Daphne,
Those of us who were in medic training at Ft. Sam and on orders for Vietnam went to Camp Bullis for "special" training. They had a mock Vietnamese village ("mock" was the key word, as I found out once I saw the real thing) and samples of booby-traps, etc. They also had a mock ambush of our convoy. Somewhere along the route we were supposed to be fired upon, get off the trucks and charge the woodline, returning fire. We all had weapons with blank cartridges. One guy was a conscientious objector who shouldn't have even been given a weapon but since it was just for play had one. He accidentally discharged his weapon, upon which the convoy stopped and we obediently jumped off the trucks and charged the woodline firing like crazy and yelling like banshees. The problem was that nobody was there. About 10 minutes later they got us back on the trucks and we headed back down the road, where about 100 yards further the real ambush was set up and, out of ammunition, we were mock-slaughtered. Unfortunately, Vietnam didn't make a lot more sense than that.
I'm glad you survived the scorpions and rattlesnakes at Bullis and your deployment to Iraq. Best regards.
Dave Berry
