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SSG Chuck Stevens sat in the maintenance tent drinking a cup of coffee. He and his crew had been attempting to work on an aircraft out on the flight line, but the rain had them taking shelter in the maintenance tent for the time being. Stevens was on his second tour in Vietnam, his first being in 1965, when the First Cav Division had originally deployed from Fort Benning to Vietnam. He was considered a “plank holder” for the company as he had been a member when it was created back at Fort Benning.
“Damn, this place sucks,” Specialist Mickey Barry complained. Barry was an avionics technician and a wizard when it came to figuring out the radio systems in the aircraft.
“This ain’t so bad. Think about the grunts and what they’re getting. At least we’re dry with three hots and a cot each day,” chimed in Specialist Mike Kelly, whose aircraft they were all waiting to work on.
“Hey, if the grunts didn’t want this crap, they should have joined up. They could have sucked it up and gone down and joined for a decent job and training rather than waiting to be drafted. Serves them right,” Specialist Leitzen interjected.
“Stop your pissing and moaning,” said Stevens. “I don’t care how bad it gets. We have it pretty good.” On that note, Sergeant First Class Kanardy walked in dripping wet. He was the maintenance platoon sergeant for the Cobra company, Delta Company, across the tarmac. Alpha and Delta Company maintenance platoons frequently helped each other out as many of the parts and systems between the UH-1 and the AH-G were similar. Kanardy was an impressive figure. He was a well-built six-foot-four black soldier with a booming voice. He was also a plank holder along with Stevens. Kanardy was on his third tour in Vietnam, all of them with the 227th.
“How about a cup of that coffee, Sergeant Stevens?” Kanardy asked.
“Sure thing,” Stevens said and looked at Specialist Kelly. “Kelly, get Sergeant Kanardy a cup of coffee. He likes a bit of milk in it as well. What can we do you for today, Sergeant Kanardy?”
“I would like to borrow Specialist Barry there to come over and help us with an avionics problem we got. Bird took a hit through a wiring bundle and my guys can’t figure it out. I’m sure Barry can,” Kanardy said as Kelly handed him his coffee. “Thank you, Kelly.”
“Yeah, you can have him. All he’s doing today is bitching about life in general,” Stevens replied.
“Whatcha got to bitch about, Barry?” Kanardy asked while blowing across the top of his coffee to cool it down.
“This weather, the way we live, everything about this place,” Barry responded.
“Hell, boy, this ain’t so bad. You should have been with Stevens and me when we brought the division over from Fort Benning. That was bad living.”
“How so? Worse than this?” asked Barry.
“When the Boxer arrived in Qui Nhon—that’s the ship we were on for thirty-one days—we unloaded aircraft for five days, getting them off the ship and ready to fly. Then we moved to An Khe, and there was nothing there. We landed on this grass field and moved to a field next to that field. We were sleeping on the ground, with nothing but barbed wire between us and Charlie. Me, Mike Schlaudraff and Jim King made a three-man pup tent. There was nothing there for support. Somebody got a backhoe and dug us a slit trench for a place to crap. Eventually, we took fifty-five-gallon drums and cut them in half, placed a board across the top with a hole cut in the board and that was our toilets until three-hole shitters were brought in. The cooks had a GP Large tent for cooking, but you got your chow and ate wherever. Finally we got GP Large tents for everyone and cots, and some showers were built and shitters too, but that was the extent of our luxury. Now you have hooches with refrigerators and a mess hall and movies some nights. We have it good now, so you shouldn’t be bitching.”
“Hey, Sergeant Stevens, where were you guys when you got the word you were coming to Vietnam?” asked Leitzen.
“We were at Fort Benning. The CO had a company formation and announced it officially, but everyone already knew. Some wives had called their husbands at work and told them where we were going. They told the husbands that the president had just announced it on the radio. They said he said he’d just ordered the airmobile division to Vietnam. There was only one airmobile division and that was us.”
Sergeant Kanardy joined in. “Then we really got busy. Everyone had to get processed for the move. Physicals and dental exams had to be up-to-date. Immunizations and wills and powers of attorney were required. They would take about eight hundred guys a day over to the field house at Harmony Church and process them. We also had to turn in our M14 rifles and were issued M16s, which meant everyone had to go to the range for weapons qualifications. Add to all this, we had to start packing our company equipment and get the aircraft ready for shipping. No one had ever done it before, so you can imagine what kind of a goat screw that was.”
“I remember Sergeant Stevens getting the paint on his head,” Kanardy said with a smile.
“We don’t need to here that story,” Sergeant Stevens injects quickly.
“What happened?”asked Kelly.
“Sergeant Stevens was down marking CONEX containers. He placed a bucket of white paint on top of the container. Somehow, he managed to spill the entire bucket over his head. He looked like a walking ghost. Took him forever to get it off. Had to soak his flight suit in paint thinner to get the paint out. He was a mess. Hey, remember the cluster about uniforms?” Stevens asked attempting to change the subject.
“Oh yeah,” responded Kanardy. “At that time, we all wore white underwear and white name tags with green fatigues. Our shoulder patches were the yellow Cav patches. Well, there were no jungle fatigues, at least not enough for an entire division.” Kanardy paused and looked pensive. “I think the Special Forces guys may have had jungle fatigues. Anyway, someone gets the bright idea that we have to have everything dark green—everything. So the order comes down to dye everything dark green. The base laundry starts it, but soon every box of black and green dye in Georgia is sold out and wives are dyeing our uniforms and underwear. What color does black and green dye make? OD green, and that’s why your uniforms and patches are OD green today. Bet you didn’t know that.” Kanardy started laughing. “And the funny thing is that the sewage treatment plant in Columbus couldn’t handle the amount of dyed water coming from the base, so it was pumping OD green water into the river for weeks.”13
“What about your families? Did you just leave them at Fort Benning?” asked Barry.
“Some guys did. Anyone who wanted to send the family home had to do it at their expense. No, families just stayed at Benning or Columbus if they lived in town. Hell, the Army wasn’t concerned about families. If the Army wanted you to have a family, the Army would have issued ya one. Once everything was packed up and the aircraft shipped to Mayport, Florida, we had nothing to do, so we did get a week’s free leave to spend with our families and get them squared away before we left. No one knew how long we would be gone.”
“You wouldn’t be bullshitting us about how bad it was at An Khe, now would you? I heard it was pretty nice. In fact, I heard it was called the Golf Course, it was that nice,” injected Leitzen.
“You know why they called it the Golf Course, smart boy? I’ll tell ya. When the ADC, Brigadier General…ah…ah…what was his name, Stevens?” Kanardy stammered.
“Oh hell, I don’t remember…oh yeah, Wright, Brigadier General Wright,” Stevens responded.
“Yeah, Brigadier General Wright. When he gets up to An Khe with the advance party of about a thousand people and supplies, he tells them they’re going to put a base in and no heavy equipment will be used to build it. No bulldozers, no graders. He said that with four hundred helicopters coming in, it would just become a giant dust bowl. So what does he do? He ties a bandanna around his head, takes off his shirt, picks up a machete, and starts chopping brush. They had colonels, officers and everyone else out with machetes cutting brush and clearing a landing area with grass so the dust wouldn’t be bad. I tell you, boys, that’s leadership when the officers get their hands blistered and dirty just like everyone else. When they were done, only grass was left and it looked like a golf course. And that’s how it got its name. That brigadier went on to be the Division commander. He was a good officer.”
“When you got to An Khe, was anyone else there?”
“I recall some guys from the 101st Airborne Division being there. I think they had one brigade over here at that time. First Brigade, I think. They had secur
