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The return to Camp Carroll was like a reprieve from a death sentence. It has been said that people awaiting execution will often enter a trancelike state of acceptance as the hour of death approaches. We had lived with the real specter of death for so long at Con Thien that I think I must have been experiencing the mental condition of a condemned prisoner. It took several days before I could again function normally. A numbness existed, and only slowly did I begin to appreciate fully the joy of life around me. When my spirits ¤nally did return, it was the little things that meant so much. A shower or hot meal was no longer taken for granted. Just being able to walk around Camp Carroll without having to stoop in a crouch stimulated me. In fact, it did not take much to please me at all, and when the numbness faded, life became a conscious delight. Especially enjoyable was sipping a cold Coke; actually, the coldness was the best part because I had not had access to ice for weeks. My perceptions had changed so much by now. Sure, Camp Carroll took occasional incoming, but compared to Con Thien it was a cakewalk . Everything in this world is relative, and what might seem a hardship to some is a blessing to others. Vietnam brought this home to me more than anything that I have ever experienced before or since. It was a time when I learned about the very essence of life. I had come to Vietnam in early June of 1967. Prior to that I had been subjected to the rigors of an intense military indoctrination. Devotion to 10 Camp Carroll country had been drummed into my head, and the honor of the Marine Corps had been made a religion unto itself. Even before I joined the Marines, my mind was ¤lled with notions of glory and honor for country . Newspaper reports in the ¤rst part of 1967 told of successes in Operations Cedar Falls and Junction City, and my concern then had been that the war might be over before I even really joined it. Now, recent news stories increasingly described student protests at college campuses. This was so alien to my thought process that I began to feel disgust toward those at home who, when they heard America’s bugles sounding, could think only of saving themselves. America’s leaders might have let us get in the war for the wrong reasons and might have subsequently mishandled its execution, but there distinctly had been a call to arms. It was beyond what I wanted to accept that people would so ®agrantly reject what to me was a clear and present duty. Now, after returning to a safer and saner environment where I could think instead of react, I began trying to make sense out of it all. That was a dif¤cult task. Con Thien had opened my eyes to circumstances that seemed grossly out of kilter. There we had been asked to play a deadly game of attrition with each side playing by a different set of rules. North Vietnam was free to do anything it was strong enough to do, whereas we were saddled with restrictions beyond my comprehension. Americans were told to sit at designated points along the DMZ like ducks in a shooting gallery while the NVA took potshots at will. If you were at a major base such as Dong Ha or Camp Carroll, there was a certain amount of incoming, but these bases had substantial forti¤cations and large numbers of personnel that reduced the chance of ground attack. Lesser positions, however, such as Gio Linh, Con Thien, and the Rockpile, also had ground attacks with which to contend. Of course, other positions with even smaller contingents were even more vulnerable to any kind of attack. They included such places as Ca Lu, C-2 Bridge, Hill 881, Lang Vei, and many others. The NVA had advantages on the DMZ and Laotian border that they usually did not have in other areas of Vietnam. They could move in by night, attack, and be gone before day and, in many cases, return to Laos or the no-man’s-land of the DMZ proper before our troops could even think about pursuing them. Much like Brer Rabbit, once they returned to their briar patch they were home free. We could not cross into these 152 IMPACT ZONE areas because President...

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