I arrived in the Republic of South Viet Nam on 11 July 1966 and remained until 5 July 1967, when I was reassigned PCS to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.  For years, I thought that I had arrived in Viet Nam In May of 1965; then, I thought it was June of '66. I finally learned the correct dates from records received from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO. Lord knows why I couldn't remember the correct dates on my own.

I do recall now that a friend, Esther Smith, had given me a small going away picnic on or about the Fourth of July down at Haines Point in DC, near where The Wall is now. How could I forget these things?

I spent some time in 'Tent City' on Tan Son Nhut waiting for assignment. That time, too is dimmed but I remember going into Saigon several times with some Air Policemen who were waiting to go somewhere upcountry. I think maybe they were going to Cam Rahn Bay, but I won't swear to it. There was a Master Sergeant with them who was, shall we say, unhappy with the delay.

Finally, I received my assignment to Detachment 7, 619th Tactical Control Squadron, located in Tay Ninh Province. I was directed to a helicopter pad where I could catch a ride to my new home. Det. 7 was located on Trang Sup, an Army Special Forces camp; which I didn't learn until I got on the helicopter.

We landed in Tay Ninh West, and I rode out to Trang-Sup in the back of a six-by. When we got there, I saw a couple of Americans wearing fatigue pants and T-shirts, or no shirts at all, and a whole bunch of little Vietnamese people who promptly started patting and stroking me. I had no idea what they were saying, but I was certainly glad that they appeared to be so friendly.

I asked one of my new companions if all new arrivals got greeted like that, and he said it was the first time he'd seen it. I later decided that it was my shiny new starched and pressed synthetic fiber fatigues my friendly reception committee was admiring and not my extraordinarily virile physique, magnificent though it was. Another ego buster.

There were about thirty-five Americans on Trang Sup, and a whole slew of Vietnamese and some Cambodians who the Special Forces people were training. At first, it was hard to tell the Air Force from the Army, since nobody seemed to be wearing shirts or hats. It took a few days to get them all sorted out.

I was assigned as a long range radar repairman, my job was to help maintain and repair the AN/UPS-1 radar set. This turned out to be a tiny (to me) ground transportable Marine radar entirely housed in a room about the size of an average living room. I was accustomed to huge, sprawling, multi-storied set-ups. The modulator cabinet at my last site was about as big as this entire UPS-1 (pronounced Yoopsy One). So there I was: an Airman assigned to maintain a Marine radar set in an Army camp. All that was missing was a boat.

Trang Sup was about fifty miles northwest of Saigon and approximately twenty miles from the Cambodian border. Tay Ninh city, the province capital, was five or six miles south of Trang Sup. One thing very quickly became obvious: the camp was, as a rule, miraculously devoid of indigenous civilian personnel on those occasions when we had unwelcome visitors. Made one sort of wonder just how many Viet Cong, or their sympathizers, were actually already inside the camp on a daily basis.

The camp itself was located in one of the old forts left behind by the French, a bunch of green trimmed white buildings arranged in a large rectangle. The Army guys lived in one building, called the Team House, that commanded an unobstructed view of the camp. The Air Force enlisted people occupied an adjacent building that at one time had been an open bay barracks. It had been divided into rooms that were actually cubicles; the top and bottom thirds of the inner walls were screened.

The dispensary, Air Force orderly room and officer’s quarters, radar operations and radio maintenance were in a building directly across and about three long strides from the enlisted men's barracks. Radar maintenance was in a separate small building behind Ops and was mercifully air conditioned, as was Ops. Had to keep all that electronic gear running. Well, anyway, there I was; home at last...home, at least, for the next year.

NOTE: The picture of the Great Temple of the Cao Dai in Tay Ninh, is by Quang-Tuan Luong of Terra Galleria.

A Memory