Forty years ago this month I arrived at a converted French fort in Saigon and began my one-year career as a military intelligence spy.
The work was fascinating, but the war was not. Three-sixty-four and a wakeup was plenty for me.
I don't often think of that. But an announcement on Monday, by Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, prompted me to recall an anniversary I'd forgotten, and to bring up something about spying that most people don't know.
McConnell announced the award of the first ever Intelligence Community Medal for Valor.
To some surprise, it was given to a Marine lance corporal, James E. Swain, of Kokomo, Ind., not a CIA officer under cover in a nice clean American embassy.
Swain was an intelligence analyst who died during the second battle of Fallujah when he warned his buddies of an enemy ambush.
"He was attached to Company K, 3 Bn, 1 Marine Regimental Combat Team, 1st Marine Division, and was tasked with providing targeting information to attacking Marines," the citation said of Swain.
Here's what happened, according to the citation:
"During a collection mission on Nov. 15, 2004, Lance Cpl. Swain volunteered to assist with security by manning a vehicle mounted machine gun. As Marines prepared to enter a building, Lance Cpl. Swain identified an insurgent ambush. He immediately opened fire, alerting his fellow Marines and suppressing the ambush but exposing himself to the enemy. Lance Cpl. Swain's heroic actions saved the lives of his fellow Marines, but cost him his own life when he fell mortally wounded."
Swain's sad death is a timely reminder that, in wartime, some of the most important intelligence work is carried out by brave young men and women where bullets are flying, not martini-sipping James Bonds in tailored suits back at the hotel.
Now, I didn't see action like Swain's. I slept on clean sheets in the former French port city of Da Nang, about 500 clicks north of Saigon (now Ho chi Minh City).
But Swain's death brought back a memory from my first day there 40 years ago.
The case officer I was replacing opened up the 'fridge and pointed at a bottle of Champaign.
"Take care of that," he said. "It's for Bill."
Bill, an agent handler like us, was last seen being led away by North Vietnamese soldiers during the Battle of Hue, nine months earlier.
Reading about Swain's, I remembered Bill, as well as a fellow student from intelligence school who had been captured and tortured to death during Tet.
Sleep well, all. Semper fi, Corporal Swain.
I regret your ultimate sacrifice.
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