Bill Patterson - Christmas in Viet Nam 1968.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day 2006. As Holidays usually stir up memories, I remembered Christmas 1968 and realized how much I have to be thankful for today.
The attached photo was again taken by one of our 319th Transportation Company members and I am forwarding it from the CD prepared by Tim Campbell using gathered 35MM photos from several of our company. Our 6th Transportation Batallion actually had a small enlisted club a short walk from our barracks. Any batallion soldier free during the evening could visit the club, have a drink and often watch bands which traveled throughout Vietnam. The bands came from different countries and only had a few members. I remember seeing bands from Australia, Thailand, Cambodia and the Phillippines. Most sang and danced. I think all had at least one pretty girl much to the delight of the all-male audiences! A few had acrobats and magicians. They of course tried to sing Western songs but their accents usually provided more amusement than the songs themselves! But we all enjoyed the bands and relaxation the club provided. The club was small, possibly seating 80-100 soldiers. I was somewhat amused that the club manager tried to separate the non-commissioned officers from the lower-grade enlisted men by a single wooden rail in the small building. Grades E1-E4 had one side, grades E5 and above had the other but we rubbed elbows with all present due to the cramped area. I was promoted from E4 to E5 during our tour so I got to sit on both sides of the rail that year! The band pictured is one I can't identify but I don't think they were from Nashville! I recognize some of the guys pictured in the audience as 319th members.
A band may have performed on Christmas Eve but I don't remember. I do remember a miserable group of homesick 319th members of which I was one. I don't think any driving was done that evening or on Christmas Day. Our morale may have been better if we had indeed worked. Young husbands were away from their wives and babies. Young bachelors were away from their girlfriends and parents. All us young men were very lonely. Even though we were in barracks with over 100 319th members, I believe each man felt alone that night. We had little or no decorations, gifts or carols. Some members drank too much and made the situation worse. I remember no visible reminders of Jesus' birth. On Christmas Day we had time to think and that's usually not good for guys accustomed to working hard each day. None of us knew what the coming months had for us. Would we ever see home again? Where would we be next Christmas? Would a little man in the jungle drop a mortar round in his tube and unluckily score a direct hit on us?
The next day we returned to the roads. We got little or no time off until August 1969 when we came home.
On Thanksgiving Day 2006 I will have a wonderful meal with my family. We will enjoy each other's company, watch football and parades on TV and not worry much about wars. Our military is in Iraq though. Those men and women will experience what the 319th did in 1968. I pray our mission there will be complete soon so that those people will return home and grow old peacefully as the 319th's old truckers have.....