But all soldiers are, at the heart of it, combat trained and that remains their primary mission regardless of their MOS or specialty. And as I stood on that hill overlooking that ongoing attempt by an unknown number of bad guys to take over Long Binh, I knew instinctively that something was going on behind me.

     I took a deep breath and turned quickly to see a slightly built young Oriental man, dressed in black, and looking confused, stop suddenly and become motionless as he was approaching me.

     Well, shit.

     I went on autopilot, chambered a round and brought the '16 up to my shoulder. It was pointed right at him and there was no doubt in my mind that, if things did not go well in the next few seconds I would kill him with no second thought.

     I said one word...the assigned password. His expression went from confused to terrified and he made a kind of choking sound. That was not the countersign I had been told to expect. I said the password again, louder, and he extended his arms, with his hands palms out and by now he was shaking. And still silent.

     Then I said "Go away." He took off running toward the 69th's orderly room and once he left my personal "area of operation" he became someone else's problem. I ran into the guy again, months later, when I was pulling CQ duty at the 69th while visiting to stand for the E-5 promotion board.

     He was a Japanese-American Major who had also been partying the evening of 23 February and was more than a little "out of sorts" when he decided to take a walk and see what all the fuss outside was about. We both laughed just the tiniest little bit nervously about what had happened "that night".

     I learned two things from that experience. The first was that I really needed to learn more about the differences between the various Oriental nationalities. Vietnamese are different from Cambodians, Japanese are different than Koreans and Chinese. I guess it had never occurred to me before. And had I not pulled that guard duty and had that near-fatal confrontation, it's likely it never would have.

     The second was that I now knew that, given the circumstances, yes, I could kill someone. Face to face, I could kill a man. And that early morning of 24 February 1969, with my little slice of the universe exploding around me in fire and smoke and incredible noise and the unforgettable smell of cordite, I very nearly did.

     That was quite a revelation. I might have been in opposition to the war, but self-preservation is something else entirely.

     Over the next few hours, the attack wound down as the brave eleven-bravos and the clerks-in-combat gear held them back at the base perimeter, killed many of them and ran the rest off. My squad was tasked with working part of a search grid, looking for any of the Commie bastards who might have slipped through the defenses and hidden on base for later mischief. We found none, got to roll through the mess hall for some breakfast and then got some sleep.

     Photographers from the 221st were sent out to chronicle the battlefield aftermath.

     Long Binh remained on full alert status for the next few days. Work and training schedules were thoroughly disrupted and we had to move around the compound in steel pots and flak jackets. No civilian Vietnamese workers were allowed on base...and that meant that we had to make our own bunks and clean our own hootches. Oh, the shame of domesticity!

     By the end of February, we were back to regular schedules but kept the flak jackets and other gear at the ready; there were other alerts to come. Getting rattled out of the bunk at 3AM by an incoming rocket or mortar round is an experience you never forget. Often, once such alerts were cleared, some of us would gather in our little "day room" (each hootch had such a common area where there was usually a table set 'round with chairs and occasionally a communally-purchased radio) and have a snack from little PX-purchased self-heating tins of beans and franks or other mystery-meat stew.

     These were pretty cool...two attached cans, stacked, one of food that you'd open on top with your P-38, then unroll the strip around the bottom can with the key that was spot-welded to the bottom. You'd light the material in the bottom can with a match and by the time it burned out, the chow in the top can was hot. It's amazing how good a can of processed meat and beans can taste after a long night in a bunker or on guard duty.

     And I went back to learning still photography every morning after.