I graduated Molder A School on February 11, 1972 in San Diego, California. On that day, all of those I had been calling "Classmates", "Roomies" and "Friends" all left for their next duty stations, where ever they were. I could not leave San Diego to pursue my next duty station. It seems there was a SNAFU with my paper work and I had to fix that before I could leave.
I had my Service Record and my orders were ready, but somehow, they couldn't find my Medical Records...
The Navy doesn't waste a lot of time looking for things like a missing record. They just make a new one, in this case, my medical record. SO...In a short time, about an hour, all the physicals and SHOTS we got in a few days at boot camp, I got in a rather rushed fashion. At least I had a Medical record now...
I was up in the barracks packing my sea bag and suit case. I had already turned in my bedding linen, emptied my locker and took down my posters. I took out my stencil pens and drew a couple pictures on my sea bag: One side had "This bag belongs to a MOLDER" and had the skull and crossed molder tools as we had said this was our class emblem. The other side I drew a map of where I was from, Oregon, with a dot on "Milwaukie" which was my home town back then. That art work sure saved me some time finding my bag out of so many others at the airport!
I finally had the green light to go, and when I left my cubicle for the last time, all that was left to show I had been there was the plastic model of a PBY Catalina flying boat I built hanging from the light over the table.
My final destination was supposed to be the USS Hector (AR-7).
I got to the airport, checked my bags and got on the flight up to San Francisco, then waited several hours to catch the next flight WEST. It seems my ship had left for WESPAC on Jan 3, just a few weeks before. I had to catch up with it somewhere halfway around the world!
The flight from San Francisco stopped in Honolulu, then on to Yakota Air Force base in Japan. When I checked in there, I had to spend a few days on base until they could locate my ship. After three or four days, I was told to pack and leave on another flight SOUTH.
The flight south stopped at Kadena, Okinawa, then on to Taipei, Taiwan then Ton Sohn Nhut Air Base right outside Saigon, SOUTH VIETNAM! OK. This is weird. Somebody screwed up. They don't have Repair Ships in SAIGON!
When the plane stopped rolling and the door opened, the first thing that hit me was the HEAT. The next thing was the SMELL. This was February, and so I had on my wool Dress Blue uniform...I started to sweat. As I walked across the compound to check in with the duty hut, I saw and heard a guy in greens (fatigues) say, "A MOLDER??? What the fuck do we need a MOLDER here for???!!!" He had seen my fresh, new Molder striker emblem over my red Fireman Apprentice stripes.
I just looked at him and replied, "I'm here to pack sand up Charlie's Ass!" and kept walking. (I did not yet know about Charlie Whiteside. I was talking about Victor Charlie)
I had to spend about five days there, so I was in a barracks with a bunch of Army dudes that were heading out in a few days for home. The barracks were not the same as the hooch's you see in the movies. They were long buildings with one half as bunk space, and the other half was American-style toilets, wash basins and showers. There was just one slight problem: They didn't have much running water. Just a trickle if you took a shower. Forget about flushing a toilet and they were all FULL. No joke! And I checked all the other barracks, too!
I settled in as best I could. Changed in to some dungarees and ate chow in the mess hall. Food wasn't too bad. I've had worse, and BETTER.
The Army types were pretty laid back and easy to get along with. They had "borrowed" a truck from someplace and kept it padlocked with a chain around the steering wheel and brake pedal for their own use. They had to go into Saigon to the American Embassy so one of them could file paper work on his Vietnamese wife he was going to take home with him.
They let me come along! I sat in the front seat and they handed me an M-16 "just to hold, just in case" as we drove all over town. I had my little Kodak Instamatic 104 camera and took a bunch of pictures of Saigon as we drove. We stopped at a small outdoor restaurant and I had some Vietnamese chili that was HOT, but very good, and I bought a few things from a street vendor: A headband that had "Vietnam" woven into it, a Yamaha double reed harmonica, and an olive green hand-tied net hammock, all of which I still have now.
I also was given a choice of what to drink with these guys. In the back of the truck were a case each of canned 7-UP and Dr. Pepper. It was NOT cold and refreshing. I had heard and seen advertised on the bottles of Dr. Pepper, "Try it HOT"...so not wanting to chance the hot 7-UP, I went for the Dr. Pepper. To this day I can't STAND Dr. Pepper anymore!
After about five days, I was told to once again pack up and get on a plane. This time it was no jet airliner with nice seats and stewardesses....
I had never been on a propeller driven airplane before. This was a DeHavilland "Caribou". Not an all too ugly of an aircraft. A large, angular tail, and two engines. Basically, a greyhound bus with wings. This one had large, black kangaroos painted on the wings and tail fin. It said, "Royal Australian Air Force" down the sides. I had heard a few things about the Aussies, but I kept my mouth shut. These guys had my life in their hands.
We loaded up our bags and taxied out to the end of the runway. Then I noticed I was sitting on the right side of the plane up forward RIGHT IN LINE WITH THE PROPELLOR!
I could look out the little oval-shaped window and see right at the prop hub! The pilot then started to rev those engines up as fast as they could go! I mean it was SCARY! All the while I'm praying to God that the damn prop doesn't fly apart, because that would be MY ass that got sliced and diced! This lasted a minute or so. Then we finally take off on a short hop down to a little place called Vung Tau. About a fifteen or twenty minute flight. Should be no sweat.
As we flew along, most of the others on the plane (about six or seven of us in all) just kicked back and dozed. Not me. I was busy looking all around inside the plane. I could touch the cargo man, and see the pilot and co-pilot, then I'd look up in the overhead at all the wires and cables and stuff then back at the rear doors....just keeping "busy".
Now, those Caribou's have a split rear door. The top half is larger than the bottom half and folds up into the overhead when it is opened. The bottom is short and just goes down like the tail gate on a pick-up truck.
As we were flying along, I just happened to be looking at the back of the plane when...THE TOP BACK DOOR FELL OFF!....No.....I'm NOT BULLSHITTING you!
I could see jungle and blue sky out the back of the airplane! It was noisy and hard to talk in the plane. I tapped the cargo man on the leg and said, "Your back door just fell off!" He was wearing headphones and didn't hear me, so he lifts one side and saying in his Australian accent, "WOT?"
I then point to the back and repeat, "YOUR BACK DOOR JUST FELL OFF!"
He looks, then I hear, "OH SHIT!" He then tells the pilot, who then turns his head and sees for himself and I hear another, "OH SHIT!"
This was turning out to be some day. But it was still early.
We land at Vung Tau and we are told to "GET THE HELL OFF THE BLOODY PLANE!" Leave the bags, just bail. We go about 100 feet away and wait while they examine the airplane. After about ten or fifteen minutes, we are told to go collect our baggage. As I am doing that I hear one of them say, "What the hell, We'll still fly it!"
Seems those things I had heard about the Aussies wasn't too far off the mark.
(INFO: That plane was part of 35 Squadron, RAAF, I have contacted the Royal Australian Air Force records museum and gotten the number of that plane and I am building an exact replica of it as a "mobile" with the door fluttering away. Somewhere in Vietnam, some farmer has a metal roof on his hooch!)
After a time, this 4x4 truck pulls up. It has a couple of Navy types in it that looked like they had been there a while. The truck had DEFFINATELY been there a while. I load my bags and myself in the back and I sit on the right rear wheel well. Down the dusty dirt road we go.
I begin to hear a clunking noise from behind me and below me. I turn and look down over the side of the truck. The axle shaft is hanging out nearly a foot and just flapping in the breeze.
I notify the "co-pilot" of the situation. He bends around and looks down at the axle shaft. He turns to the driver. "It's out again".
"Again!?"
They stop the truck and the "co-pilot" hops out, then reaches under his seat and pulls out a small metal box full of nuts and bolts, walks back to the axle, kicks it back in with his foot, screws on a couple of nuts with his fingers, no wrench, puts the box back under his seat, hops back in and away we go.
Gee, this must happen all the time!
We arrive at a small wooden dock. The main part is up on pilings and is about eight or so feet above the water. That's where I was told to wait.
Next to it is a smaller dock only for small boats, and on this dock is a Vietnamese man with a Zippo Lighter and a five-gallon Jerry can of gasoline. He pulls the insides out of the lighter. Takes the body and dumps gasoline into it from the Jerry can. Then he stuffs the insides back in, spraying gasoline all over himself, and then lights up a smoke. I was wondering why he wasn't in flames.
After about an hour, the LCM from the USS Hector (AR-7) came along side the dock, I loaded my gear and myself inside and rode out to the ship that would be my home for the next three and a half years. The date was February 23, 1972. When I checked in, I found my long-lost Medical Record was ALREADY THERE!
My journey was finally at an end. Thank GOD!!!
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