I remember the day I was first introduced to my squad and new living quarters. Walking down the main street of Rach Kien brought to mind the wide-open gold mining towns of the Wild West. There was very little of the military architecture and discipline I had been used to.  A sense of adventure, heading into unknown territory was exciting after the past 6 months of tight discipline. We had to ask for directions to the A Co. headquarters from shirtless, armed soldiers. It was just down the street and around the bend. We dragged our heavy duffel bags along and were good-naturedly jibed by soldiers on the way. The building was easily distinguishable with its size, ornate oriental structure and red tile roof.  We dragged our bags up the stairs and entered a beautifully tiled foyer. The slightly built company clerk, with an array of pens in his front pocket, immediately saw who he was dealing with.  He called out to the First Sergeant who came out of the back room cursing.  “It’s about god-damn time you got here” he snarled.  He was red-haired and red-cheeked, probably in his fifties with an impressive mustache.  I soon found out the cause of his rosy complexion. More impressive to me was the CIB, the Combat Infantry Badge, with two stars he had over his right pocket.  This indicated that he’d seen combat in three wars, where I was about to be introduced to my first. From his manner, that slight twinkle in his eyes, you could see that his bark was pretty much a show.  They called off our names and assigned us to Platoons and the clerk then directed us to the Platoon housing areas, the hooches, which we had passed.  There were none of the signs designating areas, which we had gotten used to on military bases.