Pete: Monsoon

This is one of the many memories of my Viet Nam War experiences. It was the monsoon season early in 1967, it's been raining for 57 days, at least it certainly seemed that long. This had me thinking back to a comment that my Dad (Dad was a Navy, WWII Vet), said to me after learning I enlisted in the Marine Corps. "Peter", he said, "the Marines are never guaranteed a roof over their heads, or 3 square meals a day. In the Navy, you can count on it, but the Marines, well, they certainly can have different housing arrangements all together".

This brings me to my story. . .Our squad team, named "BREAKER", consisted of the team leader (who’s name escapes me right now); a demolition man, Jesus Rodriguez; an expert rifleman, Jimmy Lane; a compass man, Ron Niles; along with Cpl. Kenny LeCastri, an expert in multiple weaponry, and of course myself. These Marine's were and still are the heroes of my life, the bravest men I have ever known for what we lived through in our daily lives in Viet Nam. Getting back to the monsoons, it was a hot, rainy, dark night, we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. We all decided to dig in for the night in an area with banana trees for some cover, which really didn't give us much at all, but we thought it might. As it goes we made a circle sitting back to back with a couple of poncho's over us. We tried to stay dry as much as we could in our make shift shelter, but every time someone would move, the rain that accumulated on the poncho's came gushing in and got us drenched before the one of many evenings ended.  During that time and under those conditions for so many nights, made me think of what my Dad said to me about comparing the Marines with the Navy, which gave them at least a roof over their heads and 3 square meals a day, comparing that to the shit hole we were in that night. When does a son ever listen to Dad's experiences, one has to live through their own lives before we learn.