A memoir of a Vietnam veteran
It wasn’t a tent like the ones we lived in, but it wasn’t the Ritz either. I suddenly realized that they lived here beside us and that meant that they were subjected to the same rocket and mortar attacks we faced.
Willy moved on, “How do you get to be a Dolly?”
“You volunteer. You have to be a college graduate, you have to be twenty one and you have to volunteer.”
“Wow,” I thought to myself. “They didn’t have to be here, but they are.” I knew my own motivation. If I could have gotten a deferment I’d have taken it.
“You don’t sit around here all day to you?” Willy asked.
"We’re usually up early, go out to the flight line and chopper out to an NDP. We have games we play with the boys, something like Jeopardy. It breaks the ice and gets you a chance to get to know them. They help us out, they let us know who needs a boost. They’ll pull you aside and tell you about the guy in the unit who hasn’t gotten any mail, or the guy whose wife is expecting. They really take care of each other. We try and follow up on those, if not that day, then the next time we’re at that NDP. We spend about two hours at one spot and then it’s on to the next. We try and hit three or four NDPs each day.”
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