Welcome to Nam

By Richard Andrews

After returning from Vietnam, I had a lot of nightmares. They started getting so bad that I went to the Veterans Affairs to get help. After a few months, my psychiatrist mentioned for me to start writing them down as soon as I woke up. He then asked if I was getting any competition for my ears from the land mine? In order to do that I had to tell the Board why I thought I had PTSD. But, to do that, I pretty much had to describe my whole year in Nam! So, I started from the beginning, circling Cam Rahn Bay, and seeing Vietnam for the very first time. I was excited and scared at the same time! I mean. It's not every day you get to war! I just couldn't picture someone actually wanting to kill me! I found out in a hurry just how wrong I was!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662439513

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Welcome to Nam

Richard Andrews

Copyright © 2021 Richard Andrews

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-3950-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-3951-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Vietnam 1969–1970

Welcome to Nam

From a C-137 to an M48

Con Thien

Bridge Guard

Gallagher’s Ridge

Gallagher’s Thank You Party

John Wayne

Lurch

Into the DMZ

Leaving No Man’s Land

Reds Strike at the DMZ

Gone Fishing

Convoy

Closing of the LZ Nancy

R & R in Bangkok

Hello Charlie II

Cold

Going to the Movies

Mine Sweep Again

Hotter than Hell

A Night to Remember

Tank Guard on the DMZ

Me Extend

Agent Orange

Thanksgiving on the DMZ

Back in the Brush

Happy Birthday to Me

On the Road to Quảng Trị

Paved Road

Scratch My Back

Trash Run and Tank Wash

Cards

Short

Chapter 1

Vietnam 1969–1970

When I first applied for disability in 1985 to get things rolling, I had to fill out a Request for Disability form! They wanted a complete, detailed description of how I lost my hearing and why I thought I had PTSD! But in order to do that, I basically had to describe my whole one-year tour.

And it went something like this.

I was a M48A1 combat tank driver in 1-77 Armored Division, attached to the 1-5 Infantry Division, from April 1969 through April 1970. We were headquartered in Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam (in the northern part of South Vietnam but really close to the DMZ). At first I was stationed on a small LZ called C2, about two miles from North Vietnam. Then we’d move up the road about 1 1/2 miles to another LZ called A4, which was even closer to the DMZ and North Vietnam. We had incoming mortars about every other night. It still makes me jump or duck at any loud or sudden noises. And once every day or so, we’d go out in our tanks on search and destroy missions to look for any enemy movement in the area. Sometimes we’d have contact with the enemy on a hit-and-run basis, as usual, and have no contact for a while. I guess it was whenever they felt like it! One day, I was driving the leading tank, going up a hill, and when I got to the top and turned to the left, boom! I drove over an antitank mine! It blew me up out of the tank and into the main gun tube, and I landed by the side of the hill! My tank came to a stop! When I came to, I couldn’t hear anything, just a ringing in my ears. My left ear is still ringing!

I was working in Dallas, Texas, as a plumber’s assistant doing large contract plumbing. You had to have three years under your belt before you could even go to Austin, Texas, and take a plumber exam to get your Journeyman Plumber license. I was married by then and had a wife and two kids to support. I even had a side job picking furniture at Levitz Furniture Store. I didn’t get home till after midnight and was up again at 5:00 a.m. to hitchhike back to work at the DFW Airport, putting in a huge parking garage (I let my wife use the car to take the kids to school and pick them up and to do her running around). Dallas is a big city, and with me being from Barstow, California, there was no comparison to size. And I wasn’t going to put my family in jeopardy! So I basically walked to work every day. It was about that time when the dreams started. Now, they weren’t your run-of-the-mill sweet dreams! Can you picture waking up at three o’clock in the morning, trying to choke your wife to death? And it happened more than once! Want to know what she did? She gently woke me up, put my head on her chest, and patted me back to sleep! Now that’s how much my woman loved me! Oh God, how I miss her! She’s up there with Him now, watching over me! Thirty-two wonderful years! December 13, 2005. I miss her.

It seems like there’s always something I forgot to mention! I do hope this story is complete now!

Chapter 2

Welcome to Nam

Sitting in my seat in front of the right wing, I got my first look at Vietnam, my home for the next twelve months. As we circled for landing, I could see the small thin trails going to the separate villages. Then the jet turned, and I could see Cam Ranh Bay, vehicles moving back and forth. Also, I could see small spirals of black smoke that I thought might be fighting. The man in the seat behind me, who was just coming back from R & R, said, No, just the shit burning detail, instead of having a sewer system the military decided to put one half of a fifty-five-gallon drum under the outhouse privy holes, put about three or four gallons of diesel fuel in each one-half barrel and twice a day, have a detail go and pull the barrels out and burn them to ashes, then do it all over again eight hours later after sliding the barrels back under the ‘latrine’! Pretty smart, huh?

I had just finished eight months in Bamberg, Germany, where there was still snow on the ground, and I figured I was in for a change in weather but not what greeted me when I stepped out of the plane! Now, I was raised in the Mojave Desert in Daggett, California, where 115 degrees was pretty much the norm. So I figured I could handle the temperature change. But what greeted me when I stepped out of that door was like a hot barbershop towel slapping me in the face! And to top that off, we had to hit the tarmac running with a heavy duffel bag over your shoulder! You see, when a jet landed, the Gooks would fire a couple of mortars in hopes of hitting a jet full of GIs, so we ran! Okay, maybe there was somebody out there that wanted to kill me! Next, a sergeant said we would need a weapon until we got to our next duty station. Here we go again, herded on a bus with screened windows to help keep any stray hand grenades that might happen to go through the windows—another little bit of wisdom! Now I’m a believer. There was a war going on, and somebody out there wanted to kill me. As we stepped off the buses, we were handed an M16 rifle. The man who turned and handed me my M16 was a friend whom I grew up with in Daggett, a Navajo Indian by the name of Danny Thomas! Small world! From there, I was instructed to climb on a C-130 cargo plane. I was to be assigned to the 77th Armored attached to the 5th Infantry in Quang Tri Province—just a hop, skip, and a jump from the DMZ, the line that separated North and South Vietnam! The next hour and a half was a bumpy and loud ride. Arriving at Quang Tri around noon and was met at the front gate by the whole company was A Company, 1st and the 5th Infantry, 77th Armored—the red diamond division. Now I’m going to have a bright-red diamond on my arm as I drive around the jungle, kinda like a bull’s-eye! Now is the time to start worrying! A Company is to relieve B Company at LZ (landing zone) Nancy, even closer to the DMZ so B company could go back to Quang Tri for repairs and stand down and take a break.

So I became the loader on tank 13, and I just started my one-year tour of duty! The 365 days are going to be a long time! I still had the M16 rifle I was issued, also tank crewmen were issued a .45 caliber pistol. In Germany, the loaders rode with one leg on the outside of the turret and the other one on the inside of the tank. As I looked around, I noticed that it was the same here, only I wore a flak vest—a fancy word for a bulletproof vest—and a helmet. I was the only one, though! Later I learned that if your name’s on the bullet, your name’s on the bullet! And there’s nothing you can do about it! Plus, it’s so damn hot and humid. You didn’t wear it long anyway!

Riding down that dusty dirt road, my eyes were