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John R. Hodgson attended high school and college in southern California. He entered the U.S. Army in 1966 and served in Vietnam in 1967-68. He is a retired police chief of Roseburg, Oregon. He has two grown daughters and now lives with his wife, Judy, in Huntington Beach, California.

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TRY TO REMEMBER ... VIETNAM

By John R. Hodgson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 John R. Hodgson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3615-7

Chapter One

Tyler Taylor sat at the back of the bus surveying the 40 or so men spread out in the seats in front of him. Maybe this is where I belong, he thought, the back of the bus. He definitely didn't want to be sitting up front. Whatever was coming, he was in no hurry to get there. Why he was going - that he knew only too well. He closed his eyes and thought of his parents and their divorce and how that had plunged him into further depression. He however, didn't kid himself. He was well on the way to this trip right out of high school. He just didn't know it. What looked so promising then had all fallen apart by his sophomore year at USC. He had been kicked off the football team after numerous warnings from the coach. There was just so much he could overlook. His grades were dismal and without the football scholarship, he stopped going to class. By the end of the fall semester he received his draft notice. So much for being an architect, he thought.

"Hey man, do you think we'll end up in Nam?" The guy sitting next to Tyler asked as they drove further north towards Fort Ord.

Tyler had hardly noticed the short, boyish looking Mexican who was now staring at him. "Probably." Tyler replied. He didn't feel like talking.

"I signed up" the Mexican replied. "I want to be in the infantry and kill some Cong." Tyler just nodded. "Why do I have to sit next to the idiot on the bus?" he wondered. Looking around at the group traveling with him, he figured there were more.

Maybe he should have listened to his dad's advice about modeling himself after his best friend. Tim Rowe was in his sophomore year at Yale. He was the starting free safety on the football team and as usual getting good grades. Tyler had last seen him at Christmas break just after he had been kicked off the team. They had kind of drifted apart since then. Tim had a future; Tyler did too ... in the Army.

As the bus made its slow progress up the northern coast, Tyler looked out at the beautiful scenery of the Monterey Bay Peninsula. The long white beaches and groves of oak trees. He had looked up information about Fort Ord when he got his draft notice. It was over 28,000 acres and had been purchased by the Army in 1917 as an artillery range. Years before he had driven by it a couple times on trips to San Francisco with his parents. He just hadn't paid much attention to the Army base that would be home for the time being. The beauty of the area was lost to him after their arrival.

"All right, you Momma's boys, get your asses off the bus and line up in front of me."

Tyler moved off the bus and avoided eye contact with the drill instructor. Too much eye contact in the past usually resulted in a fight. Drinking and fighting had caused him to lose his scholarship. While he hated people at him, he had decided he would have to get used to it or end up in the brig. He took his place at the end of the quickly assembled line of men and placed his small athletic bag in front of him. It had the a USC graphic stenciled on the side. He had packed light, figuring the Army would give him what he needed. The DIs walked up and down the lines, stopping at times to harass some poor son-of-a-bitch. One stopped in front of Tyler and stared at his bag.

"What have we got here?" he asked, staring first at the bag, then at Tyler. "A big college boy. Were you at college, asshole?"

Tyler looked straight ahead and answered "Yes." The DI's eyes locked on Tyler's. "Yes what, asshole?" He roared.

"Yes, sir," answered Tyler.

"Yes, sir? Yes, sir?" screamed the DI into Tyler's face. "Do I look like I don't work for a living? Do I?"

Tyler's face flushed red. "No sir," he answered

"What is your name asshole?" The sergeant yelled.

"Private Taylor." Tyler yelled, staring directly into the DI's eyes.

"And you went to college, boy. What a sad commentary on our educational system," he yelled, walking a little up the line from Tyler. He then turned around ,ran back and got into Tyler's face again. "You will address me as sergeant. Have you got that, you college reject?"

Tyler had yet to even be sworn into the Army and was already losing his temper. When it came to "flight or fight", Tyler was always ready for the latter. This time, though, he bit his tongue.

"Yes, sergeant."

The DI stayed right in his face. "The rest of you worthless assholes will address us only when spoken to. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sergeant," the group replied in unison.

The sergeant walked slowly away from Tyler. "I'll remember you, Taylor", he said over his shoulder.

It wasn't what Tyler wanted, the asshole to remember him . The smart thing was to blend into the background and stay there.

Maybe in the next two years, Tyler thought, he would find out what it was that he wanted for the rest of his life. Either that or he wouldn't have to think about it. He thought about the television coverage he had started watching on the war. It wasn't pretty.

A flurry of activity followed. Tyler and the others got haircuts, were issued uniforms and assigned temporary housing for the night. He found himself staring at the ceiling from the top of the bunk he shared with a black kid from Watts. His name was Jimmy Johnson. Watts was only about 40 miles from Newport Beach; but it was a world away.

"Hey Taylor, what MOS are you looking to get into? Me, I want to be a military policeman. Instead of being pushed around by the pigs, I am going to be one," Johnson proclaimed from the bottom bunk.

The most knowledgeable of the new recruits had been talking about "MOS" - or military occupation specialty - since their arrival on base. Tyler also discovered that nobody thought they would be in the infantry. Fat chance of that, thought Tyler.

"I don't know, Johnson. Maybe I'll apply for nuclear scientist or maybe a cook."

"What?" Johnson replied.

Tyler figured it didn't matter one way or another. The Army would put him where they wanted him. Right now he was freezing because all the windows were open in the barracks. One DI told them they were at risk of spinal meningitis, which evidently had spread throughout the base. So the windows would be open and once they reached their training barracks they would be restricted to it for their eight weeks of basic combat training. Great, thought Tyler, maybe I'll die of disease instead of being shot or blown up. After tossing around on the small bunk for a couple hours, he fell asleep.

Chapter Two

B-2-3. That was the name of his training barracks, lots of class - a letter and a couple of numbers. No fancy names like the dorms Tyler had stayed in at USC. This was a drab gray building sitting on the top of a hill that overlooked a training field. A no frills hotel, he thought. There was a mess hall at the end of the long building. It looked like there were three or four sections that comprised the remainder of the building that groups of about 40 men stood in front of. He was in the first group of men who now moved into their new home.... If you could call it that.

Finally staying at the back of the line paid off. While the majority of guys were in one large barracks, the last six stragglers were assigned a separate room. He joined them. Most were draftees, but a couple were RA or regular army. After a while, those who had been drafted changed RA to mean real assholes. That came later, however. The first task was to unpack, make your bed...