MEMORIES
17-20 August 1966
21-23 August 1966
2nd Battalion 9th Artillery 3rd
Brigade Task Force 25th Infantry Division
24 August – 21 September
A
22 September –
5 October –
A
5 –
17 March –
13 April – 24 May 1967
2nd/9th – Battalion Ammo
Officer
25 May –
30 May –
5 –
MEMORIES
LUNCH
WITH THE GENERAL
I
remember...being sent forward for
mess with General Walker shortly after my arrival in the
field. Apparently the various commanders have a habit
of having a meal with their new officers as soon as possible.
I decided they probably want to meet us before any of us get killed or
wounded so that when they write a letter home to our family they can at least
say they knew us. Who knows?
Maybe I was just cynical. So
they made me leave the company overnight to go in to have lunch with the General
the next day.
GAMBLING POPULAR
I remember...some guys gambled a lot.
Poker was very popular and especially the game Acey Deucey.
I played some till I lost about $400 in one pot (most of which I had won)
but it really made me think about not gambling anymore.
For those of us who were in the field, the only place to ever spend any
money was the rare times we were at brigade base (Dragon
CHINOOKS BLEW US
AWAY
I remember...one of the things we hated most was when
a Chinook would come in for resupply. The
resupplies were welcome, obviously, but they invariably blew our poncho-made
hootches all over the place. It was
time for "52-pickup".
MY FIRST CONTACT
MISSION
I remember...my first
contact mission. One platoon
made contact; wish I could have been there to help.
Killed 3 PAVN. This
was the first real contact I was somewhat involved in.
The platoon was out on patrol and ran across some NVA.
I mostly listened on the radio as the fight went down.
I assisted the platoon leader calling in artillery fire after the initial
contact. However I was not there to
do the actual adjustments. The 3
kills were from small arms fire. Have
no idea if we got any from artillery as they did not sweep the area where we
fired.
98% SHEER BOREDOM
I remember...those
typical "nothing happened" days in Vietnam. In
one instance, our 3rd platoon thought they heard some noises
of movement and I assisted them in calling in couple of artillery volleys.
They found nothing. Years
later when people would ask me what it was like in Vietnam
I usually didn’t either want to talk about it or felt inadequate to really
describe what it was like for me and a lot of us.
Then I heard another vet friend of mine tell someone the perfect answer
which I have since often used. He said: “98%
of the time it was sheer boredom. The
other 2% was indescribable horror.” I
have yet to find a better way to share the feeling.
DEVELOPED A TASTE
FOR WARM BEER
I remember...that before my tour was over, I took a
real liking to warm beer. Out in the field we drank our beer warm because
there was no way to cool it off, obviously.
Before the year was over I took a real liking to warm beer.
We would get a couple of cans of beer each week as part of our rations.
Some of the guys just couldn’t handle drinking warm beer or weren’t
beer drinkers at all and would sell, barter, or just give it to their friends.
I often would trade the “premium” things from C rations (canned fruit
in particular) for beer. There were
times I had 6-8 cans of beer in my pack and little food.
MOVIES FOR THE REMFs
I
remember...back at the brigade base camps they would show the latest movies
at times. It was outdoors and on a
small screen but was a little bit of “home” in some ways.
Mostly of course it was the REMFs that got this luxury.
Oh, REMF was a grunt
(infantry) acronym which stood for Rear Echelon Mother F*****.
We FOs were fortunate to be considered one of the “grunts”.
WE SMELLED RAUNCHY
I remember...there were times when I was out as an FO
that I went for two weeks with no way to bathe and in fact wore the same jungle
fatigues the whole time. You just
got used to the smell of each other and the only time we really noticed it was
when we would get to go back to the battalion base and our friends who were back
there wouldn’t get near you until you showered and got into some fresh
clothes. It made for a few laughs.
DID FT. SILL LEARN
OUR LESSONS?
I remember...that it became apparent to me, as intense
as the training back in OCS was, we did things here that were very different.
I can remember hoping that the word would get back to Ft Sill and that
meaningful changes would take place in OCS and artillery school training.
That was especially true of the work of a Forward Observer.
ENEMY FEARED OUR
ARTILLERY
I remember...that we got word that through the
prisoner interrogation that the NVA in general were really scared of our
artillery abilities. That of course
made us feel good.
USED THE DIRECT FIRE
TECHNIQUE
I remember...that I was fortunate never to be with the
battery when it came under attack except for a sniper incident or two. No
casualties as I recall. One time I got pissed because there was this one
spot that for several days we got a few potshots taken at us. I ran out
and got one gun crew and we fired one round of direct fire where we thought it
was coming from. We never got shot at from that spot again. Probably
just scared the shit out of him. I remember one of the grunts on the
perimeter standing up after we fired the round and giving us a "thumbs
up".
CIRCULAR OFFENSIVE -
FIGHTING IN THE SAME SPOTS
I remember...(near the Cambodian border)...that we
have pretty well cleaned out this area.
What we know in retrospect is that we would kill many of them; they’d
retreat across the border, re-supply, wait for replacements and then come back
again. We wound up being back in
this same general area in March ’67 and had two major battles here again.
NO BUSINESS BEING
ASSIGNED IN THE FIELD
I remember...Master
Sergeant Rios is another story that really pissed me off about the Army.
He had been my Chief of Firing Battery back at Ft.