A+little+about+my+tour+in+Nha+Trang

=A little about my tour in Nha Trang= by Rex Sands [|rexmt2]

Chapter 3 (Finally my Senior Trip Vietnam here I come)

While on leave I spent some time at the ranch in Helena, and visited relatives before heading out. I flew to Oakland, California to process for my trip to Vietnam. Our flight was on board a Flying Tiger airlines jet and we had a short stop in Hawaii and Guam prior to our arrival in Saigon. At the repo depot (replacement depot) located at Long Binh, we got to pull a lot of details while they were sorting out our records and deciding where to send us. Not all of the details were pleasant. One was burning sh--t, the outhouses were equipped with 55 gallon drums cut in half and placed under the holes for deposit. Every day, they had to be pulled out and then we dumped diesel fuel on them and set them on fire. After allowing them to burn up, we were required to dig a hole to bury what remained and then place the drums back into the outhouse for a refill. As you can imagine this was not the most Plesant detail to get assigned to. From the replacement depot we traveled by bus to downtown Saigon to the Battalion headquarters of the 1st Military Intelligence Battalion (ARS). The ARS stood for Aerial Reconnaissance Support. I spent about a week to 10 days in Saigon, again pulling details waiting to leave to my Detachment which was Detachment D located in Nha Trang on the coast about midway between Da Nang and Saigon. The first unit patch that I wore, it was the USARV shoulder patch. USARV is the acronym for United States Army Vietnam. We also had a unit crest for the 1st Mi BN (ARS) that we wore and it was affectionately referred to as the "Flying Eye" We worked 12 hour shifts looking at aerial photography, when the plane delivered the film to us we had a 12 hour period to get the hotrep (hot report) sent out. For a while it was my job to type the reports that the II's (Image Interpreters) wrote out. Of course in 1968-69 there were no computers in use and there were no copy machines to make copies from. We used a manual typewriter as this was pre-electric time and we had a machine that was called a memo graph duplicating machine, the paper we used to type the report on was designed to place on the machine and then ink was applied to the drum and we ran off the copies that we needed. I had a Warrant Officer in charge of the Admin section who was a real jerk to say the least. His name was Maurice Audet and when he found a typo on the form instead of just letting us know so we could make a correction to it, he would take a red pen and circle the mistake with a great big circle, this meant I had to retype the entire report.

I remember the time we discovered and reported some Soviet built tanks. Even though the Soviet's provided many pieces of equipment to the North Vietnamese Army, it was a real find when we discovered the tanks. Lot's of times we found AAA (Anti Aircraft Artillery) sites and some SAM (Surface to Air Missile) sites. We discovered many trails thru the jungle that were used by the NVA and Viet Cong to travel and transport supplies. I recall one time when I was interpreting some film, and was feeling in a mischievous mood. I came across a couple of water buffalo in a rice paddy that were in the mating process. Water buffalo were used by the Viet Cong to transport supplies and equipment so I reported them as a VC transport manufacturing site. I got into a little hot water from the commander for this prank, but everyone thought it was funny.

Nha Trang (pictured on left) was a beautiful place on the coast of the Tonkin sea. There were white sandy beaches and we had a lot of unit parties and recreation time at the beach. The water was real warm and the sun was hot. We were usually able to get passes to go downtown and often times were able to get an overnight pass if we were off the next day. Lot's of pretty ladies frequented the bars in hopes of earning a little cash for their family. The black market flourished and you could usually buy American beer, but my favorite was Bha Mui Bha or beer 33. There was no consistency in the brewing process so sometimes you would get wasted on a half bottle of beer. The ladies would try to get you to buy them Saigon tea, which cost quite a lot. The Vietnamese currency was called Piasters but the GI's just referred to it as P's. We were not allowed to be in possession of US currency and the punishment for having it was quite stiff. We were paid in what was called MPC's (Military Payment Currency) which resembled monopoly money. A pack of cigarettes cost about 7 cents, but you could often times get a free pack from the donut dollies. Donut dollies were round eyes, or American women who came over as Red Cross Volunteers. There job was to help with the morale of the Soldiers. Every week or so we would be treated to entertainment from the World. The world was what we called the States and it was every soldiers dream to return to the World, hopefully not in a body bag. I got to travel to Cam Ran Bay to see part of a Bob Hope show on one of his many trips to Vietnam and that was a big treat.

When we would go to town, we would usually go together and split the cost for a ride in a Vespa, this was a motor scooter driven taxi that had a compartment on the back like a small bus. It would hold 6 GI's comfortably. Another means of transportation was on a Cyclo, which was like a Rickshaw with a man riding a bicycle, you could not get more than two people in it. Then other than walking there was catching a ride on the back of a Honda or Yamaha motor cycle that were ridden by what we called cowboys. This was illegal and if you were caught, you got punished. Most of the cowboys were renegade Vietnamese that were draft dodgers and lots of times were even the Viet Cong. There was no cultural or appearance difference between the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese so you never really knew who was the enemy. Many times GI's were killed or wounded by someone who looked innocent.

On Camp McDermott, which was the compound where we lived, we had hooches for sleeping quarters, usually 20 men per hooch, we had a small bunk with mosquito netting over it and a single wall locker and a wooden footlocker. Each GI was issued a ration card which allowed us to buy 2 cases of beer, 2 cartons of cigarettes, 2 cases of soda pop and an amount of hard liquor. I usually didn't drink hard liquor, so would trade those rations with someone for additional cigarettes or beer. It was our custom to take what ever we were drinking and when the bottle was empty or the can of beer was empty we would pour it into a large bottle. We called this hairy buffalo and drank from it towards the end of the month when we were out of rations. As you can imagine, it tasted terrible and had quite a kick to it.

My year was finally up and even though I wanted to extend, I had occasionally gotten into a little trouble so my commander wouldn't approve an extension. I requested an assignment to Alaska and was granted that wish. I spent a few days at Long Binh doing out processing and while there, we received an incoming attack of RPG and Mortar rounds, I rolled out of my bunk and covered myself with my mattress instead of trying to get to the bunker, I smashed my finger where I had a hangnail, so the following morning went on sick call to get it cleaned out and bandaged. All the medic wanted to do was fill out paperwork for a purple heart medal. I didn't think that was appropriate and refused to sign the papers. Processing was completed and we boarded the freedom bird to head to the states. I flew into McCORD AFB outside of Tacoma Washington and caught a bus to Missoula. I spent 30 days at home visiting relatives and having a good time with my friends.

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