Page 70 - Stand Down Vietnam

I was called into a Colonel’s office in Headquarters
Company. He asked if I knew anything about SITREPS
when I said yes, his response was that we needed to go
to Vietnam. I said, “You gotta be kidding me.” About a
week later I prepared orders for us going into and out
of Vietnam. We landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near
Saigon. The Colonel was pleased, he said it was the
best move of his life, he even had pencils on his desk.

Our mission was to drop bombs on enemy forces as we
were withdrawing our troops from Vietnam. I did
anything needed of me to include loading and attaching
bombs on the aircraft. During that six months, we
dropped over one hundred thousand pounds of bombs.

That was a six-month tour. On my way out, we had
engine trouble on our C-130. The pilot radioed for an
emergency for landing. We were diverted to a base in
China.

The Chinese wanted to know how many we had onboard. We
told them thirty. They had us land and taxi to an
outside area of the airfield. They set busses out to
pick us up. Each of us had a Chinese guard with a
machine gun.

The guards seemed to be shaky all the time we were
there. But they were very serious. We were not allowed

to talk or look around. It was like being back in Port-
Au-Prince Haiti; you do what they tell you, don’t do
anything wrong.

Once our plane was repaired, we went to Seoul, South
Korea. We were there for two days’ rest. We were
wearing short-sleeved shirts. There was snow on the
ground, and it was minus 4 degrees.