This is what 45 plus days in the bush looks like.
No showers, no clean cloths, pulling ambush at night while sleeping a few hours. eat C-rations out of a small can. (most of the time cold) Learn to live on a few hours of sleep a day. Everyday is the same. Searching for the enemy, and when you find him it turns into a moment of shear terror. When it's over you get the wounded and K.I.A's on a medevac helicopter and continue your next mission. Then it's more of the same. Carry a hundred pound rucksack in a hundred degree heat. Almost everyday someone would pass out due to exhaustion.
Water was a premium. When we ran out we drank out rivers and streams as well as bomb craters filled with monsoon rain.
Most of us came up with malaria and dysentery.(the gift that keeps on giving.) then later in life came the effects of Agent Orange. We are still fighting and still dying. Most of us have the attitude, any day after the Nam, is a bonus day in life!
These Boy Solders from the 82nd Airborne endured some of the worst conditions known to mankind. Always wet along with sweat burning their eyes, Then theirs Deadly snakes, scorpions and mosquitoes constantly buzzing around your ears. Fire ants who love to bite. It's like being stung by a yellow jackets.
They were just out of high school (18-19). It didn't take long to be hardened to the core.
That's what months in the bush does to you. Not to mention what it does when we went home. Some of us still carry guilt for just surviving.
Most of us are now in our 70's. Even through it might have been 50 years ago, at times it seems like 5 minutes ago.
Those of us who remain will never forget our fallen brothers. Love for each other. That's what we had. At the time America hated us. The media and protesters took over. (Amazing how somethings never change) Those who returned threw away their uniforms and tried to blend in the best they could. Some went and hid. Not saying a word about what they just went through... Continue reading

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