SALMAGUNDI VIETNAM
DON PRATT & LEE BLAIR
SALMAGUNDI
VIETNAM
With illustrations by Jim Ryan
CHARLES E. TUTTLE COMPANY
Rutland - Vermont: Tokyo - Japan
Representatives
FOR CONTINENTAL EUROPE
Boxerbooks, Inc., Zurich
FOR THE BRITISH ISLES
Prentice-Hall International, Inc., London
FOR AUSTRALASIA
Paul Flesch & Co., Pty. Ltd., Melbourne
FOR CANADA
M. G. Hurtig Ltd., Edmonton
Published by the Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.
of Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan
with editorial offices at
Osaki Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-0032
Copyright in Japan, 1970
by Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card No: 79-104207
ISBN: 978-1-4629-1221-6 (ebook)
First printing, 1970
PRINTED IN JAPAN
TO ETHEL AND POOH-BEAR
... and to Cassius Clay, who couldn't be with
us and thereby missed all the fun and excitement.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WE wish to acknowledge the assistance of all those named in the book and those whose stories were told anonymously-usually for obvious reasons. We particularly appreciate the help and encouragement of:
| THEDA CUMBRIDGE | BOB MOESER |
| COLIN LEINSTER | JACK LEONARD |
| BOB MORSE | RUTH MATHIS |
| JOHN RUTLEDGE | LEX & SYLVIA BLAIR |
| MIKE WARD | MARILYN DANIELS |
| DON SUMMERFORD | EL NETTLES |
| MIKE MANGIAMELI | WAYNE PHIPPS |
Also LBJ and the American Taxpayer, without whom our research would have been impossible.
PREFACE
THERE are as many different pictures of a war as there are eyes through which to view it. We make no claim to having seen or heard it all, for to do so would be foolish and untrue. What you are about to read is, however, what we did see, what we did hear, and what we did feel.
DON PRATT
LEE BLAIR
WHEN the hard-core Boonie Rat returns home from a tour in Vietnam, he has no qualms whatever about telling it like it is. He bombards his friends and relatives with war stories of the first magnitude: tales of devastating fire-fights, of getting cut off or surrounded by the VC, massive heliborne assaults, stepping on punji stakes and mines, mortar and rocket attacks, and just about every other form of wartime violence.
But when the guy who has spent a tour with a rear-echelon support unit in the relative security of Saigon is asked about his experiences, he will invariably reply: "It was terrible. I don't wanna talk about it."
* * *
"GET your ducks in a row, get down to Vietnam, and join the advance party."
The orders were from the brigade commander, not to me but to Captain John B. Oliver, my boss. I was one of the ducks.
It was May 3, 1965.
We bummed a ride on a C-1 30 out of Naha, Okinawa, with a load of Special Forces men. Most of them had been commuting between Oki and Vietnam for years, and their cool quenched any anxieties I had had.
When we stopped at Nha Trang, the Green Beret contingent left us and we were joined by 97 Vietnamese rangers, also bound for Tan Son Nhut. There were considerably more passengers than seats, and a load of cargo as well. It was hot and stuffy, as only a C-130 can be, and the Viets were extremely susceptible to air-sickness. They had just come off an operation and were loaded down with weapons, ammo, and grenades, for which they had little respect. My anxieties returned.
We spent the night on the floor of a hut in a Special Forces compound, and met the brigade's main body the next morning. My second night passed slowly in a foxhole on the Bien Hoa Air Base perimeter.
Some two years later I landed at Tan Son Nhut again, this time after a plush flight in a 600 mph commercial jet. On hand to meet me were two old friends, Lee Blair and Army Master Sergeant Al Corbin. They whisked me through customs and delivered me to an air-conditioned hotel room in Saigon where we celebrated my arrival with a nip from a bottle of fine old bourbon.
Who said we're not making progress in this war?
* * *
MY arrival in Vietnam was considerably less spectacular. There was no one to meet me as my unit knew only that I was expected "sometime in February." I had been in Saigon for a few days in 1955 en route to Bangkok, but remembered little of the visit.
The heat was uncomfortable, but otherwise I didn't feel much of anything. The air was ripe with strange sounds and smells, and the Vietnamese language seemed to have a lilting, almost musical quality about it. Maybe it wasn't going to be as bad as everyone had made it out to be, and perhaps reports reaching the United States were somewhat exaggerated.
As we were being told to remain in the area until transportation arrived, I made up my mind to adopt a wait-and-see policy and make no decisions in haste.
I should have spared myself the trouble.
For want of something better to do, I began to explore the terminal area. Around one corner was a sight I shall be a long time remembering. There were several rows of metal caskets, attended by armed sentries, and each carefully draped with the Stars and Stripes.
I did make a decision after all, but in retrospect I don't think it was a hasty one. Americans are dying violently and prematurely in Vietnam.
* * *
THERE are doubtless hundreds of "Saigon Warriors" in reasonably secure areas who sit around writing war stories to the folks back home. (We won't bother to mention some specifics we have personal knowledge of.) But we do know one trooper who pulled the stunt in reverse-and flubbed it.
Shortly after his unit arrived in Vietnam early in 1965, this guy wrote his wife, telling her how safe and secure he was, comfortably ensconced in a base camp behind a formidable perimeter of paratroopers. Less than a week later, UPI sent a radiophoto out of Saigon showing the NCO in the jungle, bearded, bedraggled, and bedecked with ammunition bandoliers