Viet Nam War Just A Memory Now (But Vivid)

Spec/4 Morris M. Abrahams

Viet Nam War Just A Memory Now (But Vivid) 

That first night in the new 30th Artillery base camp near Qui Nhon was one that a former three-sport Ann Arbor High School athlete will never forget.

He walked on guard duty for 18 hours on the perimeter of the camp waiting for Charlie — (Viet Cong or VC or in military radio talk, Victor Charlie) — to attack.

Meanwhile, some of the men in machine gun nests behind him were firing flares to light the area and some GIs were actually shooting at each other.

“The men were a little jumpy.”

But that is all history. Today, Spec/4 Morris M. Abrahams, to whom it happened, is home in Ann Arbor awaiting transfer to inactive Reserve status, his two years of Army hopefully finished.

That night, eight miles north of the Vietnamese port of Qui Nhon, Abrahams “stood guard” from noon until 6 a.m. the next day — the longest “night” of his young life.

"I guess they kind of forget about you."

"They,” his buddies and officers, were busy. The new camp was being set up on a grassy knoll in one of the green valleys between the hills near the sea.

After they brought his evening C-rations, they forgot he was out there.

The soldier’s fifth general order which is memorized in basic training, however, is "to quit my post only when properly relieved." So he stayed until morning.

When he flew out of Camp Alpha, near Saigon, Nov. 7, he left different sort of 30th Artillery behind.

In their one year, the support units had built a garrison complete with barracks.

From that base, Abrahams who was a supply specialist and others of the Service Bat-term he belonged to would drive out to the surrounding areas where units of the First Howitzer Battalion were stationed.

On one of these trips, he was riding “shotgun” in a loaded gasoline tanker when it suddenly drove into a battle between Viet Cong and a band of Republic of Korea troops.

The ROKs, he said, were apparently on a search and destroy mission. A U. S. helicopter flew in over their truck firing rockets.

He said he and the driver decided the only thing to do was to "de-dee,” the Vietnamese word for getting out fast.

"I thought that we had had it, but somehow we got through.

A member of St. Francis Catholic Church, Abrahams said he thought about the St. Christopher medal Rev. Frank Srebernak had given him before he left. But the chain had broken, and he had lost it.

He's counting his blessings, regardless. He’s back.