The First Six Days In-Country
We touched down at 0505 hours at Cam-ranh Bay (11.54oN, 109.09oE), Vietnam. The ground crew opened the door and as I deplaned, I was instantly sledge hammered with a blast of tropical heat I could hardly believe. They told us it was already 95o F and it didnt take much to convince me of that. I was already drenched in sweat. The warnings from the vets at Fort Lewis and now the ground crew at Cam-ranh on dehydration and preventative steps kicked in as I boarded the converted school bus for the ride to the processing point. Right away I noted that the windows of the bus were covered with steel mesh to help prevent such things as hand grenades from being tossed inside. Oh yeah, this was for real.
Now a swirl of administrivia1 kicked in with the routine of checking paperwork, getting us some breakfast (bacon, eggs, toast, milk, cereal; hey, just like home!), assigning us to a bunk, getting our duffel bags sorted out and being told we would be in this processing area a minimum length of time.
One of the very first things that took place when you arrived in Vietnam was the exchange of your American money for military script. As the Black Market was alive and well over there, the military issued funny money to replace your American greenbacks which were highly sought after by the Vietnamese and other foreigners. All of the script was in the form of paper bills that were as ornately engraved and colored as any currency in the world. The sizes of the paper pieces varied with the denomination. The twenty-dollar bill was the largest and the nickel was the smallest. No pennies, thank Heaven. All transactions were made using this military script which made it difficult for the Vietnamese who carried out business with the soldiers over there. Periodically, the military would change this script. This always came as an unannounced, surprise event at which time your base would be closed down with no one allowed to come in or go out while the currency exchange took place. When it was your turn, you gave the pay officer your old script and he replaced it with the new.
These exchange events would cause a general panic with the Vietnamese people who might be holding the old script as now it was virtually useless and with absolutely no value. It was not uncommon to have Vietnamese people line up outside your base screaming for help to exchange the script they had for the new money. Naturally, out of the goodness of a soldiers heart, there would be an exchange rate applied for providing this service and some guys made a lot of extra cash on these exchange days. Just one more way the Americans endeared themselves to the locals. We had several exchange days while I was over there.
While on the topic of money, informal loans were constantly being made throughout any unit to which I was ever assigned. Many soldiers had a difficult time budgeting their funds and never seemed to have enough money to make it to the next payday. It was not unusual for someone to come up and say they would give you 7 for 5 or 15 for 10 etc. meaning that if you would lend them five dollars, you would get seven dollars back on payday. The further from payday, the greater the rate and it was not unusual for guys to be asking for loans just a few days after payday.
You had to be very careful in making these loans and then loan money only to those you felt confident would repay you. I once had an outstanding loan due from a young pup in that CH-34 outfit in West Germany and was having difficulty collecting it because I had been transferred to Mannheim. I guess he figured out of sight, out of mind. I waited until I could get a three-day pass following a payday and showed up at his barracks, unannounced. Once he recovered from his heart attack, he gave me my money and all was well. One guy I knew in West Germany made big money in the loan business. He didnt worry about getting paid back; if you failed to hand over the payment right after receiving your money from the pay officer on pay day, you could expect that he would be sitting on your chest that night with a knife at your throat as you woke up in shear terror. He told me that he only had to do this once or twice after coming into a new unit and the word would get around fast enough. He was a nice enough guy and more than willing to make loans, just dont short him with the cash come pay day. All of this loan business was, of course, officially prohibited, but nevertheless thrived everywhere I was ever stationed.
Sunrise at Cam-ranh was sensational if you were an egg waiting to be fried. I couldnt believe the increasing intensity of the heat and rays as the sun continued to climb higher in the sky. Imagine sitting next to a roaring blast furnace and then a door opening ever so slowly and painfully as you feel the intensity of the heat inexorably increase until you just know that your brain will boil and explode out of your skull. What else should I expect, we were only 11oN of the equator (in comparison, Miami, Florida, is 25.46oN). Looking around, it appeared that Cam-ranh Bay was a huge, multi-service base with all branches of the military represented. Also, it looked like I was in the middle of Arabia; sand, sand everywhere and not a blade of grass, tree or bush to be seen. I had been plunked down in the textbook definition of Hell defoliated. 1 When arriving at a new duty or reassignment station, you had to turn in your paperwork and orders and then wait to receive new orders to move along to the next duty or reassignment station. Depending on the efficiency of the personnel at these reassignment locations and the need to speed you along, you could waste a lot of time in these places. My experience at Fort Gordon, Georgia, both upon arrival and departure, was the absolute worst with several days of work details on both ends.
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