I woke up this morning at about 3 AM in a “dream / nightmare” of a time, place, and experience I have fought hard to forget, Vietnam. It has actually been many years now since I re-lived my experiences in the war in dreams, although they are never not in my thoughts, each and every day.

Just imagine being a 19 year old, in the U.S.Marine Corps, in a far away country, first time/place out of the U.S., doing what you felt was right, defending your country. From the first few minutes, I arrived at the military airport in DaNang, which, I might add, was under attack, to the day two years later, leaving on my “Freedom Bird,” I was aware of death.

FYI…I have never told this to anyone.

I had been “in-country” for almost a year, lived thru TET 1968, and was assigned to 1st Marine Division, as part of a seven man Recon Team with Hotel Company. Without going into much detail, we were a specialty team traveling the mountains with light gear, able to “hit & move” quickly. We mainly were locating enemy supply chains feeding the enemy arms. We were also involved with other “assignments” which I have not spoken about to anyone sice leaving country, but those were my worst nightmares.

We had been in the field for probably almost three weeks on this mission, putting many clicks travel per day, catching what sleep we could at night. It had been a terribly long, hot, sweaty day for us, pushing thru a valley rice paddy to get up the next hill, our destination. As we were taking a smoke break, drinking shitty tasting paddy water with iodine tablets in it, our radioman decided to tell us news he got earlier that morning.

“Hey you fu#ks, it’s Christmas Eve today” !

I have to say I was not happy hearing that, knowing tomorrow up the hill, overlooking a major pass used by the NVA funneling arms, we could easily “hit some shit”, on Christmas Day!

We pushed up and over that mountain, like many before, and settled in on a treed slope overlooking our objective. Although we usually dug in with good amount of seperation betueen us, for some time we grouped and talked.

For the next I don’t know, 3-4 hours we each took time talking about our families, how we all spent our Christmas’s with them in the past, and how we looked forward to that experience again soon. I hope nobody who reads this ever experiences what we did that night. Seven guy, Marines, pouring their hearts out to each other, some sobbing, tears flowed, emotions exposed.

Yes…. seven combat soldiers, 19-23 year olds, who had experienced more horror than any young man should. I know that each of us was thinking the same thing, would we spend Christmas with our families again.

In the early morning we completed our mission identifying coordinates of a supply caravan, for the air strike. We proceeded toward our extraction point up and over the mountain, hearing the strike in the distance, feeling very accomplished.

We would be choppered back to the airbase in Danang for a few days “in-country R&R”.

We had almost gotten to the top of the mountain following an old trail when the explosion rocked our world, tossing me in the air and dropping me in a heap off the tail. It took I don’t know how long before I could stand, and forever till I could hear. Scrambling up the hill expecting additional mortar rounds coming in on us, I found that Jimmy who was walking point was pretty much gone. We found evidence that it wasn’t a mortar round, but actually an old “booby trap”, made from an artillary round, as we found two more going over the hill. The shells had French writing on them, so we figured the French there before the U.S. had booby trapped the hill.

Luckily we were well spaced, and the six of us got banged up, a little shrapnel, nothing serious. It took us another 4-5 hours to get to our extraction point, and not a word was spoken. Our team continued almost another full year in operations, until I got word I was scheduled on a Freedom Bird home in a week from Danang.. weeks before Christmas 1969.

Over those months, I had to replace the other five team members at least once. None of the original guys from my team that night made it home for another Christmas.

I was the only one, and I don’t know why.

It didn’t take long when I first got to Nam, to realize I did not want to make “friends”, because they didn’t last.

Those six Marines were my friends, and I will never forget them, especially during Chrismas,

Me, on the left, in Danang, borrowed a uniform going on my first R&R to Thailand.

I had already lost over 40 lbs.