I was sent to Ft. Polk, LA, for basic training and AIT, getting trained as a mortar man (11C). From Ft. Polk, I was drafted into NCO School at Ft. Benning, GA. I had no desire to go to Nam as a “shake and bake” Sergeant, and the Commander there granted my request to exit that training. I quickly received shipping orders to Vietnam which took place shortly after a month-long leave at Christmas season which I spent with family in Iowa and my former colleagues in Minnesota.

I left Ft. Lewis, WA, for Vietnam on a Flying Tiger Airlines jet with refueling stops in Honolulu and Guam. I was assigned to C, 1/327th, 101st Airborne Division in January of 1970, after having landed at Cam Rahn Bay, then Phu Bai, then Camp Evans, and finally Camp Eagle. The company was working the coastal lowlands in January, so I was sent out on a deuce-and-a-half to a fire base along the South China Sea, and from there I went along with a 5 day resupply to the company by Huey.

John Mark Reisetter
United States Army
Served in the Republic of Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division
from January to December of 1970 

I was assigned to first platoon, headed up by Lt. Bill Collier and SSGT Woods, who had come from NCO School and was a “Cherry” like me. We worked in platoon sized operations, so I didn’t even see the First SGT again until we headed into the hills, up where the platoon had hit some contact the last time in the area (Lonnie Bradley from the 1st platoon had killed one enemy and wounded at least another with a short, seven round M-16 magazine. The enemies had followed the claymore wire in, only a few feet from his Night Defensive Position.

Anyway, we landed on a booby trapped Landing Zone, and were sent scurrying to safe areas by the early arrivals to the hill – me ending up a few feet from Top Millirons. I nodded to him, and he nodded back, but nothing was said about the rear job. After 109 days in the hills (somebody kept track), we were on our way back to Camp Eagle for a three day stand-down. At the end of the stand-down, we got a three day resupply before heading down to the chopper pads, and back to the hills. 

Eagle received rockets once in awhile, and our ammo dump blew up one day: I remember sitting at the typewriter in the front company office. We had an RPD machine gun which we had captured, hanging proudly from the ceiling. When the ammo dump blew, the concussion in the office was felt so sharply that the RPD was knocked from its chains, landing vertically on its barrel tip, taking a big gouge out of the plywood floor. When the company would hit the sierra, we’d get called down to battalion to listen to the radios. That was not fun.

I can still recall the pit in my stomach when motoring to 85th Evacuation Hospital to meet our incoming wounded, or worse, the trip to Graves Registration to identify our men, and to collect personal effects, and the subsequent letters to families which I was asked to compose.

In December of 1970, I received the early release which allowed troops with less than a month to serve (of their 365-day tour) to make it home in time for Christmas.

That spring I enrolled in graduate school in Cedar Falls, Iowa, before returning to Minnesota and Lewiston, to resume my teaching career. After having taught high school English in five decades and directing theater for thirty-one years, I retired from LAHS in 2001.