January 1968, found me on a westbound Trailways Bus somewhere in the Nevada desert. My transistor radio was playing, "Hey Jude", and my destination was Vietnam.
to listen to "Hey Jude".The first time I had ever heard of Vietnam was in 1965. I was assigned to the 396th Truck Company located at Panzer Karserne in Boeblingen, Germany. Our CO would call us together periodically and brief us about this place called Vietnam. All I can recall from those briefings is; he talked a lot about a town called Da Nang, wondering what has this got to do with me, what has this to do with driving a truck, and how long was this briefing going to last. After all, I joined the Army to drive a truck, not to attend history classes.
I starterd to hear more and more about Vietnam as it was in the news daily now. And as the news media increased its coverage on Vietnam, I was transferred to the 262 Trans. Co. at Fort Riley, and started to receive jungle training.
I had just gone through some jungle training a couple of months ago at Fort Riley, where they had constructed a Vietnamese village in one of its remote areas. It was complete with straw huts, trails, and many booby traps. I learned about trip wires, pungie sticks, booby traps, and a nasty spring loaded device that sprung up, down or out, depending upon its design, with numerous wooden spikes pointed in your direction, that would impale you when you activated the trip wire.
We were also warned about picking up souvenirs, as the Vietnamese were notorious for booby trapping items that the American GI thought would be neat to pick up and take back home.
A lurch of the bus brought me back to the present, and my radio was now playing "Light My Fire." The guy sitting next to me, who was asleep now, was returning to Nam for his second tour. He had filled me in on what to expect over there, and shared some of his war stories with me. As I listened to the drone of the bus' engine, I was thinking, "This is it." "This is real." "I'm going to a place where I could be shot". "I may have to shoot at people". "Will I be killed?" "Will I have to kill someone?" And what did my seatmate mean by, "Body Count?"
The bus made a rest stop in Reno, Nevada and I walked across the street to a bar and ordered a beer. I was informed that I was not old enough to drink beer. Do you see any irony here?
The Oakland Army Terminal was a large place, and I would just be guessing if I were to say how many people were crowded into its confines. I recall rows upon rows of cots and duffel bags stretching on almost to infinity. There were a matching number of GIs that were milling around, standing in line, or sitting on cots. Some were talking, some were reading, all were lost. In those days when you reported in to a place, you were told to, "Wait here until your name is called." How many times has that been heard in the Army? So, like everyone else, I waited around listening for my name to be called.
I noticed that some of the GIs were squatting down in the middle of the floor, their butts almost on the ground and had their arms draped over their knees, while they talked amongst themselves. When I inquired about this strange behavior, I was told, "They just returned from Nam." Huh?
A couple of days later my name was called and I was crowded onto another bus and taken to the airport. As we entered a holding area at the airport I heard the familiar, "Wait here until your name is called."
Later that afternoon our names were called and we were taken outside the terminal, onto the tarmac, and told? You got it, only now, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to invent the acronym "WHUYNIC".
There was a large aircraft waiting for us with the face of a tiger on it's tail, and the words, "Flying Tiger" written on the fuselage. I recalled that this airline had been around for quite awhile, and seems like they did a lot of flying during W.W.II. Well, at least we were going to Nam with some folks that knew what they were doing and had some experience in dodging bullets. This gave me a warm fuzzy.
As our names were called we loaded onto the aircraft and shortly afterwards we were airborne and on our way. The trip was pretty much uneventful. That is except for the announcement that the pilot made, giving us our estimated arrival time for landing in Anchorage, along with the local weather. Alaska! I was suppose to be on a plane bound for Vietnam! My eyes dilated, I broke into a sweat, and my warm fuzzy took off like a cork out of a champagne bottle. Things started flashing through my mind such as; missing a movement, reimbursement to the Government for a plane ticket, and stockade! The pilot then continued his announcement with; "From there we will continue on to Okinawa, Japan and Vietnam. Phew! I'm on the right plane after all I thought, as the color returned to my face and my warm fuzzy showed back up.
We arrived over Vietnam sometime during the night, and I recall looking out the cabin window trying to make out anything on the ground. But with the exception of a few scattered lights, it was pitch black. We were making our approach, the engines had slowed, and we were descending, but it was still black down there. Just about this time the sky started to light up with white and orange streaks of light, and I knew we were under some kind of attack. I expected that at any second our pilot would give the engines full throttle and we would get out of there. But we kept descending, and my warm fuzzy went AWOL.
I learned later that we were not under attack after all, and that the orange lights that popped up everywhere were only parachute flares, used nightly all over Vietnam. My warm fuzzy started coming back.
The doors opened on our aircraft and I stepped out into the night. I was immediately hit by a big surge of hot air, which did not go away the whole time I was in country. As I recall, there were three seasons in Nam. Hot and muggy, hot and dry, or in the winter, warm and muggy. We marched into the air terminal, placed our duffel bags on the floor, and were told, WHUYNIC. I need to explain something here for you folks that haven't enjoyed a trip to this part of South East Asia. You may have noticed that I shortened "Vietnam" to "Nam". I can do this now because I've been there. But it is considered a faux pas to use this term without having spent your time "In country." I don't know why, it just is.
Sometime during the night my name was called and I loaded onto a small military bus. As we pulled out of the airport and started through a village, which I can now refer to as "The Vil", without committing a faux pas, I noticed that the windows on the bus had heavy wire mesh screens over them. I made a comment about needing the screens for the big mosquitoes over here. I was informed that the screens were there to prevent the villagers from tossing handgrenades into the bus. I felt my warm fuzzy deserting me again, and this time it didn't return until I was back in the states.
I have no idea where our plane landed, but think it may have been Bien Hoa. The bus was taking us to a place called Long Binh. We made the trip without incident. At Long Binh we were ushered into a large BLDG and told to WHUYNIC.
The next day we were formed up outside for a newbie's survival briefing. As we were getting into formation I noticed that there were several old timers that were moving into the area, as if they were going to listen to the briefing also, and I wondered why they would want to stand out in this heat and hear something they must have heard a hundred times before. The briefing started and we were told that there were a couple of warnings we needed to know about.
The first warning was called a Yellow Alert. We would be warned by the sound of a wailing siren, and if we heard it we should move outside of any buildings and proceed to one of the numerous bunkers located throughout the compound.
Then we were told that in a Red Alert that we were to drop down wherever we were and cover ourselves the best we could. The question was asked, "What is the warning for a Red Alert?" The answer was, "You'll be being shot at!" I then discovered why the old-timers had shown up, as they started leaving the area with big grins on their faces, after watching our reactions to our Red Alert answer.
Shortly after the briefing I was singled out and told I needed a haircut. And admittedly I did need one after managing to go 2 months without one, thanks to a 45 day leave I had just come off of. I found the barber shop and walked in. And what I saw caused any part of my warm fuzzy that might have been hanging around to Di Di Mau. For standing before me, with a big grin on his face and a straight razor in his hand, was a Vietnamese barber! "Have seat", he said in broken English.
I survived my haircut with both ears intact, but as he was trimming around my sideburns with that straight razor he said, "You likey haircut?" "Yes sir" I replied. "I do good job, no?" "You did a great job" I said. "You leave big tip?", he asked, as the razor slid along my the side of my face. "A real big tip" I gulped. How much is 10,000 Dong anyway?
A couple of days later myself and a few other GIs were herded onto a C-123, which is a two engined C-130, to be flown to our new duty station. Our plane had no seats. You walked up a ramp that dropped down from the back end of the aircraft, and found a place on the floor to sit. The floor consisted of aluminum pallets which sat on rollers and had cargo netting draped over them. The plane took off and we tried to maintain a sitting position on our now rolling pallets. Although the pallets were for the most part secured, they still had some slack in them. The big trick here was not to get your fingers or butt pinched between the pallets when they rolled together.
There were no windows to see out of, and there was too much noise to talk, so we just sat there with our thoughts, wondering if it was normal for this thing to vibrate and shudder the way it was. Everybody else must have been wondering the same thing, as or eyes would all widen in unison. Other than that, our flight was pretty much uneventful. Don't you just love those kind of flights?
I landed in Cam Ranh Bay and went through the WHUYNIC routine. A deuce and a half showed up and provided the transportation for the final leg of my journey. I bounced along in the back of the truck wth a couple other GI's that were hitching a ride back from the landing field. The dust from the roadway kept pouring in over the tailgate, turning my khaki uniform and green duffel bag a chalky white. I noticed that the bottom of the truck bed was covered with bags full of sand and said something about them being put there to weigh the truck down in order to give us a smoother ride. "They're put there to keep the damage to the cargo at a minimum when a landmine is hit.", I was told. Oh fuzzy, where are you?
The truck, which was now struggling to get through deep sand, came to a halt and the driver dropped the tailgate. As I climbed out of the truck and looked around, all I could see was white sand, some brown buildings, very little vegetation, and a relenting sun that seemed that it's main mission was to be sure I could not escape from it. I had arrived at the 566th Trans. Co., my new home.
The driver pointed to a building off in the distance and told me that it was the orderly room, and that I should go there to report in. As I made my way toward the orderly room I heard someone shout out, "I smell weed." Someone else shouted back, "What kind of weed?" The first person then shouted, "Seaweed!" Seaweed, or weed, was the term used for newbies, a carryover from the troops arriving by ship. I made it to the orderly room with a few more cat calls of, "Here comes some weed." And, "Look at the weed."
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