You will have to bear with me if my syntax tense turns murky. It’s because I’m murky. I’m writing this sitrep and tomorrow’s on Wednesday. I arrived in Hoi An as planned Monday at noon. Since then, I have been in bed rather ill. In California, I believe they refer to it as the Hollywood Diet. Over here, they refer to it as…well, you get the idea. I’ve gone from a very large Buddha to a smaller version.
One thing, I didn’t mention about Da Nang was my nightly visitor. It started the first night. The room was a suite with a sitting room in front and two beds in the other room. I was half sitting, half laying in the bed closest to the hallway, watching the BBC channel on TV. Suddenly I saw my univitied guest scramble from under the other bed to under mine. At first, I thought that I was imagining things. Then the bugger came back out midway and took a good look up at me. It was gray, about 5 and half inches long and was grinning with bucked teeth. I think that I woke up the hotel yelling, “HEY!” It scrambled back under my bed. That’s when Hua came to my aid once again. Remember that walking stick she gave me the day of the river dunk? Well, I went for it with gusto and sent the univited guest packing. The hotel is right on the river, so it comes with the territory. It visited every night. By the last night, I just said, “hello” and went to sleep.
The last time that I was visited by a rat in Vietnam, was a night on Hill 55. We were pulling a rotation security gig during the rains and the bunkers were just muddy sandbag stacks covered with a temporary roof of ponchos. I fell asleep around midnight and woke with a start. That happened a lot over there when your internal alarm went off. Resting atop of my right boot, was the biggest rat I’d ever seen. Acutually, it was the only rat that I had ever seen. I just about shot myself in the foot with my .45 cal. trying to kill that son of a gun.
Da Nang has been a hard visit. I did go to Marble Mountain and the beach on Sunday. By the way, it was “Monkey” mountain that had the NVA underground hospital and that’s where Mike Foster was stationed atop. There’s still antenna domes up there. I finally located Hill 326 also. Just below there was 3rd Recon and 3rd Amphib’s. I found an exhausted Sgt Fisher there one day, trying to catch some zzz’s. He’d been out in the bush a long time Mike and I walked alot of miles together in 1/2 and volunteered for Nam together. Marble Mountain was the chopper base. When Pho and I arrived and I saw the dunes and remembered my second day in Vietnam.
Marines used to come to Vietnam through Okinawa and we flew to Vietnam in C-130’s with inward and outboard web seating. There was time to put in a lot of last minute thinking, cause it was too loud to talk. Then you hit the ground and the tailgate lowered and you walked into a strange and different world. When the heat and hunmidity hit,there was no doubt it would be a difficult tour. You filed over to the transient hut to find to whom you were assigned. Then you waited for your regimantal 6×6 truck to pull up and haul you away.
I had friends in 1/9, who were still guarding the air field, so I got in a visit while waiting. Finally, the 9th Marines’ truck pulled up and took us to their C&P at the edge of Dog Patch II. That was the beginning of “Booby-Trap Alley.” It was there that you were isuued your weapons and 782 gear. Back then, we were still wearing our stateside utilities and carrying M-14’s. Jungle “utes” and boots would come in a few months. The plastic wrapped toy guns would come much later and the first issues jammed up on the grunts trying to take Hill 881. It took the DoD a long time to own up to that truth, but I wonder if they compensated the battalion commander who was replaced for refusing to order his men up the Hill for a second assualt.
The Sgt. that I was replacing was glad to see me. He was rotating home the next day. He took me down to the ville to purchase the rest of my gear. The Vietnamese made great foot-locker boxes out of c-ration cans. Along with the box, you purchased a matress pad, to make your cot more comfortable when you were in the cp, and a pair of Ho Chi Minh sandals. He explained that I would catch the mail run the next day out to the company compound. A chopper would land every day at Regt. and pick up the mail bags, rations, ammo, etc. for the battalion and company cp’s.
The next morning, I boarded the chopper and sat on some crates in the bay. I thought it was an old CH-37, but it may have been a ‘34. We used to call the 37’s, “Google-Eyes” for the cross eyes that were painted on the fuel tanks. The Chinooks hadn’t arrived in Vietnam for the Marines yet. We made about two stops and after lifting off from the last one, the war said “hello!”. I was so new, at first I didn”t know what was happening. I could hear the rounds zinging and then I saw the asst. Crew chief fall off his gun and hit the deck. The Crew Chief hollered and pointed to him as I was reaching for the gun. But the wounded marine came first. I had never seen blood come spurting out like that. It was so powerful. He had been shot in the groin, the worst fear of every Marine, and an artery was cut. All I could do for him was try to grap the ends and squeeze while he just stared at me.
The bird immediately flew to Chalie Med and the triage team took him off. Then we lifted off and headed for Marble Mountain. I was sitting back on my crates trying to figure out too many things. We landed at the edge of the tarmac and the Crew Chief almost threw me out and said to go and sit about 100 yards off. So there I sat on the dune. Two PC’s emerged quickly and personnel began going over the chopper very carefully. A while later, the crew chief came over to me carrying a cannister tube that 81 mortar rounds came in. He showed me the crease up the side that one of the bullets from the ground the VC caused. I had been sitting on three crates of 81’s. As I sat there on the dunes Sunday, I remembered that day. That was the day that the war became very real.
S’lan,
Tom