Going to war, then and now

A few thoughts on going to war in this day and age, such as in Afghanistan, for example.

The troops had buildings, mess halls, showers, computers to contact loved ones back home. It wasn’t like that in 1965, when I went with the 1st Infantry Division to Vietnam.

We went by troop ship, 3,000 on my ship, other ships were staggered. It took us three weeks to get to there. We were flown to an air strip, then bused to an area northwest of Saigon.

There was just an open field, no buildings, no nothing. We had tents, dug trenches for our toilets, no mess hall. We ate World War II C rations for over a month.

And, of course, we didn’t have showers. We were in the rainy season, so we would strip down and let the rain clean us. One time, I was doing this , was all soaped up and it quit raining. It was really clammy putting my clothes back on.

And computers didn’t exist in those days, the U.S. mail was our only means of contact. But at least we had tents, in World War II and during the Korean War, they were on the move all the time and had it much harder.

Roger Gregory is a Vietnam veteran, serving in the 1st Infantry Division, and is business owner in Priest River.