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I think being around so much death and dying in Vietnam gave me the incentive I needed to look for some answers. It seemed to me that things having to do with preserving life and loving one another was what reality was all about. There wasn't time, and it didn't seem necessary to try and figure out the truth about these things while struggling to survive in Vietnam. It wasn't until months later that I sensed a need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt about these things, including life after death.

I'd shot at too many VC and saw too many of our own men die, for me to not have an understanding of what life was all about. I couldn't see how a person possessing a personality, a unique identity, and a will to live could be there one minute and become totally nonexistent the next... To this day, I believe that following this kind of rationale is baseless and illogical.

While still in Vietnam, before sensing the need for these answers, each week and each month of combat became more difficult to withstand. Fortunately there were no ambushes, or run-ins with the enemy during our initial convoy to Duc Pho. We eventually made it down the long gravel road to LZ Carentan or "cherry town", as it was called for us beginners... This was a barren place in Vietnam where we were to receive in-country training while we were getting shot at by VC with AK 47's. This was good training!!

This base camp consisted of a military perimeter, or circle, having a diameter of about a quarter of a mile. Everything inside the perimeter was either mud or sandbags. During the evening was the first time we saw bullets going over our heads that were from the real enemy. The ones we saw, of course, were tracers. The ones we didn't see were the ones in between the tracers. In contrast to previous wars, there was no front line, just strategically placed perimeters. The enemy was every where else.

After two weeks of orientation we moved out of the perimeter (cherry town), into the jungle, beginning combat military operations. The reason we were given this period of orientation is because we came into Vietnam as a brigade, not as a replacement. The replacements had no in-country orientation training. They were brought to us because of our casualties, usually straight from boot camp back in the states. Choppers flew them out to us in the boonies as soon as they got to Vietnam. They came as individuals to us without extensive training for what they were about to experience. For that matter, there's no amount of training that can adequately prepare anyone for watching your friends getting killed in combat. However, in my estimation, basic training and advanced infantry training back in the states amounted to little more than taking someone out of high school and throwing them into combat. That's about how green they were when they came to us out in the field. Those of us coming from Hawaii at least had eight months of jungle training on top of basic and AIT before we got there. But anyway, all of us were coming from a well guarded environment that protected us from a lot of the death and dying that exists in most third world countries. Unfortunately, none of us could have been prepared for the grim realities of combat.

On our first evening out as a unit of thoroughly trained soldiers, we staged a night time ambush. This later became regular procedure for squads of ten to twelve men, at least once or twice a week, on a rotating basis. The first one was extremely unnerving. The wind was blowing banana tree leaves while the rain was adding to the noise. We had to lay in place, awake all night, along a trail, while we waited for Viet Cong to pass through after dark. If they walked by, we then, of course, were to initiate an ambush.

That night on our first ambush patrol, I laid with my stomach to the ground clinging to my M16, listening for sounds of movement. All I could hear was flapping banana tree leaves and rain with the sound of garden chimes in the background which sounded like sea shells hitting against one another. I kept thinking that I could smell musty clothing, probably VC's. It was a stale smell that resembled the odor of the human body and clothing mingled together.