When I was TDY to the 1st CEG in Hue/Phu Bai we missed a guy coming over to us.  We finally found him at Tan Son Nhut.  When they cut his orders they left out "Bai" and just printed Hue Phu as his destination.  Every day he went to the terminal and asked for a plane to "HOO FOO" airbase.  I still don't know if the people at the terminal knew where he was going or they were just as lost as he was. True story, his name was Christian, we called him Chris, nice guy.

Best one:  One of our guys called from DaNang where he'd scrounged lotsa stuff we needed but he didn't have any transportation back.  I got a deuce-and-a-half and went to pick him up. I left Phu Bai at 1645; as I remember they shut the road down at 1700.  I was by myself in the deuce and a half (DUMB) and saw a Special Forces guy with some Vietnamese in tiger fatigues hitch-hiking so I picked them up.  The SF guy got off about 15 miles down the road and I asked why the Vietnamese were not getting off; he said he didn't know them! They had walked up to him a few minutes before I happened along.  These guys giggled every time we went through a RVN checkpoint. They got off as we dropped out of Hai Van Pass down into DaNang just as it was turning dark. 

You have to remember this is a road where huge convoys get ambushed and my thought was they wouldn't break cover for one lone truck, and being by myself, any company was welcome, but to this day I don't know which side these guys were on.  I can only hope because they didn't bother me they were on our side.  On the way back from DaNang the next day I hooked up with a convoy and sure enough we got ambushed in the pass.  What did we use for brains in those days?

Better yet: I was in a latrine on Cam Ranh AFB and saw written on the wall: "Some day I'm gonna run this man's Army, PFC Westmoreland."

Beautiful!  I really liked the country, too bad a war was going on.  This picture (The one accompanying the Phu Bai story on this page. TPW) is looking North, when you come out of the pass there was a RVN roadblock and I remember they had quad fifties.  I was always gonna steal one of those, never did.  The Vietnamese people use to lay their wheat? maybe rice? on the road for the trucks to run over, kinda like a grain mill I guess.  I actually got a speeding ticket from an Army MP on that flat stretch.  Threw it away about a mile later.

The way I understand it, the quad fifty shoots two while you are reloading two.  Just think what you could have done at Trang Sup with one of those mounted on a deuce-and-a-half like the one the ARVN had on that highway.  That's 1100 rounds a minute.  The Koreans had one but they've got no sense of humor.  They got ticked just 'cause I took one of their trailers.  At Phu Bai, I used to go over to the Army dump, where I found a .30 caliber machine-gun and enough parts to make a few M-16's.  Good trading material.  I think they knew I was going there, I also found a case of grenades in the little cans with the pins pulled.  The .30 cal. went to DaNang, the SP's lost one somehow and we traded it to them for an air conditioner.

In Cu Chi ( III Corp Area again) the Vietnamese boys use to dive in the paddies for C rats cans you would throw in.  There were some rotten A-holes that threw empty cans. SICK!  I remember once coming back from Saigon, I was in the back of the truck and threw a case of Black Label to the GI's there.  I also remember being on a 70 mile convoy with a tank (M-60?) behind the truck the whole way.  I had a little cubby hole at the rear of the bed and just hoped that thing would not run over us.  At a stop I asked the tank driver about it and he said the engine was sick, he could only get 37 MPH out of it so I didn't hafta worry, what a relief.  We got ambushed on that one also but the tank did not fire or the concussion would have blown me right out of the bed.  One thing I could never do was take a leak off the side of the truck while holding on with one hand, I always fell off.  I'm going to save the photo of the pass, thanks.

My Hero

The Navy Doctor that put my leg back together is my hero. I was feeling all sorry for myself and the thing worked good as new when they got done. Before him the Navy medic that fixed me up and gave me morphine was my hero. Recovering in the hospital the blonde nurse that stayed late into the night talking to me was my hero. You know what? They don't even remember my name because they fixed so many other guys that look upon them as heroes also. How do you thank somebody that made you walk again? As the poem said, I wish I could die among soldiers. (Reference to "Bury Me with Soldiers" by Father Charlie Fink.)
 

Ray Holcomb passed away on 13 Feb 2004.