69 day, 10 Aug. ’67
Got the word we’re off for the rest of the day and night, so I’ll write now. All that can happen theoretically, is bumper pool and ginger ale at the club this afternoon, and a movie and Dr. Pepper tonight. Last night, after we got back from our ordeal at about 11:00, we had a snack in the mass hall and went to bed – very tired. About 3:00 a.m., we woke up to the sounds of distant machine guns and not so distant incoming mortar rounds. Our compound was not hit, but the ARVN compound was, with little or no damage, and zero casualties. The machine guns came from Gladys, which also got a few rounds of mortar and light arms fire. Negative damage there also. I was afraid they’d call us out to go after the VC, but after it was over we went back inside the tent and slept till morning (10:00).
When I say our compound wasn’t hit, but the ARVN was, maybe you’re confused. Our compound sidewalks, palm trees, nice buildings, showers, etc. is for the 43rd advisory team, mostly officers, with a few enlisted men – who advise the ARVN units. All here on our side are American. The ARVN compound (including the S-2 platoon) is across the street, and there is one on the other side of town. That’s the one that got hit; it’s right by Gladys. About the only time we mingle with the S-2 platoon is in the field and when Little Joe and friends come over to visit.
The laundry is taken every day now, instead of once a week like I thought. Just leave my wet clothes on the line every morning, and they come in and wash it. They hang it our all day to dry, and unless it rains before they take it in, your get it back that evening. Once in a while they get the stuff mixed up. I’m missing 3 pairs of socks, 2 pants, and one shirt, so far. I think it got wet in the rain yesterday, and they’re doing it over – I hope. They probably sold it to the ARVN or VC.
I got another exciting Vietnamese haircut today (2nd one in 2 months, not bad.) Haircuts over here have one nice thing about them. They’re only 40 p (40c). A shave, haircut, shampoo, massage, and manicure come to about 150 p – less than a haircut alone in the expensive world.
The propaganda sheet, [was enclosed] we found last night on the way to the village (which almost makes sense, especially after last night),
The chopper cartoon comes from the choppers over here. All have a picture of a tiger, wasp, or greyhound (like the bus) on the nose to identify the unit they are from. I was just imagining what would happen if one had a picture of Snoopy on it. [missing]
70 days, 11 Aug. ’67
I’m enjoying our little vacation. I just wonder how long it will last. We didn’t do anything today, and aren’t supposed to tonight. The only exciting thing that happened today was when I went to Cu Chi and picked up my new pair of specs. No sunglasses, yet, though. I guess they take longer – besides, the sun wasn’t out today anyway
A couple of guys got pretty tight at the club last night, and caused a little disturbance. The C.O. of the compound (whoever he is) said, once more and we’re all kicked out. After all, we are guests here and we should act like it, not like we owned the place. There’s nothing in the S-2 deal that says we have to stay in the adviser compound, but they were nice enough to let us. If we don’t behave, we’ll be out in the rice paddies in pup tents.
I spent about 2 hours doing the Mustang. I was afraid I might get rusty – I was. Thought I’d send it along. It’s about the only thing I’ve done today. I think the hood’s too short, but . . . Maybe Jere can hang it in the shop or use it for an oil rag.
71 days, 12 Aug. ‘67 Sat.
*I’m going to start naming each day of the week to help me keep track of them better.
Everybody was up late last night (seems to be a bad habit around here) talking and telling lies about everything from their childhood to fast women and hot cars. Especially women and cars. You wouldn’t believe some of it. I told about my Alpine, and sports cars, but everyone was on the drag kick. I told them about a certain ‘Beam I knew what ran at the strip and would be much better if the guy would run it at the sports car track by saying it was just a Tiger.
They said it was impossible to put an engine of that size into a car that size, and if it was done, it probably wouldn’t run better than the average 289 Mustang. I felt like saying the Lotus Elan would run circles around even the hi-performance Mustang, indeed, run even with the Shelby GT 350. But I knew they wouldn’t believe that.
Our vacation continues. Staying up late isn’t so bad, since we get up at 6:30 for breakfast and then go back to bed till 9 or 10 o’clock. The laundry girls came in today and brought us bananas, sweet potatoes, and wild peanuts. We had a party. The younger one is named Em Ut (like ammo) and Mama-San is named Co Ba, which speaks for itself. Like cobra without the “r”. we got quite a kick out of them and they love the phrase book.
We did go out for a couple hours this evening, just to be doing something to keep the Major satisfied. “You can fool all people some of the time and some people all the time, but you can’t fool all people all of the time.”
Want a biology lesson? I mentioned wild peanuts. Some of the fields are not strictly rice, some are peanut plants. They grow underground like potatoes, only there are a whole bunch of them at the end of the roots. I don’t know why, but I always thought they grew on trees or in comic strips. In one area they had Charlie Brown plants – to balance our the peanuts, I imagine.
Also, there are sensitivity plants everywhere. Whole fields of them growing wild. You can tell where we walk through – there’s a path of shriveled up leaves son the middle of the still open plants. Some of the leaves are about the size of my thumb.
Still another plant which I noticed only a few days ago. Growing along the berms in the rice paddies are clumps of clover. Big deal! There’s one unique thing about this clover – it’s all four leaf! No 5 or 3 leaf. If you can think of a way to get some home safely, I’ll see what I can do. Every time we go out now, I pick one and stick it in my hat.
One last thing. Lt. Cito made a comment tonight in the club. He was sitting there with a group of us in the soft lounge chairs, drinking a rum and Coke, watching “Wild, Wild West” on TV, when he said, “Recon’s really got class. Who else has three days off – 2 hours on and then can come in to a dry place to sleep, take warm showers, have people serve you in the mess hall, and then have a rum and Coke, watch TV, or a movie, most every night, or play pool?” You know, he’s right.
72 days, 13 Aug. Sun.
The most exciting part about this day was the meals. Lunch – a real live peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a braunschweiger sandwich, hard boiled eggs, potato chips, and the usual huge glass of iced tea. Usually for lunch they have either some rice dish or grilled cheese or luncheon meat sandwiches, but today made the first peanut butter in 2 ½ months.
We went out at 3:30 until 6:00 and saw nothing except the peanut harvest. Every house we came to was busy picking peanuts – the whole family was out in the yard, which was covered with grass mats, loaded with peanuts, doing the harvest. The nuts were still green and foul tasting; maybe they ripen on the way to market. Maybe that’s the reason for peanut butter today. Come to think of it, we saw them making peanut butter. They had a couple of acres filled with a layer of peanuts and about 4 water buffalo on roller skates, doing the squeezing. The juices ran off in a little trough and the gooks collected it in jars. To get crunch, they took ice picks and scraped the bottom of the buffalo’s feet and between his toes, mixing the chunks with the collected juices!
For diner we had barbecue! Steaks! Real live T-bones, cooked over a charcoal burner on the patio outside the mess hall. Sauce and tenderizer! I cook a pretty good steak! I’ve had worse cooked in our back yard at home (sorry, Dad).
73 days, 14 Aug. ’67 Mon.
I got a birthday card form “the Red Cross girls,” and another roll of slides, in the mail today, and that’s about it. The slides should be home in a few days. We’ve lain around drinking Coke and shooting pool all day today. Tonight we make up for it on an all-night mission. Ambush a supply train – ox carts and gooks. All night for ox carts and gooks! I could scream. We’ll discuss the outcome in the morning.
Leaving you in suspense,
Bob
74 days, 15 Aug. Tue.
At least we didn’t shoot each other last night. We were supposed to be on an ambush patrol, but we ended up doing what we do in the day – walking and searching houses.
We set up along a road and waited for about an hour for the supply train. It had been threatening rain all the time we were moving, and as soon as we sat down, it began. You can hear the rain coming for quite a ways, as it comes across the daddies. Sounds like a distant waterfall, and grows louder and louder, then, it hits. At times it rains so hard, and the wind is so strong, that it feels like someone’s sticking you with a million dull needles. It hurts! It’s a wonder it doesn’t beat the little ARVNs to death. Anyway, whatever you were doing at 8:00 Monday morning the 14th, it was 8:00 Monday night here, and I was sitting in a puddle getting drenched.
We got up to move and the rain stopped. We did the usual acrobatics necessary to stay on the berms at night, and stopped again at a house and remained there for about another hour. As soon as we stopped, it began to rain again – a slow, steady, drizzle. If you don’t think it’s possible to freeze in Vietnam, try this sometime. Whenever it rains hard, go out and sit in it for an hour or two and stay there after it’s over, and let a cold wind blow over you for another hour or so – if you can stay out there that long. At least we could move from place to place, usually on an ambush, you stay in one spot all night and freeze, moving kept us warm until we stopped and it rained again.
We moved out again and never stopped after that. Went through a rice paddy, waist deep in water! Deepest on I’ve seen for a true rice paddy. There were berms to walk on, but they were a foot under water. It’s hard enough to walk on dry ones at night, let alone submerged ones. Every other step, I’d fall off and make a large splash. And we were supposed to be moving quietly. We go back in at about 3:00 a.m. At least we didn’t stay out till 5:00 a.m. as planned. We slept till 11:00 this morning.
Unless we go out tonight, we’ve had the day off. I was playing with a radio today and got a Batman episode – in Vietnamese. Some music, and similar voices, but a different language. They also have a jackpot type contest on one of the VN stations. The girl behind the bar in the club was listening to radio today and kept writing down numbers every once in a while. We asked why (she speaks some English) and she said people send their names in and are given numbers – if their numbers are called during the day, they can win 20,000 p, if they give 5 other numbers that were called that day. She said they give about 10 numbers usually. Not many people have the opportunity to take part; just the city people and people like her that are close to mailing facilities like here at Bao Trai.
75 days, 16 Aug. ’67 Wed.
Up at 8:00 for an all-day mission. We did nothing but walk from 8 to about 3:30 that afternoon. We had a little trouble with one of the water ox, though. He almost charged us as we walked by; we almost shot him. Sanchez (he killed on one) said the only way to stop them with an M-16 is with a full 20 round clip, fired at one time on automatic. Hope it doesn’t jam. Ever try to shoot an armored cow?
We stopped for lunch and had bananas, pineapple, coconuts, etc. One thing about this place – you can always find something to eat, especially with the ARVNs to help. They made one old woman cook us some chicken and rice – delicious!
We had another treat at the end of our walk. We returned to the road at a very small village – about 3 houses – and while we waited for trucks to pick us up, we went into a little store where they sold candy. For 3 p, I got a whole handful of pineapple candy about the size of lemon drops. It was made from real pineapple juice – no artificial flavoring – by the gooks. Best pineapple candy I’ve ever had. I should have saved you a piece.
I did save you this Chieu Hoi pass. They dropped them on us from helicopters as we walked across the paddies. I don’t know who they thought we were, but I think we’re lucky they were armed with passes, rather than machine guns. Also I saved you a few of my four-leaf clovers, which grow in abundance around here.
76 days, 17 Aug. ’67 Thurs.
The Cheiu Hoi camp got mortared last night, and the bunker line just outside our tent got a few rounds of sniper fire (two rounds hit our jeeps, if the jeeps hadn’t been parked there, they would have hit some on inside the tent!) We had had to get up and go to the mortar bunkers in case our compound got mortared. It never did, but we had to help man the bunkers all night (1/2 hour each man). I guess the VC hit the Cheiu Hoi camp quite often. After all, the defectors are hated as well as dangerous in the eyes of the VC. After every attack, the Cheius have a parade down the middle of Bao Trai to show everyone in town, including the VC – that they are still alive and against the VC and proud of it.
I see in the P. O. [Westerville, Ohio Public Opinion newspaper] that Marlynn was nominated for Fair Queen, but I got a letter from my parents saying she wasn’t elected. If it’s not too late, I’d like to cast the tie-breaking vote. Who did get it – Christy? You know, Marlynn, by not going to WHS for your senior year, you’ve missed your chance to be Homecoming Queen, making me a liar; I told you that you would be someday. Maybe you’ll make it at Otterbien.
Unless we go out tonight, we’ve had the day off (I’ve heard that before). Three jeeps went to Duc Hoa (they’ve fixed the bridge – the VC blew it out a week ago) to pick up a couple of Chieu Hoi to bring them back to the compound here.
Nearly everybody in the platoon has a bad case of the GIs. Doc had some stuff went out from Cu Chi that’s really great. Now ever one is asking him for a laxative!
Let’s see now. In 16 days, I’ll have an even 9 months to go over here. How should I count it – as an expectant father or as one school year? Maybe if Patti would get pregnant again . . . I remember the first seemed like only 3 months, instead of 9, to me anyway.
Cont. tomorrow, Bob
Aug. 17 [letter to Carole Ogg]
Hi, Carole,
I don’t know what happened to your letter, but I just got it today, and it was postmarked the first. (I got L. Demorest’s letter today, too). Of course you know by now, the cookies came in beautifully – thanks again. And there is probably another box of slides there by now.
Sorry about your voice, but as Linda D. put it, “Carole Ogg had throat surgery in June. Couldn’t talk for 1 week. Then, when she was permitted to talk, she over did it and now she can’t talk for 2 weeks.” You think you’ve got problems? What about Mrs. W.? Sounds to me like she’s gone to the dogs – call the pound. If no claims her in two weeks, they’ll put her to sleep.
Everything here is, I guess you could say, satisfactory, considering the situation. As long as we don’t shoot each other. I do think I have hay fever, though. It’s either that, or pneumonia form being out in the rain all night a few nights ago. I froze!
Believe me, I wish I was home right now, too. I’d paint every house in Westerville, if I could come home today. I don’t know though. If they have any riots in Columbus, it might be safer here. 290 days, Bob
PS. Just discovered why your letter took 16 days. You didn’t sent it air mail. Quite a difference!
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