Working Nights

When I became a dog handler, I doomed myself to working nights. If you have to work nights, having a dog for a companion is a good thing. I liked nights with a bright moon because I could see a long distance, but then so could the enemy. I loved dark nights because I could not be seen, but my dog would know if something was out there in the darkness. My dogs made me feel safe at night, well Tusky and Dawn made me feel safe.  With Duke, however, I was more inclined to hide in the bushes and chew my fingernails. The only thing Duke would alert on was my C-rations.

I loved my dogs and I took good care of them. We spent hours together every night; more time than you would spend with a pet every day. We became best buddies and teaching them new tricks was fun and I had plenty of time on my hands to do that. In Vietnam, ticks were a big problem. I would groom my dog every night and pick ticks off of him. I would also check my dog for cuts because untreated cuts could get infected easily and in the tropics flies would also lay their eggs in a cut causing an even bigger problem.

Dinner at night was sometimes a challenge. Some things, like a pecan roll or crackers, do not need to be cooked. Other things, like canned spaghetti or beef with spiced sauce, needed to be cooked. Some of the guys would not cook their dinners because the flame would light them up, making them a target. I figured, if the enemy wanted to enter the base, they would avoid me if they could see me, so I always cooked my C-rations. The movie "Sniper" had not made the movies yet.

In Vietnam, the early shift got off post about 2 hours before the chow hall opened. In order to get three meals a day, one had to stay up for a couple of hours and wait for the chow hall to open. Way back in 1968 and 1969, before dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was no internet, no cable tv, no smartphones and no computers. I suppose I could have read a good book, but that might cause me to fall asleep and miss breakfast. Instead, I learned how to play tennis. We would go out to the tennis courts, turn on the lights and play for a couple of hours. Despite being far from home and in a war zone, I found time to relax and enjoy myself.

New barracks

This is my 26th story. I have been posting one a week for a half a year. Most of my stories have been about my dogs. Some have been about leadership. But this one is about everyday life in the service.

Phan Rang Airbase Republic of Vietnam 1969.

When I arrived at Phan Rang Airbase I bunked in a two story barracks.  It was outdated and new barracks were built for us. The new barracks was one floor and one long building with the showers and latrine in the middle. A Flight had one side and B Flight had the other side. There were no windows in the building, only screened louvers running along both sides of the building just below the soffit of the roof. There was no air conditioning. Vietnam was oppressively hot and humid.

On move-in day, the troops arranged the lockers to form cubicles for four people and then set up the bunk beds. We worked quickly because we had to get settled and get some rest before going to work for the night. The paint was barely dry when the barracks was occupied. Like most construction projects, the building was completed before the landscaping was done.

Dog handlers work nights. That means that the grading of the outside of the building was done during the day while I slept. The earth was a dry red clay. The monsoons were over. I am not a light sleeper and the heavy equipment grading the yard did not wake me up. But when I woke up I knew that the construction company had been grading the yard. The red dust had filtered in through the screened louvers and covered my sheets, pillow and one side of my face. When I lifted my head from the pillow, I left a white silhouette of my face on my pillow. Nothing a change of linens and a good shower could not fix.

I may be able to sleep through a lot of noise, but my olfactory nerves apparently do not rest. Or maybe it was the sound of several people yelling at the mamasans and threatening to kill them that woke me up.  But really, it was probably one of my roommates that woke me up. But, when I did wake up it became apparent what the problem was. The mamasans were cooking their lunches in the entryway between the two halves of the barracks.

I have never tried fermented fish heads. I will never try fermented fish heads. Anything that smells that bad should be thrown out, not eaten.

Each flight had two mamasans that kept the barracks clean and shined our boots. They worked while we slept. As the assistant flight chief, I collected the necessary fee from each handler in the flight and I paid the mamasans who worked on our side. They respected me and when I told them that they could no longer cook their lunches and eat them inside the barracks, they moved outside. The riot was quelled and everyone went back to bed.

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Snowball

Phan Rang Airbase Republic of Viet Nam 1968 to 1969.

When my dog Duke was relieved from duty, he did not get to retire and spend his life in comfort in a nice home some place. Sentry dogs are not rehabilitated but euthanized. I loved my dog and went to his necropsy. I probably should not have done that because I nearly passed out from the odor when his stomach was cut open. That is why I never went into the medical field.

If you have read my previous posts, then you know I had to choose between several available dogs after Duke was relieved from duty. I chose a dog named Tusky. Tusky had one major problem, he was basically white with a patch of black on his back. All white german shepherds were not eligible to be sent to Viet Nam, but the black spot on Tusky's back made him eligible.

Unless you were in a helicopter, Tusky was an all white dog. What is the problem with having a white dog? You probably already answered the question, white is easily visible at night. If you were me and walking a dog along a fence line in enemy territory, what type of dog would you want? Okay, black, so that the dog is as invisible as you.

Well, Tusky and I performed well despite him being white. I wore camouflage fatigues and blended into the background at night. One night one of the tower guards told me that he could not see me, but that he could see my dog as we approached the tower.  When I was close enough for the tower guard to see me, he said that it looked like I was walking a snowball.

Bad Decision

Most of the war stories that I have shared showed my good judgment, but this one was not one of my best moments. It was January 1969, I was 22 years old, and I was on post in the Echo sector of the perimeter. I had less than 30 days left in country, therefore I was a "short timer." I even wore a short timer ribbon tied in a bow to my button loop; a ribbon that comes on a bottle of Seagram's VO Gold. When you are a short timer you start thinking about just surviving a few more days so that you can go home. Odd, but prior to the 30-day countdown, one does not really think about the possibility that the trip might be made in a pine box. Over 58,000 Americans lost their lives in this senseless war.

At guard mount, the H & I (Harassment and Irritation) fire missions were announced. H & I fire missions were missions where a heavy weapons team would fire at possible enemy infiltration routes. It was a way to train our heavy weapons teams in case they were needed in combat. On the night in question, a 50 caliber machine gun, mounted on a jeep, was going to set up to fire off base a half mile down the perimeter from my post. The 50 caliber machine gun fired tracers and exploding rounds with a .5-yard kill radius. That means that the bullet does not have to hit you; it just has to hit close to you.

Prior to the heavy weapons team setting up, Control contacted all of the posts and told us to clear our posts by withdrawing to the perimeter road. I was sitting behind the metal dump, seeming well protected and decided that I was safe. Even though I was notified to clear my post, I was comfortable and decided to stay where I was and I called in that I was clear. I was not alone. The handler on the post next to mine had stopped by for a visit. He decided to stay where we were sitting and he also called in that he was clear.

Once everyone had reported that they were clear of the line of fire, the heavy weapons team set up to fire. They were not a half a mile down the perimeter. Someone had changed the fire mission or they just set up at the wrong post. When they chambered a round, it sounded like they were directly behind us. They were actually 150 feet from the fence line where we were sitting and 100 feet to our left. It was too late for us to withdraw to the road. We could only hope that the eight-foot high pile of metal junk would be enough to protect us from the bullets.

Even though I was scared and afraid that I might not survive, I watched in amazement as red tracers and exploding rounds impacted the area just a few yards from me. Because you are reading this, you know that the metal dump saved the life of a very foolish young man. Life is full of decisions and we cannot escape the consequences of those decisions. I was fortunate to survive my poor decision and vowed to do better with my decision-making in the future.

Complaint

After posting the dog handlers and posting my squad leader, the Flight Chief pulled me aside to talk to me before sending me to post. He started by telling me that one of the 35 dog handlers had complained that I did not like him and that I was assigning him to all the bad posts. As Assistant Flight Chief, my duties included assigning each dog man team to their post every night. It was not an easy task, but one I took quite seriously. It was important not to keep a dog in the same area night after night so that they would not become too familiar with the area. If the dog became too comfortable with the surroundings, he might become less alert. It was also important that the same dog teams not be posted together night after night for the same reason. So I continually shuffled them around the perimeter mixing up the handlers and areas. I treated everyone the same.

What do you do when the person complaining really thinks that every post is a bad one? What do you do when the Flight Chief does not realize that is the real problem? Well, I did the only thing that I could, I pulled out his dog's record and showed the Flight Chief that he was moved continually around the perimeter just like everyone else. He was never in the same area or on the same post two nights in a row. There it was in black and white. When we wrapped up our meeting, the Flight Chief told me not to let it happen again. How do you think I felt as I walked my dog out to our post?

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.

I'm Lost

As the Assistant Flight Chief, I was in charge of keeping the records for all the dogs.  I scheduled what posts all of the dog teams would patrol each night, the hours they worked, recorded their obedience training, attack training, on-post training and probably other things I can no longer remember. The Air Force was good at keeping records.

Once a week the Flight Chief had a night off and I ran the flight. Each dog had to have on-post alert training twice a year. That meant that I had to run two on-post problems almost every night I ran the flight. It helped the night go by quickly. This also allowed the crazy medic that rode around with me time to chat with the closest tower guard to the post where I was running the post problem.

I liked to run the post problems in the Juliette sector because it had been cleared of brush and was just tall grass. At guard mount, I always informed whoever it was that they were getting a post problem that night. It was my routine to call the dog handler and inform him that I was ready to start the post problem. I did this for three reasons.  The was first totally selfish; I did not want the handler shooting me because he thought I was the enemy. The second reason I called him before walking on his post was so that he would know when I was coming and not mistake his dog's alert for me when it was really the enemy. The third reason I called the handler was so that the dog and handler had a greater chance of success. The purpose of the on-post training was to keep the alerting skills sharp for both the dog and the handler. It is just as important that the handler be in tune with how his dog alerts as it is for the dog to find the intruder. I would check the wind, locate the handler and then set up the post problem for a high rate of success. If a dog did poorly, I would document it and rerun the problem in a different area of the base in a few days.

Now let me explain why I titled this story I'm Lost. On the night in question, I went to the tower closest to the post where I was going to run the post problem to see if I could see the dog handler. I saw him and then called him on the radio and told him that I was ready to start the post problem. His response puzzled me, "I'm not ready. I'm lost."  Really, how lost could he be? His post was 100 to 150 yards long and was 50 feet wide starting at the fence line. The fence line was about 150 feet from the perimeter road. There is a post marker on the perimeter road and a matching one at the fence line. He was dropped off at his post marker, he was supposed to walk to the fence line and then patrol between the marker for his post and the marker for the next post. How do you get lost on a post just covered with tall grass?

I told him to stay where he was. I walked out to him and asked what was happening. He said that after he got off the truck he set down his duffle bag someplace and walked out to the fence line. When he went back to get his duffle, he could not find it. He had been wandering around looking for it and now did not know where he was or even whether he was on his post. He was still between the markers for his post, so I walked him to the perimeter road and found his post marker. I had him start a sweep 50 feet wide and we started working our way towards the fence line. His dog found the duffle bag in a small barren patch of ground next to a rock about halfway between the fence and the perimeter road. A perfect spot to take a break and eat your C-rations, if you could find it again.

I had the handler grab his duffle and we went out to the fence line. We walked his post so that he knew where it started and ended. I told him that we would run the post problem later in the week. This handler and dog was one of the dog teams that were on a low-priority post the night we were attacked. The Kennel Master thought I should have used this handler to sweep the search area for the enemy. (If the last two sentences do not make sense, read the previous story, Red Alert, Part 2.)

If you are enjoying my stories, please leave a comment for encouragement.  If you follow by email (you can find this option in the right-hand sidebar), you will not miss a story. I am enjoying writing a piece of history you will not read in any history book.