TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

Que Son
spent.
Nevertheless, for the 1 st MarDiv, it had been a long,
long year. They’d won, but the problem was that the valley
itself hadn’t decided to give anything away. It would be the
same damn thicket of bamboo and wait­a­minute vines in
‘68,‘69, and ‘70 as it was in ‘67. It imposed its own
imprint.
Probably more than any other piece of terrain in I­
Corps the fighting south of DaNang left Marines looking for
some better way to fight than rolling grenades downhill, so
to speak. What they eventually got was “maneuver” warfare,
which except for a few lousy German expressions and some
cheesy lederhosen was not particularly off­putting. Its
emphasis, however, resembled precisely the scheme of
warfare that Westy extolled but that Walt suborned in favor
of pacification.
So who won that argument? Neither man figured
out that you don’t always get to pick the fight, sometimes it
picks you. What can be fairly argued, however, is that time
didn’t afford either man an answer on their watch.
Relationships take time and good ideas.
The short uptake was that people in I­Corps, for
whom Vietnam was not only a war but also their country,
were particularly grateful that Marines had refused to turn
their towns into the biggest whore­houses west of the
Chicken Ranch. Non­fraternization, for instance, was a
Marine idea uniformly derided by the Army. This, however,
would never have been discernible to Marines who had
never left I­Corps. There, that’s just the way things were.
However, any Marine transported by magic carpet to the
army’s Saigon of ‘67 could have headed downtown on
liberty, strolled along the sidewalk to the Continental hotel,
turned down Tu­Do street and stopped in at Mama Bich’s.
The back table was full of whatever Marine advisors were
back, re­fitting. Like beer and know a lot of Irish drinking
songs? Happy days!
North in Hue? Off­limits. Nevertheless, the Cherry
Bar would sell a Marine beer and try to hide him in the rain
barrels out back in the alley when the MP’s showed up, but
they’d know where you were anyway. Adios one stripe. All
of them, if you’d stolen a jeep to get there.
DaNang? The Club Select, right on DaNang’s
riverbank, had a French trained chef who hadn’t yet been
drafted, and the house specialty was lobster thermador,
priced at $3.50 (MPC accepted). Surely “off­limits” would
exclude fine­dinning, one chubby major possessed of $3.50
finally decided. Ah, but the full price with MP escort home,
after the Walt gratuity, was $803.50 – one month’s pay.
Walt was right, respect matters. Fighting can blindly find
you, but respect needs eyes.
Sometimes, local folks made that case as best they
could. Tom Gay has been carrying around a letter from
Que­Son for a half century. It’s from the district chief, a
young ARVN captain who like anyone educated in French
schools says too much. But he means it, which makes all the
difference. Here is a part:
Colonel, Commanding Officer of 1/5 Bn
...Only a few months have passed since
the communists had sown death and suffering
to the people of Que­Son, the battlefield
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