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.
