A True Story About:
Vietnam-Mekong River-Mobile Riverine Force-RAS 13-RAD 131
RivRon 13
Preview - Chapter 1 - A Lesson In Physics
For the most part,
my life in the third dimension is pretty normal but occasionally, when properly stimulated, I find myself roaring
through the universe trapped in an inescapable time warp. I am eventually deposited in an entirely different
millennium for a short, intense period of time. Some folks would call this a flashback.
I call it a ride on the Wayback machine.
I never know when one of these crazy episodes is going to take place and
if it had not happened to me personally, I would not have believed
that it was even possible. Time traveling I mean, which only works for me in one direction, back into the past.
My last trip backwards happened a few years ago and it was a really good one.
It was memorable because everything about that trip seemed absolutely real and not a figment of an over
active imagination.
It all started one spring morning when I stepped outside the Lansing, Michigan Post Office,
where I worked, to check out the weather. I was presented with an absolutely gorgeous day so I seized the
golden opportunity to take a quick break and hunkered down in a sun filled spot between two large trucks that
were backed up to a loading dock. Soon I felt the last remnants of our cold Michigan winter begin to melt from
my bones.
The smell of cow manure and wet earth filled the warm atmosphere around the Post Office.
The airborne perfume drifted in from across the road where agricultural students working in a Michigan State University
cornfield were applying the pungent barn scrapings by the trailer load. I could hear their dung spreaders clacking in
the distance. Hundreds of Canadian geese circled noisily overhead waiting for an opportunity to dine on the
stinky brown feast being flung out onto the ground below.
The crystal clear sky produced extra potent sunrays. They beat down on my face and made me do
an unusual thing. I removed my shirt then lowered the front of my bib overalls to let the hot light shine on my
pale winter chest.
''Ah yes, that does feel good,'' I thought, and fished out a cigarette to enhance my
sunbathing pleasure. As I bowed to light the smoke, sweat ran off my forehead and dripped onto my glasses.
It burned into my eyes causing me to inhale sharply. The smell of tobacco, mixed with the odor of poop and fresh mud,
sped into my lungs just a little faster than I expected, which made my eyes water even more. I was now fully
strapped into the 'Way back' unit and ready for warp speed.
At that exact instant, the trucks on either side of me simultaneously fired up their engines
with a huge roar that scared the ever-living snot out of me. My face was blasted with powerful dense clouds of black
diesel exhaust. I closed my eyes against the onslaught as the big vans slammed into gear and raced off on a twisting
route towards the exit. The time machine, with me on board, instantly achieved full backward escape velocity.
After a few year-seconds I opened my sooty eyelids and blearily made out that today's date
had changed drastically. As my vision slowly cleared, I saw chocolate colored water flowing right there in front of me.
I knew immediately that I was back in South Vietnam. The Mekong River was as filthy as ever and I noticed that it
didn’t smell any better now than it had when I was last there over thirty years ago.
A dirty, green, blunt nosed boat, bristling with machine guns, motored along in the current
ahead. The watercraft was a United States Navy attack troop carrier, known as a Tango boat, and it sounded exactly
like the two trucks that had been beside me moments before. Their R.P.M. mismatched engines throbbed with the same
discordant rhythm as the riverboat that I now saw straining against the Mekong's powerful flow.
Out beyond the Tango's foaming wake, I caught sight of a threatening movement in the
tangled tree line behind her. No one aboard the stubby boat seemed to be aware of any danger and fear grabbed at my
throat as I waited for the opening salvo of the Viet Cong ambush that I saw materializing.
Suddenly, a mighty electric current surged through my body. I was instantly on my feet,
stretching imaginary hands out to grasp the handles of a loaded Colt 50 caliber machine gun that magically appeared.
If it moved I felt a desperate need to shoot it, like Now!
Yeah, right, just my rotten luck. The weapon was jammed or something because I could not
get it to fire and I thought I heard AK-47's rattling somewhere, increasing my alarm. I violently mashed the 50's
thumb trigger while repeatedly pulling back on the operating handle.
I saw crimson fire streak from the opposite river bank and swing in my direction.
Bullets would be here soon. I could feel their relentless search for my tender flesh.
''Man, oh man, this is really going to hurt,'' I thought, as I braced myself for the impending impact and pain.
Suddenly, everything dissolved into tiny bright sparkles out in front of me and my
cosmic journey ended as quickly as it had begun. The muddy Mekong changed into a shimmering black parking lot
where candy wrappers tumbled merrily along in the spring breeze. Enemy tracers turned into winking red brake
lights on the bumpers of two trucks that waited to pull out onto the highway. Gunshots became noisy farm machinery
across the road, and my see-through hands fell gradually to join real ones hanging at my sides. The whining nuclear
fusion drive of my machine finally wound down to a low hum, then fell silent. I was fully back in the ''Here and Now''
and felt tremendous relief at the complete lack of bullet holes in my sorry behind.
I stood, blinked and noticed that if my stupid machine gun had worked properly I would
have killed a Chevy Suburban, a John Deere loader and an empty semi trailer parked out in the truck lot.
If I had wasted those poor innocent vehicles, the term ''Going Postal'' would have taken on a new meaning,
especially given my current condition. Those ''Osh Kosh Bagosh'' jeans, unbuttoned earlier, had somehow slid south,
exposing an absolutely immoral amount of ugly paisley boxer shorts.
Oh, well—some things just never seem to change for me. Whether I am surfing in the
space-time-continuum, or struggling along in the real world, at any crucial moment I might be caught with my
britches down. As I hurriedly hoisted trouser, I felt very lucky my pants were not entirely missing, as they
were a couple of times back when I sailed on Tango boats along the mighty Mekong, with River Assault Squadron 13.
Oh yeah, and where is that misbegotten squid that had set up my weapon anyway?
I had an extra large bone to pick with that sailor.
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