The Vietnam Diary 1966 - 1967 is a collection of journal entries, letters and poetry written during a young man's tour of duty in Vietnam. It includes photos and flashbacks that occurred during the author's writing of the book, and is illustrative of the lives of the thousands of troops that experienced that controversial war.
The author joined the Marine Corps in 1966 and by the fall of that year was in Vietnam in the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division in Golf Company, Weapons Platoon, was posted as a machine gunner. He was involved in 2 major battles, many smaller ones and was wounded twice. The journal is a chronological account of his year there starting from boot camp in San Diego to his final days in the service.
Mixed with his actual journal entries are letters he writes home and poetry he wrote that reflects his response to the war, combat and death. The letters to his father and his mother and sister are distinctly different in content and tone, the journal entries the musings of a young boy away from his family for the first time in horrific conditions, the poetry fresh with promise, and the remembrance's often painful. By way of example:
Excerpt from Letter to Dad:
"But speaking of your counter-insurgent, you can bet your boots that's what we are. We employ the same tactics they use with heavier armament and better equipped personnel. We are hardly conventional troops, though they call us that back home for political as well as social reasons, but we use much the same tactics as do the VC short of torture, killing of innocents, etc. although there are scattered incidents of these as in any war. But we hide in the field, search and destroy, sweep, ambush, etc. generally being miserable, wet, hungry, cold-hot, and wishing we were home."
Excerpt from Letter to Mom & Sis:
"I received my tentative orders and I'm scheduled to go overseas Nov. 21, so it looks like I'm not going to get a chance to see you before I go. There isn't real need, for love explains and shows all, and it is enough to carry me across those waters. I love you both and I know that I am loved, so I'm content until I return next fall."
Excerpt from Journal Entry:
"Relatives and family... worry. They worry about me and I worry about them worrying about me. Winds flowing every way and I'm coming back... worry is ungood and bothers. Forget and live life as I'm doing on my part with death possibly just around over there..."
Part of a poem written after six months in-country:
What brings me here?
What leads my path
To find this dreary horror
Singing a muddy melody of
Blood and lost friends?
Perhaps a quiet somebody will
Come leading me by the hand
To sit and explain those things
And all things and, and...
Excerpt from a Remembrance:
"I could feel the bullets whizzing around my head like angry hornets and then there was a loud clap next to my face with the sonic slap of a bullet that just missed me. I crouched down unable to see where it came from, cursing and angry then got up and moved forward. Eventually the firing stopped. No one was hurt and that bullet didn't have my name on it. Still left me shaking."
About the Author
The author served a 2 year enlistment and was honorably discharged as a Lance Corporal with two Purple Hearts. He was profoundly affected by the war both physically and mentally and it drastically changed the way he looks at life.
In 1997 he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma caused by his exposure to Agent Orange, the chemical herbicide and defoliant made by Monsanto that U.S. forces sprayed extensively in order to kill vegetation in the Vietnamese jungle and expose Viet Cong hideouts. His Epilogue credits Monsanto for ruining his life and the lives of so many others following the war.
About the Author: Born Harold Banta Robinson in Newport, RI on 5 August 1946, son of a US Naval military officer, Robbie lived all over the world following his father's duty stations for the first 15 years of his life.
His family moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in the 1960's when his father retired from military service. Robbie spent several years in Mexico and in the mid-1960's was swept up in the military build-up for Vietnam. Robbie joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966 and served a tour of duty in Vietnam: 1966-1967. He was a machine-gunner, carrying the M60 machine-gun, in "G" Company, Weapons Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, United States Marine Corps. He was wounded twice and served with honor, his battalion being decorated several times for action in the field. He received two purple hearts for his wounds sustained in battle and still carries the shrapnel.
Robbie returned from the war to enter college in Mexico City and concurrently undertook the study of Buddhism. The Vietnam War had made a profound impression on him and he felt the need to look for the meaning of living. He moved to California in the early 1970's on the way to the Far East to study Buddhism, but wound up enchanted with the Southern California coast and never left.
Robbie married in 1978 and had a son in 1986. They lived an affluent and joyful life until 1998 at the age of 51 Robbie contracted cancer of the lymph nodes caused by Agent Orange. He fought it into remission with chemotherapy and for 11 years was cancer free. His wife fought breast cancer for 8 long years before passing away in 2011.
In 2008 Robbie's cancer returned and was again beaten into remission by chemotherapy which caused two incidents of pneumonia and hospitalization. The cancer came back again in his eye in 2012 and was put into remission with radiation. It returned for the fourth time in 2014 and required more chemo. The pneumonia returned after only 4 treatments and landed him in the hospital again. That put end to chemotherapy as a treatment option, but those 4 treatments put him into remission.
The chemo's side effects have given Robbie peripheral neuropathy (numbness in feet and hands). He is 50% disabled and it is difficult for him to remain on his feet any length of time. Today he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, and has three grandchildren by his son.
