Reality |Life Lessons | Mental Health | Humanity | Non-Fiction
Life Lesson #4: A Survivor’s Letter to a Dead Man
I arrived in Vietnam on February 17th, 1967. It was a sunny, humid, upper-nineties day. The NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) shouted above the aircraft’s engine. “Get your asses off the plane, grab your duffel bag, and double-time it to the hangar. Now, dammit!”
As soon as we disembarked from the comfort of the huge, air-conditioned bird that had flown us here, every one of us started sweating profusely. Soon after, our fatigue shirts were drenched. The dry heat had absorbed the coolness of our fatigues, and like a mighty vacuum, sucked the moisture from our bodies.
Waiting for us there, in the shade of the hangar, were buses, adorned with jail bars on all the windows. The bars were used to prevent the enemy from lobbing hand grenades into the bus. Each side of the bus was draped with concertina wire, to dissuade hangers-on. Kids were used to troops busing back and forth from Saigon to Bien Hoa, where there was a large military base. They would run beside the bus, or peddle their bikes, pleading for chocolate bars.
