VIETNAM 68-69-70

We moved to Snohomish in 1967. I was a junior in high school. This would be the 3rd high school that I would attend. I had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated. I hadn't planned for or prepaired for anything. When I was around 14 years old when we were living in New Jersey and the war in Vietnam had been going on for a few years, my father told that I'd probably end up fighting in that war. At the time I didn't think much of it but by the time I graduated from high school and was 19 years of age I had to start thinking about making a descision. I knew I couldn't live at home forever. I wasn't interested in college. I had no connections in Snohomish. We had only lived there for 2 years. The time came where I needed to do something. The war in Vietnam was still raging. My father had always wanted me to make a carreer in the military like he did, and his father had done. I was really not interest in a carreer in the military. It did not appeal to me one bit.

I had no alternative then to join the military. Once I started to set my mind to it I could see that this experience would introduce me to life. I could actually visualize myself learning something that would prepare me for life. I went into the Marine Corps recruiting station on Colby Avenue in the small city of Everett about seven miles from where we lived in Snohomish. The recruiting officier was sharp and snappy and had an acid tongue mixed with humor that I liked. I knew the Marines would be hard, but I felt that I needed some kind of challenge in my life at that particular time. I wasn't worried about something being hard. I have had hard times before. I signed my name down on a document that would allow me serve in the United States Marines. An excitement started to well in me that nothing could dampen.

A few weeks later I went down to Seattle where I had to undergo a physical to see if my health was good enough to serve my country. I passed with flying colors. Then on June 14, 1968 I was sworn into the Marine Corps along with about 18 other young men like myself. We were bussed to Seatac Airport where we boarded a commercial airplane that would take up to San Diego where we would start our military training in boot camp in a place called MCRD, where we would be stripped down both mentally and physically by our drill instructors, and then be rebuilt and molded into a United States Marine. We learned the art of conventional warefare which included the disassembly and reassembly of the M-14 rifle. We learned to shoot it, clean it, march with it, eat with it, and sleep with it. Eventually I qualified as a marksman. After bootcamp came infantry training and machine gun school. Then it was off to Vietnam and the war.

It was a sunny December day in California when a bunch of other servicemen and myself boarded a jet that would take us to the seat of war. First we would stop at a little island off the southern end of Japan called Okinawa. We would stay 3 days there. Finally we boarded another jet that would take up to Vietnam.

The flight took only 2 hours and forty-three minutes. There was a little bit of tension built up among the men. We all knew we were on our way to a war and some of us would be killed or wounded. Occassionally some one would come out with a joke that was appropriate to the situation. I have found out from that time to this that sometimes humour is the best medicine.
And at that particular time when we were all far away from our family and loved ones humour served to ease the tension and make us all feel a little better about what we were about to be going through.

The aircraft circled over the South China Sea and then headed for the air strip at the Danang Airport which now lay below us. Stepping off the plane the suffocating heat blasted you in the face, and almost took your breath away. I immediately noticed a faint aroma in the air of smoldering wood. It was a surreal moment walking down the steps permiated by the tropical heat. I saw alot of military men walking around in their camoflauge jungle utilities, and the Vietnamese people wearing cone shaped straw hats and loose fitting clothes.

We were driven by trucks to the terminal building not far from the airstrip. There we stood in line and handed in our orders to clerks behind the counters. Then sat on the long, well worn, wooden benches that lined the walls and the center of the building. Here we would wait for somene from out new unit would come and get us. I was assigned to the 3rd Battalion !st Marines.

Antisipation filled the air as everyone wondered aloud if they would be going north near the DMZ where most of the intense fighting was goin on, or would they be going to places south of Danang where there wasn't too much fighting. Rumors were going around about different servicemen getting killed and wounded in different areas. This made an effect on everyone. We met some guys who had finished their 13 month tour and were on their way home. They told us of the worse places to go in Vietnam. I wanted to pinch myself and wake up out of a bad dream The reality of Vietnam was hitting us all.

I noticed that the Marines who talked the loudest and acted the toughest back in the States seem to be withdrawn and silent now that we were in Vietnam. We all sat in our own soul searching thoughts wondering what was going to happen next. Soon we would be scattered to all different regions of this war torn country. All during the day trucks from different units would pull up. five or six guys would pile in the back and they would head out to their new duty station.

It was growing dark and no one from the 3rd Battaion 1st Marines had come. For those of us who were still there, we were taken to an old flimsy looking wooden two story building where we were to be housed for the night. We were first shown a bunker that we were to use in case we were hit during the night. Then we were taken upstairs to a large room with some cots in it where we were to sleep for the night.

I picked out a cot and put my stuff on it. There was almost a carnival feeling in the air as I sat there my first night in Vietnam. I could still faintly smell wood burning somewhere. I wondered where it came from. The air was muggy and it was hard to get a fresh breath of air.

A few minutes later a figure stepped into the room. The insignia stamped on his shirt told me that he was a Marine. He looked younger then me. He saw me, but didn't say anything to me. likewise I didn't say anything to him. I'd never seen anyone dressed like that. He had on camoflouged jungle fatigues with a wide brimmed camoflouge jungle hat on his head. He set his worn looking pack on a rack on the other side of the room. His boots were yellowish white in color from wear and tear in this tropical weather. Now he was going through his stuff that was now laid out on the cot. I knew he had just come out from the bush and was probably on his way home. He looked confident and young, but seemed more mature for his age. I thought maybe he would have been 18 years old. There were hard lines etched in his face. He seemed like someone who had seen and experienced alot. Probably battles with the NVA and VC. I avoided his eyes. I had not seen any war. I was new here. I laid down on my cot and contimplated my own fate which was about to unfold. Was I going to get out of here alive? Would I live to tell about my experiences? Soon I drifted off to sleep. Later I was awakened by the sound of automatic rifle fire in the distance. A minute later there was the single shots of a rifle coming from a different location. I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. I had thriteen months to go in this country.

The next morning I woke up and sat up on the cot and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. It took me about a minute to fully realize that I was really in Vietnam. I got up with the rest of the Marines and filed down to the chow hall and had breakfast, then went back to the terminal to continue waiting for someone from the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines to pick me and a handful of other Marines up.

There were Vietnamese women around the terminal cleaning and sweeping. Some of them would look at you and smile sheepishly and then go about their business. The language that they spoke was very different and did not resemble anything I had ever heard in my life. I have always been interested in languages and have tried to learn a little of others. With Vietnamese I didn't know where to begin. The people were on a totally different wavelength then we were.
My first impression of these people was; they seemed friendly toward Americans, and for the most part we liked them too. They were small and gentle in stature. They had small features and small bones.

Everything was different in Vietnam. It was like a step back in time. Men and boys leading oxen drawn carts around. Women carrying baskets on their head or on bamboo poles across their shoulders. I had seen knic-knacs and pictures of things like this. I didn't realize people still did these things until I saw it with my own eyes.


MIKE COMPANY 3RD BATTALION 1ST MARINES

Late in the afternoon a driver came from 3rd Battaion 1st Marines arrived. Eight of us boarded the long awaited truck and took seats on the floor of it's open back. We shook hands all around with those we were leaving behind. They wished us good luck and waved as we pulled off. Then we all gave each other the "V" sign with the index and middle fingers. I had never seen this before. It was something out of the World War II era. It was a sign that we constantly used ever since. So with our state side utilities, our fresh haircuts, black shiny boots and pale skin in the back of the six-by we meandered toward the side gate that would take us to whatever fate had instore for us.

Outside the gate on the main road heading south there were many people walking on the side of the road; mothers with baby, old men with walking sticks and a rag on their head. Little boys would run along side of the truck and wave and ask for candy. We would wave back and give the victory sign. Some people were carrying heavy loads on their backs, some had the pole and baskets over their shoulders. There were many people riding bikes and motorcycles around along with beat up old French-made cars and ancient rickety lambrettas. There were quite a few military vehickles on the road. Many of them were driven by Vietnamese soldiers. Old rotting busses occasionally went by crowded to full capacity and people hanging off the side and out the windows.

Ratty looking shacks lined up in rows along the side of the road. These were mostly made of 2 by 4's, coke boxes, cardboard, corrugated tin, sometimes with a thatched roof. After this was vast flat lands made up of acres and acres of rice paddies as far as the eye could see on both sides of the road. Each was sectioned off by dykes with a narrow path on top that enable the farmers to get from one paddie to the next. Here and there along these vast tracks of land are large wooded areas where these people build their villages.

A thousand thoughts were going through my head as I tried to process the hundreds and hundreds of new sensations that assailed my senses. The sun was setting in back of us. I faced east scanning the scenery infront of me. The deep green rice plants that grew in patches along side of the paddies glistened in the evening sun and waved in the gentle breese as the shadows of evening began to descend over the countryside. I had never seen such exotic shades of pastel green before in my life. My eyes fell upon a mountain in the distance that looked like a solid rock jutting out of the sand where the rice patties ended. Someone said that that was Marble Mountain.

It was almost dark by the time we reached the compound. When night falls in Vietnam there is a curfew on the civilian population, and all military vehicles are supposed to be inside their perimeters because all US government installations were to be sealed up. The only activity allowed outside that gates are the nightly patrols, smbushes and listening posts. The Vietnames people were supposed to be in their houses. Any other activity would be taken as Vietcong or NVA and would be in danger of being shot at.

The truck entered through the north gate of the compound and parked in a clearing near the sentry's post. We climbed out and got into some kind of a formation and began to loosely march toward the center of the battalion area where we were to be briefed by our new commander.

As we walked into the company area I noticed a body of a man laying face down under a few trees in front of a building in some tall grass. There was blood on the combat uniform and the legs were partially covered with a rubber poncho. He appeared to be a Caucasian man about 28 or 30 years. For some reason I was not suprised to see a dead body laying on the ground in Vietnam. By now most everyone in our troop saw the body and we were whispering to each other about it. I naturally assumed that this guy had been killed in a battle that probably took place earlier in the day, and that the body had been dragged to this spot after the days fighting had ceased. After all, there was a war going on in ths country, wasn't there? It didn't seem like that big of a deal.

As we reached the commander's office, someone from within approached the driver, took him aside and whispered something in his ear. His face turned red with anger and he glanced over at the body. He beat his fist into the palm of his hand and started to shout. Someone from our ranks asked him what was going on. He didn't answer. A few minutes later he told us that someone had shot one of the company sargents just a few minutes before we arrived. He was killed by one of his own men.

The captain appeared at the door of his office looking visibly shaken. He welcomed us to Mike Company and gave a little pep talk about the company and what to expect, and what was expected of us now that we were in Vietnam. When he was finished we handed in our orders to his assistant who checked off our names from his list attached to a clip board. The captain turned and went back into his office. I was assigned to weopans platoon. That meant I was going to be a machine gunner.

At the supply hut we were issued the equipment we would be using while in combat with Mike Company. The following is what we were issued;

2 sets of light weight jungle fatigues with wide pockets sewn on the trouser legs
2 combat shirts. (the kind that you don't have to tuck in)
1 pair of canvas and leather combat boots with metal strip sewn into the sole
1 flack jacket
1 helmet
1 pack
2 canteens
1 cartridge belt
1 mess kit
1 gas mask
1 bayonet
1 entrenching tool

We were taken to a row of tents where the grunts lived on the west side of the compound where there were rolls of barbed wire and bunkers made of sandbags and wooden beams. The tents were set over a wooden structure that sat on concrete blocks and housed about 10 men each. We were assigned to the new comer tent and were told that the rest of the company was out in the bush and would be back in a day or two. There was hardly any one in the Mike Company area. Just a few Marines who were there for one reason or another.

Inside the tent we each found an empty cot where we set all of our new gear on. There was two black dudes playing cards on the cot near the front of the tent. They were silent at first. They just watched us while slapping down cards in a game of back alley. Later we were taken three at a time to the armory to check out our M-16 rifle and two bandoliers of ammunition.

Later when we got back, the dudes playing cards started asking us where we were from back in the world. We had a short conversation with them. They were disgruntled against the war. They said they didn't agree with it and that black folks shouldn't be involved in it because it was a white man's war. They told us that this war would be nothing like we expected it to be and that we would soon find out it was a worthless cause.

We spent the first few days at Mike Companygoing out on working partys; filling sandbags and other things. In our spare time we would take pictures. In the evening we were free to familiarize ourselves with the M-16 by taking it apart, cleaning it and putting it back together.