made it!

In July of 1968 I was an admin clerk with the Ninth Marine Amphibious Brigade, near the DMZ between the two Vietnams. Our unit supported a battalion landing team and helicopter squadron. Usually I was safe at sea on the USS Princeton, but every six weeks or so, when the Princeton sailed to the Philippines for fuel, repairs and supplies, our unit would leave one clerk in country for reasons I never could determine. I volunteered to stay.

I was at Delta Med, a M*A*S*H type of thing. (And, yes, the young doctors were just like the ones in the film/TV series.) Also, like in the film/TV series, there were periods of intense influxes of casualties and relative calm. During one of the lulls, I found out that Jim, an old college buddy, was nearby, although deep in-country at LZ Stud. I thought it would be great to share a beer with him on my 22nd birthday, so I volunteered to ride shotgun on a truck convoy to get to his unit.

It was a two-hour trip, punctuated with intermittent stops to return sniper fire. The convoy was so long that when it stopped I never heard gunfire. What I remember most, with much regret, was that when we drove through villages, children would line the road so the Marines would throw cans of food from our C-rations at them. Not to them, at them. As hard as they could. No one on my truck did, fortunately.

Also, quite fortunately, my truck had a refrigeration unit. So by the time we got to Jim’s unit, the two beers I brought were nearly lukewarm. I found Jim kneeling down, sorting through mail. The look on his face when I called his name was priceless. We had a great time, swapping stories and swigging several more beers after the lukewarm ones.

When we went to evening chow, we had to stand three meters apart so the Viet Cong in the hills wouldn’t be as tempted to shell us. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t just hit the chow hall, but lost the thought when I saw a small plane spraying something on those hills. I asked Jim what it was. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it kills everything.” I would find out much later that it was Agent Orange.

After chow we had more beers and settled in for the night. In the middle of it, Jim awoke me and said “Get your shit on! We’re getting hit!” The VC did it often at night just for harassment. I threw on my helmet and flak jacket as shrapnel ripped through our tent. I was so terrified that I lay back down and went to sleep. In the morning I caught a ride back with a mail jeep, which sped back to Delta Med as fast as I could hope.

During the shelling at LZ Stud, many thoughts raced through my mind, the most prominent one being “Will I be alive for my 23rd birthday?” Today, I turn my temporal odometer over to 80. Based on my current rate of depreciation, I quite likely won’t get to 90. That makes every day all the more precious. I hope your days are as well.

P.S. My spiritual brother and biker buddy Bill just called to remind me what it’s all about: “Sometimes the light falls shining on me. Other times I can barely see. But lately it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip it’s been.”