From Okinawa, he went by ship to the Philippines for more training. It was there he brought his recorder. After his first major combat operation in the Meon Delta in the southern part of Vietnam, he was sent to the northern part just below the demilitarized zone or the DMZ. Sometimes he complained about the war and their rifles.

 He expressed anger towards the Vietnamese people and the news media because he said half the time intelligence reports were all messed up. He had been in actual fighting about 3 months when he was assigned to a combined action company and sent to a compound to protect the village. The compound had just been attacked by the enemy and one marine was killed.

 3 months later it was again attacked and he was the only KIA. Nearly all the others were WIA wounded in action. The Vietnamese people betrayed our Marines. They sympathized with the communist guerrillas living in South Vietnam who fought against South Vietnamese and the American forces. They were known as the Vietkong or the VC.

The Marines called them the Gs. Before Mark continues, you need to know that sometimes while he is talking, there is interference caused by noise in the background, the wind or war equipment. Also, he speaks of the Marines as grunts, which the Marine Infantry men jokingly call themselves. Let’s listen to him.

>> This is Friday, Friday the 23rd. We got back to camp today here in the Philippines. We We are living back in the same huts we were when we left. Still sleeping on the air mattresses, living out a few baggage. Quite a mess. Right now, everybody has taken off on Liberty. I don’t think we have any more train while we’re here.

You said on the tape that I just got that most of the state will be coming off of Christmas. I’m sure glad to hear that. Uh yesterday morning, Saturday morning, we had another rifle inspection and since I was cutting hair, I got out of that inspection. That’s the second inspection I’ve skated since I’ve been cutting hair here. That’s fine with me.

I get out inspections and I’ll make money while I’m doing it. Right now, I’m on the still on the USS Wuima. The operation was supposed to start today, but we’re sitting here in the middle of a typhoon, I believe. So, they had to call it off until tomorrow. Didn’t say anymore. You have to wait in line to go into combat anymore.

They’ve been showing movies here every night on the ship. They’ve been had some pretty good movies. They had Thunderball and Dr. No. Last night they had Ship of Fools. I don’t know why they show it. They got a whole ship of them right here. But we just got back from the operation here about 2 hours ago. Everybody was sure a mess when they came back here.

 You couldn’t believe how dirty they were. No shades. Everybody was dog tired deep just all the time. Two airplanes were bombing the heck out of some something about half mile from us. And uh you can see the bombs falling. They were so close. There’s still guys coming in from the helicopters. There’s two guys going down below now.

 Got 30 and scound all worn out. Oh yes. And uh my camera got ruined. And uh I didn’t mind losing the camera. It’s just I have some good pictures on them. We’re at the flea now air base. This is a big base unless we got three four square miles all around it. No permit buildings really. They’re all temporary. Most of them are just a frame building with a canvas around the side for the sighting with a tin roof and they build up off the ground a little from for uh protection from the water.

 They have a lot of rain up there during the monsoon season. Uh we live in tents. Uh tents big enough for about 15 men. And uh we have a mesh hall here. Have to use our own meth. It’s a pretty pretty decent chow here. Uh right now I’m standing outside of tents here. Everybody just set the tents. We had dig trenches all around the tent.

 Uh drain trenches in case it rains. Here are the mountains all around here. You can see them a lot better now here in the afternoon. The haze is all gone. Uh they look like like the Smoky Mountains. We have shadows around here somewhere. We didn’t get to use them last night cuz we weren’t organized enough yet.

 Now they say we have them around here somewhere though. We have hot water too. This uh this morning we had to shave out here by uh with no mirrors or anything using our helmet to put water in. I tell you these uh guys that have permanent personnel here in these towns like Tang, Saigon, Hawaiian, Fubai, they really disturb us cuz uh like I said, they look to live in the houses and sleep in beds and get three square meals a day, showers, shaves every day, and they only have it nice and they’re making the same m.

We had to go out and live in the mud and get shot at. Two meals a day, no beds to sleep in. It really really honks those grants off to to think that someone’s making the same money we are and we was out there getting all the dirty work while they’re back here living like king. >> On February 12th of ‘ 67, they were instructed to turn in their seabags.

 He was without his recorder until they came back to Fubai on April 15th after 8 weeks of fighting and trying to survive. These trucks were taking them to the helport to be flown out to start an operation. But the drivers didn’t know the way to the helport. When they finally arrived, they stood in the rain for 2 hours before finding out the operation had been called off.

 Then they had to walk all the way back. The next day they started on the operation, walking miles and miles and zigzagging around mounds of unmarked graves. All the operation amounted to was three days of walking in sand, mud, and water. They were tired, hungry, and mad. Nine Marines were wounded from mines. Nothing was accomplished.

One time they camped here outside the little town. The day before they had gone on a sweep of the hills, but didn’t find even one sniper. They walked all day in the rain and got back after dark, wet, cold, and freezing. They tried to sleep in these holes in the ground. That morning, they bought wood from the Vietnamese so they could have heat to get dry and warm.

 They set up a perimeter around this old Catholic church. As Mark was writing his letter, the chaplain was having mass in the church. He wrote that they had been through hell. They spent 2 days on top of hill and the VC morted heck out of them. For 3 days it had been extremely hot and they had only one canteen of water.

 Their company started out with 212 and they were down to 150. He was thankful he made it through without a scratch. When the company was out on Operation Big Horn, Mark was suffering from tonsillitis. About half of the men were sick, but there was no way they could get out of the field. He got lots of mail from home, but it wasn’t delivered regularly.

 On this day, he received a bag full. The guys couldn’t believe how he raided so darn many little packages. He celebrated his 22nd birthday out there, sharing his favorite banana cake, complete with a can of ready to spread frosting, candles, and paper plates, all sent from home. He said he split it up with the guys and they went crazy over it.

 The pictures were dark because of the dark, rainy day. He was planning to build a bachelor’s pad when he came home. When time allowed, he drew house plans. This helped preserve his good attitude and sanity. >> I’m back here at Fleai now with my new company and uh so looking forward to getting that laundry.

 I’ve been wearing the same utility jacket for four months now. Never been washed yet. I need a shower pretty bad, too. So, I’m looking forward to getting that done this afternoon. Here, you’d never guess who I met when I got off the plane up here at Fubai. By the way, we flew from Donghal down to Fubai by a military plane.

 It’s about 20-minute flight. Soon as I got off the plane, uh Lobinger was there at the airport. Tom Lobster. He uh came up from uh where is he at? to lie. And uh he tried to tell me how much he hated being a cook. He walked out of it was doing bad. And I tried to tell him how crazy he was. He said they had a motor land 100 yards from them one time.

 He thought that was only hair raising. I told him you only had him land 3 ft from you. Let me tell you, no picnic over here. Where I first got in the real action was when we went up to Bennett. I said, “Hey.” went up to Dong Hall and got on those helicopters and flew out the mountains. The next day we uh started hunting across the hills, all our gear on and those hills almost straight up and down and it’s just thickest jungle you could ever see.

 We had to chop our way through all the time. Anyway, there a bunch of dukes up there up above us on the side of the hill shooting down at us in the valley and uh there’s a pretty big firefight and we didn’t have any cover at all. We just had lay down in the grass but this uh as a guy about 5 ft from me and about halfway during firefight he was up on his knees trying to shoot a law and uh he got hit right between the eyes.

 All you could hear was a thud and just heard him hit the ground. And and after it was all over, we had killed one of our own guys and seriously wounded another. And uh every night we have to dig a hole of mortars and I’m so sick of digging holes that it pays off. And most of the time we have to dig in solid rock almost.

 It’s harder than he have to dig in. But uh like I said, there was nothing you can do when those motors start coming in. Just get down your hole and hope and pray. And you can hear those things coming in. When they uh you can hear a whistle just when it hit the ground come and then boom and dirt starts flying all over the place. You’d be walking along and the VC would be hiding off the bushes somewhere.

 When you get to certain spot, they push a button and the m go off. We lost three or four men that way. We lost one platoon commander. He got shot in the back. One lieutenant by a sniper and killed him and uh got up the next morning and moved out and it started raining. It rained all day and we were just soaking wet, free season freezing to death and everything.

And that’s the the day we got hit real hard. We had tanks with us that with us that day and after having tanks with us, I don’t want to be with tanks anymore cuz they attract too much attention. And uh we’re just walking down this real narrow road and all along the side is big tall hedge roads real thick.

 You can’t see through. We can’t walk through them anything. And if you see hide behind these and uh so when they’re hiding behind they really they’re only about four or 5 ft from you and they uh lob grenades over the top of the hedros on you. And later on that evening is when we got hit real hard uh especially first platoon that uh we started getting morted.

 We’re out in this open field. We didn’t have any cover. We just had to lay down on the ground and motor the dukes really had a pinpointed for the mortars and and uh one goo uh even uh ran out in front of a tank. He had a rocket launcher. It’s one of our weapons. I don’t know what I got, but he was going to square away that tank, but the machine gunner on the tank saw him in time.

And uh so that’s the night the mighty Marines had to retreat and we started retreating. We started carrying back a wounded I was helping a wounded guy back to and we set up a perimeter and all this time it was raining. We’re all wet. had to sleep out there that night and uh we had about 20 WAS and we had nine KAS and uh we couldn’t get a helicopter in that night to medifac them.

 So the wounded had to stay out in the field that night along with the dead. So the next morning uh we uh medevaced the wounded. We got one chopper in medack the wounded and all their gear and so we had to throw the 9 kas on the tanks and we had to take them all the way in on the tanks and it was still raining that day. his home, buddy.

And uh we had a few sniper fire, got a few sniper rounds on the way in. And uh this is uh the day that AI’s uh battalion was coming out to get us. And uh we walked all day. And by the way, we hadn’t eaten for two days. Hadn’t had any food for two days. We were tired and worn out and wet and miserable. And uh the bodies on those tanks, they were just dropped in ponchos and half of them were about ready to fall off the tanks and they were coming out of their ponchos and uh it was really a terrible sight. They were sick.

Then the next day, uh we started standing lines. A couple days later, we went out to the artillery battery, my platoon, and the stood lines out there. And the stood lines out there that artillery barriers for about uh 4 days. And then uh by the way, uh my position was on top of a grave out there, dug in a graveyard.

And uh I had a V little VC boy, not VC, little Vietnamese boy help me build my hoochs and everything. About 4 days after that, we moved out again back up in the hills and uh it started getting hot then real hot here. These hills uh they had pads on them. Someone’s been up there for us. So we had pads to fall, but uh it was so hot.

 So we had guys passing out from heat exhausting all the time. And uh all it is is walk, walk, walk. That’s all it is. I don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish. And uh so we moved out the day after that and started on our way in. Like I said, it was hotter than heck again. Sometimes we go all day without water. We just had to get water out of a mountain stream.

I came back in, got back in uh to the place where we left, where the started operation at. And they had hot s waiting there for us. And uh this is where we had to eat out of our helmets. I said, “We got a hot show. Take your helmets with you. You’re going to have to eat out of heck, we didn’t care. We hadn’t eaten in a day.

So we got the helmets and went over there went serving child. They had chicken, potato chips, and cake. And uh soon as we got our child, it started raining. And I mean it rained. It’s the hardest rainstorm I’ve ever been in. It just like someone pouring out of a bucket and wind was blowing. Oh, about bleed down.

And uh all of a sudden they yelled second child. You never saw them all but especially after that cake. Everybody just ran out there and just grabbed the handful of that cake just like a bunch of animals reaching and grabbed handfuls of it and threw it in the helmet and stood out in the rain and watched the helmet fill up with water and eating soggy potato chips and wet cake.

 But it was good. And then uh we uh stayed out there that night. The next day it cleared up. So we all all went down the river. There’s a river right there nearby. And uh took a bath. Nice big river. Real clear too. Sworth moving. Took a bath, shaved, tried to wash the guitar best we could. All all this time uh there were Vietnamese uh women and children around uh trying to sell us bananas and sodas and boot candy and bread and stuff and we’ll all just walk around there dark naked just like I just can’t.

 You know, I hope all those Vietnamese women are getting a charge out of it. I uh want to get a picture of it. I never thought of it, Dar. I wish I had. After that, there we went back up to DMZ. We uh went up to the same place uh where we had come out before with the tanks. And the Alpha Company was leading that day. And uh they got to this same vil that where we we had gotten the sniper fire from and they got ambushed.

 I mean ambushed that. They got the heck morted out of them. The dukes were all dug in all around them. They had uh machine guns and uh they just cut out for the pieces and uh the alpha even had a heck of a time getting out of there. So in all that day it happened the next day pulling artillery and air stack on that village.

 Then we went in there a day after it was on uh a day and a half later and the dolphin company uh flipped through the vil see what they would find and we found everything. We found 40 dead BC all kinds of gear even found our own gear from Marines that had left it there. They couldn’t get it out. It was really a mess. It was all burned out, trees laying all over the place.

 It is blowing to shred. And uh we found uh all kinds of VC bunkers, VC gear, motors, motor rounds, grenades, uh cartridge belts, packs, you name it, it was there. And uh they found one uh VC that was still alive. And u they took him and they got him to talk and he said that there were 400 VC there when the company got hit.

Came back to see where the heck did we come back into? Oh, they went up to Camp Carroll. Yeah, up to Camp Carroll up there with the all the big guns and uh stayed there a while and where did we go after that? Went uh took his truck convoy up to Case about an all day ride truck ride. Was it rough and uh we had some two hoies with us.

These are our guides. They’re XVC that has given up. We captured them or something. We brainwashed them. And they’re guides from Marines. They tell us what our booby traps are and they act as interpreters for us and everything. And sometimes they’re not worth still. I tell you a little bit about what we did when we got out in the field.

 The last time we were out for 6 days. Went out last Monday and came in yesterday morning. Just like I said, the road was up on top of this hill to uh stand down on the highway one and looked up at the hill. Didn’t look like much, but uh when you started climbing, boy, it was pretty steep and uh pretty rough going up.

 Uh it all toused grass with big rocks all over it. You couldn’t dig a hole, sighting hole. So, we just took a chance lay out in the ground. There were three bridges we had to guard along the highway there. The VC had been trained to blow up, but we didn’t make any contact with anything. There supposed to be a battalion of VC operating in that area, but you can never believe what you hear.

Half the time intelligence reports are all messed up. They don’t know what they’re talking about. And uh we’ve uh come to find out that those M16s, those uh or AR-15s, whatever you want to call them, those new weapons we got, they’re not not too reliable. We don’t uh care for them. We even though they are lightweight, neither to carry.

And we’d like to get rid of them and get old M14s back. They we have too many malfunctions with them. They jam too easy. Mine jammed only five times. uh the uh round of fire that only jacket just stays in the chamber. So you have to get a ram rod and uh poke it out just like the uh damn boom guys did.

 You had to run a ram rod ram rod down to the boar to get it fly again. And so uh we would like to get rid of those things but uh I doubt if we will. We don’t feel too safe. I was when I was back with one nine was this last time we was out on Chanook. told you about uh that last big firefight we were in that uh drawing company uh had a uh platoon that got online and we’re going to sweep through the VC and uh they started firing at him and uh 17 of their rifles quit firing.

 So they had about seven KAS because of the malfunctions. So they’re not too dependable on a rifle. Those old M14s, they were to shoot anytime. Either throw it down with the mud and the dirt in the sand and leave it laying watered all night. You would still shoot. You’d never have a malfunction with that. But anyway, enough for that.

Uh, Friday morning we moved down off the hill right beside Highway 1 and stayed there a day. Went to swimming Friday morning. Like I said, it’s right beside the ocean. So, we walked over and went swimming and uh took a bath, washed our clothes as we could. I got transferred again to Couch Cac, Combined Action Company.

 And uh I’m uh very happy to be in it actually. It’s uh better than a uh infantry outfit, but yet uh you still do some of the work. A lot of the same work that the infantry does. We’re going to school here right now for 8 days. Then they are going to send us out to units, different units. Oh, yes.

 I got those plans the other day, the A-frame. And uh I like them. I think they’re really nice, but uh little house I’ve been drawing sketches of. It’s only a onebedroom job and I tried to figure out a way to build on to it, but there’s no way I can build on to it. I got it set up. >> Yeah. Uh right now I’m sitting here taking it kind of easy sitting in my lunch from chair I bought and I got my I’m getting shorts on here lounging around got shower shoes on and uh really taking it easy school really didn’t amount to too much we had classes on map reading compass

reading how to call in artillery sanitation hygiene how the calf operates and just what its purpose is and uh oh uh the religious customs and all the different religions of Vietnam. That was really interesting. Tomorrow I go out to my unit. I leave about 9 9 or 10:00 in the morning and head out there. This cat unit I’m at uh Papa 3.

 Uh it’s about halfway uh between Don Hall and Cam Low. It’s on the Highway Nine, I guess it is. It’s not Highway One. Um, there’s not much of a vill around here. There’s a villa in back of it, but it uh doesn’t have a marketplace or any stores or anything. It’s just farmers. And uh this uh compound here uh on the 15th of this month, 15th of May, uh he got hit uh by the VC and uh they uh kind of tore it up pretty bad.

 They lost one Marine and uh just about everybody else got shot in the wounds. the VC they uh cut the they didn’t have too much bob wire up that time they cut a few strands bobb wire and they crawled in to the bobwire and start doing satchel charges and uh the way it happened uh they found out the next day that seven of the pfs that were on guard here were VC sympathizers and they let them in.

 So, they got those PS all locked up now. But, like I said, they tore the place up pretty bad. They uh blew the back ends off of two hooches. One hooch went completely down. That was because the ammo bunker was right beside it and it blew up and uh blew the whole side off the mesh hall. So, uh we’re stringing a lot more bobb wire here on the back of the compound.

The veil comes up right almost the back of the compound. So, uh, that’s the side we got hit from. So, we got all kinds of bobbars out there. You wouldn’t believe it. Looks like a prison. Looks terrible. All this bobbar, but uh, it’s going to serve his purpose. I know. And, uh, we have two hot meals a day here.

 And, one of the Marines here does the cooking. And he’s a pretty good cook, too. Tonight, we had pork chops, corn, uh, mashed potatoes, and toss salad. And breakfast we usually have sausage and eggs and coffee. And we have milk out here too once a day. And every evening here they have a formation of the PS. There’s about 15 of them here. To see them, you you wouldn’t believe them that these are the men that we fight with.

 They’re a solid looking bunch. But uh about all they do, they they don’t do a whole lot. The what the PSR forces are about like our national guard. They you know Vietnamese real short and skinny. We have young ones, real old guys, some pretty old guys and long hair, you know, real s looking bunch, but uh some of them are pretty good fighters and some of them aren’t.

 And uh today the TX truck came out here and they had some Dr. Pepper on it. So we bought 10 cases. Dr. Pepper, our one of our patrols. We made quite a few house calls. We get kind of tired just walking around down here on these patrols. So when we get thirsty, we just stop into our house and have something to drink, have some hot tea.

 Usually the people are very friendly to us. We just walk up to the house and they ask in serving tea. I stayed there about an hour and uh I talked to the little kids while I could and played with them. They sure have some cute kids over here. Some real cute ones. They uh C unit here got a barber kit and they designated me a barber now.

 So, I’ve been cutting everybody’s hair. I don’t know who’s going to cut mine. I guess my guys out here a whack on a while. I uh really don’t care too much what it looks like out here. There’s nobody out here too fast. sitting out here in front on top of a bunker in a lawn chair. I’m on a watch right now for three hours. Uh here, this is a man walking down the road here. I just said hi to him. Sh.

Uh he said hi to me. I’d answer him back. He’s standing here looking at me now. He’s probably never seen a guy use a tape recorder before. I hear a comes a little boy right down the road here beside compound. Heard two gigantic water buffalo. They are huge. Need some more film. I went through that little film the first day I had the camera.

 Uh I took it up mostly of the compound here in the fell in the compound and that same day I went into Cam Low. So I took it in there then took a few pictures. I took a picture of uh the barber shop in Cam Low. These people over here, Vietnamese people, they uh seems like they don’t appreciate anything you give them.

They’re all the time begging for something, which uh really determine a lot of times if uh they see something that you have and they want it or they’ll steal it. Uh so you got to keep all your gear over here locked up. They they don’t care about the war over here. They could care less.

 If I had some uh little fellow friends, I got this one little boy here. His name Lou. He does my laundry. I told you about him. He’s one that always has on clean shirt and stuff. And I took a picture of him, too. Me and him and another boy. Lou is wearing the light blue shirt. See, the name of the villa here where the compound is is Cam Hugh.

It’s uh not too big of a deal. About well, it’s really pretty small. About 10 houses. I guess about uh 50 75 people live here. No grass around the hooch. Just all bare. They keep it all bare. It’s all mud. Packed hard clay just like concrete. That’s the way it is on the inside. And out in front on the packed clay, they that’s where they dry their rice.

 They lay it all out to dry and I usually have two or three rooms to them. They sleep on just a plank board up off the ground. They’re Buddhist so they have their own little altar like put the little bowl of rice up there every day. The way they harvest this rice is they cut it by hand in the fields. Then they have to carry it usually quite a distance back to their hooch to make 400 sandbags.

 And that we have to do it up across the road when we don’t have any dirt here we can use for them. So uh there were already about 600 up there. So altogether we had 1,000 sandbags and yesterday afternoon we got a truck and uh we had to load all them on there and bring them down here. So, uh, by the time 5:00 rolling around, yes, John’s pretty well beat from loading and unloading a thousand sandbags.

Uh, one on one of the next rolls of film that you send me on the mailer. Uh, don’t address the mailer. I want to uh get a roll of film and take some pictures and uh, send them in and get them developed and have them sent back to me and then I’ll send them all home. So, I’ve taken a lot of pictures over here.

I’ve never seen any of them yet. And I just like to see what some of them look like. Take some of me and take some gunship pictures of me and see what a what a marine supposed to look like. And uh also, if you can find any more of those uh home magazines, uh send them to me. I really enjoy looking at them.

 If you can find one of the that’s got the uh homes in the on the vacation homes, the regular homes for year round living uh send out. I’d like to have one of them church services out here. And uh after it was over, the chaplain handed out some uh New Testaments and uh it’s the uh it’s a brand new New Testament. uh it’s called name of the book is or the new testament here is good news for modern man and it’s all written in modern upto-date language just like a book would be written it’s real simple it’s uh real simple to understand and uh

I’ve been reading some of it starting with Luke uh a couple I was going to read the Bible over here So I asked out uh Mark and Matthew read uh uh first or Matthew and Mark it is in that New Testament Gideon Bible I got and I got this and started on Luke and uh I ain’t hardly put the thing down. It’s interesting.

 It’s just like a story book really. Uh we’ve got a new cook out here now. got a new boy in and uh he took the other cook’s place and boy can he ever cook. I’m not kidding you. Last night we had uh what was it? Roast beef, nice potatoes, corn, green beans, asparagus. Oh, was it ever good. And uh cold pineapple slices on ice.

 This morning we had French toast, scrambled eggs, cold juice, apple juice. Uh we always have an assortment of juices here we keep on ice and uh this evening uh we got a turkey in on the supply truck day big turkey one of only a few prepared stuff that’s wrapped in turkey skin and everything turkey big turkey loaf is what it is we’ll have that tonight we got cranberry sauce he says he want green beans potatoes asparagus some gravy if he has time to mix it up he is really an outstanding cook up some things and I’ve been on me duty here for the last

couple weeks. We keep trading off and knowing who’s got me duty. So, I’ve been washing the dishes every morning and evening now. So, I takes up a little free time. I rather enjoy doing it. I get out of doing it. It’s more like home washing dishes. Big event we had here at the compound about 3 days ago. one Marine here at the compound.

He had taken a liking to these people and felt sorry for him or something. So he rode home to his hometown and uh got this thing going and uh here they sent over all kinds of clothes and medical supplies and uh this marine that did this, he is now in the hospital. He got wounded pretty bad when this compound got hit.

We unpacked all of them and sorted them all out and uh we had a heck of a time doing that. Uh a lot of fun it was. That’s what I mean. We had a ball doing it, going through all those clothes and uh that evening we dressed up in them and some of the guys put on dresses and stuff. After we uh gave the uh TF their clothes, well, we uh So, uh, we were going to hand it out to the villagers and first we sorted through all the good things for the kids and we hand them out to the little friends out here, hobby boys and stuff.

And uh, when we took them out there, they’re closed out here in front to uh, distribute them. All the people just started gathering around. It looks like herd of animals gathering for the kill. And uh they just kept edging closer and closer. After we asked a couple in to uh start uh rumaging through come three or four more. Then some snuck around behind.

And before you know it, they were in there. They were just running in there grabbing and taking off. And the PFS are out there yelling at them trying to get them away, but they couldn’t. So all we just said, heck with it. We just said, “All right, come on. Come and get it.” And you should have seen the mob.

 They look like a bunch of mad dogs going for a a bone. They’re in there fighting, pushing, pulling, shoving. They didn’t know what they’re getting. They were just getting something. And they got it. They took off. They didn’t know uh what uh one things that made me mad so mad was uh uh they didn’t know why they were getting it and they didn’t care.

 It was just something free. They anything for nothing over here. Uh here this Marine, he had uh almost given his life for these people over here. And that didn’t mean a thing to them. They didn’t care. They’re just getting something free. The the dumb Americans were giving them something. That’s all it amounted to.

They don’t they don’t care what they have to do to get something for nothing. They’ll do it. Cheat, steal, scheme. They’re just not worth fighting for, I tell you. And it’s just amazing. And another thing over here, they say, uh, how many men they got over here now? Oh, I don’t know how many 100,000 men. We were talking about that today.

 Out of that out of all the men over here, there’s only about 20% of the men that do the actual fighting over here in the battlefield. And all the people back home complaining about, well, they got one minute over there. They need the uh and the V the VC outnumber us. The amount of fighting men that they have. Hey, we we we got to have all these office pokes over here.

 sit back in the rear and do nothing remaining. That base back there, they got what, six PXs back here now, a uh movie theater that runs all day. And uh that’s uh where most of these men are over here back in the rear. There’s very few of them out in the field doing the fighting. So, we are actually short-handed over here.

 What they need to do is get all these office pokes out here in the front lines and throw a rifle in their hands. Let us start binging. Oh yes. About a year ago, uh, you were out in San Diego visiting me. It sure doesn’t seem like a year ago. Like you said, time sure does go fast. Here, I’ve been trying to draw some more plans in my house.

I went crazy over that house magazine. There’s a really two houses in there I’m really in love with. I tell you, I think they’re the greatest. And for the time being, I guess I’ll just drool over that one home and dream about it. So, take my mind off everything else. Each bunker here or each corner is a stack full of ammo.

Here is one, two, three ammo cans in this well, four ammo cans in this bunker here I’m in right now. Each can has 720 rounds in. So that’s a quite a few that’s quite a few rounds. And plus a case of hand grenades. The ammo bunker itself has some more cases of hand grenades and the war torpedo grenades. My dad about those rocks here.

 You said we had ra up wind wind rows. Well, I just happened that one day when I took the picture, we had them raked up like that. Of course, we were going to rake them all up and take them outside and put them in a hole someplace. And we have a shower here. We uh have a fivegallon drum up on a little little thing we stand under.

 And every day when a supply truck comes, we fill that up with water for our showers and also a list of bags of drinking water. The girls over here, cos that’s what they are. They call a co. We ride them all the time and they walk up down the road here beside us. They won’t look at us. Uh none of you know people. It’s their way.

 I guess the girls, they won’t have anything to do with outsiders. So whenever they walk by, they always pull their little straw hat down over their face and look the other way. And we always grab them and yell at them and everything. They call them, “Hello, girl.” But uh they never looked up. And uh you asked what that little hooch was in the right hand uh side of the picture out in front of the compound.

Well, that’s the doctor’s office. That’s where he holds his meds out there in that little hooch. Uh people aren’t allowed to come to the compound here. So he holds his uh sick call out there. And about how Lou does the laundry. Well, Lou doesn’t let him do the laundry. His mother does the laundry. Uh she does it at a well over here which has got real good water in and uh I give them laundry soap to do it with and uh I don’t know whether she presses them or not.

 They come back all folded up nice and neat and the trousers even have a little case in them but I think it’s just the way she lays them out to dry them. Uh just about every school and uh there’s one right behind the compound here. Uh we only go about school about four maybe 5 years at the most. And uh uh once in a while there’s a few boys around here 16 17 that are still going to school.

 They have to go to a plain tree. At school there’s nothing to the inside of them. Just uh tables and benches. That’s all there is to it. They got a piece of plywood stack up on the wall for a board and that’s all it mounts to. Oh. Uh, here. Uh, 3 days ago we had a uh ton of grunts come out here to the compound. They wasn’t for 2 days.

Uh, we were supposed to have gotten hit in a 3-day period. So, they came out to help us, but nothing came of it. And, uh, I really enjoyed having them here. just felt like old times uh having a glance around listen to see these stories and they went out on ambushes as well and ran patrols but mostly they went out here on the other side of highway 9 out of our territory we don’t go over there and that’s where the VC were supposed to be that we’re going to head but uh one night there an ambush and they heard some noises so they We

sent four men out to check it out and uh they saw there’s uh three bushes running across the hill and everybody saw them really making their hat and uh the four men went up to check them out. They uh opened up on them and every one of the men by one shot at the rifle jam. Every one of the four men went up rifle test and uh one of our guys attack guys came along with him that had died and he said he sure heard the language that swear and yell and everything rifles one guy even threw his but I can’t blame himself

when I had something to shoot at but the rest of them couldn’t open up so they had to four guys in a time and by the way these grants were they were part of 29 that got ambushed up here by out of BMZ and it was part of that 29 that he sent me this clipping about where these big wigs over here.

 They got two different stories on what happened during that ambush and I didn’t know anything about uh what was going on until you sent that clipping. So that just goes to show how much uh just how much how messed up this war is over here. And uh and that uh big week they don’t know what they’re doing. And uh waste as times are really going to get someone really wiped out because they don’t know what they’re doing and uh they’re not together over here.

 So we might better get together and start working over here and clean this mess up before the lose a lot of guys. Another thing uh really uh makes me mad about uh living over here is the flies. The flies, they’re just terrible over here. You can’t believe how many they are there are. And uh you you can’t lay down. You just can’t do nothing.

 You try to lay down and sleep and you can’t sleep because of flies. They’re just all over you. And uh you got these veils and you see the little kids sleeping or just walking around. The flies are all over them crawling in their eyes and all around the edges of their mouth and almost in their mouth and it’s just sickening.

 The people are just used to it, I guess. And you get a little swoll on you, which you have quite a bit of them over here. And the flies, they just they’re on that thing like flies on honey. They they have a feast on that sore. That’s why there’s so much infection and sickness over here. Uh one of their favorite medications over here.

They’re putting up stuff on a cut or something. They think that heals it. And uh you hear the soft people that have stuff on them. It’s hard to get off once it dries on the car. It’s crusty. And when you try to wash it off, oh, it has a terrible stink to it. You’ll just get a little scratch on you and you don’t think it’ll be any flies will get to it and I get to this day.

So, like I said, this end of it, I guess I’ll be turning off here now. So, until next time, I’ll be seeing now. Byebye.