My First Week in Vung Tau

I arrived in Vung Tau towards the end of June 1966. Before we landed I had no idea where we were going. I did not know what to expect. While still in the plane, I was looking towards the back where I could see below the country of Vietnam. I was holding on to something so that I would not slide out of the plane.

When we landed, we walked into a small one room hut surrounded by sand bags... where a sergeant started to proceed with an orientation. He was telling us, for about an hour, how to behave in Vietnam. Eventually, he said something like, "I do not associate myself much with the natives here. I just go downtown once a week to get a massage and a beer. Otherwise, I stay away from them." I didn't know if I should believe my ears.

Then we checked into our battalion. That evening I loaded (drank) myself with plenty of beer because I figured sleeping outside will not be pleasant. I was right. I noticed in the morning, that the small area on my hand which was not covered, contained about 100 mosquito bites.

After that they placed us in the first building next to where we landed. It was located on the main street which ran perpendicular to the road that lead to the Main Gate and downtown Vung Tau. This building was made of bricks and cement and contained two large rooms. They could not get me one of those steel beds, so I got to sleep on a cot.

I woke up at night because there was a lot of noise. A guy by the name of Brooks, and another guy called Desaro, were fighting each other. I do not know if they were drunk, but it looked like a Godzilla and Motra in a battle. Then they fell on my cot and crushed it. Later I found out from my future wife who worked with Desaro that these two guys were always fighting.

In the morning I was trying to get another bed but I was not very lucky. One man, his name was Leatham (or Leathan), told me I could sleep on his bed, so I was pretty happy. The next night, someone was checking who sleeps in the bed I was in, and they sent me to the first sergeant who chewed me out. Leatham used me so that he could spend the night in Vung Tau without being detected. This man was always trying to get me into trouble. He had been in Vung Tau several years and had kids with a woman but was not married to her.

That week I gave my laundry to a papa-son and I never saw them again. When I complained to the 1st SGT, he listened and then he said, "How did I get into the laundry business?" - and that was all the help I got. I realized I had to take care of myself. This place was like the "Wild West." Anything went as long you got away with it.

The second or third night, there was some kind of alarm and everyone ran out of the building. I said to myself, "to hell with this" and stayed in. I figured if they are stupid enough to run around at night and get themselves shot, that is their problem. I'm going to stay where I am and get some sleep.

It seems like everybody was going downtown at night during those days, so when a man by the name of Cobb told me he was going to take me into Vung Tau, I agreed. We arrived by lambretta and went directly into a bar. As I'm drinking my beer... I look to the other side and there is this pitifully looking woman staring at me. I told Cobb, "Lets get out of here." We got out and went right into another bar. There... the women were just too daring so I departed, leaving him behind. There was some kid on a motorcycle riding by and he took me back to the Main Gate. The next day, Cobb told me all the things he was doing the previous night in Vung Tau... I thought to myself, and I stayed away from him.

Also that week, I got my first driving license after driving a truck for 10 minutes. As a result of this quick education, I used the clutch as an accelerator for few days and I was killing the engine until I figured out what was wrong and corrected the situation. I got a speeding ticket from the MP's, but what did that mean in the Wild West? The commanding officer signed it like all those hundreds of other things that needed to be signed.

After being told to change the oil, I drove to the motor pool and parked my truck. After I removed the screw under the oil tank and let the oil run into the sand I saw this one old Vietnamese. He had a big cross around his neck. They called him the "Creeping Jesus." I tried to talk to him but it was difficult. I think the first week I looked "beefed up" while everybody looked shrunken, especially the Vietnamese. Only after I lost about 40 pounds I looked like everybody else.

After this first week I got used to just about anything. Nothing bothered me until the time I decided to get married there. Well that is another story.

In 1966, Vung Tau was like a "cherry town." I remember almost everyone was going downtown every evening to have a good time. Later on, things changed. All the "party animals" in the bars were getting tired... and there were more regulations to obey and all that "wild west" was gone.

I had a camera when I arrived in Vung Tau, but the first day someone borrowed it, and I never saw it again. I was busy... and didn't have time to buy another one. So all the pictures I have were made by someone else.

Company Clerk

Those 360 people in the 73rd certainly gave me plenty of work to do. At least I didn't have to type those silly commodation reports. They used to be typed by SP5 ____ or Miss My. That was a lot of typing every time some officer got another Oak Leaf Cluster or Purple Heart. The company safe was full of those medals.

Then... when Miss My quit, SP4 ____ was typing this. They would not make him SP5 because he used to make fun out of that. CPT ____ chewed him up few times.

The memories of all those Article 15's would be fun to publish, but not prudent to do. I had a list of all 360 people (with addresses), but I threw that away about 20 years ago. After creating some 700 Morning Reports over a period of 2 years I did not want to know anything about anybody.

Morning Reports

A Morning Report is a one or more pages of specific form (Form 1 of US Army) which you prepare every day for the commanding officer to sign early in the morning (when he gets into the Orderly Room).

On the top it contains a lot of numbers like how many people are in the company, on R&R, on leave or special leave, how many arrived and left the company that day, etc. It separates them by ranks. Below are all the details like names, numbers, where they went ... like R&R to Bangkok, etc.

I used to get a big kick out of people who went on a 30 day special leave and never came back. We, in the Orderly Room did not have the time to be tracing everyone and going back several months to find out who left and did not come back. Only when the appropriate SGT came in looking for his man, did we start checking.

Anyway, the Morning Report contained all the data about people in the company. It used to be very cryptic and there was a regulation as to how it was to be filled out. Later on, they simplified it a bit, but you still had to put in a lot of abbreviations like MOS, DEROS (Departure to US), CONUS (Continental US), etc.

When I first took over this MR job, it was all screwed up. None of those numbers matched. It looked like we had about 50 more people on record than in reality. The reason for this was that SP4 ____ would spend nights in Vung Tau bars, then crawl back in the morning, and while typing the MR he would fall asleep.

I had to make a one time fix and explain to the above battalion, group, brigade, etc., why all of a sudden we lost some 50 people. Then our commanding officer had to sign this fix which made him look like a fool. I don't want to mention his name here.

One thing about these morning reports is that you could not make a typing mistake. If you did, you had to retype the whole thing. So there was usually a pile of retyped morning reports in the waste basket. One day 1st SGT ____ blew his top when he found these reports in the waste basket. You see any mama-son or papa- son wondering around could find out how many GI's were in the 73rd Company just by pulling one of those MR's from the waste basket. So we had to burn all that stuff.

After the MR's were signed by the CO, they then went to the 222nd Battalion, then to Aviation Group, then to Aviation Brigade, and so on. I suppose they eventually ended up in Washington, D.C. somewhere. Somebody up there was feeding computers with all that data. This is enough about MR's.

Getting Married in Vietnam

I can probably write a dozen pages about the procedure of getting married in Vietnam during those days. I have about 50 pages of documents to back this up, everything from MACV documents to application forms. Unfortunately these contain signatures of officers up to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) Headquarters in Saigon. It would be interesting for those GI's who wanted to get married to know what they had to go through. As I remember, the statistics were that only 100 marriages were allowed in 1967 when there were 500,000+ Americans in Vietnam. Some GI's came to me for help during those 2 years, but I did not have time. I was struggling with my own case. This subject will be expanded on - on this WWW site. Stay tuned!!

TET in Vung Tau

There was not really much action in Vung Tau during "TET 1968." I remember it was towards the end of February that we all woke up at night. I heard several "bangs" and everybody was rushing into those bunkers we built between the huts (hooches). These were made of steel rails and sand bags. The rails were just like the ones they used to make runways.

So everybody was running into these bunkers, in their underwear. I did not feel like going... but they made sure everyone got there. I was hoping they would give us weapons, but they did not. I suppose we would do more harm to each other if we had rifles.

In the morning, as I was driving to Vung Tau to post guards, I saw that one of the planes was burned. It was either hit or they tried to blow it up. Some of our men found pieces of Russian made rockets and kept them as trophies.

That day I saw U.S. jets bombing the big hill north of us - it was the larger of two hills that Highway 15 wraps around. Apparently this was the place from which VC's were firing their rockets.

Even though this was about all there was to TET in Vung Tau, I could not see my wife for about a month. The town was OFF LIMITS! When I was finally allowed to see her, she was not in her apartment. After talking to Vietnamese women living around the area, they led me to a small house at the intersection of Le Hong Phong St., Bacu St., and Truang Cong Dinh St. (from this point you could go directly to the airport). Inside this small house was my wife with Jackie (my daughter - an infant). It was one of the happiest days in my life.

It is interesting to note that hospital cost was $50 when Jackie was born. When my son was born a year later, the hospital cost was $1,400 in the U.S. I could hardly afford it back in the 60's.

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EDITORS NOTE: The information and images on this page have been provided courtesy of George Krejci. Thank you George! George has provided me with additional stories and images about his experiences in Vietnam. As time allows, they will be posted and linked to this page one at a time.

From my experience with all of this, as the editor of this page... I've found that the best kind of "stories" come from casual e-mail, rather than "staged" and well thought out essays. Most of the text content on this WWW page has been pieced together from "casual e-mail." The e-mail stories seem to be more down to earth and can be related to better. I look forward to hearing from other "73d Aviation Company" past members with their comments and stories.

END EDITORS NOTE

George's Photo Album

Orderly Room
This photo contains everybody working in the Orderly Room, including myself and also the mail clerks.

"...clerks doing physical work!"
This picture shows me (George) and my associate clerk Pancake (man who helped to prepare the 1967 or 1968 report you have on the WEB) carrying sand bags. Imagine clerks doing physical work! Notice I&I van and flight line hanger in background.

Sand Bag Detail
I think I'd rather be at the beach... sitting under an umbrella, sipping on something COLD!

Operations
73d Aviation Company "Operations," in middle of pic.

George Krejci
73d Aviation Company
georgekrejci@worldnet.att.net

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Disclaimer

No restricted and/or classified information is contained herein. This home page and web site have been constructed and will be maintained entirely by the author, and the author is responsible for the contents and accuracy of this site. The contents of this page have not been reviewed, approved, or monitored by the United States Army, nor is this page and/or it's contents a representation of such. All comments, questions, and concerns should be directed to the author - John E. Akers

Credits

The proceeding story was written, in its entirety, by George Krejci (SP-5), 73rd Surveillance Airplane Company (SAC), 1966-1968

Copyright © 1998-2001, 2002, John E. Akers, All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 1998-2001, 2002, George Krejci, All Rights Reserved.

Maintained by:

John E. Akers

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Last update: October 11, 2002