Life During Wartime

That's All Folks!

When the new boat that I was assigned to arrived, I brought my few belongings on board and met the crew. As usual, the crew consisted of myself, the coxswain, and two seamen. The boat was relatively new and the engine room had a recent coat of paint. I was the old-timer, having been in the country for about six months (!).

After a few days, we received our first mission assignment. Guess where we were going? Right back to the exact same place where my first boat had been sunk! This news scared the shit out of me and I was a nervous wreck for the next couple of weeks. I didn't take my flak jacket or my helmet off at any time, including when I was trying to sleep, which the other guys on the boat thought was pretty funny, but what did they know?

Anyway, we survived that mission without incident, and that boat was never assigned to any more infantry support missions while I was in-country. The boat was pretty much-assigned freight freight-hauling duties for the rest of my tour. The stuff we hauled around included gravel, rebar, beer, soda pop, lumber, artillery, and small arms ammunition.

Let's Get High, High As A Georgia Pine

There was plenty of drug and alcohol use in the 1099th Medium Boat Company when I was there. In fact, the company was sort of divided into two distinct groups: the Alkys and the Heads. The Alkys regularly got wasted at the tiny Enlisted Men's (EM) club at Cat Lai, where the beers cost somewhere between $0.10 to $0.25 a can if I recall correctly. Hamms and Colt 45 were usually served there. Soldiers would pile up empty beer cans into a pyramid on a table until someone passed out into the pile, knocking the cans everywhere to the great hoots of fellow revelers. 

Sometimes, drunks would travel out to the pier to sleep it off on their boats. And sometimes, they would not notice that the tide was out and the boats were eight to ten feet lower than they were when they went to the club. The lucky ones fell into the inboard boat and suffered various minor injuries. The unlucky ones fell into the river and their bodies ended up in the locals' fishing nets downstream of the base.

The Heads regularly partook of the pot that was available everywhere in Vietnam. I personally bought pot from pre-teens on the base at Cat Lai, from taxi drivers, from prostitutes, and, in one instance, from South Vietnamese policemen who traded our crew a five-gallon water can full of pot for a case of c-rations. Something called Thai stick was also available, which was an opiated pot that was extremely powerful, as well as regular opium.

My favorite drug of choice was what we were told was a liquid pharmaceutical amphetamine called Maxitone. You could go to any taxi driver in Saigon and tell him that you wanted to buy Maxitone and they would round up as many doses as you wanted for $2.00 a pop. It was supplied in 2cc glass ampules with a breakable nipple at the top. We usually poured one ampule into an RC Cola to kill the taste, but there were several others in the company who were shooting Maxitone up straight out of the bottle.

I tried shooting up Maxitone once, in the engine room of a neighboring boat. The boat's engineer volunteered to do the deed. The rush from the dope was exceedingly fantastic, but the high faded after about 30 minutes. What to do then? Have another shot, of course, but for some reason, it occurred to me that this might not be a wise choice and I never tried it again.

Partaking of Maxitone made all of us brilliant blabbermouths. We would regularly decide that since the war we were participating in was totally wrong, we would march to the HQ in the morning and refuse to participate in the nasty imperialistic, anti-commie business anymore, prison be damned! Of course, once the sun came up, our insanely awful hangovers prevented taking any action besides trying to get some sleep. So much for fighting the Power!

There were usually a couple of newbie Second Lieutenants assigned to ferreting out the dope users in the Company. Whenever our boat was assigned to guarding the ammunition barges temporarily parked mid-river at Cat Lai at night, a couple of these characters would sneak out to our boat on a launch to do an inspection. However, having two or three speed-freaks on the roof of the boat made it impossible for the officers to find anybody that wasn't "asleep" except for the one guy assigned to radio watch that night. Oddly enough, their inspections never turned up anything incriminating.

The first time I took LSD was at Cat Lai. Someone from another boat had gone to San Francisco for their week's R&R and brought back some tabs of LSD with them which they generously shared with the rest of us. I don't recall having any spectacular insights from this trip, but I do recall taking my "pet" python out from his ammo case home and showing him around, which made all of my fellow travelers flee from their boats.

At the end of my tour, the boat dropped me off at a local airbase where I watched a Huey helicopter spiral out of control while taxiing just a few feet off of the ground, then crash into a couple of other parked aircraft, causing murder, mayhem, and chaos. After the base was reopened I hitched a ride back to Cat Lai, where I was given a new set of fatigues (my crew had thoughtfully thrown my other clothes into the river as a going-away present) and my orders to go back to the States. I rode a boat to Saigon where I picked up some Maxitone to go and rode a bus out to the Ben Hoa airbase. I taped the speed to my leg, and after listening to a lecture about smuggling dope out of Vietnam, boarded a Boeing 707 for the flight home.

After boarding the air-conditioned airliner, we were attended to by attractive flight attendants and flew off into the wild blue yonder back to the US. 

And just like that, it was over.

On the Beach

Our boat had been dragged up on the beach next to a small Vietnamese village. The infantrymen that had not been killed or injured during the ambush left the boats and formed a perimeter. Our boat crew joined them with our personal weapons and the M-60 machine gun that I had been shooting. I found out later that that gun probably wouldn't have worked if needed anyway; too many rounds had been fired through it without a barrel change. Of course, the Army never told any of us that this particular weapon might need a barrel change or that the barrel could even be changed. So, thanks for that, Transportation Corps! A helicopter was sent to evacuate the body of the person that had been killed and the others that had been wounded, including one fellow whose foot had been blown off. 

After a thankfully uneventful night, a boat was sent from Cat Lai to pick our crew up and drop off mechanics to refloat the boat so that it could be towed back to Saigon. I heard that damaged boats were shipped from Saigon to the Philippines for repair. A couple of days after returning to the base, we were told that we had to go to Saigon to inspect the boat for any weapons or explosives, something that the civilian workers would not do. Plus, the civilians were complaining about a bad smell on the boat. So, off we went to Saigon to look at our wrecked Mike boat.

The boat was on a large barge parked on the Saigon waterfront. It had two large holes in the starboard side of the hull that had been patched, and the engine room had been pumped out so that it could be refloated. We found a few items of interest, including M-16 and M-60 ammunition, a hand grenade, some human gore tangled up in the tarp that had been covering the cargo deck, and a human foot still laced into a jungle boot. We chucked the foot and the gore that we could stand to collect and tossed them into the river. We took everything else with us back to Cat Lai.

After we returned to Cat Lai, the crew dissolved. The coxswain went home and the seamen moved on to other boats. I was told that I had been assigned to a new boat that would arrive in a few days, so I spent that time avoiding any work and perfecting my pot-smoking skills.

Up next - Life During Wartime!

Pt. 11 - The Old-Ultra-Violence, Pt. 3

About halfway through my Vietnam vacation the first boat I worked on embarked from Cat Lai on what would become its final mission.

As usual, we were sent out to the Pineapples region to support another firebase. We spent two or three weeks there doing the usual stuff: inserting and picking up ambush patrols (including LRRPs), occasionally spraying Agent Orange, and delivering supplies when possible. On one of our trips around the area, the boat hit a submerged object that bent one of the propeller shafts. When the coxswain put that transmission into gear, the bent shaft made a very loud banging noise, so the coxswain was forced to leave the engines running but leave the transmission in neutral until we could return to Cat Lai for repairs.

One day we were assigned the task of transporting the 199th Infantry located at the firebase to another location closer to Saigon. Another boat from the 1099th Medium Boat Company was scheduled to meet us at the firebase to drop off replacement security soldiers and drop off supplies. The operation was running late, and the two boats left the firebase about two hours later than planned. Two Huey helicopter gunships circled overhead, following us.

The late departure was a problem because the rivers and canals in the region were subject to the tidal fluctuations associated with the South China Sea. Even though the mike boats only drew about two to four feet of water, sometimes the water levels in the canals could get so low that the boats had to wait for the tide to rise again before proceeding. On this particular day, when our boats reached the final canal branch to our destination, the tide was so far out that we could not proceed. It looked like we were going to be stuck there for two to four hours.

So we parked on the beach at the mouth of the canal and waited in the mid-day heat. Local village children came to the boats to sell us pot and to warn us that there were "beaucoup" VC (Vietcong) waiting for us to move down the canal. Shit! There was no reason not to believe them. A two to four-hour wait would be plenty of time for them to set up an ambush for our two boats.

Finally, the tide came up and our two boats moved out down the canal. We were accompanied again by the two Huey helicopter gunships. The first part of the trip was quite spooky. Apparently, a B-52 bomb strike had hit the area recently, and a long line of giant water-filled craters crossed both sides of the canal. The vegetation on all sides of the craters was totally mowed down as far as you could see. If not for the sound of the boats' muffled exhaust, you could have heard a pin drop...The whole crew with the exception of the coxswain was stoned.

Suddenly: WHUMP! WHUMP, followed by two large geysers of water on the starboard side of the boat.

Our boat had been hit by something, and the crew started firing the M2 guns and the M60 gun (me) into the jungle on both sides of the canal like maniacs. The quarterdeck became ankle-deep in machine gun brass in nothing flat. The infantrymen in the cargo deck were also firing their weapons off of the side of the boat into the jungle. The coxswain had jammed the idling engines into drive and the bent propeller shaft was banging away like a sonofabitch. All of this noise was insanely loud and disorientating. I looked behind the boat and saw that our accompanying boat was also firing at both sides of the canal with their weapons.

Somehow, the coxswain got my attention and told me to check out the boat's engine room. I had been shooting the M60 gun from the side of the wheelhouse on the starboard side of the boat. I put the gun down on the deck and walked around to the front of the quarterdeck in front of the wheelhouse where the hatch was for the engine room. There I noticed that the seaman manning the M2 gun on the port side of the boat had been knocked down by the body of a black infantryman that had been hurled up from the cargo deck. This man was still wearing his helmet and flak jacket, but all of the rest of his body from his flak jacket down was gone. I swear that I saw him take one last breath. The seaman was trying to kick this horror show off of him. I also noticed at that time that the quarterdeck and wheelhouse were covered in blood splatter and bits and pieces of gore from this person.

I undogged the engine room hatch and jumped down. I took one step forward and broke my sunglasses in half on the steel post in between the engines. After taking a few seconds to recover, I surveyed the engine room. I climbed out of the engine room to report that there was a large hole in the forward bulkhead of the engine room that I couldn't plug and that the engine room was filling up with water. We were in danger of sinking in the shallow canal.

Now the helicopter gunships joined the party and started firing into the presumed ambush zone with their miniguns and 2.75" rockets. When they were out of ammo a couple of Air Force F-100 fighter bombers strafed the area with their Vulcan cannons. Next up was a barrage of 105mm artillery fire from some local firebase.

Apparently, at that time we were out of the ambush zone and our sister boat came alongside next our boat, tied up to us, and dragged our boat up on to a beach. Now, something really weird happened - The seaman on the port side of the sister boat was manning their M2 gun. The barrel of the gun was smoking from all of the rounds that had been shot through it. It was pointed directly at our boat's wheelhouse. Our coxswain asked him to point the gun elsewhere, which caused the seaman to start screaming that "nobody's going to tell me what to do with this fucking gun and I'll kill all of y'all if I have to!" The two coxswains got him calmed down somehow and we all lived to fight another day.

Next up: On the Beach!

Pt. 10 - The Old Ultra-Violence, Pt. 2

There were two more memorable incidents that occurred while I was on my first boat in Vietnam. The second one resulted in the boat being sunk. The first one went something like this...

One day we were assigned to transport a platoon of the 199th Light infantry guys out to an area where they were going to do a sweep looking for bad guys. This was an unusual mission for two reasons: (1) we were doing it during daylight, and (2) we were quite a way from the firebase where these guys were responsible for security. Our destination was a bend in a large canal and there was a steep hill directly behind the stern of the boat. As usual, we parked on the shoreline and lowered the ramp so that the troops could exit the boat.  They exited and disappeared into the jungle, and we waited for their return.

After a few minutes, someone on the hill behind us started shooting over the boat at the recently departed soldiers with automatic weapons. GAH!

This time the two M2 guns on the quarter deck were manned by the boat's seamen and they started creating carnage on the hillside behind us immediately. The guns worked just fine this time. As usual, we couldn't see the people that were shooting at us, but we could see the general area where their weapons' tracers (usually green) were coming from. My job was to keep the two guns supplied with ammunition, which I hauled up from the boat's well (cargo) deck. The standard M2 ammunition box only holds 200 rounds which don't last long in a situation like this, so I kept pretty busy hauling ammo until the shooting stopped.

Why did the shooting stop? We will never know. Maybe we killed the unseen bad guys or maybe they had had enough and decided to retreat and lick their wounds. After a while we retrieved the 199th guys from the jungle and motored back to their firebase. Thankfully, no one was killed or injured.

Curiously, the Army thought it fitting to give the crew the Army Commendation Medals with a "V" device for this incident which were pinned on us when we returned to Cat Lai. Rumor had it that our 1st Lieutenant platoon leader and 1st Sergeant both received the Bronze Star for this same incident even though we hadn't seen either one of them since we left the base. 

Go figure!

Pt. 9 - The Old Ultra-Violence - Pt.1

Holy Shit!

We didn't always have helicopter gunships escorting us on the rivers, they usually only appeared when we were working around the firebases. The first time someone shot at the boat when I was on it was when we were traveling on quite a wide river moving some GIs to a new firebase. I was chatting with a couple of GIs in the wooden crew shack on the stern of the boat when a couple of bullet holes mysteriously appeared in the canvas cover that was covering the open "window" of the port side of the shack. That cover was let down when it was raining or as a very ineffective effort to keep the boat's diesel exhaust out of the shack when we were underway.

It quickly dawned on us that a bad guy that was a really good shot was shooting at the boat. We all hit the deck which was right behind the wheelhouse, and I low-crawled out to the M2 machine gun on the port side of the quarter-deck. I had no idea where the people that were shooting us were, but I did know that they were on the riverbank on the port side of the boat. 

I grabbed the charging handle on the gun, pulled it back, and let it go, loading the weapon. I then pressed down on the "butterfly" trigger of the gun. 

BOOM! That was it, one BOOM! So I tried working the charging handle again and pressed the trigger. BOOM! That was it; who knows where those two bullets went. Someone also saw a B-40 RPG (Pocket Propelled Grenade) fly harmlessly over the boat. By this time we were out of the ambush zone and the rest of the trip was uneventful.

Remember that the boat crew was from the Army Transportation Corp and had never received any training on the M2 or M60 machine guns that we were equipped with. When we returned to the base at Cat Lai, we were informed by the armorer that the M2 gun could be configured for single-shot or full-auto operation. Since we could not think of any reason for the single-shot option, he showed us how to properly set up the gun, set the "timing," and clean the beast.

I See Dead People

One memorable mission that we were tasked with was to pick up a company of ARVN infantry and deliver them to a spot not far from Cat Lai so that they could conduct some sort of a sweep through the area. We had a mechanical problem with the boat that day - we couldn't raise and lower the bow ramp normally because the air/hydraulic system was malfunctioning. This meant the coxswain couldn't perform this function from the wheelhouse as usual. This meant that the several ton ramp had to be manually raised and lowered by the use of come-alongs by the boat's seamen.

We loaded the soldiers up at a pier and headed out to their drop-off point. When we arrived, the coxswain drove the boat up to the beach and the seamen worked the come-alongs furiously to get the ramp lowered. Once the ramp was down, there was one other problem; the soldiers would not get off of the boat! I don't know if they were afraid of getting shot, but I know that the boat crew sure was, since the boat was a sitting duck parked on the shoreline with the ramp down. 

After a few minutes of shouting by the Vietnamese commander of the operation, he unholstered his Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber pistol and shoved it into the ear of the nearest reluctant soldier, and that finally got the troops moving off of the boat.  After we backed away from the riverbank, we noticed that the ARVNs had left equipment on the boat including an M72 LAW anti-tank weapon, some boxes of M60 machine gun ammunition, and a couple of Claymore mines. I guess they didn't want to hump this stuff into the field.

Once we got the ramp raised again and backed off the beach, we took the boat to get refueled and waited to hear back from the ARVNs who were going to need to be picked up again. That call came sooner than we expected.

We cruised up to the designated riverbank and saw something I will never forget. The ARVN outfit had come out of the bush and there were also two smaller ARVN LCM-6  landing craft already there, parked on the riverside.  Laying in the long grass on the riverside were three naked male bodies laying on their backs in grotesque positions. The ARVNs had apparently ambushed these bad guys with Claymore mines, and the bodies were already turning blue and black. All of their clothes had been completely blasted off of them by the mines.

I had never seen a dead person before. 

The ARVN boats picked up the bodies and we hauled the celebrating soldiers back to where we picked them up. Mission accomplished.

Pt. 8 - The River Rats - Pt. 2

The LCM-8 landing craft (usually called Mike boats) that I worked on and lived was like the semi-trucks of the river and canal systems in Vietnam. With a cargo capacity of 60 tons, the boats hauled everything imaginable around the country including armored vehicles, building supplies (for example, cement, rebar, and lumber), ammunition, food, beer, aviation fuel, drinking water, Agent Orange, etc.

For a more detailed look at what types of missions the Mike boats worked on in Vietnam, look here: http://grambo.us/atav/hartman.htm. By the way, this article was written by the skipper of the second boat I worked on, Buck Hartman.

The first boat I was assigned to worked pretty much exclusively supporting units of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade at artillery fire support bases located around the outskirts of Saigon in what was then called the Pineapples region (because of the abandoned French pineapple plantations in the area). The infantry provided security for these bases. We also hauled cannon and small arms ammunition into these firebases and delivered and picked up ambush patrols that were sent out every night beyond the perimeter of the base. These supplies would also be delivered by helicopter (usually Chinook or Huey aircraft) on a routine basis. 

We would also occasionally pick up Army Ranger Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs) at night from the river or canal banks and take them back to the relative safety of the firebases. On these missions, we would have a general idea where to pick these guys up, and when we were close they would signal us with their red flashlights, and we would drive up on to the riverside and drop the bow ramp to pick them up. These guys were never very chatty, always wore tiger-striped fatigues, soft hats, and had their faces painted, but were always willing to share their LRP rations with us which were way better than the C-rations we were supplied with.

On one of these LLRP pickup missions, for some reason, a Second Lieutenant from a firebase decided that he was going to direct that night's mission. I don't know if he was from the 199th or the artillery outfit, but he was pretty full of himself and insisted on directing the very simple operation which we had successfully completed several times. After a few minutes, the officer walked up to the bow of the 80-foot long boat and started yelling at the coxswain to "Pull in here!' We weren't close to the pickup point, so the coxswain declined, which resulted in more yelling from the officer. So, the coxswain spun the wheel to starboard which plowed the bow of the boat into the overhanging trees on the bank and knocked the officer into the water, where he started hollering even more until we fished him out. I can tell you that yelling was not considered something to do on night missions.

A few minutes later, when we successfully picked up the LRRPs, their squad leader asked us what all the "fucking noise for the last 15 minutes" was about. The coxswain said, "Ask the LT!"

One of the (BIG) problems we had at the firebases was occasionally getting ambushed from the banks of the river or canal banks. Our boats were very slow and easy targets. The vegetation was always so thick that there was always no way that you could see anyone that might want to kill you. Generally, when we moved down the canal or river away from the firebase, we were supported by Huey helicopter gunships or sometimes helicopter hunter/killer teams that circled over the boat until we returned to the firebase. We would also do something called "recon by fire" that meant we would fire our M-60 machine guns, M-14 rifles, or M-79s at both sides of the canal/riverbank in an effort to keep any bad guys heads down as we passed by. We couldn't fire the M2 machine guns at those times for fear of endangering the helicopter gunships.

The other thing that we did once was spray Agent Orange (yes, THAT Agent Orange) off of the boat's lowered bow ramp on to the foliage on the canal or riverbank. Our boat crew did not do this work, it was done by other GIs without shirts, gloves, or any other protective gear Let's hope that those men are still with us. The chemical did a great job of killing anything that it landed on and a lot of foliage on those riverbanks was totally decimated. The idea was that the bad guys couldn't hide in there anymore, but they found ways around that, believe me.

Next up - The Old Ultra-Violence!

Pt.7 - The River Rats - Pt.1

The 1099th Medium Boat Company was called the "River Rats." The "Mike" boat I was assigned to finally arrived at Cat Lai, and I went on board to replace the engineer that was leaving the country. I had never been on an LCM-8 before, but it was equipped with four 6-71 Jimmy engines that I had been taught to work on back at Ft. Story. Each pair of engines drove two screws.

This particular boat had a crew of four: two seaman, the coxswain, and an engineer. The seamen were responsible for securing and releasing the boat and managing the loading and unloading of cargo. The coxswain drove the boat, navigated, and operated the radios.  The engineer was responsible for the care and feeding of the diesel engines and the other mechanical systems. The boat was about 75 feet long and could haul about 60 tons of cargo that were either loaded by crane or via the ramp that could be lowered and raised at the bow.

The vessel was well-armed. Each member of the crew was issued an M-14 rifle. There were M2 .50 caliber heavy machine guns mounted on tripods welded to each side of the quarterdeck, and each boat was issued an M60 7.62 mm general-purpose machine gun also. The coxswain on this boat had an M79 grenade launcher that he kept in the wheelhouse. I am not sure where he got this weapon, but I am pretty sure it wasn't from the Cat Lai armorer. The boat was well-armed, but not well-armored. The hull could easily be penetrated by small arms fire, so an L-shaped wall of 1/2 inch steel armor plate was welded to the quarter-deck at the location of the M2 machine guns. This armor was about waist high so that the guns could be operated above it. This gave the crew some protection from small arms fire but not much else.

There was a wood and canvas shack (or hootch) built on the stern on top of the lazarette. This is where the crew's bunks were located and storage for food and water. There were no cooking, laundry, or toilet facilities on board. When the Company's boats were at Cat Lai, the crews made use of the base facilities. However, when in the field, the crews ate C-rations or noodles from the locals, peed off of the side of the boat, shit in a bucket while sitting on a purloined toilet seat, and washed clothes by dragging them behind the boat with bars of soap buttoned up in the pockets.

Next up - Let's go to the boonies!

Pt. 6 - Let the Games Begin!

I arrived back home in Seattle just in time (January 1969) for the largest snowstorm there since 1950. The area was blanketed with deep snow for most of January, and the schools closed for the first time in 19 years. The family house was located on a hill just north of the Fremont neighborhood and I recall the snow being particularly deep there. I don't recall how Dad was able to get off of that hill to commute to his Boeing office near Boeing Field.

After a few weeks with the family not doing much of anything but perfecting my pot-smoking skills with my soon to be ex-girlfriend, it was time to move on for the long trip to Southeast Asia. I said my goodbyes to the family including and my crying Mom, and Dad dropped me off at SeaTac Airport where I boarded a plane for Oakland, CA. From Oakland, I flew to Hawaii (I've been to Hawaii twice, on the way to Vietnam, and on my way back. Never got off of the plane either time), and then to the island of Guam. These were all commercial flights on Boeing 707 airliners. The final leg of the flight from Guam to Vietnam was full of military personnel, mostly very young newbies and some older men returning for their second or even third tour. 

I remember that when it was announced that the airliner was starting to descend into Vietnam airspace we all started peering out of the windows to get a look at the famous country. As we dropped through the cloud cover we could see what appeared to be dozens and dozens of round lakes scattered all over the countryside below us. When someone commented on this, one of the returning vets said: "Those aren't lakes you morons, those are bomb craters." Our chatter became a little more subdued after that comment, believe me.

Our long journey finally ended at the Tan Son Nhut Airbase near Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City), one of the busiest military airbases in the world at the time. We had landed during the South's hot season and it was uncomfortably hot and humid. After leaving the plane and picking up our duffel bags we were herded onto your typical military buses and departed for our destination bases. The buses had sturdy wire screens over all of the windows. We were told that the screens were there to prevent hand grenades from being tossed into the bus by passing pedestrians or motorcyclists. One more thing to think about; none of us were armed.

The bus I was on drove through Saigon, a place that seemed impossibly crowded with civilian pedestrians, motor scooters, motorcycles, jitneys, and military vehicles belonging to both US and ARVN forces. There was a never-ending cacophony of honking horns. The bus slowly made its way through Saigon and dropped me and a couple of other GIs off at a dock on the Saigon River where we would meet a boat to take us to our new base located at a place called Cat Lai. We were picked by a fast PBR that was probably attached to the Military Police (MP) company at Cat Lai and transported to our new home away from home.

It was a quick trip. Cat Lai was located on the banks of the Dong Nai River, just a few miles southeast of Saigon. It was the home base of a company of LCM-8 (also known as Mike Boats) landing craft attached to the 1099th Medium Boat Company and a company of PBRs attached to the MPs. Cat Lai had been used as a seaplane base by the Japanese during WWII. The river was about half a mile wide where Cat Lai was located. The base was surrounded by thick, tall concrete walls on three sides and open on the riverside. There were wood barracks connected by wood boardwalks due to the mud created during the rainy season, a mess hall, an enlisted men (EM) club, officers' club, a small PX, and a large HQ building that appeared to be a leftover from the colonial French era. Cat Lai was also an important ammunition transportation location. WWII-era Victory ships anchored in the middle of the river and unloaded ammunition of all types onto barges that were then towed to other locations for storage and distribution.

Vietnamese female nationals worked on the base to clean the barracks and do laundry. On occasion, an alleged spy would be rounded up, never to be seen again. They were only on the base during the day; no one entered or left the base at night. I bought my first bag of pot on the base from a Vietnamese girl that appeared to be about 16 years old.

After checking in at HQ I was told that I was assigned as an engineer to one of the Mike Boats that was currently out in the field and wouldn't be back for a couple of weeks. So, I was assigned a bunk and wall locker in the barracks and waited or this boat to come back. In the meantime, I was assigned a job riding shotgun on the water tanker truck that retrieved potable water for showers on the base. I was  issued an M-14 rifle, a flak jacket, and a helmet for this job. I wasn't given any instructions, but I was apparently supposed to fight off any bad guys that might ambush the truck on its daily route. Nothing like that ever happened,but I did witness Army drivers run motorcyclists off of the road more than once,apparently just for the fun of it.

Back at the barracks, there was this one character that liked to make tapes for his parents instead of sending them letters. Not too far from the Cat Lai compound there was a battery of 105 mm howitzers that would occasionally fire missions right over the base, usually at night. That's when this guy would get his recorder out and tape the messages to his family from the "war zone" with the cannon rounds screaming overhead. He had an administrative job, of course,and had never been in any confrontation with the enemy. After a while, his poor family freaked out and wrote a letter to the base commander demanding to know when their son was going to get a break from "combat duty." His tape recorder disappeared shortly afterwards.

I was in Vietnam.

Next up - I join the River Rats.

Pt. 5 - Marine Diesel Mechanic School

Shortly after graduation from Basic Training in August, I boarded a Lockheed Electra airliner in Seattle for my next trip to Richmond, VA, the closest commercial airport to the US Army's Ft. Eustis. Ft. Eustis, located in Newport News, VA was the headquarters of the Army Transportation Corps at the time. After a long flight that included brief periods of very impressive turbulence, we landed in Richmond at about 3:00 am. I walked out of the aircraft into a sweltering, pitch-black Virginia morning. Whew, welcome to the South!

I was stuck in Ft. Eustis for a few days until I received my orders for my next training assignment at Ft. Story, VA, the Army's amphibian vehicle base at the time. Ft. Story (now known as the Joint Expeditionary Base East) was located within the city of Virginia Beach at historic Cape Henry, the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. The Atlantic Ocean winds moderated the steamy summer heat and the miles of beaches made Virginia Beach quite the tourist attraction. I was told that even GI's could get laid there, at least in the summer!

Things at Ft. Story were quite different from basic training at Ft. Lewis. The base was established in 1914  so the same ancient barracks were still in use, but there were no drill sergeants, no daily PT, no fireguard watches, no marching (except for the occasional parade for visiting big shots) and no more weapons handling. I was in the Transportation Corps now, and there to learn how to maintain and repair the diesel engines used in the LARC-V, LARC-XV, and the LARC-60 amphibious vehicles used to transport supplies from ship to shore.

Here's a photo of a LARC-60 unloading a LARC-V.

I had enlisted for the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 61E20, which was an Amphibian vehicle mechanic, but I ended up graduating with a 61E30 MOS, which was supposed to be a depot level mechanic. The engines I learned to work on were the Detroit Diesel 6-71 (an inline 6 cylinder engine used on the LARC-60 - one engine for each wheel!) and the Cummins V8-300 which powered the smaller LARC vehicles. I enjoyed learning about these machines a lot.

Our training company had a regular routine:

• Get up at about 6:00 am, shit, shower and shave, make your bed, and then go to breakfast in the mess hall.
• Attend formation outside of the barracks, salute the flag, and hear any announcements.
• Drive to the motor pool to attend classes.
• Drive back to the mess hall for lunch.
• Drive back to the motor pool for classes.
• Dive back to the barracks for the evening formation, salute the flag, eat dinner and then go hang out at the bowling alley for the evening.

There were several black students in our class, the first people of color I had ever met. Being 1968, race relations were a little strained at Ft. Story; blacks and whites pretty much kept to themselves, even in the barracks. I did get invited to play basketball with these guys a few times until they realized that even though I was tall, I didn't have a clue how to play the game. Just another clumsy white guy, what can I say?

The first time I ever got stoned on pot was at Ft. Story. My girlfriend, who was still speaking to me at the time, mailed two joints to me. A couple of pals joined me in the woods behind the barracks to smoke, and in the words of the great bluesman J.B. Lenoir, we got "high as a Georgia pine." After a while, we returned to the barracks and I laid on my bunk to meditate. One of the black guys had the local R&B radio station playing. Guess what the first tune I heard while stoned was? "It's A Man's Man's World" by James Brown. 

It was The.Best.Song.Ever.

We continued with this routine until November when I graduated. In the meantime, Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States. I remember listening to the radio broadcasting his election then listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival's version of Dale Hawkin's "Susie Q" on a friend's headphones. I still didn't know much of anything about politics, but this Nixon guy made me feel uneasy for some reason, just like Creedence's faux psychedelic version of "Susie Q" did.

We graduated on a cold winter afternoon late in November 1968. The class stood in a formation outside of the Company HQ and waited for the First Sergeant to give us our graduation certificate and our orders for our next post. As the students received these documents, they were relieved and free to take off for their 30-day leave. After a while, there were only three of us left: me, this black cat named Johnson, and one other guy whose name escapes me. The First Sergeant gave us our graduation certificates, but no orders. He grinned at us and said, "Well whaddya know, I'll bet anything that you fellers are all going to the 'Nam, and your orders just aren't here yet."

WTF?! 

Sure enough, the word came through that all three of us were going to participate in the war. We were put on temporary duty and worked in the mess hall, peeling potatoes, washing dishes, and mopping floors until our orders made their appearance. I was assigned to the 1099th Medium Boat Company in a place called Cat Lai, South Vietnam. I left Ft. Story for a 30 day leave back in Seattle. I was now a Specialist 3rd class and making $137 a month. I was 18 years old and would be in South Vietnam by January.

Pt. 4 - Basic Training

The trip to Ft. Lewis was a quiet one. We new recruits didn't know each other, and I guess we were all pretty nervous about our first day in the Army.

The bus entered the base and proceeded to the basic training area which was located at North Ft. Lewis if I remember correctly. After a short drive, we arrived at our home away from home for the next couple of months.  We stopped on a street with white and green two-story wood barracks on both sides. The bus driver opened the door.

That's when the yelling started.

A Drill Sergeant entered the bus, glared at all of us for a couple of moments, then started yelling at us to get the hell off of "his" bus. Another couple of drill sergeants were waiting for us as we hustled off the bus. Their job was to get us organized into some sort of lineup so that we could be marched to our next destination, which was the barbershop. You wouldn't think that getting lined up would be that hard, but it seemed to take forever. For some reason, it can be hard to remember which foot is your left foot with a sergeant in your face screaming "you're other left, YOUR OTHER LEFT!"

At the barbershop, all of us were given buzz cuts, which had the wanted effect of making us all look the same. A couple of the hippies were pretty forlorn after the barbershop visit. Then we went to Supply, where we were issued our military fatigues, boots, socks, underwear, caps, helmets, and a duffel bag to carry it all in. The next stop was our barracks, one of the green and white buildings that I heard were built during WWI.

Each floor of the barracks was exactly the same. There were two rows of double bunk beds separated by a wide aisle. Each new recruit had a locking wood footlocker for storing underwear, and toiletries and a wall locker for storing fatigues and jackets. There was a communal bath/shower room at one end of the building. The barracks were to be kept spotless at all times, or else! Each floor of the barracks had one platoon (about 50 men) assigned to it. An Army company is made up of four platoons.

The first week at basic training was consumed with learning how to do things the Army way: how to march, how to address Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs, aka Sergeants) and Commissioned Officers (Second Lieutenants and up), how and when to salute, how to fold up your clothes for the inevitable barracks inspections, how to polish your boots, and the hated daily Physical Training (PT) drills. We learned quickly that calling drill sergeants "Sir" would incite said drill sergeants to get in your face and scream, "Don't call me Sir, I WORK FOR A LIVING, DAMMIT!" It was during this week that I learned that I had a beard. It was invisible to me, but our eagle-eyed drill sergeant could see it, so I started shaving every day. Someone had to stay up all night in shifts on fire watch to sound the alarm if the old barracks somehow managed to catch on fire. When I was on fire watch,I was always impressed with the number of guys that were talking in their sleep - it was a regular mumble fest at night.

When I joined the Army I was 6'3" tall and weighed 185 pounds. I wouldn't say I was fit, but it didn't take me long to get fit. However, many of the new recruits were way out of shape and PT was brutal for them. We did jumping jacks, crunches, and push-ups twice a day, and when not doing marching drills we jogged just about everywhere. Some of the men couldn't keep up; some simply collapsed on the ground and wouldn't or couldn't get back up. We heard that if a person kept this up, they might be considered unacceptable for the Army and be given a discharge. I can't say if this was true, but the rumor helped a couple of other people seriously consider failing at PT in order to escape the rest of basic training.

I suppose that the most enjoyable part of basic for me was the marksmanship training. The Army's standard service rifle in 1968 was still the M-14 rifle. This was a semi-automatic rifle that fired the NATO 7.62 mm round. It utilized a 20-round magazine. We had to become proficient at hitting human-sized targets with this weapon at a distance of 100 meters. Even with the basic iron sights, and a pretty decent recoil every time it was fired, I was a very good shot with this weapon and enjoyed shooting it.  This was the only weapon that we were trained to use at Ft. Lewis. The US military would soon switch to the M-16 assault rifle as the primary service weapon. 

After the first couple of weeks basic training became easier, and the platoon I was assigned to began to gel as a team. The food wasn't too bad, and the drill sergeants quit busting your ass once they got the impression that you were getting with the program. In the later weeks, we ran more, did more M-14 training, stabbed straw men with bayonets attached to our rifles, learned how to use a gas mask, and took long 20-mile strolls in the woods while carrying all of our gear (web gear, backpacks, and rifles). I recall attending a one-hour class on the Communist Menace in Southeast Asia, including a brief presentation about the Domino Theory. To graduate from basic training you had to pass a final PT test. I hated running, so I tried to do extra well on the other requirements so that I could take ten minutes to run the mile. It was a breeze.

This is the platoon that I was attached to in Basic Training at Ft.Lewis. I'm the sixth guy from the left in the top row.  Our motto was "A-4-2, Every Man a Tiger!" This was the 1st Platoon of A Company, 4th Battalion, 2nd Training Brigade. Our drill sergeant is the grumpy looking guy at the right of the fourth row from the top. I never saw any of these guys again.

My family came to Ft.Lewis for our graduation ceremony in August 1968. I was terribly homesick, so I really enjoyed seeing them. I was assigned to the Transportation Corps so I never attended the Advanced Infantry Training that was required for all future infantrymen. I was now a Private in the US Army, making $102 a month.

Next stop - Marine Diesel Mechanic school.