To this very day, of all the things I saw and went through while in Vietnam, the one thing that really gets my blood boiling and makes me have those terrible night mares, is WHERE MY GOOD WHISKEY WENT.
I had a good friend named Bob McCormack(and I'm proud to say is still a good friend today) who was with A Battery at the time. I was with B Battery somewhere around Da Nang. Bob had gone on R&R to Hawaii. I'm sure that he had a good time, but he never did tell me all the good stuff he did. Anyway, bless his little heart, he was thinking about his bro back in the Vietnam, and upon leaving Hawaii and returning to that place we all know and love, he brought with him two-fifths of good American Whiskey. It was just my luck when Bob came by to see me and give me the joy juice on his way back up North, I was on the gun shooting those important fire missions -- you know, the one's where we helped the gooks make new rice paddies, killed all kinds of enemy wildlife, and raised total devastation upon the landscape. Not knowing there were thieves among us, he had left the nectar of the god's on my bunk while he visited me at the gun pad. When my replacement came, we made our way to the hooch to sit and BS, and of course have a drink of medication. NOT!!!! My whiskey was gone, out of here, no where to be seen. Surely one of America's Best hadn't taken my med's -- not the guys I worked with, laughed with, cried with, and fought with, would do such a horrible thing. We looked everywhere, and did all that was humanly possible to find the med's that I needed so badly, but they were gone. (It's really a pitiful thing to see a grown man cry). As the years have gone by and with the help of years of therapy at the VA hospital, I have learned to cope with this awful thing that happen to me in my Vietnam experience. I can't blame Bob, because he was young and innocent -- I can't blame the one that took it, because war makes good people do bad things -- I can't blame the government -- I just have to blame it on Good Whiskey that went to a bad place VIETNAM. | |