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Clifton E. Thomas Jr.

English 111-353
Mrs. Brittany Cowan
December 07, 2014

1968 The Vietnam War

My good friend and I arrive in Southeast Asia the Republic of South Vietnam, we arrive at the Da Nang
Air
Force Base. It was January 30, 1968 Jeff and I where two eighteen year old kids. It was hot, and we had
never felt heat like that before, the both of us checked in at the command post, and where assigned our
barracks, we both went and put our gear away and reported back to the command post to get issued
our m-16 and our .38 cal. pistol. Night was falling upon us so we went to the hut to drink some beer and
smoke, it was time to hit the sack. 5:00 A.M. we got up showered, shaved, got dressed and went to
breakfast. It was January 31, 1968, Jeff and I were Air Police and after breakfast we started our patrol of
the base. Around 9:00 A.M. all hell broke loose the North Vietnam Army started attacking the base,
there were about a hundred and sixty of us on the base, and we were scared shitless, we are in the
damn war now. For about an hour we kept fighting, then five big trucks came on the base with about
fifty to sixty marines. We were happy as hell to see them! The fighting went on for hours, and then the
VC retreated. After all that damn fighting, there were sixteen of our guys who were dead, and there was
two hundred and sixty seven dead VC. Jeff and I look at each other and said this was crazy. We came
here yesterday as boys and today we are men. The war change us and made us who we are now. Men

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who can kill or be killed, we did our duty the way we train, and we did it for God and county, but we
knew it wasnt over yet. We heard on the radio that the VC hit one hundred cities towns and military
bases at the same hour, then we heard that the U.S. Embassy in Saigon got over run, and almost got
taking, but the Army was able to keep control of it and retake the Embassy back. We learn that today
was Vietnam high holiday, the celebration of the Lunar New Year, called Tet. I have three hundred and
sixty three more days left to go before I can go home. So the main question ask for this paper is, what is
the one thing that changes me and made me who I am today, well it was the war. War will make any
boy be, come a man