Vietnam 50 Years Later Post 3. August 1970

 I followed orders and flew to Cam Ranh Bay, reporting to the 18th Engineer Brigade, which sent me to their aviation unit.  I was instructed to meet with someone the next day to get my specific assignment.  In the mean time, they had a cookout and a volleyball game which was a pleasant way to meet some other pilots who flew for the Engineers.  

The next morning, I got the word from a captain in their aviation unit that my assigned unit would be the 45th Engineer Group headquarters, which had an aviation section.  The captain pointed on the map of Vietnam to the location of the Group in Phu Bai (which I was later told meant the "land of the dead ").  "What are those red pins on the map?" I asked.  "Oh, that's where the 45th Engineer Group Aviation Section had been taking fire from the enemy."  I already noticed that there were no such pins in the area around Cam Ranh Bay.  My assignment might be more "engaging" in I Corps where I was headed.  The area of operations of the 45th Engineer Group was I Corps which was the northernmost area of military operations in South Vietnam, extending north to the Demilitarized Zone - DMZ (there was a II, III, and a IV Corps).  

 

I flew from Cam Ranh Bay to Phu Bai that day and reported to Headquarters of the 45th Engineer Group.  Personnel assigned me to the Aviation section and a hooch - Vietnam War slang for a thatched hut or improvised living space- my plywood home for the next several months.

Our Aviation section shortly after my arrival in Phu Bai: Cpt Sherk, Cpt Holland, Cpt. Jonas, Lt Marsh, CW2 Leo Childress, ?, SSG Cooper (L to R standing) Sitting Sp4 L. Kawai, ?, Sp4 Washington, ?, ?, Sp4 M. Metro. 2nd row includes Sgt. Jones, Sp4 Steele, May, (Sorry I don't remember everyont)

Some facts about the 45th Engineer Group:

45th Engineer Group (Construction)

Arrived Vietnam: 8 June 1966
Departed Vietnam: 30 January 1972
Previous Station: Fort Bragg
Authorized Strength
HHC
1966 - 98
1968 - 111
1970 - 111

The 45th Engineer Group was under the 18th Engineer Brigade throughout its service in Vietnam, planning a coordinating the activities of its assigned and attached units. These consisted of construction or other units engaged in the field construction, rehabilitation, or maintenance of facilities in support of the U.S. Army or Air Force operations. The group arrived at Cam Rahn Bay and moved to Dong Ba Thin on 15 July 1966. It relocated to Tuy Hoa on 15 October 1966, moving to Qui Nhon that December. It moved north to the Phu Bai area in February 1968, where it assumed general construction support missions for the I Corps Tactical Zone. The group then remained in the Da Nang area until departing Vietnam. The following engineer battalions served the group one time or another;

14th Engineer Battalion       39th Engineer Battalion
19th Engineer Battalion       84th Engineer Battalion
20th Engineer Battalion      299th Engineer Battalion
27th Engineer Battalion      577th Engineer Battalion
35th Engineer Battalion      589th Engineer Battalion

More later

50 years of Vietnam Memories: Arriving in July 1970

OK, off to Vietnam in July 1970.  That was 50 years ago and I've processed lots of thoughts about the Vietnam Conflict/ War in the interim.  I'm pleased to have served in Vietnam. 

 

My reflections are through a lens of awareness that 58,318 names, including twenty of my West Point classmates, representing those who died as a result of their service in Vietnam, are engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("The Wall").  I have an array of books about Vietnam to try to better understand it from multiple perspectives.  Some are enlightening.  Some are troubling.  Some, such as Visions of War, Dreams of Peace -Writings of Women in the Vietnam War, edited by Lynda Van Devanter and Joan A. Furey (poetry) can be gut wrenching.  Here is an excerpt from Mellow on Morphine by Dana Shuster in 1967:

                                  "...Mellow on morphine, he smiles and floats

                                    above the stretcher over which i hover

                                    I snip an annular ligament

                                    and his foot plops unnoticed into the pail,

                                    ....His day was just starting when his hootch disappeared

                                    along with the foot and at least one friend...

                                                                                                                                      

 

In another book In Retrospect, the late Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, laments, "This is the book I planned never to write.... I want to put Vietnam in context.          

    We of the Kennedy and Johnson  administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation.  We made our decisions in light of those values.

    Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong.  We owe it to future generations to explain why."

We arrived in Saigon after a very long flight, the last leg starting in Japan.  As we descended, I noticed what looked like a large section of countryside pockmarked with small bomb craters, which actually were graves in  a huge cemetery, I noticed as the lower altitude afforded a better focus.  Several buses transported the 200 or so Army men who had shared the flight from the landing strip around or across a part of Saigon via a rubber tree plantation to Long Binh where we would get our unit assignments at the Replacement Depot (or something like that- excuse the 50 year old fog).

I remember filing out some forms asking about assignment preferences that would accompany my personnel file and official orders for service in Vietnam to be reviewed as my unit assignment was decided.  I expressed a preference for assignment in an aviation role with an Engineer unit, since I was an officer in the Corps of Engineers.  I then waited in a bar with many other members of my flight school class for the listing of names and assignments as they were posted on a bulletin board.  Several of my fellow pilots were assigned to the !st Cav and we drank a toast to the Cav.  After a short while of wondering, my name showed up on a list as the only one assigned to the 18th Engineer Brigade in Cam Ranh Bay.  I laughed and drank another Budweiser, assuming that I would spend the year with the Engineers based at Cam Ranh Bay, which probably had some level of creature comfort.
  Some US Army pics at Cam Ranh Bay 1970-71

Here are the first pictures I took in Vietnam.  Just getting adjusted.

More later.