DMZ Rats

"I've Got To Get Out of This Place"

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Within one or two days after the LZ Margo action, Major Lynch took me aside and told me he had R&R dates for me. “Did I want them?” He knew the answer since he had asked me to volunteer to postpone dates before.

 

Typically R&R was given about halfway through a Marine’s 13-month tour. I was at the 10-month point. When I received the R&R date, the departure was about 10 days out. I have no recollection of how I communicated the Hawaii destination or date, maybe on a C-ration postcard, but Judy barely got the word in time. The dates for R&R had been postponed once or twice before, so she was justifiably skeptical. After receiving the new schedule, booking the tickets, and arranging time off work, she called my parents for reassurance. My Dad encouraged her to keep her plans though we later found out he had had no inside information.

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Even though my R&R date was coming up soon, we had more Vietnam drama to endure before it became a reality. Five or six days before my scheduled R&R departure, Major Lynch told me to take the first helo out of there that next day. It seemed like a good time to get clean. Bodies were dirty and unshaven, and clothes were worse. Soon I asked if anyone wanted to head off the ridge down to a white water stream to bathe and shave. Several followed me.

 

In a letter to Judy on 25 September 1968:  "If you could see me now you wouldn’t want to meet.  I’ve been in the field 30 days, have a 2 week beard and I smell so bad the bugs will not come close to me."