I was 20-years-old. I was drafted. Vietnamese called. When they did they called me the Little Kid. They said, "No, you're that Little Kid. You don't belong here." You know, my government says I do, so.

But the jungles, they were hot, there was muggy with the humidity. You see rain everyday. We got rained on everyday and we slept in it. We slept in the mud. So we were always wet. As far as clean clothes, I wore my first set for roughly 80 days, 80 days. I only had like four or five changes of clean clothes while I was there.

I carried a hundred pounds. I didn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds; weighed about a hundred twenty, so I carried a hundred pounds. You didn't want to run short in case you hit the shit. I carried a claymore mineThe M18A1 claymore mine is a fragmentation munition that contains 700 steel balls and 682 grams of C-4 explosive. It weighs 1.6 kilograms and can be detonated by command. It is activated by electric or nonelectric blasting caps that are inserted into the detonator well.
< http://tech.military.com/equipment/view/
88702/m18a1-claymore.html >, trip flaresA ground flare triggered by a trip wire used to notify the approach of the enemy.
< http://www.1stcavmedic.com/glossary.html > , three to four smokesA grenade that released brightly colored smoke used for signaling choppers. Yellow indicated a safe LZ and red indicated a hot LZ.
< http://www.1stcavmedic.com/glossary.html >, six hand grenades, roughly two thousand rounds of M60A machine gun that is a gas-operated, belt-fed, air-cooled weapon that fires from an open bolt and in automatic mode only.
< http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg12-e.htm > ammo. I carried nine quarts of water and C rationsShort for Individual Combat Ration, C rations were commercially prepared meals used in the field and when hot meals were not available. They consisted of canned meat, canned fruit, bread or desert item, crackers with peanut butter or jam, salt, pepper, instant coffee, gum, toilet paper and cigarettes. Each contained approximately 1,200 calories.
< http://gruntfixer.homestead.com/files/
crats.html >
< http://www.vietnamgear.com/kit.aspx?kit=156 >, and a poncho and C4C-4 or Composition 4 is a common variety of the plastic explosive known as Composition C. It is 1.34 times as explosive as trinitrotoluene (TNT).
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-4_%28explosive%29 > for blowing LZsLanding zone. A Hot LZ is one active with enemy fire or expected fire. LZ Prep is to prepare an LZ for landing troops by suppressing enemy fire with gunships, artillery or Air Force jets. Cut an LZ refers to using bombs, especially a daisy cutter that explodes horizontally and clears vegetation.
< http://www.134thahc.com/Definitions.htm > and det cordDetonating cord is a thin, flexible tube with an explosive core. It is a high-speed fuse which explodes, rather than burns, and is suitable for detonating high explosives.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Detonating_cord >. So, you had to have all that stuff on you, plus my M16A lightweight, fully automatic rifle shooting a small-caliber bullet at an extremely high velocity. A U.S. Army combat weapon for mobile units and jungle fighting.
< http://dictionary.reference.com/
browse/M16 > and three bandoliersA shoulder-belt with loops or pockets for cartridges.
< Oxford American Dictionary > of M16 ammo, seven magazinesAn ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm. Magazines may be integral to the firearm (fixed) or removable (detachable).
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Magazine_%28firearms%29 > to a bandolier.

It was a proud, you know, the company was a proud company and the unit was a proud unit, you know. We were a swing battalion. Wherever the shit was hitting the fan, we had to get to an LZ and get picked up and flown into the hot spot. But it was, it wasn't dull. It was a hell of a camping trip, but very serious, you know.

You know, you kind of looked forward to getting picked up and getting out of the jungle in the helicopter because that was a, you knew you were pretty safe. You were secure up there as long as you didn't fall out. But still you were being moved to another, another area where there was trouble, you know, another shit hole. But I have an Air Medal and that's for 25 CAsCombat Assault (CA) refers to troop insertion or extraction involving a coordinated airmobile operation often with artillery preparation of the landing zone.
< http://www.134thahc.com/Definitions.htm > into an unsecured LZ. I survived long enough to get the Air Medal.

You couldn't, you were scared but you, you couldn't feel scared because it would overtake you. You know what I mean? You know they're watching you and you just try to keep your distance between each person. And this way they're not going to get greedy. The gooks always kind of liked to seem like they wanted to get greedy. So they wanted to wait for somebody to bunch up and then if they were going to mess with you then they'd come at you.

I was just another person in the squad up in the mountains in a platoon in the company doing what we did was to protect each other. We were fighting because we were thrown in there and we were fighting to get our own selves back home. We had to protect each other to get back.

I think about it all the time. You know I got those photographs just to make sure it's not a dream, you know, and it's actually took place. Uh, it's there. You know you remember your buddies. You remember what you know what they did even though you're not in contact with them all. You know the good times that you had, even the shitty times that you had, you know, over there. But it's a true brother-friendship. Its a bond that don't, you know, ever break.

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