DaNang

Life on base was a bit like "Mash"

When we got to DaNang all of the F-4 fighters had left for Nakhon Phanom (NKP), Thailand and DaNang was probably somewhat deserted.

Those first few days at DaNang we wandered around and we scrounged up our own jeep, refrigerator, stereo and TV. TV was broadcast from Monkey Mountain... AFVN... Armed Forces Vietnam Network... think "Good Morning Vietnam". We did get the evening news and we would watch it just about every night.  The Peace Talks in Paris would always lead the news. The news would always end the same... You couldn't help being furious with Washington D.C.

We held out hope for a ceasefire.  We didn't worry so much about dying, but no one wanted to be the last one to die in a idiotic war.  Somebody is always the last one to die... 

When the news was over we would drink more beer and play darts.  Eventually the night would end with music and a photo of Jane Fonda at an Anti-aircraft gun site in Hanoi... we put her in the center of our dart board and used her for practice... we considered her a traitor... more about her later.

At DaNang things were rationed.  We actually got ration cards.  You were allowed 1 case of beer and 2 fifths of alcohol per month.  We did have a Base Exchange about the size of a convenience store but the shelves were usually pretty empty.  I was always elated when I found something like Ritz crackers in there.  You could buy beer and coke there and it wasn't rationed.  Beer was 16 cents and coke was 25 cents... so to conserve our limited funds... we bought beer.  Our full sized refrigerator was completely full of beer. 

When we needed things we weren't authorized to have we could always barter with our ration cards.  Gas for our non-authorized jeep... no problem...

We had two restaurants and a mess hall.  One of the restaurants was Vietnamese (HA)... I went there once... it wasn't edible.  There was a small Officers Club and with it a small restaurant... they didn't have much and when you asked for... lets say a hamburger... the usual reply was "No Hob"... for "no have".  We always asked for what they didn't have just to hear them say "no hob".  So we called that place  "The No Hob".  

Our barracks had a couple of washing machines on for washing clothes.  A Vietnamese lady would get your dirty clothes bag from the hall way outside our door and wash your clothes and return them folded.  We provided the soap to wash them... but in a short while everything white was turning brown... We thought she was taking the soap home.  Some guys were leaving their boots in the hall way too... the next morning they would be shined.  Of course we paid for this service, but you felt like you were helping them in some way. We certainly didn't care about shined boots.

I only remember eating breakfast.  I would get up at 4:30 every morning and wander down to the mess hall and pound on the door.  They would open up for aircrews and they would cook anything you wanted for breakfast.  The eggs were always scrambled because they were powdered eggs.  So I ate a huge breakfast every morning.  After that I would go to the Intelligence building and get briefed on what was going on.  

The next stop was the armory.  Where I checked out a 38 revolver and strapped it low on my thigh... just like a gunslinger...  it also kept the gun out of the way while flying.  There was a big barrel of loose bullets and you grabbed hands full of bullets and crammed as many extra into your pockets as you could walk with. We all talked big about a shootout to avoid capture... after being shot down... but we would save the last  bullet for ourselves.

We also got our hand held survival radio and spare batteries.  I always carried 2 bottles of frozen water in my lower leg pockets of my flight suit.  I am sure we looked like the Michelin Man when we went to fly.   

After all that I was on my own... off to fly before sunrise.