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TRUE STORIES FROM DAYS IN THE NAM
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THE WRITTEN WORD
Xin loi GI…….site still under construction…..please stay tuned Sgt. Zoomie Was One Lucky Mother Effer
I AM ONE MOTHER FUCKING LUCKY MOTHER FUCKER AND THESE ARE SOME OF THE REASONS I KNOW IT Late afternoon, 29 Mar 1968 Mason and I were getting ready to take off in support of the MAT TEAM at Dinh Quan who were under mortar and ground attack when an Army LTC [O-5] showed up and wanted to ride back seat in my place so he could work the Arty of the long guns of the 7/8th.  Who was I to object so I got out and he got in.  An hour later I was there to help pull his dead, still warm body out of the back seat that I would have been sitting in.  William Sidway Price was his name.  Totally freak lucky shot by some gook with an AK.  Mason was flying at 500 feet or so trying to see what was what so they could bring in some Phantoms when Price took a round through his left armpit, bounced off his shoulder blade and a few other bones and came out his asshole.  He bled out before Mason could get back and I was one of the ones that had to clean up the mess.  To this day I firmly believe that if I had been back seat that day I  would still be alive, that that bullet was not meant for me.  One lucky SOB am I ....... ANOTHER TIME ....... April 1969 as I recall but not the exact date, in my duties as my team’s Milo Minderbinder I was down at the marketplace early one morning buying ice, water melons, corn on the cob and a few other things for the Air Farce party my colonel was holding that evening.  I do recall it was a Saturday.  At any rate I am driving my jeep and pulling a trailer with all my cargo in it up the road from the center of the ville and as I am passing by the Buddhist Temple about two minutes from the MACV compound I hear this noise like I have never heard before except in war movies and then some of the loudest explosions I have ever heard.  Now keep in mind this was 0745 in the morning and Mr Charles never hit us at that hour so I am going: “WHAT THE FUCK??”  I stop the jeep, get out and look behind me, where I see about 300 meters away total chaos and destruction, smoke and flames and lord knows what.  I left the jeep where it was and went back to try to figure out what happened and the closer I got the more I figured out I did not want to go any further but did any ways.  Now on a few occasions I have seen more bodies and more blood than on that day but they had been trying to kill me so it did not bother me too much.  THESE WERE JUST PEOPLE, women children,  innocent civilians and nothing but body parts scattered all over.  Heads, arms, legs, torsos all akimbo and all over the place.  I PUKED, turned around and walked away, nothing I could do. LATER ON it was determined that a flight of 2 VNAF F-5s  were returning to Bien Hoa AFB with un-expended ordinance.  SOP was before landing to drop off their bombs in War Zone D as landing with bombs was not a good idea.  They were under radar control at 15,000 feet, over the clouds except they were 50 klicks south of where radar control thought they were.  Just one big cluster fuck.  SO AT ANY RATE, when told to do so they punched the pickle and dropped twelve 500 pound bombs not on War Zone D but right in the middle of Xuan Loc.  If I had been 20 seconds slower returning from the market place I would have been in the box where this ordinance hit.  Fortunately only eight of the twelve exploded, four being duds.  I was never determined exactly how many Vietnamese were killed that day but well over 100 at least.  As much as I have tried to research this I can find no record of this event happening, even though all three major TV networks sent out cameramen and reporters the next day and did interviews and took footage.  During the course of my duties I policed three battlefields, seen CAT D-9s pushing bodies into pits but nothing can compare to what I saw that day and as I say if I was 20 seconds slower I would not be able to write these words today.  I AM ONE LUCKY MOTHER FUCKING SON OF A BITCH and if you do not believe me lets play some billiards !!!! Every body asks me when they find out I was there: “oh...of all the Vietnam movies out there, which one is the most realistic??? [said in kinda a falsetto voice]   and I always tell them “APOCALYPSE NOW” if only for the sureality and the insanity and the horror of it that it depicts.....’CHARLIE DON’T SURF....”   Is perhaps it’s best line...and don’t forget that black guy on the M-79 by the bridge....I would take that nigger with me to the gates of hell and back because I know the only reason I would be able to come back would be him watching my back  [oops....sorry to make such a racist comment but in THE NAM I was informed by my black brothers what the term nigger really meant and that even though I was white I was one also...so fuck you all] and believe me there was more than one KURTZ......I never seen a water buffalo killed like that but I did see dogs killed and skinned and then ate them, and you know what, they tasted real good.   BUT WHAT I TELL ALL THE STUPID CIVILIANS THAT ASK ME that stupid question is that, until you have smelled the elephant you don’t know shit.  AND NONE OF THE FUCKING PANSY ASS  HOLLYWOOD movies do the sniff and scratch.  THE SMELL, OH THE SMELL, NOT JUST OF DEATH AND CORRUPTION BUT OF EVERY DAY LIFE, THE SMELL, that is what wakes me up to this day at 0400 when I dream the dreams.   AND YOU KNOW WHAT....I would go back and do it again....never has life been so real.......and if I did I would probably fight with MR CHARLES and not the side I was on in the day.  They had the moral high ground.....