Omega124
Challenging Fate
"Being the first is kind of weird. I don't envy whoever was the first black man who joined the American/Vietnamese Armed Forces, and I don't envy the first members of the the first integrated unit. Whenever there are firsts, there tends to be problems. Lots of lots of problems. Yet, for whatever reason, I became the first female soldier to serve in the frontline in Vietnam.
It was bound to happen eventually. Although it was only 1981 for us, the Square of Thunder last year apparently brought us to the year 3000, making the current year 3001. To the rest of the world, we were backward, chauvinist buffoons for not letting women fight, and the last thing command wanted was yet another excuse for the world to sanction us. As if a world filled with vikings, talking ponies, and psychics really gives a whether or not we exist or not, outside of a curiosity glance of how quaint and antiquated we are...
...I went to bootcamp with men. Only men. I was the only woman in my entire platoon. I didn't have a separate bathroom or bunkroom; I was expected to change and sleep with my future squadmates. It's to be expected; I'm going to be fighting with these boys later on, mind as well see all of my assets. Still, I could feel the staring from some of the more hornier soldiers, checking me out as I was showering. I just had to ignore it.
It was rough at the start, but it got better as basic training progressed. Once they realized I wasn't putting out for any of them, most of them stopped trying to get into my pants. Of course, you had those perverts, but a good punch to the face got them to shut up. And if that didn't work, they always feared the drill sergeant more than they feared me.
I'm glad I went Army and not Marines. Yeah, our drill sergeant was a hardass, but at least he was /reasonable/. I heard stories about the Marine's boot camp, and how insane some of them simply are. Especially that story about the Jelly Donut Platoon and their mascot, Pvt. Pyle. That whole incident is legendary across Vietnam; I'm surprised the sergeant even survived that gunshot, let alone allowed to continue train new recruits. Makes me glad I'm not a jarhead...
...Possibly the most memorable thing about training was our "pilgrimage" up to the ruins of Hanoi. Now, the Marines like to take credit for it all, claiming they are the "Butchers of Hanoi", because they were the ones to first physically enter the city. However, it was a combined effort of everyone to take down that goddamn communist fortress. Well, except the Navy, they just masturbated on their ships. But the zoomers bombed the city for days before hand, and we, the Army, provided the artillery support and most of the actual troops in the fighting as the battle continued to progress, but no one remembers anybody but the Butchers.
Either way, as my predecessors turned the communist capital into rubble, they made sure to keep one building standing, a testament to the cruelty and barbarity of Victor Charlie. They made sure the Hanoi Hilton stood, so that future generations could see the monument and realize why they were sent to Vietnam in the first place. And now, even though Hanoi is as much as a ghost town as Oradour-sur-Glane, a small regiment of Vietnam veterans continue to act as a small garrison, to preserve the prison as an almost chapel of what it means to be a Vietnamese soldier.
While at the Hilton, I met retired Cpt. John McCain, one of the survivors of the Hilton. He dedicated his post-retirement life to serve as an almost-chaplain of the entire facility. He seemed very interested in me, because I knew I represented the changing times.
He told me that I was the first woman he saw visiting the Hilton in years, at least since the Square of Thunder, and that he was personally against women serving active duty, he knew in this new world it had to happen. He asked me about my family, and I told him how my (adoptive, my birth father is unknown to me, except that he was also Vietnamese himself) father was in Ia Drang, and how my mom was a Vietnamese native who he settled with after the war, but was eventually ousted as a member of the Vietcong after the war. I told him how my father seemed mad about my decision, saying I was only supporting murderers (he to this day denies my mom was an agent, even despite the proof), but I did it anyways.
He then told me his life story, how he was shot down in a plane and how he was held in the Hilton for almost six years, how he can't even lift his arms above his head, and how he felt betrayed by his own father being one of the few officers to oppose Kurtz's reorganization of the war. Since he was in Honolulu, he was never in any danger of being captured or killed, but he never saw or even spoke to him ever since. 'He was a chickenhawk', McCain told me, 'He forgot what it was like to even be in a combat zone'
Once it became time for us to head back south, he made sure to get my adress so he could write back to me. We became close friends both there and by mail, and we still communicate to this day. Now that I finished basic, I have plans to go back up there again, but today is not that day..."
-Choice excerpts of "The Diary of Jane Doe: The First Female Soldier of Vietnam", by Cpl. Sarah Palin.
It was bound to happen eventually. Although it was only 1981 for us, the Square of Thunder last year apparently brought us to the year 3000, making the current year 3001. To the rest of the world, we were backward, chauvinist buffoons for not letting women fight, and the last thing command wanted was yet another excuse for the world to sanction us. As if a world filled with vikings, talking ponies, and psychics really gives a whether or not we exist or not, outside of a curiosity glance of how quaint and antiquated we are...
...I went to bootcamp with men. Only men. I was the only woman in my entire platoon. I didn't have a separate bathroom or bunkroom; I was expected to change and sleep with my future squadmates. It's to be expected; I'm going to be fighting with these boys later on, mind as well see all of my assets. Still, I could feel the staring from some of the more hornier soldiers, checking me out as I was showering. I just had to ignore it.
It was rough at the start, but it got better as basic training progressed. Once they realized I wasn't putting out for any of them, most of them stopped trying to get into my pants. Of course, you had those perverts, but a good punch to the face got them to shut up. And if that didn't work, they always feared the drill sergeant more than they feared me.
I'm glad I went Army and not Marines. Yeah, our drill sergeant was a hardass, but at least he was /reasonable/. I heard stories about the Marine's boot camp, and how insane some of them simply are. Especially that story about the Jelly Donut Platoon and their mascot, Pvt. Pyle. That whole incident is legendary across Vietnam; I'm surprised the sergeant even survived that gunshot, let alone allowed to continue train new recruits. Makes me glad I'm not a jarhead...
...Possibly the most memorable thing about training was our "pilgrimage" up to the ruins of Hanoi. Now, the Marines like to take credit for it all, claiming they are the "Butchers of Hanoi", because they were the ones to first physically enter the city. However, it was a combined effort of everyone to take down that goddamn communist fortress. Well, except the Navy, they just masturbated on their ships. But the zoomers bombed the city for days before hand, and we, the Army, provided the artillery support and most of the actual troops in the fighting as the battle continued to progress, but no one remembers anybody but the Butchers.
Either way, as my predecessors turned the communist capital into rubble, they made sure to keep one building standing, a testament to the cruelty and barbarity of Victor Charlie. They made sure the Hanoi Hilton stood, so that future generations could see the monument and realize why they were sent to Vietnam in the first place. And now, even though Hanoi is as much as a ghost town as Oradour-sur-Glane, a small regiment of Vietnam veterans continue to act as a small garrison, to preserve the prison as an almost chapel of what it means to be a Vietnamese soldier.
While at the Hilton, I met retired Cpt. John McCain, one of the survivors of the Hilton. He dedicated his post-retirement life to serve as an almost-chaplain of the entire facility. He seemed very interested in me, because I knew I represented the changing times.
He told me that I was the first woman he saw visiting the Hilton in years, at least since the Square of Thunder, and that he was personally against women serving active duty, he knew in this new world it had to happen. He asked me about my family, and I told him how my (adoptive, my birth father is unknown to me, except that he was also Vietnamese himself) father was in Ia Drang, and how my mom was a Vietnamese native who he settled with after the war, but was eventually ousted as a member of the Vietcong after the war. I told him how my father seemed mad about my decision, saying I was only supporting murderers (he to this day denies my mom was an agent, even despite the proof), but I did it anyways.
He then told me his life story, how he was shot down in a plane and how he was held in the Hilton for almost six years, how he can't even lift his arms above his head, and how he felt betrayed by his own father being one of the few officers to oppose Kurtz's reorganization of the war. Since he was in Honolulu, he was never in any danger of being captured or killed, but he never saw or even spoke to him ever since. 'He was a chickenhawk', McCain told me, 'He forgot what it was like to even be in a combat zone'
Once it became time for us to head back south, he made sure to get my adress so he could write back to me. We became close friends both there and by mail, and we still communicate to this day. Now that I finished basic, I have plans to go back up there again, but today is not that day..."
-Choice excerpts of "The Diary of Jane Doe: The First Female Soldier of Vietnam", by Cpl. Sarah Palin.
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