Over The "Big Pond"

As a kid, I used to stand on the beach, look out on the Pacific horizon, and wonder what was on the other side. In September of 1967 I watched that beach disappear from the window of a 707 as we started OVER that "big pond", as it had become known.

When you're flying off into nothing, you have a lot of time to reflect, because you don't know if you're coming back. Will anybody write to ya? Will you be forgotten about? Will you get the "welcome home reception" the World war II guys did when THEY came home?----(the girls there at the docks to meet 'em when they got off the ships, the bands and parades........you've seen the footage on the History Channel). How about "YOUR girl", is SHE still gonna be "waiting there", for you when/if YOU get back?

A hundred things are still going through your mind, when the plane touches down in Okinawa, where you'll in-process before the short flight into Vietnam.

We were there for 2 days, getting last minute survival lectures that might be a little more current than the last briefings we had stateside. And of course all of the innoculations, including that dreaded "GG" shot, that left you limping in pain for the next 3 days. (It was supposed to thicken your blood, so you wouldn't bleed so profusely if you got hit).

The sun was just coming up on the 3rd day when we loaded up and flew into "Bang-Bang DaNang" as they called it. We threw our seabags into trucks, loaded in on top of them and drove past "China Beach" and into the huge 3rd Marine Division Headquarters compound.

Accomodations were rapidly declining for us. Barracks in Okinawa, and tents HERE. (before long, we'd be living in bunkers and holes). At least there was hot chow in the Mess Tent, and make-shift showers, that we WOULDN'T have in the field.

Our planeload of "replacements" were quickly assigned to whoever needed what--------and I'd be going to "K" Company, 3rd Platoon, where they were short a couple of guys on their rocket team. They were currently at Camp Evans...........wherever THAT was.

I was issued my 782 gear (field pack, helmet, flak jacket, utilities, steel-soled combat boots, cartridge belt, etc). Then to the "armory tent" for an M-16. "Crap!".......(not the exact word that came to mind, but very, very close!)

"Any chance of getting an M-14?".............."I wouldn't count on it" he said. "There ARE still a few out there, but they have to turn 'em in when they rotate out of here." What a promising thought.

They loaded about 7 or 8 of us, as I recall, into a "6x6" and we headed down the road for the trip to Camp Evans. The monsoon season was just getting underway, and we all kept our rifles under our ponchos to try to keep 'em dry while the rain fell upon us. We had our rifles locked & loaded----"just in case"----and I remembered thinking as I was loading those little 223's into my magazines, "What are we supposed to do with THESE?.....shoot RABBITS?" Those little 55-grain bullets were only a THIRD the size of what came out of an M-14. And these little bullets were loaded in guns that ALREADY had a lacking reputation.

Potrero Hill seemed so far away now, it might as well been on the moon. And there was no way home now, for 13 months, unless you left early in a bodybag. For the first time since I got to boot camp...........I'm once again thinking, "WHAT have I done?"

Camp Evans, like any other Marine Camp you'll ever see, was hard looking, dreary, archaic, and typically-----out in the middle of nowhere. "K" Company had just gotten back from a hard fight at Con Thein. They'd lost some men and were glad to see US, even as "green" as we were.

I found 3rd Platoon, and then its rocket team. Mike James was the team leader. He was from Carthage, Missouri. John Snowder, from McAllister, Oklahoma was the team gunner. I would be the assistant gunner and fellow replacement Leon Zuniga, from Imperial Beach, California, rounded out the team.

(We'd only been there about 5 or 6 weeks when Leon was killed by a booby-trapped hand grenade. That's the hardest part of it. When you get "killed' at Pendleton, some field judge hangs a "dead" tag on you. You lay there until the "firefight" is over, then everyone is graded and you go back to the barracks. When you get killed in Cobi Tanh Valley, you get killed. Period).

Cobi Tahn Valley was the first operation I was a part of wih "K" Company. On a "roving" operation, a rocketman only packs the disposable 1-shot LAAW Rockets, usually 2 or 3 of them. The BIG bazooka stays back at the main camp, as it is too large and cumbersome for use in heavy jungle, because it takes TWO to effectively operate it, it is never taken on routine patrols.

During the entire Cobi Tanh operation, we were never dry, and constantly walking in mud. The best you could do, was to rotate your 3 pairs of socks around in your fieldpack, and put on the LEAST DAMP pair each day-------if you had TIME to change them. Being out in the bush now, we were also eating cold cans of C-rations as well. You didn't DARE light any "heat tabs" to warm your food up, because of the light it would emit at night.........plus, you had to find a place where the rain wasn't always putting it OUT!

It was impossible to keep the rifles as clean as you'd like. On patrol, you'd keep it under your poncho, but loose enough to be ready if needed. They still got wet, though, and the tolerences on those '16's were so close, that if you got water down into that magazine feeding area, you might have serious problems when you had to "exchange fire with Luke." We tried to keep them wiped down, and if there was a break in the weather, half of us would quickly tear our guns apart, clean, oil & reassamble......then we'd stand watch while the OTHER half cleaned theirs. It was bad enough fighting the moquitos, leeches, the weather AND the enemy.....without having to constantly "babysit" this stinkin' little "Mattell Toy" as well.

About a year to go now, and it was gonna be a long one.