Monsoon Season

I arrived at Phan Rang Air Base in February of 1968. It was the dry season. The Phan Rang area was the closest to a desert area as it got in Viet Nam.  It was not a jungle area and the trees were small and had to survive a few months with very little rain. The monsoons started slowly. I do not remember what month, but one afternoon about 4:00pm it rained hard for five minutes. Each day after that, it continued to start raining right a 4 o'clock and rained a little longer each day. It was so regular that you could almost set your watch. The good thing was, it stopped before I had to go on post.

Then, suddenly one night it started pouring after I was on post and it did not stop. In the middle of my post was a small clearing amongst the tall grass with a log that I could sit on, cook my C-rations, and relax between sweeps of my post. Fortunately, I had cooked my C-rations before the rain started. I put on my poncho and sat there while it poured. I was miserable. It was so hot and humid that I would have been more comfortable without wearing the poncho. In the days and weeks to follow, I finally figured that out and started wrapping my gun in the poncho to keep it dry, because there was no way for me to stay dry.

As I sat there in my misery, I did not notice the water rising about my ankles until my dogs leash floated out from under my poncho. I decided that I should head for higher ground. I followed my dog up the path towards the tower that sat on higher ground. What I did not realize until too late was that I had been sitting on an island in the middle of a dry canal, which was no longer dry and no longer an island. As I followed my dog, I suddenly stepped off the edge of the island into chest deep water. I had not realized that my dog was swimming. Fortunately, the stream was narrow and my dog pulled me up the bank on the other side. When I got to the tower, I had the tower guard call my supervisor to bring me a dry gun and a new radio.

I am so thankful that Tusky was a good swimmer. With combat boots and a gun, I would not have been able to even float.