A Year To Remember

A year to remember

In July of 1968 I enlisted in the United States Army. I did so mostly because I was convinced that if I enlisted, I'd have some choice about what I did during my time in the Army, but I knew if I got drafted I'd be going to Vietnam where I'd be an infantryman, and I'd probably die there.

During basic training I raised my hand when the drill sergeant asked if anyone knew how to drive a truck... and immediately remembered my uncle's story of raising his hand to the same question and getting to push a wheelbarrow around for several days. That didn't happen to me, I actually got to drive a truck. I did not participate in much actual training; Instead I delivered food and supplies to my fellow soldiers while they did the training. I did end up with a top secret security clearance when I left basic training, however.

From basic I went to the training for the MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) that I had chosen, which was as a Transportation Movements Control Specialist. The MOS number was 71N20. However, after that training I was assigned to a mechanized infantry unit at Fort Riley, Kansas, where I was promoted to an E2, the second level of military pay scale. My MOS number was changed to a number that started with 11. I didn't think anything of it at the time.

Next, I was reassigned to a military police unit that ran the prison on Fort Riley. I was in charge of the carpentry shop there. And it was there that I got my orders for Vietnam. I had been so scared of getting those orders that I couldn't sleep at night but when they came, I was able to relax somehow.

I left Fort Riley and went home for a 30-day leave. Even got engaged while I was home, and then it was off to 'Nam and the beginning of my year to remember.

I arrived in Japan and received my assignment, the 4th Infantry Division in Pleiku. I was assigned as an infantryman! I showed the people in charge that my orders clearly said, "duty in 71N20" and was told, "We don't pay any attention to special orders, your MOS is 11B and that's how you're assigned." So, I was shipped out to Pleiku and duty as a "grunt" as the infantrymen were called.

Non-infantry personel had a 2-day orientation session before being sent to their new company assignment, but infantryman had a week-long orientation. I was on the last day of that week when someone in the personel office exclaimed, "Hey! This guy has had NO infantry training! If we send him out in the field he'll be dead in a week!" I think I could have kissed him right then! I told thim, "I've been trying to say that all week... thank you for pointing it out!"

That same day I was sitting in my new barracks with Headquarters company, and had my assignment to what I think was called the "Dispatch Office" ( it has been a long time). We were in charge of incoming convoys, and at first, a few convoys out. Also, because of my low rank, I started getting duties like KP, payroll guard and bunker line guard.

At first, office duties didn't amount to much. Some paperwork, of course, and keeping track of the convoys on a big status board on the back wall of the office. I only remember two other people in the office, SP3 Hawkins and the Captain, who I think was Captain Smith. There may have been another person, but I don't remember. Hawkins was a skinny kid, and a real kiss-ass type of soldier. He did what he had to work-wise, but he always looked like a stateside soldier with his shined boots and starched uniform. I didn't. However, one day the captain said to me, "Come in with your boots shined and a starched pressed uniform tomorrow and I'll give you the promotion to E4". I did that....only to find out that he had given the promotion to Hawkins! I never "broke starch" again for my entire time in 'Nam!"

At some point, Captain Smith was replaced by Captain Thomas Dunn, a 22-year-old from Detroit, Michigan. He was honest, he was fair, and I liked him. About the time he took over, we were told the division was moving, and we were giving the fort, Camp Enari, to the South Vietnamese Army. Our office got busy! We had staff added, and duties tripled.

One of the people who passed through our office for a while, was an E6, or Staff Sargent, who hadn't more than a month left to go in country and who had a habit of coming to the office drunk. I sent him back to his barracks more than once, even though I was only an E4 at the time.

In addition to my duties in the office, I was still also pulling a lot of extra duty... I even told my first sergeant once that even though my first two initials are KP, he didn't need to put my name on that list every day! In reality, I didn't have that duty EVERY day, but that was mostly because I was also assigned to bunker line guard or payroll guard on the other days. I worked a lot!

A day came when Captain Dunn told me that he was on the promotions board, and my name was on the list of people to be interviewed. He asked if there was something I did NOT want to be asked about, and I gave him my honest answer. I don't remember now exactly what that was, but it was something I had no clue about, probably because it had nothing to do with my job. The very FIRST question he asked me was that question! I was pissed!

When we got back to the office I asked him why he had asked me that after I had told him I didn't know it. He told me he thought I was kidding! I let him know that being promoted to E5 meant the end of my extra duties, so I sure as hell wasn't kidding!

I did make the promotions list, but my non-answer on that one question put me quite far down the list and it was several additional weeks before my name finally came off the duty roaster.

In the meantime, I was working long hours in the office because of the division's move to another post. My day started about 5:30 am with getting the convoy ready and receiving trucks from the other companies we had sent them to to be loaded for convoy. When they got back, we'd give them their paperwork, organized the convoy and get them on the road. Then I'd go to the motorcpool and get a truck/tractor to move empty trailers to where they were needed throughout the base, After that, I'd trade the truck for a forklift and load the trailers. Then, I'd take the forklift back to the motor pool and get my small truck and make the rounds with my steel banding equipment and secure all those loads. Finally, I'd get the tractor again and move all of the trailers to the office (TTP yard as we called it). I'd finish up by returning the tractor to the motor pool and go to the office and do the paperwork on the various loads. I'd finish somewhere between midnight and two am.

There's a lot of memory moments going on right now...I'm trying to sort them by order, but I may miss that mark a bit. I don't know exactly when in all this that Captain Dunn said to me one day, "I'm sending everyone in the office ahead to Ankhe and you and I will stay here." Of course, my response to that was, "I wasn't aware I needed one on one supervision." His reply has stayed with me all these years since that day. "You don't. It's just that it will take all of them on that end to keep up with what you do here everyday."

I also don't remember exactly when the roof blew off out building. All I can tell you now is that it was late at night, during a heavy rainstorm and I was on the field phone, closing out the last convoy when all of a sudden there was a loud boom and dust was flying everywhere in our little twenty by twenty building! I thought it had been hit my a mortar or something and so I opened the back door, intending to take shelter in our bunker, but before I jumped from the building, I saw the entire roof lying there upside down and I knew it had been the wind.

Also, another time when I was closing out the final convoy, the wires for the phone got hit by lightening somewhere, I got hit hard! I picked myself up from the floor on the other side of the room...among all the push pins that had dislodged from the status board wall when I slammed into it! My arm hurt for weeks, and my hearing was damaged. My ears still ring to this day.

There's another memory from an event that year that I also learned about me from. Actually, all of these memories are because I learned a lot about me that year.

Remember I said that my day started at 5:30 am? Well, one day I got a call from the 24th signal company wanting trucks so they could move their company. I told them how many I had that they could have and informed them that they had to be back, loaded, at 5:30 am. They agreed, so I sent them the trucks when the empty convoy returned that afternoon.

The trucks were not back in the morning when they should be, so I called and spoke with the first sergeant to find out why not. Those trucks made up a large portion of that day's convoy so I was a bit upset that they were not back. The first sergeant apologized, saying that his misunderstood the imprtance and they'd load them and send them by 5:30 in the morning...and also, they needed more trucks that night. I told him that they could only have more trucks if he promised me that they would be loaded overnight and back to me by 5:30 am. He promised that they would.

Come 5:30 am and no trucks from the signal company were back. I got in my ton and drove to the 24th, only to see all the trucks still sitting empty. Everyone was in the mess hall, so I went in there. I immediately found the first sergeant and informed him that I was taking the trucks. He ordered me to leave the trucks and I told him I would not be leaving them, that I would give them to another company who was waiting for trucks, and who did understand the concept of loaded trucks being important to convoys, and the need for adherence to the schedule as we had a very short time to move an entire division. I then announced, loudly, "All 8th group trucks, return to the TTP now!"

The first sergeant was upset by this and told them to sit back down... and I, still as an E4, told them to keep moving, get in their trucks, and return to my office. This all attracted the attention of their company commander, a Lt Colonel, whose name I don't remember. He stormed up to me and asked what the hell I thought I was doing, so I told him I was taking the trucks as they had had trucks for two days, and they were supposed to have been loaded overnight and sent back to me hours ago. The first sergeant then spoke up and said, "This specialist thinks he's taking the trucks." The Lt Colonel then said, "Specialist, you leave those trucks right here!" Without thinking I said, "With all due respect, Sir, you go to hell, those trucks are leaving with me!" And again, louder this time, "ALL 8TH GROUP DRIVERS GET IN YOUR TRUCKS AND RETURN TO THE TTP!"

Then I left. And realized what I had done. I got to the office and while I was telling the cptain ehat I had done, the phone rang and the captain answered it."It's for you"

It was our colonel. His first words were, "Specialist,what have you done? " So I explained about the deadline for the trucks being ignored both days I gave the 24th their trucks,and the importance of having the convoy go out on time with the full number of trucks, and the pressure we were under to get the division moved. After hearing all of that, he said, "I'll call you back!"

A few minutes later the phone rang again. It was the Lt Colonel I had told to go to hell. He apologized. I almost fainted! His words were, "Specialist, I hadn't heard your side of the story, and I apologize. If you send us trucks tonight, I assure you that they WILL be back to you at 5:30 am". And they were!

However, the trucks that I went there to get? Well, they just drove the 50 miles back to Ankhe, which was their home base. Without any protection at all. Normally a convoy would have gun trucks in it, and maybe some air cover as well.

There are so many little memories of that year.

I remember SP4 Gary Heines. He was in his bunk a top bunk, when a mortar shell hit the roof of out metal Quonset hut, just above his bed. He was killed. It tuned out to be "friendly fire". The mortar company on our base was to shoot mortars out past our bunker line. Our huts were on the side of the road opposite the bunkerline...they were severla hundred feet short of their target. They also didn't follow protocol and fire one round and determine how far from the target they were. They shot five rounds, all in our company area.

I guess I'd remember that event regardless, but I still remember how angry I was when the Stars and Stripes newspaper came out and listed him as killed as a result of enemy action. That was an outright lie.

I said that I learned a lot about myself during that year. I learned I had a capacity to do a lot of work, and that I could do it well, and I could take pride in a job well done. I also learned about facing one's fears, and even placing others before you.

There was one event very near to the end of my time at Camp Enari. We had been moved to the motor pool and we were bunking in a large garage. It was on lower ground then where we had been, but there was only maybe fifteen of us still on the base so they wanted us all in one place. The problem was, we had no ability to contact anyone because our radios didn't reach that far because of our low ground. I suggested we needed to place a radio antenna on our roof, and everyone agreed that was a good idea. We looked around for a ladder, but didn't find one. We looked for material to make a ladder, but came up empty-handed. It didn't even need to be that long as there was a room on the back of our building that was only one story high and with a ladder, we could have gotten to the roof in two stages.
We did have a military wrecker there, and it had a hydraulic boom. I asked the operator how high it would go...would it reach over our building? He brought it over and extended and raised the boom...it reached to the edge of the top. However, the top of that wrecker boom is only about four inches wide, it wouldn't be possible for anyone to climb it. No one was willing to try, or to try riding the boom as it was extended. For myself, I was very afraid of heights, always had been. But, I decided I was more afraid of being overrun and all of us killed or captured because we couldn't call for help if we needed it. I got on the boom. It was extended and I made it to the roof! I installed the antenna and jumped down to the lower building, and then to the ground...no way I was riding that thing twice!

One night at the new base in Ankhe, the guys guarding a section of the bunkerl ine saw people coming through the wire, all wearing backpacks. In a normal war, they could have, and would have, opened fire on those people. My memory is there was a count of eighteen people. But, Vietnam was not a normal war... it was forbidden to shoot at anyone, or anything, in the perimeter wire. The protocol was that the guard had to call his superior, who had to call his, who then had to call someone else, before permission to be fire was granted. Needless to say, that process took too long and those eighteen people got in without a shot ever having been fired...placed their backpacks under eighteen helicopters, and got back out through a different section of the perimeter wire, again without any shots being fired! The helicopters were of course, destroyed.

Ankhe had been a Viet Cong base, and as such it was drilled with the tunnels that they used to escape when they were attacked. One night, they used those tunnels in the reverse direction and attacked the base from inside. There was absolute chaos. I never heard any numbers about casualties, but a good friend of mine jumped out his barracks door, and the guy behind him caught a bullet in the chest.

I ended my year in 'Nam exactly as that sergeant in an earlier memory did... I stayed drunk for a month. I did that because even with my top secret clearance, I was lied to about why headquarters needed some trucks and, thinking it wasn't really important, I didn't give them the trucks and got it trouble. I told Captain Dunn that I didn't want to work anymore. He asked what I was going to do for my last month, so I said, "stay drunk". He replied that sounded good and he'd call if he needed me.

About three weeks later he called. There was a firebase that was taking fire and they needed to fly me out there to help them evacuate. I was needed to strap boxes of two-inch rockets to flatbed trailers so they could get out of there.

I was drunk when I got in that tiny little helicopter (they called them "loachs", which stood for light observation helicopters), but I was sober as a judge when I got off it! We we flying so low that the tops of the trees were hitting the bottom of our copter. The pilot said I was looking a bit "green" so I told him that those tree tops were making me rather nervous. He said he could fly higher, but we'd be much more likely to get shot because they'd be able to see us better. I suggested he drop down another couple of feet!

I don't know how many trailers of rockets I put steel banding on, maybe four or five, but it's also quite sobering to know that you're on top of a load of some pretty explosive stuff while the base you're in is taking incoming mortar rounds. I had a helper and we banded those oads in record time!

When I was done, I asked about the helicopter and was informed I was riding out with everyone else as they evacuated. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

I remember one village we passed through because it was so incredibly poverty strcken. In the course of my year there I had more than once seen children begging the soldiers for candy or food. In this village, I saw men pushing the kids out of the way so they could beg. I know every soldier on that convoy was on high alert during that!

I also don't remember leaving the base at Ankhe to go home. I think we went to a safe base in the south of Vietnam and after being there for three days, during which it was a game to keep each other awake, and then flying for hours to Alaska, and finally to Fort Lewis, Washington where we were in processed.

It wasn't long until I was on a plane headed to New Jersey to pick up my new car and drive home. I made the mistake on that airplane of drinking three small bottles of champagne. It had been my plan to sleep for the entire flight, but I felt so sick from the champagne that I didn't sleep a wink.

My year ended with me driving to a Ford dealer in Hacketstown, NJ where I picked up my new Ford Maverick, and drove eight hundred and thirty-six miles to my home in Maine on absolutely no sleep in the preceding four days. Another story for another time.