Burns And The Vietnam War
Were you there?
I was.
Since I doubt if anyone will ever interview me for a special documentary -- since I wasn't an officer or a grunt.
I'm going to add my story here.
1968 was the year I graduated from Moorestown Senior High School in Moorestown, NJ. We were already burying our alumni dead from the conflict at that point. Way I saw it, I could either try to go to college or enlist.
You really didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Especially when your parents thought the oldest of the family should go to college -- a female and the males would get $500 and told there's the door, don't let it hit you in the ass when leave.
So, I went to RCA Institute Of Electronics in Cherry Hill, NJ until my money ran out and was in the Army by 1 May 1969.
I signed up for 3 years to get the GI Bill and work on fix, which sounds good on paper but never delivers. Exited basic as an E-2 and awarded Sharpshooter with the M-16 and Expert with the M-14. While the recruiter said I would be working on fixed wing, he had me put into the Career Management Force (CMF).
Bottom line, I was headed for Vietnam from AIT and would working on AH-1G Cobras. There were two Armies in Nam. The lifer brown shoe Army -- the vets from WW2 and the Korean War. All of all of us young bucks that really didn't give a crap about spit shinning shoes in a war zone and clean pressed fatigues.
BTW, USes were two year enlistees and RAs were too stupid to read the contracts we signed. When you arrived in Nam -- in our case, Long Binh -- you were given your TA 50 gear (your combat helmet) and because you were heading north to the 101st Airborne Division, Screaming Eagle Replacement Training School (SERTS) was next on the agenda at Bien Hoa. I think the guys running that one loved blowing up M-80s under our butts whenever we fell asleep. So what did you see as you arrived in Nam?
A red dust haze with black plums of freshly burning human waste. Lots of choppers -- some from the Korean conflict and lots of airplanes. The F-4 Phantom the most noticeable. About this time, you were introduced to the word "Cherry" from the Vets heading back home. Some on the bus conveying the word with a hint of a Mary Jane high.
I snuck off during SERTS training and flew in a Huey doing some kind of a** and trash run through the plantations not far from Long Binh. Images from that recall included the door gunner trying to shoot up a duck in a pond, a C-130 with half its wing burned off and a convoy under attack from Charlie Con. So we got up to Da Nang and then flew into Phu Bai airport.
The interesting thing about the airport is it has a stop light on the road heading north and south. The planes are so low at this point that they are less than 50 feet in the air. Anyway, after we landed we were dropped off at our new home away from home. In my case, I was going to A Company, 5th Transportation Battalion.
About the time my E-6 said something like, "why do you want to cultivate what grows on your your as on your face."
There was a loud BOOM. And his expression of disdain about my mustache went to pure horror.
INCOMING!
I would learn over the year what that really meant. My time with A Company was short lived but I learned a lot. How to burn human waste, polish jeeps, pick up the first shirt's hooch Maids, drive a mule. I believe that was almost exactly what I what I wrote in a letter to my Mom. I also rebuilt an entire AH-1G.
There were only two of us qualified to work on it and the other guy was on special assignment. And Just about the same time, I got called into the S1's office who promptly to me to find a job with a Cobra unit.
Apparently, my dad read the letter, too and talked to one of his friends at the Pentagon. So, for the next 6 months, I would spend my time with B Battery, 4th Battalion, 77th Field Artillery (AFA). Two of those months were spent on trying to prove I was worth being there and the last four were spent on rebuilding the unit.
It is all documented here: http://4thbattalion77thfieldartilleryafa.blogspot.com/2011/06/vietnam-war-from-officers-perspective.html You'll even see a picture of me. I have a lazy left eye that turns in when I get tired. So naturally, no one wanted me to get hurt on the flight line. So when I was done with the rebuilding efforts - just about the time we evacuated Fire Base Ripcord -- it was time to look for another job.
So, I became the Battalion Stringer.
The highlights during the 6 months: In April, I saved the unit from being non-combat ready by acquiring a set of push\pull tail rotor bearings a friend of mine at 5th Trans carried around in his pocket.
May 4th the day after our unit got wasted by a flurry of 122 rockets, I was the last one to see two pilots alive as they were killed on a practice Red Alert over Fire base Nancy in a mid air collision with a flare ship.
The only way we could get an air medal is to log enough hours -- 25. So, we "volunteered" to fly with other units to build the time. I want to Fire base T Bone where the pilot jumped out of his flight idle OH-6 and I heard "coming " and sat in the chopper while white puffs made themselves know some 30 meters away.
Everyone laughed after coming out of the bunker. Once the pilot was back in the chopper, he miked up.
"Didn't you hear what I said".
"No sir."
"I said incoming."
I once created a hydraulic line and molded it to an existing one. Was flown to Qang Tri where one of our Cobras supporting CCN took a bullet through that line.
One night, I heard a very quick sound of enemy incoming mortar rounds and then watched them kill six of our soldiers. These were guys just days away from going home. Being a stringer for our battalion had its perks.
I took pictures from the front seat of a Cobra as we shot rockets, mini gun and B-40 rounds at Camp Evans. SERTS training moved to Camp Evans by then. I also flew up to the DMZ in an Air Force twin engine Cessna SkyMaster. Took a picture of the 30x50 foot red flag with gold trim and gold star. My S2 borrowed it permanently.
The interesting thing about the picture wasn't just the flag but the fenced in area to the left of it where the boneyard of crazy helicopter pilots fails to capture the flag laid to rest. President Richard Nixon shortened our time in Nam and I was on orders to leave country near the end of October. A typhoon slowed me down by two days.
So, I had an extra day to spend with friends at Camp Eagle.
That was a mistake.
So, when the Caption in charge of our section of the inside parameter started chewing me out, I looked at him and said, "I'm supposed to be down in Da Nang right now heading home but the Typhoon has me waiting in a hooch over at Phu Bi. "And I just was bored to tears." He left me alone.
Around 2am that next day, with the wind howling and the choppers not flying, once again, I heard a very quick sound of enemy incoming mortar rounds and heard them hit but no where near the hooch I was in. But it did stir up some newbies who had no idea what to do. I said, "Guys, I heard ten, listened to 10 hit.
They are no where near us. So calm down. I'm heading home tomorrow and would like to get some sleep." It got all quiet really quick after that. Da Nang was insane.
There was probably three days worth of guys down there waiting for freedom birds. So blackies were pissing whities off and whities were pissing the latintineos which the whole thing would have been funny as hell if some of them weren't carrying field knifes as sharp as a razor blade.
But when the 707s finally did come in, everyone calmed down and in amazement no one amongst the crowd of withdrawing Mary Jane culvert dwellers killed each other on the process.
And, of course everyone on the plane cheered and clapped when the plane's wheels retracted into the belly of the Aircraft. In front of me was a copy of Army Times. And in that publication was one of my stories about our visit to an orphanage.
We landed in Seattle and I did see the protesters but we were also told not to make eye contact with them.
After a thank you for your service speech and a steak dinner, I was given my orders to report to the United States Army Intelligence Center And School a couple of weeks in the future and I went home To Morrestown, NJ. I was now an E-4.
I was.
Since I doubt if anyone will ever interview me for a special documentary -- since I wasn't an officer or a grunt.
I'm going to add my story here.
1968 was the year I graduated from Moorestown Senior High School in Moorestown, NJ. We were already burying our alumni dead from the conflict at that point. Way I saw it, I could either try to go to college or enlist.
You really didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Especially when your parents thought the oldest of the family should go to college -- a female and the males would get $500 and told there's the door, don't let it hit you in the ass when leave.
So, I went to RCA Institute Of Electronics in Cherry Hill, NJ until my money ran out and was in the Army by 1 May 1969.
I signed up for 3 years to get the GI Bill and work on fix, which sounds good on paper but never delivers. Exited basic as an E-2 and awarded Sharpshooter with the M-16 and Expert with the M-14. While the recruiter said I would be working on fixed wing, he had me put into the Career Management Force (CMF).
Bottom line, I was headed for Vietnam from AIT and would working on AH-1G Cobras. There were two Armies in Nam. The lifer brown shoe Army -- the vets from WW2 and the Korean War. All of all of us young bucks that really didn't give a crap about spit shinning shoes in a war zone and clean pressed fatigues.
BTW, USes were two year enlistees and RAs were too stupid to read the contracts we signed. When you arrived in Nam -- in our case, Long Binh -- you were given your TA 50 gear (your combat helmet) and because you were heading north to the 101st Airborne Division, Screaming Eagle Replacement Training School (SERTS) was next on the agenda at Bien Hoa. I think the guys running that one loved blowing up M-80s under our butts whenever we fell asleep. So what did you see as you arrived in Nam?
A red dust haze with black plums of freshly burning human waste. Lots of choppers -- some from the Korean conflict and lots of airplanes. The F-4 Phantom the most noticeable. About this time, you were introduced to the word "Cherry" from the Vets heading back home. Some on the bus conveying the word with a hint of a Mary Jane high.
I snuck off during SERTS training and flew in a Huey doing some kind of a** and trash run through the plantations not far from Long Binh. Images from that recall included the door gunner trying to shoot up a duck in a pond, a C-130 with half its wing burned off and a convoy under attack from Charlie Con. So we got up to Da Nang and then flew into Phu Bai airport.
The interesting thing about the airport is it has a stop light on the road heading north and south. The planes are so low at this point that they are less than 50 feet in the air. Anyway, after we landed we were dropped off at our new home away from home. In my case, I was going to A Company, 5th Transportation Battalion.
About the time my E-6 said something like, "why do you want to cultivate what grows on your your as on your face."
There was a loud BOOM. And his expression of disdain about my mustache went to pure horror.
INCOMING!
I would learn over the year what that really meant. My time with A Company was short lived but I learned a lot. How to burn human waste, polish jeeps, pick up the first shirt's hooch Maids, drive a mule. I believe that was almost exactly what I what I wrote in a letter to my Mom. I also rebuilt an entire AH-1G.
There were only two of us qualified to work on it and the other guy was on special assignment. And Just about the same time, I got called into the S1's office who promptly to me to find a job with a Cobra unit.
Apparently, my dad read the letter, too and talked to one of his friends at the Pentagon. So, for the next 6 months, I would spend my time with B Battery, 4th Battalion, 77th Field Artillery (AFA). Two of those months were spent on trying to prove I was worth being there and the last four were spent on rebuilding the unit.
It is all documented here: http://4thbattalion77thfieldartilleryafa.blogspot.com/2011/06/vietnam-war-from-officers-perspective.html You'll even see a picture of me. I have a lazy left eye that turns in when I get tired. So naturally, no one wanted me to get hurt on the flight line. So when I was done with the rebuilding efforts - just about the time we evacuated Fire Base Ripcord -- it was time to look for another job.
So, I became the Battalion Stringer.
The highlights during the 6 months: In April, I saved the unit from being non-combat ready by acquiring a set of push\pull tail rotor bearings a friend of mine at 5th Trans carried around in his pocket.
May 4th the day after our unit got wasted by a flurry of 122 rockets, I was the last one to see two pilots alive as they were killed on a practice Red Alert over Fire base Nancy in a mid air collision with a flare ship.
The only way we could get an air medal is to log enough hours -- 25. So, we "volunteered" to fly with other units to build the time. I want to Fire base T Bone where the pilot jumped out of his flight idle OH-6 and I heard "coming " and sat in the chopper while white puffs made themselves know some 30 meters away.
Everyone laughed after coming out of the bunker. Once the pilot was back in the chopper, he miked up.
"Didn't you hear what I said".
"No sir."
"I said incoming."
I once created a hydraulic line and molded it to an existing one. Was flown to Qang Tri where one of our Cobras supporting CCN took a bullet through that line.
One night, I heard a very quick sound of enemy incoming mortar rounds and then watched them kill six of our soldiers. These were guys just days away from going home. Being a stringer for our battalion had its perks.
I took pictures from the front seat of a Cobra as we shot rockets, mini gun and B-40 rounds at Camp Evans. SERTS training moved to Camp Evans by then. I also flew up to the DMZ in an Air Force twin engine Cessna SkyMaster. Took a picture of the 30x50 foot red flag with gold trim and gold star. My S2 borrowed it permanently.
The interesting thing about the picture wasn't just the flag but the fenced in area to the left of it where the boneyard of crazy helicopter pilots fails to capture the flag laid to rest. President Richard Nixon shortened our time in Nam and I was on orders to leave country near the end of October. A typhoon slowed me down by two days.
So, I had an extra day to spend with friends at Camp Eagle.
That was a mistake.
So, when the Caption in charge of our section of the inside parameter started chewing me out, I looked at him and said, "I'm supposed to be down in Da Nang right now heading home but the Typhoon has me waiting in a hooch over at Phu Bi. "And I just was bored to tears." He left me alone.
Around 2am that next day, with the wind howling and the choppers not flying, once again, I heard a very quick sound of enemy incoming mortar rounds and heard them hit but no where near the hooch I was in. But it did stir up some newbies who had no idea what to do. I said, "Guys, I heard ten, listened to 10 hit.
They are no where near us. So calm down. I'm heading home tomorrow and would like to get some sleep." It got all quiet really quick after that. Da Nang was insane.
There was probably three days worth of guys down there waiting for freedom birds. So blackies were pissing whities off and whities were pissing the latintineos which the whole thing would have been funny as hell if some of them weren't carrying field knifes as sharp as a razor blade.
But when the 707s finally did come in, everyone calmed down and in amazement no one amongst the crowd of withdrawing Mary Jane culvert dwellers killed each other on the process.
And, of course everyone on the plane cheered and clapped when the plane's wheels retracted into the belly of the Aircraft. In front of me was a copy of Army Times. And in that publication was one of my stories about our visit to an orphanage.
We landed in Seattle and I did see the protesters but we were also told not to make eye contact with them.
After a thank you for your service speech and a steak dinner, I was given my orders to report to the United States Army Intelligence Center And School a couple of weeks in the future and I went home To Morrestown, NJ. I was now an E-4.
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