Day 1
It is now 7.00 in the evening. I have been here nearly eleven hours and this is the first chance to actually have some time to myself. Well I promised myself I would write a journal while I was over here, so I had better start. our plane touched down at 6.30 this morning (local time) we where herded off the plane and into a waiting truck. We where told not to talk to anyone or except any items offered to us as we walked to the truck. I didn't have the nerve to ask why.
The heat washed over me in waves, as we left the airport. God I don't know how anyone can work in this heat let alone fight a war. Well I guess I will find out over the next twelve months.
The rest of the day passed in a blur.
We were taken to recruit camp, where we will be stationed until needed by units in the field. I still feel really sick and apprehensive when I think about being sent out into the field. I could be sent out tomorrow or next week though I hope it will be at least a couple of weeks before I am sent out. Later rather than sooner suits me just fine.
The guys I am bunking with seem OK; they have talked me into trying "jungle rules volley ball". there was some laughter at this so I don't know quite what I have let myself in for. Well I will find out tomorrow I guess. I had better stop writing and get some sleep, as it has been a very long, tiring and hot day.
Day 5
Well it hasn't been as easy as I thought to keep this journal. I just seem to be so busy all of time, I have had to practice continually with my M16 and carry my pack on small patrols around the base. I had to drag myself back into the barracks after the first one. Those packs are just so damned heavy.
Well on a lighter note, I have made several good friends in the camp. We usually sit and have a game of cards or listen to the radio after training. Last night we where having a couple of beers when our drill sergeant dropped in. He is tough but seems OK, so we asked him to join us. He told us some stories about what to expect in the bush and we learned a little about him like why he is called "mad dog" and where he got this North Vietnamese army belt. It looks neat. I might have to get me oneof those. Apparently a friend of his Sergeant Anderson took it for him.Anderson and his Lt. are coming here next week to meet with the brass and according to Sarge may do a little recruiting. I may try to get into their platoon, it sounds like most of their men go home alive and mostly in one piece. Well got to get some shut eye now, as we are up at 6.00 every morning.
Oh yeah "Jungle rules volley ball" well what can I say I have never been so absolutely filthy in my entire life, but it was fantastic fun and for just a short while I could forget why I was here and just have fun. I have a feeling I am going to miss that when I go into the field.
Day 7
It has been a harrowing and unpleasant two day's.
we have had four line ups
and the camps numbers are getting lower with each
one. The news we have
heard from the field is that there have been huge
casualties in all areas.
From the limited news we get it seems Charlie
pushed really hard and over
ran a couple of bases by sweeping through from
the Ho Chi Minh trail.
My days as a recruit are very limited, i may try
to get picked when Anderson
and Goldman arrive tomorrow. As I have asked
some of the more experienced
guys and all their replies have been very
positive.
I have talked it over with my two best buddies
Billy and Tommy. we are
being called the three Amigo's' and will be
trying to stay together in the
field. We usually try to be the other end of the
camp during line up's but
tomorrow we will be first in line. God how the
hell did they talk me into
this. I feel sick already and my hands feel cold
& clammy when ever I think
of shooting at anything that bleeds.
Hey I just had a thought. Tommy would say a
light bulb just went off over
my head; but anyway I'll get back to the point.
I will have to get people
to call me by my nick name 'Andy' instead of
Anderson. I wonder if you can
do that in the field?? All this writing had
given me a headache.
By this time tomorrow, I may be assigned to an
outfit. I will have to write
the first chance I get.
Day 8.
Oh my God. I can't believe what happened. My hand is
shaking so much I
have to grip the pen hard in case I drop it while I am
writing.
I was
chosen to be a member of bravo Sq. I was one of the
last to be picked just
after Sergeant Anderson passed over both Tommy and
Billy, I don't know what
I am going to do now. I was counting on those two to
get me home sane and
in one piece.
I keep getting strange looks from the other soldiers.
I think this could be
because I have been siting in one place with an
stunned look on my face for
the last five minutes.
I will have to pull myself
together if I want to
begin earning these guys respect. I don't want them
to think I will get
them killed or worse.
I am trying hard to put names to faces as it is not
one of my good points.
So far I think I have four down, and a hell of a lot
more to learn.
Lets
see. I know Ruiz, Taylor, Johnson and Baker. Well at
least their are in
the same platoon with me so it's a good start, not
like last time in basic.
I didn't think I would ever live that down...
There has been some laughter about my surname, but the
sarge has taken it
all in his stride. Both he and the Lt. seem to have
the respect of
everyone here and I hope I don't disappoint them when
we head out on patrol.
LATER THAT NIGHT
We have been attacked. The first I knew about it was
a bright flare landing
just in the camp and then a very loud bang. I grabbed
my M-16 more by
reflex than anything and followed the guys out of the
door. We hid in the
bunker for the next ten minutes until the shelling
stopped. The other guys
where so calm. I can't believe the way they just sat
and waited. I thought
I was going to give away our position my heart was
pounding so hard.
We had four dead when we emerged from the bunker.
They where just lying
there one was smoking after being hit by a mortar. My
stomach heaved and
the little I had eaten,ended up on the ground
unfortunately near the dead
guy. I know I will have nightmares tonight and
probably for many nights
here in. I know it can only get worse from here in.
I will have to kill
someone before I leave probably in the next few days.
I am going to talk to
some of the guys hopefully I can talk my way to at
least a few hours of
undisturbed sleep.
Day 13:
Well I did it I killed another human being. A real
live person that loved
and bled, just like me.
It all happened so quickly. Strangely throughout the
whole fire fight I
didn't feel a thing, it was only afterwards that I
started to shake and
couldn't seem to move any muscle in my body.
I remember the smoke from the guns and the steady
drone of the M-60 and the
others returning fire suddenly stopped, the sun seemed
to stream through the
clouds hitting the spot I had fired on and the VC had
fallen. It almost
seemed like he had been called to Heaven. F**K that
is ridiculous. I have
no idea why I wrote that. God is on our side. I mean
he has to be, He
can't be looking over the commies. Could he???
I came back to the present with a jolt as someone
shouted Movemovemove. We
ran toward the enemy and they hightailed it off to
parts unknown.
We had won the fight.
Sarge walked over as I slumped on the ground and put
his arm around my
shoulder, he helped me to my feet and stayed near me
on the way back to the
LZ. I don't know what I would do without him, he's
like an older brother
always looking out for me.
I will have to stop this now as me and the guys are
going over to the 'Club'
I am going to blow my entire wage and get extremely
drunk, maybe that will
help me sleep. Nothing else has helped yet.
Me again. I nearly forgot to add that Today is
friday. Friday the 13.
Appropriate hey....
Day 17: This will be a quick entry as we are off
to sin city. It feels
strange to be freshly showered, shaven and on my
way to a club to meet women
and get laid. I also hope to meet up with Billy
tonight as he is stationed
in Saigon. The lucky bastard pulled a clerks
position. Tommy wasn't so
lucky he was sent home to a hero's welcome last
week. Billy told me he
stepped on a mine. It is just so easy to do
Charlie hides them so well,
they just appear out of no where.
I am going to have to place this journal in a new
hiding place as Taylor is
getting very interested in what I am writing. (
He probably thinks it is
something about him) He keeps trying to read it
over my shoulder and I would
hate for any of this to be read by others. Well
the best hiding place is
the last place you would look so I might try and
hide the book under
Taylor's mattress when he is out of the barracks,
that would stop him
finding this as he never cleans out his rack
himself. How he cons people
into doing it for him I haven't figured out yet.
Well this has gone on longer than I thought, I
can hear the guys already on
the truck so I will write again later.
Andy.
It has been ages since I felt in the mood to write
about my time over here.
We have just trudged back into camp wearing a weeks
worth of mud and
smelling like nothing on this earth. I have more
bites and rashes than I
can scratch and some of 'em in places I dare not
mention.
We arrived back just in time for mail call, I got one
letter from dad. I
had written to tell him about the guys in the platoon
and to reassure him
i'm Ok. Now he's coming over here for a flying visit.
The letter didn't say
why or what was wrong. He has gotten permission to
come to the camp and
will be here tomorrow. God I wish I knew why he was
coming. Guess I will
just have to wait and see.
well I'm going to hit the showers and down a couple of
beers over at the
club and try not to think about tomorrow. I'll write
again when I know
more.
Today has been so full of surprises, I keep having to
grab onto my cot to
make sure I'm not being buffeted from side to side.
I Don't know quite
where to start everything seems jumbled up inside my
mind.
Well I suppose I will start with meeting Dad at the
Saigon airport. It was
great to see someone from home, He didn't stop talking
once on the way to
the bar but that was Ok it meant I caught up on all
the news from back home.
By the time we had reached the bar and got a couple of
beers I was ready to
hear the news that had brought him all the way to this
hell hole. I could
tell it was hard on him, dad has this unconscious
twitch with his lip
whenever he has either important or bad news. It was
killing me to find out
which it was. In hind thought I kind of wish I never
found out. Now he has
gone I regret the angry words and the punch to the
nose that sent him
reeling.
I hesitate to put the rest down on paper incase
someone reads it but I have
to do something, so here goes. Way before I was born
my father had an
affair with a prostitute of all things. He said they
clicked and he was
even thinking about leaving mum for a while, one night
she told him she was
pregnant. And he walked away without looking back.
Guess they didn't
'click' after all.
I can't write anymore now, my hands seem to have a
life of their own. I'm
going for a drink to calm my nerves.
I have 5 minutes before heading out on a mission, but
I will take the time
to finish what I started last night.
After Dad got my letters describing the guys in the
platoon, he said he felt
like a thunderbolt had come flying out of the sky. He
thought the
description of sarge matched the prostitute to a T so
he went 'fishing' and
phoned up some old mutual acquaintances. They told
him that Sarah had a boy
and that she had placed him in care, two years later
she was killed in a car
accident. I suppose the deciding factor for him was
that she had
specifically asked for her boy to have the surname
Anderson, seemingly after
dad. I guess this sarah really must of loved him,
though at the moment I'm
at a loss to know why.
My biggest question/concern now is how to tell sarge I
may be his younger
brother. I really respect the guy and I don't want
him to hate me for it,
hell I don't know how I would react if a guy who had
a stable & loving home
life walked up to me and told me we had the same
father after I had to live
in orphanages and foster homes.
well I guess that will have to wait until after the
mission, we are being
called to the chopper now.
I have just woken up in the dispensary, with bandages
around my chest and a
slight bullet wound to the chest. I'm thanking my
lucky stars I took my
journal with me yesterday. The bullet went straight
through it before
lodging in my chest. If I hadn't of had it the bullet
would of gone
straight through ME and Lt. would be writing a letter
home for me right
about now. I have asked Danny to pay Sarge a visit
and ask him to stop by
to see me. Today has been a huge wake up call. None
of us are invincible
and I just want to at least tell him before something
more final happens. I
will write more when he has been.
2 HOURS LATER
Well I'm no diplomat, so I choose to just hand Sarge
this journal and ask
him to read what I had written. I guess this says it
all better than
anything I can put into words. I lay there on tender
hooks as he read. When
he finished he quietly and gently shut the book and
laid it on my bedside
table. I tried to say something, anything as I felt
myself suffocating in
the oppressive silence. Then a tray clanged to the
floor in the corridor
and seemed to break the spell surrounding sarge; we
talked long into the
night about him and about me and my parents.
It seemed like a huge relief to him to have someone to
talk to about his
childhood. We all see him as such a strong person,
who listens and helps us
with any and all problems we have, we never think to
return the favour.
We talked well into the night and I woke up to find a
note folded inside my
journal. It read:
Andy,
I went looking for my father a long time ago. when I
found him he was
playing in the park with his son. I guess that must
of been you. I turned
and walked away from him and haven't looked back
since. But I'm glad to
have met you, funny how it took a war to bring us
together they usually rip
families apart. After all this time I have a brother,
someone to call
family. You never know how lonely life can be with no
one to give a damn
about you an I pray you never find out. When you get
out of the dispensary
we can get a case of beers and talk this through.
Zeke
After reading the letter, I know that a new chapter of
my life is just
beginning and this one is closing. so I will close
this journal, glad that
I kept the promise to myself and I will look toward
the future and hopefully
to a quick end to the war.
Andy.
Day 7
It has been a harrowing and unpleasant two day's.
we have had four line ups
and the camps numbers are getting lower with each
one. The news we have
heard from the field is that there have been huge
casualties in all areas.
From the limited news we get it seems Charlie
pushed really hard and over
ran a couple of bases by sweeping through from
the Ho Chi Minh trail.
My days as a recruit are very limited, i may try
to get picked when Anderson
and Goldman arrive tomorrow. As I have asked
some of the more experienced
guys and all their replies have been very
positive.
I have talked it over with my two best buddies
Billy and Tommy. we are
being called the three Amigo's' and will be
trying to stay together in the
field. We usually try to be the other end of the
camp during line up's but
tomorrow we will be first in line. God how the
hell did they talk me into
this. I feel sick already and my hands feel cold
& clammy when ever I think
of shooting at anything that bleeds.
Hey I just had a thought. Tommy would say a
light bulb just went off over
my head; but anyway I'll get back to the point.
I will have to get people
to call me by my nick name 'Andy' instead of
Anderson. I wonder if you can
do that in the field?? All this writing had
given me a headache.
By this time tomorrow, I may be assigned to an
outfit. I will have to write
the first chance I get.
Day 8.
Oh my God. I can't believe what happened. My hand is
shaking so much I
have to grip the pen hard in case I drop it while I am
writing.
I was
chosen to be a member of bravo Sq. I was one of the
last to be picked just
after Sergeant Anderson passed over both Tommy and
Billy, I don't know what
I am going to do now. I was counting on those two to
get me home sane and
in one piece.
I keep getting strange looks from the other soldiers.
I think this could be
because I have been siting in one place with an
stunned look on my face for
the last five minutes.
I will have to pull myself
together if I want to
begin earning these guys respect. I don't want them
to think I will get
them killed or worse.
I am trying hard to put names to faces as it is not
one of my good points.
So far I think I have four down, and a hell of a lot
more to learn.
Lets
see. I know Ruiz, Taylor, Johnson and Baker. Well at
least their are in
the same platoon with me so it's a good start, not
like last time in basic.
I didn't think I would ever live that down...
There has been some laughter about my surname, but the
sarge has taken it
all in his stride. Both he and the Lt. seem to have
the respect of
everyone here and I hope I don't disappoint them when
we head out on patrol.
LATER THAT NIGHT
We have been attacked. The first I knew about it was
a bright flare landing
just in the camp and then a very loud bang. I grabbed
my M-16 more by
reflex than anything and followed the guys out of the
door. We hid in the
bunker for the next ten minutes until the shelling
stopped. The other guys
where so calm. I can't believe the way they just sat
and waited. I thought
I was going to give away our position my heart was
pounding so hard.
We had four dead when we emerged from the bunker.
They where just lying
there one was smoking after being hit by a mortar. My
stomach heaved and
the little I had eaten,ended up on the ground
unfortunately near the dead
guy. I know I will have nightmares tonight and
probably for many nights
here in. I know it can only get worse from here in.
I will have to kill
someone before I leave probably in the next few days.
I am going to talk to
some of the guys hopefully I can talk my way to at
least a few hours of
undisturbed sleep.
Day 13:
Well I did it I killed another human being. A real
live person that loved
and bled, just like me.
It all happened so quickly. Strangely throughout the
whole fire fight I
didn't feel a thing, it was only afterwards that I
started to shake and
couldn't seem to move any muscle in my body.
I remember the smoke from the guns and the steady
drone of the M-60 and the
others returning fire suddenly stopped, the sun seemed
to stream through the
clouds hitting the spot I had fired on and the VC had
fallen. It almost
seemed like he had been called to Heaven. F**K that
is ridiculous. I have
no idea why I wrote that. God is on our side. I mean
he has to be, He
can't be looking over the commies. Could he???
I came back to the present with a jolt as someone
shouted Movemovemove. We
ran toward the enemy and they hightailed it off to
parts unknown.
We had won the fight.
Sarge walked over as I slumped on the ground and put
his arm around my
shoulder, he helped me to my feet and stayed near me
on the way back to the
LZ. I don't know what I would do without him, he's
like an older brother
always looking out for me.
I will have to stop this now as me and the guys are
going over to the 'Club'
I am going to blow my entire wage and get extremely
drunk, maybe that will
help me sleep. Nothing else has helped yet.
Me again. I nearly forgot to add that Today is
friday. Friday the 13.
Appropriate hey....
Day 17: This will be a quick entry as we are off
to sin city. It feels
strange to be freshly showered, shaven and on my
way to a club to meet women
and get laid. I also hope to meet up with Billy
tonight as he is stationed
in Saigon. The lucky bastard pulled a clerks
position. Tommy wasn't so
lucky he was sent home to a hero's welcome last
week. Billy told me he
stepped on a mine. It is just so easy to do
Charlie hides them so well,
they just appear out of no where.
I am going to have to place this journal in a new
hiding place as Taylor is
getting very interested in what I am writing. (
He probably thinks it is
something about him) He keeps trying to read it
over my shoulder and I would
hate for any of this to be read by others. Well
the best hiding place is
the last place you would look so I might try and
hide the book under
Taylor's mattress when he is out of the barracks,
that would stop him
finding this as he never cleans out his rack
himself. How he cons people
into doing it for him I haven't figured out yet.
Well this has gone on longer than I thought, I
can hear the guys already on
the truck so I will write again later.
Andy.
It has been ages since I felt in the mood to write
about my time over here.
We have just trudged back into camp wearing a weeks
worth of mud and
smelling like nothing on this earth. I have more
bites and rashes than I
can scratch and some of 'em in places I dare not
mention.
We arrived back just in time for mail call, I got one
letter from dad. I
had written to tell him about the guys in the platoon
and to reassure him
i'm Ok. Now he's coming over here for a flying visit.
The letter didn't say
why or what was wrong. He has gotten permission to
come to the camp and
will be here tomorrow. God I wish I knew why he was
coming. Guess I will
just have to wait and see.
well I'm going to hit the showers and down a couple of
beers over at the
club and try not to think about tomorrow. I'll write
again when I know
more.
Today has been so full of surprises, I keep having to
grab onto my cot to
make sure I'm not being buffeted from side to side.
I Don't know quite
where to start everything seems jumbled up inside my
mind.
Well I suppose I will start with meeting Dad at the
Saigon airport. It was
great to see someone from home, He didn't stop talking
once on the way to
the bar but that was Ok it meant I caught up on all
the news from back home.
By the time we had reached the bar and got a couple of
beers I was ready to
hear the news that had brought him all the way to this
hell hole. I could
tell it was hard on him, dad has this unconscious
twitch with his lip
whenever he has either important or bad news. It was
killing me to find out
which it was. In hind thought I kind of wish I never
found out. Now he has
gone I regret the angry words and the punch to the
nose that sent him
reeling.
I hesitate to put the rest down on paper incase
someone reads it but I have
to do something, so here goes. Way before I was born
my father had an
affair with a prostitute of all things. He said they
clicked and he was
even thinking about leaving mum for a while, one night
she told him she was
pregnant. And he walked away without looking back.
Guess they didn't
'click' after all.
I can't write anymore now, my hands seem to have a
life of their own. I'm
going for a drink to calm my nerves.
I have 5 minutes before heading out on a mission, but
I will take the time
to finish what I started last night.
After Dad got my letters describing the guys in the
platoon, he said he felt
like a thunderbolt had come flying out of the sky. He
thought the
description of sarge matched the prostitute to a T so
he went 'fishing' and
phoned up some old mutual acquaintances. They told
him that Sarah had a boy
and that she had placed him in care, two years later
she was killed in a car
accident. I suppose the deciding factor for him was
that she had
specifically asked for her boy to have the surname
Anderson, seemingly after
dad. I guess this sarah really must of loved him,
though at the moment I'm
at a loss to know why.
My biggest question/concern now is how to tell sarge I
may be his younger
brother. I really respect the guy and I don't want
him to hate me for it,
hell I don't know how I would react if a guy who had
a stable & loving home
life walked up to me and told me we had the same
father after I had to live
in orphanages and foster homes.
well I guess that will have to wait until after the
mission, we are being
called to the chopper now.
I have just woken up in the dispensary, with bandages
around my chest and a
slight bullet wound to the chest. I'm thanking my
lucky stars I took my
journal with me yesterday. The bullet went straight
through it before
lodging in my chest. If I hadn't of had it the bullet
would of gone
straight through ME and Lt. would be writing a letter
home for me right
about now. I have asked Danny to pay Sarge a visit
and ask him to stop by
to see me. Today has been a huge wake up call. None
of us are invincible
and I just want to at least tell him before something
more final happens. I
will write more when he has been.
2 HOURS LATER
Well I'm no diplomat, so I choose to just hand Sarge
this journal and ask
him to read what I had written. I guess this says it
all better than
anything I can put into words. I lay there on tender
hooks as he read. When
he finished he quietly and gently shut the book and
laid it on my bedside
table. I tried to say something, anything as I felt
myself suffocating in
the oppressive silence. Then a tray clanged to the
floor in the corridor
and seemed to break the spell surrounding sarge; we
talked long into the
night about him and about me and my parents.
It seemed like a huge relief to him to have someone to
talk to about his
childhood. We all see him as such a strong person,
who listens and helps us
with any and all problems we have, we never think to
return the favour.
We talked well into the night and I woke up to find a
note folded inside my
journal. It read:
Andy,
I went looking for my father a long time ago. when I
found him he was
playing in the park with his son. I guess that must
of been you. I turned
and walked away from him and haven't looked back
since. But I'm glad to
have met you, funny how it took a war to bring us
together they usually rip
families apart. After all this time I have a brother,
someone to call
family. You never know how lonely life can be with no
one to give a damn
about you an I pray you never find out. When you get
out of the dispensary
we can get a case of beers and talk this through.
Zeke
After reading the letter, I know that a new chapter of
my life is just
beginning and this one is closing. so I will close
this journal, glad that
I kept the promise to myself and I will look toward
the future and hopefully
to a quick end to the war.
Andy.