I love old knickknacks and pattywhacks, frequently shopping Roseville’s giant flea market and several charity second hand stores.

I’d been to Pleiku, An Khe and Quinhon, and Nha Trang. But not Banmethuct or Dakto.

It has both An Khe and Pleiku, Central Highlands towns in II Corps on it, places where I was stationed. My buddy says ‘that’s when you were over there wasn’t it?” I allowed that it was.

Tom says “take it then”. Wow, thanks Tom. Free for me, my friend.

In a previous visit Tom, an expert jeweler of 1/48 scale flint knives, had sized and polished for me, free, my dad’s Masonic gold ring I’d inherited. So thanks twice Tom.

I’m in another storefront in CH: gold, minerals, fossils, books, watches, artifacts… Run by another nice guy, Dan.

I see a National Defense ribbon and medal set, the red and gold one every US man Jack or woman Jill who serves or served gets to wear.

I say ‘we called it the Fireguard medal because our ‘temporary’ WWII wooden barracks were such fire traps that all-night patrols were maintained lest we burn up in our sleep’.

Dan says, ‘why don’t you take it, I’ve got more’. So I do.

We buy German Warplanes of WWII for $5usd from him. Excellent source, accurate, nice pics, no typos! Thanks Dan, too!
Sometimes people just give you stuff.

Vowing under oath to defend the Constitution and donning a uniform got all us heros the red Fireguard Medal while Just showing up in Vietnam got us the Yellow, red and green one.

The Song Mao battle of April, 1970 that I saw a sliver of was a much bigger action than just blowing up the ammo dump, which was about all I saw. Though that dump blowing up for hours is the one thing everyone who was there seems to remember.

I read now of fierce combats in the next few days, firefights where several US troops and ARVN soldiers were killed or wounded.

And probably over a hundred fifty VC/NVA were killed, with evidence of that many more troops dragged away wounded. I never saw any of this.

No newspapers or news on it either back then, fog of war. Shit just happened.

The VC shelling on our Fire Support Base failed to hit much except our radar unit’s observation tower.

And the metro arty balloon guys’ inflation hangar got a hole in it. Nobody hurt in either hit. Missed our bunker, radar, truck, van and generator.

I climbed the observation tower, but it had just got blown away, along with the telephone, right before I climbed up.

So I hot-footed it back down to the bunker where the big booms went off until the wee hours. And the cookoffs longer.

The US counterattacks began the next day and were effective though the price was paid.

Even that late in the war, with so many VC units decimated, and many US formations already deploying stateside, enemy units remained dedicated, aggressive and willing to take even more casualties.

Including at Song Mao 152 estimated enemy deaths, by grisly post action bodycount, and more than that probably out of action from wounds.

The facts of war are ugly, maybe thats why they give us pretty colored ribbons to wear.

Not all heroes but we are all decorated.