1st Battalion 22nd Infantry Kuhn's Story Page 10

1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

STAND DOWN

It was right around Christmas that we were told that the Unit had received orders to "Stand Down".
I think we even had a Christmas party too!

Stand Down means that a UNIT is ceasing operations and being withdrawn from Vietnam and redeployed to the U.S.
That sounds good but to most of us it meant that we were going to be transferred to another unit somewhere in Vietnam.
I figured they would split us all up and scatter us all over the country wherever other units were short handed. I just
hoped that I wasn’t headed north and I also hoped that I would stay with either Jarvie or Bender. I was getting “short”
now with only 75 days remaining in my tour. I was now a two digit midget, meaning I had less than 100 days
(which has 3 digits in the number). It seemed like I was pulling more daytime guard duty now.
Maybe because I was getting short.

Some of the squads were still encountering a few sporadic incidents on their nightly ambushes but I only heard about
the hits and wasn’t with any of the patrols. Daytime guard was the safest duty of all and the most boring of all too,
but I wasn’t complaining. I spent day after day all alone sitting up in a tall guard tower watching the beach.
The guard truck dropped me off at 06:00 (6:00 AM) and picked me up at 18:00 (6:00 PM). I just sat up there all day
daydreaming about Home and watching the surf and watching the helicopters and planes arriving and departing
the base and took a lot of pictures. It was nice. On some days off we even went swimming.

Beach concertina

Beach waves

Imagine how beautiful these beaches are now
without the rolls of concertina (barbed or razor) wire

My M-16 and ammo bandoliers and canteen on the guard tower bench overlooking the ocean
Note C-Ration pack of Kent cigarettes stuck in window roof

My M-79 grenade launcher resting on my steel pot with
the claymore clackers in front, overlooking the beach

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