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traveling light knowing I would meet up with my uniforms back in Okinawa where everything had been stored on our way to Nam.
I knew that most of the 2/7 Marines that had landed with me a year earlier had already rotated back or were in the process of doing so. I had lost track of Kozak and Boryszewski earlier when we were mix mastered out of 2/7 into 1/4 but I figured they were probably on their way home too. There were several flights leaving Danang every day since this ‘rotation’ began.
Soon—I was on my way to Okinawa via the ‘Northwest Orient Airlines’—I settled into the comfortable seats, enjoying the air conditioned comfort of the plane and noticing the attractive flight attendants who helped get us settled. The crew was playing the song “ Up, Up and Away” by the Fifth Dimension as we boarded—I’ll always remember that moment. No one said very much—we just stared out the window as the plane took off from Da Nang. Everyone was apparently lost in their own thoughts as we left the place that had caused us so much pain and discomfort for the past year and would forever be burned into our memories. Once in Okinawa I would be debriefed, provided fresh uniforms, receive immunization shots, receive hot chow, a clean cot with a comfortable mattress and clean sheets— enjoy hot showers as long as I wanted and other amenities that were intended to ‘take the animal out us ‘ before shipping us home. I received orders to my new assignment —Quantico, Va. —I would be a platoon commander at OCS —training new Marine officer Candidates—my first choice on my ‘Request for Duty Assignment form’.
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