Peace and old age, the hardest things of all.

‘The real problem was being able to stick it out, to sit in an office under the orders of a wee man in a dark gray suit and look out of the window and recall the bush country, the waving palms, the smell of sweat and cordite, the grunts of men hauling the jeeps over the river crossings, the copper-tasting fears just before the attack, and the wild cruel joy of being alive afterward. To remember, and then to go back to the ledgers and the commuter train, that was what was impossible…’

Frederick Forsyth. The Dogs of War.

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5 Responses to Peace and old age, the hardest things of all.

  1. K2 says:

    Great book. So so movie.

    • KG says:

      I thought the movie was a stinker, K2.

      • Bo Chandler says:

        Christopher Walken?

        Yeah. Nothing much there but mindless killing, which is fair enough if you want something playing in the background while you’re doing something more important, but nothing you’d bother to pay attention to. http://falfn.com/CrusaderRabbit/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_negative.gif

  2. Ronbo says:

    @KG:

    When you were there and witnessed what really went on, a fictional account just doesn’t cut it..

    I know it’s case with me in regards to movies and fictional books about Southeast Asia and the war in Vietnam during the 1960s – the truth is that 90% of the troops “were in the rear with the gear” and only the “tip of the spear” – the infantry and special forces were in the shit and took the hits.

    Our U.S. Army Security Agency base at Phu Bai in I Corps was such example: we had a swimming pool, Rec center, EM bar, NCO bar, Officer Bar, ( and a warehouse full of booze :-), a fully equipped gym, air conditioning at work and the barracks, maid service, MARS station (short wave for free phone calls to the States), laundry service, clean beds, showers, good food ( the mess hall was opened 24/7 because of the shift work, a military police company to protect us in our compound and guard it 24/7. And if that were not enough protection from the commies and the war – we had the U.S. Marine Corps elite First Division between us the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) which controlled the valley.

    Talked about your safe gated and well guarded community!

    All this being said, we ASAers were very likely responsible for thousands of enemy KIAs and massive destruction in our sector of Vietnam, because from our ops center on Mt. Virginia, we were the ground controllers for the B-52 raids (ARC LIGHT) that could literally blow away small mountains – and did…

    But the thing I’ll never forget was listening to the field radio transmissions from desperate Marines and Army troops begging for air strikes and MEDAVC helicopters, with cries of, “We are about to be overrun!” All we could do was pass on their requests and locations to Army Aviation and the Air Force.

    Of course, many of us did volunteer for field duty – I think we all did at one time or another – and sometimes our requests were granted – but only if the First Sergeant hated you :-)

    • Col. Bunny says:

      Ronbo, there was talk that ASA listened to German and Spanish and Russian coming off of the Seven Sisters mountains in IV Corps near Chi Lang. I remember German being mentioned but not sure about the other(s).

      I have a great photo of a B-52 strike on one mountain, and there were others. It seemed to be the center of a lot of attention.

      Any truth to that?