No sooner was my gear stashed than Top and I set off in another deuce and a half to Fire Support Base Moore where Bravo Company was flyin' in. The road we honked and weaved our way along, hell bent to crush any scooter or bike in the way, might have at one time been a fine stretch of pavement. Not so anymore. She was blemished with potholes every few yards. Back in Minnesota pot holes like the ones we were now slaloming through, sprouted every Spring due to frost action. Even as oblivious a man as myself had it figured out this was way too close to the equator for sub-zero temperatures. Maybe someone was sneaking out at night to steal chunks of asphalt for some ungodly, commie ritual?
Seemed that out in the Delta, infantry companies worked a different schedule than the rest of the grunts in Vietnam. I came to learn we did a bit over two days out, two days at Moore, two more out, then a stand-down of two days in Dong Tam. While at Moore we did details during the day and pulled bunker guard at night. In Dong Tam we drank beer, played basketball, took showers and watched The Green Berets at night. The movie was always good for a few laughs.
Our rotation was dictated by rivers, moats, rice paddies and monsoon. More to the point, we rarely spent more than two days in the field because of our feet. Since we were wet most of the time and our feet nearly all of the time, any more than two days out usually meant most of the company ended up with emersion foot and once the boots came off, our feet would swell like basketballs. That's not to mention the ordinary, run of the mill, jungle rot, ring worm, and all the other shit that grew on us. Yup, us candy-ass American boys had a tendency to rot while in the Delta. Our bodies were free-fire zones for trillions of microbes. Yeah, those little mama bichos loved to live on and in us.
At Moore I was assigned to the second squad of the First Platoon. Seemed that our three field platoons only had two squads each instead of the usual four. On a typical company sized operation we usually went out with no more than eighty men. The missing sixty or so troops were either on R and R, wounded, AWOL, or dead. Seemed the Army couldn't get troops to a field company as fast as the company lost men to one form of attrition or another. Seems that's the case in all wars. Down in the Delta it was mostly a case of a whole lot of booby traps and the occasional ambush.
Second squad took me in like a long last brother. Might have had something to do with not losing anybody on their last operation and beginning two days of near indolence at Moore. Access to warm food, cold pop and beer, is a wonderful thing.
All of this seems so long ago. Like it happened to someone else. That I was involved in a war as a ground soldier doesn't seem possible. The only good that came from it, at least for me, was that I can speak of something I once knew, that did happen. And how I felt about it as someone who didn't see any good in what I was doing. It sure as hell was a conflicting thing. Still is. Can't say that mine is the right view of what went on over there. Can't say it isn't. Can't say I did the right thing by going. Can't say what I did was wrong. Can say that I went and it sucked. Knowing that my life could have easily ended at any moment sure took the fun out of camping out. And weighed on me a lot more than the sixty pounds on my back.
I sure wish I knew myself better and had the answers to the world's woes. But strike out on both counts. So I'll just put down words on a page and hope they make some sense.
No doubt about it, I've gotta quit writing at night. Get too melodramatic. More to the point, if you want to know how I feel about my involvement in that war a lot depends on my mood and who you are. I'm usually very guarded about my feelings, at least in a face-to-face situation. Put a pen in my hand or a laptop in front of me and it's a different ball game. Finally, I lack the ability to put on the page, what was going on in my mind and soul during my days in Vietnam. Saying anymore won't clarify the matter. Guess I was too personally involved at the time and am now too far away.
Moore was a circular berm big enough to house a few small buildings, the battalion's artillery, and an infantry company. In that berm sat a couple of openings with gates. Built into the berm every fifteen or twenty yards were sandbag covered pill boxes, each manned at night by three grunts. From this base we occasionally set out on foot, or more often, by helicopter, bushmasters and eagle flights respectively.
Time spent at Moore was good time, safe time. We were mortared once in a while but it sure beat the pants out of flying into a hot LZ knowing for certain not everyone was coming back.
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