I holstered Tex’s Colt .45 automatic that I had used half my canteen water to boil clean earlier. I had no oil but I knew there had to be some kept by others in the company I could get later. The Colt would operate just fine with no oil at all but only as long as it remained clean, which wouldn’t be for long if the last twenty days and nights were an example.
The brush was thick and wedged well back into the cleft but, working with Fusner and Zippo, while Nguyen faced outward to watch for trouble, it took less than twenty minutes to clear a space where we could all lay down our poncho covers and get through the night. The rain had lessened somewhat but, since it was monsoon season, the rain was never going to leave entirely, for at least the remainder of the month. I’d seen to the wounded and the dead. Morphine had made the visits not quite so agonizing, as the pain from the burns of white phosphorus were dulled to the point where those Marines that had them just breathed so slow and deep it seemed they were as lifeless as the dead.
Thanks James for writing this. I look forward to each chapter. From someone who was never there I am some what understanding why my brother (in the 199th LIB 69/70) wrote home to me to “stay in school, you don’t want no parts of this shit”. I can not comprehend how you guys delt with the day to day terror and struggles with not only the fighting but dealing with mother nature that you endured. Thanks for your service sir and relating what our service men endured. Mac
Thanks for your support in the reading and writing about it on here R.
Semper fi,
Jim
jim]
how many times have you heard someone say if i had his money i could do things my way’. little they no that’s its so hard to find 1 rich man in ten with a satisfied mind’.[porter wagner]. i do belive one of the hardest thing with man to no when is enough enough.i did love the retail business.building a customer base’having new people from outside your little isolated peace of earth.my most loyal were the alcoholic who would come in and wouldnd give you no shit new what they wanted payed and left.it was illegal to sell booze back then on a sunday but i always took care of them.IT WASNT ABOUT THE MONEY i couldnd handle the pain they were going through.and but for the grace of god it mite of been me.judie still improving.get all her hose;es taken out next week. when shes gotten well enough i want to come up and catch some wallies.i wish i could send you and your readers some words of profound wisdom but as you know I’m just a pfc. your friend omer
Omer. I shall have a boat ready and waiting. You will have to help me catch a fish because I am clueless about how to do that.
I prayed a prayer of thanks for God’s listening to my first prayer about Judie. That’s my arrogance, of course, that God might
actually hear my prayer for this woman I’ve never met, for the wife of a man I do not really know. And then more arrogance in
praying again to thank him. I am glad you are built the way your built Omer. I may not be as good a man as you private, but it feels
uncommonly good to think you think I am that good.
Semper fi,
Jim
In the immortal words of Oliver Twist: “More, please sir.”
s/f Steve
I will finish the next segment today, I promise Steve….
Semper fi,
Jim
So where is the next chapter that was promised by James on March 13th?
It is up tonight and Chuck is working on getting it on site by the morning. His wife is ill and that’s slowing him.
this is the most edited segment I have done so far through all the story. I am not sure about the segment because I reworked and reworked
to get it just right and I am not at all sure I did. At that time I was feeling like the bleak dark life I was living had a total control over
every bit of what I did and only my thoughts were free to roam…but every time I tried to think the thoughts would not come, only the next action
of the unstoppable and awful unfolding of chains and chains of dark events. I thought of you when I thought about that letter to Alice I unaccountably put
in my helmet. I wanted to bring Chance and Alice closer to me, to my cranium and inside where I was hiding, lived, survived. I think that of you J.
How can distance be closed and why is there this barrier among and between us all? I feel like I am not measuring up if I don’t hurry up but then, when I hurry up,
I can’t put it up on the site the way it is. I was done with this segment before the 13th and then I just kept going back every night. Every night until this night
because my emotional state was a mess. I’d pull up the segment and get ready to rewrite and then sit in front of the monitor like an idiot. Staring at the letters and
words without being able to really see the letters and words. I diddled with the bills, the cat, my big ball of rubber bands that is always falling apart. I have this letter from
Alice, after the war, too. She was a secretary for an insurance agent at the base in San Diego while V.C. and I were in Vietnam. She was so kind in writing after I wrote her from Yokosuka hospital.
I always have wondered what was in the rest of that letter I got off to Macho Man later, but
I could not ask her back then, and now I’ve lost track of her through time. You are laying there in that departing condition J, and it’s like you are being hoisted up on that wall that day
and I can’t do any more for you than I did for V.C.
Semper fi,
Jim
A lot said and understood, both in this chapter and your remarks here.
While most people know one day they will die, they never think much about death until it is staring them in the face. Then and only then, do they face the emotional battles that take place within the human mind.
Those thoughts can be overwhelming, if you dwell on them. Not only did you face them in the A Shau, but are also having to relive them once again, as you write your story. It was traumatic for you in the valley and it is traumatic for you now. You lost friends and acquaintances over there, but you lived.
It would seem that you carry a lot of guilt about living, when they did not. You try to deal with and justify that guilt, by belittling yourself or taking the blame for their death.
What you need to understand and accept, is the fact that those men were destined to die, whether you were there or not! You certainly did not plan their demise. In fact, you were not only trying to save your own skin, but also the men who were serving with you. That is an undeniable truth!
As for me Jim, my time has come as well and I have accepted that fact. Nothing you could do or say, would change that outcome. At present, I am doing just as you did while in the bush, living day to day, knowing that my time will soon come to an end here on this planet. However, I know that is not the end of my life, as my spirit will still live on and ascend to my Master.
When you live with that knowledge, there is no longer a sting, as far as human death is concerned. Those men who died over in NAM, no longer have to deal with the fear and pain or emotional trauma that human life offers. Their battle is over.
I read your writing thoughtfully. I am not sure I always understand it. I don’t see a belittling of myself because I see it as revealing the truthful thoughts of
selfishness and seeking of approval that might keep me alive with the other guys. I did tell V.C. the truth and part of that gambling revelation should have clued him
in as to my truth for him. I was telling he that we were not trying to limit the number of his men dying because we cared about that. We were doing it so we could minimize
our own losses in getting the bodies down and medicated. Yes, those losses of men and friends and whatever the other ones were cut dearly into my psychology. When I was back in the
world and out of the hospital and then the Corps I thought it would all go away. But I have been converted into a player. A man who’d lived reality only to come back to the unreal
phenomenal world. There was to be no adjusting to that other than to use iron discipline not to use my developed talents for surviving combat back here to solve problems.
I fit in by being a faker and I don’t think i have ever changed. I ended up in the CIA because my mother was right when she stood at Chicken Joes up in DePere Wisconsin that night.
She replied, when it was finally revealed to her that i was not a drug dealer. She said: “I just knew, if you ever found something that rewarded you for lying then you’d do well.”
She had defined the CIA of course, not to my good feelings or celebration of the day. You have faith and I am so happy about that. I have faith but it is by no means the stature of your own.
So, I pray, in my broken way, that God will have you go on for my own selfish reasons. I do not have that many of what you are in my life. And I really can’t answer the question, if it was
put to me, of exactly what you are….
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
This is a quote from a Facebook group called Que Son Valley Contractors. I could not help but think about the LT.
I’d rather kiss a barracuda than eat another can of ham and mothers.
Ken Brown
USMC 68-70
1st MAW
MACS 4
Funny Ken, but I wonder what it would be like to eat a can of those again. I truly liked
them but I wonder how I would feel now.
Semper fi,
Jim
Looking forward to the next chapter, and the remaining ones in the Third Ten Days. I’m sure it is very difficult for you, heck, just by where we’re sitting in the story, you know bad things are coming-worse than what we’ve heard. For one, we know you’re wounded severely. I also have a lot ‘invested’ in a couple of the main “characters” and hope they survive. Keep it up Sir. Just a suggestion when you’re done with the Third 10 Days, maybe make available a boxed set with some kind of interesting concept.
Yes, to all that Jim!
Managing the books I currently have for sale becomes an analytical exercise of monumental size,
and I only have six of them. Soon to be seven. The editing does not stop because they were not perfect going in.
The shipping and the postage and transportation to the post office every day. Shit.
Those big publishers that don’t really accept new work anymore really used to have a lot of work.
Thanks for understanding and being patient…
Semper fi,
Jim
please james write the book the war will be over before u get done
I am writing the book. It’s free, remember? And that makes the burden less for me, which is important for the story, as things get stickier and stickier as we head toward the end of book III. For the story and for me in the writing. Sorry, but there it is.
Semper fi, and thanks for wanting more faster…
JIM
i was trying to bring a little humor to a difficult task,as far as being free, i beg to differ, a very heavy price was paid
thanks to all the veterans
Understand, Siggy.
Thanks for the support.
semper fi, Jim
Good response – I ASSuME this was meant to be a joke on his part.
Thanks for the assumption Bob!
Semper fi,
Jim
The war will never be over for James and others who served in that hell hole.
Yes, that is an accurate statement known by so many of us who were there.
Thanks for sharing that and thanks for liking the work.
Semper fi,
Jim
There is a T-shirt that is advertised on Facebook that applies to many…..it says, “I was in Vietnam…….sometimes I still am.”
Guys, everytime Jim sits down to write, he has to go back, often for days and weeks, and then when finished, constantly edits and replies to comments, so he stays there while we can disassociate after 45 minutes or an hour. Let’s all cut him some slack. Semper Fi!
Thank you Joe, as I finished this segment. You have hit the nail on the head and I don’t
know how to apologize to guys and gals who are waiting so very patiently.
Semper fi,
Jim
You don’t owe anyone an apology. I just appreciate your sharing this story and this part of you with us. The story will finish when it is finished. Hurryin’ ain’t a gonna help.
Thanks Joe, really appreciate that. Really.
Jim
Hey James , I’m reading 12 Strong , about the opening days of the war in Afganistan & it seems the Green Barets were just pissing in the wind , try to direct fire on Taiban positions , even with range finding binoculars & maps. Eventually using lasers to paint the targets so the JDAM ordinance could hit the targets. Also I tried to research your friendly fire mishap where 22 marines were killed, on Google , without success
George, I much appreciate your attention to detail and your care and interest in the writing.
I am not writing a historical document with these books.
I prefer to spend my dotage on a couch or on a beach and not sitting on a bench checking out a prison yard!
It’s fiction. The truth will kill you.
It almost did me, the first time around.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another good response – I vote beach, couch (or bar stool)
I am with you all the way Bob….
Semper fi,
Jim
JIM; GOT judie home from her kidney transplant.i appreciated your prayers for her.after 50 years of her putting up with my shit its my turn to have to clean up her shit.now i no what my corpsman had to put up with me when i had to stay on my stomach for a month.hard to poop laying on your stomach.had all my skin taken off my back to put on my legs.skin graffs are a bitch especially when infection sets in.i still hate that dr that told me it was the thing to do while i was still in nam at the field hospital in da nang.got to oak knoll in time for then to strip all the dressing off my back.i think it was like it was when the apache captured you way back when.no one slept that night with me screming.i had a corpsman who told me if i would wait for the next shift
to dig the crap out of me he would take me fishing.i got my first pass from the hospital and he kept his word.his folks had a cabin up on donner pass just off i80. it was spiritual sight.i just got done reading[down in the valley].ive spent some time at bellows with judie was a typipal tourist.i would chatch a hop out of travis to Hickam.jude an i were cheap traveler hopping all over;korea japan Singapore Australia England Germany was great times.better close so you can get back to being jr were all waiting on next chapter.[ your friend ] omer
Well, Omer, it would appear the prayers worked, at least in saving her life, but now you have to pay the piper, so to speak.
I am overjoyed. Met with Ron today and had to tell him the truth. I am not going back to the Nam. Just can’t do it.
Like going back to the wall in D.C. Just not in me. I’d like to do it just for you but that probably is not a good reason
to do such a thing, particularly since you’ve already been before. I don’t want to go to where all those guys died.
I don’t know what that means or makes me in life but I’d rather go to Bellows beach in Hawaii and tip a toddy to them
than to step back into that valley…no matter how much it is changed.
Thanks for thinking of me, though, as I am thinking of you…
Semper fi
Your friend,
Jim
5th paragraph:”The smell would attract bugs, maybe even leeches if the leeches had as little taste as I did, but the action would be smoother, at least for a while, and I lived only from one ‘a while’ to another.?
You might consider changing both of those “a while”s to “awhile”s. might read a little easier. I think awhile is an actual word. Of course, smoother reading might not be real high on your list…..