A collection of photo illustrated war and post war vignettes, short stories, war nightmares, war poetry and travel writing by a Vietnam combat medic. Site includes war related videos and documents. There is some harsh language.
Patrol. Jungle. Ambush. Monsoon. Mortars and rockets, a base overrun. The teeming rain. The blistering heat. With the First Cavalry I’d seen my share as a grunt medic in 1970. At Tan Son Nhut airport I waited on the black tarmac with dozens of weary grunts in weathered fatigues, clean cut remfs in khakis and shined shoes, many last seen one year ago on the flight to Vietnam. As we sat on our duffle bags, waiting, waiting, a local remf came by. “Snow. Anyone need snow?” he asked politely. He was selling heroin but I did not know it. Finally, as the sun came up, we boarded an enormous commercial jet. After it roared down the runway, nosed upward and lifted off, we broke into cheers.
In that first hour men talked, drank liquor from small glass bottles, ogled the good-looking round-eye stewardesses, little by little fell into sleep. Hours, or was it years later, I heard the captains voice over the intercom, followed by two hundred seat belts snapped into place, the robotic whirr of landing wheels descending. Ears popped. Minutes passed. Finally, the jet touched down, the huge engines roared in reverse, the aircraft lurched to a halt. Quietly, two hundred men stepped down the metal stairway into an immense floodlit hanger. I couldn’t help but look at our replacements standing off to one side.
Clad in new fatigues, unscuffed boots, their duffle bags stuffed with fresh GI t-shirts, socks, two sets of clothes, they gasped at the sight of us, especially at the shocked out grunts. “Will I look like that when I come home?” they must have wondered. I didn’t think to ask, “Have I changed that much in a year?” As we marched past the awestruck men, the only sound to be heard were the repeated footfalls of our jungle boots on the wide cement floor. Obediently, we trudged to an exit, which led down a hall to a well lit room, where we sat in chairs to fill out forms.
“You don’t need it! You’re home! Give it here!” said a smiling clerk, holding up a one dollar MPC. With a plastic bucket he ambled up and down the seated rows, as men willingly emptied their GI pockets of the colorful scrip. How much did he collect? Two hundred, three hundred dollars? Decades later, after reading a book by Cornelius Hawkridge (tip of the hat to John Ketwig), I realized the clerks were smuggling MPC back to Vietnam’s black market. Exchanged for dollars, paying a cut to the marketeers, splitting the profits, pulling that stunt a few times a day they made good money. Paperwork completed, in an airport bathroom I changed into my dress greens. With an Army voucher I caught a flight to Newark, NJ. A taxi from Newark airport to my parents house, about eight miles, cost six dollars.
What I remember most, what moved me, what I’ll never forget — since my parents, tragic figures who would not send me a survival knife while I was in combat, “You might hurt yourself,” they said, — was the sight of my dog, Rusty, jumping up and down as I walked in the door. My beloved dog, the one true thing I missed in that bright green, red dust, rainy year away from home, jumping for joy at the sight of me. _____________________
Top photo / American troops leaving Vietnam. Undated/ Bettman Archive
Almost Home
Patrol. Jungle. Ambush. Monsoon. Mortars and rockets, a base overrun. The teeming rain. The blistering heat. With the First Cavalry I’d seen my share as a grunt
medic in 1970. At Tan Son Nhut airport I waited on the black tarmac with dozens of weary grunts in weathered fatigues, clean cut remfs in khakis and shined shoes, many last seen one year ago on the flight to Vietnam. As we sat on our duffle bags, waiting, waiting, a local remf came by. “Snow. Anyone need snow?” he asked politely. He was selling heroin but I did not know it. Finally, as the sun came up, we boarded an enormous commercial jet. After it roared down the runway, nosed upward and lifted off, we broke into cheers.
In that first hour men talked, drank liquor from small glass bottles, ogled the good-looking round-eye stewardesses, little by little fell into sleep. Hours, or was it years later, I heard the captains voice over the intercom, followed by two hundred seat belts snapped into place, the robotic whirr of landing wheels descending. Ears popped. Minutes passed. Finally, the jet touched down, the huge engines roared in reverse, the aircraft lurched to a halt. Quietly, two hundred men stepped down the metal stairway into an immense floodlit hanger. I couldn’t help but look at our replacements standing off to one side.
Clad in new fatigues, unscuffed boots, their duffle bags stuffe
d with fresh GI t-shirts, socks, two sets of clothes, they gasped at the sight of us, especially at the shocked out grunts. “Will I look like that when I come home?” they must have wondered. I didn’t think to ask, “Have I changed that much in a year?” As we marched past the awestruck men, the only sound to be heard were the repeated footfalls of our jungle boots on the wide cement floor. Obediently, we trudged to an exit, which led down a hall to a well lit room, where we sat in chairs to fill out forms.
“You don’t need it! You’re home! Give it here!” said a smiling clerk, holding up a one dollar MPC. With a plastic bucket he ambled up and down the seated rows, as men willingly emptied their GI pockets of the colorful scrip. How much did he collect? Two hundred, three hundred dollars? Decades later, after reading a book by Cornelius Hawkridge (tip of the hat to John Ketwig), I realized the clerks were smuggling MPC back to Vietnam’s black market. Exchanged for dollars, paying a cut to the marketeers, splitting the profits, pulling that stunt a few times a day they made good money. Paperwork
completed, in an airport bathroom I changed into my dress greens. With an Army voucher I caught a flight to Newark, NJ. A taxi from Newark airport to my parents house, about eight miles, cost six dollars.
What I remember most, what moved me, what I’ll never forget — since my parents, tragic figures who would not send me a survival knife while I was in combat, “You might hurt yourself,” they said, — was the sight of my dog, Rusty, jumping up and down as I walked in the door. My beloved dog, the one true thing I missed in that bright green, red dust, rainy year away from home, jumping for joy at the sight of me.
_____________________
Top photo / American troops leaving Vietnam. Undated/ Bettman Archive
Video / 90th Replacement Center
Video / New soldiers arrive in Vietnam