I'm sweating after running for the tram and it's because I've got this fuckin crew cut ...I have like a film on my neck now.
Made me think of this thing I read once from an American Marine. I once studied 60's US foreign policy. Their idea was based around what they called the 'domino effect' doctrine and the belief was you had to fight communism everywhere otherwise if you didn't then other countries could fall to it. Hence Korea and then Vietnam.So I'm reading this passage and it always stuck with me. And it's this young American marine.. Just a kid of 19 (like the song)...newly arrived and he has an engagement with some Vietcong in his first few days and he thinks it's crazy that all they have on are these weird black all in one cotton jump suits. Long hair and bandanas...no helmet...flip flops and old wooden AK47's. Their ammunition all in tiny rucksacks.
The Marines are in full combat gear with big metal guns all sorts and within a few weeks he's begging (with his fellow soldiers) his officers to copy the Vietcong in lots of ways.
You see their metal helmets become incredibly hot and their shaved hair means the sweat just drips down their face so they actually can't see at all. Their uniforms are heavy and begin to rot along with their boots. Their guns are metal and also begin to seize up and their packs full of ammunition and provisions means they can only move very slowly. It puts them at an enormous disadvantage but the directive from HQ is to stop moaning and get on with it.
But here was the bit that I really remembered...everything they wore would smell because of the heat so that you could smell a platoon coming from yards away whereas the Vietcong they later learned wore these light black jumpsuits and would then cover their skin with vegetation so they blended in not just visually but nasally (so to speak). They were perfectly adapted to their surroundings. The Yanks were basically still fighting as if it was Northern Europe not the jungles of Asia.
Anyway, me running for a fuckin tram in Nottingham made me think of that.
x Jonny
x Jonny
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