{"id":101,"date":"2018-01-31T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T15:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/?p=101"},"modified":"2018-02-02T09:50:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T14:50:31","slug":"destruction-in-a-beautiful-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/2018\/01\/31\/destruction-in-a-beautiful-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Destruction in a Beautiful Place"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chuck<\/a>
Chuck Meadows, left, and Larry Verlinde at the former An Hoa Combat Base in Vietnam. (Diana Nelson Jones\/Post-Gazette)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most roads in the boonies are narrow. That’s true in any country. But there’s a rustic area near Da Nang where a road is oddly wide, its shoulders ill-defined with creeping grass.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The surface wore off long ago, but several of the men who stepped off the bus would have recognized exactly where they were.<\/p>\n

“One thing you recognize is the skyline” said Col. Chuck Meadows.<\/p>\n

Rich Cobb, Bruce Gant, George Haught and Larry Verlinde gave knowing, rueful nods.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An Hoa airfield. The An Hoa Combat Base is a former U.S. Marine Corps and Army of the Republic of Vietnam base in Qu\u1ea3ng Nam Province, Vietnam. (Diana Nelson Jones\/Post-Gazette)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This gorgeous setting, with a skyline of majestic mountains, was once An Hoa Combat Base, home of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion 5th Marines.<\/p>\n

“It was not a happy place,” said the colonel, who 50 years ago captained Golf Co.<\/p>\n

His men swept the area every day for unexploded artillery shells, grenades and mines known as bouncing betties.<\/p>\n

“We never went out on patrol without losing a guy each day,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The chow was good,” Verlinde said.<\/p>\n

“And we had cots, so that was good,” said the colonel.<\/p>\n

“Showers,” Gant said.<\/p>\n

And mortar rounds.<\/p>\n

Bill Callahan was on base with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion 5th Marines and remembers a daily casualty rate from mines.<\/p>\n

“It was almost suicide to walk outside the base,” he said.<\/p>\n

The men of Golf 2\/5 were relieved to get orders in mid-January 1968 to fly up to Phu Bai airfield.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, they would head north on Highway 1 to Hue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

— Diana Nelson Jones<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most roads in the boonies are narrow. That’s true in any country. But there’s a rustic area near Da Nang where a road is oddly wide, its shoulders ill-defined with creeping grass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2018\/01\/vietnam_11-1024x767.jpg","fifu_image_alt":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9BZRz-1D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/dispatches-from-vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}