From the age of 14 to 17 or 18
I keep having this same dream over and over again:
I was walking up a creek ...
there was heavy brush on both sides, the creek was shallow and not very
wide, don't know where I was going but it was always the same. After awhile,
I would come to a long straight stretch and at the end the creek it would
curve to the right. After the curve I would come to a road that forded
the creek---then I would wake up.
The dream was always the same details.
Years later, 1966, I ended up in
C Co, 2nd/28th Inf 1st Inf Div, I had been in the outfit maybe a month
when my Plt was dropped off at one spot and we had to travel to another
location maybe an hour or so away.
Being an old country boy, and pretty darn
green, I was walking point through some pretty darn rough brush when we
came upon this small stream. The stream ran in the general direction we
wanted to go, so off we went. Easy walking. We can see after maybe fifteen
to twenty minutes that the stream straightened out, and you could see
may thirty-five to forty yards ahead. Just about that time I got the weirdest
darn feeling! I knew this place. Then my memories came back. I
could see the bend in the creek, to the right, and I knew that there was
something around that bend that I did not want to see.
Anyway, the Platoon Sergeant thought I
was nuts, but we made a right hand turn into the bush and went maybe a
100 yards then turned back left on our old azimuth. We hadn't traveled
ten minutes when we came upon a well traveled trail that led in the direction
of the creek we had been walking up.
We did NOT go down that trail, but we did
get the hell out of that area.
(If any of my old buddies, or any
one who wore the Black Lion patch, reads this drop me a note.)