Mission Preparation
I got to my hooch and was so glad I didn’t have to wear that thirty-pound ammo rack that I wore on other missions while I was on the machine gun crew. That freaking thing will not only drain you physically, but as it digs into your shoulders and hips, it will painfully torture you to death before it kills you. Yes, kills you! If your lying in the prone position and trying to aim and shoot, the top of the rack will stop you from raising your head up high enough to see, let alone aim. The first time I hit the prone position and brought my head up I almost broke my neck on the support. I said out loud, “What the —! Who designed this thing, the enemy?” So to make my self less of a target while I took the thing off, I rolled over and ended lying on my back. Until I got my arms out of the straps, I looked like an over-turned turtle struggling to get out of its shell.
Traveling light was so much easier. I had my flak jacket on, helmet, a few hand grenades, protective mask, my 16 and ammo, my knife, smokes, lighter, my little camera and extra film, a p-38, C-4, some c-rations and a thin two inch red bible my mother sent me. I was almost ready to go. I just had to get some water in my canteen so I headed outside the hooch to the “blister”[lister] bag. While filling my canteen, I observed a few of the guys were scattered around the company area, some in groups shooting the shit and some were quietly by themselves.
Many of these guys in the company had nicknames. Many nicknames were derived from their last name. Wesolick was “Wes” (see photo 1) but also heard him called “Tex” too. Culleton was “Cully”, and I called Jose Lopez, “Trini” like the singer (see photo 2.)
Photo 1. Harold Wesolick * Photo 2. Jose Lopez
Some of the guys called Swan, “Swanee” (see photo 3). Some nicknames were chosen because many didn’t know how to pronounce names like Ron Woycehoski (see photo 4). He was best known as just “Ski”. Wilbert Theriot was “Frenchy” as any other French guy would be called.
Photo 3. Carl Swan— RTO
Photo 4. Ron Woycehoski— Photo 5. Richard Fuller
We arrived together and left “Shotgun”
together!
Some names were picked from their job description. Fuller (see photo 5) was “Shotgun”, Dupont (see photo 6) was the machine gunner so we called him Mike Golf. Saul McNeal (see photo 7) was appropriately called “Slick”, just because he was.
Photo 6. Rich Dupont Photo 7. Saul “Slick” McNeal
John Barfield, a radiotelephone operator (RTO) (see photo 8) was known to most, as just Barney. Another guy was just called “Gomer”. When I first arrived at “A” Company, I met a couple of short timers that were almost ready to go home. One was Sergeant Hernandez (see photo 9). He told me just call him “Pineapple” derived from where he was from—Hawaii. Another guy was Charlie Jacobsen. He was known as “Jake”, and Roger Masten (see photo 10), an RTO, was “Chief”. Even the enemy had a few names. The Viet Cong, abbreviated VC, were sometime just called “Charlie”, and the trained North Vietnamese Army soldier, known as NVA.
Photo 8. John Barfield "Barney"
Photo 9. John Stone & Sgt Hernandez—“Pineapple”
Photo 10. Roger “Chief” Masten
Some other nicknames for the enemy was just “gook” or “dink” and just by the sound of the words, I assumed they weren’t very nice. I thought I better pick a nickname for myself before someone picked one for me that wasn’t cool… so I had “Stoney” embroidered on my bush hat. Apparently a lot of them couldn’t read and just called me Johnny. Never told many guys, that John Wayne was my real name. I guess I didn’t want to get ribbed—John Wayne Stone. Wayne is my middle name.
Boy did I look cool. I really
thought I looked good without all that other crap hanging off me. John Wayne in
the movies never looked this good. I looked around and found someone who would
take my picture. Maybe it was Dan Hollister, or possibly Frenchy. I’m not sure,
but I handed him my little camera and hoped he knew what he was doing. If I was
going down, I’d look cool going, and I wanted a picture in my camera for
everyone to see how cool I looked before I went. (See photo 11)
While some of the guys were still running around doing last minute equipment checks, I noticed something different. I saw two jeeps pull into the company area. They both had fifty caliber machine guns mounted on them. Doug Buhl (see photo 12) was one of the gunners and his driver was Frenchy (Wilbert Theriot). Not sure of the other driver’s name, but I took a photo of the other gunner. (See photo 13) These guys looked more like they were from the TV show Rat Patrol than a bunch of ground pounders. Boy, Doug sure looked pretty good standing up on the back of that jeep hanging on to that fifty. Maybe it was the goggles attached in front of his helmet that gave him the look. I guess I wasn’t the only one that looked cool. I wondered how he ended up on that job? Whether he volunteered or was assigned, I just know, even with my machine gun capability, I wouldn’t want that duty.
We got the word we were moving out and everyone was told to “group-up” and I headed towards the CP group.
Photo 12. Doug Buhl Photo 13. Other jeep gunner