ASSORTED PICS

No caption really needed.  The labels are microscope slide labels. I got so I could write the Lord’s Prayer on one of those 3/4-inch square labels.

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Huey helicopter outfitted with spraying equipment and used by the 20th to spray Malathion insecticide for mosquito control.  Photo by Phil Elkins

The Malathion and agent orange spray plane, Patches.  The plane was so contaminated that it had to sit for years before it could go on display after the war.  You can buy Malathion yet today.  If you do, follow all of the precautions as, among other things, it can cause permanent brain damage.  Thanks to Len Mathe for this photo.

Stateside training included a 5-day bivouac. Here trainees work to identify disease vectors.

This is a miniature I drew (4″x4″). The tree has three fruit representing myself and brothers, two who went to Nam and one who also served. The dragon is for Vietnam, the caduceus for my medical unit, the broken symbols for broken peace and the hour glass for the time that went on and on. The central image shows an explosion, a rice paddy, and the all-seeing eye shedding a tear on graves. The year 1968 is in Roman numerals.

I took leave to visit a training buddy, Jim Phillips*, who was stationed in Japan. He took me on a motorcycle ride to see Mt. Fuji. Credit for the photo goes to Jim.
*Jim was Greek. When I asked him how he ended up with the name ‘Phillips’, he said “Well … it used to be Phillapos.”

Not a lot of ribbons, but then we were a medical unit. Rank came, for me, rather easy and I was able to make Specialist 5/E5 long before leaving the country (the equivalent of WWII’s “technical sergeant”).

I left Vietnam around 2:00 a.m. Christmas morning in 1968 and arrived in Oakland, California on the afternoon of Christmas Eve day, 1968. I was not only returning home, I was processing out of the Army as well.  There was an “early out” rule that if one had less than 6 months left to serve one could be discharged.  I had extended my tour to get inside that 6 months. I was not alone in this group.

I couldn’t resist uploading this shot. I had taken a leave to spend a few days with a training buddy who got stationed in Japan, and he went out of his way to take me by this fruit stand on his motorcycle.

Everyone looked forward to the day they’d get to board a “freedom bird” to go home. Here one approaches landing at Bien Hoa airbase. Due to the danger of enemy fire, planes came in steeply and leveled off at the last minute; ditto taking off.  The runway was 10,000 feet long to allow stubby-winged fighter jets to get up to high speed and jet liners would stay on the runway as well to get as much speed as possible for a steep climb when leaving.  The fighter craft would kick in their afterburners and go vertical on takeoff.

All packed up to go home. I just made the weight limit to ship home my stereo gear and other items.  (The duffle bags was additional “carry on” luggage.)  The loose items were being left behind, most of them promised to others who were staying, or left to be scrounged up by whoever.

This ingenious Montagnard mouse trap used a bow-like mechanism to clamp down on the necks of rodents that came to feed on bait.

The local reception station was in Long Binh.  Troops would arrive at Bien Hoa airbase and get bussed to Long Binh for processing.  Both arriving replacements and those going home passed through the replacement station at Long Binh.  One’s body and soul got dirty in Vietnam, and it was easy to tell by looking at troops who was arriving and who was leaving.

At last: Troops kick back on a freedom bird bound for home.  We had an anxious moment on my plane.  A steward came down the isle and told the stewardesses that the captain wanted to see them in the cabin IMMEDIATELY.  Shortly thereafter, the steward came down the aisle and opened an overhead compartment that revealed a life boat.  “NOT NOW!” was the thought.  As it turned out, the captain wanted to chew out the stewardesses for partying with troops at the back of the plane, and the steward was looking for the overhead projector for an in-flight movie.  Phew!

My buddy and I scrounged up some wood, a fluorescent fixture, fixed a broken light switch we found lying in the dirt, and made this double-sided desk to give to each other on Christmas Eve, 1967. A lot of letters were written there.  John ‘Igor’ Petric and I read Tolkien and smoked pipe tobacco we had shipped to us.  I tried for decades to find him.  Bruce Hoff finally did.  Unfortunately, it was through an obituary.  John passed away in April of 2014.

Yours truly checking the M-60 machine gun in a bunker on base perimeter guard (called “berm guard” for the dirt mound with embedded bunkers).  Non-coms were first trained as combat medics and then sent to preventive medicine school at Fort Sam Houston.  Being in a medical unit, we could only man defensive positions per the Geneva Convention.

We had our own well and water processing plant.  It was the best water I’ve ever tasted.  I would drink it just for the flavor even if I wasn’t thirsty.

Choppers would carry water trailers to fire bases in the bush.  I have a shot of one in our motor pool, used to wash vehicles.  The funny thing is that the trailer was labeled “Non-portable water“.  Whoever lettered it meant non-potable but the fact that it was missing its wheels made it accurate anyway.

“Short” meant going home soon. This is one ‘short’ troop!

During the monsoon season, the compound became a mud pit.  We were fortunate enough to have “access” (read “scrounging from other units”) to wood and cement to make at least some walkways.

A game of ‘Mortar’:  The idea was to yell “incoming” at random times, toss a flip-flop into a ceiling fan, and see who got hit.  Those flip-flops were ejected FAST and could sting.

Bien Hoa base was sprawling and had essentially wild areas:  Old French bunkers, lots of barbed wire, unexploded ordinance, and green tree vipers.  There were many compounds within the base, each with its own defensive perimeter.  This is an intentional double exposure of the 20th’s perimeter at sunset.