By Larry Hertzberg
During the summer after my freshman year of college, I stayed at home, doing little more than hanging out with friends, drinking, shooting pool, and chasing girls. Truth be told, those were the main reasons I had gone to college in the first place.
One evening in August 1963, just before Labor Day, my dad asked if I planned to return to school. I told him I wasn’t sure. His response was blunt: “I’ll tell you what you’re not going to do—you’re not going to lie around here on your ass. I want you out of the house in two weeks.”
I knew he meant it. A week later, I went down to the Post Office in my hometown of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, planning to enlist in the Coast Guard. But the recruiter was gone for two weeks. I didn’t have that kind of time, so I walked across the hall and enlisted in the United States Army instead.
On September 11, 1963, in Raleigh, I raised my right hand and was inducted into the Army. The next day, I was on a bus to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for basic training. Eight weeks later, I boarded a train north—farther north than I’d ever been—to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, home of the Army Security Agency Training Center and School.
For a southern boy who had never been past Richmond, Virginia, Massachusetts was a shock. The people talked funny, and I couldn’t tell the difference between a milkshake and what they called a “frappe.”
The Army decided I was best suited to be a Radio Direction-Finding Plotter, MOS 986. In the Army Security Agency (ASA), that meant using specialized equipment to pinpoint the direction of radio transmissions—a skill that would later be reclassified as MOS 05D.
On the first day of class, our instructor told us that the top student usually got his choice of duty station. I wanted Germany first, Japan second. I buckled down, studied hard, and finished first in the class.
In March 1964, I finished first in my class at the U.S. Army Security Agency (ASA) School at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. I graduated as a Radio Direction-Finding Plotter—MOS 986. My specialty was locating radio transmitters by triangulating the direction of signals received at two or more sites.
From Fort Devens I was ordered to the 330th ASA Company at Fort Wolters, Texas. It didn’t take long to learn a few things about my new unit.
First, I was just about the only “NUG”—New Useless Guy—there. The rest were either “lifers,” career soldiers who had settled into the Army for good, or short-timers counting the days until discharge after overseas assignments. Many of those short-timers carried an “FTA” attitude—anti-Army, cynical, and eager to get home. It was an eclectic bunch.
Second, the 330th had a serious mission. We were a Type A Company, which meant we had specialists in nearly every ASA job. Operations never stopped—we ran three rotating shifts around the clock: days, swings, and mids. I worked the third trick, which we proudly called the “Third Herd.” We even had membership cards. Off duty, we rented a house in town where we pursued the traditional diversions of young soldiers: wine, women, and song.
Finally, the 330th was part of STRAC—the Strategic Army Corps—which meant we had to be ready to deploy anywhere at a moment’s notice. All our top-secret equipment was mounted on wheels for quick movement. From 1964 through 1966, we were repeatedly called out to the “boonies” for field exercises.
In May 1964, we joined Operation Desert Strike, the largest joint-service exercise since World War II. We convoyed from Fort Wolters to Arizona and set up south of Kingman. For three weeks we lived in pup tents and carried out our mission under desert conditions. Rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, and scorpions were everywhere. We made a habit of shaking out our boots and checking our sleeping bags before crawling in.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, we were ordered to pack up, move to another remote location, and set up again for a few days. We also trained with the 1st Armored Division during exercises at Fort Hood, Texas.
Along with field training, I spent much time on TDY—temporary duty. The 330th had a detachment at a closed air base near Mission, Texas, and I rotated down there several times. It was good duty—close to Mexico, where we could cross the border for recreation. I also spent a month at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, testing direction-finding equipment in the desert by day and slipping into Tucson or across the border by night. Later, I was sent for six months to Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia, to test new gear being developed for Vietnam.
By spring 1965, the mood at Fort Wolters began to shift. The post was home to the U.S. Army Primary Helicopter School, and activity there intensified. Nearly every helicopter pilot bound for Vietnam trained at Wolters. The 864th Engineer Battalion, also stationed there, shipped out in May. That July, my MOS changed from 986 (Plotter) to 054 (Analyst). By October, it shifted again to 05D (Direction-Finding). The new MOS required proficiency in Morse code—copying and sending—but I hadn’t been trained in it. I couldn’t tell an A from a Z, though I did know what “FTA” meant.
In January 1966, Headquarters Company of the 303rd ASA Battalion received orders for Vietnam and left in April. We knew we were next. Sure enough, in May 1966 the 330th got its orders. On August 2, we shipped out.
We boarded the USNS General Hugh J. Gaffey in Oakland, California, for what was jokingly called an “18-day luxury cruise” to Vietnam. As a noncommissioned officer, I was assigned a cabin with two other sergeants. Ours was the farthest aft, with a porthole that gave us fresh air and a view of the propellers churning the water when the seas were rough. We even had our own shower. Poker and craps games ran constantly in our cabin.
I remember sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. I remember men turning green with seasickness. I remember others sitting on deck pounding the rims of silver quarters with spoons until the edges flattened, then cutting out the centers to make finger rings. An infantry unit on board practiced firing their new M16s off the stern until the captain threatened to shut off the fresh-water showers and switch us to seawater. Below deck, in the August heat, the showers were already running 24 hours a day. We also crossed the International Date Line, another milestone of the voyage.
And then there’s the part I only partly remember. Early in the trip, my cabinmates and I befriended some Navy crewmen who joined our gambling games. They tipped us off that the ship would dock overnight at Okinawa to refuel and resupply. Army troops weren’t supposed to disembark, but the sailors invited us ashore. We pulled on civilian clothes and followed them to the Kadena Air Base NCO Club—arriving just in time for happy hour. I started with double Scotch on the rocks and ended up falling-down drunk. When it was time to return, I declared I wasn’t going back to Vietnam. That didn’t go over well. My buddies literally dragged and carried me back aboard. When I came to the next afternoon, I was bruised, bloodied, and filthy—but at least we hadn’t been caught.
A few days after the Okinawa adventure, our ship anchored in Qui Nhon Harbor. We climbed down into Navy landing craft with our duffel bags and weapons and made for the shore—“hitting the beach,” as they said. Buses were waiting to haul us to an airfield, where we boarded a C-130 cargo plane. There were no seats in the bay; we were the cargo. After landing at Pleiku Air Base, we sat for hours before trucks finally took us to our destination: Engineer Hill, just north of the base.
What greeted us there was nothing but a vacant field. All of our equipment—tents, vehicles, everything—had been loaded onto the wrong ship and ended up in Italy. FUBAR. We had only what we carried off the transport: weapons, duffel bags, and packs. Pup tents and entrenching tools became essential. The company’s “midnight requisition specialists” begged, borrowed, and otherwise scrounged what they could. But without our gear, the 330th couldn’t do the job we had been sent to Vietnam to do.
About five days later, I caught a break. I received TDY orders to the 8th Radio Research Unit at Phu Bai for about thirty days. They needed a DF Plotter. The men there lived in air-conditioned trailers with real beds. The NCO club served hamburgers and beer. I was working in my MOS, and life, for once, was good.
I returned to Engineer Hill near the end of September. Conditions had improved. We were now quartered in GP medium tents with cots—no more pup tents. Wooden floors hadn’t yet been built, so we lived on bare red dirt. In the rainy season, the dirt turned to sticky red mud. In the dry, it became fine dust that blew into our food as we stood in the chow line. I pretended it was pepper. Eventually, wooden floors were installed, which made life more bearable.
The company area left its own memories. For latrines, we had “piss tubes” for number one and outhouses for number two. The outhouses were built over 55-gallon drums cut in half. Every day, the contents had to be burned with diesel fuel. Officers and NCOs had their own facilities, separate from those of the enlisted men. We described the latrines by size: one-holers, two-holers, three-holers, and so on.
At night, the Pleiku Air Base runway sometimes took mortar fire. A few of us, fueled by alcohol, would climb onto the outhouses and clap when the rounds hit the runway. But when mortar rounds landed in our company area, there was no clapping. I also remember the blood-curdling screams from the latrine direction when someone returned from town without taking proper precautions with his “girlfriend.” A dose of penicillin was usually in order.
The rats were constant. For a while, we had a python living in the trench around our tent for rat control. We also invented a game called “flamethrower.” As soon as the lights went out, rats began scampering. On my signal, someone would flip the lights back on, and I’d hit them with a squirt of Zippo lighter fluid through the flame of my Zippo. The result: a ball of fire racing out of the tent—one less rat. Mosquito nets were more useful for keeping the rats off our bunks than for blocking mosquitoes.
Other moments stand out. One night, when the perimeter came under attack, the company commander ordered us to open fire before a blacked-out Huey helicopter had cleared our line of fire. He was relieved of command the next day. I recall Martha Raye performing a USO show right in our company area. I also remember a battery of 155mm self-propelled howitzers parked nearby for several days. Their blasts were so sudden and powerful there was no way to prepare for them. Since we worked round the clock, some of us were always trying to sleep—and those guns made it impossible.
At some point during my tour I was assigned as a courier for classified materials. For me, it felt like a string of in-country R&Rs. The company clerk would sign the commanding officer’s name on my travel orders, and off I went to Pleiku Air Base to hitch a ride to wherever the documents needed to go. Most of my flights were on Hueys, C-130s, or Caribous. Direct flights weren’t always possible.
On one trip I rode in a Huey alongside a brigadier general headed to Chu Lai. Occasionally I was lucky enough to ride up on the flight deck of a C-130. On another trip, I stretched out and slept in the cab of a deuce-and-a-half truck being ferried inside the plane. Not all the flights were easy—once, in a Caribou, we flew through a violent storm that had me convinced the end was near. Travel often took longer than expected; sometimes it was a day or two before I could make it back to Pleiku.
I especially liked courier runs to the direction-finding site at Cam Ranh Bay. Along the way, I saw Bob Hope perform at Tan Son Nhut Air Base and Nancy Sinatra, in her famous boots, at the 4th Infantry Division. By the end of my tour, I’d visited nearly every Radio Research Unit in-country.
On March 1, 1967, I was promoted to Staff Sergeant (E-6), MOS 05D40—though I was still not truly qualified for that specialty.
Later that month, on March 27, I received TDY orders to a site just west of Qui Nhon to supervise the installation of a new DF station. After about a week, I met a kind young woman in town who invited me to stay with her. I commuted back and forth to work each day, which worked out nicely. The site was guarded by ROK (Republic of Korea) troops, so we felt secure.
When I returned to Engineer Hill, I was designated the company’s Field First Sergeant. My duties included supervising the daily policing of the company area. Most importantly, I had to make sure diesel fuel was poured into the outhouse receptacles and that the contents were stirred and burned properly. I also saw to it that shower tanks and Lyster bags were kept filled with water. And, of course, I made sure to keep a bar stool warm at the NCO club.
I had learned to sew as a boy—my mother was a fine seamstress. At Fort Wolters I had purchased a used portable sewing machine for $35. In Vietnam, I put it to good use, sewing on stripes and name tapes, altering uniforms, and earning good money. The men called me “Jake the Tailor.” When my tour ended, I sold the machine to one of the house girls for the same $35 I had paid. Between tailoring work and being lucky in a $5 three-raise poker game, I managed to send quite a bit of money home. I can’t remember the exact black-market exchange rate for a $20 bill, but it was worth the gamble.
Not long before I was due to return home, I was offered a re-enlistment bonus of $10,000. Uncle Sam must not have realized that I had never really been qualified for my 05D40 MOS.
My final orders sent me to Cam Ranh Bay to catch a “Freedom Flight” to Fort Lewis, Washington. The morning after I arrived, I held in my hand what I had been waiting for all along: my discharge papers from the United States Army.
