First Days in Vietnam

When I landed at Danang Air Base on July 27th, 1967, it was 4:30 in the morning, A tropical breeze blew heat into the cabin of the Boeing 707 that had been my home for the last 20 hours or so, accompanied by a smell that I'd soon attribute to war, tarmac, sweat, and too many people crammed into too small a space.  My once-crisp uniform was wrinkled and crumpled and within a few minutes also damp and hanging.

The passengers were divided by branch of service and my Air Force group was led into a large, nearly empty building where shortly an airman in an olive drab T-shirt, fatigue pants and combat boots jumped up on a sturdy table and began his oft-given speech, welcoming us to Danang Air Base and Vietnam.  He told us that our bags would come into the rear of that room, that we'd then be taken to a barracks and given a few hours to sleep before we'd come back to that building where we'd be told where we'd be going.   He also told us where the chow hall was and that it was never closed.  Hungry I wasn't, tired I was, so I crashed almost as soon as found an empty bunk and tossed sheets on it.

After letting us sleep, a junior NCO came through the barracks and woke us all up, telling us the meeting was at noon and that we needed to be ready to move.  Most of us just put on the same uniform we'd flown in, making it unnecessary to unpack a whole duffle bag.  I'd made friends with a couple of guys in California before we'd taken off, so we sort of stuck together, got a meal at the chow hall, then walked over to the hanger to get our assignments and instructions.

My orders had said I was to report to an aerial port squadron at a place called Dong Hoi, but when I'd looked it up on a map, Dong Hoi proved to be about 60 miles north of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam - in other words, I was supposed to go deep into enemy territory to maintain a radar set - not likely, and that's what the personnel folks back in Texas had said - not likely.  Then they'd added that once I got in-country, I'd be given an assignment.

At noon, the Vietnamese heat was stifling, but there were a couple of large fans moving it around that hanger, so as long we were in moving air, it was OK.  A couple of Air Force NCOs came into the area and perched on that same sturdy table that the airman had stood on earlier that morning.    They had folders that they began looking through, and then they looked out at the 70 or so airmen, NCOs and officers and told us what was going to happen.  The officers would get their assignments first, then the rest of us.  There weren't many officers, so they were soon gone and the NCOs began going through the alphabet, telling the Adamses, the Brookings, Coxes and the Elliotts where they would go.  When they started out on the M's I held my breath in anticipation, but then they went on to the N's, O', and P's.  Knowing they wouldn't put me on a flight back to the States, I waited until patiently and then one of the NCOs asked if they missed anyone.

They'd missed several and we raised our hands.  I'm not as tall as many, so I probably was overlooked at first, but then I was asked my name.    

"McNamara," I told them.  The looked through their sheaf of papers for what seemed a long time, then found what they'd been searching for, looked out at me, snickered a little, and said, "You're going to Dong Ha."

It took me three days of walking back and forth to base operations twice a day to finally get on a flight to Dong Ha.  I dragged my duffle bag up to my shoulder and made my way to the right door, checked in, and then walked out to a C-123 and got on with 8 or 10 other troops, all of them US Army.  We tossed our duffle bags on a pallet at the rear of the aircraft, then walked forward and settled into strap seats, with our knees up against pallets of boxes destined, I supposed, for Dong Ha.  Before the engines cranked up, the loadmaster yelled out my name, so I responded "Here" and raised my hand.  He came side stepping down to me and told me that we were going to land at Hue first, so I shouldn't get off at the first stop.

The aircraft cranked up, then almost immediately began taxiing out to the runway.  In just a short time we were airborne and because they'd left the rear ramp down, we could watch Danang Air Base dwindle away and then, as the C-123 leveled off, they closed the ramp.  It wasn't a long flight to Hue, perhaps 45 minutes at most, and when we pulled to a stop, the other passengers all grabbed their bags and disappeared out onto the tarmac.  The crew chief told me to get my bag and hang on to it and then a big forklift pulled up to the rear of the aircraft and, one-by-one, the pallets were rolled off onto its long forks until the cavernous interior of the C-123 Provider was empty except for me, the loadmaster and the crew chief.

The crew chief buckled himself in next to me and gave me some instructions, saying, "When we land at Dong Ha, we won't completely stop.  When I signal to you, go out on the ramp, roll your bag off the end then jump down with it."

It turned out that Dong Ha had taken some incoming rounds earlier that day and the aircraft commander wanted to get back in the air as soon as he could.

In a short time, the aircraft went into its final approach and landed, then taxied for a while.  The crew chief nudged me, so I got up and walked to the rear of the aircraft.  I stood there with my duffle bag while he lowered the ramp, and with the aircraft still rolling, albeit slowly, I dropped my bag off, then sat down on the end of the ramp and slid off.  I wasn't very graceful at it, but at least I didn't get hurt and I ended up pretty close to my bag.  I picked it up and looked around.  Base operations was a concrete block building marked with a sign that said, "Dong Ha Combat Base - Base Ops," and I'd been deposited right in front of it.  I entered through the open door way and looked around, but I was the only one there.

I walked out through the open door on the other side onto an unpaved street covered with about an inch of red dust that seemed to fly away from my boots.  The radar base was pretty obvious, even to the most untrained eye.  I saw, about 100 yards up the road, two rotating search radar antennas, one taller than the other, towering over low buildings inside a fenced area.  Near that was a nodding height-finder radar antenna.  I guessed, correctly it turned out, that I'd soon be servicing those antennas and the equipment attached to them.

Not a tree was to be seen, just dirt, antennas, both rotating and stationary, low buildings, and lots of sandbags.  Part of the way up the road to the radar base, an Air Force deuce-and-a-half stopped and and an airman in the passenger seat offered me a ride.  He told me to toss my duffel bag in the back of the truck, but to stand on the running board and hold on.  The truck had just been used to make a garbage run and the bed wasn't exactly immaculate.   Approaching the gate to the radar base, I was struck to see signs with a skull and crossbones with the words Mines, Minen and Cảnh cáo - Mỏ prominently displayed.  To this day I wonder why the signs included the German word for mines.

Inside the base, they dropped me off in front of a small, low building with a sign in front that proclaimed  it to be Headquarters of Det 1, 620 TCS, or in layman's terms, Detachment 1 of the 620th Tactical Control Squadron.  In an hour or so, I'd been signed in, issued sheets, a pillow and pillowcase, a blanket, a helmet and a flak jacket, and then taken to a metal Quonset hut that would be my home.  I noted black spots dotted all the Quonsets and asked about them,  My guide told me it was tar they'd used to patch shrapnel holes.  That gave me something to think about.  Shrapnel.

The dim interior of the Quonset was unlike anything I'd imagined.  Steel lockers lined the center aisle with metal bunks between them, creating individual cubicles. Over each bunk draped a mosquito net, most of which were open, but a couple were closed and tucked in around the bottom of the thin mattress.  Gentle snoring from the closed nets indicated a couple of guys, probably from the night shift, were still in bed.  We found an empty cubicle and checked the locker.  It was empty, so we tossed my stuff on the bunk and I hung my clothes in the locker.  A bare light bulb hung inside the locker and the wires led to an ordinary switch duct-taped to the steel side.  When my clothes were hung, I flipped the light off and started to closed the door, but the fellow with me told me to leave it on as it would help reduce the mildew.

I started to spread the sheets on the bunk, but when I did, a little Vietnamese lady of indeterminable age appeared as if out of nowhere and took over.  The guy with me explained that we paid for the manasans to keep the hooch as clean as possible, to make up our bunks, to wash and iron our clothing, and to polish out boots.  All I'd have to do would be to leave my muddy boots beneath the bunk and the dirty clothes in a laundry bag tied to the end of the bunk.

While she made up my bunk, he and I left the hooch and went to my shop to meet those I'd be working with and get my shift schedule.

A weekend in Quebec

In the early 1970's, the United States Air Force sent me to a radar base in northern Maine. In those days before GPS, maps of Maine showed the top part of Aroostook County in an offset because the state is way longer (taller?) than the ordinary map could cover. My base was in that inset. It was so far north that the most convenient way to get into Canada was to drive south to Limestone then turn east.

I soon found that ladies beyond their teen years either married or left Aroostook County for a tryst with the better life in Augusta, Portland or Boston. Across the boarder in New Brunswick, the search was equally futile, that same age group of eligible females having fled the farmlands for a more exciting life in Riviere do Loup, or perhaps in that most European of Canadian cities, Quebec.

So that left me a rather frustrated bachelor in the prime of his life with little opportunity to meet interesting members of the opposite sex. I tried the bars and night clubs, but the choices, hardly a cornucopia, were often so inundated with requests to dance and drink from the excess of single men that it was not unlike a competitive sport, hardly conducive to romance. I took some college courses in one of the nearby towns, but it was purely a learning experience, not a meet-the-ladies experience. Oh there were ladies in my classes, but married women with husbands watching the children while Mom added to her education.

One, a nice looking lady in her mid thirties, was in a speech class with me. The professor's rules included one that, in a speech of demonstration if the item being demonstrated was edible, there had to be enough for the entire class. This lady demonstrated how to make a cough syrup that included lemons, sugar, water and bourbon, so she brought enough glasses for the whole class, and a new bottle of Jim Beam. After first testing the cough syrup, we classmates, and the professor, moved on to test the bourbon and water. It was a pleasant way to finish up the evening.  I hope she got a good grade.

So I looked outside the boundaries of Aroostook County for feminine companionship. I spent a weekend in Bangor, but it's a long drive through miles and miles of pine forest and trying to find clubs wasn't very productive. I crossed over into New Brunswick a number of times, but all to no avail.

One day, a friend and I were commiserating over our lack of female company when we both hit on the same idea at about the same time. Quebec. That hotbed of activity was only a few hours away, and best of all, was a French hotbed of activity. So we applied for a couple of day's leave, packed up my Plymouth Roadrunner, and headed off for "La vieille capitale" and hopefully, a weekend of fun and frolic, if not downright debauchery.

We found a boarding house in the heart of the old city, checked in, stored our bags, and went out onto the cobblestones looking for adventure.  We stumbled upon la Rue du Trésor an alley-like street that was blocked from automobiles where artists displayed their art, some of it barely a step above paint-by-number, others seemingly quite good.  We walked by restaurants and cafés, diners and bistros, taverns and bars, drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of that great city until we realized it was early evening and we needed nourishment.

We stopped at a restaurant that had tables on the sidewalk and got one.  I was determined that I would get something decidedly French before I even opened the menu, but was a bit stunned when the menu was all in French.  Not even small print English translations.  

Ris de Veau aux Champignons - My high school French teacher once told my mother that I was easily his most frustrating student, and in the twelve or so years since that time, my skill in the language had deteriorated to remembering just a few words. I remembered the veau was veal, champignons was mushrooms, and with all the logic of a barely passing French student, determined in my mind that ris must be rice. I like all three, rice, veal and mushrooms, so I ordered it by pointing at it on the menu and barely mumbling something that may have sounded like, "ree de view o sham pi nons." The waiter, to his credit, didn't sneer at my attempt to speak French, but he did confirm my order by pronouncing it his way.

The meal was served and I was a bit surprised at the absence of rice, but rather than act like an American oaf on his first trip to a French restaurant, which it was, I held my tongue and began eating.  The meat was light in color, in appearance not unlike pan-fried chicken, and had been cut into nearly bite size pieces and served with a richly-flavored gravy and mushrooms as I'd anticipated. The first bite was a surprise. How could veal be smooth, tender, juicy and rich flavored all at once? It didn't matter - I was hooked. Whatever Ris de Veau was, I liked it. It was delicious.

Back in northern Maine that next week, I went to the library and looked up Ris de Veau. I'd been eating the thymus or thyroid of a calf. I also learned that rather than call it that, restaurants in America would either use the French name or use a strange name for any meat product - sweetbreads.

Oh, one more thing.  We did meet a couple of really nice ladies in Quebec.  Two schoolteachers from New York state.  We danced in the caves beneath the Hotel Frontenac until late in the night and then shared an order of poutine in a small café just down the street.  In the morning, we met them for breakfast and walked the still quiet streets before promising to keep in touch and going our separate ways.