1

Camp Pendleton, California

December 1966-January 1967

The clouds were amazing. Have you ever looked out the window of a 727and watched the clouds? Cumulus, as I recall, from seventh-grade science. It was Mr. Massi’s class. Probably everything I know about science is from Mr. Massi. He was one of the better teachers at Hicksville Junior High.

The clouds moved by so quickly, you could feel the lightning storm coming at any second, but it never happened. The darkness of the sunset was intense -- the blues, grays, and purples all tightly woven into a single radiating fabric, the 727 never yielding, it flew direct.  The sky was beautiful, the colors so brilliant. Into the purple darkness. Suddenly, the 727 shook; it dropped a hundred, maybe two hundred feet. I felt my whole world shutter. A quick glimpse -- just a microsecond -- seeing death on my shoulder and looking into its face. Seeing a storm up close from a 727 is truly magnificent. I was scared, I didn’t need a lightning storm to raise fear. It was January 13, 1967. I had been ordered to report to Marine Corps, Fleet Marine Force (FMF), Pacific, 1st Marine Division, anywhere they want to put you, Vietnam.

I had left San Diego only hours ago. It was hard to believe that in less than a year out of high school I managed to get myself into this mess. Arizona State passed by so quickly. I had registered in the fall of 1965 with a major in architecture. Having taken two years of architectural drafting in high school, I thought college would be a snap. Yet I couldn’t seem to get passed the prerequisites -- English, physics, calculus, and history. My first-semester grades were mostly D’s, my second semester F’s. I dropped out before they threw me out. How I wanted to make the freshman baseball team as a walk-on. I did get to play in two games. Unfortunately, I was told I’d never be big enough for the pros, and the team wouldn’t play me unless my grades improved.

I was a hell of a hitter and a star for one day when I hit two home runs against the University of Arizona. Unfortunately our team still lost, and I spent the rest of my time on the bench studying. Hitting baseballs was easier for me than making C’s, and partying was more fun than studying. Maybe it was a mistake going to college. At least that’s what I thought then nine months ago. I couldn’t go home to Long Island a failure, so nearly a year behind all my buddies from high school, I decided to follow in their footsteps. I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

“Does anyone have any skin cream?” a stewardess shouted from the front of the cabin. The flight was quiet up until the last hour. We had refueled in Hawaii, Flight 431, chartered by Uncle Sam, owned by United Airlines, and heading for Nam. My voice broke the silence as I stood up from my seat to be seen.

 “Yes, I have skin cream.”

Shaving, which I had just started every other day, irritated my skin to no end. I usually had to wait until the rash went away before I could shave again. If I so much as thought about sugar my face would break out. I was older than most of the guys on the flight -- eighteen and a half -- with almost a year of college. Yes, I had skin cream. I had it only because my mother packed it in my bag before I left home, Noxzema.

The stewardess looked at me and started walking down the aisle. Everyone turned to see who spoke up. I was so embarrassed, red as a beet. A fucking marine with skin cream.

“Thanks,” she said smiling.

She was dressed in perfect stewardess attire, a blue tight-fitting skirt with a matching tie. I think it had little planes flying around on it. Tied in a Windsor knot, well done. Much too quickly she accepted the blue jar of Noxzema, which I handed her with a smile, then she turned and started walking back toward the front of the aircraft. Sitting down again, back in her seat next to the only two officers aboard, she leaned toward the one on her left and said quietly, “Can’t you guys give him liberty or something?” Even the United goddess to the skies couldn’t help me. Private First Class Larry Rubenstein was just ignored. My thoughts drifted back to the past four weeks.

* * *

“There are two hundred species of snakes in Vietnam, 199 are deadly poisonous, the other variety just eats you whole,” I was told in a lecture at Camp Pendleton. After boot camp on Paris Island, South Carolina, and then infantry training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, I took my thirty days’ leave like everyone else. I then reported to Camp Pendleton for jungle warfare training on December 23, 1966. How dumb. I had left home and arrived at Camp Pendleton on the eve of Christmas Eve and was immediately placed in a transition barracks. Nobody who knew anything about anything would be back until after the first of the year. The next day, December 24, I was given an eight-day pass. I wished I could have just stayed home.

This was my first time in California and I knew Los Angeles was about two hundred miles to the north. I had one week and my thumb. Walking on Highway 5, heading north, a duffle bag in my left hand and my dress greens hung over my shoulder, newly pressed. I could hear the plastic from the dry cleaners cracking in the wind. I hoped I would get a ride.

Once I reached the highway, I waited only about fifteen minutes or so when an old ’57 Ford station wagon slowed down and pulled off the road. It had the fake wood on the side, too new to be a Woody. The dust caught my face, and I ran into it, knowing that just fifty yards ahead was my ride.

In less than a heartbeat, I opened the passenger door and got in quickly as the young girl in the driver’s seat eased the car off the shoulder. We were on the pavement doing zero to sixty in a minute and not a word had been spoken. The girl must have been a year or two younger than me. Her straight chestnut-brown hair was nestled just below her shoulders and I could tell she was tall -- her seat was pushed way back. Welcome to California, I thought to myself.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“Sure. My name’s Angel, what’s yours?”

“Larry.”

“You know, I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers, but you look pretty clean cut -- I

saw your dress greens. You’re okay, I can tell.”

“Well, nice meeting you,” I replied.

“You know, a lot of girls wouldn’t think to pick up a soldier hitchhiking, but I don’t

mind. I figure you’re probably just far away from home and trying to go somewhere.”

I let the soldier part pass. “I’m on my way to Covina.”

She smiled, the excitement in her eyes lit up the whole car. “I live in L.A., and that will put you real close.”

I liked her already. This girl was so hyper, talking nonstop about anything: rock ’n’ roll, movies, politics, her friends in California, and her brother in Vietnam.

“What's going on in Covina anyway?” she asked. “Do you have a girlfriend there?”

“I have some friends I went to high school with. They moved there a couple of years

ago, but I haven’t seen them since high school, and I have seven days to kill before I have to be back at Pendleton.” Then the truth came out. “The only thing I really want to do is not see anything painted, wearing, or camouflaged Marine Corps green.”

She laughed. “You're going to Vietnam, aren’t you?”

“Yeah — right after my jungle warfare training.”

“I’ve known a lot of guys who are in Vietnam. My boyfriend’s there now, and my

brother went over with the army nine months ago. He should be coming home real soon.”

This girl was really cute, and the glimpses of the Pacific through her window playing hide and seek with the green rolling hills and palm trees behind her made it hard to think of what to say next.

“Where’s your brother stationed?” I asked.

Her eyes lost their shine for a second and loneliness set in. It was easy to tell she truly missed her brother but didn’t know much of what was happening in his life.

“I don’t know . . . somewhere near Saigon.” “You could say hi for me when you get

there.”

“If I see him, for sure, but I don’t think I’ll get that far south. I’m a marine, so I’m

headed anywhere from Chu Lai in the south to the DMZ in the north. How often do you hear from him?”

Angel expressed a sad smile. “Lets not talk about it.” Her face contorted for a second and she twitched in her seat, her body language expressing discomfort thinking about her brother in a war no one talked about, so far away. “You’re from back East, right? You have that East Coast accent, I can tell.”

“New York, born and raised,” I said, nodding, “then a year at Arizona State going to college. I had a little too much fun to keep me there. And you? Have you always lived in California?”

“No, I was born in Michigan. My parents moved here when I was three. California’s cool, though. The sun is always shining. Just look out the window . . . isn’t the sunset beautiful? California’s happening! Don’t you know that?”

I smiled. The sunset was beautiful; it was dusk, and the setting sun came through the driver’s window just at the level of her shoulders. Her long dark hair glistened with a spectrum of brunettes through auburn.

“I like your dimples,” she said.

I guess I couldn’t keep from smiling; I was staring at her profile, enjoying the view. My dimples were always my best feature when it came to affairs of the heart.

The car was quiet now. You could easily measure the passing of time as the sound of the wheels passed over the joints in the asphalt. She was quiet, too, for the first time, until she broke the silence.

“Have you seen the new James Bond movie, From Russia with Love?”

“No, I haven’t. In fact I haven’t seen a movie in a few months,” I answered.

“It’s a great movie, and it’s playing at the Overlook Drive-In. You’re not in a hurry, are

you?  Come on — let’s go. It’s only a few exits down and it’s not far from Covina.”

“Angel . . . I don’ t know. I have a long way to go, and I’d sure like to contact my

friend so I have a place to stay for the night. It’s getting late.”

We were still an hour outside of L.A. and I really didn’t know what to think. I sure wasn’t used to this. I didn’t have much money, really couldn’t afford a hotel room, and didn’t know if this was some sort of scam or not. I didn’t have the faintest idea what she wanted.

“Larry, its Friday night, and it’s early. Let’s go to a drive-in. I don’t want to go home

and hang out with the same old friends that I see all the time.”

I didn’t answer right away, but her natural charm and good looks won me over. My grin widened as I looked up and said, “Okay, then let’s stop and pick up a six-pack for the

movie.”

“Can we, are you old enough?”

“Not really, but when I was sixteen in New York I had fake I.D. that made me

nineteen. I still have it in my wallet, so as far as anyone is concerned I’m over twenty-one. Do I look over twenty-one?”

“You look just fine,” she answered smiling.

Suddenly, I wasn’t in a hurry anymore. She talked about her boyfriend -- ex-boyfriend, as I interpreted it, a marine she drove down to Camp Pendleton to meet but who didn’t show up. I guess he had already left for Nam. What other reason could there have been not to show up? Here was this foxy lady with means, a direction north, and a mattress in the back seat, which I had just noticed.

* * *

The storm never came. We flew past the edge of the foreboding clouds and the sky began clearing. So many stars, billions of them. The flight landed at 0600 on a magnificent Da Nang morning. For thirty minutes we flew through the early morning sunlight. I don’t remember when I awoke but I wasn’t rested at all. My neck was stiff and I tried to stretch. Another day. Outside the window I could see the sunrise, a red-orange glow glistening over the ocean. A perfect sunrise, the dancing of flame colors just beginning to illuminate the cool salted sea. It was early on the other side of the world. The dawn hovered and settled softly like an infant’s blanket across the land. It reminded me of many sunrises at Rockaway Beach so long ago. But now it’s the Pacific, and outside the window were rolling waves hitting the white beaches of Vietnam. It appeared incredibly peaceful.

The runway hit fast, a smooth landing; the airport was just a mile from the coast. The flight attendants and crewmembers were wonderful; I remember thinking that they probably went through this weekly, but for me it was a first. It seemed to take a lifetime for the door to slide open and the one-hundred-degree temperature with its equal amount of humidity to hit me. I was seated toward the back of the plane, and before I could even stand up I could feel the heat. I looked one last time at the stewardess who now owned my Noxzema. I let her keep it as she tried to hand it back to me when I passed her on the way out. I guess I knew I wouldn’t need it anymore.

Slowly, we all started down the gangplank. This runway on the other side of the world surprisingly looked like any small airport anywhere in the States. Asphalt pavement was so American. Coca-Cola, concrete, and asphalt -- that’s what this prosperous country of ours gives to the rest of the world.

At the bottom of the gangplank within fifty yards of the plane was a line of marines waiting alongside painted white lines with a few military police officers, MPs. Just a single white line separated us from the salted vets waiting to go home. They had done their thirteen months. I would have guessed they would have been happy, smiling, laughing, and excited to be going home. But no, these guys expressed no emotions -- nothing. They weren't even looking at us, the new guys coming in, their replacements. One would have at least expected a wise-guy kind of attitude, like, “It’s yours now, guys -- we’re out of here” kind of thing. No, there was none of that. They just looked old. They looked thirty-five and yet they were only a year older than me. The jungle gear they wore — wrinkled utilities, soft camouflaged jungle hats frayed at the edges -- hadn’t been issued to us yet, and the little laughter I heard was strictly between them. Their eyes told the real story. Their eyes were dead. The nerves that connected the eyes to the brain no longer sent any signals. The souls of their existence were gone. You could look into their eyes, into the depths, past all consciousness and see the void. It was that void, that black hole which exposed what was left. A thread was all that held the shell of their bodies together. I could only wonder if they’d survive, though I already knew the answer and it was yes. Surely they would, as they already had for the past thirteen months.

I reported to a woodshed about the size of a half basketball court. Inside, protected by mosquito netting across the doors and windows, ran a bench around three sides. At the opposite end was a counter. Behind the counter were two marines, a sergeant, and a lance corporal collecting orders. We lined up, then one at a time we dropped off our paperwork with its bold title reading “1st Marine Division FMF Pacific.” During that time there was confusion and silence. Probably two hundred marines had just landed in the mid-morning, and yet for the receiving personnel it was just another day.

I walked around a couple hundred yards in each direction while I waited. Dirt and gravel was all I saw. The buildings were small, built of wood, American two-by-fours with rafters and corrugated steel roofs. You had to walk up a few steps to the plywood level to get out of the mud, all of this the size of a basic military eight-man tent.  I waited. I reached for the pack of Tareytons in my shirt pocket. I waited some more. I went back to the desk about an hour later. No one was there except for a guy sitting on the floor leaning up against a far wall.

“They’re gone for the night,” he said, disgustedly.

“What the fuck?”

“This is my second day here waiting. About two or three times a day they read off

names and tell us where to report. We’re supposed to guess what time they decide to read them off and then be here for it. Everything closes at 1800 hours. There’s a commissary three blocks down but it closes at 1800 also. All the admin offices, they close at 1700. These guys, they’re out of here by 1600. Do you have a deck of cards?”

“No, sorry. Where are we supposed to sleep?”

“Anywhere you can find a spot. It’s not like you’re going to get a bunk. I crash right

here on the floor, and that spot’s mine.” He pointed to the farthest corner perpendicular to the only opened window.

It was dusk, the building was a least ninety-five degrees, and it was January. More waiting. I thought to myself: It’s okay. Every hour, every minute, and every second is just one second closer to going home, thirteen months away.

I slept on the floor the best I could and waited. There is a lot of waiting in the military but not like this. This waiting was like waiting to find out if you were going to heaven or hell, what unit you were going to get assigned to and how bad an area it was. The farther north, the closer to the DMZ, the worst it was. My fate was in the hands of the two marines who had stood behind the counter.

I woke up before dawn and found the mess hall by following the morning herd. The second day I continued to wait, watching two distinct, separate groups coming and going. On one side were the salted vets waiting to go home, on the other the young green recruits, just arriving, afraid of the unknown. All services -- army, air force, navy, and marine corps -- staging through like adolescent boys and girls at their first school dance, each group leaning on opposite walls of the gymnasium waiting for something to happen, no one daring to approach the other group, no one knowing what to say or what to do.

It was on a Tuesday afternoon, my second day in Da Nang, that my name was called. PFC. Larry Rubenstein. My orders were to report to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines (2/7), 1st Marine Division. My flight would leave tomorrow morning 0530 to Chu Lai.¹

I didn’t even know where Chu Lai was, I had never heard of it. Was that good? Bad? I still didn’t know. I just knew I was scared and leaving the sanctuary of the air base. The flight the following morning left on time, a small military plane, A C-130 transport, with seats that were actually benches along both exterior walls. It seated twenty or so marines, plus everyone's duffel bags. We were all seat-belted in like paratroopers aboard an old World War II paratrooper plane, twin prop, flying south to Chu Lai.

In less than an hour we landed. Chu Lai was nothing but two small buildings, and the runway was dirt. Two canvas-covered deuce and a half (2.5 - ton) trucks camouflaged green and brown pulled up as we debarked from the airplane. Chu Lai was hot, dusty, and barren. One truck was heading for 2/7; the other didn’t concern me. I climbed aboard last. Seven other marines, all PFCs and barely out of boot camp, just like me, were already inside. The wood benches that ran along the sides of the truck were full; several of us sat on the floor in the center. The driver, a lance corporal, dirty, with wrinkled utilities and a sloppy appearance, looked toward the back through the small window separating himself from the rear cab. He yelled to us over the engine noise.

“Keep down, we may encounter sniper fire along the way; 2/7 is about an hour’s

drive. If you hear shots, keep low. I’ll keep moving.”

None of us had weapons yet. Oh, great, I thought to myself. Where the hell is he taking us?

The ride was hard and bumpy. We soon left the only paved road in Vietnam, Route 1, and turned onto a narrow muddy side road. The mud was bad — it was January and the monsoon season hadn’t started. The canvas sides of the truck were rolled up slightly, just enough to get some air moving inside and be able to see out to the road. This was my first experience seeing the Vietnamese people; mostly women and old men dressed in black pajamas, wearing pointed straw hats with little black ties under their chin, each carrying an assortment of articles. The men carried long poles over their shoulders with baskets on each end; the women carried a single basket balanced on their head. Walking to market, walking to the rice fields, the Vietnamese were totally oblivious to us marines and the numerous military transports and jeeps that made up nearly all of the traffic.

After forty minutes of bouncing mercilessly on the hard floor, we drove through the village of Nuc Mon, a small liner town about a quarter-mile long. The shops that faced each side of the road were nothing more than grass huts with recycled cardboard and aluminum reinforcement for doors. A few straggly-looking trees offered minimal shade to the old men squatting in the street talking in Vietnamese. Their living quarters were behind the shops in the same huts. A few marines and members of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or ARVN, walked along the sides of the dirt road, tramping through the six to eight inches of mud. They looked like they were off duty, just wasting time, talking to the young girls working behind the counters. Some of the ARVN soldiers held hands while walking together, a sight I was not used to. Only a couple of shops actually sold anything worth having: Coca-Cola, beer, sandals, strange-looking fruit, and rice. Poultry was scarce, meat nonexistent. Poverty was evident everywhere.

Bamboo poles structurally supported the huts. If a hard wind were to blow, the huts looked like they would fall over onto themselves. A few had old military tarps hung by diagonal bamboo poles protecting the merchandise and the customers from the rain. It hadn’t started to rain yet — it was still early in the day. But judging from the mud everywhere, it was apparent that rain was imminent.

We buzzed through the village in less than two minutes and turned onto a small and very rutted side road. The mud got worse when the rain started. At first it drizzled, then within seconds the sky exploded and the downpour was like nothing I’d ever seen. Raindrops the size of quarters fell from the sky in such vast amounts that I thought they would rip through the canvas tarp that protected us in the truck. The mud holes in the road and the ditches along the sides soon became pools and rivers. We pulled up to a marine guard, an MP standing in the rain, wearing a military-issued green poncho — a heavy waterproof plastic cover with a hood on top and a hole for your head. The rest of his poncho flared out to cover his utilities down to his ankles. Next to the guard, the sign in gold and red letters stained with dirt and water running down its front read: “2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, Home of Echo, Fox, Golf, and Hotel Companies.”

Note:

1.                  The 2nd Battalion 7th Marines in January of 1967 was located outside of Chu Lai in the Quang Ngai province, Mo Duc district. The TAOR (Technical Area Of Responsibility of 2/7 was the Quang Ngai province south of Chu Lai.