Veterans Day.

[DoninDel]

I was in Marines, in Vietnam 4/68 - 8/69 (I extended 3 months in 'Nam in a deal to let me out 6 months early, but they didn't let me out early)
I had:
Blood Poisoning
Mild concussion from a close mortar blast
Heat prostration
Gonorrhea
Amoebic dysentary

I know what death smells like and what a bullet passing nearby sounds like (like a bee on crack).

On my third day after arrival, I was at Khe Sanh, then hills around Khe Sanh, at Con Thien, the 'Rockpile' - and other places near the DMZ that nobody knows of now or cares about, but were in the news then.

Have a funny story.
On a hill near Khe Sanh, we were pinned down. They were reinforcing us and to cover the arrival of new troops our artillery was laying down a close barrage. The bad news is they were firing over us, and one of the shells fell short. A guy began screaming - I told my foxhole buddy I was going to the guy - he told me I was crazy, too dangerous - I said if it was me, I'd want somebody to come. I rushed to the guy and he immediately stopped screaming. I asked where he was hit, and he said his ass. There was a small wound in his ass, but when I rolled him back, I noticed his left forearm was at an angle and one of the forearm bones was sticking out. I asked about his arm, and he said that didn't hurt!! I covered arm with a field dressing (like a sanitary napkin with long strips), then covered him with my body as artillery kept coming in. As we lay there, the adrenaline wore off and I began to think - hey, maybe they'll give me a medal - that's not why I ran out, but hey, nobody else did.... after who knows how long, the barrage stopped, and a corpsman arrived. He asked me how the guy was, I said he gripes about his ass, but that doesn't look bad, his arm does - I'm figuring this was the time for the corpsman to say something nice, like brave of you to come to the guy - he takes off the field dressing and starts yelling at me - what good is this? (waving the field dressing) You didn't set the bone! This needs a splint! What have you been doing? You're worthless! Get out of my way!
I slinked back to my foxhole and my buddy asked how it went - I said I didn't want to talk about it....

What a waste it all was.