Don't know if you remember me  - I was the radio guy at Phu Quoc.  Here's my story. I got so bored with Texas that I flipped out and actually volunteered for Vietnam.  The orders came down 6 hrs later - soonest anyone had remembered.  One bologna sandwich and a coke later I arrived at Cam Ranh into a sauna. Four hours after going through the line I was sent to Pleiku - a really cold mud bath in October.  I found a silver star in my locker - left it there.  Guess the owner didn’t need it.

Two weeks later: Monkey Mountain.  Amazing, each evening on the top, we drank soft drinks and watched the war down in the valley; like 4th of July, totally unreal. After the morning washboard ride down, we had chow and hit the club.  I had my first Heineken there and it was not my last. 

One day they sent me to Saigon; you could still wear civies then.  The 1st shirt (Swillinger??) asked me if I liked to camp - I said "Yeh".  He said "Get a wash basin and go to Phu Quoc – trust me, you’re gonna like it".  The tents were like ovens, and the water tasted funny - we later found out "Plumber" was sucking it up from the creek during high tide.  We had a crazy construction guy with a tattoo of a snake around his you-know-what.  After "Gentlemens" Spurling built our hooches, we were living the high life.  

Dan Crosby got a couple of monkeys from the Army guys on the beach.  Watching them do their thing probably kept me somewhat sane - watching them ride the dogs, having them run up your back on the way to the chow hall, seeing them launch themselves through the perimeter grass after grasshoppers, taking a nap with one of them on your belly (unless they/you woke up all wet from their nightmares), having Shorttime  harass the hooch girls by jumping down from the rafters and doing a bump and grind in front of them.   His girlfriend "Little Bit" died after they both got into some rat poison in the old mess hall supply tent.  Remember when Shorty did a number on the 1st shirt's pillow?  The Sarge  said "after I catch him we're  gonna give him a trial, and then I'm gonna hang him".  He never could catch Shorty.

Beach time was wild.  Body surfing was a thrill; up 10 feet one second and slamming into the bottom with 3 feet of clear sand below, and back up again the next second, catch a wave and fly to the beach.  It seems like I kept my tan for about 2 years.  I never even thought about sharks.  Awesome!

I remember watching the movie Green River. It reminded me of Mash - we saw it so many times that everyone knew the lines by heart.  I had a drink and a photo with Martha Raye - I didn't see Bob Hope there.

Tet changed some of that!  There was a lot of laundry done right after that.  Was it the baker who got a purple heart when he got grazed by shrapnel while taking a whiz?  Man, we were SO LUCKY!

The new commander, club, well, showers, and chow hall changed things a lot, too.  Where else could you get a roast beef and chianti dinner on Sundays.  The last cook/chef we had should have gotten a medal.  Remember the 3 weeks (??) of liver (after Tet??)?  Thanks to Banse for pulling the plug on the reefer van.  They had to get us some real food after that – C-rations.

Remember the Ausies flying in with their cases and cases of beer?  If you flew out with them the next day, you were living dangerously.

I flew home before the site was closed and I never got a chance to say ‘bye to everyone, but being with you guys was the time of my life.  39 years later and retired, I don't think there is a day that goes by without remembering some little thing about that one year, my last one in the service.

I skipped the bad stuff - being bored out of my mind, scared sh*tless at other times, pulling guard duty in the pouring rain, being "attacked" by our own guys, or finding a fly in the ice cubes in my beer at the village pool hall.  Some things you won’t see again are a Phantom buzzing the site at 50 ft, watching gunships pour liquid lava onto the hills by the beach, or being blown off your chair at the old chow hall from a 90mm recoilless test fire backflash.

I see Dan all the time, but I also remember Gary Petty, Gerhard Klem, Plumber (what was his real name?), Jack Lester (doing his Rambo nightscope thing in the water tower), the Lieutenant, Greek, some of the Red Horse guys, the Doc, the Army guys on the beach (flipped their jeep after falling out but hanging on to the wheel while going around in circles 'til it died), Dobie, and Walker.

I also heard recently that Henry the honcho of the locals was a VC spy!  Anyone hear that too? 

Thank God we made it!  I wish the men fighting now the same.

Seeing the photos on the web site really brings back memories - mostly good ones! Thanks Jim, everyone. Anyway, we did our thing, and we did it well!

Best of luck,

Al Nejin

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