Death in the Jungle Gary Smith (mobi reader txt) 📖

changed, to protect a specific person’s privacy. The conversations, naturally, are not reproduced verbatim, but are representative of the interplay between my teammates and myself.

Unfortunately, war is real. Death is real. This book covers it all by a Navy SEAL who is lucky enough to have survived five tours of Vietnam. Written with my close friend, Alan Maki, this is my first book. There will be others.

INTRODUCTION

I joined the Navy for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I was bored with college and my sweetheart had dumped me. Second, I had a burning desire for adventure. I just couldn’t bear the thought of living a common, everyday life behind a desk. I had ventured into oil-field work for a couple of years; however, the pay was poor and the hours were long. I had worked on the Bridwell Hereford Ranch Headquarters near Winthorst, Texas, for the ’61 and ’63 cattle sales. The pay was even worse and the hours were even longer. But my stay in the bunkhouse with four other guys was quite an adventure. Saturday nights were usually spent at the JB Corral, in Wichita Falls, dancing to Hank Thompson and other country-and-western bands. We would return to the ranch in time for chores, which began at 0530 hours. Considering I was young and dumb, and full of things I didn’t care to discuss, I was beginning to realize that my life didn’t have any direction or purpose. And third, I wanted to be a member of one of the Navy’s UDT Teams. With that in mind, and full of youthful idealism, I enlisted on 22 January 1964, at twenty-two years of age.

During boot camp, everyone took a variety of aptitude tests. Sometime afterward, each of us was interviewed by a civilian counselor and asked what basic line of work or training we preferred.

I told him that I wanted to be a UDT diver and that I didn’t like anything that had “wires” (electrical) connected to it.

Appearing to ignore me, he looked at my radioman test for copying code (CW or continuous wave). Unfortunately, I had gotten a perfect score. “You’ll make a good radioman,” he commented without looking at me.

“But I hate anything that has wires to it,” I responded.

With a stern look, he stated emphatically, “You’ll make a good radioman.”

I was crushed! I simply couldn’t imagine sitting behind a typewriter and copying code or fiddling with wires for a career.

Prior to boot camp graduation, we had to fill out a “dream sheet” for our first assignment. I doggedly requested UDT Training, Second Class Deep Sea Divers School, and Submariner training.

Upon graduation, I received my orders to Radioman A School at Naval Training Center, San Diego, California. I did well in school, and eventually was able to copy twenty-eight words per minute CW and send twenty words per minute with a standard key; however, I still hated anything that had wires to it.

Again, I was to fill out another dream sheet. Getting wiser, I requested UDT Training, submarine duty, or assignment to any ship in the Pacific fleet. Again I was crushed. I was assigned to the Naval Communications Center of the COMNAVPHIBPAC (Commander Naval Amphibious Pacific) at the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, California.

After reporting aboard the ’phib base, I began my short stint as a radioman behind a desk typing messages, monitoring communications nets, maintaining filing records, scrubbing urinals and commodes, and waxing decks. I hadn’t been assigned to the comm center over a week before I found out that the UDT Training Command was also located at the amphib base. Then I found out that the guys who were always running in formation and singing songs while waiting for the chow hall to open were UDT trainees, “tadpoles.” I immediately submitted a request to be transferred to UDT Training in December 1964. By July ’65, I was one of those nuts who were always in a hurry to get somewhere, running in formation, and singing to boot. My life would be forever changed.

The UDT Training area was located at the back end of the base next to the San Diego Bay. The training command office, classrooms, and enlisted barracks were old World War II structures made of plywood. The surrounding grounds were of sand. Every evening we were to rake all trainee boot tracks from it, scrub urinals, et cetera, depending on who was the enlisted duty officer.

There was a two-week pretraining phase for the fortunate trainees who were released early from their previous commands. As it turned out, not all who arrived early would agree that they were fortunate.

Instructor Friendly Frederickson had two weeks to separate the sheep from the goats before Class 36’s training was to officially begin. He must have been trained by the Gestapo. His specialty was torturing us in a variety of ways on our half-day mixes of PT, swimming in the surf, and running on the Silver Strand. Frederickson always started off by having us run out into the surf and lie down in it. Then he had us run into the sand dunes, lie down, and roll in the sand, followed by making us put handfuls of sand down our T-shirts and pants. Even our boots got full of sand. One poor fellow had a terrible case of piles after just two days and was shipped out on the third.

All trainee “brown baggers” (married men) were allowed to go home at night. The rest of us maggots were forced to endure continual harassment and occasional physical abuse, especially from Petty Officer Barney “The Ripper” House, after chow and during our daily field-day duties. Then there were the nightly fire watch patrols.

All UDT trainees were issued one and a half rations per meal, and more if requested. During Hell Week we would be issued four meals a day, with the fourth being served at 2400 hours. Considering I loved to eat and that my personal motto was “quantity, not quality,” I finally knew what happiness was: “Every