Capt. Sheldon Kabaker, MD was my CO and an EENT Specialist. He took surgical plyers and straightened my nez out, packing it with :\"three miles of gauze." I couldn't stand it and had a nocturnal removal of the bloody blod NS deviated septum to this day.. plus two shiners. Boy was I humbled.
Our civilian flight embarked from San Francisco, CA. twenty-two hours in all ,stopping at Honolulu and Okinawa. We wee all dressed in khakis and low quarters. No First Class section. The divider was removed. Flying across the vast ocean of the Pacific seemed endless... and indeed it was. I listened to Ray Coniff's 'Somewhere My Love' over and over again. I still held the torch in my heart for young Diana. Now I was going off to War!
I had been reassured my training was special and it was. French-Indo China, as it was once called, is 120 degrees West Longitude and about 10-15 degrees North Latitude. Two seasons; Rainy and Dry. I once saw 40 days of clear sky and recall wearing my poncho everywhere as the Monsoons approached.
When JFK was killed there were 17,000 advisors. It isn't really worth debating as LBJ thought he needed a war to be popular. WRONG. The quick sands of Vietnam were all consuming. Johnson and McNamara ruined the emerging adults in our society by drafting hundreds of thousands of "Low IQ" young men. Author Hamilton Gregory has written a masterpiece
entitled MCNAMARA's FOLLY. Buy it, get it and read it.Veritas. These Clowns were BAD ACTORS!
Troop strengths in Vietnam soared to Half Million. Westmoreland and Abrams were pussies at the expense of over 58,000soldiers who lost their lives.
TO BE CONTINUED tomorrow.
Robert Louis Potvin E-5
Soldier-of-the-Month July, 1967
36 Evac Hospital
44th Medical Brigade SOM Candidate
Vung Tau, South Vietnam
MOS 91p20 Radiology Technician
Spokesperson for 36th Evacuation Hospital on VD
Mail Clerk
Beer Drinker
A curious young soldier "marching to the beat of a different drummer."
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