I Wonder What If

                    I WONDER, WHAT IF


    May 5, 1965, my 18th birthday, from this point forward I was my own man, I didn't have to ask permission, I could go where I wanted when I wanted and stay out as late as I wanted, or so I thought.
    My first decision as an adult was to join the U.S.Navy.  I didn't join out of loyalty to the country or to honor a family tradition or to escape from the law.  I joined because the proverbial apple had fallen from the tree and I wanted to roll as far as I could.  I had no idea what was going to become of me.  I was lost and without direction of any kind.  To be honest I was somewhat afraid of the future.  I wasn't afraid for what the future may hold, I was afraid I wouldn't know what to do when I got there, where ever " there " was. The military for me was the most logical choice.  Back then it was join, be drafted or become a "Hippie ".  I joined the Navy.
    In 1965 I was not a political person.  I didn't care who was in office.  China was just a foreign country on the other side of the world with millions of people that they couldn't feed and I had no idea where Vietnam was or what was going on there.  Hell, I didn't even watch the news or read further than the comic strips in the newspaper. I needed someone to grab me by the shoulders,  turn me in the right direction and kick my ass to get me moving and for the next four years that is what the Navy did for me.
    My first duty station was Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach, FL.  I was surprised because other than the base was sitting on the east coast of FL there was not much Navy there.  NOTU, or rather Naval Ordinance Test Unit, was part of the Polaris missile program for the Navy.  All SSBN submarines had to come there and successfully test fire a missile every two years.  NOTU was a small outfit and I was assigned as a VIP driver to chauffeur dignitaries around.  Later I was transferred to the port at Cape Kennedy as a Dock Master.
    Neither job was what I call demanding.  In fact my time at NOTU was fun. We had lots of time off and spent it at the beach. The best thing about my first two years in the Navy was that I met Linda, the love of my life and the girl who walks beside me today - but this is for another time.
    Not wanting it's sailors to get bored the Navy had a habit of shipping you off to another duty station every so often.?  I got my orders in late May 1967.
    ACDIV12, what the hell was it and where the hell was it. Everything in the military was a big secret, all I could learn was that it was something to do with Vietnam.  Vietnam in 1967 was a turbulent place.  Guys were fighting and dying for yards of jungle, a hill, or a stretch of river. This was the first major war where the enemy used gorilla tactics which made it hard to tell friend from foe.  The hell of it all was it was not a declared war but rather another police action. The war had been going on for years but had escalated over the last 2 years and now there were several hundred thousand men and women fighting the communist hordes. I think the average age of our troops was about 19.
    Turns out that ACDIV 12 was actually Assault Craft Division 12 - one of several who were in a constant rotation between San Diego, Ca., Subic Bay in the Philippines, and part of an amphibious task force somewhere off the coast of Vietnam. The division was assigned to a large amphibious assault ship that had the capability to ballast down and launch our landing craft loaded with Marines and their equipment so we could land them on a beach in a WWII style landing. As it turned out when I arrived in Subic Bay ACDIV 12 was back in the states so I was invited to join up with ACDIV 13 who was soon to be rotated back to the states - government bureaucracy being what it was took another six months to get us back to the states.
    ACDIV 13 ( later to be known as ASSAULT CRAFT UNIT 1 ) turned out to be a rather loose organization.  We were separated from the ship's company and were given our own compartment in the bowels of the ship -  no inspection, no standing watches. During the day we worked on our boats, during the night we played cards, watched movies on the mess decks or ran midnight supply appropriation missions. There were times when we felt like the red headed step child of the Navy but we were ready and did our jobs when we were called upon.
    Upon returning to the states I found out that San Diego was an expensive place to live and after a few months I volunteered to go back.  Regular pay, sea pay, hazardous duty pay and all of it tax free was a good incentive so sometime around July 1968 I went back and remained there until about March 1969.
    During my two tours in Vietnam we made several beach landings.  One in particular we thought John Wayne himself was going to appear.  Twice we were called upon to take our boats into harms way on a volunteer basis, to a man we all volunteered, but the missions were cancelled at the last minute.
    Although I was in a war zone and at times the situations were a little shaky, I never  came under enemy fire and never fired a weapon in defense. Some would say that I was lucky to have eluded the hell of combat. Many was the time I sat on the flight deck and watched the far away tracers fly thru the darkness and hear the explosions from distant cannon fire.  I silently thought of how glad I was not to be  "in country ".
    Several times we off loaded the Marines of our task force.  They would disappear into the brush behind the beach and be gone for a week or more. When we pulled them out they would be dirty and tired.  Some had a distant look about them, which meant nothing to me at the time.  If they talked about the past few days they used humor to hide their feelings, if they talked at all. We who stood on the side lines watched as they walked off our boats into the jungle didn't know or understand what the Marines were going through.  In our innocence there was some envy.  The taste of combat was only imagined - no conveyance could bring forth the reality.
    The war took the lives of more than 58,000 of America's youth and many thousands more received wounds which plague them still.  A new disease ( Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome ) was born to the broken and weary veterans of battle. Stories of heroic acts were everywhere - including those of my brother Pat, a Navy Corpsman with Recon Marines and holder of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
    Through the years I have thought about the Vietnam war and the small part I played and I wonder what if things had been different, would I have measured up or would I have folded?  Would I have come home broken in body or soul or would my name be etched in the black granite of the "Wall" ? Why did I come home unscathed?  What was so different about me that I survived when so many didn't?   My father came through WWII without a scratch.  He didn't talk about the war, was it because he felt as I do now? These questions haunt me from time to time though I realize there will never be an answer to them - still, I wonder.
   Some one once said " it's not how they died that counts but how they are remembered". In the 1980's private funds were raised and congress donated land for a Vietnam memorial graciously referred to as the " The Wall ".   It contains the names of 58,272 men and women who died in the war.  Many never saw their 21st birthday or the children still in the womb of their wives back home. They were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters,  and fathers of those they left behind.  To those of my generation who served they are proudly called the "True Hero's".  They live in the hearts and minds of those they served with and will be remembered for all eternity.
    I have never visited the wall or one of it's smaller versions that travel the country. I don't feel I have the right to walk the hallowed ground of my brothers who paid the ultimate price while I sat and watched the red tracers cross the night sky. Maybe some day I will make the trek to sit and gaze upon the many names etched forever in stone.  I will weep because I was lucky and they were not, and I will wonder, what if things had been different.