Today was the final Horseshoe Tournament of the year and would be played RAIN OR SHINE (of course it rained). The favored team was Top Culverhouse and Corporal Hernandez (battery administrative clerk). Docs Driscoll and Wayne were the challengers.
The match was a muddy mess, and the pits were filled with brown runoff from the rain. In the end Culverhouse and Hernandez won. Both of them were short timers and scheduled to rotate to CONUS about a week behind me.
That night we had our staff meeting, and the conversation centered on Captain Yost’s individual interview sessions. As it turned out, he was a stickler for detailed policing of the Kilo Battery compound. He was annoyed by empty powder canisters, Styrofoam padding from fuse boxes and any other loose debris.
He also wanted the interior compound strung with movable strands of barbed wire to restrict movement after dark. The Gunny said, “It is a strategy for limiting damage if we are overrun.”
My plan was to lay low and stay out of this conversation. The cooks were already keeping the mess hall area policed, and laying extra rolls of wire for after-dark security was a questionable endeavor. We were already isolated from the Kilo compound. More importantly, “our little secret” of Yost not knowing we were a part of his battery would be maintained.
I am a retired restaurant manager. My wife Jenny and I have been married for 50 years, have three grown children and two teen grand kids.
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My Vietnam Experience 