Germany part 1

After coming home from Vietnam, I had a 30 day leave before going to Germany. As I left VN I was promoted to Captain, which was a big deal for me. The best part of going to Germany was that Nancy could go with me and not have to wait and come later. Bruce Button took us to New Jersey for the plane ride over. We were picked up at the airport and taken to Schweinfurt where I was assigned to the 3/64th Armor, 3d Infantry Division. My first job was Operations Officer for the battalion, basically an office job. We were given on post housing, which was a 3 bedroom apartment on the 3d floor of a 4 story building. The unit was great, most all the officers were our age and very few kids, which meant a lot of partying and hard work. Germany was fun, we were able to do a lot of touring, and exploring in the area and visited many great places, which I will tell you about in the next few posts. I will be telling mostly about where we went and what we saw. I may include a bit of my Army stories, but a lot as I want to share all that there is to tell about our fun times. I have to search for pictures before I can continue, so this is it for today, I hope to get back very soon.

21 Nov 2008

Me and my jeep outside my room in Nha Trang

I know its been a few days since my last post, but I think I had writers block. So I guess I need to finish my Vietnam days, here goes.

After R&R I received a tranfer from the mountains to the beach. A job opened at the Province headquarters in Nha Trang and I thought it would be better than the outpost. Headquarters sounds good but we worked out of a old bombed out building that had no windows and only three walls.My job was working in the operations section. After a while we moved into a new office made of cardboard, it was a building that you pulled apart like an acordine, nailed it down and you have a new office. Kept us dry and that is about it. One of my jobs was to go on orperations with the Province Intell unit, this was a group of ex NVA and ex Viet Cong that had come over to our side. They were a tough group and I would go out with them about once a week. One operation we were air lifted onto an island off the coast and were pick up by the Vietnamese Navy. They had boats not ships and were not what you would really want to be on the high seas in, but we made it. The following is a picture on the island, see if you tell which one is me. We did engage the enemy but I am not going to get into that.




Operation on a island off the coast of VN, can you see me?



Nha Trang was great, had a room in an old hotel, with an officers club on the roof, spent a lot of time up there, Jack Daniels and ginger $.35 a pop...We also watched movies up there, when we could get one. In my room I even had a shower, which realy beat the river.

Our Advisory Team was made up of military and civilians. The civilians all worked for the state department, and other goverment againces. We even had two US Nuns, they were nurses. Most of us took our meals at a club for the civilians, it was small but had a bar, a few slot machines and a dining room complete with a Mat ra d. I had a gallon of Maple Syrip that either my mother or Nancy sent me, and I kept at the club and the head waiter would bring me some every morning for my french toast, no one else was allowed to use, no matter what their rank.

I have looked up Nha Trang on the internet and what a change 40 years makes. It was old and war torn when I was there and today it is a hot vacation spot. It is a place I would like to visit someday.

I left VN a couple of weeks early. My grandfather had died while I was there and it looked like my Grandmother was not going to make it so the Red Cross was contacted and I was sent home. My grandmother lived for several years after was sent home.

This is picture that I did not write about, it is a NewYear dinner at the home of a couple who worked for us. Actually everyone in this picture worked for the US, except the baby.I was the guest of honor and as so I got to eat the head of the duck that was the main course.

13 Nov 08 two days before deer season

Stew and the interstate buck

I promise to get back to Vietnam either later today or tomorrow, but today I have to talk about the second biggest holiday in Vermont. The first day of deer season. Years ago the first day of deer season every male over the age of 10 was in the woods, I don't think it's quite that way today. Many factors have lead to the decline in hunting. Guns are not in favor these days, much of the land that we used to hunt has been sold and no off limits to hunters. Also much of the land has grown up to scrub and it makes it very hard to hunt. I have not hunted for years, in my case the hills have gotten to steep for me....

Of course I grew up hunting, and the hills of Tunbridge were our favorite place to hunt.We used to family hunt, by that I mean, we hunted as a family. The first day of season we would all get up on the "hill" early to help Gramp and Calvin do chores before we all went to that place where we knew we would get that easy buck. My place was the back side of Clyde's big field, on the Spring road side where I could see almost to the road, doubt that you could see that now. Uncle Jim went over across about half way up the hill, Theron also went in that area. Don't remember where Stew went, Cal would go out back. By mid day everyone would be back at the house for food and regrouping. After the first morning we would hunt together. In the early days we stayed on the hill, driving both sides, starting on the crossroad and coming down the hill, and those of us who were waiting would be in the pasture by Ernie Blakes, at that time the whole side hill was open and a good place to shoot. In those days there were not many hunters on the hill which made for a lot of fun and good hunting. The only other "family" that hunted there was the Barnabys. We would be going up one side of the hill and they would be coming down the other side. It was friendly hunting.

That first morning, Gram would always fry up venison for breakfast before we went out. She used to say it was left from the year before but it always tasted fresh to me. Uncle Jim would always bring doughnuts and a great time was had by all. We got our share of deer, didn't always report all of them, but none went to waste. We hunted for sport, but also for food and nothing went to waste. I have several pictures to post in the this blog, and the first is a great picture of Gramp and Grammie Ware with a big buck that Gramp shot in I think the 30's. For many years the horns from this deer were in the wood shed and I bet they are still there. I don't know how many Gramp shot but I don't think there were many as I remember Cal saying he wasn't a very good shot.

Gramp and Grammie in front of the silo 1930's

The best hunter in the Family was by far Uncle Calvin, he always knew where the deer were and he was a good shot. He always got his deer and some besides. Many a time I recall Cal saying, Well boys you ready to get a deer?, I know just were there is one waiting for us, and you know, many times when he said that we would find a deer. One season late in the day he asked me if I wanted to shot a deer, and of course I did, he said lets go and I push a buck to you. Well, Cal went up to the crossroad and he told me to go on the back side behind Clydes barn. Well I got in position and about 20 minutes later sure enough out comes this buck coming across the pasture about half way down, my first shot missed badly, he never even blinked, but the second shot hit its mark. Less than an hour after we left the barn we were back with a nice 4 point buck, shown here.

one of the many deer yours truly shots over the years

One more story and then I will be done. I think this was in the 70's when I was living in Chelsea. It was opening day and we had had a run of bad luck with short horns. I was with Stew up on the mountain going through some woods when we saw a deer and we both could see his horns, Stew shot and down he went, well in those days the horns had to be 3", these were about 2 1/2" what to do, we dressed the deer and covered it up and went about our business. Later that night Cal, Stew and I went back to recover the meat. Stew and Cal went to the woods, I stayed in my trucks with the motor running for a quick getaway. I will never forget the sight of the two of them coming out of the woods looking like to woman pregnant with twins. Under their coats , was about 100 lbs of meat, Cal had an old purple quilted coat and he had most of the meat. I was scared that someone would come along and catch us . Colleen told me just recently that her mother was some upset with Cal about that coat, she washed and washed but could never get all the blood out. There are hundreds of stories about our days of hunting, and Cal knew every one and he used to tell them to anybody who would listen. My son-in-law Wes used to love to go and visit with Cal about his hunting days, we all did.

Ted and the big one that didn't get away

I know that Stew, Ted and Jimmy will be out Saturday morning looking for the big one that always seems to get away. The following pictures are of Ted and really the biggest deer any of us have ever got. He shot this one in Maine several years ago. Good luck to all the hunters who read this...............

9 Nov 2008 Vietnam Part II

When I finished last I was about ready to go on R&R. After you had been in Country for six months you got 5 days of R&R to Hawaii, Thailand or some in Country places. Most of the married guys went to Hawaii. My trip to Hawaii started in Cam Ron Bay, and Nancy's trip started in Burlington, her trip was a lot less eventful than mine. Let me paint the picture for you. Two hundred GI's on a plane to go see wivies and girlfriends after six months or more, well we were all loaded on the plane, but we didn't leave, after about an hour we started to taxi to the runway, the captain told us someone ran into the plane with a forklift and poked a small hole in the plane, they fixed it and we were on our way, next stop, Clark Air Force Base, Philippines, here we changed crews and we were off again. We were rolling down the runway at take off speed when the pilot put on the brakes, turned around and back to the terminal. They said it was engine trouble, about three hours later we got back on the plane and took off. The pilot came on the intercom and said he thought it was okay, however if they had more trouble before we were half way to Hawaii we would turn around and come back to Clark. As I said before, 200 GI's on their way to see loved ones. For those of you that are geography challenged, there is nothing between Clark and Hawaii but WATER. When we got half way, the pilot told us we were at the point of no return. The plane erupted in load cheers and it looked like we were going to make it and make it we did. Upon landing we were all taken to a large room where we were reunited with wives and girlfriend. What a mess that was, I found Nancy and we went back to the airport and took a flight to the big Island(Hawaii) where we had reservations at a resort called Kona Village. It was new and not totally complete, each guest had a hut built on a lava field overlooking the ocean, very nice. No TV, phone, nothing. The place was great, nice black sand beach, pool, with an old sailboat that served as a bar. A great restaurant with plenty of Island drinks. I think we were the only service couple there, which was nice, it was three or four days of relaxing and enjoying Hawaii. Kona Village is still there but I'm sure the area is really grown up, when we were there is was in the middle of nowhere. We ate and drank and had a great time, what I remember of it. I do remember that when the other guests found out that I was there on R&R from VN, I don't either of us paid for any of the drinks we had, and I know it was more than a few. Actually on the flight back to Honolulu we both were rather air sick, and it was a smooth flight. We never had time to do any sight seeing in Honolulu, as both of our flights left at almost the same time. It was fun and I hope next spring to go back to Hawaii, and maybe take a look at Kona Village 40 years later. We didn't take many pictures on this trip but have a couple of the young couple. I found other but Nancy didn't think they were something she wanted the world to see.

I had planned on completing Vietnam tonight but I rambled to long on R&R, so tomorrow I will finish VN.

7 November 2008

Today we arrive in Vietnam, a long ride... we stopped in Hawaii and Guam, we flew on a commercial airplane, but no movies or anything to drink... We joked and had a good time on the way over, but all of a sudden the pilot told us to look out the window. There is was Vietnam... the first look I had was of bomb craters and then it hit me... I was about to enter a war zone, where people shoot at you , and for the first time, I realized that the fun was over and going forward it would not be a picnic.





Upon landing we were taken to an old hotel in downtown Saigon. This is where we would do our in processing, get a rifle, new clothes, etc. and find out where we would be stationed. That first night I remember sitting on the front steps of the hotel and hearing rockets landing, scared, for sure, as we sat there trying to figure out why we were there. A Green Beret Sargent came by and started telling us stories that made us want to get on the next plane home. He was going home, and had been there for 2 years. He told us the rockets could not reach where we were, still didn't like the idea. As he talked to us he pulled out his knife, which was at least a foot long. We wondered if he was sane. He also took out a bag and showed us about a dozen ears that he had cut off VC. I realize this is gross but I only put it in to show the reality of going to war as a young man from a small town in Vermont. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night, wondering if the war was going to turn me into an animal like the first war-tested soldier I came in contact with.




After a couple days of briefings and what not, I was sent to Nha Trang, a beautiful city on the coast. I didn't stay there but a couple of days, and was shipped to Pleiku for more briefings. This was an interesting flight. I was dropped at the airport and told to wait for a plane. I was flying on Air America (CIA airline), I flew on a C-47 along with many locals, including chickens, pigs, and anything you can imagine. Plus the pilot was retired Air Force, from WWII. He showed up wearing a leather flying helmet and a white scarf wrapped around his neck. Looked like something out of an old movie... also I was the only American on the plane. There were no seats, just sit on the floor. Next I was on to Buon ma Thuot, another couple days there . Next flight was on a plane loaded with cement from a dirt airstrip with no one there but me. An hour flight and I was back in Nha Trang. I thought this was going to be a good place to do my time, but of course this was not my final unit. After a couple more days I was shipped off to Khanh Duong. I found that I was being sent to an Advisory Team, 5 of us, living in the middle of no where, in a town that really wasn't much more than a stop in the road... one store and not much else. If you remember I went to school to learn the language, but guess what? in the central highlands where I was they didn't speak Vietnamese. The locals were Montagnards, and they had their own language. I am inserting a couple pictures of the town and the houses that these people lived in. Its hard to explain about these people, I'll try. They lived in grass huts, no running water, no electric, nothing. I remember watching them in awe of a Bic lighter for they had never seen one. It was as if they had walked out of a page in National Geographic. Two or three generations of a family lived together in these huts. The women spent their days searching for food in the hills around the village; the men didn't do much other than sitting around and drinking rice wine. Our job was to work with the few Vietnamese that manned an outpost there. We had no direct communications with Americans, our only way of talking to anyone was through the Vietnamese radio. We were alone and only got supplies every couple of weeks, which made for an interesting way to live. We had no facilities, and we would have to go to a small river to take a bath. Two to bathe and three to stand guard, then switch. By the time we switched, there would be a large group of locals sitting on the bank watching us. They wanted our soap when we got done. Not the life for a modest person. This was an interesting six months in my life, and as I think back to those days, I have some great memories. Evan though this was a war zone, for this six months I was not involved in actual combat, just training and helping the locals with their war efforts. At this point I went on R&R and then to Nha Trang. I had served my time in the wilderness.


This is where I lived for the first six months
This is where the Montagnards lived

Montagnard woman coming home from the hills

In my next post I will tell some about R&R and the second half of my tour of duty.

4 November 2008

Election Day 2008, I hope that everyone voted today, and tomorrow it will be all over. Who knows what thefuture will bring, lets all hope for the best

above: at home in North Carolina

26 Dec 1967

When I left you yesterday, I was home on leave after OCS. While home I bought my first new car, not the one I wanted but the one my dad would let me buy. Of course I wanted a muscle car, after all it was 1967, but no, dad said that was not what I needed, so I got a Plymouth Barracuda fastback, 6 cyl, three speed transmission, great car but a slant 6 with no power.

After my leave I left to go to my first assignment at the Training Center at Fort Bragg, NC. With my new car loaded with everything I owned, headed south as I had arranged to pick up a friend in Georgetown which was an interesting story as I had never been to Georgetown or the D.C. area. I was to meet him(Bill Scot, more about him in later post) at a bar at 10;00PM. After driving around for about a hour I found the bar, the place was packed and I could not find Bill, after waiting about an hour I finally asked one of the workers if they had seen Bill, they said no, not for about a year. Great, got directions on how to get back to the interstate and again headed south. I arrived in Fayetteville and checked into a motel, whre several of us from OCS were to meet before checking in at the base.

I was assigned to a training company as a training officer, training new recruits. This was uneventful, work 12-14 hours a day 6-7 days a week. This was fine, I was young and single and very dedicated to my job. The biggest problem was we all needed a place to live, there was no base housing for single officers. I paired up with a friend from OCS, we found a block house not far from base, it was very small, one bedroom, bathroom, very small kitchen and a hall that was the living room. You could sit on the couch and rest your feet on the other wall...One bedroom and an extra mattress, we traded bed and mattress every other week. Not much fun but cheap, I think it was $45.00 month furnished. At that time I was making $282.00 a month. After a couple of months we moved in with a third friend who was living in a townhouse that was a real house.

While I was home, I had asked Nancy to marry me. We had a hard time finding a time to get married but finally decided on Dec 26, I had just enough time to drive to VT and get married and back to NC as I had duty and had to be there on time. Again there was no post housing so I found our first home, a single wide mobile home in a dirt lot trailer park. Yes, we started married life as "trailer trash". Nancy was not impressed with the "Honeymoon Suite" but it didn't last long, after a month we had post housing which was really nice, a three bedroom brick townhouse. Here there were many folks our age and friends were plenty. We had been there only about a month and I got my orders to go to Vietnam. I was sent to school there at Fort Bragg, had to learn to speak the language etc for eight weeks and then it was time to go. Not sure when it was but , Dad and Mom came for a visit, and they brought Charles and Marjorie Stender with them. I never thought dad would visit again after the trip to Kentucky....When I was to leave, I left from North Carolina, Nancy drove me and someone, whom I don't remember to Charlotte Airport, and I was off. She went back to our home and her sister Carol came down and helped her move back to Vermont. I was off to Vietnam and Nancy went back to UVM for another year.

My next post will be my arrival in Vietnam. Till then, good-bye....

3 November 2008

When I last left you, I had just got my orders to go to Fort Knox and start my next adventure, Officer Candidate School. I really didn't know what to expect at OCS, but when I found out, I really wondered if I had made the right decision. OCS was "book" learning, and a lot of psychological training. I'm sure most of you have heard about the hazing that goes on at our military academies, well we had the same program. Basically what they do is push you to see how much you can take before you crack. This went on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we started the program there were 140 young men in our class, six months later there were 71 or 72 that actually made it. An example of the harassment, when we were in line for a meal they would come and check our uniforms, if anything was wrong you would be sent to the attic (5th floor) to do 50 push ups, and if you didn't get back in line soon enough, they would send you back for more. Sometimes this would go on for the whole meal time and you would not have time to eat.

Our barracks were old and there were about 20 of us per room. Every day there was a inspection and anything out of place, you got demerits, get to many demerits and you had to do extra training or in some cases you were cut from the program. It was common for a TAC officer to come to your room at 1:00 in the morning and drag his boot across the floor, get you up and make you strip the wax and re wax the floor, a process that would take two to three hours. Again trying to get you to crack. I remember one week end we were told to paint the mess hall, we were told to paint it whatever color we wanted. It took us all weekend, Monday morning when the powers to be came in and saw a "pink" mess hall they went ballistic, and guess what, we all were on restriction and of course we repainted the room.....

We also had fun, it was the only way to make it through the program, we used to say,"what are they going to do, send us to Vietnam" we were going anyway. One of the games we played was to try and sneak food into our barracks. We couldn't go out so we would call and have food delivered. We established an elaborate plan to get the food in. Our plan was to have in delivered to a building across the street, where we had a cable stretched between the buildings and we would pull the food across into the attic , this worked fine some of the time. If we got caught, we paid. One night they made us go into the shower, turn on the cold water, and eat the food in the cold water, and do it very slowly. Another time we had pizza and they made us put the pizza face down on the floor and take a big round buffer and buff the floor with the pizza, then strip the wax and have it really for inspection. Oh, those were the days.

The longer you were in the program, the harassment got lighter and the last few weeks you were actually treated like humans. We even had a formal dance at some point. It was a big deal, Nancy actually came to attend with me. I was proud to make it through this program, not only was I one of youngest in my class, but also the only one that was not a college grad. Graduation was a big deal, Mom and Dad and Nancy came to the big event. Don't remember much about the graduation other than I got my commission and it said by order of the congress of the us I was deemed an Officer and Gentleman. On the way home, we had an experience that we know laugh about but at the time we all we quite scared. We were (mom,dad,Nancy and me) driving through Cincinnati when dad took a wrong turn, this was 11:00 at night, well this wrong turn took us downtown in the "black" section, every time we stopped at a stop light it appeared we would be done in. We couldn't stop and ask directions because we didn't dare roll down the window. And any of you that knew my dad, can just imagine what he was saying, not for little ears. Somehow we got out of there in one piece. I think dad said something like he was never going anywhere ever again. That was not a fun ride home....

Now I was a 2d lieutenant and about to continue my military career. Stay tuned for more tomorrow,

November 1 2008

lean, mean, fighting machine July 1966

When I left last time, I had just arrived in Fayetteville, NC. Fayetteville, NC is the home of the 82d Airborne, the 5th Special Forces Group and in 1966 The United States Army Training Center. Of course this was at the height of the Vietnam Conflict and they were training new recruits everywhere. We were put in Army trucks and taken to the post, were we found a new home in old wooden barracks that held 60 new young army men, two story buildings with 30 on each floor. 15 bunks on each side of a very big room. At about 2:30 AM I was told to go upstairs, find an empty bunk and go to sleep, as morning would start at 0530. The were telling the truth, at 5:30 the lights came on and a Drill Sargent started talking in a very load voice. As jumped out of my bunk, I looking around the room and to my surprise and fear I was the only "white boy" in the room. This should not have bothered me, but being a small town Vermont boy, I was among people I had really never seen and never been around. After a week or so, I was moved to a more integrated barracks and I was able to sleep better. I was starting to wonder about the Army and wondering if I had made a mistake.

Things went ok after that and I proceeded through the fun and games of basic training, Long walks through the sand hills of North Carolina in 100 degree heat, learning to shoot guns, how to take them apart and but them back together in record time. Learning that most of us have two left feet when in comes to marching in formation. Hand to Hand combat, beating up each other, and when you only weigh in at 110 lbs, you are the one getting beat up. About four weeks into the eight week program I was told to report to the Company Commander, I thought I was in trouble, because a trainee didn't see an Officer unless you were in trouble. Well, I wasn't in trouble, he asked me if I would like to go to OCS. I didn't know what it was, had no idea but assumed it wasn't anything good. He went on to tell me that I had done very well on some test the army made me take and I had potential and the army was going to help me. That made me really wonder what was up. OCS, was Officer's Candidate School. He explained to me that you go to school for six months and if you make it through you get a commission as a 2d Lieutenant. But if I went to OCS I would have to give up my Fire Control Computer repair school that I had been guaranteed. What to do, I had been in the army 4 weeks and already realized that things are much better if you are an officer, so I said okay, but then I found out it wasn't that easy, more tests, interview by a board of officers. I had to give up my school, with nothing saying I would pass the tests and interview, but I thought it was worth the chance. I made it, everything was approved and I was told I had made to the program. I made it through the rest of basic training and was given leave to go home before moving on. I remember going home in my Army dress uniform, proud that I had made it. After my stay at home, I was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington for advanced individual training, another eight weeks of basically the same except harder and instead of hot sand to walk and run in, I had cold and rain. It rained every day I was out there. Cold, rain, and swamp, not a lot of fun. Not much happened out there, got to go to Seattle once on a weekend pass, all I remember about Seattle was that it was very clean. While there I found out that if I did not make it through OCS, I would be a 11B, combat infantryman, and would get a very quick ticket to Vietnam, that was an incentive to make it through. I finally got my orders for OCS and I was very surprised to find that I was going to Fort Knox, Ky for Armor OCS. Most everyone at that time was going to Ft Benning Ga for Infantry training, I guess that was my first lucky break.

The next installment will pick up at Fort Knox and the fun and games there.