Dear Curious Kathy,

When we were forced to work with the Vietnamese we couldn't be sure if one or more of them was actually VC. That was the nature of the beast. Fortunately for most of us we didn't run into that embarrassing and awkward situation. When we had the good fortune of getting a half day off to go into Pleiku, we would run into characters that we knew were VC, but they were smart enough to be unarmed in town and in broad daylight.

Leave? What's that? The only official leave that most of us got was R&R - about 10 days off and no one wasted it in Vietnam. There were various places to take R&R. I was scheduled for Australia, but changed my mind and skipped it at the last minute. Don't ask me why, because that would get us into the area of my sanity or lack thereof.

Actually, yes we did chase the NVA all day and sometimes half the night. That was our job. However, the NVA would sometimes be chasing us. In fact, most of the time we felt like flying targets.

I'm sure you will get some more insight into this subject from the other guys also. I hope I've helped a little.