There wasn't much of a perimeter at Dak To, Lumpy. Not like Holloway, anyway. I seem to remember the outside wire wasn't much more than a low cattle fence; the mamasans could reach across and sell coke and Ba Mui Ba, whatever, with no trouble. There were some bunkers between us and the runway, but they were really just covered foxholes; fighting bunkers.

I think they figured an attack would have to come from the hills behind us, to the south.

The RON tent there was a zoo. I was there long enough I had the first cot inside the flap, at the "top" of the tent. Our guys pretty much took that end. The "bottom" of the tent, the other end, was where the guys who carried Swedish Ks, the ones with the levi's and the madras shirts stayed, waiting for a lift across the fence.

The roof was full of holes. More than a few of the guys passing thru thought that a .45 or a 9mm made a convenient bunkside light switch.

We lived on c-rats and beer. There was a mess tent there with a tough SOB Mess Sgt running it. If he saw you more'n twice, he'd track you down to do his pots n' pans. So we only went to that mess tent once or twice a week, and dodged that mess sgt, that was it.

Most supplies came by convoy. The place was almost out of beer when the dinks hit the convoy that was bringing in the beer resupply. Well, the next thing you know there was a chinook coming over the horizon with a slingload of Blue Ribbon underneath. First things first.

I slept in a sleeping bag on a canvas cot. Positively luxurious. I'd wake up many times in the middle of the night, something tugging on the end of the bag -- you know those tie-tapes that were attached at the foot of the bags? Rats, pulling on the tapes.

Trash pile was right next to the door, and me. I'd sleep with a flashlight in my left hand and a crescent wrench in my right. Hear a rat rattling the Falstaff cans in the pile, jacklight him with the flashlight and come across with that crescent wrench and brain him, go back to sleep. Sometimes 2 or 3 times a night.

I never saw it myself, but they said some of the big ones wore P-38s around their necks.

Damn, we had some fun.