Airborne from Travis AFB, California, via 1965's USAF luxury transport:
C-119 Boxcar, twin engine props! First stop, Hawaii--so what...too tired
to care, and can't hear anything anyway from the non-soundproofed C-119.
Next stop, Guam ... on one feathered prop, then Wake, Okinawa, and Clark
in the Philippines--where some poguee Airman was too lazy to file for my Expert
Ribbon with the M-16.
We landed at Ton San Nyut, Saigon, where a couple of fellow Airmen
joined me enroute to Đà Nẵng. Seems they misunderstood their orders: they
thought the part that said they were going to Bangkok meant they
were really going to Bangkok. In USAF-eze, it really meant they
were going to Đà Nẵng, Vietnam for a year. I helped them understand the
Air Force never made a mistake, and the purpose was that if their
flight-orders fell into Commie hands the little fellas would be confused
and not realized they were being spirited into Nam to help me win the war.
Unfortunately, their dufflebags also misunderstood the orders and went on
to Bangkok, Thailand.
Landed at Đà Nẵng. What ... Uncle a-Ho not here yet to
surrender? The Base Commander must be tied down killing Commies or
something--he's not here with his limo for me either.
HOT! I mean flight line HOT!! Airmen standing on the flight line
looked like those Darwin-lizards that lift one foot off the ground, then
the other. Civilian scrote-pukes call the paved surface where aircraft
park, a tarmac. USAF calls it a flight line. I think
Navy-squids call it an Apron--which seems appropriate for them--and
jarheads think the Squids could be right. Doggies? "What's a
tarmac doing out here?" Well ... it was a hundred-bazillion
degrees Fahrenheit. Heat waves were shimmering and radiating so severely
that they registered .8 on the Richter Scale in Los Angeles! My cover's
eagle-emblem was flapping its wings to stay cool--get the message? . .
. hot!
We decided that the Air Force screwed up and didn't arrange a ride for
us--forgetting the band, we could forgive. Trudging on down the flight line
totting my duffel bag, we spied a greasy-spoon hamburger stand near an Air
Police Gate Guard Post.
The AP called in for an AP Jeep to drive us to Personnel for
processing. "Hey Sarge-- got some fresh meat here to add to your
tent-detail!" I tried logic (rarely successful in the USAF): Look,
Sarge...we just spent 72 hours flying here, breaking down on every rock
from Travis to Saigon, and we need sleep." The MSgt considered
for a moment, then said, "You're right--but first you gotta put up
some tents for the thousand other Airmen we're getting assigned." His
logic was, more or less: Put up one tent and you's got a thousand
tentmates--two tents, only 500 .... How could you argue with that?
Turning to leave, the MSgt called, "Hey, POSS ... you
type?" I attempted to formulate a basic response that would keep me
out of trouble. But the Sarge seeing the only flywheel spinning in my
fatigued skull full of mush brain offered an NCO's encouragement: "Don't
lie to me Airman! Set down here and type something!"
Plink ... Paaaaaa-linnnnnnk ...
PLnniinnnn...k ...kink-kinkkkkk ...ra-tatt-tatt-tatt . .
.plink.
The old 1911 Corona-manual typewriter's ribbon was drier than a dead
chicken's beak in a sand storm. "Sarge ... how's this look?"
He snatched the paper from the typewriter and scratched his 5-O'clock
shadow. He replied, Hmmmmmmm ..." which sounded promising to
me. "POSS ... this here typin' sucks--and come to think of it ...
we don't need no Clerk right now, what we need is ground-pounders
walkin' the Line--and you're it.
Tag ... I'm it all right.
We
finished processing-in and signing our lives away for at least a ton of
property that somehow fit in a 20-pounds bag, and then were driven to the
new Tent Compound field.
Of course you gotta set up your own tent! Where do you think you
are--the friggin' Hilton? Mosquito Net? We ain't got none'a them. I
discovered later there was only one mosquito net assigned to Đà Nẵng A.B.--I
mean, for the entire base--and everyone has stolen it at least once. Ollie
the Caveman's right--There's them and us: especially them
others that wear stripes on their sleeves.
About 25 Airmen were busy raising tents and putting down wood-flat
pallets for floors and sidewalks across the twenty acres of hardpacked red
clay field. The squadron was a little over 100 Airmen, on its way to 1,100. They didn't know it, but in years to come, the compound would
be called Gunfighter Village, or the Camp,
and evolve into one and two-story wood- screened sandbag-walled hootches.
Looking around, I noticed there were wooden-sidewalks and cement
telephone poles. This place is really ....
A C-130 taxing pointed its tail and revved RPMs in preflight
about fifty yards away, blowing a hurricane of red dust the length of the
tent-city field. And then a 105 Howitzer Battery opened up nearby --a new
sound causing an instant pucker factor that changed the lump of
coal in my wallet that Santa left me last Christmas in to a diamond!
Good news about putting up a bazillion tents: we got to chose our own
tents away from the C-130's prop blasts. Bad news--the NCOs, in their
finite wisdom, decided that we weren't any better than anyone else, and
gave those prized tents to E4s
Day One of DEROS?
... Sorry'
bout that!
