C H A P T E R 12
(1971-1973)
The flight that was supposed to take me back to the states, made a refueling stop in Hawaii. Since I had an ITT to Korea, I made a change to another flight going that way. I'd formed some close contacts with some of the men in my unit, but our good-byes weren't maudlin. I think the adrenaline levels were pretty high, just knowing that we were leaving Vietnam and going home.
My new flight to Korea stopped off in Tokyo, Japan for refueling. Since I'd not spent any time in Japan before, and nobody in Korea was expecting me, I decided to take a little hiatus here before continuing on. I checked my bags into the airport locker and checked with the Air Force liaison officer to see when the next flight was leaving for Korea. He said they had two flights leaving every day for Korea, but I had to get my name on a stand-by list to fly space available. If no one else with a higher priority then me came along, they would seat me. I had to be physically present in the lounge when they announced the flight. I said okay, turned and left the terminal to see what there was to see in Japan.
Naturally, I had to lubricate the pipes a bit before I could enjoy what I was seeing, so I made several stops at local bars. Along about 9 p.m., I stumbled into this one bar full of men, most of whom were not Japanese. There weren't any women present, and a guard at the door said it was a "men only" night. I soon began to see why the women had been excluded.
The tables in the club had been lined up in a "T" shaped formation, and the men customers were seated with their drinks on either side of the tables. Soon, the lights were dimmed, and a nubile young lady came dancing out along the tables, accompanied by appropriate bump-and-grind music provided by a band. She was dressed rather skimpily in a diaphanous dress, long over-the-elbow gloves, decorous hose, and spiked heels. She promptly began to remove these items one-by-one, and in a seductively, sensuous manner. I thought, `great, a strip tease.' I'd seen them before and always enjoyed the spark they gave to my libido.
I was unprepared for the extremes this young lady went though, and several of the young ladies that followed. All the apparel was removed before the dance ended, and not only that, but they flaunted their bodies, and encouraged the men sitting along the tables to fondle and kiss or lick them in the most intimate places. Now I knew why women had been excluded from this little shindig! It was a wonder that those girls weren't raped right there on the tables. Under those circumstances, it wouldn't have surprised me to see a riot take place. Fortunately, that didn't happen.
I'd been sitting at the bar and drinking a rum and coke, while watching this floor show. I struck up a conversation with another American who seemed real friendly. I didn't know it at the time, but this guy may have been a pimp, for he introduced me to this nice, but slightly plump Japanese woman, who was several years older than I, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties. I ended up going home with her, and staying with her for the next three nights and two days.
It was my first experience with Japanese baths! In Japan, you take a bath before you take a bath; that is, you must be clean before entering the traditional tub that has the scalding water; at least the water seemed hot enough to scald. Short of doing that, what it did was to open all your pours and really relax you.
That first night, I couldn't stay in the tub too long, but it accomplished its purpose. Besides sobering me up a little bit, it made my body exquisitely sensitive to the little nuances of the foreplay that followed, and immediately preceded our lovemaking. The only thing disquieting about this experience was that she had a little white poodle that obviously was used to sharing her bed when she slept alone; he was not too pleased by my usurping his place.
I stayed with this lady during the remainder of my time in Japan. She was very companionable, spoke decent English, and was willing to drive me around from place to place in Tokyo. Every day, we'd go to the airport to see if I could make a flight. All the seats were going to persons that had a higher priority than I did, but I wasn't in a hurry anyway. Finally, on the third day, a space was made for me. I collected my bags and said my farewells to the gracious lady that had taken care of me for the past few days. I shall always remember her, for she was generous with her time and body, and she really tried to make me very comfortable in her country. If that guy that introduced me to her was her pimp, he sure didn't get much money from her for the services she performed for me.
When my plane landed at Kimpo, Korea, I caught a taxi to Yongsan. This was Eighth Army Headquarters, and I knew that there were busses leaving two or three times a day, from there, to all U.S. Military installations in Korea. I caught one going to Camp Page, in Chun Chon. This was where I had first met Chong Hui, and although I knew she was no longer living there, I didn't have a current address for her. I figured maybe someone of her old friends might be able to locate her for me.
The trip was only about three hours long because the roads had all been paved from Seoul to Chun Chon. Before, only the areas around the cities were paved; all interconnecting roads had been graded, but not paved. The countryside had become even more beautiful than I'd remembered, with here and there along the mountainous terrain, a Buddhist temple tucked away a bit off the road. Maybe I had romanticized the land in my memory, or maybe it was just that I had so recently left a landscape that was pockmarked throughout with bomb craters, and the desecration of decades of war, but this homecoming felt really good.
When I got to Camp Page (4th Missile Command Headquarters), I walked out toward the main gate, stopping just inside, and looked across the road to the house where Chong Hui and I had lived. Before tackling that issue, I needed some Dutch courage! I headed for the EM/NCO Club nearby. I had a beer or two and played some songs on the juke-box. There was hardly anyone in the place, because it was early afternoon. I didn't like the way my thoughts were brooding, so I decided to get it over with, and headed for the gate.
Pushing open the iron doorway, I stepped into the courtyard. I called for the mamasan, and she came out of her apartment. I recognized her immediately, but wasn't sure if she knew me. She spoke very little English, but yes, she remembered me. By sign language and much pantomime, she made me to understand that she wanted me to stay with her while she attempted to contact my wife. She made a few phone calls after making sure that I had a glass of mokoli (rice wine) and some kimchee.
One of the persons she called was one of my wife's old friends, who had an apartment nearby. She was a prostitute too, but wasn't active at this time. A soldier had fathered a boy by her, promising to marry her, but then had gone back to the states. He was still sending her money to raise the boy, and she had another source of income about which I can only surmise. This woman soon showed up at mamasans’ house. She spoke good English and had an excellent humor, so while we waited for my wife to get there, we passed away the time talking about what had been happening in our lives.
Time passed and it grew dark. Soon, the other girls in the compound began bringing home their "tricks" for the night. My wife's friend and I decided it would be less conspicuous to go to her house. We left word with mamasan where we would be when my wife arrived.
About nine-thirty that night, my wife showed up. She looked a bit peaked - as if she had really hastened to get there. She hadn't brought the boy (supposedly, our son) with her. I'm sure I must have been quite a surprise to her, showing up like that. She said she was living on the outskirts of Seoul.
I told her that I'd taken an inter-theater transfer directly from Vietnam to Korea and that I would soon be at Camp Eiler, a small compound just outside of Kimpo Airfield, in the town of Osari. I had stopped off there to see what the area was like, but I hadn't done any house hunting. Naturally, I wanted her and the boy to move there with me. She was non-committal about that. We talked until the wee hours of the morning, and then bedded down in her friend's house. We made love that night, but it was perfunctory rather than amorous. For two people that had been married for six years, it was like meeting a stranger. We had been separated for four of those years, so I guess it isn't surprising. Still, in my estimation, she hadn't been faithful. I think if she had, the love would have held up even under those circumstances.
I told Chong Hui that once I settled in, I would want her to find a nice place for us to stay nearby, so I'd send for her or come get her. She didn't want to leave where she was living, but said she would commute to me like she had done when I was in the DMZ. Nothing was settled about this, but she gave me an address to contact her. The next day, Chong Hui headed back to Seoul. I recrossed the street to Camp Page and caught a bus returning to Yongsan and then on to Camp Eiler. I had a foreboding about how things would work out in this marriage, and it wasn't good!
When I reported to Headquarters Company, 307th Signal Battalion, I found out that I was the senior E-6 in the Commo platoon, so I became the platoon sergeant. Our quarters were Quonset huts, with bays for the troops, E 5 and lower; the higher ranking enlisted had rooms.
It was my function to ensure that the men's appearance was neat and according to uniform regulation; that haircuts were maintained, and work assignments were properly made and the work accomplished in a timely fashion. There were eighty-seven men in the platoon, about a third of them being stationed at outlying sites with their commo rigs. I was responsible for seeing to it that all the commo equipment was properly maintained and inventoried at all times; that included the equipment at headquarters and the outlying sites.
There was one other E-6, and three E-5s to help me maintain discipline and get the job done. The E-6 said he had a heart problem, and often, when he was supposed to be out on the line in the motor-pool, supervising the work on the rigs or equipment, I couldn't find him. When I started to track him down after this had happened a few times, I could usually find him at the snack bar, or goofing off in his hootch. One day, at about 10 a.m., I found him back in his bed, and smelling of booze. He had an open bottle near his bedside too. I woke him and chewed him out, telling him that he was setting a bad example for the troops to follow. His excuse was his heart.
When it came time for me to make out an efficiency report on the man, I rated him honestly, that is to say, not very highly. He didn't have a heart problem, his problem was with booze. The first sergeant called me in and argued that the report was not acceptable and that I'd have to do it over again. I explained the circumstances under which I'd had to work with this man, but he was adamant that I change it. Reluctantly, I did so, but I still rated the man lower than the 1SG wanted.
Another man I had problems with was an E 5. This man was a superb soldier ninety percent of the time. He came from a religious family, his father being a preacher. His uniforms were spotless, and brass highly shined. He too, had a problem with booze; on payday, he would go out into the village of Osari and fornicate and imbibe until his money was gone. This took about three or four days, during which he'd often miss formation, or would neglect the appearance of his uniform. He would fail to supervise the men he had given task to, leaving it up to the other NCOs to check up on these jobs.
I called him aside on several occasions and tried to make him understand how he was undermining the efforts of me and the other NCOs to maintain discipline; that he was setting a bad example. He always said he understood, and that it wouldn't happen again, but invariably it did, shortly after he got some money in his pocket. I finally had to give him an article 15 in the hopes that it would straighten him out. I later learned that he went downhill from there and several years later, I saw him as a civilian, seeking medical treatment at Eisenhower Army Medical Center, here at Fort Gordon, Georgia.
It was customary to inspect the troops on a daily basis during the morning formation. It wasn't a formal inspection, those were held once a week. Normally, I'd just correct the uniform violations, point out the haircuts that were needed, or
shoes to be shined, etc. If I told a man to get a haircut, I expected it to be done by the next day. If he didn't have the money, I even told him that I'd give it to him and he could pay me back later. A few individuals took me up on the offer.
At about this time, there was a lot of flack going around about haircuts. It had gotten so bad that the Army felt it had to put out picture posters of what an acceptable haircut looked like. White sidewalls were now out, but it was expected that the hair would still be kept neatly groomed around the ears and short enough so that the headgear fit properly on the head without hair sticking out in an unsightly manner.
The Afro hairstyle had become a very popular thing with blacks, and a lot of them pushed the haircut regulations to the limits to see if they could get away with it. I had about three black men in my platoon who I had to constantly send to the barber, sometimes twice in the same day. This caused quite a bit of grousing in my platoon, and again the matter was brought to the 1SG's attention and I was called in front of him.
You can't argue with pictures, and it was obvious that the men were exceeding the limits of the haircut allowed them. The 1SG wasn't happy with me or my decisions. He seemed to think that I was causing trouble in the platoon, so instead of backing me up, he had me transferred. I later learned that this is the same first sergeant that was caught black marketing in the village and was courts marshaled and busted. At the time of my transfer, he attempted to give me a bad evaluation report, but he hadn't known me long enough to be my rater, so that report was ignored.
I've gotten a little bit ahead of myself here, so it is necessary that I relate some other incidents that occurred while I was at Camp Eiler.
At about my second week at the camp, I decided to take a look outside in the village. I walked out the gate and down the street, stopping occasionally to look at various stores. Osari was a small town located at the end of the Kimpo Airport runway. The main street was unpaved, and in wintertime or during the monsoon, one couldn't walk those streets without getting muddy. It was March when I got there, and the air still had the bite of winter, with the monsoons just around the corner.
Having walked the entire length of the main street (only about a quarter mile long), I began my way back, with the intent of stopping off at a little mokoli house I had seen just outside the Camp Eiler Gate.
I had to step down a small flight of steps to enter the house, and of course, at such an establishment, it wasn't necessary to remove my boots. That was only done when entering private quarters. The house mamasan seated me at a table and brought me some mokoli and a bowl of kimchee with some chopsticks. I was quite comfortable using these instruments and liked the kimchee and mokoli. It always caused a stir when Koreans saw me eating their foods and handling the chopsticks with such ease. Most American GIs did not bother learning the local customs or tasting the foods. I'd grown used to it in my two previous tours.
While seated there, it began to grow dark outside. It was about 7 p.m. then. I had brought a paperback book that I had begun a few days earlier, so I opened that and began to read. All that I wanted to do was sit and drink my mokoli and read my book. Apparently the house mamasan had other ideas.
I learned later that she controlled three girls (prostitutes), one who lived across the street, nick-named Popeye, for obvious reasons, one who lived in her quarters, and one named Chong, who lived in a small cubicle at the back of the store. The house mamasan rented them their rooms, furniture (a bed and some mats), and bought them clothes. All this was in consideration for a cut in any money they made off their "tricks." Many times, the girls had to give their mamasan so much money, that they continued on a downward spiral, ever deeper into debt, never getting out. Often this led to the girl's suicide.
The girl named Chong had come to keep me company at the summons of mamasan. She sat down opposite me and introduced herself. She was a pretty young lady, twenty-six years old, but a bit on the skinny side. I hadn't expected female companionship for that night, so our conversation was kept light. She asked about me and some of the places I'd been. I told her I was still married to a Korean woman, and showed her a picture of my wife. She complimented me, but I learned later that she wasn't too impressed by me.
Along about curfew time, I had drunk quite a bit of mokoli, and was beginning to get horny. I didn't give a damn about a curfew and figured I would be able to get back in the gate anyway, so we retired to her room at the back of the store. We had agreed upon a sum of money, but she wasn't happy with the amount I tendered - as a matter of fact, she thought I was cheap. Still, I guess I was her last chance for the night. She'd been tied up with me all evening and hadn't had a chance to look elsewhere.
She insisted on me washing from head to toe before getting into the bed. There were no bathing facilities (bathtubs or showers), so she filled a large pan with hot water, made me undress and began washing me from head to toe. Before she was finished, she could readily see that I was aroused sufficiently for her purposes. What she didn't know, was that I had been so chaste over a number of years, that the erection I had wouldn't go down after I'd been sated the first, nor the second, or third time. It was only after I'd fallen asleep that I relaxed.
In the morning, when I woke up, I was ready to go again. I got more than my money's worth that night, and I think Chong was a bit nonplussed by it all, maybe even smitten.
At about this time, I noticed a young lady who worked in the snack bar on Camp Eiler. She was cute and was the reason why I spent a lot of time in the snack bar.
We began dating each other. Usually, I'd bring her on Camp Eiler to the snack bar or EM/NCO Club. We would dance or play the slot machines; Kum Cha (for that was her name) loved the slots, as did I, and whenever either of us would hit a jackpot, we'd split the winnings. She couldn't claim hers’ unless I was with her or some other GI signed for it.
At about June of 1971, I'd decided to divorce Chong Hui, so I contacted her and told her of my decision, and why. She arranged for the lawyer and a date was set for me to go to Seoul and sign the necessary papers. I had to agree to child support until he reached the age of eighteen. Even though I could have protested the boy’s parentage, I agreed to do that. It only took about a month for the divorce to become final, but what peeved me was that at the conclusion of the divorce, my then ex wife suggested that I throw a party for the lawyer; it was customary she said. I blew my stack! In addition to my having to pay the lawyers fee, and the terms had gone all her way, she wanted me to fete the lawyer! I told her no, in no uncertain terms. If she wanted to celebrate with her lawyer, she was welcomed to do so, but I'd be damned if I were going to pay for it!
Shortly after this, Kum Cha and I began looking for a new apartment away from the squalor near the base. We found a place down at the end of the main street, and just at the end of the runway at Kimpo. It was behind a photographer's studio. It was a walled-in compound with a mamasan and papasan, their grown son and his family, and one prostitute with a "yobo" (steady) living next door to us. We had the place re-plastered and painted and wallpapered. It was only a one room apartment with a separate kitchen area, but it was large. There was a very large bed and we furnished it with an aquarium, a small TV, and later, a refrigerator that I purchased at the PX in Yongsan.
When I transferred to Kimpo, we stayed in that house, because it still wasn't too far from the main gate at Kimpo. If push came to shove, I could always walk home at the end of the work day, it was only about three quarter of a mile. Usually though, I'd catch the shuttle bus that traveled from Kimpo, to Eiler, to another American installation further down the road. That bus ran about every half hour.
My new duty assignment was as the training NCO for 4th Signal Group Headquarters on Kimpo Air Base. As such, I was responsible for assuring that the proper training was carried out in three signal battalions of about a thousand men each. There were Army Regulations that outlined the training that was required at all levels, from individual to battalion, so it was a matter of familiarizing myself with the regulations?
Most of my job involved follow-up telephone calls to the training NCOs of the various units in the area, to make sure the Group policy was being followed. I had to reserve the firing range for companies and battalions whenever they had to fire their weapons for qualification (this had to be done by every soldier at least once a year). The proper amount of ammunition had to be ordered, depending on the type of fire to be executed and the number of persons firing. Safety regulations had to be posted at all companies.
I had to conduct CBR (chemical, biological and radiological) inspections of all the units to insure that upkeep on the mask and ancillary equipment was being done, and that classes were being given in proper CBR procedures. Another aspect of my job was to reserve a helicopter for the Group Commander (a bird colonel) whenever he had to go someplace distant and return the same day. My title for this task was assistant flight coordinator. This job was usually handled by the flight coordinator, Joe Norwillo. Of him, I'll have more to say shortly.
Shortly after joining 4th Signal Group Headquarters, I asked for, and was granted permission to live off post. The quarters had to be inspected prior to approval because of the incidence of GIs dying in them from carbon monoxide poisoning. The floors of said houses (ondul floors) were heated by burning charcoal briquettes, and funneling the heat under the floors. If the rooms are not properly sealed, carbon monoxide can seep into the room and kill the occupants. All those houses in that area had outdoor toilet facilities, as did ours, so they couldn't object on those grounds. It was a civilian (Korean) inspector, under contract to the Army, that inspected the houses GIs wanted to live in, and I suspect that many times, approval was given after some money had crossed his palm. That is the accepted way of doing business in Korea - or was at the time.
In the spring of 1972, it had become a habit for me and Joe Norwillo, to take our afternoon meals at our desk in the office. Joe too, was married to a Korean girl, and we both were used to eating Korean food. Trouble is, the food is very aromatic, especially if there is kimchee, which is eaten with every meal in Korea.
I should explain that kimchee, is fermented cabbage that is very hot, because it's made with hot pepper, green onions, garlic, salt, and sometimes baby shrimp or oyster, all minced very finely and spread between the leaves of the cabbage. It is then left to ferment in huge earthenware pots for a month or more before eating. It is not cooked, but sliced into manageable bites and placed in a communal bowl upon the table.
After about four days of Joe and me bringing our food in to eat in the office, and the officers and other enlisted men returning to work and smelling the "strange odor," we had to confess to the fact that we had been eating in the office. They asked us not to bring such pungent foods into the work space in the future. Joe and I took to going next door to the bowling alley to bowl during the lunch hour.
We formed a bowling team to bowl in the league during this time. There were Joe and I, plus two Air Force enlisted men and another two Army men from a compound down the road. All of us bowled almost every day, but as a team, we only bowled once a week. We called ourselves "The Flying Tigers," after the Flying Tiger Air Lines that flew out of Kimpo Airport.
We were good; good enough to finish as the league champions that year, I still have the trophy and a picture of our team on my desk. The Flying Tiger Airlines were nice enough to furnish us with embroidered bowling shirts (a large, colorful tiger, with wings on the back) when we became contenders for the championship. After we had won, they paid for a small party we had in the town of Kimpo.
Joe and I had become real good bowlers, bowling at least one two-hundred game out of every three games. Both our averages were in the 180 range. We wrote each other for many years after we parted in 1973. I saw him again briefly in 1978, at Dallas, Texas. He was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, but used to commute home to Dallas on Weekends. At that time, I was going to school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and passed through Dallas a couple of times while traveling back and forth to my home in Georgia.
I married Kum Cha in March of 1973, and shortly thereafter, had to say my good-byes. The Army had done it to me again; sending me packing shortly after my marriage, knowing I didn't have enough time to get the necessary paperwork ready for her return with me. We parted on a wet and dreary day outside our house on the main street of Osari, when I jumped on the shuttle bus. She didn't want to go to the airport with me and it was just as well.
One thing I failed to mention, Kum Cha had a daughter born to her in January of 1970, a year and some, before I met her. Kum Cha's parents in Seoul had been raising the daughter, and occasionally, we had her at our house, but in truth, she thought of her grandmother as her mom.
At this time, she wouldn't have known me as her father, but I had intentions to adopt her whenever I managed to get her and her mother to the states. It would take eleven months for Kum Cha to join me. Jean, her daughter, would join us three months later, after making the trip by herself at the age of four years old. Of course, the flight attendants were marvelous to her during the whole trip. She didn't speak a word of English, but communicated her needs anyway, in the timeless fashion that kids manage to do that.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Chapter 11 of Looking Back
C H A P T E R 11
(1970-1971)
My return to the states was anti-climatic. I flew a chopper out of the
B-Team compound next door, to Pleku, where I boarded a C-131 for Qui Nhon. There I was processed aboard a civilian airliner that flew to Honolulu and then to Seattle.
Although Hawaii was our first entry into the U.S., we didn't deplane there, so it came as quite a shock to experience the negativism we encountered at Seattle. I had a short layover and a plane change to make, so I spent some time in the terminal.
For the most part, people seemed to ignore the returning Vietnam soldiers, but there were the occasional louts who made it a point to make snide remarks about us that were loud enough to be heard. Remarks such as "baby killer" and "lifer" were not uncommon. Most of this came from long haired, "hippie" types. They were a complete antithesis to my way of life. I couldn't understand where the hostility was coming from, and didn't want to cause a scene there in the airport, so I kept my mouth shut, and vowed to change out of uniform at the earliest possible time.
I'd been reassigned back to Fort Carson, Colorado, but had a 30 day leave in which to visit my mother and brother and his family. Mom was still living in Attleboro, Massachusetts. I flew into Providence, R.I., and caught a taxi to my mother's house. I wanted to surprise her, and I did. I could have called some of my relatives who lived nearby and they would have been glad to come out to the airport to pick me up, but I was afraid my mother would have known of my coming.
She had a third floor, walk-up apartment, with three bedrooms. She was living by herself, but I suspect that she made sure she had a place where visitors could sleep over, namely me. Harold (my brother) had a wife and family in Virginia, but although I, too, was married, my wife was still in Korea. For all intents and purposes, I was still a single man and she wanted to be able to put me up if I came to her home.
Knowing what she had been through at the mental hospital, I could tell she had aged quite a bit. She looked ten years older than her natural years. Still, she looked marvelous to me! Her mind had finally accepted the reality of her situation; she was alone now, and would have to fend for herself.
We had a lot of news to catch-up on. We stayed up late that night, talking about what had been happening in our lives. I learned that she now had a job making religious jewelry and other icons. It was still within walking distance of where she lived. She would go in the next morning and ask for some time off to visit with her son, home on leave from Vietnam. They gave her a week off, but she had to work the following week. That left me on my own during the day to sleep in as late as I wanted. I also took advantage to visit next door with my aunt and uncle and with some of my cousins in the area.
My relatives were glad to see me, and curious about how the war was going over there, as if I could tell them. I was only an E-6, and not privy to the big picture of the status of the war. Mostly we talked of times past and I got caught up on a lot of the family happenings. By this time I had a host of second cousins, too many for me to even begin to remember their names.
When it came time for me to leave, my uncle Joe drove me to the Naval Base at Newport, Rhode Island, and I managed to hitch a ride on a twin engine sub-chaser that was heading for the Naval Air Station at Norfolk, Virginia. They had orders to check out the plane on the flight down there (at least that's what they told me), so would have to put it through a lot of maneuvers.
Before taking off, I was briefed on how to use the parachute and exit the plane should the need become necessary. I was given a barf bag prior to take off and it's a good thing too. I had need of it when we neared the Virginia coast. That was the first and only time I ever got airsick, and the last time I rode in one of those planes.
I visited with my brother and his family for a week and then I flew on to Fort Carson, Colorado. Again, I was assigned to the Fifth Signal Battalion, but after seeing that they had an overage of personnel in my MOS, I went down the road to my old outfit, the 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry, and talked to my old first sergeant. He had found a home with that unit and was still the head honcho. He managed to pull a few strings and got me reassigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop as the platoon sergeant of the commo platoon and Unit CBR NCO.
It was difficult for me to adjust to a five day work week here in the states. I'd been so used to a five-and-a-half day work week, all my military career, and then a seven day work week in Vietnam. When weekends rolled around, I didn't know what to do with all my time. I spent a lot of it in the Golden Boot NCO Club at first, drinking and shooting pool.
I went downtown to Colorado Springs to buy myself a second hand car. It was then that I found out that sergeant Sullivan, who I'd given a limited power of attorney to sell my Ford Falcon after I left for Vietnam the last time, had let it get repossessed instead. In order to get the financing to get another car, I'd have to pay off that outstanding bill; pay for a car that was long gone, and I hadn't seen or used in about fifteen months. Somehow, I managed to pay that bill off and get the financing for a second hand, old clunker, Volkswagen bus. Never again would I let someone have my power of attorney!
I didn't want to stay in the barracks anymore so I decided to move in with some other sergeants who were living in a three bedroom trailer in Security, Colorado. Trouble is, sergeants Purdy, Madza, and Royal were already occupying the bedrooms. Madza was leaving in about three weeks though, so they said if I could put up with sleeping on the couch for that time, I could move in with them. I didn't like the idea, but liked the idea of living in the barracks even less. I moved in with them.
Sam Purdy and I got to be the best of friends. He, Sergeant Royal, and I would all get off work at the fort and go home in my bus. It's a good thing I had that bus too, because Sam weighed over two hundred pounds and Royal was closer to three hundred pounds. We would throw on a quick change of civilian cloths and walk a block further down the street. Post 38 of the American Legion was open for business. It was a convivial atmosphere and served our brand of beer at the bar. Sometimes we ate there but usually, after a few beers to unwind, we would stroll back home and I'd fix supper. I was the cook of the lot! We did most of our house cleaning on the weekends.
One day Sam, Royal, and I decided to head up into the mountains in the VW bus. I would never attempt such a trip today in a vehicle like that, but I was pretty daring in those days. We went through Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and up into the mountains. It was a gorgeous trip with spectacular views that I'll never forget. The higher we went, the more snow that was on the ground. Snow stays on the ground in many areas of the mountains for much of the year.
My bus could barely make the hills, slowing down to about twenty miles per hour on the steepest hills. Although I tried flooring the gas pedal, that was the top speed on inclines. It's fortunate that there weren't many cars making that trip at the time we went.
Our final destination turned out to be Cripple Creek, Colorado, an old time mining town. We hadn't planned on that place but it turned out to be a fascinating place. We toured some of the old mines, and in the museum, saw a display of how one of the mines was laid out through the different levels. Of course, most of the mines had long since been played out. The town subsisted mostly on tourist trade from the Springs down below.
We took in an old time floor show; the dancers and actors were dressed in period clothes and put on a Shakespearian Play and danced the Can-can for us. Even the rinky-dink of the old player piano was in keeping with the "old west frontier image." That was a marvelous, impromptu trip we took, one that I savor to this day. The trip back down the mountain was less spectacular than the trip up - and faster too!
There was a go-go dancer who worked at a lounge at a golf club just outside the back gate at Fort Carson. I used to spend a lot of time there, mostly because of her; I was sweet on her. She was nice to me and smiled and talked with me occasionally. I was hoping to be able to take her home one night after work. I got my chance about three months after meeting her.
She got off at 2 a.m. and we got into my bus and headed for her home. I didn't know she lived way out in the boonies, but she did. She also had a live-in boyfriend, which she forgot to mention. I was pretty gassed up on alcohol and I shouldn't have been driving, but I was young and foolish; besides my opportunity to score with this girl had presented itself and I took the chance.
When we got to her place, I followed her up the steps to her apartment only to be greeted at the door by her boyfriend. She introduced me to him, which I thought was nice, and he thanked me for taking her home. I mumbled something about good-night and started back to my vehicle. After sitting in the bus for a few minutes and thinking about this, I decided to go and see the girl again. Her boyfriend was real nice about me bothering him again, but convinced me I should return to the base. As if he didn't know what I had been up to! I started back to Fort Carson.
My head was splitting, and I had a mouthful of cotton; somebody was blowing in my ear. I opened my eyes and jerked completely upright; there was a horse staring in the bus window at me! I looked around and I was parked just off the road in a farmyard about a hundred yards from a house. It was the only habitat I saw in any direction. I was in the middle of nowhere!
Since I had no idea where I was, but I knew I was late for work, I stumbled out of the driver’s seat and made my way to the farmhouse. A nice old lady answered the door and I asked her if I could use her phone to call Fort Carson. She let me in and I said hi to her husband who was sitting in the kitchen drinking his morning coffee. I called the fort and explained my position to my first sergeant. He reamed me out for missing formation, but said he would try to cover for me until I got in to work. I thanked him and hung up.
I explained my predicament to the old couple, leaving out the part about the go-go dancer, and said I was real sorry about having to bother them at this time of the morning. They were real nice about it and even offered me some coffee and breakfast if I wanted. I said thank you for a cup of coffee, but had to pass up a meal. They gave me directions back to the Fort.
Ron Madza had long ago cleared Fort Carson and departed and now Sergeant Royal was clearing post too. He was being discharged for being overweight. I didn't know it at the time, but both he and Madza had used the services of a couple in the American Legion to falsify the clearing papers.
When clearing post, each place that is cleared has to mark the papers in a distinctive way. The last place to be cleared was always TA-50, where the field gear was turned in. That is the web gear, shelter half, canteen, parka, etc. When clearing them, they used a notary public seal to verify that everything had been turned in. Royal didn't have all his equipment to turn in, so he got a former Notary Public who was an auxiliary member of Post 38, to use her outdated seal to verify the papers. She offset the plate slightly so that they would be blurred. It worked, or so he had thought, because he was able to leave post.
Having been in the states for seven months, and not finding the duty very satisfactory, I volunteered to go back to Vietnam. I had to reenlist on a short to do it (meaning I still had some time left on my last enlistment), and was unaware that I would have to pay back part of the lump-sum reenlistment bonus I had previously drawn. That was made amply clear after I got back in country in Vietnam.
As I cleared post, I noted that I came up short one parka and parka liner. I later discovered that Royal had taken it. I too, used the services of the former Notary Public so that I might be able to clear post. The only difference is that I got caught. The commanding officer called me into his office and asked me about the seal on my clearing papers and if I had really cleared TA-50. At first I said yes, everything was above board, but I didn't know that the papers from sergeant Madza and Royal had already come under suspicion, and now my papers just about clinched the case. The Criminal Investigation Division (CID) had been called in!
The commander and CID agreed that most of my gear had been turned in and in return for getting the false seal, so that the clearing scam could be stopped, they wouldn't press charges against me.
The most difficult thing for me to do was to go back to American Legion Post 38, and ask the lady for her seal. She and her husband were fine members of the post and community; they had only thought to help some Army members to clear the installation. None of us looked upon the action as stealing, but that is what it was actually. When I explained the depth of our culpability to her, and that the CID was aware of the bogus seal, she surrendered her seal to me, and I turned it in the next day. I was allowed to leave post without further disciplinary action being taken against me.
My plane landed at Tan Son Nhut, and I was taken by truck (a deuce-and-a-half) to Long Binh, for in-processing. It only took about three days this time. It was here that I found out I would have to pay back some of the lump-sum reenlistment bonus I had drawn on my first reenlistment. The amount was a little over $3,000 and it was agreed that the payback would be at about $150 a month until it was paid off. It broke my heart to part with that money, but the method of payback was the least painful.
I was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 77th Artillery, headquartered right down the road at Bien Hoa. The unit had four fire support bases (FSBs) and a relay point on top of Nui Chow Chan (a mountain). Each FSB had two 175mm, self-propelled guns, two 8 inch, self-propelled guns, and a bofors gun. The TOC (Tactical Operations Center) at each place was bunkered-in and had secure FM radios for communications. They also had a back-up AM radio teletype set at each FSB and one at Headquarters. These latter, along with the attendant operators, were my responsibility.
The concussion, from the firing of such big guns, often shook the fixtures from the walls of the RATT vans. Fortunately, they were not often used by the commanders, but were used as back-up. Still, they had to be maintained in a working order, and to that end, were required to come up on the air each day and make contact with headquarters at Bien Hoa in both voice and teletype mode.
Since I was the senior 05C, I had to make periodic checks of all the RATT rigs that were at each FSB and the relay point on the mountain.
The only way to get to the mountain was by chopper (helicopter), because Charlie owned the base of the mountain. The top of the mountain was sometimes socked in by clouds and the chopper would have to wait for a hole in the clouds to land on the helipad. It was nice and cool up there, year around, and the brass didn't bother you as long as you did your job. We had three EM manning the relay which was a secure FM radio. It seldom went bad but the one time it did, I went up there only to find out that some of the men were into pot and heroin and had screwed the set up. I got it straightened out and warned one man and had the other relieved. It ran pretty smoothly after that.
Two of the FSBs could only be reached by air, the other two by convoy. The scariest one by far was the one we had near the Parrot's Beak area in Tay Ninh province. We had to pass through a town called Go Da Ha on the way. That was the eeriest experience I'd ever had and I made that trip four times. Sometimes you'd go through the village and people would smile and wave, at other times they'd just stare at you as you passed. That was a very unfriendly area for a lone American 1 1/4 Ton truck to navigate. We usually kept the pedal to the metal when going through there.
Xuan Loc was another place we had a FSB. It was on the far side of Nui Chow Chan and could only be reached on radio through the relay point. I made two trips out there, passing the huge rubber plantations on the way. There was an old pink building that had once been a bar/hangout in better days; this was just outside of Xuan Loc. There were still some prostitutes working out of there but the two times we stopped off there, I sipped a 33 beer while I waited for my driver to slake his desires.
I stayed at one fire support base near the Cambodian border for three days and got to see the guns in action. They were firing the bee-hive rounds with short fuses. You could follow the trajectory of the round as it left the muzzle and landed several clicks (kilometers) away. I also got to see some of the night sensor gear in operation. I couldn't tell from the audio or the computer screen if there was human movement, but those operators called in some fire missions on something that was moving out there. I'd have hated to be on the receiving end of those shells!
My supply sergeant at Bien Hoa took me into Saigon a couple of times and introduced me to the owner of a bar/hotel downtown. He was an American with a Vietnamese wife/girl. He had the place in the woman's name because he couldn't own property in Vietnam, and there was probably something illegal in what he was doing. I think he was a civilian.
On one of these trips, there was a meeting in the hotel and a bunch of us became charter members of a new VFW post, post number 10235, called Saigon Memorial Post, Saigon. I'm member number 147. I still have my card, and although the post has undoubtedly become inactive long ago, there aren't many of us around, so it might have some significant value someday.
Next door to that place was another hotel where I met a young Vietnamese girl that satisfied my every need whenever I was in town. That wasn't often, only about five times.
One day, after hoisting a few beers in the club (I wasn't on duty), I decided to go to downtown Saigon. I caught a truck full of GIs going that way and they dropped me off near the USO. Now we had been told to only change our MPCs (military payment certificates) for local money in authorized places. The USO was one of these places, and so I was headed there to change some money. Before I got in the door, an old Vietnamese lady accosted me and said she would change my money. She was offering a higher rate of exchange than the USO, so after she counted out her money and rolled it up, I counted out mine and we made the exchange. It wasn't until I had gone into a bar and ordered a drink, that I discovered that she had slipped me a rolled up wad of newspaper with a couple of Piaster notes on the outside. I had been hoodwinked! There wasn't much I could do about it. The lady was long gone by the time I got back to that location. Nobody around there knew anything about it; right! I spent several very depressing hours on the main street and then caught another truck heading back to Bien Hoa.
I hadn't taken an R & R (Rest and Relaxation) during my first tour in Vietnam, but I was determined to do so this time. About six months into my tour I went to Hawaii. I had found out my father's address in Hawaii and determined to see him again. He had remarried a Greek woman with two teenage daughters.
When my flight arrived in Hawaii, I stepped off the bus at Fort DeBusey and a young wahine gave me the traditional lei around my neck. I checked into a nearby hotel. After relaxing a bit in my room, I called my father's house. He wasn't in, but his wife offered to come and get me. She described what she would be wearing and her VW bug. When we met about an hour later, I found her to be a very charming person, only slightly younger than my own mother. I had thought my old man would have married a young thing, but he surprised me.
She took me to the CPO (Chief Petty Officer) Club at the naval base, that's where my father was. I should have known he would be out drinking. That, and golf, were his favorite pastimes. Luckily, he wasn't drunk yet. He introduced me around to his buddies there in the club (technically, I was an E-6 and the club was for E-7 and above), and bragged on me a lot - the Vietnam son on R & R, etc. He was proud of me. We left for his house after a couple of drinks. Dad wanted me to move in with him that night, but I knew the hotel wouldn't give me my money back so I waited until the next day to move out of the hotel and in with him.
My week of R & R stretched into two weeks when I became dehydrated on some Crown Royal, Scotch Whiskey I had brought for my father. During the third day at his house, after we had gone out to play 18 holes of golf, I popped the cork on the bottle and mixed us a couple of drinks. My dad only had that one drink and then he and his wife retired for the afternoon. I sat up drinking and thinking about the past. Not only was I not used to the hard whiskey, but I drank more of it, and at a faster rate than was good for me. I passed out, and later developed diarrhea, and a fever.
When I woke my father up on one of my frequent visits to the toilet, he noted my sickness and took me to Tripler Army Medical Center. It was there that they told me I was dehydrated. They fed me fluids, and stuck a tube into my urethra to monitor the drainage. That was most painful and made a believer out of me. I never again got dehydrated in that manner!
I was in the hospital for two days and when they released me, they extended my R & R another week. It was almost worth it to spend the extra time with my dad. We got to see some more of the island and played some more golf together. I ended up buying him a complete new set of golf clubs and bag. All too soon, it was time for me to return to Vietnam. Little did I know it would be the last time I ever saw my dad. He died in 1983 without further contact between us.
When I got back to my company, I found out that a new man I had been breaking in on the RATT at headquarters had been sent to one of the FSBs. He was inexperienced, and when the FSB came under ground attack one night, he ran out to the berm (perimeter of the compound) and began shooting at the enemy with an AK-47 that he got earlier in a trade. Nobody had told him that the AK-47 makes a distinctive sound when fired. Our own troops thought the perimeter had been breached and turned their fire on him. He was killed outright! I've often wondered what would have happened if I hadn't gone on R & R. I know I wouldn't have let him go to a FSB so soon after arriving in-country. The commo officer had to write a letter home to his parents. That's one job that I didn't envy him!
Intelligence summaries had shown that we needed to establish a new location for one of our fire support bases. We started early one morning and strung out a convoy heading into the hinterland. I don't remember exactly where it was right now, but it was somewhere about forty clicks northwest of Saigon. There was the whole complement of armament, two 175mm guns, two 8 inch guns, and a bofors gun, plus related equipment and men to man a new FSB.
The trip out there took most of the whole day and was very dusty traveling on dirt roads. I was riding in a jeep with a young second lieutenant and another enlisted man and the driver. On one of the last stops for the convoy, it was determined that an 8 inch gun was missing! It seems that the gun had taken the wrong turn in an earlier fork in the road, and because of all the dust, nobody had noticed its absence. They apparently thought the convoy was just ahead and were trying to catch-up to it. Because of the terrain, radio contact with the gun had been lost.
The Lieutenant I was with volunteered to go back and find the gun and help it return to the convoy. Not wanting to abandon the jeep in the face of this decision, we all went along with it. Back we went! It was twilight and visibility was worsening. We found the fork in the road where they had made the wrong turn and began to race up it. We had all locked and loaded our weapons and were on the alert for any treachery that might happen. I saw a shadow flit across the road about 200 meters ahead and shouted to the others to look out! It turned out to be an ARVN roadblock, but it had sure scared the hell out of us. They told us the gun had passed about fifteen minutes ago. We chased after them but met them shortly thereafter coming toward us. They had finally realized their mistake and were returning. We both raced to catch up to the convoy.
We caught up with it just before pulling into the new area. Some Seabees, with earth-moving equipment, had felled a large area of trees and dug out positions for the TOC, individual sleeping areas, and perimeter bunkers. The wonders of modern combat! We didn't have to dig foxholes! There were even corrugated steel conduit halves that were quickly placed over the scooped out trenches and sandbagged over. The sandbagging was the hardest labor we troops had to do. Most of this work was done that night, and the next day, the finishing touches were made to the compound. We were most vulnerable during this phase of the move, so everyone worked as fast as they could.
During my tour of duty, I had always carried a hunting knife on my belt. This was not a part of the regular issue of army equipment, but nobody had complained. When not doing anything particular at the base camp, I used to go out back of the commo platoon building and practice throwing my knife. I got to be real good at it. So much so, that I could turn around a hundred and eighty degrees, draw my knife, throw it at a target a little bigger than a quarter, twenty-five feet away, and hit it, all within about two seconds. The men became scared of me for some reason and complained to the first sergeant about my behavior. I was called on the carpet and made to cease such activities.
The Vietnamization process began to accelerate in 1971. We were told to inventory all our equipment prior to standing down. The entire unit was going back to the states and our equipment would be turned over to the Vietnamese. After this was done in March, we were moved to Long Binh and put in a holding barracks until we could be processed out. We were told this would take two to three weeks.
I had a room to myself in a corner of the second floor. The previous occupant was an artist. He had covered many parts of the bare wood walls with his drawings, which he did in colored pencil. One picture at the head of my bed was of a skull, but if you looked closely, you could see that the skull was made up of many naked people writhing around in various contorted positions. It looked like a representation of what Hades is supposed to look like. I wanted to take that picture home very badly, but short of sawing a hole in the corner of the building, I couldn't do it.
We had few duties while waiting, so most of us didn't mind. There was a swimming pool nearby; no girls, but other amenities could be had, such as beer. I took the opportunity to go to the dentist for a long needed check-up.
I only had seven teeth in my upper jaw and consequently it took me a long time to eat my food. The dentist told me a tooth had to come out. I told him that if he was going to take that one, he might as well take the rest of them too, and give me a prosthesis. He did that and I've never regretted it! I had those teeth for fourteen years and never had to use an adhesive. They were molded to my palette.
I elected to take an ITT (Inter-theater Transfer), and go directly from Vietnam to Korea. I hoped to get back to my wife of the past six years. We had been separated for four of those six years.
(1970-1971)
My return to the states was anti-climatic. I flew a chopper out of the
B-Team compound next door, to Pleku, where I boarded a C-131 for Qui Nhon. There I was processed aboard a civilian airliner that flew to Honolulu and then to Seattle.
Although Hawaii was our first entry into the U.S., we didn't deplane there, so it came as quite a shock to experience the negativism we encountered at Seattle. I had a short layover and a plane change to make, so I spent some time in the terminal.
For the most part, people seemed to ignore the returning Vietnam soldiers, but there were the occasional louts who made it a point to make snide remarks about us that were loud enough to be heard. Remarks such as "baby killer" and "lifer" were not uncommon. Most of this came from long haired, "hippie" types. They were a complete antithesis to my way of life. I couldn't understand where the hostility was coming from, and didn't want to cause a scene there in the airport, so I kept my mouth shut, and vowed to change out of uniform at the earliest possible time.
I'd been reassigned back to Fort Carson, Colorado, but had a 30 day leave in which to visit my mother and brother and his family. Mom was still living in Attleboro, Massachusetts. I flew into Providence, R.I., and caught a taxi to my mother's house. I wanted to surprise her, and I did. I could have called some of my relatives who lived nearby and they would have been glad to come out to the airport to pick me up, but I was afraid my mother would have known of my coming.
She had a third floor, walk-up apartment, with three bedrooms. She was living by herself, but I suspect that she made sure she had a place where visitors could sleep over, namely me. Harold (my brother) had a wife and family in Virginia, but although I, too, was married, my wife was still in Korea. For all intents and purposes, I was still a single man and she wanted to be able to put me up if I came to her home.
Knowing what she had been through at the mental hospital, I could tell she had aged quite a bit. She looked ten years older than her natural years. Still, she looked marvelous to me! Her mind had finally accepted the reality of her situation; she was alone now, and would have to fend for herself.
We had a lot of news to catch-up on. We stayed up late that night, talking about what had been happening in our lives. I learned that she now had a job making religious jewelry and other icons. It was still within walking distance of where she lived. She would go in the next morning and ask for some time off to visit with her son, home on leave from Vietnam. They gave her a week off, but she had to work the following week. That left me on my own during the day to sleep in as late as I wanted. I also took advantage to visit next door with my aunt and uncle and with some of my cousins in the area.
My relatives were glad to see me, and curious about how the war was going over there, as if I could tell them. I was only an E-6, and not privy to the big picture of the status of the war. Mostly we talked of times past and I got caught up on a lot of the family happenings. By this time I had a host of second cousins, too many for me to even begin to remember their names.
When it came time for me to leave, my uncle Joe drove me to the Naval Base at Newport, Rhode Island, and I managed to hitch a ride on a twin engine sub-chaser that was heading for the Naval Air Station at Norfolk, Virginia. They had orders to check out the plane on the flight down there (at least that's what they told me), so would have to put it through a lot of maneuvers.
Before taking off, I was briefed on how to use the parachute and exit the plane should the need become necessary. I was given a barf bag prior to take off and it's a good thing too. I had need of it when we neared the Virginia coast. That was the first and only time I ever got airsick, and the last time I rode in one of those planes.
I visited with my brother and his family for a week and then I flew on to Fort Carson, Colorado. Again, I was assigned to the Fifth Signal Battalion, but after seeing that they had an overage of personnel in my MOS, I went down the road to my old outfit, the 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry, and talked to my old first sergeant. He had found a home with that unit and was still the head honcho. He managed to pull a few strings and got me reassigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop as the platoon sergeant of the commo platoon and Unit CBR NCO.
It was difficult for me to adjust to a five day work week here in the states. I'd been so used to a five-and-a-half day work week, all my military career, and then a seven day work week in Vietnam. When weekends rolled around, I didn't know what to do with all my time. I spent a lot of it in the Golden Boot NCO Club at first, drinking and shooting pool.
I went downtown to Colorado Springs to buy myself a second hand car. It was then that I found out that sergeant Sullivan, who I'd given a limited power of attorney to sell my Ford Falcon after I left for Vietnam the last time, had let it get repossessed instead. In order to get the financing to get another car, I'd have to pay off that outstanding bill; pay for a car that was long gone, and I hadn't seen or used in about fifteen months. Somehow, I managed to pay that bill off and get the financing for a second hand, old clunker, Volkswagen bus. Never again would I let someone have my power of attorney!
I didn't want to stay in the barracks anymore so I decided to move in with some other sergeants who were living in a three bedroom trailer in Security, Colorado. Trouble is, sergeants Purdy, Madza, and Royal were already occupying the bedrooms. Madza was leaving in about three weeks though, so they said if I could put up with sleeping on the couch for that time, I could move in with them. I didn't like the idea, but liked the idea of living in the barracks even less. I moved in with them.
Sam Purdy and I got to be the best of friends. He, Sergeant Royal, and I would all get off work at the fort and go home in my bus. It's a good thing I had that bus too, because Sam weighed over two hundred pounds and Royal was closer to three hundred pounds. We would throw on a quick change of civilian cloths and walk a block further down the street. Post 38 of the American Legion was open for business. It was a convivial atmosphere and served our brand of beer at the bar. Sometimes we ate there but usually, after a few beers to unwind, we would stroll back home and I'd fix supper. I was the cook of the lot! We did most of our house cleaning on the weekends.
One day Sam, Royal, and I decided to head up into the mountains in the VW bus. I would never attempt such a trip today in a vehicle like that, but I was pretty daring in those days. We went through Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and up into the mountains. It was a gorgeous trip with spectacular views that I'll never forget. The higher we went, the more snow that was on the ground. Snow stays on the ground in many areas of the mountains for much of the year.
My bus could barely make the hills, slowing down to about twenty miles per hour on the steepest hills. Although I tried flooring the gas pedal, that was the top speed on inclines. It's fortunate that there weren't many cars making that trip at the time we went.
Our final destination turned out to be Cripple Creek, Colorado, an old time mining town. We hadn't planned on that place but it turned out to be a fascinating place. We toured some of the old mines, and in the museum, saw a display of how one of the mines was laid out through the different levels. Of course, most of the mines had long since been played out. The town subsisted mostly on tourist trade from the Springs down below.
We took in an old time floor show; the dancers and actors were dressed in period clothes and put on a Shakespearian Play and danced the Can-can for us. Even the rinky-dink of the old player piano was in keeping with the "old west frontier image." That was a marvelous, impromptu trip we took, one that I savor to this day. The trip back down the mountain was less spectacular than the trip up - and faster too!
There was a go-go dancer who worked at a lounge at a golf club just outside the back gate at Fort Carson. I used to spend a lot of time there, mostly because of her; I was sweet on her. She was nice to me and smiled and talked with me occasionally. I was hoping to be able to take her home one night after work. I got my chance about three months after meeting her.
She got off at 2 a.m. and we got into my bus and headed for her home. I didn't know she lived way out in the boonies, but she did. She also had a live-in boyfriend, which she forgot to mention. I was pretty gassed up on alcohol and I shouldn't have been driving, but I was young and foolish; besides my opportunity to score with this girl had presented itself and I took the chance.
When we got to her place, I followed her up the steps to her apartment only to be greeted at the door by her boyfriend. She introduced me to him, which I thought was nice, and he thanked me for taking her home. I mumbled something about good-night and started back to my vehicle. After sitting in the bus for a few minutes and thinking about this, I decided to go and see the girl again. Her boyfriend was real nice about me bothering him again, but convinced me I should return to the base. As if he didn't know what I had been up to! I started back to Fort Carson.
My head was splitting, and I had a mouthful of cotton; somebody was blowing in my ear. I opened my eyes and jerked completely upright; there was a horse staring in the bus window at me! I looked around and I was parked just off the road in a farmyard about a hundred yards from a house. It was the only habitat I saw in any direction. I was in the middle of nowhere!
Since I had no idea where I was, but I knew I was late for work, I stumbled out of the driver’s seat and made my way to the farmhouse. A nice old lady answered the door and I asked her if I could use her phone to call Fort Carson. She let me in and I said hi to her husband who was sitting in the kitchen drinking his morning coffee. I called the fort and explained my position to my first sergeant. He reamed me out for missing formation, but said he would try to cover for me until I got in to work. I thanked him and hung up.
I explained my predicament to the old couple, leaving out the part about the go-go dancer, and said I was real sorry about having to bother them at this time of the morning. They were real nice about it and even offered me some coffee and breakfast if I wanted. I said thank you for a cup of coffee, but had to pass up a meal. They gave me directions back to the Fort.
Ron Madza had long ago cleared Fort Carson and departed and now Sergeant Royal was clearing post too. He was being discharged for being overweight. I didn't know it at the time, but both he and Madza had used the services of a couple in the American Legion to falsify the clearing papers.
When clearing post, each place that is cleared has to mark the papers in a distinctive way. The last place to be cleared was always TA-50, where the field gear was turned in. That is the web gear, shelter half, canteen, parka, etc. When clearing them, they used a notary public seal to verify that everything had been turned in. Royal didn't have all his equipment to turn in, so he got a former Notary Public who was an auxiliary member of Post 38, to use her outdated seal to verify the papers. She offset the plate slightly so that they would be blurred. It worked, or so he had thought, because he was able to leave post.
Having been in the states for seven months, and not finding the duty very satisfactory, I volunteered to go back to Vietnam. I had to reenlist on a short to do it (meaning I still had some time left on my last enlistment), and was unaware that I would have to pay back part of the lump-sum reenlistment bonus I had previously drawn. That was made amply clear after I got back in country in Vietnam.
As I cleared post, I noted that I came up short one parka and parka liner. I later discovered that Royal had taken it. I too, used the services of the former Notary Public so that I might be able to clear post. The only difference is that I got caught. The commanding officer called me into his office and asked me about the seal on my clearing papers and if I had really cleared TA-50. At first I said yes, everything was above board, but I didn't know that the papers from sergeant Madza and Royal had already come under suspicion, and now my papers just about clinched the case. The Criminal Investigation Division (CID) had been called in!
The commander and CID agreed that most of my gear had been turned in and in return for getting the false seal, so that the clearing scam could be stopped, they wouldn't press charges against me.
The most difficult thing for me to do was to go back to American Legion Post 38, and ask the lady for her seal. She and her husband were fine members of the post and community; they had only thought to help some Army members to clear the installation. None of us looked upon the action as stealing, but that is what it was actually. When I explained the depth of our culpability to her, and that the CID was aware of the bogus seal, she surrendered her seal to me, and I turned it in the next day. I was allowed to leave post without further disciplinary action being taken against me.
My plane landed at Tan Son Nhut, and I was taken by truck (a deuce-and-a-half) to Long Binh, for in-processing. It only took about three days this time. It was here that I found out I would have to pay back some of the lump-sum reenlistment bonus I had drawn on my first reenlistment. The amount was a little over $3,000 and it was agreed that the payback would be at about $150 a month until it was paid off. It broke my heart to part with that money, but the method of payback was the least painful.
I was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 77th Artillery, headquartered right down the road at Bien Hoa. The unit had four fire support bases (FSBs) and a relay point on top of Nui Chow Chan (a mountain). Each FSB had two 175mm, self-propelled guns, two 8 inch, self-propelled guns, and a bofors gun. The TOC (Tactical Operations Center) at each place was bunkered-in and had secure FM radios for communications. They also had a back-up AM radio teletype set at each FSB and one at Headquarters. These latter, along with the attendant operators, were my responsibility.
The concussion, from the firing of such big guns, often shook the fixtures from the walls of the RATT vans. Fortunately, they were not often used by the commanders, but were used as back-up. Still, they had to be maintained in a working order, and to that end, were required to come up on the air each day and make contact with headquarters at Bien Hoa in both voice and teletype mode.
Since I was the senior 05C, I had to make periodic checks of all the RATT rigs that were at each FSB and the relay point on the mountain.
The only way to get to the mountain was by chopper (helicopter), because Charlie owned the base of the mountain. The top of the mountain was sometimes socked in by clouds and the chopper would have to wait for a hole in the clouds to land on the helipad. It was nice and cool up there, year around, and the brass didn't bother you as long as you did your job. We had three EM manning the relay which was a secure FM radio. It seldom went bad but the one time it did, I went up there only to find out that some of the men were into pot and heroin and had screwed the set up. I got it straightened out and warned one man and had the other relieved. It ran pretty smoothly after that.
Two of the FSBs could only be reached by air, the other two by convoy. The scariest one by far was the one we had near the Parrot's Beak area in Tay Ninh province. We had to pass through a town called Go Da Ha on the way. That was the eeriest experience I'd ever had and I made that trip four times. Sometimes you'd go through the village and people would smile and wave, at other times they'd just stare at you as you passed. That was a very unfriendly area for a lone American 1 1/4 Ton truck to navigate. We usually kept the pedal to the metal when going through there.
Xuan Loc was another place we had a FSB. It was on the far side of Nui Chow Chan and could only be reached on radio through the relay point. I made two trips out there, passing the huge rubber plantations on the way. There was an old pink building that had once been a bar/hangout in better days; this was just outside of Xuan Loc. There were still some prostitutes working out of there but the two times we stopped off there, I sipped a 33 beer while I waited for my driver to slake his desires.
I stayed at one fire support base near the Cambodian border for three days and got to see the guns in action. They were firing the bee-hive rounds with short fuses. You could follow the trajectory of the round as it left the muzzle and landed several clicks (kilometers) away. I also got to see some of the night sensor gear in operation. I couldn't tell from the audio or the computer screen if there was human movement, but those operators called in some fire missions on something that was moving out there. I'd have hated to be on the receiving end of those shells!
My supply sergeant at Bien Hoa took me into Saigon a couple of times and introduced me to the owner of a bar/hotel downtown. He was an American with a Vietnamese wife/girl. He had the place in the woman's name because he couldn't own property in Vietnam, and there was probably something illegal in what he was doing. I think he was a civilian.
On one of these trips, there was a meeting in the hotel and a bunch of us became charter members of a new VFW post, post number 10235, called Saigon Memorial Post, Saigon. I'm member number 147. I still have my card, and although the post has undoubtedly become inactive long ago, there aren't many of us around, so it might have some significant value someday.
Next door to that place was another hotel where I met a young Vietnamese girl that satisfied my every need whenever I was in town. That wasn't often, only about five times.
One day, after hoisting a few beers in the club (I wasn't on duty), I decided to go to downtown Saigon. I caught a truck full of GIs going that way and they dropped me off near the USO. Now we had been told to only change our MPCs (military payment certificates) for local money in authorized places. The USO was one of these places, and so I was headed there to change some money. Before I got in the door, an old Vietnamese lady accosted me and said she would change my money. She was offering a higher rate of exchange than the USO, so after she counted out her money and rolled it up, I counted out mine and we made the exchange. It wasn't until I had gone into a bar and ordered a drink, that I discovered that she had slipped me a rolled up wad of newspaper with a couple of Piaster notes on the outside. I had been hoodwinked! There wasn't much I could do about it. The lady was long gone by the time I got back to that location. Nobody around there knew anything about it; right! I spent several very depressing hours on the main street and then caught another truck heading back to Bien Hoa.
I hadn't taken an R & R (Rest and Relaxation) during my first tour in Vietnam, but I was determined to do so this time. About six months into my tour I went to Hawaii. I had found out my father's address in Hawaii and determined to see him again. He had remarried a Greek woman with two teenage daughters.
When my flight arrived in Hawaii, I stepped off the bus at Fort DeBusey and a young wahine gave me the traditional lei around my neck. I checked into a nearby hotel. After relaxing a bit in my room, I called my father's house. He wasn't in, but his wife offered to come and get me. She described what she would be wearing and her VW bug. When we met about an hour later, I found her to be a very charming person, only slightly younger than my own mother. I had thought my old man would have married a young thing, but he surprised me.
She took me to the CPO (Chief Petty Officer) Club at the naval base, that's where my father was. I should have known he would be out drinking. That, and golf, were his favorite pastimes. Luckily, he wasn't drunk yet. He introduced me around to his buddies there in the club (technically, I was an E-6 and the club was for E-7 and above), and bragged on me a lot - the Vietnam son on R & R, etc. He was proud of me. We left for his house after a couple of drinks. Dad wanted me to move in with him that night, but I knew the hotel wouldn't give me my money back so I waited until the next day to move out of the hotel and in with him.
My week of R & R stretched into two weeks when I became dehydrated on some Crown Royal, Scotch Whiskey I had brought for my father. During the third day at his house, after we had gone out to play 18 holes of golf, I popped the cork on the bottle and mixed us a couple of drinks. My dad only had that one drink and then he and his wife retired for the afternoon. I sat up drinking and thinking about the past. Not only was I not used to the hard whiskey, but I drank more of it, and at a faster rate than was good for me. I passed out, and later developed diarrhea, and a fever.
When I woke my father up on one of my frequent visits to the toilet, he noted my sickness and took me to Tripler Army Medical Center. It was there that they told me I was dehydrated. They fed me fluids, and stuck a tube into my urethra to monitor the drainage. That was most painful and made a believer out of me. I never again got dehydrated in that manner!
I was in the hospital for two days and when they released me, they extended my R & R another week. It was almost worth it to spend the extra time with my dad. We got to see some more of the island and played some more golf together. I ended up buying him a complete new set of golf clubs and bag. All too soon, it was time for me to return to Vietnam. Little did I know it would be the last time I ever saw my dad. He died in 1983 without further contact between us.
When I got back to my company, I found out that a new man I had been breaking in on the RATT at headquarters had been sent to one of the FSBs. He was inexperienced, and when the FSB came under ground attack one night, he ran out to the berm (perimeter of the compound) and began shooting at the enemy with an AK-47 that he got earlier in a trade. Nobody had told him that the AK-47 makes a distinctive sound when fired. Our own troops thought the perimeter had been breached and turned their fire on him. He was killed outright! I've often wondered what would have happened if I hadn't gone on R & R. I know I wouldn't have let him go to a FSB so soon after arriving in-country. The commo officer had to write a letter home to his parents. That's one job that I didn't envy him!
Intelligence summaries had shown that we needed to establish a new location for one of our fire support bases. We started early one morning and strung out a convoy heading into the hinterland. I don't remember exactly where it was right now, but it was somewhere about forty clicks northwest of Saigon. There was the whole complement of armament, two 175mm guns, two 8 inch guns, and a bofors gun, plus related equipment and men to man a new FSB.
The trip out there took most of the whole day and was very dusty traveling on dirt roads. I was riding in a jeep with a young second lieutenant and another enlisted man and the driver. On one of the last stops for the convoy, it was determined that an 8 inch gun was missing! It seems that the gun had taken the wrong turn in an earlier fork in the road, and because of all the dust, nobody had noticed its absence. They apparently thought the convoy was just ahead and were trying to catch-up to it. Because of the terrain, radio contact with the gun had been lost.
The Lieutenant I was with volunteered to go back and find the gun and help it return to the convoy. Not wanting to abandon the jeep in the face of this decision, we all went along with it. Back we went! It was twilight and visibility was worsening. We found the fork in the road where they had made the wrong turn and began to race up it. We had all locked and loaded our weapons and were on the alert for any treachery that might happen. I saw a shadow flit across the road about 200 meters ahead and shouted to the others to look out! It turned out to be an ARVN roadblock, but it had sure scared the hell out of us. They told us the gun had passed about fifteen minutes ago. We chased after them but met them shortly thereafter coming toward us. They had finally realized their mistake and were returning. We both raced to catch up to the convoy.
We caught up with it just before pulling into the new area. Some Seabees, with earth-moving equipment, had felled a large area of trees and dug out positions for the TOC, individual sleeping areas, and perimeter bunkers. The wonders of modern combat! We didn't have to dig foxholes! There were even corrugated steel conduit halves that were quickly placed over the scooped out trenches and sandbagged over. The sandbagging was the hardest labor we troops had to do. Most of this work was done that night, and the next day, the finishing touches were made to the compound. We were most vulnerable during this phase of the move, so everyone worked as fast as they could.
During my tour of duty, I had always carried a hunting knife on my belt. This was not a part of the regular issue of army equipment, but nobody had complained. When not doing anything particular at the base camp, I used to go out back of the commo platoon building and practice throwing my knife. I got to be real good at it. So much so, that I could turn around a hundred and eighty degrees, draw my knife, throw it at a target a little bigger than a quarter, twenty-five feet away, and hit it, all within about two seconds. The men became scared of me for some reason and complained to the first sergeant about my behavior. I was called on the carpet and made to cease such activities.
The Vietnamization process began to accelerate in 1971. We were told to inventory all our equipment prior to standing down. The entire unit was going back to the states and our equipment would be turned over to the Vietnamese. After this was done in March, we were moved to Long Binh and put in a holding barracks until we could be processed out. We were told this would take two to three weeks.
I had a room to myself in a corner of the second floor. The previous occupant was an artist. He had covered many parts of the bare wood walls with his drawings, which he did in colored pencil. One picture at the head of my bed was of a skull, but if you looked closely, you could see that the skull was made up of many naked people writhing around in various contorted positions. It looked like a representation of what Hades is supposed to look like. I wanted to take that picture home very badly, but short of sawing a hole in the corner of the building, I couldn't do it.
We had few duties while waiting, so most of us didn't mind. There was a swimming pool nearby; no girls, but other amenities could be had, such as beer. I took the opportunity to go to the dentist for a long needed check-up.
I only had seven teeth in my upper jaw and consequently it took me a long time to eat my food. The dentist told me a tooth had to come out. I told him that if he was going to take that one, he might as well take the rest of them too, and give me a prosthesis. He did that and I've never regretted it! I had those teeth for fourteen years and never had to use an adhesive. They were molded to my palette.
I elected to take an ITT (Inter-theater Transfer), and go directly from Vietnam to Korea. I hoped to get back to my wife of the past six years. We had been separated for four of those six years.
Chapter 10 of Looking Back
C H A P T E R 10
(1969-1970)
Paul Haight was a big fellow, standing six-foot, three inches. He was a slow walking, slow talking kind of man, but those who knew him, didn't mistake the slowness for being dumb; he wasn't that! Not many people gave him any trouble. His size alone was enough to enforce any order he gave. Paul was easy going, had a good sense of humor, and had many friends on the compound and in the montaignyard community. I worked with him for the first three months I was at Kontum, doing the housekeeping details on the compound.
We would drive out to the montaignyard village in a 2 1/2 Ton truck in the morning, and pick-up the men and women who would be going to work on the compound that day. Paul usually brought along a pocket full of candy to distribute to the kids, who would cluster around the truck in anticipation, as soon as we arrived. While we waited for the adults to climb aboard the truck, Paul was busy giving out candy to the kids.
The village was surrounded by a dry moat that had punji sticks hidden all through it. Punji sticks are sharpened sticks of bamboo that are embedded in the ground with the points up. The tip is commonly coated with poison or dipped in excrement to cause infection if it breaks the skin. On the other side of that was a wall of sharpened stakes about eight feet high and circling the village. The huts (for that's what they were) were all built on stilts and were about six to ten feet off the ground. To enter the hut, it was necessary to climb a notched log that was leaning against the veranda of the hut.
The villagers had a mixture of some old rifles of various makes and calibers, and crossbows and arrows, and machetes to defend themselves. They had a local militia who formed a loose-knit guard in the area.
We usually parked near the front entrance to the village while waiting for the workers to assemble. The village chief decided who would work for that day. Normally, it was the same people every day. When everyone was aboard, we would drive back to the compound.
Paul had selected who was to work on the latrine waste, the housegirls were assigned to work for each barracks and for several GIs. Some men and women worked in the mess hall, and the remainder of the men worked at various task around the compound such as filling sandbags and bunkering. Once everyone had been dispatched to their duties or shown what to do, if we had time to relax a little bit, we would get a cup of coffee from the mess hall.
At ten o'clock, we'd gather up the housegirls again in the deuce-and-a- half, with their loads of dirty fatigues, underwear, and socks, and drive them out to a river about two miles from the compound. There, they would wash the clothes, while we waited for them to finish. We supplied the soap and they supplied the muscle. The clothes were washed by hand, beating them with a stick against a stone, or scrubbing the dirt out by rubbing the material against itself while working-up a lather. After rinsing and wringing out as much water as possible, the wet clothes were brought back to the compound and hung to dry inside the barracks building. That didn't take long in hot Vietnam.
It was fun to listen to the women talk and laugh while working. There was one time that was quite different though. For a reason that I cannot remember now, we had gone to a new spot on the river to do the washing. Shortly after we got there, two Vietnamese men showed up and started asking the women and us some questions. They didn't speak much pigeon english and we couldn't understand vietnamese, so we never did find out what they wanted. The women were very nervous and did not talk while the men were around. Paul and I kept our rifles very handy and a sharp eye on what the men were doing. I was happy to leave that place when we finished. The women didn't tell us what the men wanted, but we didn't go back to that place again!
Another time, while the women were busy, I decided to cool off in the river. Since I had no swimming trunks and there were already a few men and boys swimming nearby, I took off my clothes and joined them. The water did cool me off, but it was the first time I had ever been naked in front of women, so I was a little embarrassed. They didn't think anything of it though, so I became less inhibited after that.
Just past our compound at Kontum, and to the right of us about a mile and a quarter, was a 155mm (millimeter) howitzer battery. We could just make them out from the northern perimeter of our compound. This outfit frequently came under mortar and rocket attack. One night, the guard at one of our bunkers could see the flash of the mortar tube that was shelling this compound. He reported it to the mortar team on the B-team compound behind us, but could not get permission to fire on the VC doing the shelling. I never could understand that reasoning! Luckily, nobody was hurt during that attack.
Whenever that compound or ours came under attack, we all went on alert.
That is to say, steel pot (helmet), flak vest, ammo, and rifle were grabbed, and you headed for a pre-determined bunker. My bunker was the AN/GRC-26D, and to get into it, I had to reach through the barbed wire gate, unlock the lock and chain, close and lock it again and then go into the bunker. I had to be ready to destroy the cryptographic gear, should the need arise. Incendiary grenades were inside for that purpose. My bunker was linked to the command bunker by landline telephone (a field phone that has a physical or wire connection). When the alert was over, the word was passed over this landline.
One night, about six of us were in our little club behind the orderly room (it had a small bar, two bar stools, and one table with four chairs), when an explosion went off about twenty feet from the door. We knew it was incoming because there is a distinct difference between the sound of that and an outgoing round. We automatically grabbed our weapons and then headed for the bunkers. About a half hour later, the all clear was sounded. Come to find out, one of the cooks was disgruntled, and had thrown a hand grenade at the club, knowing that there were NCOs in there. Paul caught a small piece of shrapnel in the neck (not enough to be hospitalized), but that was the only injury. We had a bad scare though, and that was the only incident of "fragging" that I know of first hand. The soldier responsible, was sent back to Pleku under guard for courts martial. I never heard anything else about his case.
About this time, there was a need to transport a private back to his former outfit at Phu Bai so that he could get some of his stuff he had left behind when he came to us. He had been a discipline problem for his unit so they had unloaded him on us. He got into trouble in our company also, and the CO wanted him to collect his old gear from Phu Bai and then be transported back to Pleku for courts martial. He had to have a military escort on this trip, so guess who was elected? You got that right, me! I was given a loaded .45 caliber pistol to guard him with, in addition to my own rifle.
We flew Air America out of a private airfield in Kontum. That airline was reputed to be connected with the CIA in some way or other, but you couldn't tell it on the flight we took up north. It was a fixed wing, two engine prop plane that carried about thirty-five passengers normally. The seats had been removed from the aisles and there were only webbed seats along the fuselage. That day, most of the passengers were Vietnamese or Montaignyard, with some being military. The majority appeared to be civilians travelling with goods for trading; there were even live pigs, goats, and chickens being transported.
In those days, an U.S. military man could travel just about anywhere on his ID card alone (on my second tour, he had to have orders). All he had to do was to show up at an airport with that and see someone in flight operations. If he bought your story of your need for travel to a certain destination, he'd book you on a flight going that way. Of course, you had to be satisfied with whatever was flying out. Sometimes it was a Chinook, or a Huey, or a C-131; you took what you could get. In my case, the CO had given me written authority to transport the prisoner (for that's what he was) back to Phu Bai.
Phu Bai is up just beyond Hue, and the closest point I'd ever been to the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam. It was the monsoon season and the ground was just a quagmire of mud when we got to the man's former compound. I reported to the first sergeant and informed him of my mission. You could see that he wasn't too happy at seeing the young man I'd brought. Since there was nowhere for the prisoner to escape, and since we wouldn't be leaving until the next day, the first sergeant gave us the run of the compound, but admonished the prisoner to gather his things and be ready to "get the hell out" the next day.
I found a place to stow my gear and located the local watering hole (any place that had beer for sale). After having a few beers and talking to the troops, they assured me that the best place to go for a good time (that spelled "women") was the massage parlour just near the entrance to the compound. I went there, and for a modest sum of money, found out what they had to offer. The women weren't beautiful, but after being without them for a length of time, they could be tempting. I was afraid of catching VD, so I opted for some oral sex. It wasn't what I had expected, but did unwind me a little.
The next day, having secured his gear and said good-bye to his friends, the prisoner and I headed for Pleku. The flight back was on helicopters, nothing so exotic as Air America was going our way. We had to fly to Qui Nhon first. There, we waited about three hours, before we caught a huey going to Pleku. Later, I caught a convoy back to Kontum.
At about this time, I finally took over the duties of the RATT rig. Paul was going on R & R to places around the world. He'd been saving his money for just such a trip. When he came back, he was scheduled to be reassigned to another outfit within Vietnam; he had extended his tour, but on proviso that he be reassigned out of Charlie Company, 43rd Signal. That left me as the senior Radio Teletype Operator, with two specialist fours working for me.
The first thing I noted when I took over was that Bartholomew and Smith (these were my junior operators) could not touch type. I taped over the keyboard on the teletype machines, made a chart of the keyboard to post on the wall above their positions, and drilled them daily on typing. I would stand behind them calling out letters while watching them type. They could only look at the chart (looking at the keyboard wouldn't help them because they couldn't read the keys), and had to use the correct finger to type the letters. Whenever they made a mistake, I would correct them. In addition to these typing classes, I also gave them classes on the procedure to follow in handling messages and the sixteen line message format.
One day, we were sitting outside the rig, but inside the barb wire. I was giving Bart and Smitty a class on priority of message handling when we heard a loud cracking sound. We looked up at the tower, for that's where the sound came from, and saw it starting to fall. Someone in a truck had accidentally hit one of the guy wires and toppled the tower. It was falling toward us, but missed the bunker by about thirty feet. Only about half the tower came down, but it did foul up communications with Pleku for about a week.
We'd not been handling much message traffic up to now, but I had plans to change that and I wanted my operators ready. What I did, was to contact someone from the 525th Military Intelligence unit that operated out of an outpost near Kontum. They usually sent a physical dispatch rider with messages to Pleku, their headquarters. I convinced them that their messages could be sent by secure means over radio teletype and they would get there much faster. I had to have the CO's permission to do this, but after explaining that my men needed to keep in practice with their MOS, and since he was not using them, I wanted to be of use to the MI guys. He okayed it, so we started sending the MI traffic on a daily basis.
There was usually about two or three messages of three to five pages in length. In addition to standing my own shift at the teletype rig, I would also monitor my operators' shifts too, to make sure that they were sending the traffic correctly. I had them type up the message on tape and when they sent it out, they'd make a page copy. I always checked that against the original to make sure it was correct.
It was a genuine pleasure to have real traffic to pass over the radio instead of making hourly radio checks. The guys began to really enjoy it also. We got a lot of the news that was happening around the country. Most of it was the kind you never hear about. All that traffic was clandestine, dealing with operatives working among the VC, sightings of military activity, caches of weapons and ammunition, etc. It was hot stuff and we finally felt that we were being useful over there.
Smith, or Smitty, as we called him, was quite a stand-up trooper when he was sober. He worked hard and looked sharp most of the time. Occasionally, though, he would go on a drunken spree that lasted about three days. He was worthless when he did this. I'd cautioned him several times about his drinking habits and what it was doing to him. He said he understood, and that he wouldn't do it again. But the day came when it happened once too often. I wrote him up for article 15 action, thinking that this might wake him up and he would straighten out. Unfortunately, the man got belligerent with me; he threatened me with bodily harm time and time again. The man was a black belt holder in karate and practiced every day. One day, he almost dragged me off a deuce-and-a-half. When he did that, I went to the CO and told him that I feared for my safety and the man had to be transferred out or I had to go. Smitty was transferred!
We had a KWM-2 shortwave radio-transceiver in our bunker that operated on crystals. There was a whole bag of crystals, oh, about sixty of them, each in individual pockets in a plastic fold-out bag. Nobody could give an accurate account of where the set came from and it wasn't on anyone's property books. It was in fine working order, but wasn't used by anyone that I know of. It was just there!
The pump in our well had gone bad and we had to resort to hauling our water from a water purification point on a nearby river. We did this for about two weeks. The company commander was getting desperate so, one day he swapped the KWM-2 and the whole bag of crystals for a new pump. Barter was a fairly effective way of getting something accomplished, that's probably how the KWM-2 came to be in our possession in the first place. The only thing is, our CO got the raw end of the stick. The radio set and it's crystals probably cost over three thousand dollars, whereas the pump could be had for under two hundred. We had water, but what a price we paid!
At about this time I noticed a female cat hanging around our bunker. She was pregnant and about to have a litter. From time to time, I brought back scraps from the mess hall to feed her, but she was finding most of her own food in the bunkers on the compound. They had a habit of becoming home to the rodents in the area.
She had her litter underneath the AN/GRC-26D. We could hear them mewing occasionally. Shortly after their birth, the mother cat disappeared. We could tell she was gone, because the kittens began to cry for long periods of time; they were hungry. I tried for several days to coax the kittens out by calling to them and trying to reassure them. Finally, two of them managed to crawl towards my voice and to a point where I could reach them. They had just opened their eyes, so couldn't have been more than three weeks old. If there were others back under there, they must have died, because no more emerged, and I heard nothing else to indicate there were more of them. I learned later that the mother cat had been thrown down the well and died.
I kept those kittens and raised them on milk from the mess hall and more solid foods when I felt they were able to digest it. At about four months, however, they began having convulsions. This was probably a result of them not getting the proper nutrition from their mother when they were first born. Rather than see them suffer, I had a soldier destroy them out of my sight. I couldn't do that myself, but knew this soldier was capable of doing it, because it was rumored that he was the one who had killed the mother cat.
Later I made several trips with the KW-7 secure equipment to Nha Trang to have it repaired at a place near Marble Mountain. We landed near a beach area (I think it's the same beach that is depicted in the television series, "China Beach"). Although tempted to try the surf, I couldn't leave the equipment unattended, so I had to forego that pleasure. I never did get to try any of the salt water beaches on either of the two tours I had. I did get to do some skinny dipping in Kontum when we took the girls to do the washing in the river, but that was too chancy, so I didn't do that very often.
A new radio teletype set arrived to replace the AN/GRC-26D, it was the
AN/GRC-46. I wasn't familiar with its operation, but needn't have worried about it. The CO didn't even want to uncrate it. It had to be inventoried though, so he had me do that, but he never authorized setting it up for operation. It was still there when I left shortly after that.
(1969-1970)
Paul Haight was a big fellow, standing six-foot, three inches. He was a slow walking, slow talking kind of man, but those who knew him, didn't mistake the slowness for being dumb; he wasn't that! Not many people gave him any trouble. His size alone was enough to enforce any order he gave. Paul was easy going, had a good sense of humor, and had many friends on the compound and in the montaignyard community. I worked with him for the first three months I was at Kontum, doing the housekeeping details on the compound.
We would drive out to the montaignyard village in a 2 1/2 Ton truck in the morning, and pick-up the men and women who would be going to work on the compound that day. Paul usually brought along a pocket full of candy to distribute to the kids, who would cluster around the truck in anticipation, as soon as we arrived. While we waited for the adults to climb aboard the truck, Paul was busy giving out candy to the kids.
The village was surrounded by a dry moat that had punji sticks hidden all through it. Punji sticks are sharpened sticks of bamboo that are embedded in the ground with the points up. The tip is commonly coated with poison or dipped in excrement to cause infection if it breaks the skin. On the other side of that was a wall of sharpened stakes about eight feet high and circling the village. The huts (for that's what they were) were all built on stilts and were about six to ten feet off the ground. To enter the hut, it was necessary to climb a notched log that was leaning against the veranda of the hut.
The villagers had a mixture of some old rifles of various makes and calibers, and crossbows and arrows, and machetes to defend themselves. They had a local militia who formed a loose-knit guard in the area.
We usually parked near the front entrance to the village while waiting for the workers to assemble. The village chief decided who would work for that day. Normally, it was the same people every day. When everyone was aboard, we would drive back to the compound.
Paul had selected who was to work on the latrine waste, the housegirls were assigned to work for each barracks and for several GIs. Some men and women worked in the mess hall, and the remainder of the men worked at various task around the compound such as filling sandbags and bunkering. Once everyone had been dispatched to their duties or shown what to do, if we had time to relax a little bit, we would get a cup of coffee from the mess hall.
At ten o'clock, we'd gather up the housegirls again in the deuce-and-a- half, with their loads of dirty fatigues, underwear, and socks, and drive them out to a river about two miles from the compound. There, they would wash the clothes, while we waited for them to finish. We supplied the soap and they supplied the muscle. The clothes were washed by hand, beating them with a stick against a stone, or scrubbing the dirt out by rubbing the material against itself while working-up a lather. After rinsing and wringing out as much water as possible, the wet clothes were brought back to the compound and hung to dry inside the barracks building. That didn't take long in hot Vietnam.
It was fun to listen to the women talk and laugh while working. There was one time that was quite different though. For a reason that I cannot remember now, we had gone to a new spot on the river to do the washing. Shortly after we got there, two Vietnamese men showed up and started asking the women and us some questions. They didn't speak much pigeon english and we couldn't understand vietnamese, so we never did find out what they wanted. The women were very nervous and did not talk while the men were around. Paul and I kept our rifles very handy and a sharp eye on what the men were doing. I was happy to leave that place when we finished. The women didn't tell us what the men wanted, but we didn't go back to that place again!
Another time, while the women were busy, I decided to cool off in the river. Since I had no swimming trunks and there were already a few men and boys swimming nearby, I took off my clothes and joined them. The water did cool me off, but it was the first time I had ever been naked in front of women, so I was a little embarrassed. They didn't think anything of it though, so I became less inhibited after that.
Just past our compound at Kontum, and to the right of us about a mile and a quarter, was a 155mm (millimeter) howitzer battery. We could just make them out from the northern perimeter of our compound. This outfit frequently came under mortar and rocket attack. One night, the guard at one of our bunkers could see the flash of the mortar tube that was shelling this compound. He reported it to the mortar team on the B-team compound behind us, but could not get permission to fire on the VC doing the shelling. I never could understand that reasoning! Luckily, nobody was hurt during that attack.
Whenever that compound or ours came under attack, we all went on alert.
That is to say, steel pot (helmet), flak vest, ammo, and rifle were grabbed, and you headed for a pre-determined bunker. My bunker was the AN/GRC-26D, and to get into it, I had to reach through the barbed wire gate, unlock the lock and chain, close and lock it again and then go into the bunker. I had to be ready to destroy the cryptographic gear, should the need arise. Incendiary grenades were inside for that purpose. My bunker was linked to the command bunker by landline telephone (a field phone that has a physical or wire connection). When the alert was over, the word was passed over this landline.
One night, about six of us were in our little club behind the orderly room (it had a small bar, two bar stools, and one table with four chairs), when an explosion went off about twenty feet from the door. We knew it was incoming because there is a distinct difference between the sound of that and an outgoing round. We automatically grabbed our weapons and then headed for the bunkers. About a half hour later, the all clear was sounded. Come to find out, one of the cooks was disgruntled, and had thrown a hand grenade at the club, knowing that there were NCOs in there. Paul caught a small piece of shrapnel in the neck (not enough to be hospitalized), but that was the only injury. We had a bad scare though, and that was the only incident of "fragging" that I know of first hand. The soldier responsible, was sent back to Pleku under guard for courts martial. I never heard anything else about his case.
About this time, there was a need to transport a private back to his former outfit at Phu Bai so that he could get some of his stuff he had left behind when he came to us. He had been a discipline problem for his unit so they had unloaded him on us. He got into trouble in our company also, and the CO wanted him to collect his old gear from Phu Bai and then be transported back to Pleku for courts martial. He had to have a military escort on this trip, so guess who was elected? You got that right, me! I was given a loaded .45 caliber pistol to guard him with, in addition to my own rifle.
We flew Air America out of a private airfield in Kontum. That airline was reputed to be connected with the CIA in some way or other, but you couldn't tell it on the flight we took up north. It was a fixed wing, two engine prop plane that carried about thirty-five passengers normally. The seats had been removed from the aisles and there were only webbed seats along the fuselage. That day, most of the passengers were Vietnamese or Montaignyard, with some being military. The majority appeared to be civilians travelling with goods for trading; there were even live pigs, goats, and chickens being transported.
In those days, an U.S. military man could travel just about anywhere on his ID card alone (on my second tour, he had to have orders). All he had to do was to show up at an airport with that and see someone in flight operations. If he bought your story of your need for travel to a certain destination, he'd book you on a flight going that way. Of course, you had to be satisfied with whatever was flying out. Sometimes it was a Chinook, or a Huey, or a C-131; you took what you could get. In my case, the CO had given me written authority to transport the prisoner (for that's what he was) back to Phu Bai.
Phu Bai is up just beyond Hue, and the closest point I'd ever been to the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam. It was the monsoon season and the ground was just a quagmire of mud when we got to the man's former compound. I reported to the first sergeant and informed him of my mission. You could see that he wasn't too happy at seeing the young man I'd brought. Since there was nowhere for the prisoner to escape, and since we wouldn't be leaving until the next day, the first sergeant gave us the run of the compound, but admonished the prisoner to gather his things and be ready to "get the hell out" the next day.
I found a place to stow my gear and located the local watering hole (any place that had beer for sale). After having a few beers and talking to the troops, they assured me that the best place to go for a good time (that spelled "women") was the massage parlour just near the entrance to the compound. I went there, and for a modest sum of money, found out what they had to offer. The women weren't beautiful, but after being without them for a length of time, they could be tempting. I was afraid of catching VD, so I opted for some oral sex. It wasn't what I had expected, but did unwind me a little.
The next day, having secured his gear and said good-bye to his friends, the prisoner and I headed for Pleku. The flight back was on helicopters, nothing so exotic as Air America was going our way. We had to fly to Qui Nhon first. There, we waited about three hours, before we caught a huey going to Pleku. Later, I caught a convoy back to Kontum.
At about this time, I finally took over the duties of the RATT rig. Paul was going on R & R to places around the world. He'd been saving his money for just such a trip. When he came back, he was scheduled to be reassigned to another outfit within Vietnam; he had extended his tour, but on proviso that he be reassigned out of Charlie Company, 43rd Signal. That left me as the senior Radio Teletype Operator, with two specialist fours working for me.
The first thing I noted when I took over was that Bartholomew and Smith (these were my junior operators) could not touch type. I taped over the keyboard on the teletype machines, made a chart of the keyboard to post on the wall above their positions, and drilled them daily on typing. I would stand behind them calling out letters while watching them type. They could only look at the chart (looking at the keyboard wouldn't help them because they couldn't read the keys), and had to use the correct finger to type the letters. Whenever they made a mistake, I would correct them. In addition to these typing classes, I also gave them classes on the procedure to follow in handling messages and the sixteen line message format.
One day, we were sitting outside the rig, but inside the barb wire. I was giving Bart and Smitty a class on priority of message handling when we heard a loud cracking sound. We looked up at the tower, for that's where the sound came from, and saw it starting to fall. Someone in a truck had accidentally hit one of the guy wires and toppled the tower. It was falling toward us, but missed the bunker by about thirty feet. Only about half the tower came down, but it did foul up communications with Pleku for about a week.
We'd not been handling much message traffic up to now, but I had plans to change that and I wanted my operators ready. What I did, was to contact someone from the 525th Military Intelligence unit that operated out of an outpost near Kontum. They usually sent a physical dispatch rider with messages to Pleku, their headquarters. I convinced them that their messages could be sent by secure means over radio teletype and they would get there much faster. I had to have the CO's permission to do this, but after explaining that my men needed to keep in practice with their MOS, and since he was not using them, I wanted to be of use to the MI guys. He okayed it, so we started sending the MI traffic on a daily basis.
There was usually about two or three messages of three to five pages in length. In addition to standing my own shift at the teletype rig, I would also monitor my operators' shifts too, to make sure that they were sending the traffic correctly. I had them type up the message on tape and when they sent it out, they'd make a page copy. I always checked that against the original to make sure it was correct.
It was a genuine pleasure to have real traffic to pass over the radio instead of making hourly radio checks. The guys began to really enjoy it also. We got a lot of the news that was happening around the country. Most of it was the kind you never hear about. All that traffic was clandestine, dealing with operatives working among the VC, sightings of military activity, caches of weapons and ammunition, etc. It was hot stuff and we finally felt that we were being useful over there.
Smith, or Smitty, as we called him, was quite a stand-up trooper when he was sober. He worked hard and looked sharp most of the time. Occasionally, though, he would go on a drunken spree that lasted about three days. He was worthless when he did this. I'd cautioned him several times about his drinking habits and what it was doing to him. He said he understood, and that he wouldn't do it again. But the day came when it happened once too often. I wrote him up for article 15 action, thinking that this might wake him up and he would straighten out. Unfortunately, the man got belligerent with me; he threatened me with bodily harm time and time again. The man was a black belt holder in karate and practiced every day. One day, he almost dragged me off a deuce-and-a-half. When he did that, I went to the CO and told him that I feared for my safety and the man had to be transferred out or I had to go. Smitty was transferred!
We had a KWM-2 shortwave radio-transceiver in our bunker that operated on crystals. There was a whole bag of crystals, oh, about sixty of them, each in individual pockets in a plastic fold-out bag. Nobody could give an accurate account of where the set came from and it wasn't on anyone's property books. It was in fine working order, but wasn't used by anyone that I know of. It was just there!
The pump in our well had gone bad and we had to resort to hauling our water from a water purification point on a nearby river. We did this for about two weeks. The company commander was getting desperate so, one day he swapped the KWM-2 and the whole bag of crystals for a new pump. Barter was a fairly effective way of getting something accomplished, that's probably how the KWM-2 came to be in our possession in the first place. The only thing is, our CO got the raw end of the stick. The radio set and it's crystals probably cost over three thousand dollars, whereas the pump could be had for under two hundred. We had water, but what a price we paid!
At about this time I noticed a female cat hanging around our bunker. She was pregnant and about to have a litter. From time to time, I brought back scraps from the mess hall to feed her, but she was finding most of her own food in the bunkers on the compound. They had a habit of becoming home to the rodents in the area.
She had her litter underneath the AN/GRC-26D. We could hear them mewing occasionally. Shortly after their birth, the mother cat disappeared. We could tell she was gone, because the kittens began to cry for long periods of time; they were hungry. I tried for several days to coax the kittens out by calling to them and trying to reassure them. Finally, two of them managed to crawl towards my voice and to a point where I could reach them. They had just opened their eyes, so couldn't have been more than three weeks old. If there were others back under there, they must have died, because no more emerged, and I heard nothing else to indicate there were more of them. I learned later that the mother cat had been thrown down the well and died.
I kept those kittens and raised them on milk from the mess hall and more solid foods when I felt they were able to digest it. At about four months, however, they began having convulsions. This was probably a result of them not getting the proper nutrition from their mother when they were first born. Rather than see them suffer, I had a soldier destroy them out of my sight. I couldn't do that myself, but knew this soldier was capable of doing it, because it was rumored that he was the one who had killed the mother cat.
Later I made several trips with the KW-7 secure equipment to Nha Trang to have it repaired at a place near Marble Mountain. We landed near a beach area (I think it's the same beach that is depicted in the television series, "China Beach"). Although tempted to try the surf, I couldn't leave the equipment unattended, so I had to forego that pleasure. I never did get to try any of the salt water beaches on either of the two tours I had. I did get to do some skinny dipping in Kontum when we took the girls to do the washing in the river, but that was too chancy, so I didn't do that very often.
A new radio teletype set arrived to replace the AN/GRC-26D, it was the
AN/GRC-46. I wasn't familiar with its operation, but needn't have worried about it. The CO didn't even want to uncrate it. It had to be inventoried though, so he had me do that, but he never authorized setting it up for operation. It was still there when I left shortly after that.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Chapter 9 of Looking Back
LOOKING BACK (Chapter 09)
by John E. Hunt
c 1996
C H A P T E R 09
(1969 1970)
During this period of time, there was a lot of unrest throughout the country over our (the U.S.'s) involvement in Vietnam. There were riots going on everywhere. One of the new objectives of HHT, 4/12 Cavalry, was to train in riot control so that, if we were needed anywhere, we knew what to do to disperse a crowd. To that end, we spent days and weeks practicing different formations and movements within that formation. For example, the most common formation was a wedge shaped formation, used to enter a crowd and disperse it to either side.
We practiced with sheathed bayonets on our rifles. In actual riot control maneuvers, they would be unsheathed. We wore protective masks around our waist, ready to put them on if tear gas should have to be used. The officers or leaders who directed the formation, did so from just inside the "V" of the wedge, and were prepared to reach out in front of the wedge to grab any protesting leaders, drag him/her within the wedge, subdue them, and take them into custody. They also determine when to use tear gas, and when to have the troops put on their masks.
It was July and August that this almost daily regimen of practice took place. It was sultry and hot, and almost everyone was gripeing about having to practice these maneuvers. We doubted we'd ever be called upon to actually use such tactics. What was our surprise, then, when we were alerted to load up for deployment to Washington, D.C. for riot control! We were loaded aboard C 5 Galaxy Starlifters (four planeloads of troops) at Colorado Springs Airport, and flown to Washington, D.C., where the rioting was taking place.
We had to bivouac at Andrews AFB until such time as called to action. We were there for four days, but were never called upon to go into the city to quell riots. We heard on the radio that the riots were taking place, but the National Guard had been called-in to put down the disturbances. The powers that be, decided that it wouldn't do to have regular troops trying to put down such disturbances, that it might, in fact, cause more unrest. At the end of the four days, we were loaded back on board the Starlifters and sent winging back to Colorado. While this exercise was a part of history and hair raising at times, I'm just as glad that we weren't used.
Shortly after our return to the unit, A Troop and D Troop (which was a helicopter unit) were alerted for Vietnam duty. They had about three weeks to do all the paperwork processing, get their shots and records brought up to date, and say good bye to their families prior to departure.
They asked for volunteers from HHT, B, and C troops, to flesh out their units where they were short. Roy Flegle volunteered to go, as well as several other of my friends. I elected to stay where I was. I might as well have volunteered to go with them as a unit, because only four months later, I came down on individual orders for Vietnam anyway.
I wanted to use my Ford Falcon 500 right up until the last day I left. I'd gotten used to having my own transportation to take me around post and off post for recreation. I didn't want to have to start relying on post taxis to process out. I gave Sergeant Sullivan a limited power of attorney to sell the car after I left. I had been quite close to him and his family, even baby sitting for them occasionally. I asked him to send me any money he got for the car whenever he sold it. Although I wrote him several times from Vietnam, he never answered me. It wasn't until I returned thirteen months later, that I learned he had let the car be repossessed, and he had been posted to Europe.
We flew into Cam Rhan Bay on a commercial flight. That was a surprise to me, because I just didn't connect the civilian airlines with being in a war zone. However, those pilots knew their stuff. Combat landings are very steep, and not the same gentle glide to a landing that you get in stateside airports. We were encouraged to disembark the plane as fast as possible because the plane had to make a rapid turn around time on the ground to lessen the chance of being hit by enemy fire.
The first thing we all noticed, as soon as our feet hit the tarmac, was the heat! It was oppressive! We were quick timed over to a large open spaced area, under a tin canopied enclosure. There our paper work was processed and we were loaded onto buses, and driven to a huge area of Quonset huts. These are rounded buildings made of corrugated tin, generally with an open bay inside, with bunks lining both sides of the bay. The Quonset hut was sand bagged all the way around on the outside, to about waist height. This was to protect against shrapnel from incoming rounds.
We would be here for four days. It was a replacement center, where they kept you temporarily, until they found a unit in country that needed your particular rank and MOS. During the day, a lot of combat briefings were given and the culture and customs of the Vietnamese were taught.
It was also the start of our acclimatization to the temperatures of Vietnam. During our stay, we were given a new issue of tropical fatigues, boots, underwear, combat gear, etc. They took away our field jackets, saying there was no place in Vietnam where they would be needed. Oh, how little they knew! Nights in the Central Highlands, do get very cold, and a field jacket is needed. That was to be my ultimate destination.
They flew me out to Pleku, in the Central Highlands, the headquarters for the
43rd Signal Batallion. I would be there another ten days, acclimatizing to the temperatures. I was issued a .45 caliber pistol and given the job of escorting a prisoner to his courts martial every day. By this time, I figured I must be a bad looking dude, because this was about the third time that the military had picked me for this type of duty.
Most of my nights in Pleku were spent in the NCO club, listening to the "old timers" talk about what the duty was like. I was trying to get a feel for what was in store for me. There was such a diversity of sites that the people came from, that without knowing where I'd be going, the talk gave me no clue by just listening. I expect that a lot of the fellows, seeing what was obviously "new blood,” began to lay it on a bit thick. At least that was what I thought at the time. I didn't know that these, and many other stories, were mild compared to what was actually happening.
My final orders were cut for Charlie Company, 43rd Signal Battalion, located in Kontum, further up highway #1 in the Central Highlands. I had to wait for the supply driver from that company to come down to Pleku in convoy, and pick me up, along with his supplies. That took two days, and gave me time to question some of the "old hands" about my assignment. What I began to hear did not sound good! Just the last year, during the Tet offensive, they told me that they were picking bodies off of the perimeter wire of the compound. It seems "Charlie" had tried to overrun them. I greeted the supply driver with a little apprehension when he showed up.
The supply driver was specialist four Bartholomew, another O5C, radio teletype operator. He was short, about five foot four, and wore glasses that were so thick, they looked like the bottoms of coke bottles. Ultimately, this man worked for me, but I was to learn that the company commander of Charlie Company, was not using his
O5C's for the job they were trained to do.
Instead, he had them doing "housework" duties, such as the convoy runs to Pleku, control of the Montaignyard and Vietnamese workers on the compound, supervising their tasks, and checking perimeter defenses on daily and weekly schedules. This latter involved making sure that the firing devises for the claymore mines were working, the claymores themselves hadn't been tampered with, bunkers were properly sandbagged, and repairs made where needed. Shortly after my arrival, he also had us digging communication trenches between bunkers.
Bartholomew drove us to the starting point on Highway #1, outside of Pleku, where the convoy formed up for the run to Kontum. This was a bi-weekly event and all the allied forces knew about it (the enemy probably did too). The MP's were in charge of the convoy. They had wheeled, armored personnel carriers that they positioned at the head, middle and end of the convoy as it formed up. Radio contact was maintained throughout the trip, and anyone who joined the convoy, and had a radio, also tuned to the convoy frequency so that they would know immediately if the convoy came under attack. This was important, because the convoy usually stretched for several miles while rolling. Starting times were varied, so sometimes you got there at 8 a.m. and didn't get underway until 10 or 11 a.m.
We wore flak vest and helmets and traveled the road with a round jacked into the chamber of our rifles. If the convoy came under attack, instructions were to try to keep going right through the "killing zone," and out through the other side. We had to be ready to fire at a moments' notice. The killing zone is the area where the enemy expects to be able to do the most damage to a convoy. Because of the element of surprise, it is usually that area where the convoy initially comes under attack.
Highway #1 was paved by the U.S. forces and ran almost as straight as an arrow from Pleku to Kontum. A normal convoy run was made at about 40 MPH, and lasted about 45 minutes. I was nervous as hell during this trip, because of the element of danger and the heightened combat precautions. Bart seemed to take everything in stride though, and must have thought this strange sergeant sitting beside him was overly nervous. He tried to put me at my ease by filling me in on what the duties at Charlie Company were like.
There was an E-6, me, who was an E-5, Bart, who was an E-4, and one other E-4 at Charlie Company who were Radio teletype operators. We all worked for an E-7, commo chief, who was in charge of all the communication personnel on the compound. There were about twenty of us. From what Bart told me. I learned that none of the
O5C were being utilized in their MOS. Sergeant Paul Haight, the E-6, was in charge of the indigenous personnel and all the aforementioned details around the compound. I was to work directly under him, doing the same type detail work.
When we got to Charlie Company, I reported to the first sergeant and was assigned to a barracks in the center of the compound. It was directly across from the commo bunker, and on the other side of a street that ran from the company street, perpendicular to a helipad, and a B Team of Special Forces and Montaignyards on our inner perimeter. It was the first and only time I'd ever seen a set up where the communications company was located on the outer perimeter, and the other forces, on the inside. I don't know whose bright idea that was!
Outside my barracks, and in the center of the compound, was a 120 foot communications tower, with microwave dishes for direct, line of sight communication with other friendly forces, including Pleku, our Headquarters. This structure made a wonderful aiming point for any VC or NVA who wanted to target surrounding points, consequently, was not targeted for destruction.
The type antennae on the tower, permitted FM, or frequency modulated signals, as opposed to AM, or amplitude modulated signals, which is the type of radio gear that we radio teletype operators used. While it is possible to communicate over longer distances using AM signals, our commander chose to rely more heavily on the FM communications, as did most combat commanders. This is because the equipment was lighter, more portable, and diverse enough to be used as fixed station, vehicular, back packed, or hand held. Its one drawback was that it generally could only be relied upon for line of sight communications. Because the radio teletype set must be operated out of a van, as a fixed site, or on a vehicle, most commanders used FM.
Our radio teletype set, an AN/GRC 26D, was bunkered in at the end of the street the tower was on, and just before crossing over to the helipad and B team compound. Concertina wire, to a height of about 10 feet, and three layers thick, surrounded the radio set, and this area was entered through a barbed wire gate that was always kept padlocked. This was a secure area because cryptographic equipment was kept on site in a safe inside the AN/GRC 26. At the time of my arrival, and for three months thereafter, the set was not used. It was turned on, tuned, and a radio check made with Pleku on a daily basis, but no traffic was passed over the radio.
There was a well on the compound which allowed us to get our drinking water, shower water, and water to wash and shave in the morning. There were no toilet facilities with running water on any American compound. Latrine facilities consisted of outhouses with one to eight holes for sitting. Waste products dropped to a 55 gallon drum half that had been placed underneath the seat, and was accessible from the outside, rear. These half drums were taken out daily, kerosene added to the waste, and it was set afire and burned until there were only ashes left. This latter task was generally done by a Montaignyard man hired for the purpose, but occasionally, some GI was given the job also, as a form of punishment for some infraction.
Urination sites consisted of hollowed out ammunition tubes, placed into a pre dug hole that had been filled with gravel and with wire mesh screens across the mouth of the tube to prevent splashing. These sites were generally open, but boxed in for modesty. Since this was the more frequent of the bodily waste disposals, these piss tubes, as they were called, were more numerous than latrines, and were located at strategically placed spots.
The daily routine usually began with a formation of the whole company on the street with the tower. Only those who were actually on guard the night before, were excused from this formation. It was a method of getting a headcount of those persons available for duty, but strictly against the policy of "bunching" the troops in any one area. It would have been easy for Charlie or the NVA to decimate our entire company with a rocket or mortar attack on the formation. Why the company commander decided to go against policy, I don't know. We were fortunate that an attack never occurred during these formations.
Our work week consisted of all seven days! There were no days off. It was pretty lax though, and if you had completed your work for that day, and wanted to take a few hours off to relax, as long as you let someone know where you were going, you could go. Drinking beer was generally allowed after sixteen hundred (4 p.m.), but it had to be in moderation. If a person was seen to get drunk, he would be warned the first time and punished the next.
There was a small exchange facility on the B team compound next door to us, and across the helipad. It offered items like cigarettes, soap, cards, writing paper, etc. They had a small club where one purchased beer or soda; occasional movies, or floor shows were put on for the troops. There was also an outdoor area that had a well used ping pong table.
The Montaignyards had a separate club/restaurant that they used to frequent. Although they could, and did use the facilities at the American club, especially the movies and floor shows, few Americans used their club/restaurant. It was fairly Spartan accommodations, but a good gathering spot for them when in off patrol or off duty. Paul Haight and I, and maybe one or two other GI's, ate over there from time to time. The local dishes were well prepared, but sometimes the meat came from questionable sources. I stopped eating there when, one day, I was served rat in a noodle soup that I had thought contained beef. I was sick for three days!
We were allowed to leave the compound during the day to spend some time in the local village. We always carried our rifle and live ammunition wherever we went. Haircuts and shaves were offered in nearby shops, mostly given by old men, using squeeze clippers and half a double edged razor blade. Thinking back on it today, I must have been nuts to submit to anyone wielding such a formidable weapon around my jugular vein!
Whenever we left the compound, there was the inevitable throng of kids that gathered around us to beg for candy, cigarettes, money, or whatever they thought they could talk us out of. Sometimes they'd have "sisters" to offer as sexual favors. In reality, most of these "sisters" were prostitutes who were paying them a small amount of money to coerce some GI to their hootch. The prostitutes around Kontum were not very comely, and there was one that I know of, who was only thirteen years old.
After you had been there for a while, and made a few trips into the village, you became adopted by a certain urchin. Whenever you stepped off the compound, all the kids passed the word around to "your" kid, and he showed up to escort you around the village for whatever you were looking for. These kids picked up the English language quicker than most of the adults, and acted as your interpreter. Naturally, they expected you to treat them with special favors or pay them some money. The GI that failed to acknowledge this obligation, quickly found himself with no "guide," and thus, subject to be taken advantage of.
by John E. Hunt
c 1996
C H A P T E R 09
(1969 1970)
During this period of time, there was a lot of unrest throughout the country over our (the U.S.'s) involvement in Vietnam. There were riots going on everywhere. One of the new objectives of HHT, 4/12 Cavalry, was to train in riot control so that, if we were needed anywhere, we knew what to do to disperse a crowd. To that end, we spent days and weeks practicing different formations and movements within that formation. For example, the most common formation was a wedge shaped formation, used to enter a crowd and disperse it to either side.
We practiced with sheathed bayonets on our rifles. In actual riot control maneuvers, they would be unsheathed. We wore protective masks around our waist, ready to put them on if tear gas should have to be used. The officers or leaders who directed the formation, did so from just inside the "V" of the wedge, and were prepared to reach out in front of the wedge to grab any protesting leaders, drag him/her within the wedge, subdue them, and take them into custody. They also determine when to use tear gas, and when to have the troops put on their masks.
It was July and August that this almost daily regimen of practice took place. It was sultry and hot, and almost everyone was gripeing about having to practice these maneuvers. We doubted we'd ever be called upon to actually use such tactics. What was our surprise, then, when we were alerted to load up for deployment to Washington, D.C. for riot control! We were loaded aboard C 5 Galaxy Starlifters (four planeloads of troops) at Colorado Springs Airport, and flown to Washington, D.C., where the rioting was taking place.
We had to bivouac at Andrews AFB until such time as called to action. We were there for four days, but were never called upon to go into the city to quell riots. We heard on the radio that the riots were taking place, but the National Guard had been called-in to put down the disturbances. The powers that be, decided that it wouldn't do to have regular troops trying to put down such disturbances, that it might, in fact, cause more unrest. At the end of the four days, we were loaded back on board the Starlifters and sent winging back to Colorado. While this exercise was a part of history and hair raising at times, I'm just as glad that we weren't used.
Shortly after our return to the unit, A Troop and D Troop (which was a helicopter unit) were alerted for Vietnam duty. They had about three weeks to do all the paperwork processing, get their shots and records brought up to date, and say good bye to their families prior to departure.
They asked for volunteers from HHT, B, and C troops, to flesh out their units where they were short. Roy Flegle volunteered to go, as well as several other of my friends. I elected to stay where I was. I might as well have volunteered to go with them as a unit, because only four months later, I came down on individual orders for Vietnam anyway.
I wanted to use my Ford Falcon 500 right up until the last day I left. I'd gotten used to having my own transportation to take me around post and off post for recreation. I didn't want to have to start relying on post taxis to process out. I gave Sergeant Sullivan a limited power of attorney to sell the car after I left. I had been quite close to him and his family, even baby sitting for them occasionally. I asked him to send me any money he got for the car whenever he sold it. Although I wrote him several times from Vietnam, he never answered me. It wasn't until I returned thirteen months later, that I learned he had let the car be repossessed, and he had been posted to Europe.
We flew into Cam Rhan Bay on a commercial flight. That was a surprise to me, because I just didn't connect the civilian airlines with being in a war zone. However, those pilots knew their stuff. Combat landings are very steep, and not the same gentle glide to a landing that you get in stateside airports. We were encouraged to disembark the plane as fast as possible because the plane had to make a rapid turn around time on the ground to lessen the chance of being hit by enemy fire.
The first thing we all noticed, as soon as our feet hit the tarmac, was the heat! It was oppressive! We were quick timed over to a large open spaced area, under a tin canopied enclosure. There our paper work was processed and we were loaded onto buses, and driven to a huge area of Quonset huts. These are rounded buildings made of corrugated tin, generally with an open bay inside, with bunks lining both sides of the bay. The Quonset hut was sand bagged all the way around on the outside, to about waist height. This was to protect against shrapnel from incoming rounds.
We would be here for four days. It was a replacement center, where they kept you temporarily, until they found a unit in country that needed your particular rank and MOS. During the day, a lot of combat briefings were given and the culture and customs of the Vietnamese were taught.
It was also the start of our acclimatization to the temperatures of Vietnam. During our stay, we were given a new issue of tropical fatigues, boots, underwear, combat gear, etc. They took away our field jackets, saying there was no place in Vietnam where they would be needed. Oh, how little they knew! Nights in the Central Highlands, do get very cold, and a field jacket is needed. That was to be my ultimate destination.
They flew me out to Pleku, in the Central Highlands, the headquarters for the
43rd Signal Batallion. I would be there another ten days, acclimatizing to the temperatures. I was issued a .45 caliber pistol and given the job of escorting a prisoner to his courts martial every day. By this time, I figured I must be a bad looking dude, because this was about the third time that the military had picked me for this type of duty.
Most of my nights in Pleku were spent in the NCO club, listening to the "old timers" talk about what the duty was like. I was trying to get a feel for what was in store for me. There was such a diversity of sites that the people came from, that without knowing where I'd be going, the talk gave me no clue by just listening. I expect that a lot of the fellows, seeing what was obviously "new blood,” began to lay it on a bit thick. At least that was what I thought at the time. I didn't know that these, and many other stories, were mild compared to what was actually happening.
My final orders were cut for Charlie Company, 43rd Signal Battalion, located in Kontum, further up highway #1 in the Central Highlands. I had to wait for the supply driver from that company to come down to Pleku in convoy, and pick me up, along with his supplies. That took two days, and gave me time to question some of the "old hands" about my assignment. What I began to hear did not sound good! Just the last year, during the Tet offensive, they told me that they were picking bodies off of the perimeter wire of the compound. It seems "Charlie" had tried to overrun them. I greeted the supply driver with a little apprehension when he showed up.
The supply driver was specialist four Bartholomew, another O5C, radio teletype operator. He was short, about five foot four, and wore glasses that were so thick, they looked like the bottoms of coke bottles. Ultimately, this man worked for me, but I was to learn that the company commander of Charlie Company, was not using his
O5C's for the job they were trained to do.
Instead, he had them doing "housework" duties, such as the convoy runs to Pleku, control of the Montaignyard and Vietnamese workers on the compound, supervising their tasks, and checking perimeter defenses on daily and weekly schedules. This latter involved making sure that the firing devises for the claymore mines were working, the claymores themselves hadn't been tampered with, bunkers were properly sandbagged, and repairs made where needed. Shortly after my arrival, he also had us digging communication trenches between bunkers.
Bartholomew drove us to the starting point on Highway #1, outside of Pleku, where the convoy formed up for the run to Kontum. This was a bi-weekly event and all the allied forces knew about it (the enemy probably did too). The MP's were in charge of the convoy. They had wheeled, armored personnel carriers that they positioned at the head, middle and end of the convoy as it formed up. Radio contact was maintained throughout the trip, and anyone who joined the convoy, and had a radio, also tuned to the convoy frequency so that they would know immediately if the convoy came under attack. This was important, because the convoy usually stretched for several miles while rolling. Starting times were varied, so sometimes you got there at 8 a.m. and didn't get underway until 10 or 11 a.m.
We wore flak vest and helmets and traveled the road with a round jacked into the chamber of our rifles. If the convoy came under attack, instructions were to try to keep going right through the "killing zone," and out through the other side. We had to be ready to fire at a moments' notice. The killing zone is the area where the enemy expects to be able to do the most damage to a convoy. Because of the element of surprise, it is usually that area where the convoy initially comes under attack.
Highway #1 was paved by the U.S. forces and ran almost as straight as an arrow from Pleku to Kontum. A normal convoy run was made at about 40 MPH, and lasted about 45 minutes. I was nervous as hell during this trip, because of the element of danger and the heightened combat precautions. Bart seemed to take everything in stride though, and must have thought this strange sergeant sitting beside him was overly nervous. He tried to put me at my ease by filling me in on what the duties at Charlie Company were like.
There was an E-6, me, who was an E-5, Bart, who was an E-4, and one other E-4 at Charlie Company who were Radio teletype operators. We all worked for an E-7, commo chief, who was in charge of all the communication personnel on the compound. There were about twenty of us. From what Bart told me. I learned that none of the
O5C were being utilized in their MOS. Sergeant Paul Haight, the E-6, was in charge of the indigenous personnel and all the aforementioned details around the compound. I was to work directly under him, doing the same type detail work.
When we got to Charlie Company, I reported to the first sergeant and was assigned to a barracks in the center of the compound. It was directly across from the commo bunker, and on the other side of a street that ran from the company street, perpendicular to a helipad, and a B Team of Special Forces and Montaignyards on our inner perimeter. It was the first and only time I'd ever seen a set up where the communications company was located on the outer perimeter, and the other forces, on the inside. I don't know whose bright idea that was!
Outside my barracks, and in the center of the compound, was a 120 foot communications tower, with microwave dishes for direct, line of sight communication with other friendly forces, including Pleku, our Headquarters. This structure made a wonderful aiming point for any VC or NVA who wanted to target surrounding points, consequently, was not targeted for destruction.
The type antennae on the tower, permitted FM, or frequency modulated signals, as opposed to AM, or amplitude modulated signals, which is the type of radio gear that we radio teletype operators used. While it is possible to communicate over longer distances using AM signals, our commander chose to rely more heavily on the FM communications, as did most combat commanders. This is because the equipment was lighter, more portable, and diverse enough to be used as fixed station, vehicular, back packed, or hand held. Its one drawback was that it generally could only be relied upon for line of sight communications. Because the radio teletype set must be operated out of a van, as a fixed site, or on a vehicle, most commanders used FM.
Our radio teletype set, an AN/GRC 26D, was bunkered in at the end of the street the tower was on, and just before crossing over to the helipad and B team compound. Concertina wire, to a height of about 10 feet, and three layers thick, surrounded the radio set, and this area was entered through a barbed wire gate that was always kept padlocked. This was a secure area because cryptographic equipment was kept on site in a safe inside the AN/GRC 26. At the time of my arrival, and for three months thereafter, the set was not used. It was turned on, tuned, and a radio check made with Pleku on a daily basis, but no traffic was passed over the radio.
There was a well on the compound which allowed us to get our drinking water, shower water, and water to wash and shave in the morning. There were no toilet facilities with running water on any American compound. Latrine facilities consisted of outhouses with one to eight holes for sitting. Waste products dropped to a 55 gallon drum half that had been placed underneath the seat, and was accessible from the outside, rear. These half drums were taken out daily, kerosene added to the waste, and it was set afire and burned until there were only ashes left. This latter task was generally done by a Montaignyard man hired for the purpose, but occasionally, some GI was given the job also, as a form of punishment for some infraction.
Urination sites consisted of hollowed out ammunition tubes, placed into a pre dug hole that had been filled with gravel and with wire mesh screens across the mouth of the tube to prevent splashing. These sites were generally open, but boxed in for modesty. Since this was the more frequent of the bodily waste disposals, these piss tubes, as they were called, were more numerous than latrines, and were located at strategically placed spots.
The daily routine usually began with a formation of the whole company on the street with the tower. Only those who were actually on guard the night before, were excused from this formation. It was a method of getting a headcount of those persons available for duty, but strictly against the policy of "bunching" the troops in any one area. It would have been easy for Charlie or the NVA to decimate our entire company with a rocket or mortar attack on the formation. Why the company commander decided to go against policy, I don't know. We were fortunate that an attack never occurred during these formations.
Our work week consisted of all seven days! There were no days off. It was pretty lax though, and if you had completed your work for that day, and wanted to take a few hours off to relax, as long as you let someone know where you were going, you could go. Drinking beer was generally allowed after sixteen hundred (4 p.m.), but it had to be in moderation. If a person was seen to get drunk, he would be warned the first time and punished the next.
There was a small exchange facility on the B team compound next door to us, and across the helipad. It offered items like cigarettes, soap, cards, writing paper, etc. They had a small club where one purchased beer or soda; occasional movies, or floor shows were put on for the troops. There was also an outdoor area that had a well used ping pong table.
The Montaignyards had a separate club/restaurant that they used to frequent. Although they could, and did use the facilities at the American club, especially the movies and floor shows, few Americans used their club/restaurant. It was fairly Spartan accommodations, but a good gathering spot for them when in off patrol or off duty. Paul Haight and I, and maybe one or two other GI's, ate over there from time to time. The local dishes were well prepared, but sometimes the meat came from questionable sources. I stopped eating there when, one day, I was served rat in a noodle soup that I had thought contained beef. I was sick for three days!
We were allowed to leave the compound during the day to spend some time in the local village. We always carried our rifle and live ammunition wherever we went. Haircuts and shaves were offered in nearby shops, mostly given by old men, using squeeze clippers and half a double edged razor blade. Thinking back on it today, I must have been nuts to submit to anyone wielding such a formidable weapon around my jugular vein!
Whenever we left the compound, there was the inevitable throng of kids that gathered around us to beg for candy, cigarettes, money, or whatever they thought they could talk us out of. Sometimes they'd have "sisters" to offer as sexual favors. In reality, most of these "sisters" were prostitutes who were paying them a small amount of money to coerce some GI to their hootch. The prostitutes around Kontum were not very comely, and there was one that I know of, who was only thirteen years old.
After you had been there for a while, and made a few trips into the village, you became adopted by a certain urchin. Whenever you stepped off the compound, all the kids passed the word around to "your" kid, and he showed up to escort you around the village for whatever you were looking for. These kids picked up the English language quicker than most of the adults, and acted as your interpreter. Naturally, they expected you to treat them with special favors or pay them some money. The GI that failed to acknowledge this obligation, quickly found himself with no "guide," and thus, subject to be taken advantage of.
Chapter 8 of Looking Back
C H A P T E R 08
(1968-1969)
When I left Korea the second time, and before reporting to Fort Carson, I took a thirty-day leave and went to Massachusetts to see my mom. She had recovered from the breakdown, sold the house in Virginia, and moved to Massachusetts to be near some of her sisters. She was living in a third floor walk-up in North Attleboro. One sister and her family lived diagonally across the street from her, another lived just five houses down the block, and three nephews lived within walking distance from her apartment. She now had some family around her to offer some support.
My mother had taken a job in a jewelry making firm at minimum wage. It wasn't much money, but it was within walking distance of where she lived (she didn't drive), and she made enough money to live on during the month. The owner had let her have the apartment for only $60 a month, although it was a three bedroom apartment. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't luxurious! The building was very old and in need of repair in many places. Still, it was a comfortable place for her. Most important, she had family to support her. My father had cut her off completely after thirty years of marriage and my brother and I were both in the service, with our own families now.
A most memorable event of that hiatus, I shall never forget.
We went to see the movie "The Night of the Living Dead" at a theater not too far from her house. That was a most dreadful movie! The gruesome details of it shall remain with me all my days. Why we didn't get up and walk out, I'll never know.
When we left, we stopped by a bar to play some shuffleboard and have a few beers. Then we bought some beer at a liquor store on the way home. We had quite a nice chat over a few beers that night. My mom and I both liked beer and our nightly chats became a regular feature during my stay there. I think we became closer then than we had been since my teen years.
I told her all about my wife and the difficulty I'd had in marrying her; how I planned to get her to the states when I got to Colorado, and visit her later with Chong Hui. I'd sent her a wedding picture of when we'd had the civilian wedding, so she knew what Chong Hui looked like. I made all kinds of plans that I confided to my mother. Little did I know that they would all come to naught.
When I reported to the 5th Signal Battalion at Fort Carson, they told me that there was no vacancy for my MOS. A few calls were made and a slot was found for me in another unit on post. It was Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry. This was a mechanized cavalry unit, meaning that instead of horses, tracked vehicles were used. These were APC's, or armored personnel carriers, such as the M-113 and M-114 for carrying troops and the M-577 command track. This latter had the radio teletype equipment in it and acted as the command track for the commanding officer while in the field. It was my baby! There were four of them in my troop and I was responsible for making sure they were properly maintained and in working order. I had eight enlisted men to help me do the job.
I was the commander on one track, that is, I controlled the movement of the vehicle in the field. As such, I had to know its capabilities. I didn't even know how to drive one! That was soon remedied though, and I found that manipulating right and left lateral control arms, and a foot pedal for feeding the diesel fuel to the engine, was easier than driving the old stick shift back home! As commander of the vehicle, I wasn't supposed to drive it; we had an assigned driver for that task, but everyone had to learn how to drive it in case the driver became incapacitated.
In addition to these duties, I was also sent to a school on post for CBR (chemical, biological and radiological) training. When I completed it, I became the unit CBR NCO, responsible for maintaining the whole troop's protective masks, the spare parts for said masks, and atropine and decontaminates with associated equipment. All this equipment was kept in a separate room behind the orderly room. All the masks were numbered and controlled so that each member of the troop always got the same mask. This way I could spot check the masks for proper maintenance, and when found to be wanting, I could identify the individual owner of the mask. I was also responsible for giving classes and drills to the whole squadron. Being in the Headquarters unit, it was also incumbent upon me to perform inspections on the line units such as A, B, C, and D troops.
A goodly part of my time was spent in that CBR room, working on the mask, ordering parts or accessories. I must confess though, there are some mornings I spent locked away in that back room trying to recuperate from a big night at the Golden Boot NCO Club or in downtown Colorado Springs.
I had bought myself a second hand jalopy at this time, a Ford Falcon 500, and was trying to familiarize myself with the area. I'd discovered that the housing off-post was too expensive for me, so I put my name on the housing list for on-post housing. It was one of the few times that I found the housing list to be so short. A unit became available to me within two weeks.
A friend, Roy Flegle, helped me to do some shopping for furniture; a bed, dinette set, couch, easy chair, television, pots and pans, utensils, etc. and I moved into on-post housing. Roy was planning on getting married later that year so he was interested in seeing what the housing looked like. It was a nice two bedroom apartment. I only needed one bedroom, but no houses on post are built with only one bedroom. The rules for living on-post were pretty strict. The lawn had to be mowed and the yard kept free of trash. In the winter, snow had to be shoveled from the steps and sidewalks. The inside had to be kept bug free (exterminators had to be called regularly), and floors polished as needed. When departing the unit, the oven and stove had to be meticulously cleaned and the whole house made spotless. The house would be inspected before you were allowed to leave post.
I wrote to Chong Hui and told her I had a place and was furnishing it for her arrival. I told her to let me know whenever she was ready to come, and I would send the ticket for her.
We wrote back and forth many times, always through an interpreter, but I could never get a commitment from her on when she would be able to come. I lived in that house for almost three months by myself. I was beginning to get strange looks from the neighbors. Well, who could blame them! That housing was for families and there was a waiting list for all apartments. Finally, I gave up hoping she would come to the states. I gave the furniture, and other household goods I'd accumulated, to the American Legion and moved back into the barracks in my troop.
At about this time, my first sergeant decided to send me to the NCO Academy at Fort Riley, Kansas. I'd been a NCO since 1966, but had no formal training. I was in for quite a surprise!
I arrived at Fort Riley in mid-summer with about forty other people from various post throughout the mid-west. From day-one we were treated as if we were back in basic. We weren't allowed to walk anywhere, but had to run; everything had to be spit and polish from our shoes, to our brass and to the floors we walked on. It was "yes drill sergeant" this and "yes drill sergeant" that, and there was no such thing as an excuse. Our uniforms had to be changed twice daily (sweat from our morning activities would soil our uniforms), in order to keep a clean, starched appearance at all times. Failure in any of these areas would result in getting demerits. If you got too many demerits, you risked being recycled or dropped from the course.
In addition to the daily calisthenics and road run that started our day, we had to attend classes on leadership, weapons familiarity, terrain features, map reading, hand-to-hand combat, and drill and ceremony. This was practical application of these subjects too. For example, not only were we taught how to conduct drill and ceremony, but we had to all take turns marching the group through the different commands. The way in which the command was given as well as the pertinence of such a command was weighed against us also. We were graded on every aspect of the training by our drill sergeants.
The leadership positions within the company, such as squad leader, platoon sergeant, platoon leader, first sergeant, and company commander, were all rotated on a weekly basis to the persons who the drill sergeant thought were best suited to that position, according to his progress in the course. If a designated person failed to perform the duty commensurate with his position, he was replaced on the spot. Since the course was only twelve weeks, not everyone got a chance to fill these positions. Enough was learned by participating in such formations, that you would know the duties and commands of each person within the company hierarchy.
My most favorite subject (and the most feared) was the map reading course. That lasted a full week and consisted of classroom work on orientation of the map with surroundings; reading the coordinates properly; reading the symbols on a military map; and map scales. We were broken down into four man teams and given coordinates to first one location, and then at that location, we found the coordinates to another location, and so on, until five locations were found. We did this during the day for two days. It was impossible to cheat because at each coordinate, a word had to be copied to prove the spot had been located. Only the DIs knew the word at the coordinates.
The course was set up so that each team would occasionally run across each other while searching, but all had different coordinates. There was no time limit, per se, but it was a matter of pride among the teams to see which team could locate all five points and return to base camp before the others arrived. During our search on the second day, my team was hot, thirsty and tired. We passed a pond along the route that, while the water was muddy, was too tempting to pass up. Another man and me, stripped, and went for a swim to cool off. We only stayed in the water for about five minutes. Another team passed nearby and spotted us in the water. We were afraid they'd say something to the DIs when we got back, but they didn't. I suspect the DIs knew about that water hole though!
The fearful part of the map reading course came next. We had to locate another five coordinates in the dark! We had been taught how to count our individual paces to reach a thousand yards, and to mentally apply that yardage to the map, thus figuring out the location on the map. Matching terrain features during the day was fairly easy, but at night, became very difficult. You had to rely on the pace method. The only thing wrong with that though, is that the terrain wasn't flat. It went up and down and over cliffs. You had to walk a straight line while pacing or if you made a detour, you had to calculate the change on the map. We had flashlights with red lenses, but they were only to be used to read the map and coordinate markings.
Of the ten teams we had that night, not one team found all the coordinates. My team had found the most, four, but since the exercise had not gone as well as expected, the DIs graded it on a curve. Thank God that there wasn't time for them to put us through the course again at night!
Another bit of night training we had was trying to hit targets with live ammunition from a prone position. They'd given us classes on how to use our peripheral vision to locate a target at night. The instructions were to aim low because of a tendency to shoot high at night. Still, I did very poorly at this, knocking down less than a third of the targets. Throughout my military career, I'd always fired expert on the rifle range, but that was in the daylight. I wouldn't even want to take my chances with an enemy in the dark!
Two friends who went through the academy with me, I would run into again. Dick was a nice, soft-spoken, southern boy from Alabama, who always carried a single-bladed knife, about five inches long, in his back pocket. I ran into him at a club in Long Binh, Vietnam in 1970. He was flying with the First Cavalry helicopter crews on some of their missions. He'd been putting that knife to grisly use, and had the ears to show for it! The other one, Bob, was working in the O5C course at Fort Gordon, Georgia when I got there in 1973. He retired here in Augusta and lives about four miles from me.
Upon completion of the NCO Academy, I returned to my unit at Fort Carson. I was now the sharpest sergeant E-5 in the troop. The first sergeant promptly made me the platoon sergeant of the commo platoon. Of course, I resumed my other duties as CBR NCO, and commander of the M-577 track.
Roy Flegle wanted to get married but he didn't have enough money. I was planning on taking leave and going back to Korea to get Chong Hui. I'd saved enough money for that and then some. I told Roy if he'd be able to return the money to me when I came back, I'd let him borrow six hundred dollars. He agreed to that, so I wished him luck, and departed for Korea.
After arriving at Kimpo Airport, I took a taxi to the U.S.O. in downtown Seoul. It was a common point that Chong Hui and I had both been to and I knew she would be able to find it. I had her address and a picture of her, but the address was in Korean. It would have been impossible for me to locate her by myself. I checked into the U.S.O. and went to get something to eat.
Most Westerners are besieged by kids ranging in age from six to sixteen, as soon as they show their face on a public street. Most are looking for handouts or a chance to make off with something without being caught. A group of these boys surrounded me when I went outside. A young boy of about fourteen seemed to be the most proficient in English. I showed him the picture of Chong Hui and her address and asked if he could find it. He said he could, but wanted three thousand won (about eight dollars at the time) to do the job. I agreed, only on condition that he could bring me proof that he had found her. I gave him enough money for expenses while looking.
About three hours later, when I was thinking I'd been had, the boy showed up. He had located a hut in the hills in Seoul, where an old lady was staying. It was the address I'd given him. When he'd shown her the picture of my wife, she got real excited. The woman was my mother-in-law, my wife was not there. She told him that she would bring my wife to me at the U.S.O. the next day. I thanked the boy and gave him his well earned money.
The next day, just after lunch, my wife and her mother showed up. Gee, it was great to see her! I hugged her and kissed her and tried to tell her so many things all at once. I didn't press the issue of her not coming to Fort Carson right away. I wanted to wait until we were alone to find out why she hadn't come. I was to learn that she had a very good reason!
After treating them both to a meal, we caught a taxi to a little place near Itaewan, just outside of Yongsan in Seoul. From what I could make out, the place was the home of my wife's friend. It was a very nice, two floor apartment, but I had the feeling that arrangements had been made rather hastily for us to stay there during my leave time.
It was at this time too, that I learned that I was a father! Chong Hui had given birth to a baby boy about eight months after I'd left Korea (at least that's what she said). Looking at the child, he didn't appear to have any Caucasian features. Most Amerasian kids that I have seen, take on some of the features of their Western parent, although the dominant features are Asian.
But this boy looked 100% Korean! I couldn't believe the kid was mine, but didn't want to call my wife a liar. She even made it a point to show me the stretch marks still visible on her stomach (they would have been present no matter who fathered the child, but I didn't press it).
If you'll recall, due to the hazardous duty of my last assignment in the Second Infantry Division, most of my last tour had been spent with me being in the DMZ and my wife living in Seoul. It began to look as if she had found herself a Korean boyfriend to occupy her time when I wasn't present! Since the child was so young, I thought it possible that any western features he had might not show up yet. I decided to give Chong Hui the benefit of the doubt for now.
I had about a three week stay before I would have to return to Colorado. We stayed in the apartment most of the time we were there. That was mostly because it was the monsoon season and it rained most of the time. It was peaceful to lie in bed during the day, and look out over the city while the rains came down in torrents, making music on the tin roof of our house. Then too, our love-making took on an urgency of it's own . . .at least on my part. Chong Hui seemed to be more reserved than I'd remembered her being before.
We went to the NCO Club near Yongsan for a day, just before my departure. That was nice after being cooped up all day for almost three weeks. We had a nice meal and some drinks and we danced. We even played the one-armed bandits a little, but didn't win big. Finally, it was time to go back to the apartment for the last night. It was a sad leave taking I made the next morning. We hadn't settled anything about our living arrangements. I told her that I'd try to get back to Korea but didn't know when, meanwhile, I would continue to send her an allotment. She wouldn't commit to coming to the States.
When my return flight stopped in Seattle, I made the mistake of getting too drunk at a bar in the airport. By the time I'd sobered-up enough to know what was going on, I had lost or spent any money I'd had. Luckily, I still had my round-trip ticket stub with me. I was able to catch another flight making connections into Colorado Springs. When I got there though, I had no money. I called Roy Flegle, who had returned from his honeymoon, and he came out to get me. He also returned the $600 he had borrowed to get married. Thank God that I had lent him that money, it sure came in handy!
(1968-1969)
When I left Korea the second time, and before reporting to Fort Carson, I took a thirty-day leave and went to Massachusetts to see my mom. She had recovered from the breakdown, sold the house in Virginia, and moved to Massachusetts to be near some of her sisters. She was living in a third floor walk-up in North Attleboro. One sister and her family lived diagonally across the street from her, another lived just five houses down the block, and three nephews lived within walking distance from her apartment. She now had some family around her to offer some support.
My mother had taken a job in a jewelry making firm at minimum wage. It wasn't much money, but it was within walking distance of where she lived (she didn't drive), and she made enough money to live on during the month. The owner had let her have the apartment for only $60 a month, although it was a three bedroom apartment. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't luxurious! The building was very old and in need of repair in many places. Still, it was a comfortable place for her. Most important, she had family to support her. My father had cut her off completely after thirty years of marriage and my brother and I were both in the service, with our own families now.
A most memorable event of that hiatus, I shall never forget.
We went to see the movie "The Night of the Living Dead" at a theater not too far from her house. That was a most dreadful movie! The gruesome details of it shall remain with me all my days. Why we didn't get up and walk out, I'll never know.
When we left, we stopped by a bar to play some shuffleboard and have a few beers. Then we bought some beer at a liquor store on the way home. We had quite a nice chat over a few beers that night. My mom and I both liked beer and our nightly chats became a regular feature during my stay there. I think we became closer then than we had been since my teen years.
I told her all about my wife and the difficulty I'd had in marrying her; how I planned to get her to the states when I got to Colorado, and visit her later with Chong Hui. I'd sent her a wedding picture of when we'd had the civilian wedding, so she knew what Chong Hui looked like. I made all kinds of plans that I confided to my mother. Little did I know that they would all come to naught.
When I reported to the 5th Signal Battalion at Fort Carson, they told me that there was no vacancy for my MOS. A few calls were made and a slot was found for me in another unit on post. It was Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry. This was a mechanized cavalry unit, meaning that instead of horses, tracked vehicles were used. These were APC's, or armored personnel carriers, such as the M-113 and M-114 for carrying troops and the M-577 command track. This latter had the radio teletype equipment in it and acted as the command track for the commanding officer while in the field. It was my baby! There were four of them in my troop and I was responsible for making sure they were properly maintained and in working order. I had eight enlisted men to help me do the job.
I was the commander on one track, that is, I controlled the movement of the vehicle in the field. As such, I had to know its capabilities. I didn't even know how to drive one! That was soon remedied though, and I found that manipulating right and left lateral control arms, and a foot pedal for feeding the diesel fuel to the engine, was easier than driving the old stick shift back home! As commander of the vehicle, I wasn't supposed to drive it; we had an assigned driver for that task, but everyone had to learn how to drive it in case the driver became incapacitated.
In addition to these duties, I was also sent to a school on post for CBR (chemical, biological and radiological) training. When I completed it, I became the unit CBR NCO, responsible for maintaining the whole troop's protective masks, the spare parts for said masks, and atropine and decontaminates with associated equipment. All this equipment was kept in a separate room behind the orderly room. All the masks were numbered and controlled so that each member of the troop always got the same mask. This way I could spot check the masks for proper maintenance, and when found to be wanting, I could identify the individual owner of the mask. I was also responsible for giving classes and drills to the whole squadron. Being in the Headquarters unit, it was also incumbent upon me to perform inspections on the line units such as A, B, C, and D troops.
A goodly part of my time was spent in that CBR room, working on the mask, ordering parts or accessories. I must confess though, there are some mornings I spent locked away in that back room trying to recuperate from a big night at the Golden Boot NCO Club or in downtown Colorado Springs.
I had bought myself a second hand jalopy at this time, a Ford Falcon 500, and was trying to familiarize myself with the area. I'd discovered that the housing off-post was too expensive for me, so I put my name on the housing list for on-post housing. It was one of the few times that I found the housing list to be so short. A unit became available to me within two weeks.
A friend, Roy Flegle, helped me to do some shopping for furniture; a bed, dinette set, couch, easy chair, television, pots and pans, utensils, etc. and I moved into on-post housing. Roy was planning on getting married later that year so he was interested in seeing what the housing looked like. It was a nice two bedroom apartment. I only needed one bedroom, but no houses on post are built with only one bedroom. The rules for living on-post were pretty strict. The lawn had to be mowed and the yard kept free of trash. In the winter, snow had to be shoveled from the steps and sidewalks. The inside had to be kept bug free (exterminators had to be called regularly), and floors polished as needed. When departing the unit, the oven and stove had to be meticulously cleaned and the whole house made spotless. The house would be inspected before you were allowed to leave post.
I wrote to Chong Hui and told her I had a place and was furnishing it for her arrival. I told her to let me know whenever she was ready to come, and I would send the ticket for her.
We wrote back and forth many times, always through an interpreter, but I could never get a commitment from her on when she would be able to come. I lived in that house for almost three months by myself. I was beginning to get strange looks from the neighbors. Well, who could blame them! That housing was for families and there was a waiting list for all apartments. Finally, I gave up hoping she would come to the states. I gave the furniture, and other household goods I'd accumulated, to the American Legion and moved back into the barracks in my troop.
At about this time, my first sergeant decided to send me to the NCO Academy at Fort Riley, Kansas. I'd been a NCO since 1966, but had no formal training. I was in for quite a surprise!
I arrived at Fort Riley in mid-summer with about forty other people from various post throughout the mid-west. From day-one we were treated as if we were back in basic. We weren't allowed to walk anywhere, but had to run; everything had to be spit and polish from our shoes, to our brass and to the floors we walked on. It was "yes drill sergeant" this and "yes drill sergeant" that, and there was no such thing as an excuse. Our uniforms had to be changed twice daily (sweat from our morning activities would soil our uniforms), in order to keep a clean, starched appearance at all times. Failure in any of these areas would result in getting demerits. If you got too many demerits, you risked being recycled or dropped from the course.
In addition to the daily calisthenics and road run that started our day, we had to attend classes on leadership, weapons familiarity, terrain features, map reading, hand-to-hand combat, and drill and ceremony. This was practical application of these subjects too. For example, not only were we taught how to conduct drill and ceremony, but we had to all take turns marching the group through the different commands. The way in which the command was given as well as the pertinence of such a command was weighed against us also. We were graded on every aspect of the training by our drill sergeants.
The leadership positions within the company, such as squad leader, platoon sergeant, platoon leader, first sergeant, and company commander, were all rotated on a weekly basis to the persons who the drill sergeant thought were best suited to that position, according to his progress in the course. If a designated person failed to perform the duty commensurate with his position, he was replaced on the spot. Since the course was only twelve weeks, not everyone got a chance to fill these positions. Enough was learned by participating in such formations, that you would know the duties and commands of each person within the company hierarchy.
My most favorite subject (and the most feared) was the map reading course. That lasted a full week and consisted of classroom work on orientation of the map with surroundings; reading the coordinates properly; reading the symbols on a military map; and map scales. We were broken down into four man teams and given coordinates to first one location, and then at that location, we found the coordinates to another location, and so on, until five locations were found. We did this during the day for two days. It was impossible to cheat because at each coordinate, a word had to be copied to prove the spot had been located. Only the DIs knew the word at the coordinates.
The course was set up so that each team would occasionally run across each other while searching, but all had different coordinates. There was no time limit, per se, but it was a matter of pride among the teams to see which team could locate all five points and return to base camp before the others arrived. During our search on the second day, my team was hot, thirsty and tired. We passed a pond along the route that, while the water was muddy, was too tempting to pass up. Another man and me, stripped, and went for a swim to cool off. We only stayed in the water for about five minutes. Another team passed nearby and spotted us in the water. We were afraid they'd say something to the DIs when we got back, but they didn't. I suspect the DIs knew about that water hole though!
The fearful part of the map reading course came next. We had to locate another five coordinates in the dark! We had been taught how to count our individual paces to reach a thousand yards, and to mentally apply that yardage to the map, thus figuring out the location on the map. Matching terrain features during the day was fairly easy, but at night, became very difficult. You had to rely on the pace method. The only thing wrong with that though, is that the terrain wasn't flat. It went up and down and over cliffs. You had to walk a straight line while pacing or if you made a detour, you had to calculate the change on the map. We had flashlights with red lenses, but they were only to be used to read the map and coordinate markings.
Of the ten teams we had that night, not one team found all the coordinates. My team had found the most, four, but since the exercise had not gone as well as expected, the DIs graded it on a curve. Thank God that there wasn't time for them to put us through the course again at night!
Another bit of night training we had was trying to hit targets with live ammunition from a prone position. They'd given us classes on how to use our peripheral vision to locate a target at night. The instructions were to aim low because of a tendency to shoot high at night. Still, I did very poorly at this, knocking down less than a third of the targets. Throughout my military career, I'd always fired expert on the rifle range, but that was in the daylight. I wouldn't even want to take my chances with an enemy in the dark!
Two friends who went through the academy with me, I would run into again. Dick was a nice, soft-spoken, southern boy from Alabama, who always carried a single-bladed knife, about five inches long, in his back pocket. I ran into him at a club in Long Binh, Vietnam in 1970. He was flying with the First Cavalry helicopter crews on some of their missions. He'd been putting that knife to grisly use, and had the ears to show for it! The other one, Bob, was working in the O5C course at Fort Gordon, Georgia when I got there in 1973. He retired here in Augusta and lives about four miles from me.
Upon completion of the NCO Academy, I returned to my unit at Fort Carson. I was now the sharpest sergeant E-5 in the troop. The first sergeant promptly made me the platoon sergeant of the commo platoon. Of course, I resumed my other duties as CBR NCO, and commander of the M-577 track.
Roy Flegle wanted to get married but he didn't have enough money. I was planning on taking leave and going back to Korea to get Chong Hui. I'd saved enough money for that and then some. I told Roy if he'd be able to return the money to me when I came back, I'd let him borrow six hundred dollars. He agreed to that, so I wished him luck, and departed for Korea.
After arriving at Kimpo Airport, I took a taxi to the U.S.O. in downtown Seoul. It was a common point that Chong Hui and I had both been to and I knew she would be able to find it. I had her address and a picture of her, but the address was in Korean. It would have been impossible for me to locate her by myself. I checked into the U.S.O. and went to get something to eat.
Most Westerners are besieged by kids ranging in age from six to sixteen, as soon as they show their face on a public street. Most are looking for handouts or a chance to make off with something without being caught. A group of these boys surrounded me when I went outside. A young boy of about fourteen seemed to be the most proficient in English. I showed him the picture of Chong Hui and her address and asked if he could find it. He said he could, but wanted three thousand won (about eight dollars at the time) to do the job. I agreed, only on condition that he could bring me proof that he had found her. I gave him enough money for expenses while looking.
About three hours later, when I was thinking I'd been had, the boy showed up. He had located a hut in the hills in Seoul, where an old lady was staying. It was the address I'd given him. When he'd shown her the picture of my wife, she got real excited. The woman was my mother-in-law, my wife was not there. She told him that she would bring my wife to me at the U.S.O. the next day. I thanked the boy and gave him his well earned money.
The next day, just after lunch, my wife and her mother showed up. Gee, it was great to see her! I hugged her and kissed her and tried to tell her so many things all at once. I didn't press the issue of her not coming to Fort Carson right away. I wanted to wait until we were alone to find out why she hadn't come. I was to learn that she had a very good reason!
After treating them both to a meal, we caught a taxi to a little place near Itaewan, just outside of Yongsan in Seoul. From what I could make out, the place was the home of my wife's friend. It was a very nice, two floor apartment, but I had the feeling that arrangements had been made rather hastily for us to stay there during my leave time.
It was at this time too, that I learned that I was a father! Chong Hui had given birth to a baby boy about eight months after I'd left Korea (at least that's what she said). Looking at the child, he didn't appear to have any Caucasian features. Most Amerasian kids that I have seen, take on some of the features of their Western parent, although the dominant features are Asian.
But this boy looked 100% Korean! I couldn't believe the kid was mine, but didn't want to call my wife a liar. She even made it a point to show me the stretch marks still visible on her stomach (they would have been present no matter who fathered the child, but I didn't press it).
If you'll recall, due to the hazardous duty of my last assignment in the Second Infantry Division, most of my last tour had been spent with me being in the DMZ and my wife living in Seoul. It began to look as if she had found herself a Korean boyfriend to occupy her time when I wasn't present! Since the child was so young, I thought it possible that any western features he had might not show up yet. I decided to give Chong Hui the benefit of the doubt for now.
I had about a three week stay before I would have to return to Colorado. We stayed in the apartment most of the time we were there. That was mostly because it was the monsoon season and it rained most of the time. It was peaceful to lie in bed during the day, and look out over the city while the rains came down in torrents, making music on the tin roof of our house. Then too, our love-making took on an urgency of it's own . . .at least on my part. Chong Hui seemed to be more reserved than I'd remembered her being before.
We went to the NCO Club near Yongsan for a day, just before my departure. That was nice after being cooped up all day for almost three weeks. We had a nice meal and some drinks and we danced. We even played the one-armed bandits a little, but didn't win big. Finally, it was time to go back to the apartment for the last night. It was a sad leave taking I made the next morning. We hadn't settled anything about our living arrangements. I told her that I'd try to get back to Korea but didn't know when, meanwhile, I would continue to send her an allotment. She wouldn't commit to coming to the States.
When my return flight stopped in Seattle, I made the mistake of getting too drunk at a bar in the airport. By the time I'd sobered-up enough to know what was going on, I had lost or spent any money I'd had. Luckily, I still had my round-trip ticket stub with me. I was able to catch another flight making connections into Colorado Springs. When I got there though, I had no money. I called Roy Flegle, who had returned from his honeymoon, and he came out to get me. He also returned the $600 he had borrowed to get married. Thank God that I had lent him that money, it sure came in handy!
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