Dust

Young men all they came on air-conditioned, sanitized, commercial airliners replete with stewardesses, pillows, blankets, in-flight movies, the occasional joint, etc. Although smoking was still allowed on planes in 1967, no alcohol could be consumed. However, after arrival in Da Nang, there were no such luxuries. At the air base in Da Nang, Vietnam, jeeps, trucks, and helicopters hustled and bustled in the red dust, conveying a gravity that the young Marines could not possibly understand at the moment. The "boot," the new guy, hadn't seen red dust like that since driving through Oklahoma. The heat and humidity made the young men sweat, and perspiration created resting places in the creases of their bodies for the dust. 

The new Marines stayed there in Da Nang in temporary quarters for 2 or 3 days until they could be assigned to their permanent units. During one of the daily formations, a Captain called the name of one Marine Private and told him he had been assigned to "one-one:" First Battalion, First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. "They're up at the Hill of Angels," the Captain added, "The Marines there have been under siege for a month or more and have lost some men. They need reinforcements." 

"Hill of Angels doesn't sound too bad." the Marine said to himself, but a Corporal standing next to him heard, and said, "Jesus H. Fuckin' Christ, you new boots don't know shit from Shinola. The Hill of Angels is Con Thien. It's a firebase up on the DMZ, and the Marines up there have been in the shit, taking incoming casualties like nobody's ever seen before. They're surrounded by NVA divisions." 

The Marine was told it would be up to him to find a way to join his unit, so after trying halfheartedly for a few days, the young Marine finally managed to hitch a ride on a supply convoy. He was told to ride in the large open bed of a 6by truck, and his weapon, besides the M-16 he had been issued, was to be a large fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on the cab. He actually hoped he would be able to shoot it. 

The convoy took a road that didn't deserve the name it was given, Highway 1. It was a narrow road almost devoid of asphalt, and they followed it up the coast toward the DMZ. The road itself snaked through lush, tropical scenery that was broken only by very steep hills that rose abruptly from the plain, but this far north, there were grasslands, not much of the jungle he had been expecting. To the boot, it was just a long ribbon of red, dusty road, no bigger than many country roads he had driven on in the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas. 

The convoy continued along the road, and the big trucks lumbered down a gentle slope into a broad valley. That was when the young Marine noticed a number of small white puffs of smoke ahead of them on either side of the road. He heard a small Sergeant next to him say, "Shit, they're bracketing us. They'll walk the rounds towards the road, and we'll drive right into them." 

The explosions got louder, and the trucks raced faster as they hurled down into the valley and toward that lethal rain. The young man was trying to hold on to the machine gun, keep his head down, and see what was going on all at the same time. All of his senses were straining, and the noise grew more and more intense, even deafening, as the trucks full of men and supplies approached the cloud formed by the smoke from the explosions mingling with the red dust thrown into the air by the lead trucks in the convoy. 

Just as the young Marine's truck disappeared into the cloud, the short Sergeant did a very strange thing. He raised his rifle into the air and, looking just like a Mexican bandit in the movies, fired it and shouted, "Fuck it! Let's get some!" By that time, the young Marine had become completely disoriented by the Sergeant's behavior, the blasts, the sickening smell of cordite, and the dust raised by the explosions and trucks. It was surreal, and it was all he could do to hold on to the machine gun and ride blind and deaf into the maelstrom. 

After an interminable amount of time in the sensory deprivation chamber that was the noise-cloud, they came out of it and were leaving the barrage behind them. Amazingly, none of the trucks had been hit. They climbed out of the valley, the men's bodies vibrating with the trucks — alive. The wind blew the red dust from their green fatigues as they continued along the route toward the place called Con Thien. 

The young Marine saw and experienced far, far worse over his next 13 months in Vietnam, but he never forgot that first experience, never forgot that dust, even in the midst of the monsoon rains and mud. The dust and his first encounter with combat made the young man old before his time. The experience led him to understand that he was old at the childish age of 19. He was old before he was old enough to drink legally. He was old before he was old enough to vote. The realization that he might die probably would die, made him realize he was already old enough to die. This realization reminded him of a passage from The Bible that the priest read at his grandmother's funeral, "...we therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." 

Michael P. Mingucci, Sgt. USMC 1967-72 
Vietnam 1967-68