We all have snapshots from the past. Rarely though do we take the time to look at them closely to find the
story there.
This picture of (from left to right) Mike, me, Tony and Randy was taken in April 1970 in the Vietnam jungle northeast of Saigon and close to Cambodia. Like all pictures, it was a moment in our lives. We looked grim. It was not easy living out there in the jungle for fifteen days at a time and doing the job of an infantry soldier.
Behind us is the hooch (shelter) we had just finished building for the night. It is made from two ponchos, lying over a bamboo frame and tied down with shoelaces. During the dry season, we placed our air mattress on the jungle floor to sleep with no shelter but the triple-canopy jungle over our head. The rainy season had begun however so headquarters allowed us to have a shelter from the rain when sleeping at night. There was nothing worse than getting out from under that hooch at night and pulling guard in a soaking rain. The plastic bag in my hand kept my wallet dry. Mike was a career soldier so he shaved every day. The rest of us were sporting a mustache or beard as a way to rebel. Most of us wore a Saint Christopher medal to gain whatever protection it could provide us.
This picture of (from left to right) Mike, me, Tony and Randy was taken in April 1970 in the Vietnam jungle northeast of Saigon and close to Cambodia. Like all pictures, it was a moment in our lives. We looked grim. It was not easy living out there in the jungle for fifteen days at a time and doing the job of an infantry soldier.
Behind us is the hooch (shelter) we had just finished building for the night. It is made from two ponchos, lying over a bamboo frame and tied down with shoelaces. During the dry season, we placed our air mattress on the jungle floor to sleep with no shelter but the triple-canopy jungle over our head. The rainy season had begun however so headquarters allowed us to have a shelter from the rain when sleeping at night. There was nothing worse than getting out from under that hooch at night and pulling guard in a soaking rain. The plastic bag in my hand kept my wallet dry. Mike was a career soldier so he shaved every day. The rest of us were sporting a mustache or beard as a way to rebel. Most of us wore a Saint Christopher medal to gain whatever protection it could provide us.
I
had looked at this particular picture and many others I brought back from
Vietnam over the years without really
looking at them until recently. Then it struck me how they capture
the day-to-day job we performed out there.
Sure, we were in firefights, but they were rare events when compared to
those every-day moments captured on film. I saw in those pictures what the job of an
infantry soldier in Vietnam really was.
It was not the blood, guts and glory of a typical war movie. Rather it was surviving the “eight-days-a-week”
grind of the job until we could go home again.
It was getting through each day with your sanity intact. At least that was true for me and every other infantry soldier I knew.
And another thing about that picture that can be readily seen and even felt.
We were brothers. In fact, the
company I served with was like one
big family and all of us were brothers. The
veterans taught the F'in New Guys (FNG’s) how to survive. We had each other’s back in firefights. Complaining to your brothers about this and
that was a way to relieve stress. We all
had a one-year tour to complete and just knowing that we were all in it together,
somehow made it go by more easily. Before you
knew it, the tour was over and one-at-a-time, we disappeared back to real
world. For me anyways, I never became
part of a brotherhood like that again.
About two years ago, I dug out
those pictures along with my letters from Vietnam that my Mom had saved. I began to write
a book about the stories buried in them called, “21 Months, 24 Days”. While I was working on the book, the daughter
of one of my brothers was digging out the names and addresses of anyone she
could find that served in Vietnam with us in 1970. She completed her search and organized a
reunion about the same time that I finished the book. My wife and I went to the reunion in
Chandler, Oklahoma in June 2015. I gave every grunt that came to the reunion a copy of the book.
You're probably wondering if anyone in in the picture was at the reunion. I'm sorry to say no. Mike could not be found, Randy died a decade ago and Tony just couldn't deal with opening that long forgotten door again. Reconnecting with those that were there though was magical, just plain magical.
