It was 1966 in Chu Lai. Assigned to the 7th Motor Transport Battalion, we’d just come in from a four-day run. It was quiet and we were taking turns cleaning our weapons. One of the guys suddenly stopped what he was doing, sitting there with a dumb-ass look on his face. He said, “Hey, Christmas was two days ago.”
We all stopped what we were doing, and I remember that we all just looked at him for a long moment; nobody said a word.
And then we went back to cleaning our weapons.
Chuck McCarroll
Corporal, U. S. Marine Corps
Fix Bayonets! 