catch up with the company to deal with the training that was going to be going on that day. You whip them into line. They had to understand, just as we have to understand, that following orders and attention to detail later on could be the difference between someone living or dying.
Though he considered himself a peaceable man, Wallace would find NCO school and weapons training fun. Exposed to rifles in basic and hand grenades in AIT, he now received more detailed instruction. He learned you couldnât pull the pin on a hand grenade with your teeth, John Wayneâstyle, unless you wanted a broken tooth. He learned that a .50-caliber machine gun could penetrate an armored personnel carrier at a thousand meters, and how to open C rations with a P-38 can opener. He learned well enough, in fact, to finish in the top five of his class and was invited to stay on and teach the next group. With just two years of college and nine months of military training, he had achieved the rank of buck sergeant, a remarkable feat. Wallace was proud of the accomplishment.
Now you are an NCO, and you have to help the officers do what they do. There is an unwritten belief that NCOs run the military, especially the Army. The officers are there, but the NCOs keep the military on track. If you donât have the NCOs, youâre not going to get the mission accomplished. I felt like I was on top of the world as far as being a soldier. I had the attitude that I was going to be a soldierâs soldier. Now, with that comes the question, âWhat am I going to do when it comes to combat? Would I be able to function, as they have taught me?â Thatâs what we have to do. To find out.
In January 1970, traveling alone, Wallace took the subway to Forty-Second Street to catch a Port Authority bus to Fort Dix, New Jersey. A day and a half later he was on a DC-8 with two hundred other soldiers and military personnel, a few of them headed to Vietnam for a second tour. As it began to snow, the passengers started cheering, thinking the flight might be canceled. In the manner of how he came into the world, Wallace would leave for Vietnam with deep snow on the ground. After a long flight with stops in Alaska and Japan, his plane began its descent to Bien Hoa Air Base. His arrival in Vietnam left an indelible impression, as it did for so many.
That plane spiraled down when we got to Vietnam. Of course we were told they did that because we didnât want to be on a glide path that Charlie, the Vietcong, could line up and shoot at our plane. We landed, and when they opened the door, the heat was unbearable. Your body was in Vietnam, but your mind was still in Fort Dix, in the snow. The heat was the one thing; the other thing was the smell ⦠It was like, âWhat have I gotten myself into?â
Wallace and the rest of the soldiers were loaded onto buses with wire mesh covering the windows and driven to the Ninetieth Replacement Battalion near Tan Son Nhut. They saw surprising luxuries, such as a PX and a swimming pool. A few lucky soldiers would probably stay, but for most of the soldiers their time here would be short-lived.
Youâre seeing all this, and you say to yourself, this is not that bad. If this is what I have to deal with, nobodyâs firing at you yet. We can deal with this.
It was a nice fantasy, anyway.
Every few hours an officer would stand up and call out a list of names and unit assignments, and another group of soldiers would be shipped off. Unit designations such as First Cavalry or 101st Airborne meant very little to these newly arrived soldiers. The majority of the men arriving in Vietnam in 1970 came as replacements, individuals inserted into whatever unit happened to need additional manpower at the time. Wallace was assigned to the First Cavalry Division, a combat unit. He would be departing for the field in Tay Ninh province, near the Cambodian border and west-northwest of Saigon (today known as Ho Chi
Though he considered himself a peaceable man, Wallace would find NCO school and weapons training fun. Exposed to rifles in basic and hand grenades in AIT, he now received more detailed instruction. He learned you couldnât pull the pin on a hand grenade with your teeth, John Wayneâstyle, unless you wanted a broken tooth. He learned that a .50-caliber machine gun could penetrate an armored personnel carrier at a thousand meters, and how to open C rations with a P-38 can opener. He learned well enough, in fact, to finish in the top five of his class and was invited to stay on and teach the next group. With just two years of college and nine months of military training, he had achieved the rank of buck sergeant, a remarkable feat. Wallace was proud of the accomplishment.
Now you are an NCO, and you have to help the officers do what they do. There is an unwritten belief that NCOs run the military, especially the Army. The officers are there, but the NCOs keep the military on track. If you donât have the NCOs, youâre not going to get the mission accomplished. I felt like I was on top of the world as far as being a soldier. I had the attitude that I was going to be a soldierâs soldier. Now, with that comes the question, âWhat am I going to do when it comes to combat? Would I be able to function, as they have taught me?â Thatâs what we have to do. To find out.
In January 1970, traveling alone, Wallace took the subway to Forty-Second Street to catch a Port Authority bus to Fort Dix, New Jersey. A day and a half later he was on a DC-8 with two hundred other soldiers and military personnel, a few of them headed to Vietnam for a second tour. As it began to snow, the passengers started cheering, thinking the flight might be canceled. In the manner of how he came into the world, Wallace would leave for Vietnam with deep snow on the ground. After a long flight with stops in Alaska and Japan, his plane began its descent to Bien Hoa Air Base. His arrival in Vietnam left an indelible impression, as it did for so many.
That plane spiraled down when we got to Vietnam. Of course we were told they did that because we didnât want to be on a glide path that Charlie, the Vietcong, could line up and shoot at our plane. We landed, and when they opened the door, the heat was unbearable. Your body was in Vietnam, but your mind was still in Fort Dix, in the snow. The heat was the one thing; the other thing was the smell ⦠It was like, âWhat have I gotten myself into?â
Wallace and the rest of the soldiers were loaded onto buses with wire mesh covering the windows and driven to the Ninetieth Replacement Battalion near Tan Son Nhut. They saw surprising luxuries, such as a PX and a swimming pool. A few lucky soldiers would probably stay, but for most of the soldiers their time here would be short-lived.
Youâre seeing all this, and you say to yourself, this is not that bad. If this is what I have to deal with, nobodyâs firing at you yet. We can deal with this.
It was a nice fantasy, anyway.
Every few hours an officer would stand up and call out a list of names and unit assignments, and another group of soldiers would be shipped off. Unit designations such as First Cavalry or 101st Airborne meant very little to these newly arrived soldiers. The majority of the men arriving in Vietnam in 1970 came as replacements, individuals inserted into whatever unit happened to need additional manpower at the time. Wallace was assigned to the First Cavalry Division, a combat unit. He would be departing for the field in Tay Ninh province, near the Cambodian border and west-northwest of Saigon (today known as Ho Chi
Similar Books
