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Warning
This is not an event your looking at, this is a warning. What your going to read is a shortened and paraphrased version of the personal journal of Jack Gee, a Vietnam Veteran. Jack Gee is no longer with us, as he had died in 2016. However, these are his personal accounts of what he did in Vietnam. These will be dark, saddening, and sometimes hard to read and not just because there are many older military terms used. These accounts also may not be perfect, being as he was a vet with PTSD. -
Arrival--April, 1967
Jack Gee arrives in Vietnam. He was put into the 4th Btn. 11th Marines "L" BTRY. 155 Special Gun Battery/ "My job was to keep the guns supplied with artillery shells and powder, and the personel with ammo." He then says "Heavy armed enemy. Every day. I was shot at by sniper fire". One of the hardest parts to read, was when he said, "Its real hard for me to recall names and exact dates. Since I tried to block out Viet nam." -
October, 1967
Now, this next passage timewise is confusing, as he said, "For 32 years I was transferred to HQ Battery. My Job then was to supply "L" battery, "K" battery, and "M' battery with Artillery shells, powder, and primes". But, he tells us at the time he was on 22 combat operations. He then tells us a familiar scene about a friend of his dying right in front of him, and how things only got more intense with those combat operations after October 1. -
December, 1967
He describes a situation in December when he was 20 miles south of Da Nang. He was looking for anything suspicious, and the Ambush/ Lightning Post. was on their way in. They shot off the wrong flares, and so Jack as well as others shot at their own men (not knowing it was their men) and only realized it a bit later. -
January, 1968
This is a very difficult year for Jack Gee. He says that just outside of Da Nang, at HQ Battery, they came under a rocket attack, something Jack was not new to. He wrote "The First Sgt. tried to warn us. When it was all over, I found him with his head blown off."
For the next three months the rocket attacks intensified. Some were wounded, some were killed. -
April, 1968. Home
"April 20 of 1968, I was fighting for my life in Vietnam. April 22 I was home in Taft, CA, drunk, doped up, and in jail. I have spent the past 27 years. Drunk, On dope, going from job to job. I have been married 3 times, and my last wife divorced me because she is afraid of me. She woke me up one night because I was choking her in my sleep. I have been clean and sober for 5 years now. But the outbursts of anger, and the hatred is still there (flashbacks of Vietnam). -
End
This is what i could find of a short recollection of his time at Viet Nam. I am unsure when this was written, but I can only assume later in his life. Jack Gee did sober up, and eventually had lived out the rest of his days in Bakersfield, California. He died on November 10, 2016, ironically on the Marine Corps birthday. This timeline doesn't have all, or even that much information about Jack Gees time in Vietnam, but is what came from a small journal.