Boot Camp Didn’t Prepare Me for Vietnam

The Marine Corps Taught Me How to Fight a War—But Nothing Could Prepare Me for the Reality of Living Through One.

This story is part of Brothers In Arms — my collection of firsthand military memories, Vietnam stories, veterans’ experiences, and the strange bits of Marine Corps life that never made it into the history books.

Content Note: This article contains personal recollections of combat, drug use, violence, and military life during the Vietnam War. These events are described from my own experiences as a young Marine serving in Vietnam from 1969–1970.

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My name is Richard Schaefer. I served in the United States Marine Corps from 1968 to 1972. In August of 1969, shortly after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and just after my nineteenth birthday, I arrived in Vietnam and served in the 3rd Marine Division as a combat engineer (MOS 1371).

Like thousands of young Marines before me, I believed what boot camp had taught me.

That confidence had started long before Vietnam, with the reasons I chose to become a United States Marine.

Discipline mattered.

Brotherhood mattered.

Drugs would get you court-martialed.

And if you did your job, the Marine Corps would do right by you.

I was about to discover that Vietnam played by a completely different set of rules.

“Nothing in boot camp had prepared me for the realization that not only did the enemy want me dead—some of my own Marines did too.”

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Before Vietnam Came Boot Camp

MCRDSD-Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego

Circa: September 1968 – The birthplace of the “Hollywood” Marines.

That’s what the poor bastards who did USMC boot camp in the swamps of Parris Island called us.

R. Lee Ermey’s portrayal of Gunnery Sgt Hartman got it mostly right in his depiction of a Marine Corps drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket.

Which is one reason why that movie is the favorite of every Marine.

With one exception:

I never saw a donut in the mess hall.

In those days, Marine Corps boot camp was a full hands-on affair.

Those DIs could punch, kick, and gouge—and they did it to me.

There were no safe spaces. No time-outs. No asking whether your feelings had been hurt. You learned very quickly that when a drill instructor said move, you moved.

Twelve weeks of hell finally got us to graduation day. We became Marines, received our orders and MOS assignments, and discovered where the Corps intended to send us next.

For me, the next stop was ITR—the Infantry Training Regiment at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.

One month there.

Then another month of more infantry training at Staging Battalion, again at Camp Pendleton.

Then Vietnam.

And after everything the Marine Corps had put me through to prepare me for war, I thought I was ready.

I wasn’t

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My First Assignment

My first assignment was to a small bridge platoon near Dong Ha in northern I Corps, so close to the DMZ that it sometimes felt like you could almost watch the North Vietnamese Army raise their morning colors.

Our platoon was small: an acting platoon sergeant, a young second lieutenant fresh out of school, a handful of Marines—and me, the new guy.

The “FNG.”

Every veteran knows what that means.

The guy who doesn’t know anything yet.

The guy everyone watches.

The guy who has to prove himself.

I figured I’d get teased a little.

Maybe assigned the worst jobs.

I never imagined what actually awaited me.

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Culture Shock

The first thing that hit me wasn’t enemy fire.

It was marijuana smoke.

Nearly everyone in the platoon was smoking it.

Not secretly.

Openly.

The Commanding Officer didn’t stop it.

The Platoon Commander didn’t stop it.

The Staff NCOs didn’t stop it.

As I came to understand it, some Marines believed leaders were afraid of being fragged if they cracked down too hard. Others simply joined in.

Years later, I would write about fragging, fear, and the ghosts those experiences left behind

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Back in boot camp we had been told, in no uncertain terms, that drugs would land a Marine in prison.

At Marine Corps boot camp, discipline hadn’t been a suggestion—it was the foundation of everything we were being taught.

I had just arrived in Vietnam.

I was still full of patriotism.

I believed in stopping the spread of communism.

I believed I was there to help the South Vietnamese defend their country.

Instead, I found myself in a platoon where I was expected to smoke marijuana—not because anyone thought it was a good idea, but because refusing made you suspicious.

Some Marines warned me that if I didn’t join them they’d assume I was CID—a Criminal Investigation Division investigator/informant.

I refused.

I figured that would be the end of it.

I was wrong.

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The Blanket Party

One night, as I lay on my cot trying to sleep, a blanket suddenly came down over my head.

Before I knew what was happening, the blows started.

Rifle butts.

Fists.

Boots.

I don’t remember much after that.

The next thing I knew I was waking up battered and bruised.

It was my introduction to what Marines called a “blanket party.”

The message couldn’t have been clearer.

Conform.

Or else.

The next morning I was expected to join the smokers.

I refused again.

I went to sick bay because I thought I might have a concussion.

After that they mostly left me alone.

Actually, that’s not quite true.

They ignored me.

Sometimes being ignored is its own kind of punishment.

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Living Under Rockets

Every night seemed to bring another rocket attack.

Soon the cries of “Incoming!” became part of everyday life.

You’d dive for cover, run to the bunker and wait for the explosions to stop, then crawl back out and carry on.

It became routine.

As strange as that sounds.

What never became routine was realizing there were two groups of people who might want you dead.

The North Vietnamese Army…

…and maybe even some of the Marines living inside your own perimeter.

Nothing in boot camp had prepared me for that.

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The Job

Eventually I settled into the work that had brought me there.

As a combat engineer, there was never any shortage of jobs.

Mine sweeps.

Riding shotgun on supply convoys headed to infantry units.

Walking patrol with the grunts.

Building defensive positions and ambush sites.

Constructing security perimeters.

Blowing tunnels and bunkers.

Some days we built things.

Other days we destroyed them.

I was shot at more times than I care to remember. And I remember my first reaction as the bullets cracked over my head, “Why are they shooting at me? I’m just a kid from Missouri!”

I suffered a few minor wounds that were treated in the field, but nothing serious enough to qualify for a Purple Heart.

I was, however, awarded the Combat Action Ribbon.

Like most combat veterans, I would have gladly traded the ribbon for never needing to earn it.

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A Ticket South

By the fall of 1969, President Nixon was under enormous political pressure to begin reducing America’s role in Vietnam. He called his dual strategy Vietnamization and Negotiation. Back home, television viewers watched reports about troop withdrawals and the first signs that U.S. forces would eventually begin coming home.

Those of us wearing the uniform experienced it differently.

The Marine Corps began moving people around. Marines like me, who had recently arrived in country, were transferred south while others with more time in Vietnam shifted north as units prepared for eventual redeployment.

Since I had arrived only a few months earlier, I was among those transferred.

I left Dong Ha for Danang.

I won’t pretend I was sorry to leave.

Dong Ha had given me an education I never wanted.

As our convoy pulled away, I didn’t spend much time looking back.

My next assignment would be with Marine Wing Support Group 17 at Danang.

Compared to Dong Ha, it felt like a different world.

But Vietnam wasn’t finished with me yet.

TBC in Part 3 of the Vietnam War Series – The Walking Dead Man

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