as of 4/25/08
Glossary for Civilian Readers
2LT = Second Lieutenant
1LT = First Lieutenant
CPT = Captain
MAJ = Major
LTC = Lieutenant Colonel
COL = Colonel
BG = Brigadier General
SQDN = Squadron (battalion level cavalry unit)
CAV = cavalry
ARMD BDE = armored brigade (3-5 battalions armor-related; e.g., mechanized infantry, tank, cavalry)
AVN BN = aviation battalion
INF DIV = infantry division (the hated legs)
RAC = recon airplane company (nobody spells out reconnaissance except the Frogs)
ROK = Republic of (South) Korea
FRG = Federal Republic of (West) Germany
RVN = Republic of (South) Vietnam (no longer extant after 1975)
VC = Viet Cong ( South Vietnamese corruption of Vietnamese Communist, to indicate members of the
Nation Liberation Front for VN)
Chinook = US Army Aviation nickname for the CH-47 lift helicopter
MACV = Military Assistance Command Vietnam; overall command of US personnel in Vietnam, but
taken to mean those advising the Vietnamese
BOQ = bachelor officer quarters; any facility to house officers unaccompanied by mates and children
STD = sexually transmitted disease
MSG = Master Sergeant; not a food additive
S2 = staff intelligence officer (S1=personnel, S3=operations and training, S4=logistics, etc.)
MILPHAP = Military Public Health Assistance Program; Public Health System personnel (uniformed and
otherwise) that served where military medics were not available
R&R = rest and recuperation (also rape and run); a few days out of the combat zone for a soldier
AHC = assault helicopter company (3 lift platoons and a gunship platoon)
PSP/PAP - pierced steel / pierced aluminum planking (PSP was the older material for hastily constructed
runways and the PAP was relatively new in 1967; the difference from an aviator's point of view
was trivial - neither was an adequate landing surface)
Battle of Rach Gia - COSMOS CAMEL
Birddogs on the Hunt or Charley’s Adventures with Charlie
1. Pre-Vietnam Days
a. Born in Alabama, raised in Florida. Graduated from Ocala High School in 1958. BS in Business Administration from Auburn University, August 1962. Commissioned 2LT in Armor at that time (USNR and NROTC, 1957-61, Army ROTC 1961-62).
b. Armor Officer Orientation (Basic) Course, 5JAN63-MAR63, Ft. Knox, KY
c. 5th SQDN, 9thCAV, 194th ARMD BDE, Ft. Ord, CA, MAR-NOV 63
d. OFWAC 64-3, NOV 63-JUL 64. Received aviator wings and 1LT bars the same month.
e. 7th AVN BN, 7th INF DIV, Tongduchon, ROK, SEP 64=SEP 65
f. 3D BDE, 4th ARMD DIV, Bamberg, FRG, NOV 65-FEB67(Promoted to CPT 17MAy66)
g. 199th RAC, III Corps, Ft.Hood, TX, MAR-JUL 1967
h. Married to Glenda Miller, high school sweetheart, JUN 1960-JUN1982
2. My Vietnam Story
After waiting for what seemed like a lifetime in the mid-Summer Texas heat, we boarded C-141s (Flying submarines with a minimal number of portholes) at Bergstrom AFB and flew a version of the Great Circle Route to Bien Hoa, RVN on 14-15 JUL 67. When our aging USAF aircraft commander realized that he had a large gaggle of young Army aviators on board, he started rotating us through the expansive cockpit of his machine. I was fortunate enough to be in the co-pilot’s seat as we approached Elmendorff AFB near Anchorage, AK. Seeing Alaska through the big picture windshield of that aircraft was magnificent..
Arriving in Bien Hoa after a layover at Yokota AFB in Japan, we found ourselves with some serious jet lag (after drinking two Buds, I zonked out for about 12 hours). While Dan Aldridge and his maintenance guys were putting our aircraft together in Vung Tau, a handful of us (mostly instructor pilots) boarded a Chinook bound for the Delta. Flying out of Vinh Long (where we were to be headquartered) and perhaps Soc Trang, we were oriented on Birddog flying operations in the Delta by our Shotgun (221st RAC) mentors. Soon we were flying in tandem to Vung Tau to test fly and deliver our aircraft to their Delta postings. Initially, we absorbed the Shotgun pilots and aircraft in the Northern half of the Delta and passed an equivalent number of each to the South to the 221st. We must have given the Shotguns their potpourri of Birddog types back at some point, because I remember the 199th as having all O-1Gs for most of my tour (Dan Aldridge would know more about this).
While I had commanded the 199th’s Third Platoon at Fort Hood, the last minute influx of majors and senior captains had pushed me down the food chain to Asst. Operations Officer. Under Captain Bill Hope as Operations Officer, flight operations was a bit like a California flying club and a crashing bore. With the exception of a scrap with the Viet Cong on the occasion of Major Hutchins’ elevation to the rank of LTC (which I spent on the parapets of the Vinh Long advisor’s compound with Bob Housley’s rifle in hand), nothing of serious significance took place in the early days. I volunteered myself to be an aviator version of the utility infielder. Whenever a pilot had to be absent from his normal duty position, I would replace him temporarily. This gave me the opportunity to get a decent perspective on the whole unit and a lust to get to the field.
I finally won a transfer to the Third Herd when Dick Capps was brought to Vinh Long from the Third Platoon to take command of the General Support (GS or Glory and Sunshine) Platoon, which had been formed to provide night cover for home base and the central Delta region. I took Dick’s place at Rach Gia, the City on the Gulf (of Thailand). I took charge of the First Section of the Third Platoon (callsign Swamp Fox 31) and joined CPT Jim McKee (the Littlest Ranger), Mike Roberts and Ed Crews in protecting the West Coast (of Vietnam) from VC infestation. It was an exciting time with varied missions. We worked with Swift and RAG (River Assault Group landing craft with American Navy advisors) boats on the coast. On occasion, we flew offshore to Phu Quoc Island to support the Navy and Coast Guard units based there (and eat/drink fresh dairy products) or to support Special Forces in the northern part of the pork chop landform (Phu Quoc was an interesting place with the An Thoi naval installation on the southern tip with white beaches akin to those in Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, triple canopy jungle in the Special Forces operating area up north, and ARVN tiger cages in between.). We supported all the Regional Force / Popular Force units in Kien Giang Province and the anyARVN infantry divisions
working in our area. Mostly our task was to go out and find the Cong and stir up trouble. Our platoon leader, Larry Joyce (who had been to Vietnam before as an advisor), sought to control (or channel) our energies along those lines and elicit reports on our findings along the way.
While in Rach Gia, two events of significance to me occurred. Without leaving the compound (a former French or Vietnamese villa loaned to the MACV team for a BOQ) except to fly or eat at a nearby mess hall, I somehow contracted dysentery and lost some 40 pounds in 30 days. During those days, I found that sometimes the only things that I could keep on my stomach were Anheuser Busch products. Since one could obviously not fly that way, I sometimes flew for hours without sustenance. In our compound there was a surfeit of gecko lizards. Long before they became spokesmen for Geico, they were know to GIs by the sound of their call. It was amazingly like the vulgar retort so many of us made to our comrades many times each day: "F--- You!." Thus, the gecko was known by many as the FU lizard. During my time in dysentery hell, the walls of the villa's latrines were covered with these noisy reptiles and, on one morning when I was having a hard time discerning which disfunctional end of my anatomy had immediate priority, I went over the brink and smashed a gecko to mush saying, "Same to you, Buddy!"
I might not have survived my illness if I had not decided to fly into Vinh Long to have a flight doc look at me. It seems that a well-meaning, but marginally competent Special Forces medic had overdosed me with Tetracycline (also called “no sweat pills” by those who took them for STD symptoms) and this made it highly unlikely that I would digest any food. The Sawbones gave me another medication and I finally stabilized.
Shortly thereafter, I was involved (along with elements of the 9th ARVN Infantry Division) in a running firefight with the hard core U Minh 10 Regiment around dusk on 28 November 1967. I helped the ground units break contact at the edge of the U Minh Forest and shepherded their movement back into inhabited areas as darkness gathered. I finally returned to the Rach Gia short strip low on fuel. I refueled, rearmed and stood by for any future call. Not long thereafter, I (and all my associates) were surprised by a platoon-sized Viet Cong attack on us and the airfield. We were three Americans (me; Mike Roberts, my crewchief; and a young refueler whose name I don’t remember) and about six ARVN soldiers split between two outdated armored cars (probably of French origin). The latter, of course, departed the area the minute the shooting started. This seemed an ARVN commonplace: retreat to safety first, regroup, consider response and respond after the VC have departed. Mike Roberts immediately dropped to one knee and started to return the fire coming from the shadowy figures running around our airfield and blowing up our airplanes. He was a steadfast defender for the next half hour or so. He had an ammo box full of loaded 5.56 mm magazines, but before too long he indicated that he was running low on ammo. I had already called MACV sector headquarters for assistance and had taken a few shots at the attackers with my unauthorized M3 carbine (probably with little effect). Suddenly, our POL man (who had been with his fuel truck across the runway when the fight started) appeared in the rear opening of the closest revetment. With a terrified look on his face, he said, “They are coming!” Shortly after he cleared the opening, a hand grenade exploded in the opening. It was apparently the spent shrapnel from this grenade that nicked my forehead (I surmised this after the fact, there was no pain involved at the time.). Almost simultaneously, a satchel charge went off in my aircraft (“Cosmo’s Camel,” tail number 0-12904) in the revetment next door - destroying it. It was at that point that I decided discretion was the better part of valor and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” Firing as we left, we ran down the road toward Rach Gia until we came upon one of the armored cars. With some coaxing (pidgin English/French/Vietnamese.and gesticulating with my .45 caliber pistol), we got the crew to return to the airfield. At that point, when there was really nothing to be done, the relief column from sector headquarters showed up. It was my old buddy MSG Bang of the Biet Kick (counter-terrorist) unit and his boys. The Sector S2 advisor and NCO were with them. No regular reaction force responded to our calls. Bang and his troops responded because I was in trouble. This was so typical of the Vietnam War. Personal relationships governed when structural arrangements failed – and they frequently did fail. One of the new arrivals told me that there was blood streaming down my face. I sent my two soldiers home to their bunks and caught a ride to the local MILPHAP dispensary. The doctor in charge wiped my forehead, put a bandaid on it, gave me a tetanus shot, and handed me a brown card. “Give this to your unit and they’ll give you a purple heart,” he said. I slapped the card down on the examining table as I stood up and said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Thanks, Doc!” and left.
Some time the next day, Major Muse (Company Commander du jour) arrived at the Rach Gia short strip with some other officer (whose image is not lodged in my memory). I was sure that he had come to lay some courtmartial orders on me for the loss of two aircraft and a fuel tanker. Instead, he assessed that we had been overmatched from the start in an insecure area and he had our whole section relocated to Long Xuyen to double up with Third Platoon Headquarters. I recommended Mike Roberts for a Bronze Star for Valor for his performance during the attack and he received it before he rotated to the states. Probably because of a corporate guilty conscience, MACV sent a similar recommendation in on me which I received literally just before I shipped out for the states. The USAF also decided to relocate their FACs (whose planes were also destroyed, along with a VNAF Birddog) to safer grounds at Binh Thuy Airfield. Before any Birddogs were returned to Rach Gia, I was reassigned to Vinh Long to take over the General Support Platoon (which Dick Capps had left to take command of the Third Platoon).
The first month or so back at Vinh Long was relatively quiet. My Platoon Sergeant was SFC Jerry Johnson from New Carrollton, GA. The GS Platoon (supplemented by Headquarters personnel) provided night cover for the bulk of the Delta and flew any “Ash and Trash” missions required of us. We flew the only U-6A assigned to the unit and took over any “strange missions” our unit accepted.
TET 1968
On 31 January 1968, I hadn’t flown all day. This was unusual on the face of it, since most of us flew every day and many at night. For some reason, I was not scheduled to fly that day or night. Thus, I was in our officer’s “day room” around dusk drinking beer in air conditioned comfort when I was informed that “The Ranger” (CPT Jim McKee) had returned from R&R in Bangkok and required my presence at the flight line. When I got there, I met McKee with his O-1 transport pilot. The former held a bottle of Jack Daniels (Tennessee sipping whiskey) in each hand and told me that he must regale me with his Thai experiences before I could sleep and the brown liquids he carried were exhausted. Since this did not seem an outrageous task to me at the time, I signed on to it.
Unfortunately, the party had barely started when I received a phone call ordering me to meet with the Airfield Commander and our new company commander (MAJ John Jacob) at flight operations as soon as possible. I did so and with them evaluated a Top Secret document just received. It had to be stored in our secure container or destroyed and its destruction witnessed by the three of us, because we were (I believe) the only three officers on the airfield with a Top Secret clearance. We deemed it an innocuous piece of questionable intelligence (as such documents often were), but stored it anyway. By the time I returned to the day room, both the party and the final episode of “The Fugitive” (on AFVN-TV) were over. There was nothing for it but to sleep.
At about 0300, I awoke to the sound of incoming mortar rounds and the control tower sirensignal also indicated a mortar attack (Duh!). I pulled on my flak jacket, helmet, jungle boots, and grabbed my weapon du jour (still an M3 carbine) and headed for the bunker out back of our hooch and next to the officers’ latrine. Shortly after I got into the bunker, the tower changed the siren signal to ground attack. Despite the incoming mortar rounds, several of us rushed back to our rooms to better equip ourselves before forming up in the operations/orderly room area according to unit SOP. By the time I arrived at flight operations, others had already proceeded to the flight line – the presumed location of the VC incursion. So, in turn, I moved toward our unit’s aircraft revetments. As I passed through the company maintenance area (just north of the 114th AHC Knights ramp and the runway), I noticed that the rest of my route to my platoon’s revetments would put me in silhouette. A bright phosphorous light was burning brightly in the vicinity of the AHC “Hero Hooch” (a tin building where the alert attack helicopter crew bunked adjacent to their aircraft to rapidly respond to night attacks). Since I had friends in these units, I was initially troubled. However, it soon became evident that a nearby flare stack had been ignited by a VC mortar round and created the blaze. Nevertheless, everything and everyone that moved across the runway would be marked by it.
As I started across the runway, I noticed two things: an automatic weapon was sighted down the runway from its western end and an American had already suffered from its efforts. LT Richard Martz of the Navy’s Seawolf attack helicopter detachment based at Vinh Long had been hit in the knee/leg area. He was writhing in pain and loudly complaining of his wound when I drew up beside him. At this time, I made what was perhaps the most stupid statement of my life as I admonished him: “For God’s sake, Martz, stop whining. You’re an officer!” Before long, an M151 (jeep) wheeled up between us and the machine gunner. CPT/MAJ Bob Jones was at the wheel. He hopped out of the driver’s seat and helped me load LT Martz into the vehicle and then sped away. At that time, I realized that I was once again the object of the machine gunner’s attention and dropped and rolled across the PAP runway surface into the closest aircraft revetments on the south side of the runway.
Soon, we had a growing group in that area which decided to move along and clear the revetments. We were encountering small arms fire and hand grenades from VC on the opposite side of the revetments. The grenades were ancient Soviet-designed “potato masher” type with a built-in parachute for stabilization. This mini-chute created a popping sound when it deployed which alerted us immediately. Thus, all the enemy grenades did was splash mud on us. I had called for hand grenades when we first gathered and was pleasantly surprised to see a mail sack full of them materialize in the hands of one of the helicopter troops (I remember him as a Warrant Officer and Dan Aldridge remembered him as a mechanic; neither of us remember his name). In any case, we became instantly more effective in our assault (once we unpacked the grenades from their cartons).
Slowly but surely we worked our way up the revetments toward the GS Platoon hangar. At one point we met our commander, MAJ Jacob, and the First Sergeant coming back. They were apparently in shock. The CO had a hole in one earlobe and the 1SG had a crease from a bullet down the middle of his helmet. I suggested that they continue to the dispensary in the rear and they did so. Soon we met up with WO Rick Shoup hobbling back with a bullet wound in his ankle. I suggested that he continue to the rear for treatment, but he refused. He saw that there was building support for a counterattack and he wanted to be a part of it. He turned out to be a welcome addition to the force. A better grenade chunker than I, and maybe better than others, he pressed on with us to the end.
CPT Dan Aldridge, the company’s maintenance officer, remembers being a part of this group (mob?). He said that I taunted the enemy with a mock redneck pre-Foxworthy patois similar to Brother Dave Gardner saying: “Chahles Baby, I’ve got something for you!” I don’t remember the taunt, but it sure sounds like me at the time. At some point during our progress down the revetments, the VC made a break for the perimeter fence. Their timing was particularly bad, since the “Lightning Bug” helicopter had just popped a flare and the gunships (as always) were in position to fire on the exiting sappers. The Viet Cong had the additional disadvantage of having to leave the airfield over a mound of white sand recently dredged from the Mekong. Thus, the sappers faced attack helicopter and concentrated ground fire and were essentially annihilated. When we reached the GS Platoon hangar, I came upon the body of SP4 Fred Hatada, an operations clerk of whom I was particularly fond. While I sadly closed Fred’s eyes, Rick Shoup and the rest of the group moved past me toward the Second Platoon hangar and the end of the runway. When I stood up, a burst of small arms fire whizzed past my head – one round close enough to send a PAP chip off the revetment and skin my cheek. I emptied my pistol (.45 cal.) into the area whence came the offending rounds and had no more problems until the sun came up.
At that time, I found myself to be the only officer on the scene and sought to wrap things up. Assuming a Viet Cong sapper company of around 80 men, we had pretty well waxed our attackers. There were 50+ bodies accounted for and some 15 wounded prisoners. I believe that I saved one of those wounded prisoners from being killed on the spot by preventing one of our over-stressed troops from dispatching him with his M-16. Apparently, this was not an uncommon occurrence or dynamic in situations of this kind. Troops not generally in close contact (i.e., rear area, which we were) once faced with violent attack, tend to overreact. Others have since told me of similar situations.
At this point, total exhaustion descended upon me. I grabbed the first ride offered me and returned to my hooch. I discovered about a half inch of dirt throughout my room/cubicle. Apparently, the Dustoff medevac helicopters had been landing on the street between our quonsets and the dispensary all night to take out the wounded and had, consequently, "dusted' us off. I was so tired that I just brushed back the dirt on my bunk and sunk into the arms of Morpheus. In what seemed like a few minutes, but was actually a couple of hours, I was awakened by by an incredible crashing sound. I grabbed all the gear I had fought with the night before and dashed across the road and took a defilade position behind the (concrete) wall of the dispensary. It was at this point, or before long, enroute to the flight line, that I realized that the VC were firing a recoilless rifle and a .50 cal. machine gun off the roof of the convent next door into the compound. I am sure that my curse must have been audible: " Godless Commie bastards, that's a convent!" (Methodist fellow travelling). The VC had already destroyed our water purification plant (the loud noise that awoke me) and were plunking holes into our hooches with the .50 cal.machine gun. At some point, I looked around and saw a fire team of two antiquated Navy Seawolf attack helicopters lift off the Vinh Long runway and (at a medium hover) wipe out the offending VC and a floor of the convent.
The immediate threat subsided, but didn't end, with their blast. As I reached the flight line, I found my platoon scurrying for cover. It was at this point that I made what I believed at the time to be a life choice. As the .50 cal. rounds landed in the sand around us, I told my platoon sergeant, " John, if I ever get out of this hole alive, I am going to become a history professor!" As I remember his response, it was something like, "OK, Skipper, but we'll have a beer first, right?" Indeed we would.
The rest of Tet is a bit of a blur for me. I remember chasing a group of VC down the streets of Vinh Long (in my Birddog) and being told by a gunship team leader on my tail to "Get out of there, Fox, so we can kill the bastards!" Since they were better armed, I left.
I remember landing to smudgepots one night at Vinh Long after a very long day and seeing nothing but a lighted blur on short final approach. Driving the faithful O-1 down on power and only pulling it off once I felt PAP underneath me, I remember MAJ Jacob (who had come to us from a Mohawk outfit) asking me why I landed so hot and replying that he was *&&%%$$ lucky I had landed at all after 20 hours in the air (another opportunity for a court martial missed).
I believe that it was that night, after the untoward encounter with the unit commander, that I collapsed on the cot that my troops had placed in the flight line bunker we had built over the last few days. I passed my pistol belt (with pistol) to Specialist Manzano. It was he that was playing the role of palace guard at the doorway to the bunker that night. He was one of about a half dozen replacements we had received from Hawaii since the first night of Tet. All of them had done a full tour in Vietnam and were sent back to replace our casualties in the last few weeks of their time in service. I treated these guys as nicely as I could because I felt that they had gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop. I had no real idea how much resentment they harbored concerning how the Army had treated them (today there is something similar done to troops that is called "stop loss," but then and now it means "You're screwed!"). After what seemed like a few minutes, but again was probably a couple of hours, I awoke having heard some movement. The sun's rays beaming unevenly through the Southern exposure of the bunker opening, put Manzano in silhoutte and he appeared to be pointing my pistol at my head. I said something like, "We can talk about this, Manzano!" He said, "Hold still!" His shot reverberated through the bunker for a bit and, when I recovered my hearing, he merely said, "Cobra!" and walked away. Despite my youth in Central Florida and some familiarity with reptiles, I could not say that the smear of protoplasm left by Manzano's shot was a Cobra or not. What I could say was that Manzano killed a snake before he could bite me and that henceforth I would sleep in my hooch with my trusty pistol by my side.
I also remember two or three intelligence reports during Tet that said we were about to be overrun by the VC and the Swamp Foxes being ordered to evacuate aircraft from Vinh Long. I believed, then and now, that to do so was a mistake. We would have been much better off to have stayed where we were. On one occasion, we had to evacuate Vinh Long's aircraft when the airfield was circled by automatic weapons. Two lift (Assault Helicopter) companies evacuated first and the Swamp Foxes were to follow. I was to be the last aircraft off and was disturbed to find out that the aircraft in front of me (flown by one of the many neophyte pilots in the queue that night) was dawdling on the runway because of a "mag drop." After my threat to launch a rocket up his tailpipe if he didn't clear the runway, the green aviator decided the mag drop was the least of his worries and took off. By the time I broke ground (perhaps number 40 in the queue), I was looking at interlocking tracers off the East end of the Vinh Long runway. No doubt scaring the pants off the Vinh Long tower crew, I banked sharply to the left (North) and levelled off Westbound over the Mekong with green baseballs (Soviet tracers) bouncing off the water all around me.
Once clear of this mess, I joined another one. A gaggle of Birddogs had been ordered (God knows by whom) to orbit over Long Xuyen south of the Bassac River and await further orders (always a bad idea). We were soon established in a stacking order by CPT Dick Pribnow (a noble gentleman and experienced aviator). Before long, a fog bank moved up the Bassac (as it was want to do) and covered us. We were about ten in number, with only two or three of us with significant flight experience. Dick took charge and had us orbit at designated altitudes and sent us down in turn to land at Long Xuyen. He directed us expertly and should have received a decoration for it. It was certainly the scariest night of my tour in Vietnam.
Against all odds, we survived Tet (except for Fred Hatada) and lived to fight another day. My later missions were generally routine. On 6 April 1968, I was flying night cover over a nearby district headquarters, Ba Cang, when it and a Regional Force/Popular Force (Ruff Puff) unit which was spending the night nearby on the road, was attacked. It seemed the RF/PF unit was getting chewed up just West of the town without any radio contact with it. I intervened and assessed the situation (to the relief of the Province Adviser), put some helicopter gunships in accurately, silenced a .50 cal. before it could harm me, the gunships, or Spooky and departed the area. For this above average performance, MACV recommended me for a Distinguished Flying Cross, which I received at Ft. Stewart, GA, about six months later.
I was a bit disturbed by a May '68 mortar attack which struck particularly close to home. One round landed very close to the Swamp Fox officers' latrine/shower room and peppered 1LT Heinz Zoegner with shrapnel. I was only two short steps ahead of Heinz that night and shepherded him (as he bled down his back like some stuck animal) to the dispensary. It was enough to make me paranoid for the next two months. I was convinced that my bod was on the VC's target data set.
I managed to work in two R&R's in my last 3-4 months in country (one to Hawaii to meet my first wife and one to Hong Kong for a great shopping trip). Very late in our tour our Group Commander, COL McDaniel, invited all the aviators to a going away party for him at Can Tho. In a singular piece of foresight, he insured significant attendance by having a Chinook crew fly around the Delta airfields and pickup willing aviators - particularly those like us that were due to rotate soon. It was a great idea and I will never forget the surreal effect of taking off in a near-vertical Chinook "cyclic climb" at night. I expected Rod Serling to say "Welcome to the Twilight Zone" at any moment. In any case, the party was great and COL Mac should be congratulated.
At this time, we had a procedure that allowed the "shortest" aviator to sleep on the "O Club" GI cot in air conditioned comfort for the last week or so of his tour. This had a tonic effect on me since I was in a rather advanced stage of paranoia, being convinced that every mortar round fired at Vinh Long was meant for my crotch. For some reason, I could allay these fears if I drank cold beer and slept without sweating. In the "fullness of time," I departed for Long Binh with several of my comrades and eventually boarded the Freedom Bird for Travis AFB and a divided America. LTC Hutchins (my career best commander), MAJ (later BG) Dick Capps, Art Scholl, Norm Wood, and a few other comrades are featured in my "happy snaps" of the return to the Land of the Big PX. One thing evident in these pictures, perhaps to the irritation of my pals, is that I was the only one with the foresight to leave out a flight jacket for the Alaska stopover. The group broke up a bit at Travis and SF International and disintegrated at Atlanta. Our "Adventures with Charlie" had come to an end.
Epilogue
This memoir covers only a year of my military service in some detail and no more than ten of thirty in outline. If there is any demand for my post-Vietnam experiences in uniform and out, I will type and submit a supplemental draft that I plan to prepare for my children and grandchildren.
Cheers
Charley Baker