Over the years I’ve noticed those searching in the Viet Nam web sites have mostly belonged to three or four different categories. There’s the guys who woke up one morning and started wondering about what had happened to all their old buds. Then there’s the guys who’ve had problems with the VA and are looking for supporting documentation. But the one that interests me the most at this time is the kids of vets who want to know about what their father did in the War.
I find the fact that it’s mostly daughters who are looking for information about their fathers most interesting.
Of course the most common unasked and asked question is about what it was like over there. The best analogy that I can come up with that they, those who weren’t there, might understand is to compare being in a war zone to marital sex. If you’ve ever been married someone can give a sigh when asked about marital sex and that’s all that’s required. You understand. You don’t need a hug by hug graphic explanation. If you’ve experienced it then you know it and you really can’t explain it graphically to where someone who hasn’t experienced it can understand it.
It’s the same with being in a War, any War. I’ve sat down with the WWII vets and listened to their stories and they’re basically the same as those of us Viet Nam vets. It’s about the extremes, cold, heat, wet, dry, hunger, and black humor. I say black humor because those who weren’t there might find some of the things a vet finds funny really unfunny. But under the circumstances you had to either laugh or cry. Laughing makes you feel better most of the time.
I was not in combat. I didn’t have my best friend die in my arms. But that happened to lots of men over there. And those who survived such hardships with their souls intact are to be appreciated for being heroes.
What we did was work. We worked very hard in the 267.
Here’s my story.
Basic was fun for me. I was seventeen and had just quit high school at the end of the first semester. I was in great physical shape and basic training is more about getting one in good physical shape than anything else. So the part that was so hard on my fellow soldiers was a breeze for me. It was fun. I left basic feeling I’d found my calling in life. I was meant to be a soldier.
I think it was a ten day vacation and then I was back at Ft Ord for advanced training. I was to be an infantry wireman, 36K MOS. It was about then that I started having reservations about my future in the United States Army. Four weeks into an eight week course and they grabbed about forty percent of the class and sent us to Ft Gordon, GA for signal corps training. My new MOS (military occupational specialty) became 36C. What I remind best about that change in duty was we flew from California to Georgia. Two of us got to fly first class while the rest were on coach. That was cool. It was my first time to get drunk on champagne.
I don’t remember much about signal corps training. It was hot in June in Georgia. I remember that. I also remember having a fellow trainee ask me if my first name was Harvey. He’d been in the CQ (company office) when a telegram came in for Harvey Lacey. I ran to the CQ where the first sergeant asked if my name was James. He said the telegram was for a James Lacey. A week later I was called out in the evening formation. I was handed a telegram. It had been opened. It notified me a neighbor who had been like second father to me had been killed in a construction accident. He had been buried by the time they gave me the telegram. That was a glimpse into what I later accepted as the military attitude towards the soldier.
With one week to go in training I called home to tell my parents that I’d see them in two and a half years. Most of the graduates of the other lineman classes were going to Europe. And since I was too young, seventeen, to go to Nam I was probably going straight to Germany from school. The next day they let us know that a hundred and forty some out of a hundred and fifty in the class were to report to RVN training. I was in a state of shock. There were three of us that got orders for Nam that were seventeen. I was the only one that had a birthday coming up. I turned eighteen on a Greyhound going across the country.
Saigon was a shock to my system. I don’t think it really hit me where I was going to be until I was on the bus from the airport in Saigon to Long Binh. All the soldiers, ARVN (Vietnamese Army), white mice (Vietnamese Police), and our troops too. It was pretty scarey.
The 90th Replacement Battalion was another shock to the system. It was tents and cots. My first night was spent out of doors because there were no cots available inside a tent. We’d got there too late for supper. So when we got up for breakfast I could have eaten the south end of a north bound hog without blinking. The waiting line for breakfast four men abreast. And it was about a quarter of a mile long. And it seemed to take forever. Breakfast was a couple of biscuits covered with some gravy that wasn’t as thick as milk. I wanted to cry. But as I entered the dining tent I saw all kinds of quarts of Foremost milk. I figured I could live on milk if I had to. I grabbed a quart and turned it bottoms up. I might have got down one mouthful when the godawful taste of recombined milk hit. It’s the most terrible tasting stuff ever concocted by man.
It was about the third day when my name was called and I got on another bus back to the airport in Saigon. There we climbed onto a Caribou for the trip to Vung Tau, headquarters for the 267 Signal Company.
It was getting dark when the Caribou took off. This is a picture of a Caribou. They are a short take off and landing specialty plane. The back door folds down for loading and also for parachuting out. The passenger seats are along the sides of the plane and are web seats. They aren’t comfortable. The noise with the motors so close is deafening. But you can hear the pilot’s voice over the racket. It’s not very intelligible. But you can hear it.
We took off just after dark. I was staring in total fascination out the little window by my seat. Below us I could see a firefight. I knew it was a firefight and not just perimeter firing because the tracers were crossing each other. It was about that time the voice came over the loudspeaker. It was the pilot explaining we were in the trajectory of artillery and needed to go up another couple of thousand feet. I agreed it would be a good idea. I was glued to the window counting my blessings for not being part of the light show below me when he cut back the motors as he leveled off. The motors coughed, hicced, coughed, and hicced again as cut back. Needless to say I died right on the spot.
Harvey -- 06 29 05
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