Astronauts Go To The Moon – Marine Goes To Vietnam

Before heading off to Vietnam in 1969, right after our astronauts landed on the Moon, the Marines played another little trick on me and decided they needed more Combat Engineers than they did journalists. They sent me to Engineer School to learn how to blow things up and I enjoyed it so much I made the mistake of graduating first in my class. What an idiot! All of a sudden I became much more valuable to the Corps as an engineer than a journalist. Seems as though they had enough writers after all and when I got to Nam they threw me a bloody flak vest and sent me north – way north.

I had finally gotten my wish, I wasn't reporting the war, I was fighting it! I spent most of the first half of my tour building bridges, blowing up tunnels, sweeping roads for mines and generally leaving a smoking trail of destruction wherever I went. The only good thing about it was I made a lot of grunt friends who appreciated my skills at both spotting and spotting booby traps. I spent most of the rest of that year humping around between Dong Ha and Quang Tri, later to be transferred south to Da Nang where I finished my tour assigned to the Marine Air Wing, I have fond memories of how well the pilots of the "Wild Weasels, Gunfighter Squadron" took care of "their" Marines.

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