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under combat conditions. Allowing Marines to remove their shirts while in a secure location became necessary for health and sanitary reasons. There were pictures of Marines with these uniform accommodations which found their way into the news media and some folks may have wondered whether or not our vaunted Marine discipline had broken down—nothing was further from the truth— we were insuring that our troops avoided ‘jungle rot’—immersion foot’ and other maladies that are associated with constant damp clothing and wet/dirty conditions. Unfortunately, as the war continued into the late 1960’s these ‘relaxed’ conditions seemed to escalate and our Marines appeared to look more like homeless people than the proud U. S. Marines they were. This process of ‘airing out’ was carefully orchestrated around considerations of security and discipline. In 1965-66 E Company required frequent ‘foot inspections’ which required the troops to remove their boots and be inspected by the squad leaders and /or the corpsman—this produced some familiar ‘bitching’ among the troops but was absolutely necessary and did help reduce the number of cases of immersion foot in our platoon. If we were fortunate enough to be close to a fresh water stream or creek the troops were allowed to bathe and wash their uniforms —hanging them on nearby shrubs and branches to dry out. this simple activity allowed them to freshen up from time to time and made a huge difference in morale.
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