I was assigned to Vietnam in 1965 on my second hitch after being stationed at Duluth Municipal Airport in Minnesota for 4 years.
I arrived at Tan Son Nhut, and was immediately sent to Cam Rahn Bay to help build a base.
A lot of complaining got me reassigned to the 1st Air Commando Squadron at Pleiku. They thought it was punishment for me, but it was a relief to be able to be in a flying unit that had a mission.
In the early days we were allowed to wear civies on our off duty time. The war was between 8AM and 4PM for most of us at that time, but that came to an end near the end of the year.
I was amazed at all the support organizations that I had to cover, Psychological Warfare (PSYWAR) unit, detachments from 3 other organizations, base support mission, and Air America (CIA) as well as my own assigned unit.
I got to fly a lot in VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) planes because no one said I couldn’t. I also flew a few times on some interdiction missions with some of the pilots in my Squadron.
There were a lot of brave patriots at Pleiku then. Some of the Air America guys would tell me about some of their missions in confidence. Hard to believe some of those stories.
My one big hero was Lt/Col Bernie Fisher. He risked his life to save Jump Meyers at Hue when he landed his A-1 under tremendous fire, taxied over picked up Jump and took off again. That made me feel like I was among supermen.
To this day I belong to the Pleiku Air Base Association, after 21 years in the Air Force and assigned to many different organizations, including a Combat Rescue unit in the 70’s.
It’s too bad the government wouldn’t let us finish them off when we had them down, now most people think we lost that war. STUPID POLITICIANS…