The New Guy - Phan Rang Air Base, Vietnam 1968

Guarding the perimeter of a base in Vietnam is quite different than guarding a perimeter in the USA. We had no enemy combatants or terrorists to worry about during the 60s inside the USA, but that is not a true statement about what lurked in the darkness of Vietnam. There was absolute darkness on the other side of the fence, while a patrolling sentry dog handler was back-lit by the bright lights of the base. Therefore, patrolling the perimeter of the base was a scary thing.

Each new handler learned on the job what was expected of him after arriving in country.  K-9 was the only group of guards that were allowed to chamber a round in their weapon while on duty.  When I became the Assistant Flight Chief, I stressed at guard mount during my weapons safety briefing that there was no reason to take your weapon off of safe unless you are going to use it and even then you should only use it on semi-automatic.  The CAR-15 was designed with the safety right by your thumb when your finger was on the trigger.

One warm summer night I was doing what every handler took turns at doing.  I had a new guy from the other flight on the post beside mine and I showed him around his post.  When I was done, we walked back along the fence line towards my post.  While we were walking he told me that he kept his gun on automatic while he was on the fence line. I grasped the meaning of that sentence immediately.  I had a scared soldier with a loaded automatic weapon pointed at my back with the safety off. I stopped, gave him my weapons safety speech, had him put the safety on while I then returned to my post. The rest of the night I stayed away from the fence line if I was near his post while patrolling. Okay, I stayed as far away from his post as I could and still do my job.