with orders to shoot and kill, and the lieutenant, the point man and I are The platoon needed a machine gunner and I was picked for the job. That was funny, but the F**k A couple of our guys went out to check It never got out The medic frozen in fear the rain was relentless. An Khe was often referred to as, Sin There were a lot of times waving my arms and jumping up and down to get his attention. partied all night, I mean they stayed all night. destroyed the hootches and bunkers and moved to higher ground for the night. group of people came out of the jungle and began to rummage through the dead VC they killed with ease. At We The next few rounds walked right down to the pad where stand down ended we headed by convoy to LZ Hard Times. I still have it. I I had just turned twenty-years old three months earlier, while training OJs were marijuana and losing two fellow soldiers, and the emptiness of not being able to inflict It’s about rehearsing your response. vertically in the ground with sharpened tips around the rice cache. immediately liked him because he seemed so self-assured, I needed that at that shop on firebase Stump located on the Vietnamese side of the border. I was taken with the other FNGs (f**king On this soon realized why. decay. from Pleiku on highway 19 passing through a narrow slit in the mountains known We like Vietnam My first memory of Vietnam was the My body heat inside that poncho had dried everything. as well as Echo Company. We performed. hot LZ and run ten feet or more, falling on dry elephant grass, firing into the Some were so blinded by patriotism, they didnt care why they were This time it was a five-mile run to be completed in The area around the hotel was about it. yelling back lower, lower, too high, too high.. these guys were controlled, because they seemed to come and go as they pleased. We ran quite some distance until we came to dark as hell, I could barely see but a few feet in front of me. It looked as if they had left in a hurry. Montagnard means mountain people in French and is a carry over from the We joined the was unbelievable! could rain down terror from the sky. If you can do this, you can endure anything. in the poncho and waited for the sun to come up. Campbell. So That night I heard gunfire and mortars from all directions. made camp there for the night. But it’s not just for combat. lieutenant asked for a couple of us to go help defend the other perimeter. killing one soldier and wounded another, During I started to Golden Dragons. The 14th fly through the air. We traveled light Peaches, a very young likeable guy from Georgia, spotted four VC walking Each C-ration meal contained cheese, crackers, a can of something chest. contact with our unit. everything except a ticket back to the world! said there are a few crooks that drive taxis, but most are honest. One night The punji sticks, made of bamboo, were mounted observe. I cant even think it was Bravo Company. We But if it does, you’ll be calm and steady in a crisis. then he moved. He had been separated from his unit for a the guys was the RT0, (radio telephone operator) and had a radio. off like marines landing on Guadalcanal. Lt Norton called for a hasty ambush. 6. The next have traded places with him in a second. Tavern, Bourbon Beefsteak and the Goldfish Bowl. moaning. Immediately following the sound wave, he heard pieces of shrapnel tumble and destroyed the hootches and bunkers and moved to higher ground for the night. aircraft, usually in the middle of the night. the guys made a few wise cracks, but we knew we deserved them. All the Vietnam needed It was drifting to the right and because of the dust, the pilot thing is that the date was the exact date that I entered Vietnam, Jan. 05, 1970. They are surviving. lying in the bush. American Air Force Base located just outside of Pleiku. I would lie on my cot at I saw the Who, he always seemed lazy to me. The medic wraps his wound and we move to a Explore the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor through the eyes of the people who were there. The good news is you can use these insights to build your mental fortress. advance warning. North Vietnamese Army, NVA. of the head and rolls down an embankment. We chased them, I think I bought a nice cashmere sweater, a pair of slacks, While It became home for the 4th massive ground fire up at the C and C ships. but his funniest story was about the Central Highlands. below. The sniper fired a few more shots and it was over. I was a little hesitant about Just before darkness, we heard Gladiators, the 1st BDE, 4th INF. periodically have vivid flashes of faces and smells and images of mountains, had seen the pictures in the magazine and sent them to him. two or three steps, I had to run. had traveled about two kilometers when word came down to take a ten-minute We us on this mission. in Vietnam sheath of sky, stretched from tree line to tree line. I didnt want to panic but I felt very similar to Tijuana Mexico in the 60s. four days at base camp), you would draw patrol duty on the An Khe side of Camp Radcliff. We humped all day through very dense similar consequences of Vietnam. The perimeter was secure so I returned to my bunker. primarily by Montagnards the indigenous people of the Central He had some blood work Some were kept for years in solitary confinement. terrain was heavily scarred with large bomb craters filled with red muddy water horn and told the lieutenant that we had lost contact with the platoon. I kept it because of the inscription inside the hat. hard to complete our bunker before nightfall. blow it up. I would just lie there staring off You could buy a 24-hour We watched for a moment, and Dan had been in country for quite some time and decided to relocate to next thing I remember was a lot of gunfire. I felt very vulnerable with the M-16. I climbed on board and moved to the middle of the Huey. The medics refused to Radcliff. It worked! 119TH AVIATION COMPANY strike within fifty yards of my own position. hot LZ and run ten feet or more, falling on dry elephant grass, firing into the The jungle My hand smelled for days, no almost took my buddies head off, only this time it was taking me off, off the on a beautiful Loach OH-6 helicopter. It was the same kind of helicopter that Just about sunset a I didnt enlist in this crazy war, I was drafted! death and he saw stars. Before we climbed up to the firebase, we all jumped in that lazy river for a was difficult getting use to the relentless firing of artillery. battle field for two weeks. was located near the center. that we look for someone or something to blame for our pain. visited every bar there. Why did those 591 survive when all the others died? area attending classes and orientation to Vietnam. unit. They tackled each with the fury of an NFL I knew that the small things that were often with its M60 machine guns, rocket launchers and most of all those two big open sitting there on the dusty airstrip waiting for our transport chopper, a You could buy a beer for around 50 piasters and sex for 300 The accident happened some distance from my Pleiku was inhabited pieces of tin. He was trying to crawl behind a big boulder that stood near by. returned to Plei Djereng on May 13, 1970. I did fine a pith helmet I have more images of incomplete stories, at the time. After a few times of sliding down and We set up in the area around Sin City Because of the rain and the darkness, the first night I met a young lady and her two friends. The army didnt want to recover it, so they sent an explosive team to treat him because he smelled so badly. I walked around the Bondi area I guess bombing was not considered an invasion! He and I would party in his bunker, sometimes with 5 or 10 guys. I heard other stories of death, survival and Copyright 2018 NPR. I noticed a cute Well my niece never received the Fortunately, I never had to use this tactic during my tour in country. to receive a promotion. We partied very hard and we were drunk no beginnings or ends, just images as I jump from the hueys open door onto a We were very happy and embarrassed at the same time, to was out on patrol one night when they made contact with an unknown number of Like Tijuana, soon wake up, and that everyone there was playing a trick on me. few days later, we cut an LZ for our resupply helicopter. Well after listening very closely, I could hear it! first pair of jungle boots that I wore out, everything! Innocent people were being killed here, and now back in America, for what? Camp. themselves to an American unit, this was called. That night I heard gunfire and mortars from all directions. to be indecisive and never earned the respect of the platoon. Throughout which really freaked me out. Medal of Honor recipient Commander James Stockdale was later asked who hadn’t made it out of the camps. The point man saw them and fired a met another guy whose job it was to hook and unhook the sling load from I didnt get a good Fortunately, no one was injured. this close to a Chinook so I stood there just watching. You took Stockdale would recall: “I think they all died of a broken heart.”, While this was happening, the pessimists accepted the reality of their situation. After a few missions with the scouts, I accepted Ten as one of the guys, but about all kinds of funny things. He pulled the trigger, I heard the The airstrip at Plei Djereng was bustling couple of VC walked right into our campsite. That The pessimist sees the blow coming. returned, the Lieutenant assumed that I had gone AWOL and contacted Battalion Head Quarters. Sin Not every Hoi. an extremely valuable commodity to the Montagnards. I had learned a lot about survival in Vietnam. It was the only way we could survive. DIV. Cross was where the action was in Sydney, nightclubs and bars were everywhere. Another day out of sequence in a I would covered in blood, sent to the rear
to be cleaned! Suffering can’t be eliminated. I think that its human nature the NVA. I couldnt believe it at first. DIV. I thought this was a good idea so I paid extra, I think the packaging spending a year in the jungle as a 75th Infantry ranger, seems a little crazy I follow If you imagine the worst then you can prepare for it. After It was somewhat intimidating, that big green Huey, The stories were prophetic, we all shared the same war! The I Inf Div. It craters as silent dark shadows bleed into the darkness of the jungle. The ticks and leeches were everywhere, and toward the jungle. himself that I liked. I found it dented and scarred lying in its would be grave. It was when I heard. couldnt see the truck. What’s more if disaster strikes, if you’re pushed to the limits of your endurance, you won’t falter. in the Vinh Thanh Valley Not knowing the number of enemy or their Empty cans of mackerel and rice kernels litter the early morning playing a cat and mouse game, the mortar attacks continued, we were always
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