TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

A Tour of Duty in Vietnam
my “baptism of fire” and set me up in a throne­like straw chair in
an air conditioned hooch with a vat can full of iced down beer and
a set of head phones through which I listened to the Doors’ Light
My Fire in stereo high fidelity – probably the most relaxing and
comfortable moment I was to ever spend in Viet Nam.
I experienced another incident that reinforced my belief that I
was operating under some lucky star during one of my patrols.
Thankfully, the Corps had insisted that I be in top physical shape,
and I was totally focused on detecting signs of possible danger as
we moved along a sandy trail that was ripe for ambush or booby
traps. Suddenly, as I put some weight on my left foot, I felt my
foot start to sink into the ground. I immediately pulled back my
foot and rolled on my shoulder. Where my foot had slightly sunk
was a shallow depression with the corner of what turned out to be
a C­ration case sleeve of heavy cardboard, sticking out of the
sand. Under the sleeve was a booby­trapped 105mm artillery
round that would have detonated had I not been so swift to bail
out. It was surely one of our duds that the VC had policed up off
the battlefield. After we slapped a chunk of C4 with a blasting cap
in it, it made a nasty explosion.
At some point early in my tour I was called back to Division HQ
for a reason I can no longer recall. Once there, I was mortified to
bump into the first sergeant who had originally processed me, and
he seemed to be overjoyed to see me. I quickly realized my
language training had not gone unnoticed. The division civil
affairs officer was on R&R, and they had a problem for which
they really needed my language training.
A Vietnamese baby had been killed by a stray anonymous
bullet, and several members of its family were in the 1st Division
conference room raising hell and seemingly demanding money.
They could not speak any English and the Marines at HQ spoke
no Vietnamese and were growing very tired of the civilians’
presence. The prevailing feeling amongst the Marines was that the
family did not really care anything about the baby, but they were
simply using the sad event as an opportunity to try to extort
money from the Americans. There was no reason to believe the
bullet had originated in a Marine’s weapon, and it most likely had
been one of the numerous rounds flying randomly about from the
Viet Cong sniper rifles.
I really did not want to get involved, but I also did not
want to alienate this first sergeant, so I begrudgingly opted to try
to help. In my estimation, I had not done very well with my
Vietnamese training. The language is tonal, and I mostly
memorized the language and never was able to actually think in
Vietnamese. I always had to translate from and to English which
means conversation was slow and laborious. The months of
Staging Battalion legal duty at Camp Pendleton had also made me
rusty. Fortunately, by this time, I had had sufficient leadership
training and exposure to real Marine officer role models to
understand that when a Marine takes on a job, he always gives the
job his all. It started out with me thinking my job was to satisfy
the family that there was no liability on the part of the Marines
and to convince them to leave. However, after several hours of
one on one conversations, I began to understand why the family
had come to the headquarters, and that their intentions had been
completely misunderstood by the Marines. The relevant points
finally became clear.
These were poor rural farmers with a very tough life. Their
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