Alwaysawarrior

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REMINISCING ON THE PAST

My daytime job was to maintain and repair our crash-fire & crash-rescue trucks
and here I am the morning after a mortar attack patching up some shrapnel holes
that were made by a mortar round that had exploded nearby the night before.

Here I'm checking out and adjusting the sites on my M-16 rifle before going over to
guard mount where we would be briefed as to any enemy activities in our area before
getting our assigned defensive positions for guard duty that night.

Here I'm looking up at a buddy of mine who is up in the aircraft control tower next
to the fire station and he yelled down to me that I had this blank look on my face
as though I was asking myself what am I doing here.

Sometimes we will look back on our own past
Reminiscing on the things we had faced then
All the dangers from VC rockets and mortars

There was always a threat of instant death
As young warriors we took it all in stride
We had prayed each night that we'd survive

Most days were boring, and nights were scary
Waiting for the first rounds to impact on us
We'd quickly react to any new threat by VC

We were there to protect all those serving
And we always had protected each other too
All for one and one for all was our motto

No matter what we had faced during the war
We had never thought of backing down at all
If necessary, we'd have died for each other

Looking back at all the years that have passed
I am so very proud that I had served my country
Proud to have served with these brave warriors

© Terry Sasek - Alwaysawarrior - all rights reserved.

Dedicated to all of my brother warriors who had defended both South Vietnam's
& Thailand's air bases during the war, these air bases were defended by both
USAF security policemen and also the security forces of the host nations that
we were defending during our tours of duty in both South Vietnam & Thailand.
I served in South Vietnam from Nov.1968 through Nov.1969. I have always been
especially proud of the fact that I also served as a U.S. Air Force security
police augmentee with the 632nd Security Police Squadron's "Delta Devils" on
one of our security alert teams at night besides doing my regular job during
the daytime helping & teaching South Vietnam Air Force mechanics and firemen
how to operate & maintain their U.S. Air Force supplied crash-fire and crash
-rescue trucks while I had also maintained our own U.S. Air Force crash-fire
& Crash-rescue trucks to keep them always ready to respond to any emergency
down at our own very small & very remote air base called Binh-Thuy.

I had averaged roughly only 2 or 3 hours of sleep per day for that year, it has
become a way of life for me even to this day I will only sleep for 2 or 3 hours
most nights and I'll sometimes slip in a cat nap or two during the day for just
30 to 45 minutes. It's always been my way of trying to avoid getting into a deep
or very prolonged sleep whereas my sub-conscience would relax and then it would
allow the demons from my past experiences in the war that I try to always keep
suppressed to slip into my own conscience mind and then my dreams would start to
torment me by then becoming the nightmares that have always been too real for me
and they will play over and over again in my mind as I tried to sleep until I'm
quickly awakened with cold sweats and a rapid heart rate until I realize that it
was only another nightmare and that I am home and safe from any mortar or rocket
attacks that we had all faced all of the time over there during the Vietnam War.

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REMINISCING ON THE PAST