Bob,

The one movie I remember seeing was The Green Beret with John Wayne. We were in the new area and they had sat the screen and stuff up between our barracks and the mess hall. There outside under the stars we watched as the real war was fought on a dirty screen and the red dust of the central highlands blowing into the light of the projector.

I wish I had a tape recorder for most of the comments that flew that night. The best came when the helicopter caught three rounds in the nose and did the Hollywood auto-rotation and crashed and burned.

About three quarters through the tape the projector jammed because of the dirt and we had an intermission so they could clean the thing out. That gave us time to grab some more beer and re-arm our mouths for the final scenes. As John with his hand on the little boy tells him he is what this war is all about they watch the sun set over the South China Sea. John Wayne is the only person who could get the sun to set in the east. Greatness none of us common folk could ever reach.

Any time that movie is on I can't help but laugh as I remember sitting there watching as Dana, Sempek and the rest of my platoon ate cheese and crackers and drank Black Label beer and watched the real Vietnam conflict.