Letters to Mike 4

November 23, 1967 Letter to Mike

Dear Mike,         Happy Thanksgiving

I’m glad we finally got the mail situation straightened out. I don’t know what happened but let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.

About that “combat” picture – they’re guys in our platoon, all of which have, by now, completed their year and have returned to the land of the round eyes, known as “the world”. I took the picture.

I agree about Westerville. How come when we go to school they can’t even get the league recognition? Now, after we’re out and on two different sides of the world, they decide to beat some ass.

I remember we used to go to the games and at least one clown would get hurt during the warm-ups. By the end of the first quarter they would be calling for volunteers from the stands. “Would anyone 6/5” and weighing 259 or more please report to the Westerville (Ohio State) bench?”

I heard about Bob Hyatt but not about Alice Roberts. Lets you and me try to keep out of the news, okay?

My Spec 4 should come the first of December, or at the latest, January. I asked our medic fi he knew where “Graff” was. (He served two tours in Germany). He said it’s a hell-hole there. Cheer up - they’ll be using blanks up there.

(27 weeks)

I’ve got 192 days left in Viet Nam – and 414 Army. How do you figure 407 since we came in on the same day? Know something I don’t? Sorry no way could I make it back in time for the wedding, unless I get zapped or get a bad wound. Believe I’ll pass it up if you don’t mind.

I’m sorry to hear about Jann – really. He put up a good fight though he deserves credit for that.

Well you asked a million questions and you also said you had little to no idea of what I was doing here. (Neither do I really.)

Okay, ready for a book? Here is a summary of the first six months in Viet Nam.

I’ll call Chapter 1: “Oakland” or “There’s Rain in Them There Clouds”.

My reporting station was the Army terminal at Oakland, Calif.

There is where your orders are checked and processed and where you’re assigned your flight (or ship).

It was a ridiculous two days. 3 times a day we had mandatory formations where they called out names of those shipping out. The people left over were methodically put on details. In the two and a half days I spent in sunny California I never saw the sun once. In fact it never got above rainy 50 degrees. I was glad to leave in a way. My flight left from Travis AFB (commercial jet) and flew to Seattle. Then on to Tokyo, Okinawa, and finally after 23 hours Bien Hoa, Viet Nam at 2:00 a.m. I left the US at 2:30 p.m. on the 2^nd of June and arrived in VN on the 5^th of June (date line).

Chapter 2 “Bien Hoa” or “Oakland Revisited”

My arrival, at night, was weird. The whole atmosphere, smell, etc., was weird. We were escorted in an armored bus to the 90^th Replacement Battery near Bien Hoa (“ben wa”). The operation at Bien Hoa was same as Oakland only hotter and sunny.

The monsoons were already beginning and it rained every day on schedule. It was a mud-hole. I hid from the ”detail” formations but not so far away I couldn’t hear my name called for shipping. I still had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. I thought of all the bad places - a sniper near the DMZ, etc.

My first impression of Viet Nam has lasted. It’s hot, dirty, and poverty stricken. A disgusting place.

I got the word on the 3^rd day that I was going to the 25^th Infantry Division at Cu Chi. I still didn’t know my job nor had I ever heard of the 25^th or of Cu Chi. They did tell me it was about 25miles NW of Saigon. That made me feel better.

Chapter 3 “Cu Chi” or “a month and a half of boredom”

I arrived at Cu Chi base camp and was assigned to the 2^nd Battalion of the 25^th Infantry – the “Wolfhounds”.

Cu Chi is really big – the base camp – about the size of Ft. Knox main post, and BCT and AIT barracks area. There is a large service club and of course the outdoor theater, where Bob Hope and other USO shows perform (I saw Jonathon Winters and Miss America).

Cu Chi is about 35 miles NW of Saigon in Hau Nghia Province (“hi nee-a”) but we never got to Saigon.

Just outside of camp, even before you get to the town of Cu Chi, there is a town called Bac Ha (“buckeye”). This is where the whores are. They stand out in front of the buildings begging you to come in – like in the movies – some aren’t bad at all, however, I haven’t touched any yet. Those girls get fucked 20-30 times a day!!! (Proven fact). You can imagine the clap, etc., that goes around. There is one guy that got clap the first day he went there. And every day when they took him to Cu Chi to get shots, he’d stop in “buckeye” and get a couple of shots of leg and then spread the shit. That’s just one guy in our platoon! No thanks. I’ll stay horny and wait for R&R in February (Hong Kong) where the whores are twice as good looking you rent on contract for 7 days and they’re required by law to take regular penicillin shots.

My platoon is the Recon platoon of the Headquarters Company of the 2/27^th, made up of about 30 people, 3 sections – scouts, infantry and 106mm recoilless rifles, 10 to a section.

When I first got here they ran convoy security with their 4 gun jeeps, and 1 ¾ ton truck with a .50 cal.  mounted. Really a pretty simple job since the roads in the Saigon area are pretty secure.

I say a month and a half of boredom because for that period of time from 9 June to 14 July I waited for a special 3-day replacement school. Without the school no new replacement is allowed outside the perimeter of base camp, Bac Ha included. I lay in bed or went to the service club all day for nearly a month and a half, while the platoon went out with Battalion or was on a convoy or was on all night ambush patrols just outside Cu Chi. We were only mortared once while I was there – unusually low activity I was told. The rounds came nowhere near our area, but scared the hell out of me anyway.

I finally was sent to school. The most interesting 3 days of instruction I’ve had in the Army, and then to the field with the Rat Patrol – Recon!

Chapter 4 “The Field” or “It Was Nice Until…”

At the time I went out Recon was securing by day an area being excavated by a company of engineers. We set our vehicles up in strategic spots forming a perimeter and low in the shade if possible, and buy Cokes and junk from the little kids.

At night we’d go further down the road to an artillery site (1 battery) near a town named Bao Trai (“bo try”). The artillery camp was called Gladys. We ate there and then set up security around it and pulled guard all night. Twice we received sniper fire. (1 or 2 rounds).

This lasted for about 4 days then we went to “Sugar Mill” another town nearby named Hiep Hoa (hep wa). Here it was the same as at Glady except we were there all day and night in bunkers in the middle of a rice paddy. We got soaked knee high just walking to chow. It was a hot, muddy, wet, hole. We had plans to stay there for 4 months but it only lasted 4 days when we were called back to Bao Trai.

Chapter 5 “Duc Hoa” or “What Happened to Bao Trai”

Bao Trai lasted for only 7 days (during which we killed 4 VC) before we went to Duc Hoa (du qua). We did however come back to Bao Trai after 7 days at Duc Hoa and that’s where we’ve been the past 4 months; follow me? So here’s what we did at Duc Hoa, then in a second letter I’ll tell you about the activity at Bao Trai – including the first 7 days before D.H.

Duc Hoa has a Special Forces compound where we stayed.  (Special Forces in VN don’t do shit! Fuck Barry Sadler.) The place was a paradise! Sidewalks, grass, permanent building – not tents and tropical huts as Cu Chi. Warm showers – not rain water collected in 50 gal. drums; flush toilets – not shit houses where the shit isn’t buried but BURNED every day in diesel oil!! (as in Cu Chi). They have a club and a bar that rivals some in the USA. A PX that is as well stocked as the small PXs at Know. (the large one in Cu Chi is as good – nearly – as the Ft. Knox main PX).

All the Special Forces do is sit around under their God damned Green Berets and somehow get a reputation they don’t deserve. They’re strictly advisors. Maybe when the war first started they did something, but now they’re resting on their laurels. (maybe they do deserve it).

I shouldn’t talk. All we did was sponge off them and run convoys the whole time. It was heaven. That’s all from Bao Trai - no VC, no shots fired, no real evident danger – Bao Trai may make your hair stand on end – it did mine, at first.

Cont. soon,

Bob

P.S.

[pay] $182 after taxes that’s base pay for PFC + $65 hostile fire pay + $9 overseas pay. I have a $100 allotment going to the bank each month plus the $6.25 bond.

Food’s not bad but we don’t get served much here – sometimes we’re “out” and miss a meal. Native food, some good – majority un-edible as far as I’m concerned.

They x-ray package to see it you’re sending or receiving any unauthorized weapons, bombs, etc.

EM, officers, and NCOs are mixed here. At Cu Chi they have separate clubs.

We were issued 4 sets real light weight jungle fatigues, and canvas top boots with ripple soles, and spike protective sole, at Bao Trai we wear these plus camouflage fatigues, bush hats (no steel pots) and black berets – authorized while we are in VN (can’t wear them in the US).