Chieu Hoi and "Leaving On a Jet Plane"

OK, I was due to leave country on March 1st, 1970, had a fairly safe, if not routine, situation; so what would possess me to volunteer for duty that would take me away from warm bed, cold beer and hot food? Chieu Hoi was a pacification program where villages and villagers were persuaded to stop supporting the VC (Viet Cong) with attached incentives. In practice it turned into a "stop being VC- friendly or bad things will happen to you", program. As I said before, the 5th Mech and the VC could not co-exist. Anyway, a team of about 15 soldiers including an interperter, scout, field medic, preventive medicine tech (me!) plus infantrymen for firepower would go to villages to carry out these missions. If the village was a VC stronghold, it might be set on fire, weapons caches blown up, villagers captured or killed, before all was said and done. It showed me the real brutality of war. The Michael J. Fox movie "Casualties of War" mirrored what I saw. I was actually TDY (temporary duty) for about a month. I was briefed just on what my duties were: safe water, waste disposal, assist the field medic, and assist in perimeter defense. We actually went into Laos which was a hotbed of VC activity near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. One village, Ban Nha, was a real problem and we ended up in a firefight. They had tunnels, caught us in a crossfire, and inflicted some casualties on us. We called in gunships and Hueys and finally got out. Of course we were not supposed to have been in Laos, so we were called back to Quang Tri base. At that point I was able to opt out of going back out in the "bush" because I was getting "short". Short means that you have less than 30 days left in Country and you need the time for out- processing or just goofing off! My replacement came in from Phu Bai and I was off to Danang, Cam Ranh Bay and SeaTac Airport courtesy of United Airlines! We stopped in Guam and Hawaii on the way back and no one went AWOL this time! Every day Armed Forces radio would play the Peter, Paul and Mary song, "Leavin' On a Jet Plane"....