Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter takes you through a little of my childhood, through grade school with the Sisters of Charity and high school with the Xaverian Brothers. I have written here about the NROTC at UCLA, the "summer cruises" (including the one at Quantico where midshipman encounter the infamous Hill Trail), and my desire to become a Marine. There are stories about basic school, artillery school at Fort Sill, and my first duty station. The chapter ends with the last minute wedding and departure from Camp Pendleton on the way to Vietnam.

Qui Nhon: the Play Begins

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter describes out first landing in Vietnam. We went into Qui Nhon to protect a U.S. Army facility there. We saw no Viet Cong, we found out about warm Tigre Biere, and we learned the tragic lesson of friendly fire.

Operation Starlite

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter recounts my first exposure to combat -- Operation Starlite. We were so young, and what we saw and what we did seems so unreal.

Things Along the Way

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter contains stories about helicopter-borne operations, villages without men, punji stakes and booby traps, RFs and PFs, and patrols about the Vietnamese countryside.

Chu Lai

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter takes you on a tour of the Marine enclave of Chu Lai, from the artillery base camp (and stealing materiel from the Seabees to build bunkers there) to the observation post on the top of Hill 213, outside the enclave proper. There are stories about breakfast beer, infiltrators, letters and supplies from home, and the time (in the middle of a rain storm) that I managed to start a fire in my two-man tent.

The Peasant

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter is about Operation Piranha and the peasant who made the mistake of walking into the trajectory of a 107mm round.

Daydreaming

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter provides a sampling of random memories, like the incident that provides me still with the real meaning of the phrase "sorry 'bout that." There are images of the Vietnamese countryside and the innocent triggers that today make those images flood through my mind. And there are stories about the little children we encountered along the way.

The Magnificent Bastards

Excerpts from the chapter. Those who have had the good fortune to serve with the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines, refer to the unit lovingly as the "Magnificent Bastards." This chapter covers the initial period that I spent with 2/4 starting in the fall of 1965. Sections of the chapter talk about the 2/4 base camp on the Chu Lai beach, as well as the position at Hill 69 on the perimeter of the enclave. Several memorable moments from Operation Double Eagle are described, including an ambush, receiving incoming from a U.S. Army artillery battery, and a mortar attack from a rather slow-witted VC unit.

Operation Texas

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter brings you back to 21 March 1966 and Operation Texas. General P.X. Kelley notes in his foreword to the book, "Because of its relatively short duration, Operation Texas has never been given its rightful place in history. For those who were there on March 21, 1966, however, it is a day they shall always remember. In the words of Major Ernie DeFazio, who was my executive officer at the time and who had landed on the beach at Iwo Jima as a young enlisted marine over two decades before, 'Texas was the longest and toughest day of my life.'"

The End of the Beginning

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter covers the last few months of my tour in Vietanm. The final operations, R & R, the efforts of the short-timer trying to not die, and the return to "the world."

The Ending

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter provides some observations on the combat experience and covers my final duty station and my decision to resign after my four-year obligation had been completed. The scene then shifts to 20 years later when Vietnam seemed to revisit me in the form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Welcome Home

Excerpts from the chapter. This chapter deals with Operation Desert Storm and the effects that the war in the Gulf had on me, how it brought the memories of Vietnam back so strongly that I could little distinguish between the two wars. It became a continuum.

In memory of LCpl Robert Guy Brown, KIA on Operation Texas on March 21, 1966. He had just turned 19. Semper Fi.

Contents

Foreword by General P.X. Kelley, USMC (Ret)

Preface

Prologue: It Begins Again

The Beginning of the End

In the Beginning