
Semper fi,
Jim
You know it’s well written when reading it makes you feel like you were there.
Small edit: “My world reduced down to the sight my right was plastered to.” I believe that the word eye should follow right
Hurray you’re back and in good form! Kicking butt and taking no prisoners to boot, lol.
Since the skyraiders are going to be on call most of the day, you should be able to move the Ontos and keep Charlie on the run, until you can find cover within the underbrush.
While Gunny needed to appease his crushed ego, you can bet he was thanking his lucky stars that he made it off of hill 975 alive for the time being. Even though he has questioned every plan that you have come up with, he has to admit to himself, that you have saved his bacon on more then one occasion.
Once again, you have become a lucky charm for the rest of the company, by getting them off the hill of death, albeit with a crazy ride down the mountain. They may like the Gunny, but they appear to have found new respect for junior.
Well, Lambert, you have a unique way of commenting on here that I find most satisfying and entertaining.
The lucky charm. Yes, I remember that a bit but also the darker side I had to have to deal
with the young silently growling predators they’d become.
We’d become. I did not look like an alpha male. I did not talk like one either.
But there I was, having metamorphosed from an easygoing college kid into whatever it was that I became.
And then the long road back pulling myself one tiny step at a time from that
ever advancing brink of death. That brink that is still out there in my forest at night, waiting, waiting…
Thanks for the comment and the meaning evident all over it…
Semper fi,
Jim
As I’ve read these stories, I’ve been mentally thinking what you and Gunny along with the others must have looked like and come to the idea that if this ever becomes a movie, someone like Sam Elliot would be the best pick to play the Gunny. Keep it up. This tells me what those soldiers and Marines who came onto the AF bases where I served had been through. It also reminds me of why I at times wanted to kick the asses of some AF NCOs and second Lieutenants who ran the chow halls and etc. when they didn’t want to serve those soldiers and Marines until they had cleaned up from their time in the jungle.
Wow. That comment is like hitting a home run. Out of the park, man. Top of the world, Ma! Yes, those guys in the rear that were like that,
and then when I finally got back to the hospital and then on down to Pendleton. I had to bear down hard and not kill them. And they could not know that I wanted to so badly. Like the guys in that chow line. The only thing that kept your people alive was the simple fact that when killing because a daily and nightly necessity then pulling back from it is a relief…and you don’t want to do it anymore…unless you just have to.
Semper fi, and thanks for such a terrific and deep comment.
Jim
Sam Elliot is too damn old – think he’s 78 or so. Maybe Woody Haraldson….
Clif Stone
Grunt, First Battalion, Ninth Marines
Delta Co, Third Platoon
Vietnam, ‘65-‘66
I’m on the edge of my seat with every sentence. Semper Fidelis.
Thank you Mark!
I was scrolling my email when low and behold my eyes captured another chapter! I couldn’t get it open fast enough! Another awesome chapter! We had a family friend who was in the Army engineers in Nam.He ran a dozer digging up or burying the NVA’s tunnels. He said when they heard the rattling of the dozer tracks, they would boot from their holes. He said it was like a shooting gallery and hunting cat squirrels at the same time! Plenty of targets to shoot at but if you didn’t pick em up as soon as you shot em they disappeared! Semper Fi!!! Patiently waiting on the next chapter!
Bolt not boot.
Thanks for your patience.
Appreciate your sharing with friends.
Semper fi,
Jim
My thoughts exactly.
Wow, you saw one of the rarest sights over there. Actual bodies being mowed down. We found blood trails and occasional body parts but rarely did we see whole bodies. Knowing they were KIA but not finding the remains was a source of much frustration to us. That ONTOS was one bad mo-fo. Keep it coming LT keep it coming:)
Yes, it was three weeks before I really saw enemy dead in numbers, aside from the two women earlier, and other body parts. They were as dedicated at getting to and collecting their dead as we Marines were, and some times more effective.
Thanks for the great comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well, ya gotta admit flying down that chute was better than having to run that far! And was a lot faster than running! Spent enough time along the DMZ at Con Thien (2Bn,1st Marines)that I got well acquainted with artillery, ours and theirs. Seemed like most of the ‘artie’ that came within our positions was allegedly “friendly”! Course, there really ain’t nothing that can be called “Friendly Fire”! Ain’t friendly at all!
Artillery was tough in the Nam because it depended so much on subjective talent out in harsh circumstance.
How many guys really got it good enough, in one short school, to go practice in Vietnam without killing all those around him?
Not many, and hence why more fire was not called for.
Thanks for the comment and the sentiment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Well worth the wait! 🦅🇺🇸
Thank you, Tommy.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks James for another chapter, hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Wish you and your Family a Merry Christmas
Thanks for the update. I didn’t think it could get more exciting but I was wrong.
Thanks James.
Thanks for that Dave. Much appreciate…
Semper fi,
Jim
I saw one round from a 106 flechette cause 75 casualties. So e KIA and most just wounded. Those little darts are bad news.
If the enemy was foolish enough to expose themselves to either the 106 or 105 flechette rounds they were toast.
Nobody, once those rounds were brought on line ever attacked them again directly from 69 on …
Semper fi,
Jim
I’ve been waiting eagerly for this next chapter. You left us all Hanging when they hit the chute… I was not disappointed… Your mastery of suspense combined with the action is first rate! Can’t wait for the next one.
My ‘mastery’ probably has more to do with my ability to describe what happened than to coming up with new adventures.
It was just one of those peculiar times and places in the universe…
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow. Well worth waiting for. Exciting read. The personalities are developing nicely too.
Thanks for the compliment here and for writing it in public…
Semper fi,
Jim
Well worth the wait! Merry Christmas to You & Yours.
Thanks Jim, means a lot to me…
Semper fi,
Jim
absolutely riveting!
Thank you, Tony.
Semper fi,
Jim
Ontos – a magical weapon if you weren’t one of the men who had to get out and reload it! Saw one fire 4 tubes at once and obliterate a patch of jungle and the NVA and their machine gun – POOF!
Yes, the Ontos was also a target of opportunity for RPG fire. Its armor was not thick enough
to survive a rocket hit. Thanks for the accurate and informative comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
Childhood games for combat survival. I wonder how many of us experienced that epiphany. I can honestly say I never made the connection in my own experience.
So you pushed Jurgens and Gunny down that chute? I missed that. Very good read Lt.
Funny how that worked. Whatever I could cage together and use to stay alive, I did.
Thanks for noticing and caring here…
Semper fi,
Jim
So very many great comments.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Glenn.
Thanks Glenn. Yea, there have been some really great comments and Merry Christmas to you…
Semper fi,
Jim
Great ride, and read. Checking Amazon daily for the paperback version of Second Ten Days. Thanks LT
Seriously looking for mid to late next week.
Thanks for your support, Jim.
Semper fi,
Jim
A great victory for you LT! And great writing as usual!
Another heart stopping chapter! Semper Fi Jim, Merry Christmas!
Appreciate all the support and Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Semper fi,
Jim
I saw one round from a 106 flechett cause 75 casualties som Kia the others wounded
The Skyraiders flew off, one after another. I pulled my face from the mud to look at the smoking pyre they {left} behind them.
Add “left”
then hook back (to) toward the southern peak,
Remove “to”
It’s good to have the Gunny back !!!!
A compelling read once again James !!
SEMPER Fi
Thanks and corrected.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks, Bob.
Corrected
Semper fi,
Jim
Just finished another great chapter. Great work Jim. ‘68-69 3MARDIV. Spent months in the Asha area. I was never actually in it but the living conditions were all the same in that area so your descriptions induce an immersion effect.
Can’t wait for the next chapter.
Thank you for your comment sharing your experiences.
More coming soon.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks, for the amazing well done concise recollection. Was worth the wait, but family first, and may your Holidays be great. Semper Fi.
Really appreciate the compliment, Terrance.
These mean a lot and make me realize how many endured.
A joyous Christmas season for you and your family.
Let’s focus on keeping that spirit 365.
Semper fi,
JIm
Corrected and Thanks Again.
Bob, Merry Christmas
Semper fi
Jim
Another wonderful segment , I have been waiting for the next move you’ll have to make, please keep them coming
I took my face out of the mud to look at the pyre they behind them. I do believe you “ left “ a word out.
Noted and corrected.
Thanks, Frank.
Semper fi,
Jim
Excellent Jim…Must have been hell for you guys with the last second decisions that you have to make..Keep the good writing cominhg!!!!!!!
Noted and corrected.
Thanks Stan
Semper fi,
Jim
Excellent, of course! Your writing of going down that chute is so descriptive, I felt like I was truly on a roller coaster ride, butterflies in the stomach and screaming at every turn. What a God given gift you have and His healing purpose for you and for others is so evident in all of the comments you receive and reply to on each segment. You are telling your story for those who can not bare to tell their story and you are also opening up the true reality of what really happen in Vietnam for those who were not there then and the generations since. Thank you and God Bless you for what you are doing.
Prayers for you always,
Nancy
THE Nancy Henderson. What to say to you. Thank you seems a bit light. But there you are. The God delivered Godsend.
Thanks for always being here and there for me.
Semper fi,
Jim
Been so jonesing for a new chapter. Thanks Jim
Fantastic, you actually make me feel like I’m looking over your shoulder watching and hearing everything that’s happening
Thanks Frank, for the great compliment. Much appreciate you liking my work and coming back for more.
Semper fi,
Jim
killing the NVA buried down (in) their deep tunnels
Thanks again for the sharp eyes, Michael.
Corrected.
Semper fi,
Jim
But what if they figure (out) this new move because they can sure as hell see down the side of that hill?”
Well, there is always that risk, Michael. Combat is merely the best choice to be made from a bunch of risky bad choices.
Semper fi,
Jim
Splendid. . .wanting more.
More coming very soon…
Thanks for your support, Bob
Semper fi,
jim
until I realized that Ripcord (w)as off at a northeasterly angle further north.
Yes, Mike, you have to get the feel of that part of the valley to understand the perspective.
I wish I had included a map but I could not find one that really did the job. Thanks for your comments.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you and corrected.
Glad to see you back. Hope all is well.
Yes, I am back and well. Thank you so much for caring Jlb.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt. look forward to every post. Did 19 months on patrol boats 67-68. Different but the same. Great work.
Been watching for a new episode.
Glad your back. Been watching or a new episode. Another great chapter and still on the edge of my seat.
They will show up a bit sooner.
Thanks for your support, Bob.
Semper fi,
Jim
I pulled my face from the mud to look at the smoking pyre they LEFT behind them.
Corrected.
Thanks Michael
I came into this early in the first ten days and my interest has not abated in the least. I wonder what I will do when September is finished. I can’t call it an adventure but it certainly is captivating.
Thank you, Dean, for your continued support.
Semper fi, Jim
Well Jim…it was a long time coming but well worth the wait…again you put us right there with you…covered in that damn mud…and scared shitless…you were both lucky and good…
outstanding writing again sir…I am waiting on the book to be on Amazon…
More coming soon.
The First Ten Days is on Amazon.
We are hoping the Second Ten Days be availble next week.
Semper fi,
Jim
Purchased First Ten Days the first day it was available…anxiously await the Second Ten Days…
Thanks for all the hard work during the Christmas Season…
Thanks for the attaboy and I will stay at it. My people on here drive the writing.
Semper fi, and Merry Christmas….
Jim
I had been sliding so long, but worth it, welcome back Jim.
Some paragraph spacing and…
The Skyraiders flew off, one after another. I pulled my face from the mud to look at the smoking pyre they (left) behind them.
I could barely hear myself, which meant that the Marines outside the Ontos had to be having problems too. (Add after the shot)
I hit the turret button again…
Thanks and corrected, Mike S
Semper fi,
Jim
Good morning Jim, I gave my oldest son the “First Ten Days” to read, when I ask him what he though, his only word was “Intense”. That one word kind of some the story up, I know he love it. Marry Christmas to you and your family.
Between 2nd and 3rd paragraph need double space and these two paragraphs.
It was almost impossible to figure out who was jammed under the machine’s protection, as the passage down the slope had covered every Marine with layers of mud. The mud was the cloying volcanic kind that was more red than brown or black and nearly impossible to remove without rinsing with large amounts of water.
The Gunny stared into my eyes. I didn’t need to see the features of his face clearly in the diminished light or through the layers of mud. The Gunny’s eyes were darkly distinguished and identifiable, and they were filled with anger.
My son wanted to know when “The Second Ten Days” would be out and said buy it. I said some and I will…
As of today, December 21, it looks like the Paperback and Digital
will be available for ordering and delivery tomorrow.
Thanks for your patience
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for sharing the book with your son, Mike.
I hope many younger people will eventually read and grasp the concept of war.
Correction in place.
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Semper fi,
Jim