"Rear echelon" more typical

I certainly appreciate the terrible conditions you experienced in Vietnam
as a grunt. But surely you recognize that for everyone in your position, there
were at least 10 REMF's (rear echelon mf). Cooks, drivers, clerk-typists,
mechanics, and even photographers.
  The vast majority of service men and women in Vietnam slept in hooches and
showered every night. Some lived in fancy hotels in Saigon. 
  I was a Huey pilot in a Cav unit in Pleiku and An Khe. We knocked heads pretty
regularly w/ the NVA, and some of us were killed or wounded. We slept in bunks
and had beer at night. Plush? No. But I didn't complain.
  Much of the war's legacy was related to drugs. My experience was that the
REMF's had far greater access to and supplies of drugs. It is those people to
which much of the war's bad "reputation" is owed.
  On the other hand, the grunts I knew were pretty drug-free in the field.
In my division, we had the most trouble with base camp personnel who accounted
for 99% of the discipline breakdown. 
  So guys like you were in the very small minority. Your experiences and
your environment were extremely unusual. A chronicle of the war will certainly
include you among the true combatants, but you survived, at least. Many folks
in base camps didn't. Rocket attacks on insecure base camps and smaller fire bases
killed and maimed lots of noncombatants, including nurses, red cross volunteers,
and construction contractors, people who had "safe" jobs. These people, plus
the thousands of soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines who didn't sleep under a
poncho are the relatives and friends of most Americans. The larger story of the war
-- the drugs, protests, loss of innocence, etc. -- will necessarily focus on the
majority experience.
  One final point: I believe marines joined the service voluntarily as did I.  But
many, probably most, of the thousands killed in Vietnam were drafted. Poor, mainly
black kids from inner cities got drafted and shipped, while their better positioned
brethern skated.
  No need for one upmanship here. There's plenty of grief to go around.