The two most traumatic times for soldiers in Vietnam are the first 30 days and the last 30 days. In the first 30 days you’re scared and you make mistakes because you don’t know any better. It’s a critical adjustment period.

After that initial adjustment, you just sort of accept your situation. You cultivate a "so what" attitude, probably similar to that of a man on death row. After all, what can the Army do to you now – send you to Vietnam?

It’s a way to cope.

In the last 30 days – when you’re "getting short" – you make mistakes because you’re thinking more about home than about doing your job. When you start thinking you can almost smell your best girl’s perfume . . . well, it gets kind of insane.

It seemed that a disproportionate number of helicopter crewmen who got hurt were in one of those two categories – either brand new to Vietnam or "getting short".

Like one of our best pilots, WO1 Griefe. The weather closed in on him once during monsoon season and he died with less than 30 days to go before the end of his tour of duty.

His crew chief on that flight, Specialist Fifth Class Rash, was brand new – about two weeks in Vietnam. He was also killed in the crash. And the door gunner, PFC Cox, who was also brand new, went back to the States with his back broken in three places. He’ll never walk again.

The only man to come out of that crash intact was the co-pilot. And for some strange reason I can't remember his name. He had been "in-country" for about six months. He spent a week or so at the 71^st Evacuation Hospital, recovering from cuts and bruises, and was returned to duty.

I had only two more weeks left on my tour when Plei Djereng was overrun by a Viet Cong suicide squad. The VC had managed to penetrate the outer perimeter without being detected, then blew up several vehicles with "satchel charges" before making their escape.

Intelligence reports indicated where the enemy may have fled and my company was to fly a "combat assault" mission to try and track down the bad guys.

Ten or 15 "slicks" (troop-carrying Hueys) and four gunships (C-model Hueys laden with rockets and rapid-fire "mini guns") flew to Plei Djereng to pick up the "grunts" (infantry) and fly them into the jungle near where the enemy was expected to be. I was the gunner on one of the slicks.

You might know that, for once, the people in Intelligence were right on the mark.

The LZ was only big enough for one helicopter at a time, so the slicks spaced out their formation while the gunships set up a "daisy chain" in which each slick was escorted into the LZ by a gunship in front and another behind.

The lead slick – the one just ahead of my bird – was less then 2,000 yards from touchdown when the lines of green tracer rose from the jungle floor to our left.

"Taking fire! Taking fire at nine o’clock," the radio crackled in my ear. I had been thinking of home. I had been thinking of how I’d better get my stuff packed and take a last look around and say goodbye to everyone and give all my "contraband" to Arthur Lee, my bunkmate, because he was my best friend and I was going home in seven days.

"Taking fire!"

It was like finding a $100 bill on the sidewalk and reaching for it, but the wind blows it down the storm gutter just before you can close your fingers around it. Suddenly home was still on the other side of the world . . . and I realized I might never reach it.

"Taking fire," the pilot called from the lead slick as the tracers snaked towards him. Even as he spoke, the trailing gunship turned on its nose at 100 knots, slid sideways through the air, and opened up on the enemy position with both miniguns and all four rocket launchers.

The jungle erupted in geysers of flame, smoke, dirt and parts of trees as the rockets slammed home amidst several thousand rounds-per-minute from the twin minis.

That gun pilot was very good at what he did for a living that day. The tracers stopped and the rest of the mission was uneventful.

The next day – what would turn out to be my last mission – was a milk run down to Qui Nhon on the coast. And as suddenly as I was dropped into the Central Highlands 18 months before, I was going home.

It was late November, Thanksgiving Day, 1970, when my "freedom bird" lifted off the runway at Cam Ranh Bay. Eighteen hours later it sighed down onto the runway of Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco. And because of having crossed the International Date Line, it was still Thanksgiving Day.

For 18 months I’d seen nothing but olive drab. Those first few hours were incredible. I’d returned to the land of freeways, hot running water, and round-eyed women.

I rediscovered the pay telephone – then I rediscovered coins. All our money in Vietnam was paper script called Military Payment Certificates or MPC. All paper. When I got change for a dollar to call home with, I alternately fondled the coins and stared at the blue-eyed blonde who handed them to me.

I went out to the front of the airport terminal and gushed over the modern, multi-colored automobiles. Then I went into the bar and ordered a beer. I was momentarily confused when the bartender asked me, "Okay soldier, what kind of beer?"

"What kind?" I echoed blankly.

It had been a long time since I’d had a choice about most anything and it was really nice not having to settle for whatever came on the boat that month – usually rusty cans of Carling Black Label.

I luxuriated in the carpeted floor, the air conditioning – at how very clean everything was. It was nearly too much to be hit with all at once. My God, man – just seven days ago I was being shot at, and now this bartender in the red coat and black bowtie wanted to know what kind of beer I’d prefer!

The biggest marvel of all, though, was in the John. For a full quarter of an hour I stood in there and played with the flush toilet.

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