782 Gear

 On Operation Texas in Quang Ngai Province -  April 1966

4 June 2013

      It's good to refresh your memories every once in a while, like the first time in the season when it snows and you have no idea where you put the ice-scraper in your car. For the unenlightened, ask any Marine if he still has any 782 Gear laying around and he'll probably return a laugh. We all know what 782 Gear is. It's all the web-gear you adorned your body with before you went into the Field. I could also give you a definition of "The Field" but I'll save that for another learning lesson. We had packs, web-belts, pistol-belts, helmets, sleeping gear, mess-gear,  plus a lot of additional stuff like entrenching tools, canteens, and canteen cups (which have now become collectors' items!). I think about my old 782 Gear every time I'm packing for another world adventure or just waiting for a plane to somewhere. We spent endless hours washing it, cleaning it, and getting it inspected. When we got new gear (not very often - especially in Vietnam) we would get excited like little children at Christmas. We knew that sometimes our lives depended on having the right Gear. A poncho was the difference between being miserable or being ready in Vietnam's monsoon and rain forest conditions. When we suffered casualties, a Marine's poncho became his litter. His ticket to get on a med-evac chopper and get back to safety. Or more often, it became a shroud for the dead. I hated seeing those dirty, muddy ponchos lined up at the edge of a clearing. Most times the shrouds were streaked with blood. I wasn't the only one. I watched the faces of the Marines (just young kids, really,) as they did everything they could to avoid looking at the ponchos.
      Life's lessons sometimes come very early to those willing to sign the dotted line. I had just turned 21, a kid next to me had just turned 18. I think about that every time I have a present day conversation with an 18 or 19-year old. Sometimes I just shake my head in wonder, but I'm a throw-back now to a totally different generation. I don't regret a bit of it, or harbor any resentments. I got the lessons in life that God wanted me to have and somehow miraculously allowed me to come home, safe, and in one piece. It's futile to look back and wonder what other options would have been like. As the millennium turned so did the 782 Gear I'm now packing as I joyously became a grandfather and also suspiciously at first, faced the thoughts of retirement. It all turned out pretty darned wonderful in the end. But I also learned that if I'm not ready to turn in the old gear and suit up with new gear for a new age, I'm not going to get very far.