A strange turn of events that happened while I was with HMH-463 @ Marble Mountain Air Facility, RVN. (HMH= Marine,Heavy, Helicopter)
My identical twin brother, Ron joined the USN about 6 months after I left for Marine boot camp @ MCRD. We were & still are, very close, & his 2nd ship was the USS Sanctuary, a USN hospital ship with better severe trauma facilities than they had Danang. After I reported aboard my squadron in Vietnam, & began flying as a gunner, I heard about the Sanctuary being offshore, and it wasn't long till I could see that big white ship with the red cross on the side, from the beach at Marble, my home base. It cruised up & down the coast, 3-12 miles out, in international waters most of the time, taking on wounded which were brought out by Army, Navy, & Marine helos. My squadron's helos frequetly flew wounded directly from the field out to Sanctuary. Ron had already sent me a letter saying he wasn't allowed ashore, even tho they sometimes anchored off the deepwater pier at Danang. By this time, I hadn't seen my brother in a couple of years, so, sometime in Oct 1970 I think, I went up the CoC (chain of command)to request a visit out to his ship. We flew medivacs out there almost daily anyway. It got as far as the 1st sgt and he said, "no sweat Sarge, I'll take care of it for you". A week later, as I got ready for the day's mission, I found we were taking an extra gunner. It was the 1st shirt(I can see his face, but can't remember his name) Rather than having someone else take my place as gunner, he took it while I spent a few hrs on board the ship, or as he jokingly put it "Malingering with the swabbies". He was that kind of Marine-he took care of his own.
We landed on the deck of the Sanctuary, I told the OD who I was, & what I was doing there. My brother came up from below, gave me a tour of the ship, showed me what he did as a damage controlman,& introduced me to a few of the nurses (they acted like they didn't even know who he was , much less have any interest in meeting a somewhat dashing but lowly Marine Sgt). Ate lunch in the ship's galley, which was much better than the red death (corned beef) from MMAF, & ate more ice cream than should be allowed in a lifetime. It would be many months before I tasted anymore. I heard over the 1mc to report to the helo deck & caught my ride back to MMAF on a CH46 from Purple Fox (HMM-364).
Fast fwd to last week in Nov-1st week of Dec. We're on our way out to LZ Baldy on a milk run of some sort, when the pilot tells me they have to divert $ take me out to Sanctuary-NOW. My brother had been hospitalized. I
get there & he's laid up, looks like hammered dog pooh, a tube in every orifice of his body. Critical condition the doc told me, with a very low blood count, % white as a ghost. Some kind of severe gastro problems. Gets medivac'd back to CONUS & ends up at NAS Corpus Christi which is the closest medical facility to our home near Houston.. He later told me he ate like a pig for Thanksgiving at a beach party somewhere off Vietnam, then drank about 25 rum & cokes. Naturally, he got sick & heaved up part of his insides. Almost bled to death over the next few days before collapsed & had to be carried to sickbay. He recovered, but got an early medical discharge, honorable conditions.
Years later, when we were both back home, I used to give him a hard time about his easy life in the navy & him getting sick & all. Finally one day, as we were walking across the pasture, he stopped me in the middle of razzing him, & said.
"I had good reason to drink. You know, when the helos were coming in, we all had to form a working party on the helo deck, to carry the wounded down below. They were shot all to pieces most of the time. We were told not to look a their faces. It was bad enough seeing all those wounded men every day & night, but then, I had to make myself look in their faces, scared to death it would be you this time. I had nightmares about it. What and how would I have told Mama?"
He began to cry. So did I.
I never gave him a hard time again. He was fighting a war too.
