Arriving in the Field – my first firefight

 We arrived at Lai Khe base camp, my new home with my combat infantry unit, the seasoned troops came out to welcome us. Soon after unpacking and a brief orientation, the decision was made to take us new guys out on an afternoon routine mission just for practice. No backpack, extra food, or extra ammo would be needed since we would be back to the base camp in a couple of hours. “Let’s saddle up troops” was the command. After a short hike through a nearby rice paddy field, we began to receive quite a bit of enemy small arms fire. We set up in a defensive position, began returning fire, and called in artillery fire support. That casual AFTERNOON initiation walk-thru mission lasted SEVEN DAYS. With bare-boned supplies of food and ammunition, we had to be re-supplied by some very brave helicopter pilots. Only basic essential items were dropped into us, mainly ammo, food, and yes, toilet paper.    

 As the days turned into nights and the nights back into days my one set of clothes became dirty and smelly from sweating and lying in mucky rice paddy water. My feet had been wet for days now. My whole body ached from trying to sleep with one eye open, on the hard ground with my head still inside my steel helmet. The mosquitoes would damn near carry you away. My boxer shorts had gotten wet and rubbed my thighs raw (An early lesson learned in Vietnam—lose the Underwear)