Vietnam, Part 1

It got very quiet on the airplane when the stewardess (now we call them flight attendants) announced that we were beginning our descent into the Cam Rahn Bay Airbase. The flight had been a long one and it seemed at times like a pretty good party. We were flying on a World Airways charter (Military Airlift Command [MAC]) from McCord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington to the Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon, Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Now we were on approach to Vietnam, but to the wrong airbase. Then she announced we had been diverted to Cam Rahn Bay because of a rocket attack at the airbase at Tan Son Nhut.

As I looked over the men on the flight during the hours we were together in the DC-8, I saw that there was a pretty good mix of combat hardened veterans who were returning for a second or subsequent tour, and soldiers like myself who were newbie’s and making their first tour to the combat theater. None were particularly scared, but at the same time, none were anxious for the airplane to land.

In mid-November, 1969, I arrived at the replacement station at Fort Lewis to begin processing for deployment to Vietnam. At the Air Traffic Control School at Keesler AFB I had worked hard to be in the top ten percent of my class so I would go to Germany rather than Vietnam. At least that was the rumor. Apparently it was just a rumor because I was the third highest in class, on the Commandants List, and processing for deployment to Vietnam. The actual Army term and acronym is Process for Overseas Replacement or POR. I arrived with everything the Army issued me … four sets of fatigues, a set of dress greens and two tan uniforms, boots and low quarter shoes. Except for the dress greens which I was wearing, everything else was shoved into my duffel bag.

The first order of business was to sign in. I had copies of my orders and found the orderly room and the CQ (Charge of Quarters) signed me in and assigned me a bunk. I found my bunk, changed into fatigues, and got comfortable and waited for someone to yell “FALL OUT!” I didn’t have to wait very long. I never saw a place that had so many formations a day. I guess that with the number of people moving in and out of the Replacement Center it took a lot of formations for accountability. The formations were for different purposes. Some were for assigning details, some were for uniform issue, some were for chow and some were shipping formations. My first was to go get new uniforms. After we fell out for the formation, names were read and if our name was read we moved to another location and formed up into another formation. The drill sergeant told us to go get our s#%& and fall out in 30 minutes.

At the appointed time I fell out with my stuff and we marched over to the uniform issue point. Behind the counter, all along the counter were large cardboard bins into which we tossed the appropriate uniform item –IE– Dress green coat, dress green trousers, fatigue shirt, fatigue trousers. By the time we got to the last bin, we were standing in our BVD’s, and sox. Then we moved to the next station where the supply specialist handed us four sets of jungle fatigues and two pair of jungle boots. We quickly put one set on, signed our issue and turn in documents, and fell back out into the street, in formation. The entire process took about fifteen minutes.

The next formation was for details. I was assigned to guard the supply warehouse over night. So after chow I went over to the supply warehouse. The supply sergeant was not very happy to see us and used some very colorful language about how he keeps telling those @#%&*$ %^&#@%& not to send any detail people. So he told us to jump upon the piles of uniforms, grab a blanket and get some sleep. A little later he had us move some boxes, and then he sent us to the chow hall to get midnight supper. When we came back we crawled back upon the uniform piles and slept until about 0530 when he woke us up and told us to go eat and have a nice day.

The next formation for me came at 0900. We were exempt from the earlier formations because we had “worked” all night. At the 0900 formation we were told about our flight to Vietnam. We had to form up at 1300 to be bussed over to McCord. At 1300 we fell out, bag and baggage, and boarded a bus. At about 1400 we arrived at the terminal and got off the bus. We processed in and were told to find a seat and wait until our manifest was called. And wait we did. We waited; and waited; and waited; and waited …………………………..! And our seats were not the nice seats you see at DFW …. although there were some of those, but they were already taken. So I found a spot on the floor and cuddled up to my duffel bag. I got out a book and commenced my wait for our manifest to be called. About 10 hours later we heard the speaker crackle and our manifest number was called.

Our World Airways DC-8 was sitting on the tarmac. We moved to the assembly area and turned over our duffel bags. The bags were taken on a cart to be loaded and we walked out on the tarmac to the stairs leading into the airplane. There was no first class section, all economy. I found a seat with a new found friend and buckled up and waited for departure. Soon the doors were closed and we began rolling to Vietnam.

Our route took us to Honolulu where the aircraft was refueled, restocked, and change flight crews. One would have thought we would have gone to Hickam AFB, but we pulled up to the terminal at Honolulu and we were deplaned. We were there about an hour. While we were waiting, a girl came up to us and was handing out orchids. Not everyone took an orchid, but I did. Now I had this flower and I didn’t know what to do with it. As we boarded the plane the new stewardess commented on the flower. Teasingly I told her I got it for her and handed her the orchid. She said that when a boy gives a girl a flower in Hawaii he had to kiss her on the cheek. So I kissed her on the cheek and she put the flower in her hair. Boy, everyone was hooting and hollering over that. I tried to play it off, but I don’t remember when I had ever been so embarrassed!

It was dark when we took off and we flew quietly along. A couple of hours later the stewardesses began serving a meal and a party like atmosphere began. People were out of their seats talking and laughing. It was getting pretty loud and most everyone was having a pretty good time. One of the stewardesses, without a flower in her hair, asked me what I did in the Army. I told her I was an Air Traffic Controller. She asked me if I wanted to go up into the cockpit and talk to the flight crew. I said sure I did. She had to clear it with the captain. A few minutes later she came back and escorted me to the cockpit. I sat in the jump seat and was there for about a half hour or more. I think I was the only one who got that tour. Before I left the cockpit, the captain told me to look carefully at the horizon. The lights on the horizon were from Vietnam. When I returned to my seat, the “party” was still going strong. A few minutes the announcement was made and everyone took their seats and withdrew into their own thoughts. Talk about a downer! What a contrast.

We landed without incident and taxied to the terminal. The deplaning began. Senior Officers first, followed by other officers. Then it was the E9.s followed by E7’s and E8’s. After that, everyone else got off. I was a lowly E4, but soon we were all off and formed up for accountability. Sometime later our duffel bags were brought out and we boarded busses to the replacement company. We got off the bus and were told to go into the billets and find a bunk. Inside I found a bunk and a friend. One of the guys I went to ATC School with had arrived just a few minutes before me. He had flown out of Travis AFB. Having both been thru the experiences we had getting out of the States and being low men on the totem poles, we decided it was time to take matters into our own hands. Although we had turned our orders in when we signed in, the NCOs conducting formations were replacements themselves, like us. We knew that they had no idea who was in the formations, so we promoted ourselves to sergeants. When it came time for details to be handed out, we fell out with the sergeants and were given charge of squads. My friend, Leonard Richofski and I were assigned to the same detail. Ski and I were in high cotton being in charge. I don’t remember the detail, but I remember we didn’t do much but stand around and watch. Finally the day ended and I got back to my bunk. It was quite and then I heard the guns. I knew that before morning we would all be killed as the VC overran our position. Turns out what we heard was artillery …. ours. And later I would learn how to tell the difference. The shelling taking place was probably 25 miles or more away from us. We could hear it at night because noise travels further at night.

The next morning we fell out and found ourselves in a shipping formation. I got my stuff and boarded an Air Force C-130 for our flight to Tan Son Nhut. Arriving an hour or so later we were bussed to the Army base at Long Bien. The replacement company processed me and I was sent just down the street to the 165th Aviation Battalion (ATC), 1st Aviation Brigade. Now we were home. No longer just an E4 with a detail to perform. We were part of the Company … our own unit. This was a band of brothers to whom we would trust our very lives, who would look to make sure we all made it home to our families.

I had to in process into the Company, which took a couple of days. I in processed thru personnel and supply one day. The next day I in processed thru finance. Then off to operations to get my assignment. I had been talking to some of the old timers (been in-country at least a week) and found I wanted to go to the H-3 heliport at Tan Son Nhut. The two places I wanted to avoid were Cu Chi and Tay Ninh. Both were hot beds. Cu Chi was west of Saigon and Tay Ninh was right on the Cambodian border, right where the Ho Chi Minh Trail meandered. All I had heard about on the news back in the States was Da Nang and places up north. Cu Chi and Tay Ninh were in the Southern part of the country, west of Saigon. The ops sergeant asked me where I wanted to go! Could this really be this easy? I told him H-3. He laughed and told me I was going to 362nd Aviation Detachment (Provisional) in Tay Ninh.

Tay Ninh! They just got hit with a huge mortar and rocket attack the other night. Great. “Are you sure you want me to go to Tay Ninh?” The sergeant told me I would like it there, and it was better than some of the other sites. Some sites were on Landing Zones (LZ’s) which were the hot spots during most of the conflict. So early the next morning I got my orders and things and boarded a C-130 for Tay Ninh. We landed at Cu Chi. What is with this country? So far I have yet to land where I was supposed to go. The flight to Tay Ninh didn’t leave until noon the next day. I was told by the Sergeant Major to go directly to Tay Ninh, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I was not to go to any replacement training along the way. My weapon would be issued when I got to the unit. Now I was stuck in Cu Chi and no one to call and no bed to sleep in. Someone told me I could get temporary billeting at the Holiday Inn East, the transit quarters and replacement training station.

I went to the Holiday Inn East (not that Holiday Inn). I got checked in and found a bunk in the open bay. I was tired. It was dark so I went to bed. The lights in the building were on, but there was no air conditioning and no fans. The doors were propped open and in came the roaches and locusts. Flying thru the air and landing on everyone and everything. I made my bed and climbed under the sheets to keep the bugs off of me. I would come to realize that the bugs in Vietnam were worse than even Mississippi. And the humidity was a killer. And the temperature was as high as the humidity. And I was under the covers to keep the bugs off. Finally about midnight someone turned the lights off and the bugs went away. Hot and sweating I figured I would be awake all night. But as tired as I was, I fell asleep and slept all night.

At eleven o’clock I showed up at the terminal and waited for my flight. An E7 started to talk to me. Then he asked me where my weapon was. I told him I hadn’t been issued one yet. He asked me if I had been thru the replacement training yet. No. He told me to get back over to replacement and go. I still needed to go on two patrols. I told him my Colonel told me to go directly to Tay Ninh and I would be issued everything there. He was livid! An E4 refusing to go to training. Just as he was getting wound up, they called our flight and I headed out to the aircraft. Thirty minutes later we landed in Tay Ninh. We taxied off the runway up to the terminal and deplaned. I only had to walk across the ramp to the unit. It was easy to spot because the GCA radar and the control tower were right there.

I walked into the Orderly Room and reported for duty.

TO BE CONTINUED

PIDGEON FLAT

As I tell this story it is from my personal memory and from some of the things I was told by Uncle Leland. I was sixteen the year Uncle Leland and I went to Pidgeon Flat. We actually never heard of the place, but he knew of the area. Pidgeon Flat was the name of the U.S. Forest Service campground we stayed at that summer. Uncle Lee had a week and we decided to go fishing. We had talked about it most of the summer. Uncle Lee was the “manufacturer’s representative” for Enro Shirts … he sold shirts wholesale to the retailers for Enro. That summer he invited me to go with him to work. My parents had been recently divorced and I think he felt that I may have needed a father figure to keep me on the straight and narrow. So, shortly after school was out for the summer, I went with Uncle Lee. He had to set up a showroom for the San Francisco clothing market. We had a room in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. He set it up as a showroom with all the shirts displayed. My job was to keep everything neat when the clients came in to buy shirts for their stores. I also had to pull the “sold outs” from the line. We stayed at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel for a week, Monday to Friday.

That summer Uncle Lee was thinking of renting an office for a permanent showroom. He and I looked at several offices, but that summer we found an office right across the street from the hotel. The building was old, as most buildings are in downtown San Francisco. This building had an old elevator, and it was shaky and scary. The doors were not normal elevator doors, but looked like a normal door. As the door opened, and other cage door had to be opened to get into the elevator. If the elevator was not on your floor, you couldn’t open the cage door, although the outer door would open. You would just see the shaft and cables, and feel the musty breeze from the shaft. We had the key to the office he thought about renting, but in the end he didn’t rent that office. He ended up renting an office in an office on Market Street that was more modern and housed mostly clothing wholesalers.

I got my first real suit while at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. The rep for Timely Clothiers was in the room next to Uncle Lee. He always got a lot of shirts from the “sold outs” in exchange for suits, pants, etc. This was pretty common. Anyway, I helped the Timely rep unpack his line for the show, and he gave me a suit. Very pretty one … olive green. Uncle Lee did throw in a few shirts, but I didn’t learn of that for over a year. The Timely rep needed some shirts sometime later and came to Uncle Lee and I guess Uncle Lee just gave him the shirts. The rep said he needed more than the couple of hours I gave him unloading his sample cases.

After we left San Francisco we went to Oakland for the show there. I don’t remember the hotel we stayed in, but I remember being introduced to the hotel comptroller when we checked in. Uncle Lee invited him up to our room for a drink as Uncle Lee stayed in that hotel a lot and had a lot of dealings with that gentleman. The comptroller declined the invitation saying he didn’t drink because he was an old Mormon Missionary. Of course, I perked up and Uncle Lee told him I was a future Mormon Missionary. Later the comptroller stopped me and told me he had been trying to give Uncle Lee a Book of Mormon for years. I assured him that he had one and that the family was working on him. We stayed in Oakland for a couple of days and then we departed for Fresno.
On our way out of Oakland we stopped at a Chinese Restaurant. I wasn’t really excited about it because Chinese food just was not my forte. Uncle Lee assured me I would enjoy it. I told him that my mom, Aunt June and Aunt Jean always were having family dinners and served Chinese food. It came form “One Hung Low’s” Chinese Carry-Out. All I ever knew of Chinese food was chop suey, chow mien, and fried rice. He laughed and said they didn’t even have any of that stuff on the menu. He was right and I have love Chinese food ever since.

Because I was sixteen and had a driver’s license, I did most of the driving. We were driving his old 1956 Imperial La Baron. He had the back seat out of the car and he could put all his sample cases in the car, and they were all below the level of the door windows. He liked that because it was not easy to see that the car carried merchandise and he was not a quick target of a burglar
We stopped often for gas as he only put eight gallons of gas in per stop. He said he had an eight gallon bladder and had to stop that often. And he did. Of course, while I was driving he was drinking beer. In those days it was not illegal to be drinking a beer in the car when another person was driving, as long as the driver was not drinking.

We arrived in Fresno late in the afternoon and checked into another forgettable hotel. We ended up staying there just overnight and left mid-morning the next day. That night we went down to a little hole-in-the-wall hot dog joint next to the hotel. (This was before the days of McDonald’s at every corner and all-you-can-eat buffets). The hot dogs were great! The dog and the bun were steamed and served with pickle, lettuce and tomato. I had never had a hot dog served with anything but ketchup and mustard … even at Babe’s Bandstand in Capitola. Those hot dogs always impressed me and the owner told me how and why he did them like that. I no longer remember why, but the “how” is how we fixed hot dogs after that. They became famous in the family as Frank’s Fantastic Franks.

When we left Fresno we were heading back to San Jose. We stopped at a place along the Fresno River to fish a little. It was pretty funny because Uncle Lee had his fishing poles in the trunk, but he had no fishing clothes. We literally went fishing in our business clothes. Well, that afternoon the only biting going on was by the mosquitoes, so we called it a day. But we were close to where Uncle Lee used to go fishing as a boy, and we were not a time schedule, so up into the mountains. I have no idea where we were, but we rented a cabin on a river. The place where we were was above a gorge and the water was very loud. I remember having a hard time going to sleep because the noise was deafening. We arrived after dark and, having eaten earlier, we went right to bed. The next morning we got up and went fishing. We still were skunked, but Uncle Lee showed me all the places he fished as a boy. It was a beautiful area, but I would have no idea how to get back there. All I remember was that it was somewhere near Fresno.

By the time we returned to San Jose the next day we had our week long fishing trip all planned out. We unloaded the car and emptied out two sample cases. We packed the cases with food for our trip. We got Uncle Lee’s old 9 x 9 umbrella tent, our fishing poles, lots of Balls-O-Fire salmon eggs from Pay Less, and we ere set. A couple of days later we hit the road. We drove to Sonora, then up to Dardanelle, and to the base of the Sonora Pass. Our route took us through Madera, where we found some fresh fruit stands. We stopped and bought some watermelons and cantaloupes. We found the campground and there were plenty of open spots. We found ours right next to the river, close to restrooms. The first thing we did was to build a small dam in the river and put our melons in the water to get cold. We set up camp and cooked a little dinner. Then we drove up the road to a store in a place called Kennedy Meadow. At Kennedy Meadow cabins were available for rent in the little compound. We saw a huge family set up with a GP Medium (Army) tent in the middle with smaller tent surrounding it. The store clerk said this family comes up every summer and pretty much stays for a month. Some who had to work would go home to Sacramento, and then return for the weekend. We also saw water points where tap water was available. The clerk said the water was direct from the river. The river was pure and the water was drinkable. Later we talked to a man whose wife made him come up to Kennedy Meadow every day to get water because she wouldn’t drink it out of the river.

The next morning when we got up, our melons were gone! Some kids came up and asked about our melons and told us some raccoons must have gotten them. We just figured the raccoons were of the two legged variety … about twelve years old. As I remember, there were three watermelons and 6 cantaloupes. That’s all that was taken, however. We still had all our other provisions. One of the staples was buckwheat pancake mix. We had buckwheat pancakes just about every morning, along with fresh trout and fried eggs.

On the first night we had just retired. I was awakened when our tent began to shake violently and a lot of noise coming from outside. I woke up, thinking Uncle Lee must have tripped over something. I called out to him asking if he was alright. He was still in his cot! We got up and lit the lantern. We carefully went outside and some of our neighbors were out looking, as well. We never did figure out what it was. Perhaps it was someone trying to get to the restroom and tripped on our tent ropes … or a bear that tripped on our tent ropes. It did appear that someone … human or animal did take a leak on the side of our tent. We were somewhat rattled, but we went back to bed. For years when we talked about Pidgeon Flat, we talked about or bear. It would be years later, when my own son had an experience with a bear in Alaska. I will tell that tale later.

We got up the next morning and looked for bear tracks. Of course, we found none. Didn’t diminish our story any, however. After breakfast we headed out for our first day of fishing. The easiest way was to find the green Fish and Game truck with the fish tank on one the back. That was we knew where the fish were being planted. But lacking any luck there, we just headed down stream. Now we wanted to be able to fish quite a bit, but the daily limit was ten fish, so we decided we would catch half in the morning and half in the later afternoon. We found a pretty place along the river to fish and it took less than an hour to catch our five fish. So we hiked around and watched where others were catching good fish. We found one area where the river went through a gorge, a deep gorge. I tried letting my line down to the water, but wasn’t able to ever get it down to the water. It was not an area you could easily hike into, so I imagine that there were some good sized fish there, but I will never know.

On our second day we got a new neighbor. I believe his name was Jack, although I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it. But, for this narrative, I will call him Jack. Jack and his wife moved in late in the morning while we were still out fishing and exploring. We came back and cleaned our fish and iced them down. While we were fussing around camp, we heard a car motor running, but it sounded like it was missing. The car was Jack’s. So we did the neighborly thing and went over to nose around. Jack was filling his air mattresses. He had a pump that ran on the power of the car engine. The pump plugged into a spark plug socket, hence the sound of the engine missing. We seriously wondered if he was filling his air mattresses with carbon monoxide! Uncle Lee would joke that if Jack wanted to get rid of his wife, all he needed was a well place pin hole!

That afternoon we headed off for the river and more fish. After a few minutes fishing we had limited out for the day. So we headed back to camp the build a fire, clean our fish and fix some dinner. Jack came over and told us he had been fishing the gorge and had some huge fish. We were impressed … after all, hiking into that gorge was a feat! Then we saw his fish. Those fish were no bigger that ours. But, he had 20! His wife didn’t fish, so he would catch his limit, bring it back to camp and then go catch his limit. We decided that next year we were bringing Aunt June and my mother so we could catch more fish! When he told us he had to bring his limit back to camp, we knew that he hadn’t gone into the gorge because there wasn’t enough time to climb into the gorge, fish, hike out and go back in.

The next day we fished and almost limited out. I had only eight fish, so I needed two more. But we were not having much luck in our afternoon locations. So we called it a day and went back to camp. Now Uncle Lee was an old fly fisherman. He missed fly fishing, but used salmon eggs because he figured that these planted fish wouldn’t know what a fly was. But he did bring his fly fishing equipment along with us. Now I have told this story so many times that I feel like I have written it down earlier, but I can’t find it. Right where we were camped next to the river, the river was fast running, crashed over rock and rapids. We had a couple of huge rocks we could easily climb on and fish the rapids. Just below our camping spot the river went wide, shallow and slow. It was a perfect place to practice fly fishing. So Uncle Lee headed over to practice. I headed out onto a rock to try to catch my other fish. Jack came out to clean his fish. He set up next to the slow part of the river near where Uncle Lee was fly fishing. Jack had his twenty fish in a creel and had two pie tins ... one for cleaning and one for the cleaned fish. Now, with all that in mind, put yourself on the rock with me. I had a clear view of all that now was to transpire. Jack had a few fish cleaned and in the pan for cleaned fish. His back was to that pan while he as cleaning a fish is the other pan. As Uncle Lee pulled his line out of the water to recast, he had a small fish on the end of his line. He noticed it too late to stop the cast and as he completed the cast and the line shot forward, the fish came loose from the hook and continued it flight … right towards Jack and his pan of cleaned fish. That little fish landed right in the pan … just behind Jack who didn’t see it. I saw it and motioned to Uncle Lee who looked just in time to see the fish land. I motioned him to be quiet. When Jack finished cleaning the fish, he turned to put it in the other pan. When he saw that little fish jumping in the pan, he jumped straight up and threw the fish in his hand up in the air. He looked all around, but could not figure out where that fish came from. He looked at me, at Uncle Lee, and back to the pan. I was laughing so hard my side ached. He never mentioned it to us, but we laughed for years. The ending of the story would come much later. It turned out that Jack lived near Uncle Lee and would come over often to ask him and “the boy” to go fishing with him. We never did, and we never told him where that fish came from. I am sure he died never knowing.

At the end of the week we packed up and headed home. We had a cooler full of fish. We weren’t sure if there was a possession law along with the limit law, so we hoped we wouldn’t see a game warden on the way out. As it turned out, one followed us all the way to Dardanelle. We were kind of nervous, but he just stayed behind us and tuned as he got into the town. When we got home, we took lots of pictures of our catch, put all the fish on the grill and had a good cookout with our families.

I still think of the Pidgeon Flat and that fishing trip. I hope my own children have some memories of the trout fishing we did in Alaska, much like my memories with my Uncle Leland.