On December 21st or so, we moved away from Cam Lo about 1,000 meters to the top of a hill just west of there. I think they just didn't know what to do with us and didn't want the Marines having too much conversation with the locals.
About this time, Maj. Pierpan left us (and not soon enough, as far as most of us were concerned), replaced by 1 Lt. Gypin. Gypin was a mustanger (former enlisted who got commissioned later) who had been a Gunnery Sgt. so long he still sometimes answered the land line, "Gunny Gypin speaking," even though he was about to make Capt. by this time.
I didn’t particularly like him. I would not come to like him much in the future, either. For one thing, he demanded that the Corpsmen stand radio watch. The rules said we didn’t have to do that. He was a hard man. I wrote a few days later that I just tried to stay out of his way. I did say, however, in a letter home that he and I were starting to get along .
Gunny Ross left us about this time, also. Both Gypin and the new Gunny were, to my way of thinking at the time, getting on in years, so I didn't think humping would be too tough as long as they were in charge. As I said in a letter, "Both are pretty old, so the next op probably won't be too hard because I doubt if they can take it as well as I can." Boy, was I wrong. Gypin had a bad back and a mean disposition, and he just pushed all the harder and became all the meaner because of it.
On 20 December, we left the immediate area of Cam Lo and went to a hill just west of there and set in to await orders. I wrote that we could see all the way to the ocean from there. (He threatened to kill me once when I sat down by a fire he had built without contributing anything to the fire! I think he meant it!)
Anyway, on the 23rd, we caught a truck convoy and river boats to Cua Viet, an in-country R&R center. It was on the beach, and this was where we would spend Christmas! We arrived at about 1:00 that afternoon, and put our gear in some GP tents where we would be staying. As soon as we got everything stowed away, we had the Marine Corps' version of opening the presents: we all went to a tent and stood in line, naturally, waiting for our goodies.
For Christmas, we were given a pair of green (what else?) underwear (for swimming in, I guess, since we didn't wear them in the bush), an air mattress, a sleep shirt, some new clothes, and a pair of socks. About the time we got through getting all this, a dump truck filled with beer and ice pulled up, and the guys in the back, standing in ice, started throwing beer out at whoever could catch it.
Before long, virtually everybody was pretty beered up, and many decided to go swimming. So they blew up their air mattresses to take advantage of the nice surf, and began to play. The only problem was that when they would get enough of the surf, they would come in and pass out on the air mattresses on the beach because of all the beer. Then the hot sun would expand the mattresses and blow out the tube separations. The beach was littered with no good, brand new air mattresses. It looked like a pod of beached whales.
The particularly unfortunate part of this story is that the grunts had not had air mattresses issued to them before - they had always just slept in the mud or whatever happened to be below them when the day's march ended - nor were there to be more issued. As a result, many of them returned to the bush no better off than they had left. But they had at least had a good time.
At Cua Viet, we had two hot meals a day. In one letter, I wrote about what animals we had become in our eating. Our usual meal in the bush was something eaten out of a can with a plastic spoon, taken on a break, often sitting on a log or in the mud or wherever we happened to be. When we got to the chow hall at Cua Viet, according to my description, the rule was to pile it on high and crouch over it when you got to the table. That way, I guess, nobody could get it from you!
On December 28, we returned from Cua Viet. Another operation was ahead.
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