By Paul Churchill
INTRO
After a month of “training” at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 88 U.S. Navy Corpsmen had completed our Field Medical Training. The training had consisted of a lot of hiking, a day or two of treating simulated casualties, learning Marine squad tactics, and firing blanks from our M-14 rifles as we advanced through the snake filled swamps of the area. We were now deemed ready for the jungles, rice paddies and whatever other things we might encounter in that faraway place called Viet Nam. We would find out how little we really knew as reality began to be our teacher. On April 1st we climbed aboard an old DC3 transport to begin our trip to Southeast Asia. We would arrive “In Country” on April 9th after a few layovers and plane changes along the way. The last leg of our trip was from Okinawa on a huge double decked cargo plane loaded down the center with military gear and vehicles and canvas fold down seats along the sides for us to sit on.
The following pages contain my story as I remember aided by excerpts from letters I had written my friend Dave Canters mom. She had saved the letters and they were returned to me by her granddaughter, Dave’s daughter Sheila Canter Stephens, in August 2017. Without them I would never have been able to sort out the sequence of the events in this story or remember some of them at all. Even with them Dates will not be exact because mail was often not picked up or forwarded for several days due to our location or circumstances at the time. Adding to the delay is the fact that mail was not post marked until it arrived in New York. For example the following letter was written on April 9th but I will still be using the post marked date of each letter as a chapter title.
April 13th 1966
I guess you might be wondering where I am and what I am doing so I’ll try to tell you. At the moment I am about three miles from Da Nang, five hundred yards from a Viet Namese boot camp and as you know only God knows where the VC are but our lines (about half a mile away) are taking casualties so they are not far. At present Ray and I are waiting to get our weapons, helmets and other gear.
We arrived in Viet Nam early on April 9th. We checked our sea bags in at a warehouse at the airfield and were left with the clothes on our back. The guys labeling our bags told us not to worry about gloves or jackets because we would not be needing them. They were right, for a few months. We then had some time to wait until trucks or jeeps came to take us in small groups to our assigned units. Many of us would never see each other again. Ray and I went to the Third Battalion, Third Marines but to different companies. When we arrived at Battalion Headquarters we were dropped off at “the armory” (a tent with a couple of tables in it) to get our 45 pistols and other gear. The Staff Sergeant in charge brought us each a 45 and said “Now Doc’s,” Heres what you do if you get in a jam. You point this sucker at em and pull the trigger until the magazine is empty. Then throw it at em as hard as you can. That way you might hit em.” He then told us we could get the rest of our gear out back. We signed for our pistols and two magazines and headed “out back.”
As we left the armory and turned around to go “out back” expecting another tent with holsters, flak jackets,helmets, canteens and web gear to carry it all with we were confronted with several piles of bloody, bullet and shrapnel riddled equipment, all stripped from our dead and wounded Marines. We had to dig through those piles to find the things we would need in the days and months ahead. So much for the official line that “our boys” have all the best equipment in the world and those poor VC have to make do with left over weapons from every other war that was ever fought.
From here we were taken to the battalion aid office (another tent) to get our Unit Ones (our medical kits) and duty assignments. Ray was going to Mike 3/3. I was going to Lima 3/3 but was given the following information at that time.
Tomorrow I get to take a physical to see if I am Physically fit to be in the service. My health record has been lost so I have to get my pre-enlistment physical over. I wonder what will happen if I don’t pass. It should be interesting.
It was later decided that the physical could wait since it would probably turn up sooner or later and we were needed in the field. We were put up in a tent for the night and told to be ready to go in the morning. Before turning in I added the following to my letter.
It is about 8:30 PM. here now and there is quite a bit of fighting going on. I am still lucky enough to be a little ways back from the action but I sure worry about the guys out there. I hope they will be OK, especially after I join them.
This was the end of our first day in Viet Nam. For the next thirteen months we would live out of a small backpack, relying on supplies of food and ammunition being delivered to us where ever we were at the time. As “in country” boots or fing’s as we were called, we would find that we had a lot to learn and not much time to learn it if we were going to be the best we could be for “our Marines”. As Navy Corpsmen we had our own traditions and pride to live up to as well as those of the Marines. We would not let them down. I didn’t know it at the time but I was very fortunate to be assigned to 3/3. These guys were a true veteran unit having been tried and proven through two major operations (Starlight and Harvest Moon) and I was able to learn a lot from their experience.I believe none of us could have realized or imagined the strength and power of the bonds of love that would come from this time in our lives and the trials we would face together in the year ahead or that we combat corpsmen would identify and be identified more as Marines than Sailors as the years passed. They would always be “My Marines” in conversations over the years.
