VIETNAM CHAPLAIN:OCTOBER 1968

Jack Day's

Worlds

Vietnam Chaplain
Central Highlands Diary
October, 1968

Letter to Home, 4 October (3/8, LZ Oasis)

I've tried to do something in verse a couple of times, but it comes out unbelievably corny and sing song...Here's something I started a couple of months ago...
The enemy's waiting in the jungle green
His sister is running your washing machine;
His brother is wearing a western suit
While his cousin is sharpening spikes for your boot...

Letter to Home, 7 October (3/8, LZ Oasis)

Bruce and I drove in to Pleiku to do hospital visiting yesterday which means lunch at the AF snack shop and a visit to the PX on the side.

This area isn't quite as good as Dak To, though, more VC around. These people are not soldiers so much as gangster types – harassment, terror, anything that wears away. One of my men in D Co got a sniper bullet through both cheeks of his butt. Very lucky – he gets at least a month in Japan out of it. Anyway, I think we'll be a little more cautious operating around here. Slept in a rice paddy (dry variety) Saturday night, that night they fired some mortar but they missed, the next night their aim was better.

I don't think a person can help being a hawk once he's over here. To think of settling for less than a victory of some kind is to be callous to the suffering of a million people. At lest the NVA are soldiers, ordinary human beings with a rifle put in their hands and told to go out and fight; the VC are fanatics who will be a ruthless in subjugating their people as they have been in terrorizing them.

Being out here is surprisingly nostalgic. I had forgotten how strong a pull a person can feel toward an area where he spent his childhood. Once my having been from over here was a threat to being and feeling American and I repressed it. Now at last with my American roots totally secure, this other side is free to come back. The land and people are like Malaya or Indonesia;' the climate here in the highlands, where I've guess the temperature right now in this rainy morning is about 70, much more pleasant.

Coming back from Pleiku yesterday evening the convoy moved out and I got to speed up to 70 mph to keep up. Thrill! I groove on driving the jeep around.

Map -- Large file/long loading. Kontum City compliments of Ray Smith, Web Master, 69th Armor Association

Letter to Home, 10 October (3/8, LZ Oasis)

I met the jungle in the form of Pleiku street urchins. I'd gone to the hospital to make calls, on the way back I stopped in Pleiku and sent Bruce to find a corkscrew. The jeep was quickly surrounded by about 20 boys, average age 7-11, who saw the PX packages inside. At first I succeeded in fending them off, then they started getting in the back. They know every trick in the book. A kid got one package and the others helpfully yelled that he'd got one, he's running down the street, etc – the idea that while I chased him they'd strip the jeep completely. I didn't fall for it, but instead drove off -- "evasive action." I mean I had a M-16 in the jeep but can you imagine the stateside headlines "CHAPLAIN SHOOTS CHILDREN IN CITY STREET."

Vietnamese Children with Chaplain

0095 With Vietnamese Children in Pleiku City

Letter to Home, 15 October (LZ Oasis)

We had a tent full of people including one of the Vietnamese interpreters watching Combat on TV.

Tomorrow I'm going to 71st evac earlier to get my ears tested, see if there is anything I can do about them. I think I shot the high frequency hearing in my remaining good ear out at the range the other day. I'll see if anything can be done to fix it or at least prevent it from getting worse. All I need is to get deaf from the noise of some of the guns around here.

[About the poem Ann] "Ann is a 15 year old Cambodian girl who sells cokes. Her poem started when I went up to Dak To a month ago, but it didn't start coming through until recently. She impressed me, better manners than the others, not quite so indiscriminate in the vocabulary she picked up. For some of them, I think the "f" word is the only adjective they know. GI's do a great job of selling culture here, little four year old kids line the roads and give you the finger when you pass, knowing GI's think it is funny and will throw them candy. Hearts and minds of the people.

While based at Dak To, most of the time was spent at mountaintop firebases where our units were. Only rarely did I have a chance to go back to Division Base Camp at Camp Enari, south of Pleiku, and more rarely still a chance to go by road. On one trip, however, I did have a chance to go by road north from Pleiku through Kontum back to Dak to. On the North side of Kontum there was a checkpoint where convoys formed, and venders did a great business while vehicles waited, and an act of kindness to a salesgirl that I saw inspired a poem I wrote on October 15th: Anh

Vendors surround tank

0050 Vendors surround tank at northern edge of Kontum

Letter to Home, 19 October (LZ Oasis)

It's really weird out – cold and windy, no rain yet though. The tent is shaking. Fortunately it's tied to 3 trees among other things, should be OK. I'll be someone's blows over, though. They say the weather's going to get cold – need a field jacket in the morning.

By October the monsoons were starting and it rained constantly. One day the 3/8 batallion headquarters was a newly created mountaintop firebase. It was raining and the mud was deep. The only dry place was a communications trailer helicoptered in for the batallion commander, but that was available only for the few people who had business being there. Soon after that day, the batallion commander was in a helicopter that was shot down. He survived, and on October 17, after visiting him at 71st Evac Hospital, I wrote Stricken.

Letter to Home, 27 October (LZ Oasis)

2 days ago I went to Pleiku early by helicopter ahead of the convoy so I could eat lunch with the area chaplains...one dear Division chaplain cornered us into an informal meeting of indefinite duration. I had told Bruce to get me at 12:30; I finally got out at 2:30 with a splitting headache and the list of things I had to do before the 4:30 convoy back to the Oasis all screwed up.

I think from what I've seen that the South Vietnamese government has a chance, the government is getting better, the army is fighting better. I think the Communists can be beaten, they are being beaten. Neither Humphrey nor Nixon will sell out, I don't think, but Humphrey's softer line just encourages the Communists to hang on, hoping to win at the conference table what they are losing on the battlefield. Skymoon, skymoon, watch from the sky
The earth flies beneath you, how peaceful it lies;
The beauty you give it, so silver and still
How could this land be a place where men kill?

Skymoon, skymoon, look from the cloud
The valleys are silent (but cannons are loud)
Soldiers are sleeping, a rest from their fears
When may they wake to a world without tears?

Letter to Home, 30 October (3/8, LZ Oasis)

We're hooked into a generator of 1/35th's. They let us because a few weeks ago they had no generator and we let them hook in to us. They've got a 3 kilowatt generator, which means 3000 watts, or 30 100 watt bulbs. In Dak To we had a 15 kilowatt generator, which we traded from a signal unit for a jeep. It broke down, now we're threatening to pull the jeep back if they don't get it working. We may get it back...!

Went out to LZ Vera \today. No birds flying. Heard there was a convoy going, took it. 2 hour ride in a cloud of red dust. The last hour was a "road" that 2 track vehicles cut through brush 2 days ago. Through ditches, over tree stumps. Through a stream. Over barbed wire. I couldn't believe we didn't get a flat.

At Vera we discovered they had a swimming hole. Walk 200 yards down from the perimeter – helmets and rifles, etc – then here's about 20 guys in the stream.

I could have tried to do everything in an hour and catch the convoy back, but decided if I had my eye on the convoy I'd be uptight the whole time and blow my reason for coming which was to be of some good to someone, so set to stay the might if necessary. Spent the whole afternoon. Finally finished, put a bid in for a bird just for the record. 6 PM, it's starting to get dark around the edges, and here comes a bird.

Of all the companies, I especially enjoyed A Company, 3rd of the 8th, commanded by Captain Al Nelson. Because he had a comfortable knowledge of what he needed to do, his unit was marked by less anxiety and more professionalism.

Inside bunker

0015 Inside a bunker, with Captain Al Nelson, 3/8 Infantry,

One day A company had just been sent to a new area, had landed and determined it was a "cold LZ" -- no enemy near. I was at another location waiting to leave, and the helicopter bringing supplies to A Company picked me up and dropped me at A Company before they had even had a chance to dig in. The camera worked overtime that day.
Establishing Security

0023 Establishing Security, Grassy Field, 10/68

Boonies

0002 Out in the Grassy Field

CO and Chaplain

0051a Company Commander and chaplain in Grassy Field

Field Service

0093 Worship Service, Grassy Field, 10/68

Resting in Clearing

0010 Resting in Clearing, 10/68

Pop Smoke

0024 Pop Smoke: Letting the helicopter know where we are

In Memoriam, October, 1968

1 October, 1968

PFC William Glen Ferguson, Jr; South Portland, ME; D Co, 3/8
SP4 John Alex Rausch, Big Bend, WI; D Co, 3/8

9 October, 1968

SFC Lloyd Dean Gillespie; Houston, TX; B Co, 3/8

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©1999-2005 Jackson H. Day. All photos taken by Jackson Day or Chaplain Assistant Bruce Chaffee unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved. "Letter to Home" contains actual excerpts from letters written at the time. Updated January 25, 2005