Once in a while we were ordered to train a few South Vietnamese soldiers on how to set up an ambush. The South Vietnamese were quite lacking in aggressiveness. They always seemed to be somewhere in the background. It seemed as though they expected us to do all of the fighting. It hurt our morale to see how little they wanted to participate in defending their own country.
During one ambush patrol in particular, while training four South Vietnamese, their behavior clearly indicated that they weren't serious about learning how to go after the enemy. At about two in the morning when we were all quietly in position and could have heard a pin drop, one of my squad members came crawling over to my position. He said, "Hey Dale, these gooks are smoking pot and masturbating at their positions, (not in those exact words, of course)". I told him to tell them to knock it off and pay attention, of course how do you say that in Vietnamese when you don't have an interpreter?..
In Vietnam there were no Saturdays or Sundays. Every day was the same. The only thing we had to look forward to was mail call, if we were lucky enough to get it. I think the only thing that enabled me to keep my sanity through it all was to push any freedoms I had to the limit. Sometimes I'd shoot coconuts down out of the trees, slash the tops of them with my machete, and drink the cool coconut milk, especially when we were low on water. I loved picking off illumination rounds, that were shot up by our mortar platoon at night when we were back at a perimeter somewhere pulling bunker duty. They were pretty easy to hit while they floated down from the sky, hanging from a parachute. It was a source of entertainment to watch exploding white phosphorus float down in the dark after hitting it with a round from my M16. It was like watching a fire works display! Needless to say, it didn't please the administrative people much, but it made time go a little easier for me. Other wise it was just listen to the f... you lizards squeak out their little f... you sounds all night which was exactly what they sounded like.
There were humorous times as well which we as war torn troops needed to capitalize on. One such time was when a company of us were traveling down Highway One in armored personal carriers. They're like a tank, but with a 50 caliber machine gun on top instead of a cannon and they're are designed on the inside to carry six combat ready troops. They're powered by a heavy duty Chrysler engine and can go around forty or fifty miles an hour.
We were fully loaded with troops, going about forty five miles an hour or so on this one occasion. Dust was seeping in heavily. We were bouncing a lot as well. All of a sudden a friend of mine from Michigan began yelling. He said something was biting him on his testicles (of course not in those exact words). He, therefore, ripped open his trousers to find the culprit. It was a tick which had embedded its head into his scrotum. The only way you can kill it is to burn it with a flame. We were bouncing down the road at practically full speed which didn't help anything. Plus we were packed in shoulder to shoulder with full ruck sacks and all the guns and ammo we could carry (in dust filled air that you could barely see in). It was time to get the zippo lighter out. We scorched some hair and missed a few times when he would yell. Eventually we hit the tick and the pain subsided. This experience no doubt was painful indeed, but never the less, it gave us something to laugh about.......
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