For The Soldier Enthusiasm For Combat Ends With The First Sounds Of Bullets Flying Past

[TheMastersNemesis]

I only had the privilege of being "in the field" in Vietnam for only 3 1/2 weeks before I ended up being appointed a mail clerk in training for company clerk of my combat unit. It was probably the longest period in my life walking the jungles of Vietnam. And I was nearly blown away by our own artillery when 8 rounds came into our position while clearing an enemy base camp. Thank God no one in Bravo company was harmed. It can still see the explosion and the sound of hot metal flying over my head.

As I think about the endless moment I now wonder why I did get not get hit when I was within kill range of that 105 howitzer shell. Several of my fellow soldier were spared certain annihilation when a shell hit just a few feet from them. The fact that the shell hit a tree on the opposite side of them directing all the destruction the other way saved 5 or 6 people.

Walking down the mountain that day on my first day hunting "Charlie" is still very vivid. The prospect of a dark year ahead of me and the rest of us was just overwhelming. Whenever, I see an episode of MASH I know that the craziness of war is really like that series. And I was RADAR in real life witnessing and participating in all of what war is. There was absolutely nothing that I would not do move heaven and earth to help the guys in the field. And back then we were paid about $200 a month.

I was drafted, but todays military is voluntary. And that fact makes up all the difference. Enlisting means that you are volunteering to get yourself shot at in various ways. To me that takes a tremendous amount of courage and commitment and faith.

Pause for a minute and think about that kind of commitment. 99.9% of American workers go to work every day knowing for just about certain that they will return home safe AND IN ONE PIECE at the end of the day. For a military person in many cases the rule of work and return is about the same. For combat arms it is a very different world.

It all changes dramatically in a war zone. Whether you are in the "zone" anything can happen and any moment can ruin your day or your life. And it is dramatically more dicey if you are in combat arms and infantry. How well could you do your job knowing full well that when you get up in the morning that you stood a pretty good chance that you might not survive that very day alive or in one piece.

For me it was not nearly as daunting as the guys I knew personally that I served with in the 1st Cav Company B 1st of the 5th who were out there "in the field" just about every single day for a year And we now have vets who served 5 or 6 years in combat unit. That is over 2100 of the "longest days of your life". How can even the most healthy human mind withstand such onslaught?

Except for the very few, thirst for war and combat is about survival. Soldiers are trained to go into combat in way that they would never set foot on the battlefield if they really knew what it was really like. Being gung ho is mostly a myth after the experience.

And what always absolutely amazed me is how our soldiers could function even in some matter of fact way doing their job even when the metal is flying. Put yourself in a place at work. How well could you function doing you job when someone is shooting at you? Our soldiers are doing that every day in places like Afghanistan walking the patrols when "H" can break loose at any time. They do it as a job but I am sure that most of them do not do it with the enthusiasm they might have had before the first hostile fire flew.

No vet should not have to BEG for anything when they return. The fact that vets now have to be beg FOR ANYTHING is an insult to their service. After all WE ALL SENT THEM INTO COMBAT in our name.

ADDENDUM - My personal story is unimportant. It is the experience of our soldiers that is important. My intent about my story is that no soldier can describe to a civilian how terrifying it is to have ordinance exploding close to you. Believe me the few times I have experienced that it just terrifies you to the very depths of your soul. You simply want to be anyplace else in the universe. And Winston Churchill's most profound reply to the most exhilarating moment in his life was to say, "The most exhilarating moment in my life was to be shot at without result!"

[yellerpup]

1. You made the experience of combat

very real. Thanks for speaking out for vets.

[porphyrian]

2. That's one thing Florida's republican Congress got right.

They passed a year or two ago giving veterans priority when hiring for state jobs, anyway. The times we were hiring, I only saw a handful of veterans actually apply for our positions and qualify even with the edge, though, so I'm not sure how many are taking advantage of the law. Probably, they just didn't want to bust their asses as much as we were asking in my office for so little compensation. Also, the law requires specific paperwork that I hear is a pain in the ass to have sent to every potential employer in order to enjoy the advantage in hiring, so none of the veteran candidates I reviewed ever did.

[TheMastersNemesis]

4. What Most Americans Do Not Understand Is That -------

many disabled vets are technically unemployable in the private sector. And the private sector is generally not willing to hire vets with special needs. The government has been where many of these vets get meaningful jobs. And let's be honest the GOP wants to outsource or privatize most government jobs at really pennies on the dollar. They are that crass. And outsourcing and privatization is a backdoor way to go back to "patronage".

Vets do get preference on most federal or state jobs, but it does not guarantee being hired. Even with a 5 or 10 point addition to your score you have daunting prospects when thousands take these civil service tests. And Romney and the GOP want to abolish the "civil service systems" nationally.

With the end of the national Job Service system by being turned over to the counties and fragmented, vets preference in hiring as a PRACTICAL matter is pretty much gone. We used to have vets units dealing only with vets employment issues staffed by vets. I am not sure it even exists anymore. The Republicans killed it.

[porphyrian]

6. Unfortunately, privatization is the direction Scott is trying to drive Florida, too.

I'm sorry about the circumstances, but I'm glad the military is now mostly on our side in this election. Hang in there, soldiers, we can fix this.

[bakpakr]

3. As a vet THANKS FOR that! NT

[warrprayer]

5. D.U. Recc n/t

[1-Old-Man]

7. Very well put. RVN '67-'70, 4th Infantry

Just to the north of you all.

[TheMastersNemesis]

9. I Remember Seeing The 4th Division Around A Lot

I am sure that we both remember the training mantra about needing a diaper in a firefight or when something hits real close. Of course the DI's said it all in a very different way like something getting weak. How true it is.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Beautiful post

Very nicely done.

[99Forever]

10. I despise the War Machine..

... but have the deepest respect and love for those of you who laid it all on the line. Apparently, I am the mirror opposite of a Republican, aren't I?

Maybe it's time for the 99% to refuse to fight the 1%'s wars. If they want blood, let it be theirs.

[unhappycamper]

11. "how terrifying it is to have ordinance exploding close to you"

You dredged up a memory TMN.

First of all I've always been an REMF (31E40 at separation).

At the time I was living on the huge Chu Lai airbase. We used to get convoys of S&Ps loaded with 500 lb. bombs ( Mk 82s) at least two times a week from Da Nang. On January 30, 1968 the convoy arrived later than normal so the wizards at the ammo dump parked them together in the middle of the dump - all 19 S%Ps. (I know you are thinking "What could possibly go wrong?&quot

The 'bad guys' fired off a shitload on 122mm rockets for openers. The first indication we had was these things (headed to Division HQ) coming in over our heads and going boom 10 seconds later. We took rockets for about (I still have no idea how long that lasted) 10 ~ 15 minutes.

The airbase itself was maybe 1.5 to 2 miles away from where we were. A few minutes into the barrage 122s started landing on the airfield. One explosion picked up a parked F-4 and tossed it thru a hanger. At least one of those things landed on the S&Ps full of 500-punders.

The fireball and shockwave looked like a nuke. I was on a knee behind some sandbags and the shockwave knocked me on my ass. Boom. indeed.

A few fays later I was in a chopper headed south. South China beach was black from the burned powder as far as the eye could see.

[unhappycamper]

14. Just found this pic on the google:

This pic must have been taken almost immediately after the 122 hit the S&Ps. The fireball climbed to at least 2,500 feet.

[pinboy3niner]

12. I remember...

I remember...my son coming home from the Fourth Grade and me watching as he took my Purple Heart out of his bookbag. The medal had been packed away for years in my old footlocker in the attic, just as I'd packed away my war memories.

What are you doing with my Purple Heart?" I asked.

"We had Show-and-Tell today, Dad, so I took it to show the kids," my son replied. "I couldn't remember if it was WWI or WWII or WWIII you were in, but I figured it was WWII, and that's what I told them."

I didn't want to burst my son's bubble, but I had to tell him. "No," I said, "it was the Vietnam War."

My son skipped out to play, and that was the end of that--or so I thought. Until my wife told me of the question our son had saved to ask her that night as she tucked him in bed. "Mom,' he'd asked, "was the Vietnam War a good war or a bad war?"

I really felt for my son then, because he'd obviously heard negative things about the war and its soldiers. And I knew that the question he really was struggling with was: "Is my Dad a good man or a bad man?"


I remember...sitting in a coffee shop years after the war, cradling my cup of coffee and feeling the tears suddenly coming to my eyes as I remembered what a comfort a canteen cup of coffee was out in the field, during the brief respite after humping all day when we made a perimeter and had chow before going out on ambush...


I remember...being at a party in Westwood, CA after the war and hearing the sound of a Laugh Box, and discovering tears pouring down my face and being so shocked and scared because I didn't know why.

It was only when I snuck into the bathroom to wash my face that it came back. Joe, on Christmas day on a jungle hill out toward the A Shau, getting a Christmas present from home with chocolate chip cookies, a bottle of whiskey...and a Laugh Box. Sitting around playing poker in a poncho hooch on Christmas, and every once in a while somebody hitting the button on the Laugh Box and all of us cracking up.

And, a month later, Joe going down with a sucking chest wound from machine gun fire and my men volunteering unanimously to rappel from choppers into the firefight to try to save Joe. They wouldn't let us do it because we'd lose too many that way, and it wouldn't have helped, anyway. Joe died either on the jungle penetrator as they winched him up to the Medevac chopper or on the floor of the chopper. I'll never forget those good, good men.


I remember...

[WinkyDink]

13. "The Red Badge of Courage."

[pinboy3niner]

15. In those days, enlistee/draftee didn't matter in the field

For all, it was all about survival, no matter how you got there.

btw, I've had a lot of Cav friends. Including SGT Dick Coffey, from back on the block, who was KIA with D-2/8 in the Ia Drang shortly before the battle for LZ X-Ray. Dick was a cohort of my older brother, and acted as my surrogate big brother when my brother was away.

Dick's on Panel 3E, Line 17.