SNAFU

SNAFU

Flight School to August 1967

It was customary during the last stages of flight school to receive our orders to our next duty station. Most of us knew we were going to Vietnam but we still held out hope that we would be among the 1% assigned to Europe, South Korea or somewhere where no one would be shooting at us. If we were assigned to Vietnam then at least to a unit that was far to the rear, like a General's pilot. You can imagine what those discussions were like over a glass of beer or two at our Warrant Officer Candidate watering holes. We read the news and watched TV and we definitely didn't want to go to some unit making headlines like the 1st Cavalry Division as an example. We read about the Ia Drang Valley for instance as depicted in the movie "We Were Soldiers". It seems that if a battle made the news, somehow the 1st Cav was in the thick of it! Send us anywhere but the 1st Cav! Well as you are probably guessing about 35 of us from our flight class were assigned to the Cav. I can still remember feeling the butterflies in my stomach as I read the orders! I was as good as dead!

I spent the next couple of weeks just getting over the shock and uncertainty I felt. I got a form letter in the mail from Major General Tolson, Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) with a combat version of the famous yellow horse blanket patch to sew on the right shoulder of my flight suit stapled to it. He welcomed me to the "1st Team" and then went over the 1st Cavalry Division history from WW 2 and before, through Korea and on to Vietnam. Summing it up that I was the luckiest guy in the Army for being selected. I was comforted at first but as I watched the news and read the papers I started looking at the assignment much differently. I wrote home to my family and friends about the “ass kick'n unit” that I was assigned. I still had hopes of being assigned to one of the Generals or Colonels to fly them over the battlefield as opposed to being immersed in it, but I was really getting used to the idea and glory being a part of the Cav.

Two months later after graduation and a month leave, I am in processing for my trip to Vietnam at Oakland Army Base, in Oakland, CA. My first exposure to the Army as an officer and a gentleman. I was no longer being yelled at by Warrant Officer Candidate cadre or upper classmen. People were respectful, saluted when appropriate and in all cases treated me with respect. Nice...it was good to be an officer. They cut orders to the in country processing facility at Cam Rahn Bay and put me on a bus to Travis Air Force Base and then on to Vietnam in a C-141 cargo plane. In a few hours I would be kicking ass in the finest ass kicking unit in the Army! It was not easy getting sleep sitting backwards in a cold, noisy cargo plane dripping water from condensate appearing on the uninsulated aluminum fuselage!

I heard names being called as I slowly roused from my catnap, and then I heard my name. I looked to the source and this Air Force Sergeant handed me a set of orders. Reading them brought me out of the dreamworld. This set of orders assigned me to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Who the hell was the 11th Armored Cav? What happened to the 1st Cav? Why did they need me? Did they get a bunch of pilots killed? What am I going to tell my friends? Who are these guys? I read the orders again, and again and again! I looked around in disbelief. Did this happen to any of my other classmates? Between that and our refueling landing at Wake Island, and our maintenance issue while landing at Clark AFB in the Philippines I did not get another wink of sleep. I studied the orders, compared them with my orders to the 1st Cav and I noticed something. The orders to the 11th Cav did not rescind my orders to the 1st Cav. I had two sets of valid orders! Now what?

I finished my in country processing, hanging out with my flight school friends, and waiting for transportation to my unit in the field. If I don't go to the 11th Cav, will the MP's come looking for me? The 11th Cav orders are the most current. Will I be AWOL if I go to the 1st Cav? The 1st Cav orders were valid. All of that was going through my mind as I stood waiting for transportation. "May I have your attention please" called out a processing unit Seargant. There are personnel over there as he pointed to an area about 50 feet away with unit signs. Grab your gear and go stand next to the soldier who's sign matches your unit orders. I had both copies of my orders, one in each hand. I looked up saw the 1st Cavalry sign, and in the first moment in my 19th year of life I acted rebelliously, wadded up my orders to the 11th Armored Cavalry, dropped them into the trash and headed over to the 1st Cav sign.

All next week I constantly looked over my shoulder while learning about boobie traps and such at the Cav's charm school, and my 20th birthday soirée to “Sin City” on the outskirts of our base in An Khe. A little less so at LZ English where they assigned me to B Company, 229th Assault Hellicopter Battalion and by the end of September forgot about MP's and being AWOL and instead getting used to getting shot at almost on a daily basis.