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Casualty Assistance Officers...
From my email this morning...
Fred, I got this touching story from one of my OCS buddies and thought you may be interested. I found the following link to the author's bio. (No mention of his stint at Little Creek. Can't say I blame him.) You can decide if some of the old salts and jarhead would wish to receive it.

BC

PS. I don't like to pass things along until I've checked them out for authenticity. Neither 'Urban Legends' nor 'Break the Chain' have anything on it. That, plus finding the bio on Col Goodson puts it in the "OK to Pass on" in MHO.

Burial at Sea
by LtCol George Goodson, USMC (Ret)

In my 76th year, the events of my life appear to me, from time to time, as a series of vignettes. Some were significant; most were trivial.

War is the seminal event in the life of everyone that has endured it. Though I fought in Korea and the Dominican Republic - and was wounded there - Vietnam was my war.

Now 37 years have passed and, thankfully, I rarely think of those days in Cambodia, Laos, and the panhandle of North Vietnam where small teams of Americans and Montangards fought much larger elements of the North Vietnamese Army. Instead I see vignettes: some exotic, some mundane.
*The smell of Nuoc Mam.
*The heat, dust, and humidity.
*The blue exhaust of cyclos clogging the streets.
*Elephants moving silently through the tall grass.
*Hard eyes behind the servile smiles of the villagers.
*Standing on a mountain in Laos and hearing a tiger roar.
*A young girl squeezing my hand as my medic delivered her baby.
*The flowing Ao Dais of the young women biking down Tran Hung Dao.
*My two years as Casualty Notification Officer in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland.
It was late 1967. I had just returned after 18 months in Vietnam. Casualties were increasing. I moved my family from Indianapolis to Norfolk, rented a house, enrolled my children in their fifth or sixth new school, and bought a second car.

A week later, I put on my uniform and drove 10 miles to Little Creek, Virginia. I hesitated before entering my new office. Appearance is important to career Marines. I was no longer, if ever, a poster Marine. I had returned from my third tour in Vietnam only 30 days before. At 5'9", I now weighed 128 pounds 37 pounds below my normal weight. My uniforms fit ludicrously, my skin was yellow from malaria medication, and I think I had a twitch or two.
Posted by: Fred 2004-08-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=41823