Return Stateside & Back to Vietnam

C H A P T E R 11

(1970-1971)




My return to the states was anti-climatic. I flew a chopper out of the B-Team compound next door, to Pleku, where I boarded a C-131 for Qui Nhon. There I was processed aboard a civilian airliner that flew to Honolulu and then to Seattle.

Although Hawaii was our first entry into the U.S., we didn't deplane there, so it came as quite a shock to experience the negativism we encountered at Seattle. I had a short layover and a plane change to make, so I spent some time in the terminal.

For the most part, people seemed to ignore the returning Vietnam soldiers, but there were the occasional louts who made it a point to make snide remarks about us that were loud enough to be heard. Remarks such as "baby killer" and "lifer" were not uncommon. Most of this came from long haired, "hippie" types. They were a complete antithesis to my way of life. I couldn't understand where the hostility was coming from, and didn't want to cause a scene there in the airport, so I kept my mouth shut, and vowed to change out of uniform at the earliest possible time.

I'd been reassigned back to Fort Carson, Colorado, but had a 30 day leave in which to visit my mother and brother and his family. Mom was still living in Attleboro, Massachusetts. I flew into Providence, R.I., and caught a taxi to my mother's house. I wanted to surprise her, and I did. I could have called some of my relatives who lived nearby and they would have been glad to come out to the airport to pick me up, but I was afraid my mother would have known of my coming.

She had a third floor, walk-up apartment, with three bedrooms. She was living by herself, but I suspect that she made sure she had a place where visitors could sleep over, namely me. Harold (my brother) had a wife and family in Virginia, but although I, too, was married, my wife was still in Korea. For all intents and purposes, I was still a single man and she wanted to be able to put me up if I came to her home.

Knowing what she had been through at the mental hospital, I could tell she had aged quite a bit. She looked ten years older than her natural years. Still, she looked marvelous to me! Her mind had finally accepted the reality of her situation; she was alone now, and would have to fend for herself.

We had a lot of news to catch-up on. We stayed up late that night, talking about what had been happening in our lives. I learned that she now had a job making religious jewelry and other icons. It was still within walking distance of where she lived. She would go in the next morning and ask for some time off to visit with her son, home on leave from Vietnam. They gave her a week off, but she had to work the following week. That left me on my own during the day to sleep in as late as I wanted. I also took advantage to visit next door with my aunt and uncle and with some of my cousins in the area.

My relatives were glad to see me, and curious about how the war was going over there, as if I could tell them. I was only an E-6, and not privy to the big picture of the status of the war. Mostly we talked of times past and I got caught up on a lot of the family happenings. By this time I had a host of second cousins, too many for me to even begin to remember their names.

When it came time for me to leave, my uncle Joe drove me to the Naval Base at Newport, Rhode Island, and I managed to hitch a ride on a twin engine sub-chaser that was heading for the Naval Air Station at Norfolk, Virginia. They had orders to check out the plane on the flight down there (at least that's what they told me), so would have to put it through a lot of maneuvers.

Before taking off, I was briefed on how to use the parachute and exit the plane should the need become necessary. I was given a barf bag prior to take off and it's a good thing too. I had need of it when we neared the Virginia coast. That was the first and only time I ever got airsick, and the last time I rode in one of those planes.

I visited with my brother and his family for a week and then I flew on to Fort Carson, Colorado. Again, I was assigned to the Fifth Signal Battalion, but after seeing that they had an overage of personnel in my MOS, I went down the road to my old outfit,
the 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry, and talked to my old first sergeant. He had found a home with that unit and was still the head honcho. He managed to pull a few strings and got me reassigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop as the platoon sergeant of the commo platoon and Unit CBR NCO.

It was difficult for me to adjust to a five day work week here in the states. I'd been so used to a five-and-a-half day work week, all my military career, and then a seven day work week in Vietnam. When weekends rolled around, I didn't know what to do with all my time. I spent a lot of it in the Golden Boot NCO Club at first, drinking and shooting pool.

I went downtown to Colorado Springs to buy myself a second hand car. It was then that I found out that sergeant Sullivan, who I'd given a limited power of attorney to sell my Ford Falcon after I left for Vietnam the last time, had let it get repossessed instead. In order to get the financing to get another car, I'd have to pay off that outstanding bill; pay for a car that was long gone, and I hadn't seen or used in about fifteen months. Somehow, I managed to pay that bill off and get the financing for a second hand, old clunker, Volkswagen bus. Never again would I let someone have my power of attorney!

I didn't want to stay in the barracks anymore so I decided to move in with some other sergeants who were living in a three bedroom trailer in Security, Colorado. Trouble is, sergeants
Purdy, Madza, and Royal were already occupying the bedrooms.
Madza was leaving in about three weeks though, so they said if I could put up with sleeping on the couch for that time, I could move in with them. I didn't like the idea, but liked the idea of living in the barracks even less. I moved in with them.

Sam Purdy and I got to be the best of friends. He, Sergeant Royal, and I would all get off work at the fort and go home in my bus. It's a good thing I had that bus too, because Sam weighed over two hundred pounds and Royal was closer to three hundred pounds. We would throw on a quick change of civilian cloths and walk a block further down the street. Post 38 of the American Legion was open for business. It was a convivial atmosphere and served our brand of beer at the bar. Sometimes we ate there but usually, after a few beers to unwind, we would stroll back home

and I'd fix supper. I was the cook of the lot! We did most of our house cleaning on the weekends.

One day Sam, Royal, and I decided to head up into the mountains in the VW bus. I would never attempt such a trip today in a vehicle like that, but I was pretty daring in those days. We went through Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and up into the mountains. It was a gorgeous trip with spectacular views that I'll never forget. The higher we went, the more snow that was on the ground. Snow stays on the ground in many areas of the mountains for much of the year.

My bus could barely make the hills, slowing down to about twenty miles per hour on the steepest hills. Although I tried flooring the gas pedal, that was the top speed on inclines. It's fortunate that there weren't many cars making that trip at the time we went.

Our final destination turned out to be Cripple Creek, Colorado, an old time mining town. We hadn't planned on that place but it turned out to be a fascinating place. We toured some of the old mines, and in the museum, saw a display of how one of the mines was laid out through the different levels. Of course, most of the mines had long since been played out. The

town subsisted mostly on tourist trade from the Springs down below.
We took in an old time floor show; the dancers and actors were dressed in period clothes and put on a Shakespearian Play and danced the Can-can for us. Even the rinky-dink of the old player piano was in keeping with the "old west frontier image."
That was a marvelous, impromptu trip we took, one that I savor to this day. The trip back down the mountain was less spectacular than the trip up - and faster too!

There was a go-go dancer who worked at a lounge at a golf club just outside the back gate at Fort Carson. I used to spend a lot of time there, mostly because of her; I was sweet on her. She was nice to me and smiled and talked with me occasionally. I was hoping to be able to take her home one night after work. I got my chance about three months after meeting her.

She got off at 2 a.m. and we got into my bus and headed for her home. I didn't know she lived way out in the boonies, but she did. She also had a live-in boyfriend, which she forgot to mention. I was pretty gassed up on alcohol and I shouldn't have been driving, but I was young and foolish; besides my opportunity to score with this girl had presented itself and I took the chance.

When we got to her place, I followed her up the steps to her apartment only to be greeted at the door by her boyfriend. She introduced me to him, which I thought was nice, and he thanked me for taking her home. I mumbled something about good-night and started back to my vehicle. After sitting in the bus for a few minutes and thinking about this, I decided to go and see the girl again. Her boyfriend was real nice about me bothering him again, but convinced me I should return to the base. As if he didn't know what I had been up to! I started back to Fort Carson.

My head was splitting, and I had a mouthful of cotton; somebody was blowing in my ear. I opened my eyes and jerked completely upright; there was a horse staring in the bus window at me! I looked around and I was parked just off the road in a farmyard about a hundred yards from a house. It was the only habitat I saw in any direction. I was in the middle of nowhere!

Since I had no idea where I was, but I knew I was late for work, I stumbled out of the driver’s seat and made my way to the farmhouse. A nice old lady answered the door and I asked her if I could use her phone to call Fort Carson. She let me in and I said hi to her husband who was sitting in the kitchen drinking his morning coffee. I called the fort and explained my position to my first sergeant. He reamed me out for missing formation,

but said he would try to cover for me until I got in to work. I thanked him and hung up.

I explained my predicament to the old couple, leaving out the part about the go-go dancer, and said I was real sorry about having to bother them at this time of the morning. They were real nice about it and even offered me some coffee and breakfast if I wanted. I said thank you for a cup of coffee, but had to pass up a meal. They gave me directions back to the Fort.

Ron Madza had long ago cleared Fort Carson and departed and now Sergeant Royal was clearing post too. He was being discharged for being overweight. I didn't know it at the time, but both he and Madza had used the services of a couple in the American Legion to falsify the clearing papers.

When clearing post, each place that is cleared has to mark the papers in a distinctive way. The last place to be cleared was always TA-50, where the field gear was turned in. That is the web gear, shelter half, canteen, parka, etc. When clearing them, they used a notary public seal to verify that everything had been turned in. Royal didn't have all his equipment to turn in, so he got a former Notary Public who was an auxiliary member of Post 38, to use her outdated seal to verify the papers. She

offset the plate slightly so that they would be blurred. It worked, or so he had thought, because he was able to leave post.

Having been in the states for seven months, and not finding the duty very satisfactory, I volunteered to go back to Vietnam. I had to reenlist on a short to do it (meaning I still had some time left on my last enlistment), and was unaware that I would have to pay back part of the lump-sum reenlistment bonus I had previously drawn. That was made amply clear after I got back in country in Vietnam.

As I cleared post, I noted that I came up short one parka and parka liner. I later discovered that Royal had taken it. I too, used the services of the former Notary Public so that I might be able to clear post. The only difference is that I got caught. The commanding officer called me into his office and asked me about the seal on my clearing papers and if I had really cleared TA-50. At first I said yes, everything was above board, but I didn't know that the papers from sergeant Madza and Royal had already come under suspicion, and now my papers just about clinched the case. The Criminal Investigation Division (CID) had been called in!

The commander and CID agreed that most of my gear had been turned in and in return for getting the false seal, so that the

clearing scam could be stopped, they wouldn't press charges against me.

The most difficult thing for me to do was to go back to American Legion Post 38, and ask the lady for her seal. She and her husband were fine members of the post and community; they had only thought to help some Army members to clear the installation. None of us looked upon the action as stealing, but that is what it was actually. When I explained the depth of our culpability to her, and that the CID was aware of the bogus seal, she surrendered her seal to me, and I turned it in the next day. I was allowed to leave post without further disciplinary action being taken against me.

My plane landed at Tan Son Nhut, and I was taken by truck (a deuce-and-a-half) to Long Binh, for in-processing. It only took about three days this time. It was here that I found out I would have to pay back some of the lump-sum reenlistment bonus I had drawn on my first reenlistment. The amount was a little over $3,000 and it was agreed that the payback would be at about $150 a month until it was paid off. It broke my heart to part with that money, but the method of payback was the least painful.


I was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 77th Artillery, headquartered right down the road at Bien Hoa. The unit had four fire support bases (FSBs) and a relay point on top of Nui Chow Chan (a mountain). Each FSB had two 175mm, self-propelled guns, two 8 inch, self-propelled guns, and a bo-fors gun. The TOC (Tactical Operations Center) at each place was bunkered-in and had secure FM radios for communications. They also had a back-up AM radio teletype set at each FSB and one at Headquarters. These latter, along with the attendant operators, were my responsibility.

The concussion, from the firing of such big guns, often shook the fixtures from the walls of the RATT vans. Fortunately, they were not often used by the commanders, but were used as back-up. Still, they had to be maintained in a working order, and to that end, were required to come up on the air each day and make contact with headquarters at Bien Hoa in both voice and teletype mode.

Since I was the senior 05C, I had to make periodic checks of all the RATT rigs that were at each FSB and the relay point on the mountain.

The only way to get to the mountain was by chopper (helicopter), because Charlie owned the base of the mountain. The top of the mountain was sometimes socked in by clouds and the chopper would have to wait for a hole in the clouds to land on the helipad. It was nice and cool up there, year around, and the brass didn't bother you as long as you did your job. We had three EM manning the relay which was a secure FM radio. It seldom went bad but the one time it did, I went up there only to find out that some of the men were into pot and heroin and had screwed the set up. I got it straightened out and warned one man and had the other relieved. It ran pretty smoothly after that.

Two of the FSBs could only be reached by air, the other two by convoy. The scariest one by far was the one we had near the Parrot's Beak area in Tay Ninh province. We had to pass through a town called Go Da Ha on the way. That was the eeriest experience I'd ever had and I made that trip four times. Sometimes you'd go through the village and people would smile and wave, at other times they'd just stare at you as you passed. That was a very unfriendly area for a lone American 1 1/4 Ton truck to navigate. We usually kept the pedal to the metal when going through there.

Xuan Loc was another place we had a FSB. It was on the far side of Nui Chow Chan and could only be reached on radio through the relay point. I made two trips out there, passing the huge rubber plantations on the way. There was an old pink building that had once been a bar/hangout in better days; this was just outside of Xuan Loc. There were still some prostitutes working out of there but the two times we stopped off there, I sipped a 33 beer while I waited for my driver to slake his desires.

I stayed at one fire support base near the Cambodian border for three days and got to see the guns in action. They were firing the bee-hive rounds with short fuses. You could follow the trajectory of the round as it left the muzzle and landed several clicks (kilometers) away. I also got to see some of the night sensor gear in operation. I couldn't tell from the audio or the computer screen if there was human movement, but those operators called in some fire missions on something that was moving out there. I'd have hated to be on the receiving end of those shells!

My supply sergeant at Bien Hoa took me into Saigon a couple of times and introduced me to the owner of a bar/hotel downtown. He was an American with a Vietnamese wife/girl. He had the place in the woman's name because he couldn't own property in Vietnam, and there was probably something illegal in what he was doing. I think he was a civilian.

On one of these trips, there was a meeting in the hotel and a bunch of us became charter members of a new VFW post, post number 10235, called Saigon Memorial Post, Saigon. I'm member number 147. I still have my card, and although the post has undoubtedly become inactive long ago, there aren't many of us around, so it might have some significant value someday.

Next door to that place was another hotel where I met a young Vietnamese girl that satisfied my every need whenever I was in town. That wasn't often, only about five times.

One day after hoisting a few beers in the club (I wasn't on duty), I decided to go to downtown Saigon. I caught a truck full of GIs going that way and they dropped me off near the USO. Now we had been told to only change our MPCs (military payment certificates) for local money in authorized places. The USO was one of these places, and so I was headed there to change some money. Before I got in the door, an old Vietnamese lady accosted me and said she would change my money. She was offering a higher rate of exchange than the USO, so after she counted out her money and rolled it up, I counted out mine and we made the exchange. It wasn't until I had gone into a bar and ordered a drink, that I discovered that she had slipped me a rolled up wad of newspaper with a couple of Piaster notes on the outside. I had been hoodwinked! There wasn't much I could do about it. The lady was long gone by the time I got back to that location. Nobody around there knew anything about it; right! I spent several very depressing hours on the main street and then caught another truck heading back to Bien Hoa.

I hadn't taken an R & R (Rest and Relaxation) during my first tour in Vietnam, but I was determined to do so this time. About six months into my tour I went to Hawaii. I had found out my father's address in Hawaii and determined to see him again. He had remarried a Greek woman with two teenage daughters.

When my flight arrived in Hawaii, I stepped off the bus at
Fort DeBusey and a young wahine gave me the traditional lei around my neck. I checked into a nearby hotel. After relaxing a bit in my room, I called my father's house. He wasn't in, but his wife offered to come and get me. She described what she would be wearing and her VW bug. When we met about an hour later, I found her to be a very charming person, only slightly younger than my own mother. I had thought my old man would have married a young thing, but he surprised me.

She took me to the CPO (Chief Petty Officer) Club at the naval base, that's where my father was. I should have known he would be out drinking. That, and golf, were his favorite pastimes. Luckily, he wasn't drunk yet. He introduced me around to his buddies there in the club (technically, I was an E-6 and the club was for E-7 and above), and bragged on me a lot - the Vietnam son on R & R, etc. He was proud of me. We left for his house after a couple of drinks. Dad wanted me to move in with him that night, but I knew the hotel wouldn't give me my money back so I waited until the next day to move out of the hotel and in with him.
My week of R & R stretched into two weeks when I became dehydrated on some Crown Royal, Scotch Whiskey I had brought for my father. During the third day at his house, after we had gone out to play 18 holes of golf, I popped the cork on the bottle and mixed us a couple of drinks. My dad only had that one drink and then he and his wife retired for the afternoon. I sat up drinking and thinking about the past. Not only was I not used to the hard whiskey, but I drank more of it, and at a faster rate than was good for me. I passed out, and later developed diarrhea, and a fever.

When I woke my father up on one of my frequent visits to the toilet, he noted my sickness and took me to Tripler Army Medical Center. It was there that they told me I was dehydrated. They fed me fluids, and stuck a tube into my urethra to monitor the drainage. That was most painful and made a believer out of me. I never again got dehydrated in that manner!

I was in the hospital for two days and when they released me, they extended my R & R another week. It was almost worth it to spend the extra time with my dad. We got to see some more of the island and played some more golf together. I ended up buying him a complete new set of golf clubs and bag. All too soon, it was time for me to return to Vietnam. Little did I know it would be the last time I ever saw my dad. He died in 1983 without further contact between us.

When I got back to my company, I found out that a new man I had been breaking in on the RATT at headquarters had been sent to one of the FSBs. He was inexperienced, and when the FSB came under ground attack one night, he ran out to the berm and began shooting at the enemy with an AK-47 that he got earlier in a trade. Nobody had told him that the AK-47 makes a distinctive sound when fired. Our own troops thought the perimeter had been breached and turned their fire on him. He was killed outright! I've often wondered what would have happened if I hadn't gone on R & R. I know I wouldn't have let him go to a FSB so soon after arriving in-country. The commo officer had to write a letter home to his parents. That's one job that I didn't envy him!

Intelligence summaries had shown that we needed to establish a new location for one of our fire support bases. We started early one morning and strung out a convoy heading into the hinterland. I don't remember exactly where it was right now, but it was somewhere about forty clicks northwest of Saigon. There was the whole complement of armament, two 175mm guns, two 8 inch

guns, and a bo-fors gun, plus related equipment and men to man a new FSB.

The trip out there took most of the whole day and was very dusty traveling on dirt roads. I was riding in a jeep with a young second lieutenant and another enlisted man and the driver. On one of the last stops for the convoy, it was determined that an 8 inch gun was missing! It seems that the gun had taken the wrong turn in an earlier fork in the road, and because of all the dust, nobody had noticed its absence. They apparently thought the convoy was just ahead and were trying to catch-up to it. Because of the terrain, radio contact with the gun had been lost.

The Lieutenant I was with volunteered to go back and find the gun and help it return to the convoy. Not wanting to abandon the jeep in the face of this decision, we all went along with it. Back we went! It was twilight and visibility was worsening. We found the fork in the road where they had made the wrong turn and began to race up it. We had all locked and loaded our weapons and were on the alert for any treachery that might happen. I saw a shadow flit across the road about 200 meters ahead and shouted to the others to look out! It turned out to be an ARVN roadblock, but it had sure scared the hell out of us. They told us the gun had passed about fifteen minutes ago. We chased after them but met them shortly thereafter coming toward us. They had finally realized their mistake and were returning. We both raced to catch up to the convoy.

We caught up with it just before pulling into the new area. Some Seabees, with earth-moving equipment, had felled a large area of trees and dug out positions for the TOC, individual sleeping areas, and perimeter bunkers. The wonders of modern combat, we didn't have to dig foxholes! There were even corrugated steel conduit halves that were quickly placed over the scooped out trenches and sandbagged over. The sandbagging was the hardest labor we troops had to do. Most of this work was done that night, and the next day, the finishing touches were made to the compound. We were most vulnerable during this phase of the move, so everyone worked as fast as they could.

During my tour of duty, I had always carried a hunting knife on my belt. This was not a part of the regular issue of army equipment, but nobody had complained. When not doing anything particular at the base camp, I used to go out back of the commo platoon building and practice throwing my knife. I got to be real good at it. So much so, that I could turn around a hundred and eighty degrees, draw my knife, throw it at a target a little bigger than a quarter, twenty-five feet away, and hit it, all within about two seconds. The men became scared of me for some reason and complained to the first sergeant about my behavior. I was called on the carpet and made to cease such activities.

The Vietnamization process began to accelerate in 1971. We were told to inventory all our equipment prior to standing down. The entire unit was going back to the states and our equipment would be turned over to the Vietnamese. After this was done in March, we were moved to Long Binh and put in a holding barracks until we could be processed out. We were told this would take two to three weeks.

I had a room to myself in a corner of the second floor. The previous occupant was an artist. He had covered many parts of the bare wood walls with his drawings, which he did in colored pencil. One picture at the head of my bed was of a skull, but if you looked closely, you could see that the skull was made up of many naked people writhing around in various contorted positions. It looked like a representation of what Hades is supposed to look like. I wanted to take that picture home very badly, but short of sawing a hole in the corner of the building, I couldn't do it.

We had few duties while waiting, so most of us didn't mind. There was a swimming pool nearby; no girls, but other amenities could be had, such as beer. I took the opportunity to go to the dentist for a long needed check-up.

I only had seven teeth in my upper jaw and consequently it took me a long time to eat my food. The dentist told me a tooth had to come out. I told him that if he was going to take that one, he might as well take the rest of them too, and give me a prosthesis. He did that and I've never regretted it! I had those teeth for fourteen years and never had to use an adhesive. They were molded to my palette.

I elected to take an ITT (Inter-theater Transfer), and go directly from Vietnam to Korea. I hoped to get back to my wife of the past six years. We had been separated for four of those six years.