The Heart of the Country

The Heart of the Country - Cash or Combat is a true story that three vets, Ron Latham, Mike Ovide and Tom Duncan, who served in Vietnam in 1969, have decided to tell. It is a piece of the Vietnam puzzle that has not been shared, so no matter what you've read about this war, this will be different. This is their story about an organized life or death lottery that went on during the Vietnam War in the Big Red One. The Big Red One is a division of the army with 20,000 GI's in it. The 11B10's (Infantrymen) in the Big Red One were in a form of a lottery. Four-fifths of the GI's didn't know about it, so they could not decide whether to participate or not. Four out of five of the 11B10's in the Big Red One, with no awareness that there was an option went to the jungle - to battle. Some of these men were wounded, some were captured, some died, and many returned to the United States - they certainly all changed in their year in Vietnam - all were heroes in their own right. The one-fifth of the guys who were told about the 'lottery' deal could choose 'cash or combat'. For a price, they could pay and have their orders changed from infantrymen to duty soldiers. They could buy safety. Money they paid to another military man through an organized program bought them out of combat, and they were placed in a company called the First Administration Company. Those who had the opportunity to "buy rear assignments" and chose to do so - and there were thousands of them - have in many cases suffered from a sense of overriding guilt as the years have passed. They've carried a hidden sense of shame deep inside for all these years, and they need to forgive themselves. They were young, scared and wanted to live. They were in a war they didn't want to be in - a war that appeared to be going no where - up and down the same hills - and when they were offered the opportunity to pay for their safety, many made that choice.Ron, Mike and Tom are now telling their story. A quirk of fate led to their reuniting and deciding that they needed to share this piece of the Vietnam puzzle.