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Ok, I’m not sitting in my warm living room talking to you, I’m on the road to San MAteo for the reunion of a military unit i was in once upon a time long ago in a far away galaxy. A Company/1st Battalion/1st Brigade/101st Airborne Division.
Paratroopers. You had to volunteer and get through jump school to be in this unit
This was the worst 5 months of my life (so far) I slept EVERY night on the ground for over 5 months, in monsoon season, too--- April to September, 1967. This is how I spent The Summer Of Love 1967. We never saw a bar or PX, our “days off” were spent guarding firebases. Other than that we were in the bush the whole time, for as long as 5 weeks. This was not a record at all in this unit, many of these guys spent the whole year doing this. What saved me was volunteering to join the Long Range PAtrol ---5 man teams that were later renamed to be Rangers. We patrolled the Truong Son Route---what the US called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But we got actual days off.
That was dangerous too but I saw more war in the 5 months I spent in the 101st than I did in the 7 months I spent in the LRP-— more action, more dead and wounded, more shelling, more nights in the rain, days in the hot sun. This one platoon, which usually had about 20 guys in it, took more casualties in the 5 months I was in it---and I knew all of them-- than my LRP company did, 200 guys, in the 7 months I was in it---and I only knew a few of them. More people fell out sick too: Malaria, dysentery, even pneumonia from exposure. They wouldn’t let you out of the field if you could walk.
this is my platoon, in that company, 2d platoon, A/1/327. I am sitting 1st row, 2d from left, this photo proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was just a very good looking pawn in the game.
So I’m going to go hang out with some of my old pals from the Screaming Eagles. What happened is that, after I volunteered for the LRP, the town of San MAteo CA “adopted” A Company. And what we’re going to is the 50th anniversary of that.
I’m still in contact with 3 other people in this picture. One of them went into the LRP with me and I see him at reunions of that. One of them---the tallest one in the center of the back row—is a really good friend of mine now.
he and I got together around Y2K (remember that?) when I posted this picture on a military website and someone saw his best friend there and hooked us up. Since then, by posting this picture on FB, Ive met two more guys.
This was the biggest year of my life---the most exciting, dangerous, stressful, demanding ever. I laughed I cried I hurled. I guess it was the biggest, most important I ever was—a teenager making life and death decisions on a daily basis. I think that’s why we get together---to celebrate a journey we survived that very few people took. There’s never been anything in my life to compare to it.
So I thought I’d throw in a little soldier music while I’m down in Californy marching around going HUP HUP HUP and reminiscing about the bad ol’ days— some of the martial things I heard when I was young.
Songs by soldiers or about soldiers.