TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

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Trotsky must have had his calendar open to 1967
when he prophetically suggested that you might not be
looking for war but it might be looking for you. This
was true from Quang Tri to Quang Nam, where
whether looking through the windshield or at the
review mirror, what you saw was war. War is always
the hardest of places to unpack truth. Confusion and
bad luck trip over themselves getting in the way.
What you get isn’t what the generals expected.
(Though the gunnys usually did.)
End of tour, everyone knew they weren’t going
home with a full complement of TBS classmates. No
head­count needed. They’d expected that all along,
but kept it mentally at arm’s length. Enthusiasm can’t
trump reality forever, although the naivety of youth
sure tries. Not even wearing green can wash away the
sorrow of loss where it must certainly appear.
Lieutenants all supposed that training would help and
it did. (If Mike Kelly would nudge you back awake.)
They supposed that serving alongside fine men would
help and it did. But of all the many things that could
go wrong in a year in the provinces, well, few would
have imagined them all.
At least there was this in common: a clear
distinction between the possible and the impossible.
Sorting through the finer distinctions of possible and
probable, likely and unlikely came with experience.
Experience alone, however, doesn’t guarantee a
plane seat home. Bad luck or a capable enemy
intrude. Chance and fortune get reassessed, over and
over, particularly as they relate to the Laws of
Probability. Anyone who buckled himself into a plane
seat home knew that the odds of picking a can of
beans and weenies rather than the preferred ham and
mothers from a case of C­rats turned upside down
were precisely the same every time. Your turn meant
nothing.
The euphemism that one makes his own luck is
shown to be nonsense at some place like Con Tien,
unless it’s thought that wearing two flack­jackets
constitutes luck. Battlefields are indiscriminately
rude, dangerous places. (Plus, don’t forget
Heisenberg’s butterfly (and where not to queue up at a
movie theater).
The lessons of a year in the provinces weren’t
elusive. They were mostly of a kick­in­the pants
variety. Life­saving or life­taking lessons were
abundant. Everybody knows that the goofiest­looking
lance corporal in your outfit could be the one to save
your life. Going to war with Marines wasn’t luck, it
was a choice. A good one. But those are the obvious
sort of things we let fade in thinking back to the
sharper­edged ones.
Battlefields are full of people and things. Both
break. While the bulk of Co C benefited greatly from
serving under fine and brave officers, some
classmates drew a mad­hatter. It happens. All this
gets piled onto bad luck, somebody’s fervent wish to
kill you, and things breaking.
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