.....The year was 1967. Don't remember what month, week, or day. We were on patrol in the DMZ. Discovered NVR occupation, met with two firefights and one ambush. It was raining, had been for the last seventeen wake-ups. Everything we had was waterlogged or rotted. We stank, we had little sleep, and most of our C-rations were spoiled. Cat-size rats were all over the place. All kinds of jungle creatures crawled inside our ponchos, fatigues, boots, helmets, anywhere they could fit, trying to keep dry and warm, a regular paradise.
After the ambush, we pulled back. As if we hadn't been through enough, LT force-marched our dead tired asses the last five miles back to Quang Tri, our home base.
.....Fresh from the kill zone, three wounded six dead. We survivors wondered if our number was next.
Aside from three hots and a cot, there was nothing else for line grunts to do at base, except clean themselves up and cool out, try to forget Charlie for a bit. Maybe you did for a minute . . . if you were lucky.
There was this dude in our unit we called Slick. Dude was a Boney Maroney type with a processed hairdo. The 'do is why we dubbed him Slick. He hailed from Louisiana, and every syllable out of his mouth tipped you to that fact.
     I'd been in 'Nam a few months. Seen brothers like him come and go most of them in body bags; ready to kick gook ass for good old Uncle Sam, march home with a shit-eating grin on their face, waving Old Glory. Fresh grunt meat for the VC guerrillas, that's how I had him pegged.
     My personal belief about the Vietnamese people was the same as Muhammad Ali. They hadn't done nothing to me. I had nothing against them. Leave 'em the fuck alone.
     Then I was drafted. I decided not to resist. Better to do my time in the army, than in the pen -- or on the run.