Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Honolulu Dick, post: 1233668, member: 24745&quot;]The decade of the &#039;60s, in retrospect, was a &quot;giant step for mankind.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>JFK focused our national effort to land on the moon by the end of the decade.&nbsp; LBJ launched us into forming the Great Society [not there yet ... still a work in progress.]&nbsp; And, then there was Vietnam.</p><p>There are 58-thousand plus names on The Wall to remind us of our involvement in that tropical paradise.</p><p><br /></p><p>In any event, the highlight of the decade was beating the USRR by being first to land on the moon.&nbsp; At that moment of heroic national achievement, my fellow Grunts and myself were on the dirty end of the stick.&nbsp; We were slogging through the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta.&nbsp; We were down in the mud, along with the agony of blood, sweat and tears.&nbsp; While we were gutting-it-out, we knew that our more illustrious compatriots were whizzing through the glory of space and bouncing around on the surface of the moon.</p><p><br /></p><p>That evening, after having been lifted [choppered] to a FOB [Forward Operating Base], we went through our regular routine.&nbsp; This included a quick and thorough cleaning of our weapons [they always came first], stripping in front of the medics for a leach inspection, shaving and bushing our teeth using a helmet [steel pot] half filled with potable water [lifted forward in water trailers], and eating a freshly prepared meal that was cooked in the rear and flown to us in mermite [thermal] cans.&nbsp; We were lucky to get one hot meal a day.&nbsp; Otherwise it was just another meal of C-rations.&nbsp; Many of the C-rats were leftovers from the Korean War ... being dated in the early &#039;50s.</p><p><br /></p><p>There was a large medical tent equipped with folding tables and folding chairs.&nbsp; We would sit there with our feet soaking in aluminum pans filled with a solution of chlorinated water.&nbsp; This was done to kill foot fungus [jungle rot and/or trench foot] before it started eating away at our flesh.&nbsp; While soaking our feet, we were issued two can of warm beer to drink ... a gift from a grateful nation.&nbsp; As we sat there, soaking and sipping, we watched a B&amp;W TV set as it showed our brothers-in-arms bouncing around the surface of the moon.&nbsp; They had traded their steel helmets, armored vests and rifles for bulky space suits, and we were OK with that.&nbsp; In fact, we were bursting with pride for them.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Even though we knew we were on the dirty end of the stick, seeing our guys bouncing on the moon gave us a boost that lifted our morale high enough to join with theirs.&nbsp; The mud, blood, sweat and tears remained the same, but, somehow, just somehow, slogging those rice paddies became less dreaded.</p><p><br /></p><p>Although the &#039;60s was an event-filled decade, it is not exactly one that I would care to relive ... again.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in