Down in the Delta

I have been trying to remember this guy's name for the past couple of years. He was from RI or NH and his family owned an excavating company. He was the Hearts champion in our platoon and I don't remember how many times I ate that Queen of Spades because of him. This picture was taken in the Delta during monsoon season. The Army in all it's wisdom decided that we were going to rebuild some roads in the Delta during the Monsoon season. The Delta was basically loon shit and we spent most of the time trying to repair the damage our stuck vehicles and heavy equipment caused. From the looks of him we are going on a road recon. Not as cool as it looks. It means he is carrying an M-60 machine gun and the ammo. Great target cuz Chuck wants kill that guy with the fire power plus that 60 is HEAVY plus extra ammo. A couple of interesting things occurred while we were in the Delta. One day we had to load up on Navy landing craft type boats and travel The Mekong to get to Rach Kien where our base camp was. It was pretty cool going down the Mekong. Also I was introduced to Ramon noodles there. Noodle shops all over the place. They added chopped scallions and some HOT little peppers and it cost about a dime. The amoebic dysentery was free. Our platoon sgt warned us but hey what did he know. You think you have had bad diarrhea I would have given you my combat pay for the month to just have the squirts. Oh, bye the way combat pay was $50/month. I was an E-5 and with combat pay and no taxes or ss taken out I made $303 a month. One very hot sunny day we were mine sweeping a road and clearing brush back from the sides and we found in the road a very detailed diorama made of mud of US troops with dump trucks and dozers and bucket loaders. Also included VC aiming guns at the US troops. We figured it was booby-trapped so we blew it up with some C-4. Could have been some kids playing too, you never knew. Later that day one of our dozer operators was pushing the brush back from the sides and a booby-trap went off and he got a nick and a Purple Heart, lucky dude. While in the Delta we shared an area in the compound with some National Police from Thailand who were training the South Vietnamese National Police. Those guys like to party and eat native food. We had dog, monkey and a rice whiskey that tasted like gasoline. One of the guys from our platoon was a native of Guam and he looked Vietnamese or Thai. He was small too and the Thai's gave him one of their uniforms and he use to go to the village with them. Ron, still remember his name. The Delta had two strange creatures the f#%k you gecko and a croaking catfish that walked on land. The gecko got its name because all night long it made a sound that sounded like it was saying f*%k you. The walking croaking catfish were not very big, but when you were on guard duty at the edge of a rice paddy or canal at night you could hear these things wiggling and sliding along the mud and croaking, it was a little unnerving. There were regular probes in the perimeter and flares were common as well mortar fire. The flares were sent up from mortars and when they burst the flare floated down on a little parachute and what ever carried that parachute and flare up would come back down to earth making a whoop whoop whoop whoop sound all the way down like a tube tumbling end over end. We also had Starlight Scopes for perimeter guard. They were early night vision scopes. Really strange and actually kind of psychedelic to look through them. I almost forgot about the rats there. At night we slept in some old corrugated tin barracks that were full of bullet holes. We did have cots and some lucky guys had racks with mosquito nets. The nets were more important to keep the rats off of you because at night they would run through the hooch and over your bunk and your face or arm or leg. If you had a mosquito net you could hang it and tuck it in around you to keep the rats off. Some guys had hammocks and they were high enough that the rats didn't bother them. We were working with the 9th Division in the Delta mid 1969 at this time and they were the first unit to leave Vietnam under Nixon's (speaking of rats) troop reductions.It was a joke because they filled the 9th Division's ranks with guys going home anyway from other units and sent the guys from the 9th to other units to serve the remainder of there tour.

Stay tuned....................................................DJtheDJ