Stories of Vietnam Part Two

After Jump Week they headed to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This was Special Forces Training Group. SFTG. They'd been through Basic Training, Advanced Infantry Training and Jump School. Don thought Special Forces training would probably be the hardest yet.

They arrived at 8 pm and here came the sergeant major and Don was thinking, "Here we go." The sergeant major said, "You guys are late! Hurry up and get your stuff stowed and get into town!" They appreciated the thought but they were all tired and it was late so they didn't go into town that night. Here at SFTG they finally started to treat them like men.

At Special Forces Training Group they had a nice room for eight people but they never had over 5 people. Bathrooms and showers were right there. All right! This was good living! Don's old friend Al, from California Cadet Corps was there. There were a lot of interviews to determine what job they would have. Al and Don both got communications. They wore baseball caps until they got their green berets. In Basic Training Don had taken the test for Special Forces and the test for Officer Candidate School and passed both. Two weeks after Don got his beret, orders came down for OCS. He elected to keep his beret and stay in Special Forces so he turned down OCS. In hindsight he thinks that was probably a mistake.

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It was sundown and Don was on the plane getting ready to jump. There was a gorgeous sunset. He was the second to the last man in the stick (line of guys that are jumping). His buddy Fred was in front of him. This was their first jump at Bragg. Don had taken his camera up so he could get pictures. He got out of the door and for the first time he did not check his canopy. He felt the tug but did not check. He pulled out his camera and started taking pictures. He heard crazy Fred going, "Hey Don!" "Hey Don!" Don thought Fred was trying to get him to take his picture. "I already got your picture Fred!" "No you idiot! Look up!" said Fred. Don had a Mae West! This is when one of your risers goes over the canopy and pulls it down in the middle. He realized he was dropping faster than everyone else. He was next to last out of the door and he should have been the second highest but he was below everyone.

You are supposed to pull on the riser and try to get it to pop over but this did not even occur to him. He pulled his reserve and it just fluttered in front of his face. There wasn't enough wind to deploy it. Now he began to panic! On instinct he stuck his thumbs down in and pulled out the chute and threw it up and it deployed. It filled and he looked down just in time to land. He did the parachute landing fall and saw that the riggers were already halfway to him. "What the hell happened?" they asked. "Did you try to shake it loose?" The riggers are the ones that pack the chutes. He was not on the riggers' good side today.

For the record, he never again failed to check his canopy.

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The Woodstock Music Festival was held during a time of military conflict abroad and racial discord at home, and participants quickly became aware that the event had taken on a meaning beyond its original intent. The site of Woodstock became, for four days, a countercultural mini-nation. Minds were "open", drugs were used, and "love" was "free".

Read more about the Woodstock Music Festival.

To retain proficiency you had to jump once every three months. Whenever they had a jump you could go if you wanted. Don liked it so much that he went as often as he could at Bragg. It was such a thrill!

On the evening of his first night jump it was windy but they finally decided to go ahead. Don was at the end of the stick. They all shuffled to the front and jumped out. There was no moon and it was pitch black. He was still fairly new at jumping. Usually there was a fire below or a truck with its lights on to indicate where the landing spot was. On this night he could see nothing. When his eyes finally adjusted he saw that he was going into the trees. He hit the trees and fell for a bit. When he came to a stop he was hanging in the trees. He remembered the procedure. Pull the reserve chute, get out of your harness, and slide down the chute to the ground. He fed out the reserve chute and tried to shake it down. He couldn't see how high up he was. Then he remembered! He was supposed to drop his pot (helmet) to judge how far he was off the ground. He took his pot off, dropped it, and as soon as he let it go he heard THUD. He was only about a foot off the ground!

The riggers came over to get them and Don was the only one who had pulled his reserve. "What the hell'd you do that for?" the riggers wanted to know. "Well, I was way up there..." said Don. "Yeah sure." Boy did he feel stupid. Once again he was on the riggers' bad side. The riggers grumbled quite a bit. Don wondered if they had to fill out a report every time someone pulled a reserve. They took everything and threw it in the back of the truck and then everyone grouped on the DZ (drop zone). No one called him on pulling his reserve and he was glad of that.

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Don was studying for a test the next day. Fred came by and said two guys had just graduated from the engineering class. Everybody was getting together to see those guys off and Fred wanted him to come to the party. Don said no, that he had to study. He didn't know them that well anyway. Fred kept nagging him until he finally said OK just to get him off his back.

As Don walked up the stairs to the door he heard the guys making a lot of noise, shouting things like "Air Mail!" and "Air Travel!" They were proud to be airborne and were celebrating. Unbeknownst to Don, the Officer of the Day was walking by their window and heard all the noise which sounded like a bunch of drunks, because it was a bunch of drunks. About the time Don was knocking on the door, the Officer of the Day must have been starting up the stairs. They let Don in, shut the door and shoved a can of beer in his hand.
As soon as the door closed behind him there was a knock on the door. Fred opened the door and then slammed it shut.
"It's the Officer of the Day!" he said in a loud whisper.
"Well unless you're gonna go airborne and jump out the window, open the door. There's nowhere to go. He knows we're in here." said Don.
Fred opened the door and the Officer of the Day came in and started taking names and sending them back to their rooms. Don was really angry at Fred. He should have stuck to his guns and not gone. Everyone got busted down a rank, even Don who hadn't taken so much as a sip of his beer.

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There was something of a social life at Fort Bragg. Don's pal Ken had a green Ford Mustang and they would ride around in it and listen to Petula Clark on an 8 track tape. Ken had a big crush on Petula Clark. Most of the guys didn't have a car. Don's old friend Al ended up there too, along with a guy named Mark. These guys hung out together.

Al and Don would march over to the building where they had their Morse code class. Al already knew it because he had already gone to radio school and learned it there. Don would pick up a newspaper and before class and during breaks he would read Dear Abbey to the class. He would read in a very dramatic fashion and change around some things to make it funny. "Hey, read Dear Abbey today!" the guys would say.

They asked for 25 radio operators to volunteer for Vietnam. Don was thinking he wouldn't volunteer for that. That was dangerous. Then he saw Al volunteering, so he did too. He figured he had to look after Al. They needed 25 radio operators distributed throughout Vietnam. Al and Don would be in the 5th Special Forces.

Ken went to the 8th Special Forces which was Panama. Mark went to the 3rd Special Forces and was stationed at Fort Bragg as far as Don knows.

The 25 were sent back to Fort Gordon to get radio teletype training (rtt). This time around they were stationed in real barracks. After rtt training they were given leave. After leave they reported to Fort Lewis and got their paperwork done. They were trucked over to McCord Air Force Base where they hopped on a plane for Vietnam. It was Braniff airlines, a big yellow plane. This was during the Braniff airline campaign called The End of the Plain Plane. They were painted all one color such as metallic purple, turquoise, orange or lemon yellow. The big lemon yellow plane landed in Cam Ranh Bay and they threw the doors open. Don was wary, expecting a lot of shooting but it was nothing like that. It was a beautiful sunny day and people were just walking around. It sure didn't look like a war zone, but more like a spot that could be a beautiful resort if the army hadn't been there. They got off the plane and processed in country. All of them had latrine duty while they were waiting to be sent somewhere.

Outside of the hooch (living quarters) there were several of the 106 recoilless rifles. These huge guns made a huge noise. They wondered if it was like this everywhere in the country and if they would have to learn to sleep with all that noise. They just took it one day at a time.

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