Then it was Vietnam - part 2

Village meeting - Binh Dinh Province - 1967

                     
The war was going strong, with the US committed to adding me along with many others to its expanding effort. Though, as it turned out this didn't do much to change the course of the war as in the not too distant future the US, started scaling back on it's commitment. Then, abruptly pulled the plug on its war effort, walking away from its  multi-zillion-dollar investment, along with a cadre of loyal Vietnamese. Ton Son Nhut Air Base was a good example of the bounty left behind and was recreated by the new North Vietnamese government as one of the two international airports serving Vietnam, the other being in Hanoi. Ton Son Nhut is located about 30 minutes from Saigon's city center, district 1.

Ultimately, as things turned out I ended up in Phu Cat in Binh Dinh Province. A heck of a long way from Saigon but close enough to be regaled with the stories of the goings on in the city from air crews ferrying supplies and personal. Hearing so many of these stories I started to get the feeling I had been there my self.  

From the stories it seemed the fascination for all that experienced Saigon was its ability to morph into whatever role was expected of it. For the war weary young GI's it was a place to have a bunch of Ba Ba Ba's (inexpensive, Vietnamese beer), meet beautiful and fun Vietnamese ladies and for a moment, loosen the vice grip of the life and death realities of war.  While on a more restrained note Saigon was the political capital of South Vietnam, housing the south's military and political leadership, along with the foreign embassies representing nations friendly to the South's cause. Of course it was also ground zero for US Military's Command Group governing operations in Southeast Asia. This was all played out in front of a backdrop of hardworking Saigonese shopkeepers, laborers, and the other ordinary Vietnamese that were the core of the city. All this was stirred into the bubbling mass of affluent Vietnamese business folk, fast buck hucksters, hookers and pimps. It must have been quite a place back then but how about now, 35 some years later.  Well, for me Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, or whatever you want to call it, while more mellow under the communist regime is still a damn cool place.  

It wasn't until I made my return 15 years ago that I would be able to spend any time in Saigon.  On my year gig in the war, landing in-country at Ton Son Nhat was as close as I  was to get to Saigon. Stretching my be legs after my late morning arrival I stumbled across the base Airman's club where the bartender turned out to be an old friend from my home town.  Man it sure is a small  world. After a beer, ok two, and a bite to eat I was feeling a little more relaxed.  Wished my newly found, old friend well, slung my duffel over my shoulder, orders in hand and headed back out to the flight line in search of a ride to Quin Nhon, listed as my new duty station.

Right off, I found a friendly C130 crew chief who offered up a hop to Quin Nhon. That is, if I could give them a hand rolling off a jeep at an airstrip along the way.  

You know that old saying - "the devil is in the details" and in this case, the details were in our pilot's attempted landing on one of those temporary, metal-grating landing strips, while someone or someones on the ground were shooting up at us! 

All the while the pilot continued on his approach, the tail ramp door was opening as the crew chief struggled to get the jeeps wraps off. While I made a feeble attempt to help with one hand and  with the other holding a death grip on a exposed section of the bulkhead. As I'm thinking "screw this damn jeep," and struggling to keep my balance the pilot abruptly pulled up in preparation for a second approach. Meanwhile, the crew chief was back to taking care of the jeep as the pilot lined us up for a second pass.  He drags himself over to my bulkhead and hollers in my ear, "Get ready, this time the jeep is out of here and so are we" As we made our approch I strained to see out and get a look at our landing path, the metal corrugated strip was pock marked and hardly visible through the grass that had over gown it but the area appeared deserted (emphasis on appeared).  The rest was a blur as we fell over one another, kicking the damn jeep out.  Not sure if we were actually on the ground when it finally rolled off, but we had done our job.

The chief comes over and says "Welcome to Vietnam" and I'm thinking, "as a supply sergeant I don't think I'm supposed to be doing this kind of stuff ".  An hour or so later we landed at Quin Nhon, the second leg of what turned out to be a three leg trip to my new duty station.   

To be continued:

(link to part 1)  

Thanks for stopping by..

Then it was Vietnam - part 1

1967 and just about a year left of Airmening, with visions of civilian life bubbling in my head, I was called into the first sergeant's office .  Not a very surprising event as we had become close. I had come to believe that my creative soldiering had impressed him. This was so obvious, why else would he invite me to have conversations about my soldiering and the extra duty most of these conversations generated.  Some referred to this extra duty as disciplinary action but I know the real reason was that he just liked having me around, along with being enlightened by my opinions on the military.

For example he was always interested in how I organized my bunk area with so little effort, then there was my ongoing need of a haircut even after a hair cut, along with my personal dress style - always with my cap stylishly hanging out my back pocket.   Though, this time his manner from the get go was different, something new was going on and that turned out to be my orders to Vietnam.

At the time I wasn't sure of my feelings about all this, romanticized thoughts of war and movie guys in action like John Wayne flashed through my head, only to be dashed by the reality of being an Inventory Management Specialist poking around a warehouse or wondering the flight line. However, thinking back of how my mother so loved the movie "South Pacific", beaches, palm trees aren't all that bad either. So with a new vision of swaying palm trees, balmy weather, I'm thinking, this could be easy duty and with combat pay on top of that. Anyway, nothing ever happens to to a aircraft maintenance supply sergeant.  So going to Nam seemed like an OK deal, maybe not patriotic but my military experience so far could be mostly explained as a silent, covert string of battles fought between me and the Air Force so I was more than ready to start pitting those energies in a more productive way and using them against Charlie.  However, I liked being out on the desert where the base I was now located and Alamogordo the closest city, had begun to feel like home.  Then there was my girlfriend Sue Ellen whose father after a year was trying very hard to like me and I could tell he was getting closer.  I had it figured that by my discharge he would at least be at the point of tolerating me and now all that effort on my part would be to no end, it saddened me.

Then there were the core group of friends Marley, Becom, Big Rice, Bolea and that the group had grown into a sort of a family, So it was going to be tough with out them but this sort of thing is a fact of life in the military. Actually my best friend Becom and I ended up together in Nam at Phu Cat Air Base and we hooked up when we got back in the states after both of us were discharged.

Having to park my MGA with it's recent Mexico paint job was also going to hurt.  As it turned out while it was parked at my mom's one of my sisters boyfriends laid a few wrenches on it and it never ran again. Welcome home Doug..

A few days after a three week leave I boarded a civilian contract flight from San Francisco with a stop in Alaska and on to Tan Son Nhat Air Base in Saigon.  

At Tan Son Nhat our original base ops building survived the war and the communist take over and on my return in 1999 I found that it had been reinvented as the international terminal serving south Vietnam. A few years later a new modern terminal opened but even  with all it's newness it still had the vibes of the old days.  Maybe this was helped along by unnerving event of taxiing up to the terminal past the revetments used by us during the war. As our plane pulled up to what was the old base ops building seeing only Vietnamese civilians and military, grabbing my bags from the same basic area I did in 1967 was really unnerving .
 (Then it was Vietnam - part 2)