Hut in Cambodia

Our Company was in Cambodia in early May 1970.  We had invaded Cambodia a week before in a campaign called the Cambodian Incursion.  We were on the move heading toward Rock Island East; a large weapons cache that was discovered by Company D.  Along the way, we walked into an abandoned village and set up there for the night.  While there, I took a snapshot of this hut.

I could not get over how different the hut was from Vietnamese homes.  The more affluent Vietnamese had large homes designed by the French.  Those with a lot less lived in shacks made of scraps of plywood for walls and steel sheet for roofs. In contrast, this house was so natural feeling with its grass roof and walls.  It was as if the Cambodians were 200 years behind the Vietnamese in progress.  Maybe a house like this was typical of rural farmers in both Cambodia and Vietnam.

The villagers had run off recently due to firefights in the area but had left behind a small pig tied to a stake.  One of our Vietnamese scouts decided to butcher the pig and cut the meat into small pieces while we built a fire.  When hot coals from the fire were ready, we skewered pieces of raw pork with pointed sticks and then held it over the fire as if we were toasting marshmallows.  That pork was one of the best tasting meals I ever had in Vietnam.      

Ready for my First Combat Assault

This snapshot was taken in February 1970 on the log pad at FSB Buttons.  I was standing there ready to head out to the jungle by helicopter for the first time.  We were waiting for the helicopters to arrive.

You can see that my shirt, pants and helmet cover were brand new.  The clothes were probably the last of three pairs I had received at Oakland Army Base in California.

In my left hand, I am holding the barrel of my M16 rifle.  I have not fired it yet but someone else used it before me so I assumed it was OK.  Around my neck is a bandoleer filled with 20 round clips of M16 ammunition.  

On my back is a rucksack.  The rucksack weighed about eighty pounds fully loaded.  Sitting on top, just behind my head is what looks like a pillow but in fact is a 5-quart canteen.  Just below the 5-quart canteen is two 2-quart canteens.  On my waste is a 1-quart canteen.  Add it up and I was carrying ten quarts of water.  The water weighed about 20 lbs. and would have to last me for three days.

Below the 2-quart canteens are two smoke grenades.  We each carried about six smoke grenades.  They were used to mark an area when bringing in a helicopter.  Below the smoke grenades is a poncho, poncho liner and air mattress all rolled together and used for sleeping.  In my rucksack was three days of food, a claymore mine, trip flares, frag grenades and an ammo can that was used to keep personal things dry like my writing paper and wallet.

Standing there, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I was just going with the flow and doing what the veterans did.        

North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco

When we were in the jungle and in the middle of a firefight, there were times when we needed heavy duty backup support from F-105 Thunderchief  or F-4 Phantom jet fighters  The fighters came in so low and so fast however that they could not possibly see the targets they were trying to hit.  That is where the Bronco came in to help.

The Bronco had 70 mm rocket pods down low and on either side of the fuselage that contained white phosphorous rockets.  The plane was slow enough and maneuverable enough that it could spot the enemy and then mark their location with a puff of white smoke from one of those rockets.  Then the jets would come screaming in and shoot there 20 mm Gatling cannon or drop 500 pound bombs on the white smoke left behind by that unusual looking airplane.

I can remember these planes maneuvering like a biplane high over the jungle, diving at there target then shooting those white phosphorous rockets.  They looked like they were having fun up there.

Combat Leaders Course

In April 1970, we were out patrolling the jungle when I received a pleasant surprise.  I had been chosen to attend a ten-day Combat Leadership course in Bien Hoa.  The Army needed more NCOs (non commissioned officers) in Vietnam.  There were not enough sergeants to carry the workload.  I was flattered that they picked me.  After all, I was a new guy with just a few months experience in the jungle

The course was offered at the VIP Center.  A helicopter picked me in a clearing close by and took me to FSB Buttons.  Then, I boarded an Air Force plane for Bien Hoa AFB.  From there it was a bus ride over to the VIP Center.

The course began with a rehash of the military strategy and squad level tactics training I had received in Advanced Infantry.  One of the ways they taught us how to lead was learning about personality types and the best way to work with each of them.  They wanted to make sure we knew something about how to deal with people problems.  The rest of the time they worked on building up our confidence so we would be ready when leadership was thrust upon us.

I become a fire team leader when I returned to the field.  I was promoted to Sergeant soon after.  The most important thing about the ten-day course in my mind however was I slept on a bed, ate three hot meals a day and drank cold beer every night.

Vietnamese Civilians Getting By

In late January 1970, I was pulling guard at Bien Hoa AFB for a few weeks.  I worked at night and slept during the day.  When I had some time, I walked around the Village of Bien Hoa.  There, I took this snap shot of living conditions that at least some Vietnamese civilians had to endure.

As you can see, the houses were not much better than shacks.  The outside skin is nothing more than scraps of plywood found who knows where.  A barbwire fence kept the inhabitants from getting out or others from getting in; I was not quite sure which.

Their wash was hung out on a clothesline in the same way my mother would have done it back in the states.  To the right of the clothes you can see a wooden swing for two.  It seemed odd to find a swing in a yard that looked like this one.  If you look carefully, you can see a young women in a green top and white pants in the middle of the picture.  She is talking to a neighbor.

Each shack appears to have a television antenna.  Back then in Vietnam and now, when things are not going so well in your life, watching television is a way to temporarily escape from it all.

House Damaged in War

It may have been late March 1970 when I saw this closed-up, French-built home.  I took the snapshot because it was peppered with bullet holes.  It was like someone had aimed a machine gun at the house and then sprayed it like a water hose.  It made me wonder what happened.

I suspect the house was shot up during the Tet Offensive in January 1968, a little more than two years before I arrived in Vietnam.  Marauding North Vietnamese soldiers probably opened up on the house for spite on their way to a  Saigon target.

The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military operations performed by the North Vietnamese.  They hit more than 100 town and city targets all over the country simultaneously.  It rattled American and South Vietnamese forces who were taken by surprise.  They quickly recovered however and drove the North Vietnamese back.  The offensive ended up being a major defeat for the North Vietnamese.

 Well, whoever lived in the house during that onslaught in 1968, if that is what happened to the house,  did not want to spend another day there by the looks of the unkept grounds and the shuttered windows.

Gas Station in Saigon

I was in a bus on my way to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon when I snapped this picture of an Esso Gasoline Station. A bunch of us were heading out on an R&R trip to Tokyo, Japan.

One thing that caught my eye was all of the motor scooters that were there at the time.  Vietnam's transportation system back then was some version of a motor scooter.  Most were two-wheeled scooters like what you see in this gas station.  They also had trucks and buses that were built on a motor scooter base.  When I think about it, I really don't remember seeing many four-wheeled vehicles at all in Vietnam other than military vehicles.

Also, look at the arrangement of all of those gas pumps.  There are pumps out front that could serve larger vehicles but behind those pumps, close to the building are gas pumps that obviously were dedicated to motor scooters only.

In revisiting this picture, I realized that I haven't seen an Esso sign for a long time.  In New England anyway, they have been replaced with Exxon signs.  Finally, the "May May" sign on the building in the background translated into Vietnamese means "Sewing Machine".  Singer Sewing Machine, a French company, was big in Vietnam until the communist government swallowed them up in 1977.  Castro did a similar thing with private companies in Cuba.

And with that, I have run out of things to say about this gas station.