As noted earlier there was a serious problem with getting needed supplies out to the front lines. The rear echelon troops lived very well. Our country’s military experience in Vietnam may have been unique in that there were very many troops in the rear doing a variety of tasks, and the minority of in-country troops seemed to be in combat units. I have read reports after the war that between 70 and 80 percent of the in-country military assignments were to service and support units in the rear. That means that probably ninety percent of the casualties came from about 25% of the troops — the Army and Marine Grunts. When you consider this lopsidedness in the assignment of military personnel in Vietnam the casualty rate for the infantry can be appreciated. It was very high in most combat units. I’ve also read that the average age of soldiers in Vietnam was 19, while the average age of WWII troops was 26.
Many troops in the rear enjoyed a near stateside standard of living. Many had quarters with beds, TVs and stereos, three squares a day, cold beer and soda, USO clubs nearby, and basically an eight hour job each day. Many of the offices and officer quarters in the rear had air conditioning. There was an extreme dichotomy between the combat troops and rear echelon folks. Rear echelon soldiers were derisively called REMFs by the grunts.
10 Souvenirs of War Moving On Up To The DMZ 11 When I was approved for a five day (including travel time) R&R in late October 1968 I had to get back to Da Nang however possible. This was finally accomplished on the return flight of a supply and medivac helicopter. Transportation was completely up to the individual. Once in Da Nang I hitched rides on military trucks and made it to a friend’s unit. I had dinner at a Marine unit in Da Nang the night before I was to fly to Hawaii for R&R. In the mess hall there was a long line of Marines in new jungle boots and pressed utilities — even camouflage utilities, which we didn’t even have in the field yet. My utilities were dirty and ripped, though I was to be issued a new uniform the next day for my trip to Hawaii.
A young Marine standing behind me in the chow line made the comment “Jesus Christ, we’re having roast beef and potatoes again?!” I just lost it. I slugged him and jumped on him calling him a sorry son-of-abitch and that while he’s living the great life with hot food and cold beer other guys just like him were dieing and living in misery. A couple of nearby Marines had to pull me off because I just kept hitting him. I remember him saying I was crazy as he left the mess hall. Perhaps I was. After all it was a very illogical thing on my part to have done; we were all on the same side. None of us had asked to be there. We were all American youth that would much rather have been somewhere, almost anywhere, else. But he wasn’t one of “us” — he just didn’t get it. After that I had no desire to have anything to do with the REMFs, They were on a different planet. They had their important job to do, and we had ours. But the tasks were so different and the gulf between us so wide that it precluded understanding of the others’ problems and gripes.
All servicemen in Vietnam were given a five-day period called R&R — rest and relaxation — which could be taken outside of the country. The military would provide air transport for those who chose to leave the country — which of course most did. There were several approved destinations; Sydney, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and Honolulu being three of the more popular destinations. I chose Honolulu because family had arranged to meet me there. Hawaii was obviously wonderful. Walking down the street the first time and feeling absolutely safe in doing so was a very strange feeling. I remember hearing the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” for the first time on a street side café jukebox and just loving it. It’s still one of my favorite songs to this day. Some family members and my future wife met me there for a vacation-type gathering. I rented a Mustang convertible and drove all over the island of Oahu, and spent a lot of time lying on Waikiki Beach. I visited Pearl Harbor and took in some shows with hula dancers and other trappings of traditional Hawaiian music, dance and customs. Not once did the topic of the war come up in conversation. Getting back on the plane returning to Vietnam was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was so depressed and down I couldn’t even force a smile when someone took my picture as I was about to depart. I knew without a doubt that I would not be back.
Once back at the Da Nang air base I had to figure out a way to get out to my unit, which was on an unknown mountain top somewhere in the far northwest part of the country. First, I got on a military plane going to Quang Tri. Once there, I checked in with what was a headquarters for the helicopter units to see if any supply or medivac choppers were heading out to G 2/9. I was told that there weren’t any flights planned for a couple of days due to weather, but that my help was needed in a Huey gunship (due to a temporary shortage of door gunners, as I recall). For two days I was a window gunner on a Huey. We flew missions in support of medivacs out into the area northwest of Quang Tri, which is fairly hilly. I recall flying very fast at near treetop level. This was to avoid being seen by the NVA until the last minute. Helicopters are very susceptible to being brought down even by rifle fire. On one trip we followed a twisting river through a valley. We were very low and flying very fast, twisting back and forth following the river through the hills. It was quite a ride. We were shot at a couple of times and I returned fire but I doubt if I even came close to hitting anything. I also remember doing hard labor at the Quang Tri base, digging fighting holes in the hard rocky and clay soil with a pick axe while waiting for a chopper ride back to my unit. Because it was in the rear I actually had a delicious cold beer to drink while swinging the pickaxe. It’s amazing how everyday things can seem so wonderful when you’ve lost them for awhile and then get them back. Absence makes the heart grow fonder for just about everything — from cold beer to loved ones.
I finally got on a chopper that was going out to G Company and returned to the mountains around the first of November. (I also recall getting an absentee ballot from home some time before this and voting in my first election, while sitting under a tree in the rain on a mountain top in northwestern South Vietnam).
From that point until late March I never experienced the comforts of civilization again. We left the mountains on two occasions for short-lived assignments. One took us back to LZ Stud for a couple of days for an operation near the Rockpile, and on the other we took a boat up a river to a village called Cau Viet for a day or two. I don’t recall what the purpose of the river trip was — I do recall thinking we were sitting ducks in the middle of the river on a large barge type of boat. I also remember that it was very hot and stifling that day, made worse by having to stand on the hot metal deck
1 Souvenirs of War Moving On Up To The DMZ 15 ing in full view of the sun. At LZ Stud there were tents at least to keep the rain off when trying to sleep. It had few other amenities.
Nothing happened during that period that gave me any reason for hope that I would survive after all. I remember at times being very depressed and forlorn. All of our C-Ration packets came with a package of four cigarettes in the box. I smoked at that point in my life and actually those cigarettes were a touch of home that in some strange way provided relief from the stark reality of the situation. I recall one night when I was especially down and despite being dead tired I couldn’t sleep. The weather was miserable, I was miserable, many of my friends were dead or wounded, and it seemed that there was no hope. I spent the whole night sitting in the mud with my back against a tree smoking one cigarette after another thinking of home and life, and wondering what the future held.
The intractableness of the situation was something that weighed on everyone. There was absolutely nothing one could do but survive day to day. In normal life if a person finds their personal circumstances to be intolerable they can do something about it — they can quit a job, move to a new location, end a relationship, whatever — they have the option of taking action to remove themselves from a bad situation. In a war zone of course there are no options. Only the dead or badly wounded get to leave. And of course that’s how it must be in a military unit. The decision to go or stay can’t
be voluntary. But the reality of what that means makes life for soldiers and Marines more difficult than civilians can possibly appreciate.
A tradition at least in the USMC rifle units was keeping what was called a ‘short-timer’s calendar’. The calendar was actually a drawing in the shape of the cartoon character Snoopy. It was subdivided into 100 small boxes and during your last one-hundred days left in country you filled in a numbered box each day, from 100 down to 1. It was actually logistically quite difficult to carry this off as you had to keep the paper safe and dry somehow — easier said than done. The closer you got to 1 the happier, and more worried, a person got. We had tours of approximately 400 days.
1 Souvenirs of War
A Dim Light At Th e End
of a Long Tunnel
As the end of my 13 months grew nearer my worries didn’t let up because of continued fears that something was going to happen to me. It was very difficult dealing with. The fact that we were fighting intense battles in and near the A Shau Valley on a near-daily basis, and regularly suffering casualties, didn’t improve my outlook any. Finally the day arrived when I was supposed to leave, but weather was so bad and the NVA were so close that choppers couldn’t land. We were in a wilderness area and the ONLY way out was by chopper. There was no overland transportation. A couple of
1 Souvenirs of War A Dim Light At The End of a Long Tunnel 1 times medivac choppers tried to land in clearings we made on a mountain top, but NVA gunners just down the hillside and on nearby hilltops drove them away with rifle fire, mortars and RPGs. (Most often mountain top clearings to accommodate helicopters were made by hand, but once in a great while if a landing site was needed very quickly a jet would drop a bomb on the desired site. We’d go in to clear the debris and the chopper would land. This was rare but I saw it a couple of times.)
Finally, one day the weather cleared a bit and two medivac choppers were going to try to land. I was told that if there was room I could leave on one of the choppers. It worked out, the choppers were able to land safely, and after a few very quick goodbyes I got on one. We lifted off the mountaintop and went laterally so that in a few seconds we were over a deep valley. From the hillside below we started taking a lot of rifle fire. The chopper was hit several times, and the gunner right next to me and a Marine on my other side were both hit. Suddenly the chopper stopped, and started dropping like a huge rock. I clearly recall screaming and cursing in utter frustration that it couldn’t be happening. I could not accept that I was going to die in a few seconds in a huge fireball, on my way out of the country after thirteen months of hell.
Miraculously after several seconds — probably 4 or 5 — the pilot was able to get the rotors going again The chopper came to a gradual stop and we limped slowly at near treetop level back to LZ Stud. It was a harrowing flight. I never did find out what exactly happened; I had been told by someone later that day that choppers have an area near the base of the rotors that is very susceptible to bullet damage if hit in the right spot. I’ve also read of the various means that skilled helicopter pilots have of getting their stalled craft flying again. These guys are good!
I took another chopper later from Stud to Quang Tri, and then a military plane down to Da Nang, from where I left the country a day or two later on a commercial flight — Continental, as I recall. We didn’t go straight back to the U.S., rather we spent a week in Okinawa at the Marine base being retrained on how to live and act as civilians, pretending that none of the things we had done for the last 13 months had really happened. I remember one Sergeant telling us to remember that we can’t just go around shooting people once we get back home! Okinawa was easy duty. Nobody there was going to mess with a bunch of grunts just returning from The Nam.
10 Souvenirs of War
Th e Woeld
The flight from Okinawa to California was great, replete with pretty stewardesses and friendly faces. I remember seeing the sunrise over the California coast just as we were arriving. The last half-hour of the flight was surreal and frightening, however. It was all so very strange. We were going to land at what I believe was El Toro Marine air base. Because it was just daybreak it was very foggy, and we were in the clouds and fog the entire time while descending. I was at a window seat and I clearly recall finally breaking out of the clouds near the tops of hills and seeing the runway PERPINDICULAR in front of us, running lengthwise in a valley. The pilot poured on the power, the plane shook violently, and something broke causing water to pour down the wall right next to me. We went across the valley, lifting up just prior to reaching the large hills on the other side. A few minutes later the pilot announced that the flight had been diverted to Los Angeles International, where we landed a half-hour or so later. It was all very unreal!
Once at LAX we were bussed to Camp Pendleton where I spent some time. Because I had only a short time left in my obligations (I had enlisted in a special two-year program, which the Corps initiated to get more volunteers) I and others with just a few weeks or a month or two left were discharged early. If you didn’t have enough time for another tour in Vietnam you were no longer needed, and it was cheaper to just release us.
When the big day came we were taken by bus again to LAX, where we all went into restrooms to change into civilian clothes as soon as possible. Many people did hate us and derided us as baby killers, and others threw various insults at us. I was accosted by a young woman when we landed at LAX the first time. We just wanted no part of the hassles and trouble again. It certainly made me wonder what it was all about — why were those thousands of young men living and dieing the way they were when nobody seemed to give a damn back home? How was it that the wrath of a nation had turned against its own sons who had done nothing more than their duty?
From LAX I flew up to Seattle for a couple of weeks living with my brother and his wife where we skied in the nearby mountains and did some sightseeing. It was all very enjoyable until I hit a boulder and knocked out three teeth skiing down a mountain at night, in an area I wasn’t supposed to be in. I quickly lost the feeling of invincibility that I felt I had. After all, I had reasoned, if I could survive 13 months of combat surely nothing back in The World could hurt me. Besides, I’d been skiing for quite a few years and felt confident that I could handle whatever the Cascades threw at me.
My time in Seattle, though short, was one of deep reflection and thoughts of the future. I almost decided to stay west, where jobs were abundant and I could make a fresh start. A police recruiter from the LAPD spoke to us at Pendleton. His description of becoming a Motor Cop sounded exciting, but not in LA! But I decided to head home to see what awaited me there. I felt that the future I had thought about on those terrible nights when all I felt was doom and gloom could still be achieved at home. After all hadn’t I known since grade school that a career in conservation and natural resource management was where I wanted to spend my life’s work? Why not give it a try, I thought. So I flew the friendly skies of United back home. Many times I’ve wondered what my life would have been like had I stayed out west. Maybe I would have been killed in a car accident a month later, or perhaps I would have had a chance encounter with a young Bill Gates and got into Microsoft at the beginning and lived the rest of my life as a multi-millionaire. I’ll never know but it’s fun to wonder.
1 Souvenirs of War The World 15 I remember landing at the local airport and being met by family members. It was yet another in a series of surreal events and a bystander would have thought that I’d been away to college, not a war zone. Nothing was ever said nor any questions ever asked about where I had been and what I had done..
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I experienced upon arriving at home wasn’t at all what I expected. The first few weeks back home weren’t as joyful or easy as I thought they’d be. There were lots of issues to sort out.
Right after retuning I learned that two childhood friends that I was in the local 4-H Club with for several years had both been killed in Vietnam while I was there. This was
yet one more thing separating the present from the past, and the two would never again be bridged. For those that served in Vietnam the time period and experience created a chasm disconnecting their youthful past from their future. Vietnam didn’t bridge the two parts of our lives — it separated them completely and permanently.
I recall meeting a couple of high school friends at a bar shortly after returning home. I remember one of them telling me that while at sea in the Navy he had heard a rumor from home that I had been killed. The two had served in the Navy and Army, but not in Vietnam. Our conversations seemed strained and unnatural — this from three people who not many years prior to this spent countless evenings driving around looking for girls, sneaking into drive-in movies in the trunks of friends’ cars, buying and drinking wine and whiskey when it was still out of our legal ability to do so as mere high school pretenders and grown-up wanna-be’s. Boys that played sports, talked endlessly of cars and girls, fished and hunted whenever we could, and in general worked and played hard and lived a nice life. We grew up together and shared thousands of experiences, yet I remember leaving late that evening thinking that everything had changed — it seemed that we had little in common anymore. It was actually quite sad.
Souvenirs of War Page 10
