Prologue
The War in Vietnam
From the outset of American involvement, it was conducted, orchestrated and directed in a stumbling, staggering, inept manner. Through all of recorded History, War has been to totally pummel the opposing, aggressing enemy into absolute submission. The closest America came was under the leadership of the late Richard M. Nixon, albeit he was far too focused on the ongoing Paris Peace Accords being successfully concluded.
America did not “lose” that War, we withdrew before it was concluded. It was a shameful travesty that many, me included, were unwilling to admit our involvement as it was a dark stain on our individual character.
Times have changed. I am older now and hopefully much wiser. I now feel pride in my involvement and when asked, unhesitatingly tell my 18 month story as well as display for all the world to see, my RVN service ribbon on my lapel and emblazoned on the brush guard of my Jeep Cherokee.
Ike got us involved in it, John expanded it, Lyndon and Robert grossly micro managed it and Richard pulled the plug too soon. They evidently learned nothing from History. Shame on them! Shame on us for allowing it! Fifty eight thousand names engraved in a long, black wall is now all we have to show for it and me, my ribbons and medals that were once hidden and concealed. Shame on me!
Had World War Two been fought with Robert’s and Lyndon’s mind set, we would speak German and Japanese today. In a War, you cannot retaliate, you must annihilate. “Innocent” civilians along with Truth are the very first casualties of War. There can be no other way, trust me in this, trust yourself in this. In a gunfight you seldom fight to a draw, winner and looser is the rule. Men such as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid knew this as did the likes of John Wesley Hardin.
Not the same? Oh……, but they are. You fight to win. Mankind has reached the juncture of total annihilation with weapons so deadly, the sane among us may not ever use them. The lunatics, and there are millions, will use them IF they can get them. That is what Iraq and Afghanistan are all about, not oil. If it were oil, the President would lift the ban on Continental Shelf exploration. America has more oil reserves than Saudi.
This is my 18 month story of how I perceived America fought that war to a withdrawal and an inevitable South Vietnamese loss, not an American loss.
Chapter 1
Transition
1966, my folks wanted me in College, I shuddered at the thought. We had recently moved from Butte, Montana to the Twin Cities, Minneapolis/St. Paul. My Dad found a house in White Bear Lake and I went to work on the Northern Pacific Railway as a Third Cook on one of its Dining Cars. Trips ran from Minneapolis/St. Paul, “up-river” to Tacoma, Washington and the “down-river” runs went to Chicago. I logged many miles in that summer and fall.
The evening News was filled with Vietnam and our country’s escalating involvement. I still carried the I-S-H Draft card and knew only too well I would soon become 1-A or perhaps Drafted. I rode to the Corporate Offices of the N.P. one day with my Dad. My primary purpose was to see what my schedule would be, up or down river in the coming week. My Dad was an Executive with the railroad so I checked my schedule and wandered around St. Paul until he was ready to head home. I remember the date well, December 21st, 1966.
While downtown and in a Mall, I walked past a Recruiting pavilion and thought, “why not?” The first office was that of the Army Recruiter, my old man was in the Army during WW-II and it didn’t kill him, so I stuck my head in the door. The recruiter was not in, but was told if I would take a seat, he was certain to return shortly. I nodded and thanked the clerk and exited, heading for the next door. The Navy! My Grandfather was a Navy man. He was aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln when it was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic in WW-I. They didn’t kill him either, so in I went. The recruiter was out, expected to return in about an hour, so on to the next door, the U. S. Air Force, Aim High! I walked in and introduced myself to a real, live recruiter.
I remember that “snake oil” salesman well, Tech Sergeant Robert E. Harms. I told him my age, showed him my draft card and Montana Driver’s License and that I wanted to join a branch of the military rather than be drafted. I also explained he was the only recruiter in at the moment and I had to get back to the NP Corporate offices to catch a ride home with my dad in about an hour and a half, could he help me?
There was a whirlwind of forms, preliminary tests and signatures, followed by phone calls for criminal history and signing one last form. Harms assured me I was as good as in, however, there was a glut of AF enlistees at the moment and my enlistment date would reflect December 21, 1966. I would be accepted after my induction physical, which he had all set, and passing that I would be on the Delayed Enlistment Program and not reporting for Basic Training for several months down the line. I thanked him and walked out the door, almost an Airman. Ah, yes, San Antone, here I come!
It was not to be. My grand awaited visit to the birth place of Texas, the acclaimed Sam Houston and Davey Crocket shrine, the Alamo, would wait for many years. I would not see the Alamo until 1994, attending a FNAWS convention in San Antonio, Texas as an Alaskan undercover Wildlife Officer intent on reeling in illegal guiding operations that focused on my home state, Alaska.
The Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, the Dahl, Bighorn, Stone and Desert, were to be my introduction to the Alamo. I walked its halls in awe. Crockett, Travis, Houston, all larger than life.
My Air Force Basic in 1967 was held in Amarillo, far up in the Texas Panhandle, many miles from San Antone and my wistful visit to a true American icon.
I departed MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) on March 23, 1967 on Branif Airlines headed south to Texas. I was with three others who I had been put in charge of because of my Delayed Enlistment seniority. Wonderful I thought as if facing the unknown weren’t difficult enough. After a plane change or two, we all reached Amarillo and were met by a pack of wild Hyenas posing as Training Instructors, or TI’s. None knew how to speak in normal tones and all screamed unintelligible instructions in the faces of terrified young boys being cast into the caldron of becoming men.
Boarding the bus to the base was a humiliating and degrading experience designed to keep all off balance and assure total compliance. What in the hell have I gotten myself into? A question often repeated in my mind over the next several weeks.
Arrival at the barracks we would call home, we were all told to stand at attention, in a stiff brace, while our TI’s would have us dump our personal possessions on our assigned bunks, awaiting individual inspection. I heard it start in the first room, shouts of “contraband!!” and “what the F%$# are you thinking, Airman?” resounded as my room was approached.
My personal gear contained nothing that garnered yells and screams. I was thankful as the hour approached 3AM. The “inspection” completed and we were told to obtain linen and blankets for our bare mattress beds and make a bed and sleep. We would be up at 5am to shit, shower and shave prior to chow at 6 and a full day of training. I had definitely made a mistake.
In the days that followed, I learned how to fold underwear, how to march, how to run until the TI tired of my individual running, how to clean a latrine, how to salute, when to salute, how to conduct Fire Watch, a million things with the ultimate goal of teaching working as a team, the ultimate goal of Basic Training, snuffing the individuality of the spirit and replacing it with the concept known as team player.
Those who rebelled were quickly set back, forbidden from graduating to that next stellar goal, escape from Amarillo and on to Tech School, whatever that may be.
I was interviewed as to my likes and dislikes while in Basic. My aptitude had been checked and researched by many. I liked to blow shit up, reload, hunt, fish and expressed a desire in following those interests. I didn’t know it then, but I had sealed my fate into a Munitions Career Field I still feel pride in to this day. A Bomb Dump dude, a BB stacker as the disparaging Air Force nomenclature stated it. I was “home.”
I received training in the 461X0 career field and learned things like Quantity Distance, an explosives safety term that dictated how much Explosive A could be stored in a particular style storage area and how far it must be located from other sensitive items, like napalm or rocket motors. I learned about High Order and Low Order detonations and how one was just as deadly as the other except for the initial violent, high Brisance blast of a High Order detonation and that popping open and burning of the Low Order which ultimately culminates in a violent High Order explosion. I was taught fuse identification and why delay elements were varied and for what purpose. I was taught how to “make” napalm, heated gasoline with added soap powder and stir or mix until it jelled. I only did it once and it was in the 3440th Student Squadron in Denver, Colorado.
I’ve often wondered how many tragic deaths occurred as a soldier heated gasoline to a high temperature so the gas would thicken and jell when that powder was added. The powder was made by Dow Chemical, but all the pre-filled napalm bombs were made in California at American Electric. Dow was picketed and protested against, but American Electric cranked those babies out by the thousands, perhaps millions.
I learned many things in Tech School including how to be a better soldier and lead when assigned to do so. I am, by nature, a light hearted individual, however, responsibility brings a somber burden to one’s shoulders and practical jokes faded into a thing of the past when working or learning. You can’t go home to mama when something bad happens; you learn to deal with it as an individual or team member, whichever opportunity presents itself.
Some who have read this took high offense to me calling myself a “soldier.” I suppose that is from ignorance of what I was. A military member paid to protect this country, a soldier. Yes, technically I was an airmen, then an NCO, but that does not strip the fact that I was a soldier.
I am not a “wanna be” nor a CMOH winner. Had I really wanted to be, I would have sat and waited for the Army Recruiter in St Paul that day, but I knew I was looking at a short fuse and wanted a choice.
Tech School was a whirlwind of activity and unfortunately I had been assigned to the most chicken shit Student Squadron on base, the 3440th . Our entire barracks was once gigged for “dust in the air,” how in the hell can you NOT have dust in the air? It is the nature of the beast. I believe the school was thirteen weeks in length. I know I arrived Lowery in mid May and departed mid September. I still am in contact with some from that school, one of the Instructors, a two striper named Jimmie Simmons and my on again off again roomie/classmate, Ron Potter.
About week five I was chosen by airman John Lake to replace him as Barracks Rope in the barracks where I lived. Lake was being transferred to George Air Force Base in California to complete training in an OJT status, as we all eventually would, but not necessarily to George.
Barracks Rope meant additional responsibility. I was ultimately responsible for the cleanliness and maintenance of that entire building. Not an easy chore in a building two stories tall, sixteen rooms, two large latrines and two laundry facilities with a minimum of sixty residents that seemed to not have enough time to get anything done. It was a mad house, under intense pressure nearly all the time. The first inspection we had with me as the “Rope,” the entire barracks lost weekend passes, it figured, Lake told me it would happen that way, Oh well…
About week 9 there was a Latino kid who was sharp as a tack, he chose me to replace him as A Shift Red Rope. He was transferring to Luke Air Force Base to continue his training. I sincerely wish I could recall his name. I jokingly called him Poncho and he would retort calling me Long Knife, he was a good guy. As the Shift Rope it became my responsibility to fall all the A Shift personnel out on the Parade Ground, take roll, report the roll call to the Training NCO’s and stand for daily instructions and schedules. I would await dismissal and generally let the assembled 8 or 9 hundred airmen stagger step to chow and on to class at 7am. On occasion I would be instructed to form the group up, eight abrest and march them to the chow hall. What a cluster that was, I hated it. It was also my responsibility to accompany the TI’s on their inspection rounds which, of course, made me one of the bad guys, at least on a temporary basis anyway. Those last four weeks were an eternity, I still have that blasted Red Rope.
My social life was nearly non existent. I rarely got a pass to be off base, I didn’t have a car and only knew one girl I had met at the Airmen’s Club on base. Her name was Sally Stovall and she owned a ’54 Merc. When I had the chance, we went to places like Estes Park up high in the Rockies, the Museum and Zoo in downtown Denver, Sam’s on the Mountain and on a tour of the Coors Brewery in Golden. After all, I was drinking a boat load of the stuff, might as well see where it came from. My final week in Denver, Sally introduced me to her parents and brother. Nice folks and I sat through an “interview” with her dad. Strange I thought as I wondered what that was all about. Looking back over the years I know what he was doing, making sure his daughter had chosen wisely. I would be gone shortly, didn’t he know that?
After dinner that evening, Sally told me she hoped we could be together forever. I shuddered and invited her to White Bear Lake to go to the Minnesota State Fair and meet my family. She was very excited and agreed quickly. I knew, deep down, I had just made a huge mistake, too late now I thought.
She saw me off at Stapleton later that week and followed in a few days after she obtained vacation time from her employer, Rothenberg & Schlotz, a tobacco firm in Denver. When she hit Mpls/St Paul, my entire family met and loved her, I was scared to death. She even met my uncle, Duane Knutson at the Penny Arcade at the Minnesota State Fair. Duane helped Tommy Shogren, the guy who owned and ran the arcade. Duane was a skilled coin machine mechanic and owned his own business, Automatic Sales, in the small northern Minnesota town of Fertile. Duane even liked her, damn! I was starting to feel smothered and lost. Somebody, anybody, please help me!!! She flew back to Denver feeling very convinced she had me on a short, ever tightening leash. Attractive? Well yeah. Charmer? Yes. Possessive and smothering? Without a doubt, I was choking! This is going to be difficult. I’d find a way, even if it meant a small “white lie.”
Within a week I left for Las Vegas and continued training at Nellis Air Force Base, home of the Thunderbirds! Transition continues. I was assigned to the Munitions Maintenance Squadron, MMS in short. We operated the “Bomb Dump,” the storage facility for all conventional munitions assets the Air force used to train Combat Pilots being used in the Vietnam conflict, both in Thailand and the Republic of Vietnam.. Strategic Air Command sorties were flown from Okinawa, Thailand and the Philippines. Modified G and H model BUF’s that carried a massive load of 500 and 750 pound GP bombs that shook the earth in a steady one hundred and eight detonation ripple. You could run, but you could not hide, simply awesome! A thirty thousand foot delivery where your chopsticks were clicking rice into your pie hole one second and the next were embedded deep in your skull from the brisance detonation of a MK-82 or an M-117 and your world turned to red vapor. I cherished every bomb I built or delivered, they were treated with great respect. Almost as if coming from www.NoDuds.com, a thing of pride.
I worked hard at Nellis, filled out my Air Force Dream Sheet and requested Vietnam, AFW was the specific request, Any F&^$#ng Where! I slowly gained my qualifications for the various AF equipment I would use and drive. I was a proficient fork lift operator in a previous life as a Warehouse Trucker in Butte, Montana, I learned the double clutching standard of the cave truck, a deuce and a half multi fuel rig, the M-108 crane as well as the H-11 crane. All you really need do was just stop and think. Where was the bomb to go? To do so, how were the controls to be manipulated and in what order? Must swing and imbalance be compensated for and which control affected that?” A ballet litany that often separated the men from the boys. Munitions harmonics. Flight Line driving protocol, what No-Lone-Zone meant, knowing the difference between a 20 Mil ammo order listed on the Maintenance Control Plexiglas for the 4537th was not the same 20 Mil for the 36th or 38th, knowing why a BDU-33 was called for instead of the BDU-29. One emulated a “Slick” and the other a “High Drag” and on and on. The reality of a Munitions Storage Area was not as imagined in Tech School, the safety aspect was multiplied a thousand fold.
We were even involved in simulated nuke drops during the underground tests being conducted in ’67 and 8. MK-61 drop shapes were wheeled in from the Lake Mead Hot Pad, a secluded, highly guarded nuclear weapon storage facility well east and a bit south of Nellis. When the underground test didn’t go, the drop shape returned. I knew it was sensitive as the small group of Iranians training in the bomb dump were not allowed access when the shape was there. There was also a contingent of Security Police that lived in the “Gate Shack” to the dump to guard the shape, a very clean, air conditioned administrative building that controlled access to the storage area which was surrounded by nine foot chain link topped by razor wire. I heard there were vibration sensors within the wire, but I had my doubts. Mackovik, Brown and I once built a picnic table out there after dark using wood from the Dunnage pile located next to Maintenance Control within the chain link. We received no challenge and used an Air Force pick up to transport the table to our apartment in North Las Vegas. I was learning the art of scrounging, an important military skill when a need arose that could be satisfied through no other means. I was twenty years old and my moral tide was turning, I prayed for forgiveness most nights.
In Vegas I found excitement in gambling. My all time favorite game was the game the ancient Chinese used to finance the building of the Great Wall, protecting them from the Barbarians and Mongols. Millions perished in the construction and I now have forgotten which Emperors were involved. I’d wager my new found friend and fellow author, Lloyd Lofthouse of My Splendid Concubine fame, would know. His book is the, what he calls, fictional history of an actual person, Sir Robert Hart in mid 19th Century China, intriguing and powerful book. I gave it five stars and I am not easy to please.
Keno! Eighty numbers, twenty called. You mark your ticket with up to twenty numbers. If you “hit” all your numbers, you win an extraordinary jackpot amount. It is the game of fools and I am a fool. I do love the “chase” though. My father taught me King Tickets. A permutations of combinations method of playing Keno. I favor a twenty eight way six spot. Please, do not ask how to mark it and play. It will hook you and leave you penniless. I keep my head above water simply by living where I do.
Finally!! Orders for APO San Fran 96368! The weeks leading up to my departure were frantic, Personnel trips, Finance visits, Traffic Management Office for airline tickets to get me from Vegas to McCord Air Force Base, my port of debarkation, Immunizations for diseases I can’t spell much less pronounce the name, a nearly never ending sea of things that must be done. I was leaving Nellis with several others from my unit all with that APO destination, 96368, I wondered where that was, no one told us, like it was a big secret or something. We’d all eventually find out.
My friend, Ron Potter, and I decided to travel with a stop over in Butte, Montana, Ron, out of curiosity, and me because I had many friends there. We stayed with Glen Whitmore and Potter was entertained with stories and finding my tall tales I had told him in Tech School and at Nellis, weren’t as tall as he had convinced himself. He listened to Glen verify all the tales as well as add a few of his own. In the evenings Glen’s huge black dog would occasionally take Ron’s hand in his massive jaws and lead Ron to the door. Ron would let the dog out and remembers that to this day.
It was three days well spent then Ron and I headed for SEATAC and on to McCord.
We were bussed from SEATAC to Fort Lewis. Another round of standing in line, having everything checked and double checked, Don’t Shoot Me cards issued, they are the Geneva Convention cards the other side did not subscribe to or follow. We called them “Don’t Shoot Me” cards because the seal on the laminated card’s front was jokingly to be held on your forehead for a better aim point for the bad guys. I know, dumb joke. About 9pm we were ushered onto several Military busses and taken to McCord AFB where our transportation awaited for Vietnam. I remember it well, a Northwest Orient stretch 707. We were unceremoniously boarded, a “head count” taken and we strapped in for one of the longest rides I’d ever take. Tacoma, Washington to Yakota Japan. It was already “tomorrow” in the Eastern Hemisphere and as the flight crossed the longitude of Kiska in the Aleutians we lost a complete day. Few frills on the flight besides overly motherly, friendly stews who knew all too well just where we were all going. Some to line units in the Army, others to “management” positions in various Corps locations and others, like me, to support roles at Air Bases or still others destined for Port Security details.
We landed in Yakota after an eternity in the air. Some sleepers stirred as I and wondered if we would deplane. It was not to be and the Northwest Orient changed crews and was refueled. We sweated in near silence with the doors open for air circulation, Japan was very hot I thought. At about first light, Midnight sun, remember? We lifted off from Japan headed for God only knows where in the Republic of Vietnam. No one “coached” us on what to expect. I sat near the trailing wing section and watched as the flaps extended after the noise of throttles had abated awhile. We were descending and I watched the Ocean rise to meet us. As we got closer, I saw a few boats, small boats, and they were strangely configured, as I’d never seen before. Later I learned they were called “junks” which is an appropriate name, to be sure. Made of cardboard, chicken wire, bamboo and just plain junk, they floated at the mercy of the wind and carried Vietnam in her miniscule economic wake. We touched down, the brakes of the stretch were applied and we taxied to the terminal. Cam Ranh Bay, what a horse’s ass of the world this was! When the doors were opened and we exited the aircraft, it was like walking too close to a blow torch. The heat and humidity broke you into a raining sweat and you hustled out of the sun before you melted. In the “shade” of the terminal building the heat and humidity were oppressive, but the searing sunlight was gone. One out of three, not bad!
We were all subjected to a short in country briefing, what to do, where to go and things to avoid. Then we were lined up to exchange all our U.S. currency for military payment certificates or monopoly money as I came to know it. Potter and the rest of us headed for the outbound – in country counter with orders in hand. We were told a Caribou was scheduled for a 7:30pm departure with one stop then scheduled for Phu Cat, APO 96368. I think that was the first I’d learned the name of the air base I was headed for. Phu Cat, sounds almost rude. We sweated our way around the terminal, found an empty spot and plunked our butts and duffle bags down hoping time would pass quickly. 7:30 came and went, no Caribou. The counter people told us an unscheduled C-130 would take us, non stop, to Phu Cat at 11pm. Oh goody…, more waiting.
We played poker while we waited and used the MPC as stakes in the games. It looked worthless, so why not? With the blazing Sun gone, the heat became tolerable. WHAT IN HELL WAS THAT????
4 very loud explosions that sounded like this was starting to be for real! Several soldiers walked by and smiled that knowing smile as our heads twisted this way and that, trying to see what was going on. Finally one of the passers by stopped to tell us it was outgoing fire from a 105 battery located just down the road, welcome to Vietnam. Radabaugh and the others decided to find the transit quarters and get some sleep. Ron and I opted to stay and take our chances of catching a flight. They would continue the following day.
The scheduled C-130 actually did arrive, had several pallets of netted cargo removed and a couple added. The aerial port people came and hustled us to the waiting open cargo door pointing to the two side rows of netted seating and told us to sit and hold on. The cargo door was closed and we started to roll. It was a relatively short flight, maybe thirty minutes or more. I soon heard the flaps descend and we banked and started to slow. The wheels touched the runway and we were soon deplaning and headed for the terminal. F-100’s everywhere. The racket of the J-57 engines made the area vibrate. Man, am I ever glad I won’t be working up here I thought as I entered the building and was met by a guy from the motor pool who wanted to know which squadron Ron and I were headed for. We left a copy of our orders with the guy who was running the terminal and tagged after the Transportation Squadron guy. He lead us to a Six Pac and we climbed in and we headed into the base. We were dropped at the transit quarters, a two story slat vented structure with open bay on both floors. Two large wooden wall lockers separated space for two bunks. I sat on one and listened in the darkness as small arms fire and an occasional explosion filled the night with sound, this was going to be a looooonngg 12 months.
Chapter 2
Welcome to Phu Cat Air Base, Republic of Vietnam
I got very little sleep that night, what with the nearly constant sounds of explosions and small arms chatter combined with the abated heat it was still very oppressive. I would occasionally sit with my feet on the floor and have a smoke and drink a little flat soda I had with me all the way from Cam Ranh Bay. Ron did much the same and didn’t speak but a few sentences as we sat in the dark wondering what lay ahead. I finally dozed off in the early morning hours when a slight breeze picked up and stirred the stifling heat in the room. At 6am or so I was in the latrine at the end of the building, standing in a cool shower soaking in probably the only comfort I would know that day and enjoying every second of it. I shaved while standing in that coolness, rinsed off, toweled dry and shuffled back to the room.
I dug out a set of short sleeve fatigues with pants, rolled my “traveling” 1505 uniform and locked it in the duffel bag inside the wooden wall locker. One final check in the latrine mirror and Ron & I headed out the door looking for the orderly room for the 421st MMS, the munitions maintenance squadron we were assigned to. It took a bit of searching and asking after a visit to the chow hall, but we finally located it just across the paved road from Base Supply. We arrived on foot about 7:50 or so. There was a three stripe curly headed clerk at a desk and Ron and I introduced ourselves while giving him our orders and the records we had brought from Nellis. He looked at his roster and looked up at us, saying he had not expected us for three or four more days. Said he and the First Shirt figured we’d chase hookers down in Saigon for a bit before reporting in. I didn’t know if he was kidding or what and I said we’d come in country at Cam Ranh Bay. He just looked, didn’t say another word and started typing Ration Cards, filling out barracks assignments, creating squadron personnel folders with emergency contacts, the usual stuff I suppose an orderly room clerk does. One thing I did notice and take a great deal of interest in was there was a large fan that gently blew on him and occasionally he would get up and remove a rayon or nylon camouflaged cloth from it and use the bottled water fountain to moisten the cloth and place it back over the fan. I started to ask and he told us it was cooled by the evaporating moisture from the cloth. Ron and I just learned our first very valuable in country lesson. I gotta get me a fan!
About an hour went by and in steps a burly gruff looking super sergeant with more stripes than a zebra and he’s wearing a toothy ear to ear grin. He grabs the buck sergeant by the ear and gruffly asks just what the hell are you telling these airmen about me? All the while the clerk is grimacing and the zebra is smiling and looking at Ron and me. That was our “introduction” to a man I’ll never forget, Chief Master Sergeant Carl D. Camp, 421st MMS First Sergeant. Ron and I just looked at each other. Might not be so bad after all I was thinking. CDC asked a few questions, one of which, directed at the clerk was which barracks we had been assigned. The reply was cryptic to us when he said “the Mafia.” Camp groaned with a slight smile and said, “T-120.” I had no idea what had just taken place. Camp picked up the telephone, dialed and started in on whomever was on the other end. It didn’t sound friendly, but I had a gut feeling it really was. He was talking to some one about the two new soldiers he had and why wasn’t someone coming to get them out of his F*&%$@# Orderly Room? I’m going to have to be really careful around this guy I was thinking, this could still get to be a long twelve months. The Commander walked in about then. The room was called to attention, but as we started to rise, the Full Bull Colonel looked at the clerk and growled, “what have I told you about that SH%#? And he had a twinkle in his eye. The clerk said, “yes sir, but the first time I don’t do it, you will move me to the Mafia quarters.” I started to wonder a bit.
A short time later an NCO came in and introduced himself to us. I cannot now recall what his name was, but he seemed pleasant enough. The formality questions were asked and he took Ron and me to the Transit Quarters to retrieve our gear and over to T-120 to locate an empty room. We locked our stuff in two wooden lockers on the second floor and he rounded up a short Vietnamese woman he called Granny and told her Knutson and Potter would occupy that room for many months so please clean it up and make the bunks. Damn I thought! A house maid!!
We then made the rounds, getting an issue of jungle fatigues, jungle boots, a tour of where everything on base was located, including the outdoor mortar and rocket range, a movie screen of white plywood that jokingly got that name after several VC and NVA strikes hit in the seating area. No one had yet been hurt, but you never know. I filed that away. We then proceeded to the bomb dump. It was located on the north end of the runway just off the eastern edge. We were introduced to many at the Admin building, which was air conditioned I noticed and shown around the storage area itself. There were four revetment rows with a large hard stand between what came to be known as B and C rows. That hard stand contained the odds and ends of non brisance munitions items like napalm and fins.
We stopped at a revetment on D row where there was a four man crew laying out M-117’s (750 pound GP bombs) and installing fins and booster cups and lugs. No one was wearing a shirt so there were no name tags visible except the NCO, Ron and I. One guy came walking over to get a drink from an Igloo cooler and looked at Ron and chuckled. Ron’s name tag proclaimed “Potter” and the guy said, “you’re easy, “Muff” Potter, then looked at me and said, “That makes you Indian Joe.” We had just been Huckleberry Finned. We found out later the Huck Finn comic was Bo Ballard.
The NCO hauled us back to the barracks and told us to report to CBPO the next morning by 8am for further paperwork and processing. I stripped, hit my made bunk and slept the sleep of the dead. It would have taken a direct hit to wake me that night. The lizards and crawlies in the barracks made noises all night, but I was so dead tired nothing could wake me, I was “home.”
That next morning, as the heat started to get bad, I woke in a pool of sweat, grabbed a towel and shaving gear and headed for the latrine downstairs. The coolness of the shower felt great and I wanted to stand there all day, but I had a ton of things to do and the first was fast approaching at Personnel. I stepped out of the shower and noticed I was not alone. There was a gaggle of Vietnamese women gathered near one of the sinks, washing what appeared to be eating utensils. There I stood, naked as a J-bird while these strange old ladies did the dishes. I quickly toweled dry and headed for my room, I’m gonna have to find out about the “kitchen crew.”
Ron and I made our way to the chow hall for a quick bite and cup of mud. As we sat and ate, we watched the comings and goings of hundreds of people this early in the morning. Some were armed with M-16’s, but most were not and all wore a strange type fatigue uniform Ron and I had never seen before. Loose, floppy almost and bloused boots, strange looking boots. They were those jungle boots we obtained yesterday at Supply. I noticed them the previous day, but got side tracked before I could ask our “tour guide.” I’d find out today I thought and filed it away. There were several dozen “locals” tending to various chores in the chow hall. Not a one of them wore shoes, but instead a “flip flop” contraption made from a small section of tread from an automobile or truck tire, interesting. I came to discover the flip flops were jokingly referred to as Ho Chi Minh Sandals by the American GI’s. Ron and I grabbed our stuff and headed out the door.
At CBPO (Personnel) we “officially” signed in and completed the many steps of “in processing” that any new Air Force assignment requires. Personal affairs records are checked and updated for accuracy and completeness, finance records are updated to include combat pay and proper deductions and allotments are correct, enough signatures and initials on new forms for our personnel records, I thought it was somehow punishment for something I’d done wrong and being made to sign my name, full name, at least a thousand times. About noon we were done so Ron and I headed back to the chow hall in the bright heat of the day. I was sweating like the proverbial pig, this was going to be a long 12 months.
At the chow hall we ran into a couple more who had left Nellis when we did and they had three or four in tow I had never seen before. Al Radibaugh was the lead, so to speak. We sat at the table with them and were introduced. A couple Air National Guard troops, one a weapons troop and the other a munitions troop, and a clerk and conversation seemed to boil over with questions directed at Ron and me. Geeze, you’d think we had been here for months. Turns out they had just arrived that morning and had walked from the transit barracks where we had spent our first night. We answered questions as best we could, told Al and the munitions troops where the O-room was (orderly room) with the crazy first shirt and curly headed clerk and told everyone our next stop was the Dispensary to give them our medical records, inspect our shot records, let them use us as pin cushions as surely we didn’t have some required inoculation for a deadly South East Asia disease floating around, then we were headed for the PX (Post Exchange) for grits and tacos (junk food for the barracks) and hit the Class 6 Store (Liquor Store) and get some supplies to get slack eyed and silly to ease the horrible heat and humidity. Al and everybody wanted to go to the Class 6 as well, but Ron explained they’d need ration cards and they could only be had at the O-room. The thundering herd stampeded for the O-room and Ron and I casually headed for the Dispensary/Clinic.
A few needles later we ambled over to the PX and Class 6. I was in a War Zone, I needed some junk food and I damn sure needed a beer.
When we got there, we saw several U.S. Army deuce and a half trucks parked near the Post Exchange and Class 6. Inside we noted most patrons were Army and bore the 173rd Arm Patch with black embroidery, no color, odd I thought. All rank insignia stitched in black on OD cloth as were the cloth name tags and branch of service tags. I asked an Army troop about it and he told me, “so the dinks can’t easily pick you out and shoot you.” I had no idea who these dinks were he spoke of, but assumed he meant the VC or NVA. Ron and I bought our junk food and headed for the Class 6.
Inside the Quonset hut were two aisles that looped around at the back. The aisles were lined with beer of every kind, many I’d never heard of. I grabbed a case of 7-Up, a bottle of Bacardi and headed for the cash register at the front of the building. Then it hit me, I was not yet 21 years old, wonder how this will turn out I thought? Potter was right behind me with cargo much as my own. I plunked the booze and 7-Up on the counter and a haggard looking clerk yawned, held out his hand and said, “ration card.” I fumbled in my wallet, handed him the card and he punched out one slot on the card that allowed three bottles of “hard spirits” per month. I paid him $1.40 in MPC for the Bacardi and $1.80 for the case of 7-Up, this is good I thought. As I was about to leave the clerk grabbed me and told me, “only take one.” I had no idea what he was talking about and asked. He said the Ballentine beer cases outside stacked next to the door were steel cans and the PX was giving them away, I thanked him and walked out the door. I was standing in the shade looking at the beer when Ron walked out. He made a huffing noise and said, “no wonder they give it away. You ever taste that stuff?” I was thinking, beer is beer, what could be so bad and I grabbed a case of it and started down the road towards barracks T-120. Ron followed, sans Ballentine.
Each day turned into a learning experience. Such as the Army descending on the Air Force PX/BX when they did as the Army was paid a few days before the Air Force and they stripped the exchanges of the really good stuff while the Air Force stood with their hands in empty pockets and pouted. Stiff competition for that premier amp and set of speakers, reciprocating fans, tape decks, mini refrigerators, all sorts of things to make one’s life a bit more pleasant in this far off land. On my second Ballentine I choked down that evening, I learned that beer in a steel can was a no-no to be avoided in the future, Ron just laughed as he slugged down a Canadian Lord Calvert’s and 7-Up.. Welcome to Phu Cat, Steve.
We watched the light show that night. There were tracers flying every where, both red and green. We didn’t know it then, but would soon discover a green tracer was from an enemy gun. The loud explosions from our south were those of an Army field artillery unit named the 41st Field Artillery. It was rumored to have a big gun. Some said a 175 while others claimed a rail mounted gun much larger. I never found the truth, but can say this, they were damn loud. There was a ROK Tiger field artillery battery set up just east of Phu Cat and they shelled all night and early into the dawn. The Air Police ran a mortar pit near the north end of the north/south runway and they added to the nightly din. It was nearly non stop. We met Jimmie Simmons that night, a two stripe instructor we had in Tech School in Denver. A familiar face and it was welcome in this sea of unknowns. He introduced us around to folks who sat around on the back steps wearing just underwear shorts and soaking in the cooler night air. It was a good night and I slept well amid the Blam! And the Boom!
The next morning I showered and saw the “kitchen staff,” then dressed and headed for the chow hall and ran into Radibaugh and crew. We gave them an update and headed for the paved parking lot near the Base Chapel to catch the “cave truck” to the bomb dump. It was actually a 29 passenger school bus with squadron image painted on the forward banner proclaiming intended use. Day one of working at the Cat, there would be many more.
Chapter 3
Lemme see your damn Military Driver’s License!
I heard that phrase many times and usually in just that gruff a tone. I already had a lengthy listing which included one and a half tons, sedans/s/w’s, pick-ups to ¾ ton, Coleman MB-4’s, forklifts to ten thousand pounds, M series to 5 tons, but all new arrivals in the 421st MMS (Munitions Maintenance Squadron) would add significantly to their driving skills and abilities. Things like jammers, R/T forklifts, a huge articulating beast used to off load rail cars and freight trucks I came to know as Han Jin’s, a large Korean or Japanese trucking firm employed in Vietnam to haul freight from port to final destination. I also had to master the IHC Lodestar 1800, a ten ton tractor used to tow 40 foot goose neck flat beds or the shorter twenty five foot versions of that same trailer for use in Line Delivery, delivering the prepped munitions items to the flight line parking ramp. Needless to say, but your skills were really put to the test backing or transiting around parked or taxiing aircraft. A screw up there could cost millions of dollars or perhaps a life or two. The ramp was loaded with people and the hand signals kept the place hopping and moving smoothly, most of the time. I learned as much and as quickly as I could in those first few weeks. My supervisors observed I was particularly adept with the huge Pettibone called the R/T. I had been a forklift operator in another life, so I was assigned to the Storage crew. The guys who were responsible for unloading at the Phu Cat Railhead, moving the munitions to the bomb dump and storing in appropriate revetments, preferably by lot number if it was an explosive. We also off loaded the Han Jin’s that would arrive in long convoys from a port named Qui Nohn, a deep water port on the coast of the South China Sea.
The Han Jin’s meant a flurry of activity as the trucks had to be off loaded and gone from Phu Cat well before darkness fell. Highway 1 that ran from Bong Son to Qui Nohn ran past the Phu Cat Gate, about a mile away. From the Phu Cat front gate, actually the only gate, it was about 45 miles to the relative security of the 173rd Army compound near Qui Nohn (pronounced Qwin-Yawn). The Han Jin’s had to be inside that port Army compound by nightfall or risk being shot up, blown up or burned up. Hell of a place for a truck driver to earn a living.
As Johnson and McNamara micro managed the war, they would call bombing halts above a particular parallel. That generally meant the pace of missions would increase dramatically for the F-100’s at Phu Cat. Short, in country support strikes with very quick turn around. The now familiar Johnson quote of, “They can’t bomb an outhouse over there unless I say so.” was playing out and no one cared for it. Just where did they acquire their vast war fighting knowledge? No where, that’s where. It continued; on again off again throughout Johnson’s Presidency. The war started becoming unpopular at home with main stream media highlighting the occasional bloody disaster, refusing to report success stories and even staging mock combat for unwitting home viewers and readers much as that same media is doing today in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushing their “lose” strategy agenda. I have never understood it and I suppose I never will. I’ve often heard the phrase, “secrets are power” and that is what they did, kept secrets from the American Public and it made them powerful enough to turn the tide at home, successfully killing fifty eight thousand brave men and women and untold millions more Asians in their lust for that power. Shame on them! Shame on America for buying the bull shit reported by famed broadcasters and journalists of that time.
The frustration must have been immense at the top. Real time targets of opportunity and not a chance in hell of getting permission from a un war wise President to hit them before they vanished into the jungle. That frustration trickled down to the lowest ranking of each branch of service, slowly at first, but became a veritable flood as the war went on. Bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail, night after night, day after day, attempting to stop the flow of arms, equipment and men headed south. That bombing violated the air space of neighboring sovereign nations not openly involved in the conflict. To be fair, the NVA stored arms and equipment, billeted troops and launched attacks on the south from those nations, so it wasn’t just us.
A friend, a Navy LCDR currently a Prowler driver (E-6B) lost his father in Laos when his F-4 Phantom was shot down. His remains were not recovered until 2006 I believe, closing yet another chapter in that tragic war, Boxer-22 has finally come home. As my year progressed we all saw that frustration and I, for one, made it a point to not take things too seriously unless he had an AK, SKS or Satchel Charge or launching those damn Soviet 82MM mortars or one double deuce rockets. We didn’t see them often, but enough to know what hell on Earth could be for some unlucky soul. After the war was long over for me, I read Marine Sniper, the saga of Carlos Hathcock, an exceptional Marine marksman, a true tale of his 93 confirmed kills. I savored every skull shattering head shot and was astounded by the distance covered by that .308 caliber sniper slug. He was a gifted man, RIP. So now you know how the book will be written, a day to day journey of forty years ago by a twenty year old caught up in a conflict mismanaged, micro managed, wrought with Vietnamese corruption and politics, where war wise individuals were not allowed to win and a biased media would have us withdraw and the south would ultimately lose. Hooray for us, frikken idiots! I began to feel as though we were fighting the wrong enemy and should instead fight the enemy within. The movies after the war portrayed us as vicious killers as in Apocalypse Now, Boys of Company C and many more I refused to watch.
The American Public bought into and believed the Viet Vet was a dysfunctional figure of low moral and social standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were not as the lunatic portrayed in Uncommon Valor, but most, hard working dedicated individuals who watched our country repeatedly fail us, as individuals and as a whole. I now proudly portray my Vietnam Service Ribbon painted on the black Brush Guard of my Cherokee. The green, red and yellow ribbon tells a select few I am proud of what I did, others look and shrug, not knowing what it means. It will strike up conversations in parking lots with those I don’t know. It usually starts with, “where were you?” A new friendship is born.
The following chapters will take it on a day by day basis with an occasional rambling by an old man concerning his country, its politics and my impression of its gross errors in light of the times. Saddle up and take a ride with this old phart down a trail that will get bumpy from time to time. I’ll pull no punches, irritate a few with a different view, but you will have to ask yourself, who spent 18 months in the valley of the shadow? You or me?
Chapter 4
Things we learn at night
The second floor room Ron and I first selected was on the south side of the barracks near the west end. It had bare plywood walls, one electric outlet and two large wooden lockable wall lockers separating us from the next room down. The floors were bare plywood and there was a set of GI bunk beds sitting along the plywood wall that shielded us from the center aisle. It was pretty Spartan considering Air Force standards. The one thing I vividly remember we did to that room was paint the walls red. Psychologists will recognize what that does, but for the rest, I suggest that is not the color you want for the harmony of the interior of your house. We became “owly” and lashed out at one another on a nearly constant basis. We now know why, but then had no clue, life experience teaches many things. It didn’t settle down until we decided to grab the room vacated across the hall, no frikken red paint!
Ron and I started to do what most everyone did, beg, borrow and steal those things that lead to a more comfortable life. Somehow we managed a reciprocating fan. I bought a compact refrigerator at the PX. Ron got a coffee pot, he was a mud nut and also bought a popcorn popper. It took awhile, but we also bought a TV to listen to AFVN with news of home and around country. We became scroungers of the first degree, trading shit we didn’t yet have for shit we wanted. It became a game of sorts. We soon had a tiled, albeit that nasty green GI tile, floor, a real by goodness lockable door for the room that only the housemaid, Granny, had a key and she was told no one except our certifiable First Shirt, Carl D. Camp was to be admitted in our absence. The stereo gear started piling up with Teac, Sansui and other prominent Asian names leading the pack. Free postage, almost free cigarettes and booze, low cost stereo gear, what more could a twenty year old want?
There were a few things, but damn, we would have to do a little exploring. Ron and I made that “room” very comfortable with scrounged lumber came do-it-yourself chairs and shelves along the screened outside walls. Later, during the monsoons we discovered the slatted, screened wall was very poorly designed. At times the rain fell sideways and came through the slats and screen. That meant a need for plywood and we always thought big, why not a pallet? It took about a week of trading and re trading until we came up with just the goods to approach the guys with those beautiful 4X8 foot slabs of weather proofing magic for our room. The Army at the 41st Field Artillery at the south end of the runway had banded pallets of half inch and wanted steaks for the wood. We traded ration card quotas we had acquired for “distilled spirits” and traded the booze for two cases of frozen T-bones and three cases of frozen hamburger patties, I think it was Ron who went to the 41st to arrange the exchange and the deal was done. They even agreed to deliver the plywood and a pallet of bricks they threw in for good measure. Bricks?? Have you lost your mind, Ron?? He just smiled.
When the deuce from the 41st dropped our stuff off at T-120, Granny guarded it like it was hers. We were all working and no one was home. I heard a few pukes from another barracks nearby spotted the plywood and headed over to help themselves. I can just hear the probable outburst. Granny could be ferocious, swinging her rice straw broom and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Got Dam you numbah 10 GI, you go!!! No steah fom heah. I say who take and beat you ass.” Nuygen Than. I’ve often wondered about that little tiger. We treated her very well and in turn, she treated us like human beings. I just changed my mind about the front cover photograph for this novel. It will be a picture of the jacket Granny gave to me just before I left Phu Cat for the last time in January, 1970.
Back to that pile of banded gold, the plywood. When we finally finished up that day and returned to the barracks, we were met with a chorus of, “I’ll trade you this for three sheets,” or “can I have a couple?” and on and on. Ron and I quickly sized it up and decided we would need ten, maybe twelve sheets and the rest were up for grabs providing the “price” was right. We were becoming skilled commodities brokers in a world of this for that. The only thing we “gave” away were all those damn bricks. Jim Simmons said he wanted to do something with them and Ron knew just what that was, I had no clue. When all was said and done we had seven sheets of half inch left over. We carried them to the second floor and nailed them to the outside of our aisle wall and to the aisle wall opposite us, shrinking the aisle width by one whole inch. Safely stored for later use or trades, I think Granny was the only person that noticed what we had done, otherwise I’m sure that “extra” plywood would be spirited away for some project we had no interest in.
We quickly decided to ceiling off our room as well as seal us from the monsoon sideways rain. We built shutters for the “windows” and blocking the next room down. We were at the west end of the second floor, so we quickly hung the ceiling sheets from exposed trusses and rafters giving the room an eleven foot ceiling at the level of the ballast and fluorescent lighting we scrounged from Base Supply. The ceiling was covered with coupler and drive assembly Styrofoam box liners. A C&D assembly is used in a Slick. A Slick is a GP bomb with a normal fin. The C&D assembly is used to couple the little “windmill” drive mounted on the fin to the fuse in the base of the bomb’s tail well. The fuse is screwed into a booster in that well. Anyway, that C&D has a centrifugal weight that attaches to the fuse to keep that arming vane spinning while the bomb is in flight after dropped from the aircraft. It arms the fuse and when the bomb hits, detonation. All that to this. Those drives are shipped in boxes about 26 inches square resembling acoustic ceiling tile and that is precisely what we used them for. Strictly against Fire Code, but we had a locked door and a wild woman for a guard. No one ever said a word. After we put up the block to the next room, Al Radibaugh and Ken Kralouski’s, we added the ceiling “tile” and the Ballast for the overhead room light. We traded into some Plexiglas for covering the light, wired a light switch to power it and painted the dark plywood ceiling surrounding the light bright white. Code? What Code?
We had nearly sealed ourselves off from the quarter pound spiders, the “fuck you” lizards and the searing heat of the roof on sun lit days, as well as the noise from stereo systems playing ten different tunes as well as AFRN and AFVN radios and TV sets, it started to get comfortable. Jimmie Simmons, the guy we gave the pallet of bricks to, did a bit of scrounging and came up with several bags of mortar and started on his project on the latrine (east) end of the barracks.. It was a massive BBQ and he had several unsolicited helpers, scrounging grill elements, digging post holes for the eventual roof to be erected over the grill, building picnic tables from dunnage wood and of course we donated those seven sheets of plywood we stashed in the hallway for the roof and table tops. Simmons and his volunteer crew did a fine job, I have several pictures of the finished product if anyone wishes to see it, you have my e-mail address.
Jimmie was good at trading into seafood so we had a lot of Surf and Turf as we watched the goings on of the war from out back, we even had a horse shoe pit back there. It wasn’t “stateside,” but we tried to make it as close as we could. I would often notice during days I was off, several of the Vietnamese girls that worked at the Chase Manhattan Bank Quonset hut were often taking their breaks in the shade of the large Mango tree that shaded the picnic tables out back. They were very attractive young Vietnamese women and I sat and spoke with them when I had the opportunity. Their curiosity of the United States and life there were always the topic of discussion, we tried to answer as honestly as possible and only probed shallowly into life in Vietnam. Those were good days.
Our “scrounging” lifestyle became a near obsession for a few. Bo Ballard, myself, Ron Potter and another, not in our barracks, Dennis Figelski. There were others like Master Sergeant Sprinkle who once traded a freshly acquired pallet of plywood for an M-151 Radio Set without the radio. It is a Ford produced replacement for the venerable WW-II Jeep that became the CJ-5 4X4 of civilian fame. I would often see Sprinkle at the stencil machine cutting new “registration” numbers for his Jeep that threw investigators off track as they searched for that “missing” 151 the Army reported. Sprinkle was pretty slick and rotated home, never getting caught. It was a game. I remember trading for stuff we really didn’t need just to see if we could get it. I recall one incident where Potter, Radabaugh and I traded two 50 pound bags of concrete for three rolls of concertina. I mean, what the hell? We were able to get rid of the concertina on a trading excursion to Bong Son and all we received in return was the gratitude of the Army troops that Sprinkle had stolen the 151 from, well…, OK, he actually traded into it for our ill gotten plywood and they reported it stolen by person or persons unknown. Probably those renegade 173rd folks down Qui Nohn way. We weren’t evil, just…, well…, the Mafia I guess.
The sky cops were getting snoopy with our outbound loads on “Civic Action” missions which were conducted all over Vietnam by American GI’s. It became bothersome sneaking all the distilled spirits off base and we were caught twice and turned around. I think it was either Al Radabaugh or Bo Ballard that came up with the solution. The bomb dump had a fairly large pond we used as our vehicle wash rack. We all noticed late in the day there were hoards of doves that came into the pond for water. Ballard and Radabaugh were both southern lads and knew a few intermediate level sky cops and asked if they may be interested in a little dove hunting and they said they would like that, however they had no shotgun shells appropriate for doves, all they had were last ditch double ought buck. And the shotguns were never issued at Guard Mount and kept on main base at CSC as a just in case.
One of the two smiled, reached into his pocket and withdrew a Winchester 12 gauge round marked “Vermin.” That may not mean much to most, but what that was, was a low brass load of number 8 shot, a dove load. We had several evening dove hunts at the wash rack and the outbound inspections of 421st MMS vehicles on Civic Action missions became abbreviated. BBQ’d Dove is very tasty.
The nightly “light shows” continued, the constant sounds of small arms and explosions and an occasional Spooky night sky display of almost complete death and destruction. It became a nightly ritual during good weather to sit on the back steps of T-120 and watch the nightly fireworks while sipping on a “tall, cool one” wearing shorts, T-shirt and flip flops. Red tracers with the occasional slap flare or 81MM Mortar flare. I often wondered about the mortars because I’d picked up a few “hulls” during daylight hours and the small, pointed timer was brass and weighed three to five pounds. It blows away from the mortar flare canister at altitude and falls to the ground. If it hits you, you are likely killed or at the very least seriously injured. The canister is simply a steel 81MM tube with fins and weighs an additional seven to ten pounds. When the timer blows off, a small drogue chute pulls the remaining flare and flare parachute from the canister. The flare is initiated and the canister falls to the ground with an audible “wo, wo, wo” sound as it tumbles to earth.
You had to have your shit together if you were a mortar man firing support illumination for a ground force in close proximity to an enemy position. That timer and canister could inflict lethal injury or death to either side if not for the skill at the “tube.” It was not a hap hazard “we need a flare” science but rather an India, Lima, Lima science that required the “tube” man to know his job and the absolute location of the “friendly” positions or mayhem would result. The arc, height, timer and canister separation choreographed by artists who knew their jobs. Hand Salute to the men of Cobra, the mortar pit at Phu Cat!