My Days in Vietnam

By Robert A. Rupp

This book is an autobiography of my Vietnam War experiences from November, 1970 to October, 1971. I was stationed for 10 months on Hon Tre Island off the Nha Trang city mainland and the rest of my tour at Cam Ranh Bay Air Base. As an Officer and Weapons Controller/Director, I was responsible for guiding pilots of U.S. aircraft to and from their battle and reconnaissance missions using radar equipment. I was also a Pay Officer for the base camp consisting of other officers and enlisted men who supported our mission. This required a monthly drive by jeep to Cam Ranh Air Base to pick up and bring back pay for the men. Often boring, often stressful, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes fun and games, this is what I did in the Vietnam War. About 200 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RARbooks.com
• Release date: Jun 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227240125

Book preview

Chapter 1

Let the games begin.

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The captain announced final approach into Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon. A petite conservatively skirted Asian stewardess walked the aisle, quietly motioning to several standing men to sit. A conglomeration of Air Force, Army and Marines in non-battle work khakis scrambled to buckle seat belts.

My familiar life no longer mattered. I felt incredibly, singularly alone. Not the loneliness of being away from other people, but the isolation of facing suppressed feelings and reactions toward the unknown. Emotions as if you were lost in the woods. The distress you suffer when not knowing what comes next. Your mind tries to plan what you might do if things go awry. The plan falls flat; it has no meaning when you have never been through a situation like this. Moments of dread fill your brain—get me out of here, I’m trapped, I’m out of control of my life. That unshakeable force of events that are about to take place. God, I hated those uncontrollable thoughts of despair—shared by others on the plane—except of course, by those who truly wanted to fight, and there were always fighting geeks in every war.

Apprehension and loneliness gave way to adrenaline-induced excitement as we circled the airbase. All heads rigidly crooked toward oval windows as puffs of smoke appeared near the runway.

I think they're under fire down there, a Marine shouted in a slight southern accent. My brother, he was here two months ago, says these rocket attacks happen about once a week for five minutes. You see, four or five Viet Cong—they's the enemy—hell, just little skin-and-bone runts, bring in rockets one at a time by bike. Then they fire them at the planes on the runway, just to scare y’all. Takes another week, then they bring in more.

Excitement gave way to panic. We had not set foot in the country, and already our lives were threatened. My God, how would I get through a whole year of this?

The Captain's voice, sputtering through overhead speakers, assured us we were in no danger, but he would circle for another hour before landing just to be safe. Yeah, right.

For the first time, I felt safer in an airplane than on the ground. As the awkward hour passed, everyone continued to stare through the windows for revealing action. A few giggled nervously, making hand motions as they described how the explosive munitions sporadically belted the runway. Some repeated favorite four-letter words. Others leaned forward, heads and arms down, gently rocking in quiet despair. Being an officer, I had to act unafraid and upright, though the alarms of fear blared in my head as well.

Finally, the Captain announced, All clear, hold on, and jarred the hulking wings into a steep bank to bring the plane down quickly. The plane veered left, slipping sideways onto the runway. The commercial airliner, provided by Saturn Airways, lumbered in, swaying like a hammock. Tires squealed as the plane slammed onto the tarmac, bounced, briefly rolled toward a concrete barrier and stopped abruptly. Bobbing heads jerked forward, absorbing shock, triggering outbursts of expletives. The plane rolled over the wavy asphalt making several violent jogging turns, avoiding craters formed by the recent exploding rockets.

The mixed sense of being grounded overwhelmed everyone, leading to fractured applause.

Yay, we made it here alive.

Sudden silence and muffled murmurs floated through the cabin. Fear induced a randy ooze of body odor. I had the inexplicable sensation of sitting in a crowded church on a very hot and humid day. The feeling gave way to a sense of reverence for all those that had gone before us. The aisle quickly filled with broad shoulders. A parade of fighting men, many still boys under 21 years, hesitantly exited the plane.

The black tarmac radiated intense heat as exhaust-laden blasts of humid air pelted our bodies.

Stifling.

A rush of concerned questions surged through my head. How did I get here? Why am I here? What have I done to deserve this?

Chapter 2

Everything we do has a beginning.

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The journey started 24 hours earlier. I was on a 30-day leave, which I spent with my parents in Michigan. I entered the Air Force in 1968, was trained as an officer in San Antonio, Texas and already completed almost two years of duty in Othello, Washington. It was November of 1970. Late fall was a rather boring time in Michigan. All fall colors were gone and the days cold and cloudy. Thanksgiving being just around the corner, then Christmas, I would miss both. These were important holidays to my family. We were always together. As the day to leave approached, I could see the strain in my mother's eyes as she finally realized that I wouldn't be home for Christmas.

We were allowed to take 40 pounds of personal belongings with us. This seemed like a lot, but resulted in a couple changes of civilian clothes, a few uniforms and a shaving kit. One of my Air Force roommates in the States was already in Nam. He sent me a short letter several weeks before when he found out I was coming over to the same site. He wrote, Bring shorts, it’s hot and humid, plus a bathing suit and some t-shirts and sandals. Also bring some civilian pants and shirts for when you go on R&R. R&R meant Rest and Recuperation, a short vacation you could take about midway through your tour to other foreign counties such as Hong Kong or Thailand. Along with my uniforms and underwear, I packed several pairs of shorts, sport shirts and pants into a small suitcase along with my uniforms packed in a green duffel bag. The dichotomy of uniforms and vacation duds seemed fittingly absurd.

My mother and father drove me to the Michigan Tri-City Airport. We hugged, said our goodbyes and talked about writing at least once a week. My father's German accent elevated up an octave, as it often did under stress, while he struggled to find the right words to assure me that we will see each other again, soon, and off I went.

Leaving didn't impact me until I arrived in Chicago to change planes for Spokane, Washington, the jump off point for traveling to Vietnam. As I walked off of the plane, tears trickled from my eyes as I watched a crying sailor say goodbye to his wife.

Chicago O'Hare displayed a showcase of struggling American values. I traveled through many airports in that past couple of years, but there was something about O’Hare that reflected the true heartbeat of Middle-America. There were conservative business people slipping about giving stern, disdainful looks to others who were slowing their progress. There were the multi-cultural mix of military men and women standing, sitting, crouching and always waiting. Screaming kids, pregnant mothers, and aging grandpas and grandmas were walking in every direction. A heavy mix of skin colors and accents reflected the recent immigration to a land of opportunity. And the new wave of the seventies, the hip revolutionaries were scrambling to catch standby flights. A growing class influenced by European styles with long scraggly hair to match their new ideals. These were a new class of reinvented people emerging because of the Vietnam War. I felt radical change was coming, and I would not see it happen.

As I watched the spectacle around me, I received a tap on my shoulder, and heard my name.

Mr. Rupp, how are you, it's so good to see you again. My God, someone knows me; I'm not alone. A friend has come to rescue me.

I spun around with a ready and open smile only to find a meek little man pushing a flower in my face. He wore a white sheet as a robe and a cheap wig covered his baldhead. For 50 cents I could change my life and the world. Would I like to? How did he know my name? He looked down at my chest. My name tag of course. The Air Force always required that we wear our nametags. I proceeded to take mine off for the rest of the trip. I was crushed by this awkward intrusion into my loneliness.

Back in the air again, we were on our way to Spokane where I would switch to a chartered plane for the long flight to Saigon. I felt a slight sense of relief to see Chicago disappear in the distance just to get this next year going.

I was somewhat uncomfortable with flying as I have had problems with my inner ear and nausea. This problem got me here in the first place. I was classified as a Weapons Controller—a fancy name for a person who uses a radar-controlled video screen to monitor and control airplanes, mostly fighter jets, from the ground. While civilian aircraft controllers kept aircraft away from each other, our job was to bring aircraft together. We controlled aircraft so they could intercept potential enemy aircraft and possibly destroy them, or make bombing runs. We had to guide them to their area of operation, engage them for battle if necessary and get them back home safely. Under our control, we owned them; they were our responsibility and took direction only from us—constant stress. I did not start my adventure with the Air Force in this job, though; I actually started in pilot training.

It was a fluke really. After I graduated from Michigan State University in 1967, I became 1A—meaning I could at any time be drafted into military service. As more and more people were needed for the war, more people were drafted. Getting a job after college became a useless exercise since most companies would not hire anyone classified as 1A. No company wanted to train someone who would leave in a few months or worse, die and never return to the job. So, I continued to work for my father in the family painting business.

Around November of 1967, the dreaded letter came for me to go to Detroit to get a physical to determine if I was fit to be in the Army. As luck would have it, a family friend, who did not go to college, got a letter at the same time, so we went to Detroit together. We had to meet in Saginaw at a local Army recruiting office, and from there, we boarded a bus to the Detroit induction center. I carried with me a set of x-rays my doctor gave me that showed I had a birth defect in my lower back—small embedded holes in my bone structure. I found this out when I applied for a summer job during college as a lineman for a power company. They required back x-rays because part of the job was to carry and catch heavy tools. I didn’t pass the physical for that job, and it might keep me from going into the Army.

In Detroit, we herded into a big gymnasium to wait our turn, then into smaller rooms to be physically evaluated. We split into small groups from room to room, first to check our hearing, then to check our hearts, then into another room to bend over to check our prostates—ouch! I explained the x-rays to several of the doctors, but they kept saying I would get a review at the end of the physical.

The physical finally ended, and we were told to finalize our results at a desk occupied by a cranky old doctor. He looked at my x-rays, holding them up to a light as I explained that I had a back problem, and it even cost me a job. He just shook his head—he couldn’t see anything. I pleaded with him. He handed back the x-rays, stamped 1A on a card, and I was good to go. What? Don’t I get a hearing? He gave me a scowl, muttered some expletive and demanded again that I move on. I was heartbroken. This was my only chance to beat the system.

After that, we were told to wait on the bleachers in the gymnasium again. As we sat there, a batch of draftees came through that had their physicals about a month previous and were now on their way to basic training. A Sergeant in military uniform walked in and began shouting at them. Okay people, he commanded, call off by twos. Silence prevailed. The Sergeant, red-faced now, shouted again. Still, no one responded. He walked over to the first person, poked his chest and yelled, one! The next person was two and so on. At that point, everyone got it, and they started to count. When done, the Sergeant commanded that all the ones were going into the Army and all the twos were now lucky Marines. A loud sigh of hopelessness arose from the ranks. The rumored life expectancy of a Marine in Vietnam was very short—maybe six weeks. It’s one crazy macho thing to join the Marines, but it’s wildly insane to involuntarily become one. After witnessing this, I gave my friend an equally startled look. We vowed then and there to join the Air Force when we got back to Saginaw.

Finally, we were told to get back on the bus; we’d be contacted in the next couple of months as to when and where to report for induction into the Army. It was a rather dismal trip back to Saginaw. For us, our future was to enter military service and disappear from society for several years or—-die.

As the bus drove into the recruiting station parking lot in Saginaw, my friend and I glanced with eagerness at the Air Force Recruiting office across the street. We made a mad dash to the front door and pulled it open in earnest. A friendly person in Air Force uniform shook our hands, and we sat down to talk. We told him the startling events of the day and how we wanted to join the Air Force immediately. He laughed and said recruiting had been especially good the past few months since more Marines were getting inducted. First, he asked my friend what he wanted to be—he didn’t know—well that’s okay, there’s an opening for a weather observer—sounded good, so he signed up. Then it was my turn. With a college degree, I could be an officer—did I want to do that? I didn’t know what I would do as an officer. Well, at this time, there was one job available: I could be a pilot. A pilot? I had only flown once in my life and got very sick after it. Without much hesitation, I nodded and said yes, where do I sign? Better to be a sick pilot than a dead Marine. One final question, did I have any physical limitations that might keep me from being a pilot? I would have to undergo another complete physical, but it would be a waste of time if I knew of some condition that would keep me from flying. I explained that I sometimes get nauseated while flying but that was it. I kept all my back problems to myself. If I hinted of back problems, he might decline to sign me up, and the Army would get me for sure. The recruiter explained that being nauseated was common and would not keep me from flying.

I easily passed the pilot’s physical at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Michigan. It was mostly a sports physical, no x-rays or back check. I was told to report at the Air Force Training Center in San Antonio, Texas a month later. I had orders to report in by a specific date, but was allowed to drive my own car, so I headed out one May afternoon in my old Triumph TR4 sports car that I bought after college.

Officer Training School lasted 12 weeks from May to August of 1968 in San Antonio, Texas. It seemed tedious and rather uneventful. I loathed the strict military structure, but got used to it. Days were filled with: rise early, clean your room, clean the barracks hallways, clean the bathrooms, do exercises, go to classes to learn about war strategy, eat quickly, study for the next day’s classes and then to bed. It became a monotonous daily routine, with half of Saturday and all-day Sunday off. After the first six weeks, we were allowed to go off base, so we usually went into San Antonio to see the sights or to take in a movie. The 1968 World’s Fair was in full swing. The city was full of tourists. Around me were displays of America’s wonderful freedom to live and enjoy the sites. I could not feel the freedom, though I walked the streets like any other American. I now felt trapped into a destiny not unlike going to jail.

After training completed, I was given the rank of Second Lieutenant and sent to Valdosta, Georgia for pilot training. Pilot training was a structured one-year program, but unlike officer training, we were actually treated like human beings and only suffered a normal eight-hour workday. For the first few weeks, we learned about flying, navigation and how airport runways worked. Then we started our flight training in a two-seater propeller-driven Cessna 172 airplane. Single-engine training would last about 10 weeks, then another 10 weeks or so learning how to fly a slow jet, and then the rest of year, learning how to fly the modern F5 fast jets.

I never made it to the jets. From the first day I stepped into the Cessna I got airsick. Every day for three weeks I vomited. My instructor was a crusty local from Valdosta, contracted by the Air Force to train pilots in small aircraft. He had the personality of a true Southerner and an ex-military man with an abrupt disposition. He loved flying and disliked anyone who didn’t have his passion for it. I would feign enthusiasm when I got into the plane, but it probably appeared quite obvious that not only did I not have a passion for flying, I began to loathe it. However, I kept at it, even though I felt miserable. I hated to go to bed at night, knowing that I had to wake up and get