Everybody remembers their first time.

The first time I kissed a girl—I was 14 years old, at a friend’s birthday party, we were playing ‘spin the bottle’. I kissed Sally. On the mouth! (Sally later became a Catholic nun!)

The first time I had sex-- I was a senior in high school. Brenda was a cheerleader. We broke up before graduation. She met another, married and had 5 kids while gaining over 100 pounds!

The first time a girl broke my heart—That would be Sue. We met in college, fell in love but decided to wait until I finished my tour in Vietnam to marry. When I had about 7 months in country she wrote and told me she was 3 months pregnant! Even I could do the math! (Read ‘Summer 1964’ for more on that)

The first time I killed a man---It was my first month in Nam. I was still a ‘butter bar’ (2^nd Lieutenant) leading a platoon of Marines towards a village on a ‘search and destroy’ patrol. (Search and destroy—we go into a village and search the huts for caches of weapons. If we find anything we burn down their houses. It was all part of the ‘winning their hearts and minds’ campaign. wink-wink, silent laugh!) We were about 2 klicks (slang for kilometers, 2 klicks would be a little over a mile) from the village when...

I need to stop the story for a minute and tell you how I got there.

I was the first in my family to graduate college. I had planned on getting a job as a teacher, maybe coaching the high school baseball team. The U. S. president, who had won the election promising ‘We are not going to send American boys thousands of miles from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing’, was now sending thousands of U.S. troops to Vietnam. To avoid the draft, I went to the recruiting station. Long story short, I joined the Marines.

That did not go over like I expected at the supper table that night. Dad was pissed. “This happens every generation in this family. My father, your grandpa, was wounded during his time in the cavalry in the Mexican War. He had two brothers killed in France during WW1. Another brother suffered his entire life from having his lungs burnt by the gas the Germans used. (Read ‘82mm Chicom Mortar) I married your mother then along comes WW2. I was in north Africa when you were born. It was at the battle of Monte Cassino where I was wounded. The first time I saw you, you were walking! Your mother lost her brother and a cousin on D-Day. Now you join the Marines!” He got up from the table and went to the barn.