HughsI do believe his first name was Larry and that he was from some where out West like Montana or Wyoming and lived on a cattle ranch. He was a machine gunner with us along with his ammo helper, who's name I
don't remember, who lived next door to Larry and was practically raised by the Hughs family. They went into
the Marines at the same time and Larry always looked out after him like a big brother,
but when it came time to go on R & R, they could not go at the same time, and Larry went first. We left March
1st 67 from the field back to Dong Ha for a plane to Danang, waiting for the plane at Dong
Ha a C130medevac plane was loading badly wounded Marines, the corpsmen in charge who's name
I can't remember, but was with me at one time in L Co., he recognizes me and calls out
my name to help load the wounded onto the plane, well these were the most gruesome, badly
wounded, disfigured, barely living Marines, all to be sent to a Philippine hospital. This one
has a poncho shoved into his stomach, and is in real bad shape, Doc is trying to work on him as we lift him
up onto the plane, well he must have died right there on him, and out of frustration he reaches in and
grabs the bloody poncho out of his chest and throws it out of the plane and it lands right in front of my feet,
this is how I left to go on R & R, what a sight. Larry and I each had a room at a nice hotel in Singapore
called the Shelford. When we left the bar I have CC and Larry has another girl, they say they want to go to their apartment to pick up some clothes and things for the five day stay with us, along the way they ask if
we want to stay at their place instead of the hotel, being nice we say no, we'll ness up the hotel, when we get
to their place it was a fantastic penthouse, what a mistake we made by saying no to their offer. Checking into the hotel the girls had to show the desk clerk their VD cards, which must be stamped by a doctor each week, the better hotels did not want the VD infected girls into their place. I felt about two inches high,
never having checked into a hotel with a prostitute before, now having to show a VD card. It is hard to
remember that first night, a lot of drinking, and calling room service every ten minutes for steak, whiskey and
anything Hughs and I wanted, what a party we had. The phone woke me up the next morning, I forgot that
I had placed a call home to my parents, and the call was finally coming through, my mother is crying on the
other end and asking what I was doing right now, I look over at CC in bed with me and said to myself what the
hell am I doing. After three days with CC and not leaving the hotel room I started to feel bad, she was getting very emotional, wanting to take and keep the mud from my shoes. I told her that I had enough and that
I want to see Singapore, so here I'm on a tourist bus going to museums, and I say to myself you jerk in a few days you're going to be back getting shot at, so I go back to the bar for CC, I walk in and see her
sitting at a table, I sit down and ask her if she would go back with me, she said that she could not because she
had committed herself to another guy, who I meet when he returns to the table, he was also staying at the
same hotel as me. So when it came time to leave Singapore, we all got to hug and kiss each other good by.
When Larry and I returned back to L Company the place was like a ghost town, so many Marines were
dead or wounded from that big March 2nd battle with the NVA, including Larry's best friend the ammo man.
Larry never could get over loosing him, he said that if he would have been there he would have looked out
after him( I will insert his name as soon as I know it for sure ) supposedly he did a John Wayne charge with
the machine gun and got killed. Larry woke up in his bunker just before it was his time to leave Nan and
found a boa constrictor curled up on his chest sleeping, it scared the hell out of him. Again I would like to
hear from Larry or anyone who knows him, please e mail me.