Dave Lara

After I finished, I got orders to the USS Repose, a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam.

Most of my time would be on that ship.

I was lucky.

I remember it was raining when I landed in Vietnam, and with the red mud and green uniforms of the Marines, everything became sepia-toned, like in the movie Wizard of Oz.

with its friends of Dorothy's.

My ship wasn't on station, so I had to spend like 12 days up at an aid station near the DMZ called Dong Ha.

Two corpsmen, Matt and Joe, were assigned to me and got me up to speed on my temporary duties.

Matt was a short, stocky, blonde, cute little fucker.

And he was battle-hardened and strong.

That was in love.

Joe, a big, burly Polish guy, well, he had a droll sense of humor.

He was so much fun to be around.

They happened to be gay.

Yeah, even then we had gay dart.

It usually started with the question, so do you have a girlfriend?

In war, you make friends fast.

And so as I reported to my ship, we agreed that we were going to get together somehow.

And that opportunity came quick.

The repose, my hospital ship, was scheduled to spend R&R

in Hong Kong for New Year's Eve.