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MCRD San Diego Back in the Day
Everything must begin somewhere. And in the United States Marine Corps, my enlisted tour commenced with yellow footprints. Drawn on the asphalt of the recruit depot with heels close together and toes angled out to 45 degrees, they are where I, along with seven other guys from our suburban Chicago neighborhood, stood to begin military service. Then we marched somewhere, boxed up our clothes and mailed them home, coming to the realization that our new life would be different from drinking beer behind a bowling alley.The Vietnam War was winding down, at least for the United States, though the North Vietnamese would launch a huge attack against South Vietnam toward the end of March as we conducted infantry training at Camp Pendlelton. (In September, now a Private First Class, I would find myself in an Army hospital called Camp Kue on Okinawa, sharing a ward with American advisors who'd been wounded helping the South Vietnamese forces stop the communists.)
In 1991, I visited the footprints on a vacation to San Diego with my girlfriend. (Now My Fine Wife or MFW.)
In 2002, I stood on a hill in Vietnam called Con Thien with a Vietnamese guide who told me about the obliteration of his village by B52s, bombing the NVA advance.
In 2008, I was back at MCRD finishing up a marathon with Team in Training.
But on a Friday night, January 14, 1972, I stood on yellow footprints. Oh, right before we boxed up our clothes, this happened:
(The following scene is rather accurate, except there's no C&W music. Just buzzzzzzz.)
h/t: amp1776
Note 2020:
On this 48th anniversary of my enlistment, I pay my respects to Tom Poto and Steve Lovell, two of my comrades who are no longer with us. RIP, bros. Hard to believe we were once young together.
2 comments:
Glad you made it back!
Truth to tell, I don't know much about the Viet Nam war, apart from the controversy of it. I saw two movies to do with that war; Good Morning Viet Nam and Casualties of War. The first, of course, dealing with the politics of the situation.
Foolish question time; What, exactly, instigated American soldiers being sent to VietNam? If it's too touchy a subject, ignore it.
I was in Asia, but not in-country in Vietnam--at least until long after the war.
Vietnam was a French colony, then split treaty into communist and anti-communist countries. Then, when the North Vietnamese (commies) infiltrated the South, we sent advisors to help fight them. They sent more troops. We sent more troops. One thing led to another and it was decided to allow U.S. forces to take the lead in the fight.
No strategy, poor tactics and haphazard applications of military force led to America ending its involvement in 1973. The South fell to the North in 1975.
There's a complicated situation reduced to a pair of paragraphs in a comment's section.
Next week, the Thirty Years War.
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