Black Dragon Red Sun E-Book

R. Sanchez

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Complete organized chaos for the new guys would begin as we landed in Vietnam. Organized chaos, seemed like a contradiction in terms, but after a few weeks in Vietnam, it seemed plausible. We would be organized militarily, but we would have to break the bad habit, of trying to fight a conventional war in a guerrilla warfare environment. Returning Vietnam Combat Veterans, on subsequent tours, would fall into the routine in a matter of days. For the FNG’s (Fricking New Guys), we would get one chance to adapt, if not we would die.

Leseprobe

R. Sanchez

Black Dragon Red Sun

The Vietnam War

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

References

These are the memoirs of Gunnery Sergeant Roger A. Sanchez Sr. United States Marine Corps retired. A time in the Marine Corps, from boot camp, to Vietnam, and while serving with Delta Company 1st Battalion 7th Marines, 3rd Platoon 1st Squad leader in 1970 - 1971. They are written from a personal journal written after his return from Vietnam in 1971. It is not written as a historical account of the Vietnam War, but as a personal and emotional observation about the war from the author’s point of View.

Other References

United States Marine Corps Command Chronology, Delta Company 1st Battalion 7th Marines, Vietnam July-September 1970. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, Vietnamization and Redeployment 1970-1971. By: Graham A. Cosmas and LtCol Terrance P. Murray USMC. History and Museums Division: Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Washington D.C. 1986.

Dedications

To my mother and father Victor and Maria Sanchez, whom without them, this life and journey would have never begun. To my wife Ikue, who has seen me through all the bad times, and is the light of my life. To my children Maria and Roger Jr. who have endured my demons. To my older brother, fellow Marine and Vietnam combat veteran, Sergeant Victor Sanchez Jr. To the Marines of Delta Company, 1st Battalion 7th Marines, 1965-1970 To the Marines who served during the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 To LtCol Ed Hall a true officer, gentleman, and a fellow Marine! To all of those who have gone before, to all those who serve today, and bear the title United States Marine

Semper Fedelis

Preface

   It is November 2011, and I have decided that at age fifty-nine, that I can no longer put off writing my Vietnam War Memoirs. I started to write the book in 1971, after returning from Vietnam. Later in 1976, using the original manuscript, I again attempted to finish the book. Now in 2011, I have decided to complete it. To try to make sense of a time in my life, I still cannot connect with the reality of the war.   What prompted me to trek through the darkness and pain of Vietnam, took place in July of 2011. My older brother, who had retired from his career, had invited me on a trip to hike the Appalachian Trail. We headed out on the trail at Harper’s Ferry West Virginia. For what would be a few long and strange days.   My older brother and I had something in common that would make this trip daunting. We were both Vietnam combat veterans, and we both had to contend with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had not realized that getting ready for this trip, was about to play double duty on my mind. Laying out our trail maps, getting our backpacks and gear ready, was also laying a trail out on my memory.    Long forgotten images, would inadvertently return to preoccupy me during our hike, and for days after I returned home. We discussed our daily meals, and how we would find water on the trail. We looked at our escape and evasion plans, in case we ran into bears, wolves, and two-legged predators as well.    Finally, we checked our first-aid gear, emergency phone numbers, and first-aid plans. We were preparing, in case we had to get each other off the trail, and back to civilization.    At Harper’s Ferry we were met by LtCol Ed Hall. LtCol Hall and I had served at MCRD San Diego, the same years, during my tour on the drill field. The Colonel was most gracious and supportive to us, as we prepared to make our way to the trail. The time finally came, and the Colonel saw us off.   The experiences that my brother and I had on the trail, while not all bad. Did not, turn out to be the trip that we had envisioned. Beginning our trip in July we encountered high temperatures, lack of water, illness, and uncertainty of what would lie ahead.    What I had not realized at the time, was that everything we did in preparing for the hike, then on the trail was the reason I started having vivid recalls (flashbacks), of my time in Vietnam as a combat squad leader. We made it off the trail in one piece, and back home again.   After I returned home, I went into a mild depression for about three months. In a short time I realized what happened. I realized that I had not been out in a situation like the trail hike, in many years. I had not been out in a situation, where I was isolated in a strange place, and would have to be self-reliant in any emergency. Looking back, I realized how small I was, compared to the world about me. I write this book now, so that others who have experienced war. Know we stand together in its affects.  

The Beginning

   At this writing, it has been forty years, since the day I left Vietnam. It has also been a long journey, to this present place. Where I write my memoirs, and bare my soul to all. I can truthfully tell you, I want to do this before I leave this life, before I fade into oblivion.    I have heard many a Marine tell his story about Vietnam. Although many stories have much of the same content, every Marine saw it from a different perspective, and a different set of eyes. Therefore, it is never the same. Now, I begin to tell my story. To put into perspective, what I saw, what I felt, what I recall.    Emotionally, I have grown enough to look back at my journey, to and through Vietnam. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine, that I lived through such a time. I write now, to keep alive the memory of my fellow Marines, who fought so gallantly in the face of criticism and rejection.    For many years, I fought to forget the war. To forget the places, sights, and sounds of the war torn lowlands and mountains of “I Corps” South Vietnam. But the memories and dreams keep coming back. Maybe not as clear as they once were, but I know they always will. When I hear a particular song, smell burning incense, or hear a helicopter in the distance, I will remember.

****

   The 1960s was a decade in American History that shook the country, like no other decade had for a long time. So much had happened to change not only our society, but the world around us as well. It was a time that tugged, pulled, and twisted the nation to the breaking point.    The Civil Rights movement had caused the country, to run about with the fear of change and uncertainty, right at its heels. John Fitzgerald Kennedy would become president, and ask the nation to give to the country instead of taking. Martin Luther King Jr. would advance the civil rights movement, and lose his life, as would President Kennedy, and his younger brother Bobby.    We would land a man on the Moon, and become engaged in a war that would resonate with a cry of disdain, not only for that war, but also for those who fought it. The Vietnam War would leave President Lyndon Baines Johnson, spending many days of his presidency, agonizing over decisions he would have to make. The cost would not only be heavy to those who would fight the war, but to him as well.    By late 1964, the country was already getting a hint of things to come in South East Asia, and for American involvement. America’s young men went about their business, with little concern for the war. But by early 1965, it was evident that the country would be involved in the war, when a cry for help came from the government of South Vietnam.    The Communist North was now breathing down their necks, and putting the pressure on. The American political system that had been in a cold war, for decades with communism, was now seeing the threat of it spreading across Vietnam. There was now a battle cry, to stop the communist in their tracks.   It came like a black storm cloud over our young men’s dreams--THE DRAFT! Men eighteen to twenty-eight would be called up for duty, to a land that most Americans had never heard of. The war would be a vicious and brutal war for America. It would consume fifty-eight-thousand American lives, before it was over. It would also divide the country’s population, like no other war, since the Civil War.    June of 1968 had come, and the war in Vietnam had been raging for three years. The Vietnamese “Tet Offensive” had been costly to American forces. But the enemy had paid a greater price. An air of anxiety loomed over the nation that year. As Americans, were starting to question the war, the politicians, and the many young American men being lost weekly.    I was sixteen and a sophomore in high school at the time. Many young men in my class were starting to wonder, when the war would end. I made the decision to drop out of high school, and join the Marine Corps. I decided to get out of Chicago, where I had lived from the time I was an infant. My parents made it clear. It was either find a job, or join the military. They would have it no other way.   For a young boy as I was at the time, it was as though I had given up any hope of the future. I decided to join, before the draft could limit my choices. My parents were not happy with my decision, but they too had given into the likelihood, that their sons like others, would be given up to the war.    Why the Marine Corps? I was seven, when I had seen a movie called “The Sands of Iwo Jima” staring John Wayne. The impression of those Marines, storming the beaches of volcanic ash, right into the gates of hell and death with such ferocity, stuck in my mind. Whether I had to go to war, I was going with what in my mind was the best.   When I look back on it now, it was sad that a teenager who still had not had a first kiss, or held a female’s hand other than that of his mother, was having such deep thoughts of death and war. But for me it was reality.    War would be the reality of many young men then. Some would be ready to go, and others terrified beyond what anyone but they could imagine. As for me, I would walk the streets of Chicago, and wait to go, to the infamous Marine Corps Boot Camp. I was a child trying to become a man. Whether I was prepared, Marine Corps boot camp would start the process.    My older brother Victor had joined the Marines in June of 1965, and had found himself in Vietnam in the summer of 1966. He returned safely home again by the summer of 1967. He was home safe, but seemed distant.    He was one reason for my joining the Corps. But the other pressing reason was that I wanted to get out of Chicago. Life for me at sixteen was confusing. I was a Mexican American, growing up in a mostly black community, in the ghettos on the South side of the city.   But race and culture had nothing to do with wanting to leave the community. After all, it was the only home I had ever known. The harsh winters, and the street gangs made life more difficult. Also, the level of poverty and feeling of hopelessness, made me feel I wanted out of the clutter and decay.   Many young men after high school were leaving the South side of the city, to find something better. Many also had been drafted. I did not wait for that to happen to me. I turned seventeen on January 8th 1969. I landed in Marine Corps Boot Camp, at seventeen and fifty-six days of age, on February 28th of the same year.    I was asked many years later, how a Mexican American had grown up in a black community on the South side of Chicago. The answer was simple. My father worked for Belt Railway of Illinois and was part of a road gang. In those days road gangs had to live near their track section. And able to get there quickly should derailments occurred, during storms and bad weather. My father's track section was on the South side of Chicago. Chicago was a daily existence at best, but not where I wanted to be for the rest of my life.   I was in mid tenth grade in high school in 1968. And like many my age, I knew everything. The Marine Corps and Vietnam would change my views about that. With all the fears ahead, my parents signed for me to go and start my journey into manhood. Like most Marine Corps recruits, I was ready for the challenge of boot camp, until I got there. I was brought up a Catholic, and in boot camp, I used the prayers I was taught by the Nuns and Priest, daily.   Today was the day! I decided to catch the bus down to 47th and Ashland Avenue, to the Marine Corps Recruiting Station. The snowfall was light, and the high winds had eased off. The bus ride could be long depending on the traffic. And it was never pleasant. I finally got off the bus, and quickly made my way to the recruiting office. Talking to myself, I made my way to the door. Nothing was going to turn me back now, not fear, or indecision.    From the first day I met the recruiter, life would be nothing like it had been before. The only thing the same about civilians and Marines, is that they are people. As a civilian, you live life with personal goals and reasoning in mind. In Marine boot camp, you lived life according to their goals and reasoning.    For those who have not experienced it, the Marine Corps environment might as well be on Mars. In other words, "Nothing" is the same. As for the future, when you awoke the next morning in boot camp, that was the future. You learned to live life, day by day. I would start out in the world, empty handed. All I had was youth, good looks (The folly of youth), and the résumé of a tenth-grade high school dropout.    The Navy was taking recruits if you were a high school graduate, or had a G E D (high School Equivalency). The Air Force would not let you sit at the recruiter's desk, without a high school diploma. The Army and Marines were taking ninth-grade dropouts. I still remember the Marine Corps recruiting sign in the window, it read, "The Marine Corps Builds Men!"