Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright©
2016 by Robert B. Martin, IV
All
Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express
written permission from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate
events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them.
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Chapter 24
I Arrive at Camp Eagle
“The
Prospect of going home is very appealing”…..….David Ginola
Later that day we landed in Phu Bai, located near Camp Eagle in Thua Thien Province. Phu Bai was situated on South Vietnam's QL-1 (National
Route 1), a major North-South highway extending through South Vietnam. From
there I was trucked a short two or three miles down QL-1 to the Camp Eagle
turnoff and three more miles to Camp Eagle.
Camp Eagle, the base
camp for the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), was situated four
miles South-Southeast of the ancient
city of Hue and six miles West of Phu Bai in Northern I Corps. The
DMZ, an imaginary line dividing North and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel,
was only thirty-nine miles north of Camp Eagle.
I was dropped off at the headquarters
of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Field Artillery Regiment,
2/11th Arty for short. The motto on the battalion crest was “On Time,”
referring to placing artillery rounds on target, on time. I stood in the dust
with my gear and watched the truck as it drove off.
I was standing on one of the highest
points of Camp Eagle and could easily see mountain ranges across the DMZ in
North Vietnam. Camp Eagle was huge. It covered 3,150 acres.
The government of South Vietnam had
evicted all people from a village and surrounding farmland and had even moved a
cemetery to make room for the construction of Camp Eagle. Apparently not all of
the graves were moved as there were still a few in the area, which did not make
us tremendously popular with the locals. The Buddhist religion includes
ancestor worship and cemeteries were especially hallowed ground.
Standing on that hill and squinting
into the sun turned the landscape into a big black, brown, and red blur. There
were hundreds of black hooches (buildings) made of wood, wire screen, and tin. The
hooches stood on ground devoid of plant life. All of the surrounding land was
barren. There were no trees, no grass, no weeds, or any other kind of living
plant thanks to Agent Orange. The absence of vegetation revealed only brown
dirt and red clay. It created an invasive dry dust during the dry season and
sticky mud in the rainy season.
It was August and the dry season. The
sun was bright and the temperature close to 100°F when I arrived at
Camp Eagle. The low temperature of the day would not come until just before
sunrise each morning and it would still be in the 70’s. Rain was almost
non-existent at Camp Eagle this time of the year.
After my quick survey of the area I turned
around and entered the battalion CP (Command Post). The personnel officer to
whom I reported was a captain, who, as it turned out, was also a University of
Georgia graduate. He welcomed me to the 2/11th and then informed me
I was out of uniform. The “booney” hat I had purchased in Long Binh was not regulation and could only be worn when out in
the field. We REMF’S (Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers; a derogatory term for
soldiers who stayed in the relatively safe rear areas) were required to wear
the stupid looking government-issue ball cap. He waited for me to open my duffle
bag and swap out my headgear before continuing with his orientation.
He looked over a copy of my orders and when
he saw that my MOS was 13E20 he immediately informed me that the battalion did
not need any 13E20’s, they had plenty, thank you (as if it were my fault that I
had managed to get myself assigned to his battalion). Why had I been sent here
from the repo depot if a 13E20 had not been requested? With a resigned sigh, he
asked what else I could do. What else could I do? I started to tell him that after
all of the thousands of dollars Uncle Sam had spent to train me in Fire
Direction Control I was not allowed to do anything else. However, seeing this
as a golden opportunity, I quickly told him I was a pharmacist. This only
seemed to confuse him more and he remarked that an artillery battalion had no
need of a pharmacist. Surely, I thought, he will send me to work in a hospital
if they don’t need me. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and I could almost see the
light bulb of an idea glowing above his head.
“YOU CAN TYPE, CAN’T YOU!” he almost
shouted.
“Of course,” I replied, as if it was a stupid
question. Didn’t everyone take typing in high school? Apparently there were
only one or two people in all of Vietnam who had done so. With this new and
important knowledge, he proudly dubbed me the new replacement for the Headquarters
and Headquarters Battery (H&HB) clerk who would be going home soon. I was
told to report to 1SG (First Sergeant) Driver, also known as “Top” or the “First
Shirt,” and given directions to the H&HB Command Post (CP) just down the
“street.” The entire battalion was located on the hill and the H&HB CP was
only a short walk. As I turned and started to leave battalion headquarters I spotted
Gary Simon, a buddy from my Fire Direction Control AIT class. He was another
13E20-trained college graduate that Uncle Sam had spent thousands of dollars
training as a Fire Direction Control Specialist. He was now the battalion’s mimeograph
machine operator. Gary had been in Vietnam about six weeks already. If I hadn’t
been assigned TDY at Fort Mac, I would have probably come over with him. It was
good to see a familiar face. It was the first since graduation from AIT. I had
seen no familiar faces while on TDY at Fort Mac or during my travel from
Atlanta to Camp Eagle.
The normal tour of duty in Vietnam was
twelve months. The way new “cherries” were assigned to replace casualties and
“short timers” who went home made some units seem like they had revolving
doors. There was very little unit cohesiveness, or “esprit de corps,” as a
result of this rotation policy.
The rotation policy also caused problems
with leadership. Officers sent to Vietnam needed to chalk up leadership time in
both combat and noncombat assignments for promotions and career advancement.
Most served in an assignment for only six months at a time. They might serve
six months with a combat unit followed by six months in an administrative or
service assignment. It could also mean two different combat assignments if they
were unlucky, or two back-to-back rear echelon jobs if they were lucky
(depending on how they looked at it). Once they began to get the hang of a job
and the troops got used to them, they were transferred out and replaced by
another green officer needing the experience. These constant changes in
leadership were especially tough on the enlisted men. During my tour in Vietnam
I served under at least two, and possibly three, Battalion Commanders, four
Battery Commanders, and two First Sergeants. It took some time to get used to
each change because each individual had a different way of doing things.
It was even said that officers,
especially those of “field grade” (Major and above), would put themselves in
for medals and awards at the end of their tour in order to enhance their career
and ensure promotions. However, this was only a rumor, but I wouldn’t be
surprised to learn it was true for some.
The twelve-month tour of duty could be
voluntarily extended if desired. Most extensions were for the purpose of
receiving an “early out” from the Army. A soldier would be released from
service if he returned to the World with only a hundred and fifty days or less
remaining on his term of service. It was cheaper for Uncle Sam to release the
soldier than to send him home on a thirty-day leave and then assign him to a
permanent duty station with such a short time remaining to serve. I made the
decision to extend my tour so that I would be down to one hundred and fifty
days remaining to serve on the day I returned to the World. That increased my
tour of duty in Vietnam from 365 to 404 days.
Very soon after my arrival in Vietnam I
was promoted to PFC (Private First Class - E-3) and received a raise in pay
from $103.00 per month to $127.80 a month. But that wasn’t all. The $60.00
dependent’s allowance that Uncle Sam added to my $40.00 and sent to my wife
each month increased to $90.60. My monthly pay also included $16.00 foreign
duty pay and $65.00 hostile fire pay (about $2.00 a day for being in a combat
zone). I continued to draw only $40.00 a month in MPC with the balance of my
pay sent home. The $40 went much further in Vietnam than it had in the US.
There wasn’t much to spend money on in Vietnam and everything was dirt-cheap.
The villages were off limits to members of the 101st and I didn’t gamble. About
the only thing left to spend my money on was the 3.2% beer. Beer was ten cents
a can and soft drinks were fifteen cents a can (go figure) when I first arrived.
Beer prices were raised to fifteen cents a can soon after my arrival. But $40
will still buy a lot of beer at those prices!
Continued
in Chapter 25, My New Home and Job…
