Get up on that mountain.

Last night I realized how I came to be on The Mountain. Been watching “The Vietnam War” for the third time after accidentally hitting on it while channel-surfacing. I always wondered how a “swabbie” ended up half way up a mountain, in the jungle, with a Filipino Bosun’s Mate Chief who knew no more  about combat than I, looking for Viet Cong to kill.

It happened this way.

Peter Cayote, the narrator of the Burns/Novick documentary explained it. When “Westmorland the Unsuspecting” send the second detachment of Marines to storm ashore at Danang … well, actually they, like the first detachment, walked ashore and were welcomed by lovely young women in white ao dais, things were different. The marines would no longer serve sentry duty. They were to head directly into combat.

So, with no marines for sentry and perimeter duty, who would fill the void?

That’s where I came in. I was busy minding my own business, having “jerned” the Navy to avoid going to Vietnam where I heard they loved to kill handsome young white men like me. I longed, rather, to storm ashore at Waikiki, Cannes, and other neat places.

But I made the mistake of pissing off that beloved United States Navy, so … they formed what was derisively called “The First Naval Infantry,” for, I still believe, the sole purpose of getting back at me. They picked a bunch of us, gave us a week’s training in weapons, starved and beat us for a week so we would know what to expect if we were captured, and sent us to that misbegotten war to replace underutilized Marines.

My first day there, they gave us rifles. They told the senior man among us newcomers (known irreverently as those still s******g stateside chow) to take a patrol up Monkey Mountain, a 3,000 foot-high feature forming the east boundary of our base and the southern boundary of Danang Harbor. His name was Chief David, a real decent guy. In those days, I'm not sure how it is now, men from the Philippines could join the United States Navy but had to serve the first four years as servants to the officers. If they survived that, they could strike for a more respected rating, like Bosun's Mate, the most respected. So, Chief David, one day in-country, let us out the gate and up the mountain. 

It was a rough affair. The temp was probably 115 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity maybe 150 percent. And we had been assured that there were booby-traps every square foot or so. I hadn’t ever fired my weapon. Chief David was understandably perplexed.

All we found was a little cleared spot a ways up the mountain from which a person could watch our base, with a clear shot at the towers and bunkers where I would stand duty for the next year. I would think about that little spot a lot in the future.

It ended well, albeit our new green fatigues were soaked in sweat. We all made the year. About three-quarters through, Chief David encountered marital problems. His wife, gorgeous from the photos he showed us, had found her another man right there in Manila. She was enamored. He countered by sending her sexy lingerie from Fredrick’s of Hollywood. News from a friend indicated that her man enjoyed her in it.

Life sucks more some days than others.