Ron Lape, II, 1965-1966

I was stationed at Ft Devens in 1960 having just returned from a three year tour in Germany when I was selected to join the 172nd MI Platoon at Devens. At the time, we didn't know that they were "building up" the 172nd to go to Germany to support a unit in anticipation af the Berlin Wall construction. (Went from three personnel to nine).

Departed Brooklyn Naval Yard via a wonderful Grey thing that had seen it's better days Twenty years ago. Arrived at Nurenburg, Germany to support the 2nd Armored Cav and their border operations. I was sent to Oberammergau in '61 to attend the Advanced Photo Interpreter School and managed to struggle to a successful graduation even tho I was NOT an II at the time. (Went back for the Basic course in '62 and tore it up). Many thanks to Major De Giovanni and Sgt Vindovich for their time spent in bringing me up to speed for the Advanced Course.

In 1963, the 172nd was deactivated and I was assigned to the 2nd MIBARS with duty assignment at Mannheim and the DASC. Returned to Ft Bragg and the 1st MIBARS in '64 and was re-assigned to Defense Intelligence Agency. In turn, when the 1st was being considered for assignment to RVN, I returned to the 1st and assigned to Det C. We got a lot of briefings on the customs and people of Thailand and it began to look like a good assignment. However, while we were supposed to be assigned to an Air Force base in Thailand my understanding was that Bombers and Fighters were OK but Intell types were a No No, and Det C was to go to Can Tho.

When we got the word to move out, most of the unit went to California while some of us were left behind to load the equipment and vehicles aboard a ship in Charleston, SC. Helped with the unloading of vehicles and equipment in Saigon. Wonder why none of Det C's vehicles came out of that hold with major damage other than the small hole in the TIIF? What ever happened to "Jungle Jim"? Anyone remember the Rifle inspection we had while the rest of the Units were at the Bob Hope Show? (Just a little remembrance of things past). Was assigned to HHC and worked at Tan Son Nhut mainly with the Red Haze stuff. For those that need a little jog of memory, I was the one that didn't have a bed at the Compound. If memory serves me right, I was on the compound a maximum of three times. Not many memories of it at all. I left the 1st in November of '65 and was assigned to the Army Intell School at Ft. Holabird as an instructor. Went back to 'Nam in 66 and worked for USARV at the DASC in G2 Air. After TET I went to Phu Bai to work the G2 Air there. Left Phu Bai and returned to Holabird as an Instructor (Along with the move to Ft Huachuca in'70) Took a break and served at Ft Shafter, Hi for Deputy Chief of Staff, USARPAC 'till they got downsized and I returned to Huachuca. Retired in '76 and got a job with USAICS Department of Training as a GS-11. Gave up the ghost in '86 and returned to Pennsylvania. Over the years I met a great many people and made quite a few long lasting friendships. To all whom I served with and the thousands I taught Soviet equipment and the TIIF to, many thanks for the memories.

In-country II School

Colin Canham, HHC School Section, 9/68 - 9/69

The School Section was in one end of the villa where the HHC officers and senior NCOs were billeted, a couple of miles from Muscara Compound. I don't know much about the history, but while I was there in '68-'69 we were running in-country orientation classes for II's from different units throughout Vietnam, in classes that lasted about a week. Between student groups, we prepared classes, worked on hand-held camera imagery files and also did any other special projects that were assigned. There were 4 or 5 E4/E5's (all 96D's) under an E6-/E7. While I was there, SFC John Oliver and WO Motomu Akashi were in charge. We went to Muscara Compound for meals and guard duty, otherwise we were pretty much left alone. None of us ever knew why we got assigned there, but it was excellent duty. I was there with Paul Toth, Guy Bradbury and Wilson Tschiffely.

Lary Scollick, HHC Operations, September '68 August '69

I arrived in HHC about mid-September, 1968 and was assigned to the Bn AG who was, at the Ron Sallas. His real first name was James but he went by his middle name, Ron. The one thing I remember at least at first was the twelve hour days. The Bn CO was LTC Wetherill and I will never forget that I did not appreciate his expectation that I would fix his coffee percolator each morning.

Among other things, I ran the mail room in Bn HQ, typed everyone's orders, get up the AR's, prepared the duty roster for offset printing, served as duty driver for officers moving between Long Bin and HQ and probably other things long since forgotten. I remember filling sandbags and building a bunker between the Gia Dinh street wall and the end of the barracks. That was fun. I remember being a Sp5 and not being allowed to drink in the NCO club. That was reserved for the, what was it, three hard stripers?

And here is a confession that until now only one other person in the unit ever knew, for sure. When I first arrived in the unit, I noticed I was processing Article 15 papers on HHC personnel caught by the MP's for curfew violations. One day the adjutant arrived for work and ordered me to not open any communications from the MP's but rather pass it on to him. The next day, a delinquency report arrived with a curfew violation against Cpt Sasser and CW......what was his name, he ran the personnel section. Well I made a copy of it in what was then a thermofax machine, hid the copy in my locker, and passed the open envelope to the Cpt. I apologized saying it looked like routine correspondence. He never asked me whether I read it and I never told him that I had. But that was the last article 15 in HHC for curfew violation.

Peter Schlesinger, HHC, II and S3, 11/66 - 11/67

I went to Ft Holabird for II training after finishing basic at Ft Jackson, SC, arrived in RVN on Nov. 4, 1966 and was assigned to the II Section at Tan Son Nhut, initially doing some photomosaic work.

Here are some random recollections from the year I spent there - Rotated back to the "World" on Nov. 4, '67

A couple of weeks after reaching HHC I was transferred to the S3 Section in the HQ building (the one with the EM Club on the top floor) to work under the asst. S3 officer. I did stuff like the weekly reports that went to our parent HQ Group (525th - ???) and then to MACV or USARV HQ and writing medal recommendations, and so on. Maybe a month or so later the asst. S3 got sick and was medevaced to Japan, and never did get back. When a replacement arrived I told him I knew exactly how to do the required reports and thereafter had a whole lot of freedom for a Spec4 (later Spec5) cutting my own travel orders to travel to "and observe" ops at the Bn detachments - flew to Can Tho once, Nha Trang a couple of times & often to Bien Hoa, by jeep. Never did get to Da Nang.

The main recreation activity at HHC was volleyball - played almost every day in the compound next to the repro shop. We were so enthused we had a HHC Team - and played against A Det, a couple of other units and a team from 525th (??) MI Group that really kicked our asses. One time the whole team piled into a vehicle (a van I seem to recall) and drove up to A Det - I believe we were on some alternate route, and half way there we realized we didn't have a single firearm among us - everyone assumed the other guys had weapons - needless to say we made it, without incident, or I wouldn't be writing this.

Speaking of 525th MI Group, a couple of nights I had guard duty and had to make jeep runs there after curfew - as I recall you left our gate & turned right on Chi Lang St. & went a couple of miles, including some "jungly" areas. I was scared "shitless" but never had a problem.

Other recollections - To do Street, with all the bars & bargirls - came close a couple of times, but abstained. Warm Viet Beer (ba mui bah-?) on ice. Cholon for good Chinese food. Devilled crab at a hotel downtown with a procession of lady singers for entertainment. Meals at a floating restaurant in the Saigon River. Fresh baked "French" bread from street vendors right outside our compound. Made a number of trips to the race track (horses) in Saigon - bookies wrote odds on horses on board & wrote you a receipt for your bet (the odds kept shifting as bets came in). Met a nice Vietnamese guy named Tran at the track - we became friends and hung out sometimes (on his motor scooter a couple of times - a "no-no" but didn't get caught). He was an English instructor for the ARVN forces - lost touch when I rotated. Went on two R & R's, first to Hawaii where I hooked up with my Mom & Dad & girlfriend, whom I later married, but it didn't last. Was a magical six days - like out of a movie. 2nd R & R was to Penang, Malaysia - also a great time. Went to the Penang Sports Club on arrival where I met 2 great older couples - One USA & the other Aussie who took me under their wing - wonderful time but that's a whole "nother story."

Roomies at HHC were Tommie Daugherty from Cal. & later, Jimmie Grey, from NC. Understand that Jimmie was wounded (I heard) during the Tet attacks. Met (at our local VFW Post) & have become friends with Jim Verdi (HHC Delivery Plat crew chief) who arrived incountry after I rotated.

Two scariest moments for me were during a flight to Vung Tau to an Aussie unit, in our two-seat plane (I used to fly shotgun sometimes), where as we were leaving, taxiing for takeoff, a chopper landed next to the strip and the rotor airblast almost rolled us - the pilot, a Capt (name - ???) did a great job getting us under control. Other one was when on guard duty on roof of barracks building at twilight - I'll swear to my dying day that a VC took a shot at me & missed. Heard a "whssh" followed by a gunshot sound, hit the deck & crawled to the staircase entrance, reported it and wouldn't go back up until full dark. I heard "what I heard"!

I'll never forget seeing body bags at Tan Son Nhut, nor seeing a huey, taking off, grazing another, next to it, and crashing (killing several) at a helipad next to the "repple-depple" my first morning in RVN. Welcome to Vietnam!! BTW - Do you remember - "You are a guest in Vietnam??"

Finding An Old Vietnamese Army Friend After 40 Years

Charles Chauncey Wells, HHC Repro and USARLE School Commandant, 10/67 - 2/68

In the back of my mind, I always wanted to go back to Viet Nam and revisit the places I had been nearly 40 years ago. We booked a 17-day tour through

Smartours that included all of Viet Nam, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and Bangkok, Thailand, all for $2,499. Viet Nam, however, was the major draw.

We arrived in Hanoi for three days and visited Halong Bay, spent a day in Hue, the old imperial capital and scene of intense fighting during Tet, Danang and the inside of the infamous Marble Mountain, Hoi An for R&R, and finally two days in Ho Chi Minh City, most still call Saigon. When you are in a war, it is difficult to appreciate the cultural and artistic history of the country you are fighting in. This time we could see the whole of Viet Nam including the former enemy areas of the north.

Saigon, where I spent all of my time, was completely changed. In 1968, it had about 1.5 million. Now it has over 7 million. All the land between downtown and Tan Son Nhut is completely filled in with multi-story buildings. No dirt roads or shacks, new street names, and everything is concrete.

Upon landing, I could recognize some French-built water towers and a few revetments, but nothing else from the '60s. Nowhere could I locate our 1st MIBARS Battalion Headquarters in Gia Dinh. Either it is so greatly changed or it has been torn down and replaced by a larger building.

What is surprising is how well Americans are received. I made no secret of my Viet Nam service and many wanted to know where I spent time and what I did. There are very few men left who had been Viet Cong or NVA regulars. Everyone in Viet Nam is young, and all want to start businesses and know Americans. I found it quite surprising that the largest investors in Viet Nam are American banks and businesses, especially in beach-front hotels around Danang and other coastal towns.

Back when I was attending the Signal Repair and Maintenance School in 1967 at Fort Monmouth, N.J., I met and became friends with ARVN Captain Nguyen Tam Phuc. We learned about how to do record-keeping using punch cards, now done by the simplest of computers; the beginning of the transistor and how it might miniaturize our equipment; and how to maintain the radios and communications systems that are primitive and clumsy in today's world.

When I first went to Viet Nam, surprise of surprises, my 1st MIBARS headquarters was only a block away from my friend's home. I visited there and met his extended family, his wife, and little baby daughter and we had dinner together. Chickens walked in and out freely. We enjoyed those visits a few times, but then, with the Tet Offensive, I could not come anymore because he would be targeted by the VC. We met a few more times away from his home and then I returned to the States. We had a letter or two, but then Viet Nam fell to the Communists and there was no more communication.

So I definitely wanted to see him again after nearly 40 years, wondering if he was still alive. I hired a car and driver and a Vietnamese guide to enhance success. We went to the Gia Dinh neighborhood and began knocking on doors. Luckily I had saved his card with his old home address and we began in the right area even though it was greatly changed. One thing that helped is that there are very few 70-year-old men around anymore, so Phuc would stand out. After about four tries, things were getting bleak, but our guide did not want to give up.

He went down an alley and was gone about 20 minutes. When he returned, he said he had found the place--the home of Phuc's mother-in-law, then in her 90s. The guide came up to the door and asked, "Does anyone here know Charles Wells." Phuc very surprised said: "I know Charles Wells."

When I came to the door, he said, " Welcome, Charles Wells. Your first son is Charles Andrew and your second is

Christopher" (born in 1970), and whose birth I had written him about. His little baby girl is now about 42 and a primary school teacher and she was there also. We stayed for a short visit and Phuc came that evening to our hotel for dinner. The hotel staff was very baffled and asked him a number of questions because very few Americans know Vietnamese that well to have them come to their hotel and eat in the dining room.

What had happened to him? He is now a Buddhist monk, tending the affairs of a nearby chapel in Gia Dihn. His wife has been dead for 26 years and they had two more sons since I had been there.

Life has indeed been hard. He was imprisoned for two and a half years in a lumber camp out in the jungle. Had he been there three years, he could have come to America later when we accepted Vietnamese as immigrants. He could not find decent work because he had been on the wrong side and the Communist regime would not give anything more than menial jobs to anyone backing the previous government or the Americans. He worked as a cyclo-bike driver, did odd jobs, and his family had a hard time. The children were denied entrance to college. One son is a mechanic and another is in retail clothing.

After all these years, his English was good enough that we had an enjoyable time visiting about the directions our lives had taken. As old friends, we picked up where we left off. He is now in his 70s, not in good health, and I probably will never see him alive again. I am really pleased we could visit together and renew our friendship again. This, my second tour in Viet Nam, was well worth the effort and I would highly recommend it to other Viet Nam veterans.

LTC Bob Freeman, USA (Ret.),HHC and 45th MID, 11/67 – 11/68

MIBARS Memories. My year in the the 1st Military Intelligence Bn (Air Reconnaissance Support), NOV ’67-NOV ’68, was my first Army assignment after training. It was the beginning of a 27 ½ -year MI career, so it naturally holds a special place in my memories. The following MIBARS recollections are probably pretty distorted, at least partly due to the passage of four decades. I apologize for any serious violence to the truth, and I’d appreciate readers letting me know the real details of events, big or small. I sure had fun thinking back, though.

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN! My 30-hour flight to the RVN cured me of any desire to be in the "jet set." Remember back when smoking was permitted on board? Armrests with ashtrays? EVERYONE smelled like an ashtray by the end of this flight. Landing at night at Bien Hoa Airbase, I saw that my world was divided into troops DEROS-ing, who had a definite attitude, and new meat—me and the rest of my planeload. I’d gotten a hint of this at Oakland Army Terminal and Travis AFB, where I’d observed returning troops minimally following orders—they probably were just one or two more orders away from open mutiny! In a year, the jungle boot would be on the other foot, so to speak. The bus to Long Binh and the 90th Replacement Battalion had wire mesh on the window openings, to keep grenades out, and there was a little incoming nearby that night, but not enough to seriously affect my sleep, although I was a little uneasy being unarmed the first couple of days in a war zone. Later in my tour, I’d learn to sleep soundly at every opportunity—in airplanes, on cargo pallets (the rocking action put me out instantly), and in duce-and-a-halfs. I once nearly slept through a mortar attack. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

SETTLING IN. My first room in the Good Guy Villa had a refrigerator. Good for keeping a couple cans of beer cold, but now and then a gecko would crawl into it and die of exposure—discouraged me from hoarding food. I learned to keep my gear clean and check it frequently after I left a pair of shoes under my bed for a few days, and they filled with a greenish-gray mold. One of my predecessors had left me a flight helmet, and a Life Support tech at the 460th Recon Wing fixed me up with internal pads to fit my head, so I was set for a year in the MIBARS. I also started to collect a small arsenal to supplement my M-14, and even came up with an elderly Winchester trench gun and a few rounds of 12 gauge ammunition. My .38, .45, M-16, and M-79 Grenade Launcher would come later.

ARLO. My first MIBARS assignment was as an Air Reconnaissance Liaison Officer at Tan Son Nhut Airbase. ARLOs were a key link between U.S. field commanders in RVN and reconnaissance elements that supported them. I really enjoyed my ARLO duties, my MIBARS colleagues, and the Air Force recce pilots. (More than a dozen years later, one of those pilots was my classmate at Air Command and Staff College.) I also REALLY got into the idea of midnight mess on the flightline, a great USAF tradition.

Following approval of a reconnaissance request by the MACV J-2 Tactical Air Support Element (TASE) and the 7th AF Tactical Air Control Center (TACC), a frag (fragmentary) order would assign the targets to the 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing (TRW) at Tan Son Nhut AB (or the 1st Marine Air Wing, DaNang). The 460th would assign the mission to one of its reconnaissance squadrons and MIBARS ARLOs working in a small building co-located with the 460th HQ would be notified of the request. ARLOs worked 24/7 in two 12-hour shifts, to match the Wing’s day/night reconnaissance capability.

Before the target was flown, an ARLO and an Air Intelligence Officer briefed the aircrew. The ARLO, trained in reconnaissance, surveillance, and imagery interpretation, specifically focused on all available information that would assist the aircrew in successfully completing the mission and insured that the aircrew understood the results desired by the requestor. (When I arrived, ARLOs briefed from half-page, locally produced target sheets filled out with stubby pencils. These sheets were reused over and over and barely legible due to erasures.)

The aircrew would then complete their flight plan and compute times over targets (TOTs). The ARLO relayed this information to the relevant Direct Air Support Center (DASC) for artillery coordination (sometimes aircrews would coordinate artillery suppression with the ARLOs by phone patch while airborne, in the event they noted friendly artillery firing in the vicinity of a target—the maximum ordinate of artillery is several miles and posed a fratricide hazard to U.S. aircraft. I used to love to talk directly with the pilots, ‘cause I could use really cool radio terminology, like, "Go with your message," instead of just, "Over.").

Postflight, while the sensor take was being processed, the ARLO and Air Intelligence Officer debriefed the aircrew on its mission, covering subjects such as visual sightings, enemy action, and any problems encountered with communications, artillery coordination, sensor performance or unexpected cloud cover, as examples. (As part of its postflight duties, to assist in sensor readout the crew would draw a pilot’s trace on a flimsy to show the route flown over the target, including IP and departure coordinates. However, one RF-101 pilot, Major Bond of the 45th TRS/Polkadots would draw his trace while airborne returning to base, to provide to the ARLO. He carried a CONFIDENTIAL stamp and inkpad in the cockpit and marked the trace top and bottom before landing.)

The ARLO could send urgent information developed during crew debriefings and/or rapid sensor readout directly to the field.

(When I was assigned as an ARLO in November 1967, I recall MAJ Cal Korf and CPT Spencer Kowamoto were senior ARLOs.

BREAKFAST of CHAMPS. Every so often, like when I was Duty Officer, I slept in the Bn HQ instead of the Good Guy Villa. My alarm clock at the HQ was the rooster next door. Breakfast for me in the mess usually was cold cereal and milk. One morning, a guy sat down next to me and I started telling him that Kelloggs should have a new advertising campaign based on the slogan, "Rangers eat worms!" The ad should say, "Rangers eat Froot-Loops!" I thought this was hilarious, until he pointed to the Ranger tab on his sleeve. The guy turned out to be the Delivery Platoon leader, MAJ Boyle. He lived near my home in NY and I took him up on his kind offer to stop in on my folks when he rotated. I didn’t warn them he was coming, and he had to explain to my shocked parents that he wasn’t a casualty assistance officer when he showed up unannounced on their stoop one evening, in uniform.

PAY THE TROOPS. Fairly early on in my assignment, I got orders to be the battalion paymaster. I got to fly around to all the dets in a U-6 Beaver with a briefcase full of MPCs, lay my .45 down on a table in front of me and pay the troops. I had a blast, but I also learned not to joke with a soldier about his pay—it’s serious business. Back in Saigon, my tally left me with an extra dollar, and I had one helluva time turning that one lousy buck back.

CAN THO. Also as part of my orientation as a green LT, I visited other dets as time permitted. The DET C MIBARS guys in the Delta were first rate, but the "firstist" had to be MAJ Fadlo Massabni. A great guy who later served in the ACSI’s Special Security Group (SSG), as did several other MIBARS guys (Rusty Troth and me, among them).

Before heading to Can Tho, I had expressed an interest in going out on a riverine patrol in the Mecong Delta. MAJ Walker, the Bn XO, God rest his soul, got wind of this and STRONGLY cautioned me against it. He probably saved my life. So, instead, I went out on a recon over the Song Ham Luong (a river with lots of VC activity) with one CPT Spain in his O-1 Bird Dog. CPT Spain sure loved to fly and fight. Actual quote (gleefully): "Bob, you hear that? They’re SHOOTING at us!" Then he dove his Bird Dog at 170 mph, fired his 2.75-inch marking rockets with the overhead ARMING switches (his joystick trigger had shorted out) at the VC anti-aircraft gunners, and pulled up so fast I thought for sure the wings would come off! I missed seeing the WP explode ‘cause the Gs folded me in half in the back seat. But CPT Spain sure was happy about the results. I was just happy to be alive. That night, there was a big VC attack in town, which didn’t wake me up, but the OV-1 Mohawk that flew over dropping flash carts for night photography sure did!

TET. I found myself in the middle of the Tet Offensive of 1968 like I had just dropped in from the moon. Chalk it up to me being just another clueless LT. Around the same hour that the NVA/VC Tet Offensive began, I woke up in the Good Guy Villa for my midnight shift as an Air Reconnaissance Liaison Officer to the 460th Tac Recon Wing at Tan Son Nhut. I thought I heard a lot of fireworks in the city, but nothing much more registered. AFVN sounded normal, too. I showered and dressed, and set off in a section Jeep for work. I don’t think I had my M-14. Not that I was unarmed. I had "liberated" a .38 caliber S&W revolver from the USAF, along with five rounds of ammunition. Little did I suspect that I might have to hold off the Asian hordes with only a handgun. I became a bit concerned and pushed harder on the accelerator when someone popped a round off at me about half-way there, but I remained resolutely clueless about what I was getting into as I turned onto the road I knew as the "back way" into the base.

All of a sudden, a vertical spray of tracers no more than 20 meters to my front split the darkness, and I tromped on the brakes. In my headlights, a 101st Airborne trooper stood in the road firing his M-60 machine gun in the air, then he pointed it straight at me. He shouted, "Who the fuck are you?! What the fuck are you doing here?!" I raised my hands, got out of the Jeep, told him who I was, and he lowered his muzzle. Still agitated and waving his gun, he shouted, "The VC are attacking!" I didn’t need to be told twice when he screamed, "Get the fuck outta here!"

When I got to the flight line, it was obvious that everyone was on alert and/or hunkered down. I found a few MIBARS personnel in the trailers on the tarmac that served as an imagery interpretation shop, redistributed the few available M-14s and magazines among them, and attempted to organize a defense. Glad of my Infantry training, I shuddered as I briefly pondered the wisdom of putting guns in the hands of photointerpreters and looked out at the perimeter wire where the fougasse mines were exploding. I also thought, "Hey, what I learned for sure at the Infantry School is I didn’t want to be in the Infantry, but HERE I AM!" I didn’t have long to think. Almost immediately, someone ran toward my position, waving his arms and calling out, "They’re comin’ across the runways!" I shouted for my guys to withdraw to the 460th HQ building, ran back there myself, flattened down behind a footing, drew my revolver, and prepared to die.

Of course, I didn’t. But I sure expected to. After a while, we realized that though the VC had penetrated the airbase, they’d mostly been "headed off at the pass," and we gathered in the ARLO shop to await the dawn. At the beginning of morning twilight, I climbed an observation tower on the roof of the HQ to watch distant—and not-so-distant— airstrikes, firefights, and Puff/Spooky/Spectre flights. Some fighting had occurred on Tan Son Nhut in the Air America compound, awfully close to the 460th HQ. And we learned later that a USAF major from the 460th had been killed while watching the action from the roof of a villa, when he was struck in the chest by a VC mortar round that failed to detonate. I recall that there were some MIBARS guys who got to pop a few caps at the enemy, one young guy in Can Tho Leroy JohnsonKIA and some who were wounded.

KATYUSHAS. The VC now and then would lob a few Soviet 122mm rockets at Tan Son Nhut (and, I guess, 107mm on occasion). These unguided, ballistic rockets have large warheads and quite a bit of HE, but the VC’s improvised launchers were only able to send them in the general direction of the airbase—it just SEEMED like the ARLO shop was their primary target. When they hit anything, I think it was in the vicinity of the Graves Registration "reefers" out on the tarmac, so while the shrapnel caused some property damage, live human casualties were limited. But boy, what a lot of noise and concussion! Kaboom! I’ll never forget being under 122mm rocket attack one night, crouched in the kneewell of a steel desk, listening to Donovan singing "Mellow Yellow" over AFVN! Scrounging around after one of these attacks, I found a pretty-much intact aluminum tail fin assembly complete with Russian markings ID-ing it as part of a 122mm rocket. I carried it around for months afterward like a talisman.

PROMOTION PARTY. LTC Jerry Wetherill, who had visited my II classroom at Ft. Holabird, back in late summer/early fall, was a class act. He pissed off a some of the troops in the battalion (like me) with his edict forbidding the private purchase of Honda 50cc bikes, but he probably saved a lot of young lives, too. He promoted me to 1LT in Mid-March ’68, in a brief, nice ceremony in the HQ. I thought that was all there was gonna be. But that night, no sooner had I bought myself a beer in the Good Guy Villa bar, than just about the entire HQ contingent poured through the door. A surprise party! The big surprise is that I survived. Somehow I got involved in a drinking game with a visiting Australian warrant officer. Big mistake. I recall that under the "rules," I had to consume a drink he suggested, a large cocktail of vodka and brandy! I tossed it back and almost immediately sneezed the vile combination out of my nose. Quickly covering the sneeze with my palm drove the corrosive mix upward behind my glasses into my eyes. Arrgh! I was blinded! Groping around in extreme pain, I was so pathetic that LTC Wetherill rendered first aid!

45th MID. When Rusty Troth selected me to be his XO for the Phu Bai detachment, I was in 7th heaven. I was getting away from the flagpole AND I could trade my M-14 for an M-16! He sent me on ahead to Phu Cat Airbase to help move the detachment. My big thrill there was being able to drive around the base in a Jeep with the windshield down. When my supply sergeant asked me for a loan, I found that the men hadn’t been paid in a while. With a phonecall, I got "Class A" orders from CW2 Diaz, but the pay section at Quinh Nhon wouldn’t honor them, because they weren’t "special" orders. But, Ft. Benning had taught me I could overcome any obstacle—so I went around the problem. I left the paymaster and dropped into the 1st Logistics Command admin shop and explained my predicament to a sympathetic warrant officer, who ginned-up a set of one-off "orders" that passed muster and got supplementary pay for the 45th MID.

Likewise, getting USAF assets to airlift the detachment to Phu Bai was getting bogged-down in bureaucracy. But I hung out with some of the aircrews who had flown in from Clark Airbase in the Philippines, and they volunteered to transport our M-292 expansible vans and other vehicles aboard their C-124 "Shaky Jake" aircraft, with minimum red tape. I felt a little bad about telling one pilot that our Tactical Imagery Interpretation Facility (TIFF) was "just like" an M-292. If he had known the TIFF was bigger and heavier than the M-292, I don’t think he would have hauled it to Phu Bai. As it was, its larger external dimensions caused some damage to his cargo bay when we backed it in, but it must not have skewed the aircraft’s weight and balance too badly, because it got off the runway ok.

I may have been a little too enthusiastic in my quest to move the 45th north, because I really pissed off a transportation major at Qui Nhon. I learned later that he had sent a letter complaining about me to CPT Troth, but Top, SFC Frank Carrington, intercepted and shitcanned it.(Lots of the calls I made arranging for transport were routed through the Lightning Tactical Operations Center (TOC) at Bien Hoa. On my second ‘Nam tour in ‘72, I happened to be in Bien Hoa, looking out over a vast wasteland of rubble that formerly was part of the American base. I reached down into the debris and picked up a sign that said, "Lightning TOC.")

One day while packing up our outfit at Phu Cat, the supply sergeant told me he’d be off the base that evening on business, and gently turned down my offer to accompany him. Next morning, it was evident that he and some 45th MID colleagues had been on a "midnight requisition" to obtain a couple of prefabricated buildings. (Incredibly, a few years later, exchanging war stories with a stranger on the barstool next to me at the Bolling AFB officers club, he seemed to know details of this incident and claimed the materiel had been removed from his warehouse in Quinh Nhon! "Sharing" equipment wasn’t unusual. Our supply sergeant who had obtained the prefabs once spotted a generator which had been "borrowed" from the 45th MID being towed by another unit’s truck. He followed it into their compound, and "borrowed" it back.)

The prefab buildings and other gear were stowed in a trailer too big and heavy to airlift, so the trailer was loaded aboard the MSTS ship Fentress for the trip from Quinh Nhon to Da Nang. The voyage took so long, that veterans of setting up the 45th MID in Phu Bai will recall asking among themselves, "Whatever happened to the Fentress?" I sure remember. One night, I was summoned to the phone during a musical show at the 8th Radio Research Field Station across Route 1 from the 45th MID. Rusty Troth, away from Phu Bai, somehow had tracked me down to tell me he’d learned the Fentress had unloaded in Da Nang harbor. My mission was to lead a team to Da Nang to pick up the trailer. We’d then be part of a convoy headed back up Route 1 north to Camp Hochmuth. Fortunately, Marines were going to provide security, including air cover, along the way. In Da Nang, while my guys went to get the trailer, I attended the convoy briefing, presented by a USMC first lieutenant, who was also the convoy commander. Although he asserted that the main threat to our convoy would be from a VC "snapper battalion," (combat engineers are "sappers," not "snappers") operating along Route 1, he otherwise gave out a lot of good information, and I was able to introduce myself and speak with him and the other players on whom we’d be relying for security and emergency breakdown repairs.

Next day in the assembly area, with the tractor-trailer hooked up, and the convoy forming on the road, we found that the trailer’s crank-down jacklegs that support it when detached from its tractor had been damaged in transit and wouldn’t retract. With the jacklegs locked in their extended position, no way could we traverse any but the flattest parts of the notoriously uneven, potholed, and steep Route 1 north through the Hai Van Pass to Phu Bai. But, honest, what happened next was like it had been scripted for one of those leadership training flicks they showed in the darkened "Master Bedroom" at Ft. Benning. Each of these ended with the sergeant turning to the camera lens and asking the audience, "Whaddawedonowlootenant?!" Then the lights come up and 200 lieutenants are supposed to come up with the school solution. When my men asked me, "Whaddawedonowlootenant?!," I heard myself reply, "We’re gonna remove the jacklegs and join the convoy." Problem was, we had zero tools for the job. Maybe take the bolts off with our teeth? My Swiss Army knife? Just then, I spotted my new friend, the Marine first lieutenant rolling by in his Jeep, flagged him to the side of the road, explained our problem, and asked to borrow his mechanics for a few minutes. Thanks to the Marines, in no time flat we unbolted the damaged jacklegs, stowed them, and took our place in the convoy. Semper Fi! Even the VC "snappers" knew better than to mess with us, and we made it to Phu Bai ok.

PHU BAI is ALL RIGHT! As II Section Leader and handheld photographer in Phu Bai, I had lots more excellent adventures. Like the time I almost slept through a mortar attack and I ended up last guy in the bunker with my M-16, helmet liner and one boot. Fortunately, the enemy mortar section had been poorly trained and only about one-third of well over 100 rounds detonated. Unfortunately, several 45th MID personnel suffered shrapnel wounds, although only one was serious enough to warrant overnight hospitalization. In a MASH bed next to our MIBARS guy, I met one of my Infantry Officer Basic Course classmates—a 101st Airborne LT who was recovering ok after being shot in the chest in the Ashau Valley. (I had merely flown over the Ashau, scene of some God-awful fighting.)

A couple of Bird Dog pilots nicknamed me the "Green Baron." I got sick often enough in the back seats of O-1s that I took to carrying a barf bag, which I would chuck behind the aircraft revetment on return. Most recce flights were largely uneventful. On one occasion, however, the oil pressure gauge registered zero for a LONG time, but the engine held out long enough to get us back to Phu Bai.

Some of our guys joined the 45th from Det B in Da Nang, and had smuggled north the detachment’s mascot, "Shithead," their loyal mongrel dog. When the Da Nang det commander called me about returning "his" mascot, I couldn’t let my guys down, so I "denied any knowledge" of its existence. I lied so convincingly, that I knew I was cut out for a career in MI.

During my early days in Phu Bai, MAJ Walker got ahold of CPT Troth with a special mission for me—to investigate a missing 35mm camera for a report of survey. The camera was receipted to a unit of the Americal Division at Landing Zone (LZ) Baldy, but on the MIBARS property books. I puzzled over CPT Troth’s statement to me as I departed, "Bob, MAJ Walker told me, ‘This is one investigation Bob could do sitting at his desk.’"

When I got to LZ Baldy (reknown largely for the fact that there was an actual Red Cross "Donut Dolly" in residence), it became clearer that the camera may have been given away as a bribe to help cover up the loss of a considerable amount of other equipment, and that’s what I remember reporting up the MIBARS chain. Maybe MAJ Walker had experienced this before, so the conclusion I’d reach was obvious to him, prompting his remark. What wasn’t obvious to me, however, was why I was stonewalled by every senior Americal officer I interviewed. Their level of evasiveness was hardly what I had expected in an investigation over a camera that went for around a hundred bucks in the PX. Even the suspected major materiel losses might not be such a big deal (for example, the combat loss of a ¾-ton truck offered the opportunity to write off tons of equipment ostensibly blown up in the truckbed, but otherwise gone missing—or to the black market). Decades later, it occurred to me what was really going on. I had dropped in on LZ Baldy and the Americal at a very bad time—shortly after the infamous My Lai incident, of which I knew nothing. But the officers I interviewed almost certainly had been internally briefed or at a minimum had heard latrine rumors of suspected war crimes, and probably seriously doubted that I was nosing around the division just to find out what happened to a missing camera!

A minor sidelight to my excellent Americal adventure, was that returning to Phu Bai, on the leg from Cu Chi to Da Nang, I was a passenger in a USMC C-117 (looks a lot like a C-47). When we landed, a Marine E-8 stepped out of the cockpit—one of the last of the storied USMC enlisted aviators. Even then, both the aircraft and the pilot were among the last of their kind. In my year in MIBARS, I hitched lots of rides in lots of aircraft, including a few Air America C-46s. They would go from point A to point B, but usually airdropping a hold full of cargo along the way. On one occasion, I was aboard a C-46 that was diverted to help rescue an Air America pilot who had made a forced landing on a beach, flipping his single-engine, high-wing plane upside-down. Another time, I was aboard a C-46, whose "kicker" accidentally followed his cargo down!

COMMAND PERFORMANCE. LTC Wetherill visited the 45th early on in our Phu Bai encampment, and asked to tour the Hue Citadel, which had taken such a beating during Tet. CPT Troth and I obliged. Rusty drove, and I was the official photographer, with a trusty Pentax and ONE roll of Tri-X. You guessed it. When we finally escorted the commander to a virtually intact shrine in the Citadel’s inner-most sanctum, and LTC Wetherill had smilingly posed for the camera to capture this once-in-a-lifetime moment, I was outta film!

FEARLESS AVIATOR. Sometime around the beginning of October 1968, I had a month left on my MIBARS tour. By this time, I had been reassigned from Phu Bai back to the ARLO shop at Tan Son Nhut. I was scheduled for R&R in Australia soon before my early November DEROS. My boss, CPT Pete O’Neal, offered me the chance to take an additional, "informal" R&R, somewhere out of the country (I forget where). We were able to arrange this sort of short break, due to our close association with the 6250th Support Squadron and other USAF outfits, and I had briefly gone to Thailand and the Philippines earlier in my tour (these trips, I recall, were on C-54s that leaked a lot of engine oil, but made it safely there and back). Rusty Troth was with me on one of those trips, and Darryl Neidlinger, Delivery Platoon Leader on another.

I turned down the unofficial R&R, because it conflicted with a party at the 45th MID that I was determined to attend, and flew directly from Tan Son Nhut to Phu Bai as the only passenger on a 6250th T-39 Rockwell jet courier! I’m sure I’m the only Army guy EVER to forego the fleshpots of some Asian capital for an all-expenses-paid visit to Camp Hochmuth! It was a great party. I got to see my old colleagues, and they gave me a plaque with scrollwork at the top proclaiming, "Phu Bai is All Right." It hangs on my wall today.

On my return trip from Phu Bai, I had one more excellent adventure. To catch the jet courier, this time I had to fly in the Delivery Platoon’s Beaver via the northern route to Da Nang. CPT Steve Burke, who for one reason or another didn’t like me much, had to drop off "dupe pos" film and reports elsewhere in the Provisional Corps first, so I went along for the ride. First stop, we landed on the short strip in the Hue Citadel—which was even shorter than usual due to resurfacing work on the far end. As we touched down and rolled out short of all the trucks and laborers on the runway, Steve said, "I don’t think we can get out of here!" I didn’t like the sound of that, as I was much too "short" for problems of any sort. I climbed out of the copilot’s seat and delivered a couple of fat envelopes to the locals, climbed back into the aircraft and fumbled with my seatbelt, shoulder harness, and flight helmet, while Steve taxied back to the unobstructed end of the strip. While running through the takeoff checklist, he turned the ship into the wind, cranked down a few degrees of flap, and pointed at my loose chinstrap. "Tighten it up," he said, "We might crash." I tightened it. He aimed for the dump trucks and workers, who didn’t seem all that far away, and pushed the throttle to the firewall. So, here we were, hurtling down a pockmarked runway at absolute full bore, with the tail stuck high in the air to reduce the angle of attack for maximum speed. I could clearly see disbelief and even terror on the faces of the Vietnamese workmen, looking like I felt, as we closed with them—then they dropped their shovels, rakes and hoes and ran! I resisted the urge to yank the control yoke back, while Steve clenched his teeth just like Snoopy, and pushed the yoke further forward to bring the tail up still more. We were no more than a handful of yards from the trucks blocking the strip, when Steve heaved back on the control yoke, yanking the ship from the ground. We’d needed almost every foot of available runway, but we were airborne!

We flew to Camp Evans, where the 1st Air Cav was located, then on to Dong Ha, base for the 3rd Marine Division, just six miles from the DMZ. I had my final hazy glimpse of North Vietnam just before we landed. We gave a lift to a couple of Marines, and set course south for Da Nang. Since we’d come so far north, we took a brief detour over the South China Sea, looking for the Battleship New Jersey. We never spotted it, but did see a USN cruiser before turning back to the coast.

En route, Steve explained that he had partied hard most of the night before with a couple of naval officers, and was nursing a horrendous hangover on four hours sleep. "Wanna take it?," he asked me. Now, in the couple weeks leave I had between the II course at Ft. Holabird and shipping out to Vietnam, I had learned to fly. Sort of. I had 12 hours in a J-3 Piper Cub that was one year older than I was, and I had soloed in it. So I could deal with an aircraft that had a 65-horsepower engine and a fixed-pitch prop. That nowhere near prepared me to fly a Beaver, with its several hundred horsepower Pratt & Whitney radial engine and variable-pitch prop. In my 11 months in ‘Nam, I had gotten a little "stick time" with sympathetic pilots, but my rank amateur status was still intact. So I replied, "That’s ok. Thanks anyway." Steve wasn’t receptive. "Take it!," he ordered. I grasped the wheel, then Steve leaned his head against the bulkhead and fell instantly asleep. I was at the controls, whether I wanted it or not.

It’s really easy to fly a Beaver straight-and-level, but it’s no Piper Cub. I was maxed-out with basic navigation, and minor course, throttle and trim adjustments. I just followed the coast and kept an eye out for other aircraft through the haze. When we approached Da Nang, I picked up Route 1, and was going to follow it through the Hai Van Pass. We were at about 3,000 feet MSL. But I couldn’t remember how high the mountains were, and I wasn’t about to avert my eyes or fumble with a chart to check, so I steered around the coastal mountains, and out above the shore. All of a sudden, we were over Da Nang Harbor, and the airbase was directly ahead. I realized that I had blundered into the traffic pattern when I saw jets above us, and cargo aircraft and choppers below. I was time to wake Steve up, so I put the ship in a shallow left-hand turn and punched him on the leg—twice. "ZZZZZZZZZZZZ," was his only reaction. I figured he was faking to make me sweat, so I grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him hard. It wasn’t an act. He woke up with a snort, looked out the window, scanned the instrument panel, grabbed the wheel, and entered the pattern—all the while furiously twisting knobs on the radio to raise the Da Nang tower, and landed smoothly.

Once safely on the ground and parked, he signed off on my non-crewmember flight time in the logbook. I think I earned it.

SENDOFF. My DEROS finally rolled around in November ’68, and I turned in my TA-50 gear (except for my Mask, Protective, Field, M-17—I figured I’d need it in DC) and got all the signatures I needed. Several of the NCOs I had served with in Phu Bai "just happened to be" in the HQ, and invited me to the bar for a drink. "Just one," I’m sure I said, "I gotta get to Long Binh to catch a flight tomorrow morning." The result was predictable. When I finally got to the 90th Replacement, driven by my former colleagues, I fell out of the vehicle and sprawled in the dust something like Lee Marvin fell off the stagecoach in "Paint Your Wagon." I thought it was pretty funny, but I’ll bet all the pimps sitting around in their long, shiny black Citroen "pimpmobiles" outside the 90th’s gates thought, "There goes another potential customer back to the world" if they even noticed. With some assistance, I made my flight, and went on to my next assignment at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division, DIA-XX4.

US ARMY ELEMENT DIA. The admin office for the US Army Element DIA, was in the basement of the Pentagon, way back then. When I reported for my assignment to DIA-XX4 around Thanksgiving, an LTC in the Army office heard me say I had been in Phu Bai, and asked me how long the runway was. He needed the information to determine what kind of aircraft could operate from the strip. Well, just a few weeks earlier, I had been in the Phu Bai airfield base ops building, and had closely studied the airport diagram on the wall, showing the runway and the new overruns at either end. I knew EXACTLY TO THE FOOT how long the runway was at Phu Bai! But I was afraid that if I told this LTC that I knew the exact length, he’d just think I was just another smartass LT. So I said (and I’m making this length up, because I’ve since forgotten the number I knew well, back in the day), "The main runway is APPROXIMATELY four-thousand five-hundred and ninety-seven feet long," before realizing I’d given him the exact length. The LTC just looked at me. "Approximately?," he asked, "Yes, approximately," I lamely replied. I’m sure he thought I was just another smartass LT.

This Was Not Supposed to Happen

Mike Sheehan, II, TIIF Instructor, ARLO, Det C 66 - 67, HHC 67 - 68

I wasn't supposed to be drafted in 1965; I was supposed to continue in my Civil Engineering studies at West Virginia University. But of course I was drafted prior to my junior year because I stayed on too long at a very well paying summer job working as a field engineer in Pittsburgh, Pa. I was trying to save money for the last two years.

I wasn't supposed to end up in Army Intelligence, but of course I did because in boot camp at rainy, swampy, rat-invested Ft. Jackson, SC, I fell for "enlist for one more year and pick your MOS or 11-Bravo and Vietnam are your future." (I think they also told me that I had won the lottery in England and to please send my banking information.)

I wasn't supposed to end up at Ft. Holabird, Md., because the MOS I chose back at Jackson was soils analysis. Even the Company commander at Ft. Jackson couldn't tell me why the engineers had moved from Ft. Belvoir to Ft. Holabird, wherever the hell, that was. But that is what my order read, Soils Analysis AIT at Ft. Holabird. So, of course, from the start I wasn't a very good fit.

I wasn't supposed to be my own Engineering Unit at Holabird, but I was. There were three real Casual Company "units": those waiting for analyst, investigative, and imagery interpretation training. Where was I? In the fourth unit, Engineers. The first week I reported "Engineers, present" or some such bullshit.

In the second week, seeing no immediate resolution to my status, I was assigned to Permanent Casual Company which sounds a lot like Hotel California. I had a bunk in a small dorm room in the attic of the one of the dorms with guys like myself who were misassigned, were awaiting clearance or were awaiting reassignment. My duties were extensive: I was responsible for cleaning the pool room once a day and had the rest of the day off. I don't remember making formations and if we reported to anyone, I can't now remember who it might be, maybe the CQ.

Nevertheless, we were all very, very good at our duties. It didn't take us long to figure out that I could clean my pool tables and your stairs and his railing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and you two guys could sleep in or whatever. And you guys would take care of my duties on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The "whatever" in my case was getting a job at Holabird Pharmacy, stocking shelves, delivering drugs in their little VW bug and serving ice cream and cokes at the soda counter. (The original Army of One!)

You're thinking this cannot last and, of course, you're right. My paperwork finally caught up with me and after a rather stern tongue-lashing from some Lieutenant or Captain, who probably had his ass in the wringer for not accounting for one of his troops for about three months. Surprisingly, I was given an option to stay and take AIT at Holabird or they were "sending my sorry ass to Ft. Belvoir."

At this point I knew enough about the training programs at Holabird to stay away from the Analyst training (the story was mud and death in the jungle), so I told them that I thought the Investigator training sounded real good. They told me to shove it, because that MOS was a great recruiting tool and they already had my ass. So I opted for Imagery Interpretation training. Anyone can look at a picture and figure out what's going on, right?

So off to class, studying the military strategies and equipment of World War II, meanwhile watching the news and reporting from Vietnam and wondering if there was a disconnect. The one bright spot was that my class 66-something was the first to receive Tactical Imagery Interpretation Facility (TIIF) training. The TIIF was a million dollar piece of equipment that was an early version of computer-aided photo-interpretation. My training in this would pay off greatly later.

Class 66-something graduated and most of the single guys when to Germany and most of the married guys went to Vietnam. The Army has a perverse sense of humor. I was one of those married guys, married in the Post Chapel in July. Joe Shandley was my best man.

After a week or two of leave, it was off to Vietnam, destination Can Tho, Detachment C, 1st MIBARS. A few weeks after arrival, one of the NCOs or officers asked if anyone knew what a TIFF was, because there was one in the motor pool and no one knew what to do with it.

Aha! Joe Shandley and I volunteered to get it up and running and train the others on its use if necessary. Well, there just wasn't much interest by the troops who had not been trained and other duties prevailed, so Joe and I had the TIFF to ourselves. We figured there must be something we can do with this van and its equipment to keep us occupied and out of sight. Joe and I made a pretty good team, he was the sales guy and I was the production guy.

One of us came up with the idea of using the TIFF mensuration capability to determine the rice production in IV Corp. We would then compare our results with what the South Vietnamese government claimed was produced and the difference might indicate the production of rice the Viet Cong were intercepting. Pretty good plan, huh?

Well, we sold it to the CO (his name has long faded) and off we went. After several weeks, using map overlays and colored pencils (about junior high school quality) we produced our results in hectares of rice grown, but were instructed not to do further analysis (we would have screwed that up for sure). I never did learn if our efforts were accurate, but I'm pretty sure that our CO sold our approach to MIBARS HQ in Saigon.

It wasn't long, two or three weeks maybe, that Joe and I were told we were going to Saigon for reassignment. Yeah, Saigon!! It was late '66 or early '67, because my son was born February 6th 1967 and I was in the HQ Detachment celebrating at a USO show with Nancy Sinatra, boots and all. Saigon looked like New York City after Can Tho; French restaurants and a lot prettier women.

My memory of events during this time is somewhat vague. I do remember sitting in the EM club on the top floor at HQ, listening to doo-wop oldies on a reel-to-reel tape deck and being served Budweisers by our bartenders, Sunshine and Na. Maybe too any beers explain the vagueness.

I remember working as an Imagery Interpreter on a special task force (where I can't tell you) that was following the North Vietnamese invasion of the Demilitarized Zone. We employed ONs (original negatives) from RF-101s flying on the deck. You could see the fear in the NVA running from their AAA not knowing the recce planes had no armament. General Westmoreland passed through, starched and 12 feet tall.

Around this same time, Joe and I were reassigned to the Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam (CICV). All show no go. Joe and I thought we could continue our rice study, but we were assigned to the night shift where very little of anything got done. We were using large, rear projection screen viewers in attempting to determine rice from mangrove from whatever. Didn't work!

We complained (like we thought that would work) that we were there to instruct on mensuration and analysis, but it was just not that kind of operation. Our immediate supervisor was Air Force Master Sergeant Bob Boyette (Someone I would work with four years later at the CIA) who thought our duties were to wax the floors so that the brass and visiting dignitaries would be pleased in the morning. We didn't agree, but we mopped and waxed and buffed.

Joe and I approach the MIBARS CO, Major Matta (I know he was there at some point and is another gentleman I would meet later in a CIA environment) and pleaded for another assignment. Well, we got them. Joe went back to imagery interpretation and I was sent downtown to Cholon and MACV Studies and Observation Group (MACV SOG).

I was assigned billeting in a hotel about two or three blocks from the Embassy Annex. I remember carrying my friggin' duffel bag and/or foot locker two or three flights up the back stairs of that hotel. My assignment was as the only imagery guy in whatever SOG (studies and observation group) unit I was assigned, using U-2 imagery in support of clandestine operations. It was an OK assignment, working nights with little supervision and really great breakfasts at the hotel. (Here too I met someone I would encounter years later at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington). After several months the operation was terminated.

It's now mid-to-late '67 and time for another reassignment, this time to the ARLO (Air Recon Liaison Officer) shop. I wasn't there long when I got my orders out of Vietnam, to Germany! You're kidding, not stateside, friggin' Germany! I was married with a son I had not seen and I am going to Germany! I can beat this! I'll show 'em, I'll extend six months. (Kids, never ever do something this stupid.)

The good news was that I got 30 days home leave over the Christmas holidays,1967 with my new family. But then it was back to Vietnam. You may be thinking my timing pretty much sucks. Abso-friggin'-lutely!! Something big happened in January 1968. Oh yeah, TET. Seems like I am no sooner off the plane and all hell breaks loose. Germany looked real damn good about this time. It was not long after that I found out that Joe Shandley died in a car accident at his new post in Germany.

Back to the ARLO shop; there I worked for a super guy, Captain, then Major (and I hope later) Colonel Korf (sp?). By now I had made Staff Sergeant (E6) and was one of two NCOs manning the shop. I worked nights of course (I learned to sleep upside down from tree limbs in Vietnam). My shift was responsible for the early briefings of RB-57s and some of the RF-4 Infra red missions, but mostly we built the packages for the day shift and their heavier load of visible missions. I really enjoyed the opportunity to combine the OB aspects of the ground threats with targeting.

Prior to TET, the ARLO assignment was the best I had. The MIBARS officers and enlisted, I believe, were professional and I believe the AF pilots greatly respected our input. Across the room the AF weatherman always had us in good humor.

TET was another story, and again, much of it remains blank. I will never forget the rocketing and being trapped by snipers in the ARLO shop for 2 or 3 days during the VC/NVA Saigon offensive. Sitting so close to the water tower, the ARLO shop was right in line for targeting by the VC from the airfield perimeter. The AF personnel in general seemed unprepared for the attacks. There were stories of AF personnel climbing the water tower only to be shot by friendly fire. I also remember how glad I was to see the Armored Cav arrive on base.

It was a tough week or more. We tried to keep the AF missions going and some of our guys went out to bring the pilots in. The pilots and ground crews showed a lot of guts, getting the unarmed RF-4c's airborne under heavy fire.

I was lucky, as was any one who made it back alive, but I think I had the very good fortune to have had such a wealth of assignments and to have met so many great guys along the way. I just wish my memory would let me remember all their names. Maybe if the next reunion is in the East, I will have that opportunity.

Rest of the Story: I served out the remainder of my enlistment assigned to the 18th Airborne Corp at Ft. Bragg (no jumping for me!). As an E6 with no intention of reenlisting or jumping, I was relegated to minor details until I talked my way into attending NC State Fayetteville pretty much full time. I separated from the Army in January, 1969.

I went back to school under the GI Bill and graduated from Penn State in 1970. I went to work for the CIA in 1971 as an Imagery Analyst, but practiced that skill for only four years. Most of my career with them was in development and system engineering. I was again lucky to work on some of the most exciting programs imaginable. I guess that wasn't supposed to happen either?? I retired from the Agency in 2003 and then did some contract consulting work. I am now fully and happily retired in Wilmington, NC.

Layout of the HHC building

ELeac Jan 20, 2009

I've been teasing my memory, trying to remember what I can of the layout of the HHC building (the long structure on the right side of the MIBARS compound). Here's what I can recall:

1'st floor:

just inside the door: to the left was the company-commander's office-suite: there was an outer office where the clerk sat, an inner office for the CO, and was there a second inner-office for the 1'st sargeant? I don't recall - but he sat somewhere in the suite.

Around the corner of the office-suite (to its right) was a long corridor running back to the end of the building. I know there were single-room living-quarters along that corridor - I stayed in one when I first arrived, awaiting a vacancy upstairs. I don't recall what else might have been there. To the right of the front building entrance was the mess-hall, though I can no longer picture what the entrance into the mess-hall looked like - it was roughly opposite the CO's offices, I guess.

2'nd floor:

primarily single-room (shared) enlisted living quarters - my room was to the left of the central stairway, on the courtyard side of the building, maybe the 2'd or 3'rd room on the left down the corridor. To the right of the central stairway: was that the location of the armory? (Or was it up one floor?)

3'rd floor:

strange: I have no memory of that floor at all - is that because the NCO's lived there? And to the right of the stairway: was that the armory location?

roof:

The day-room was there - where movies were shown. I can't picture the contents - were there ping-pong or billiard tables?

There was a water tank which collected rainwater and fed it to the taps in the building (each room devoted to living quarters having its own bathroom: shower, toilet & sink). I inspected the water tank one day, and almost had heart-failure: it was loaded with slime and algae. OK for showers, but definitely not potable - though some used it to brush their teeth. I resolved to rely solely on treated water for my teeth after that.

ridgerunner1946 Feb 1, 2010

You did not say when you were there? I arrived in January '68, just before TET. The movies were shown in the EM Club at that time. Shortly before I left, they moved the movies to the day room. I was on the 3rd floor, it was mostly E6 and above with a few E5's of which I was one.

TexasPhotographer May 1, 2010

When we took over the compound on Chi-lang street from the 525 MI Group, it was both the battalion headquarters and the HHC. LTC Michayl Tymchak was our Battalion Commander and Maj Juan Horta Merly the HHC commandder.

The officers lived in two villas: First one just off Chi Lang Street by the Ho Tum Chi Lang (Chilang swimming pool) We moved into another villa very close to Ton Son Nhut and the 3d Field Army Hospital where I spent a week for a fever of an undetermined origin. What a lame name of not knowing what an illness is.

Before we left for Vietnam, I was in Detachment D and spent 43 days supporting the Dominican Republic conflict. We were stationed at Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico living in the VOQ collecting combat pay. Remember loading the ES22 on a C 124 and having to let the air out of its tires to fit into the belly of the plane.

We went to VN on the Eltinge already mentioned as the Garbage Scow of the Navy It was. We were the first naval vessel to sail up the Saigon river. That was in Dec 1965.

Larry Letzer

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