sonofvet

No. (He laughed)

The worse it got, the farther the choppers stayed away. Also, the part of Vietnam I was in was very mountainous, it was the northwest corner near the DMZ and the Laotian border. I never set foot in a rice paddy. I felt cheated for awhile til I found out they were totally fertilized with human waste and you never wanted to sustain a wound in a rice paddy because you were half-way gone right off the bat through infection and disease.

Yes, and it was the most horrible, filthy crap in there. We would intentionally leave it behind intact in our abandoned overnight positions in the hopes that anybody following us would eat it and die. (He laughed).

God, it was horrible. You know how sometimes beans leave that greasy film in your mouth? That's what the lima beans would do. These things were like WWII vintage. They've got the shelf life of a cockroach.

Also, in the outfit I was in, nobody ate canned apricots. They caused incoming. And the old vets would kick a FNG's ass if they saw him opening a can of apricots. They swore they caused incoming. And I think I just ate apricots for the first time since then in Fig Newtons with the apricot/peach combination.

(My mom: Every time I try to buy apricots in cans, fresh, he says no, they cause incoming.)

Well we haven't been mortared since we've been here, have we?

It was 50/50. There were some people that totally wanted nothing to do with you, and then there were other people that kind of overcompensated, so I didn't really - and I wouldn't put up with it. I avoided people that disagreed with my views and values.

I'm very pleased myself. I have children, grandchildren. I've had a very good life before, during and after and I still look back on my Marine Corps and Vietnam experience as the big adventure of my life.

(His reply to like ghosts?)

No, many of them were scared little 15/16 year olds that, on several occasions, attempted to walk into our lines to surrender - (he paused a pretty long time) - and a few times it didn't work out so good.

But there were - as in any military, there are the hardcore professionals that can be pretty damn scary.