Saturday, February 16, 2019

Transferred to MP's at Danang Airbase for the final third of my 13 month combat tour.



Out of the jungle
transferred to urban combat
adjust momentum *

(*From my "USMC Combat Tour Haiku Trilogy" blogged here in 2015)


Third Battalion Fifth Marines was the last battalion of the First Marine Division to land in Viet Nam and would stay in-country for five years (1966-1971.) The tour of duty per Marine was to be thirteen months, so transfers had to be made in country to keep the battalion at full capacity and not have all the original Marines leave at one time.  My transfer came in late 1966, after two thirds of my tour, to the 1st MP's Battalion at the Danang Airbase, which was pleasantly different from the previous fifteen to thirty days jungle and rice paddy multiple search and destroy operations I had become used to with 3/5.
Having a Government driver’s license, I was the CO's driver and occasionally the Captain would tell me to get a jeep to do a convoy routes security check in and out of the base. We were on a first name basis and it always felt to me he was the sheriff and I was his deputy. Whenever we ran into a skirmish, or some other problem, he would go one way with his priorities and I would go another way after mine. When I returned, if the jeep was still there, I waited for the Captain, and if the jeep was gone, I found my own way back to base usually by hitching a ride with a passing convoy going in that direction.
Another interesting duty I did with the MP’s was to a walk along the jet fuel pipeline that ran into the base from the tankers in the harbor. This was a dusk-to-dawn mile or so long patrol where you would walk back and forth to the beach from the base, making sure everything remained secured.  During the daylight there was a lot of work being done along this pipeline, but after dark there was a curfew and everyone, including the local police, knew this was a “free fire zone” no-man’s land and you could be shot on sight.
This reminds me of the time a Force Recon team I knew from several operations in my 3/5 days, made known they were walking toward me on the pipeline one night. I said “Man, can't I hide from you guys anywhere?" We all laughed, and then they explained they were not interested in checking in and wanted me to get them a case of 45 caliber rounds for their grease guns. I told them I would stop by the ammo dump before my duty began the next evening and bring them a case. I didn't mention their presence to anyone and the following night I brought them their rounds and they were on their way. 
There was, also, a duty patrol that was an "on call" type of roaming around the base, sort of like walking a beat. On this patrol I once was sent to quell a disturbance at the EM club between some Marine convoy drivers and some Seabees. There was a brawl going on when I arrived and I was not able to get anyone’s attention, so I fired a round in the ceiling. Seeing me standing in the center of the room with the MP band on one arm and a raised 45 in the other was all that was needed to let them know it was time to move on. I quickly got on my radio with the results, "disturbance handled, all secure" and moved on myself, before anyone at my dispatch heard about the discharging of a pistol on base. Not being one for excessive paperwork and reports, I tried to use the "all secure" response as much as possible. Similarly, there was an occasion where I'd found one of the UN "Observers" snooping around near a restricted area. I told him where he was and to “get the hell out of there.” I then personally mentioned that incident to my CO.
Having a lot of freedom between duties, if I heard someone from my old battalion was on the hospital ship in the harbor, I would make arrangements to visit them.
For my last week in 'Nam, the only duty I had was to man one of the sandbagged bunkers on the base perimeter. I would have much rather done a foot patrol somewhere, but that's the way it was when you were “next” to return to “the world.” On my last night, there was an incoming mortar barrage, and I spent the night listening to the whistling of the rounds, wandering where they would hit.
As for my total Viet Nam tour, a line from a Led Zeppelin song says it all for this grunt everyman, “Good times, bad times, you know I had my share."

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