“We’ve been lucky. Haven’t lost a plane in almost a year. The main thing you’ll be interested in right now is the map—kind of a screwed-up map to confuse spies, I think—but good enough that you’ll be able to find your way around after we finish your tour of the base.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to hold onto my hat as we roared past a mile of barbed-wire fencing and some serious-looking guard towers.
When we reached the main part of the base Larry pulled to a halt. “How about a cup of coffee at our twenty-four-hour-a-day chow hall? You must be beat.”
“Sounds fine by me.” I was beat from all the traveling. Inside, it felt good to sit down for a moment on something that wasn’t moving and have enough room to stretch out my legs. It didn’t matter that it was a hard bench.
Zelinsky continued his briefing, switching now to the history and geopolitics of the region. “Bangkok Thais think of Northeast Thailand—the Issan—the way Russians think of Siberia and Americans think of North Dakota. The American government, however, likes it just fine. South Vietnam’s a mess—and the enemy’s main supply route in is the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It runs through Cambodia and Laos, which have Communist revolutions of their own going on. We’re supposed to stay out of Laos because Kennedy signed the Geneva Accords banning military operations there. The North Vietnamese signed the accords too, but the ink hadn’t dried when they started building the Trail. We need to stop them, but since we actually care about world opinion, we have to run a secret war and make the guns we’re shipping to the Hmong counterrevolutionaries look like humanitarian aid. We know what the American public thinks about sending troops into Cambodia, so once again it’s secret-war time. It’s starting to look like the American public is getting pretty sick of the whole damn war effort—and that’s where Ubon comes in. Nixon figured out that from here the Air Force can operate all over Indochina without the press or the public having a clue. All that and no Arctic blizzards.”
“Should I really be hearing all of this? They really did talk a lot about ‘need-to-know’ back at Norton.”
“That’s the great thing about having a Top Secret security clearance and editing Battle Damage Assessment footage from all over Southeast Asia. We ‘need to know’ a lot to put together briefing clips that make sense when they’re sent back to the Pentagon and the Armed Services committees and sometimes even the White House.”
“How can you be so into this? I thought you hated the war like the rest of us—”
“Like I said, the war’s a mess, but this is a free trip back to be with the woman I love. When you meet Pueng, you’ll understand.”
“For someone who really didn’t want to be here, I have to admit you’ve made it sound pretty exciting. Intense, as you say.”
“Well, you’re here,” Zelinsky said with a smile. “Might as well make the best of it.”
He continued talking as we finished our java and walked out to the jeep. “Part of the intensity around here might be pure logistics—everything that every man on this base needs is squeezed into a few square miles. Let me show you around.”
We drove off, and soon Zelinsky was pointing out revetments where long rows of fighter-bombers were parked between missions, maintenance sheds and hangars, the motor pool, engine test areas, Quonset huts housing squadron operations, and finally the control tower. Then came the fun stuff—the post office, storefront branches of Bank of America and Chase Manhattan, the Officers’ Club, the NCO and Airmen’s Club-Casino complex, the swimming pool and patio, the bowling alley, the hobby shop (and music-pirating club), the movie theater, the library and the gym. The un-fun chapel, hospital, and Wing Headquarters—what the men called the Little Pentagon—were also nearby.
Altogether, according to Zelinsky, it took more than six thousand American airmen to keep the Wolf Pack flying, not to mention the hundreds of Thai nationals who cleaned our quarters, staffed the officers’ and enlisted-men’s clubs, and worked elsewhere on base. Zelinsky clued me in that Ubon was technically a Royal Thai Air Force Base with a nominal Thai commander, Thai trainees in the control tower, Thai Air Policemen and two token A-37 fighter squadrons made up of slow-moving jet trainers that had been reconfigured for combat. In reality, like pretty much everywhere else in the Southeast Asia theater, the U.S. had taken over.
“The Thai commander has worked it out so that token Thai concessionaires run the barber shop, the tailor shop, a little jewelry store, the base laundry operation and a few snack bars. In a way the concessions are your gateway to downtown Ubon. They’ll give you a little taste of the goodies you’ll find when you get off the base, even if you only make it to the shops and restaurants clustered outside the front gate. The Thais have taken it upon themselves to provide you with all the things you don’t need or think you don’t need but will soon find you can’t live without. Life’s pretty intense for them too. Ubon used to be a sleepy little provincial capital until the Americans turned it into a boomtown. Now Issan shopkeepers and rice farmers are getting richer than they ever imagined possible. Even the restaurants and shops and theaters in the old sections of town are booming. But behind all the courtesy and warmth they lavish on us Americans, I suspect, is the fear that the gravy train will end even faster than it began.”
“What’s that big building across from the Little Pentagon?”
“Ah—the Base Exchange!” Zelinsky answered with another smile.
“Why is it so huge?”
“Because the BX has the goodies they don’t sell downtown—shoes big enough to fit American feet, electric appliances, TVs, stereo equipment and record albums, and especially American booze and cigarettes. To put it more accurately, they’ve got it downtown, but the Thai government charges very heavy duty on imports—400% is routine on things like cigarettes.”
After checking me in at CBPO, the Consolidated Base Personnel Office, Zelinsky brought me by Payroll, Bank of America and the post office to do a little more processing in before he finally showed me to my hootch and gave me the rest of the day to sleep off my jet lag.
I knew before I shipped out that Larry was going to be my supervisor at Ubon and that Link was going to be spreading gloom as the Detachment 3 first sergeant. What I was not expecting was the little surprise Larry sprang on me the next morning when he led me over to the ComDoc command trailer to report in. Damn if it wasn’t Tom Wheeler pecking away on an IBM Selectric in the outer office of the orderly room. We quickly exchanged low fives and agreed to meet for lunch—before Zelinsky ruined the mood, reminding me that First Sergeant Link was in his office waiting. Link growled something like “welcome aboard,” dismissed Zelinsky and picked up his direct line to Captain English, the detachment commander. “Leary’s here. Yes sir, he’s the one.” Link gave me one of his dark lifer smirks and said, “The captain’s expecting you.”
Later, over at the chow hall, I learned that Wheeler was living off base with Zelinsky and a motion picture lab tech named Groendyke. The three of them filled me in a little more about life in Ubon. “I suppose you’ve noticed,” said Wheeler, “that a wartime fighter base is a little more intense than a place like Norton.”
“I’ve noticed,” I replied.
“Wait’ll you see downtown at night,” said Zelinsky.
Wheeler jumped in. “It can be quite a scene when the combat crews are on the prowl. The officers mostly come down for a massage—a ‘scrub and rub’ they call it—and do most of their hell-raising back at the O Club. The ones you gotta watch out for are the Spectre and Jolly Green door gunners. They’re seeing a lot of combat—”
“And none of them have been to finishing school,” laughed Zelinsky.
“Makes ’em pretty wild when they’re off duty,” Tom warned.
“Something else about downtown,”