TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

A Tour of Duty in Vietnam
monster for me. I am pretty sure that after all their many photo ops
with the cobra; the Vietnamese probably ate the snake. After
reclaiming the bunker, I was mortified by the sounds of many
other living things within its structure. I somehow acquired two
bottles of industrial strength insecticide bombs which I emptied
into the interior. There are no sufficient words to describe the bugs
and beasties that crawled out of that bunker on that day
accompanied by drizzling sand and sawdust, but the bunker
eventually became borderline livable.
I saw no combat while stationed with the ARVN regiment. As far
as I knew, no one but the colonel ever left the compound while I
was there. Most of my time during the day was spent teaching
classes on such topics as the nuances of calling for fire support. I
had my own supply of C­rations which I used for breakfast, lunch,
and snacks, but I was required to take supper at the officers’ mess
every evening. I don’t remember the cooks ever serving anything
but fish heads and rice with nuoc mam (fermented fish sauce).
When sated, the Vietnamese officers would simply pick out and
eat the eyes from the uneaten fish heads. The saving grace for me
was their copious supply of strong Vietnamese “33” beer. After a
few of those, I would become the source of entertainment for the
staff, but the colonel usually ate somewhere else. I would start
feeling frisky due to the alcohol and the drop in evening
temperature, and I would think up antics that kept the staff
giggling. One night after everyone was inebriated, the
quartermaster claimed they had run out of beer. With tongue in
cheek, several accused the quartermaster of holding out on us. I
told him that if he didn’t produce more beer, I was going to throw
him over the barbed wire and out of the compound. He just
giggled and seemed to love being the focus of attention. Egged on
by the staff, this escalated to me holding him over my head like a
bar bell (he only weighed about 80 pounds and did not resist), and
telling him it was his absolute very last chance. He just kept
giggling and the staff kept egging me on. I actually tossed him
over the waist high barb wire at the southern end of the compound
and landed him in soft sand, but there were a couple things that I
had either not known or had just forgotten. The area outside the
wire was an old uncleared, probably French, mine field, and
nobody ever walked out in that area, At night, the only entrance
that was opened into the compound was at the opposite northern
end, but thankfully, the quartermaster was somehow able to make
it back inside the compound in one piece.
In the morning, I was hung over and morose with remorse. I
could not believe what I had done. I was sure that, once my
behavior became known by the powers that be, any career I had
aspired to in the Marine Corps would be toast. As it turned out, the
ARVN regimental commander thought that I was such a morale
booster for his staff, he requested that I be assigned to his
regiment permanently. He had a lot of clout with MACV, and I
had to use every ploy and marker I could think of to keep that
assignment from happening. I do not think any of my Marine
superior officers ever found out about the quartermaster toss. At
least I was never called on the carpet for it.
I had also made a great friend in an Army captain from MACV.
His day job was manager of the MACV officers’ club in Da Nang.
We had both been tasked with temporary assignments on a rough
rider to Hu . A “roughrider” was the term for a truck convoy of
supplies. This Army captain had been named the commander of
A‐59