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Authors: Richard Paul Evans
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each of us should have received an assignment that matched our individual skill set, but at that point in the war they were sending everyone they could to infantry. One member of our group raised his hand and said he spoke Chinese. The captain said, “We don’t care, soldier. We need bodies.”
They needed soldiers in the jungle. I was classified 11B. The B stands for “Bravo,” but the veterans just say it stands for “bush.” There was no way around it: we were all going to see combat, up close and personal.
From basic training we were sent to AIT—advanced infantry training. Jungle training. Same discipline and drilling as basic training, but more classes. We had to take apart our rifles and put them back together in sixty seconds—blindfolded. We learned how to throw grenades, dig foxholes, fire and service a .50-caliber machine gun, and set up ambushes or establish a perimeter with M18 Claymore mines. Most of all, we learned how to move as a platoon.
After we completed AIT we were given another test. I must have scored high, because that afternoon a colonel called me in and told me he thought I was NCO (noncommissioned officer) material. He told me I’d make more money and get to lead some people. I said it sounded good to me. He wanted to send me to Fort Benning in Georgia for NCO school but first wanted me to extend my service a year.
I had no desire to make the military my life, so I said no to the extension. They sent me to NCO schoolanyway. I guess they were short on leaders. NCO school lasted a couple of months, and although I’d only been in the military for a total of five months, I came out the same rank as my drill sergeant, who had served for six years.
During our second week in NCO our orders came to report to Fort Carson in preparation for being sent to Vietnam. Fort Carson is located near Colorado Springs, just a couple of hours from my home in Denver.
As I prepared to go, I was presented with another opportunity. I was called in and asked to go to OCS (officer candidate school) at Fort Benning. Again I was asked to extend my time in the army, and again I turned them down. Again, they sent me anyway.
In OCS I was trained to lead. I learned how to read maps and was taught communication and leadership skills. I would graduate as a second lieutenant—the rank of a platoon leader—and I would be calling the shots in the bush. I was in OCS for fourteen weeks, and at the end of the training I was sent back to Colorado to await my combat orders.
While I was there I saw my mother twice. She was handling the death of my father better than I had expected. She told me that my father had been gone so much that a part of her just felt he was still out on the road.
The second time I went to see her was two days before I was to fly to Vietnam. The reality that it might be the last time she saw her son was difficult for her to bear. She broke down as I started to go and she told me to “be careful,” which was like telling a surfer not to get wet. I told her that I would do my best.
On February 7, 1972, about two hundred of us were sent by military transport from Denver to San Diego, where we boarded a TWA airliner to fly to Vietnam. We were flown into the base at Long Binh, about thirty-threekilometers from Saigon. Long Binh was the largest US Army base in Vietnam, with more than fifty thousand men and women.
We arrived at night, and after we landed the lights in the airport and on the plane were all turned off, keeping us from being an easy target for mortars and rockets.
I’ll never forget stepping from the plane. Even at night the hot, wet air hit me like a blast furnace. I had never before experienced such humidity. Or such uncertainty. I briefly wondered what my father would think of where I was, or if I felt the same emotions he had on D-Day, but I quickly dismissed the thoughts. My father’s opinions had become irrelevant—not just because of his death, but because my new circumstances
They needed soldiers in the jungle. I was classified 11B. The B stands for “Bravo,” but the veterans just say it stands for “bush.” There was no way around it: we were all going to see combat, up close and personal.
From basic training we were sent to AIT—advanced infantry training. Jungle training. Same discipline and drilling as basic training, but more classes. We had to take apart our rifles and put them back together in sixty seconds—blindfolded. We learned how to throw grenades, dig foxholes, fire and service a .50-caliber machine gun, and set up ambushes or establish a perimeter with M18 Claymore mines. Most of all, we learned how to move as a platoon.
After we completed AIT we were given another test. I must have scored high, because that afternoon a colonel called me in and told me he thought I was NCO (noncommissioned officer) material. He told me I’d make more money and get to lead some people. I said it sounded good to me. He wanted to send me to Fort Benning in Georgia for NCO school but first wanted me to extend my service a year.
I had no desire to make the military my life, so I said no to the extension. They sent me to NCO schoolanyway. I guess they were short on leaders. NCO school lasted a couple of months, and although I’d only been in the military for a total of five months, I came out the same rank as my drill sergeant, who had served for six years.
During our second week in NCO our orders came to report to Fort Carson in preparation for being sent to Vietnam. Fort Carson is located near Colorado Springs, just a couple of hours from my home in Denver.
As I prepared to go, I was presented with another opportunity. I was called in and asked to go to OCS (officer candidate school) at Fort Benning. Again I was asked to extend my time in the army, and again I turned them down. Again, they sent me anyway.
In OCS I was trained to lead. I learned how to read maps and was taught communication and leadership skills. I would graduate as a second lieutenant—the rank of a platoon leader—and I would be calling the shots in the bush. I was in OCS for fourteen weeks, and at the end of the training I was sent back to Colorado to await my combat orders.
While I was there I saw my mother twice. She was handling the death of my father better than I had expected. She told me that my father had been gone so much that a part of her just felt he was still out on the road.
The second time I went to see her was two days before I was to fly to Vietnam. The reality that it might be the last time she saw her son was difficult for her to bear. She broke down as I started to go and she told me to “be careful,” which was like telling a surfer not to get wet. I told her that I would do my best.
On February 7, 1972, about two hundred of us were sent by military transport from Denver to San Diego, where we boarded a TWA airliner to fly to Vietnam. We were flown into the base at Long Binh, about thirty-threekilometers from Saigon. Long Binh was the largest US Army base in Vietnam, with more than fifty thousand men and women.
We arrived at night, and after we landed the lights in the airport and on the plane were all turned off, keeping us from being an easy target for mortars and rockets.
I’ll never forget stepping from the plane. Even at night the hot, wet air hit me like a blast furnace. I had never before experienced such humidity. Or such uncertainty. I briefly wondered what my father would think of where I was, or if I felt the same emotions he had on D-Day, but I quickly dismissed the thoughts. My father’s opinions had become irrelevant—not just because of his death, but because my new circumstances
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