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From: Francis Hamit
Date: 8/22/2003
Time: 6:27:16 PM
Remote Name: 209.178.141.34
I figured it was time to add to the dialog here. This one involves the 156th and the 235th. Those in the 156th will recall that, in order to fit in and not call attention to ourselves, we pulled our full share of base chores. One of the most onerous was riding security on the garbage truck The day I pulled this, I carried my mail clerk .45 in a shoulder holster instead on my M-16, this was more for convenience than style, but it did add a certain dashing look. The Vietnamese who were working on the truck chattered about it. It was about 110 and I was a little pissed off about being there since I had piles of work to do back in flight ops. I actually paid attention to what they were doing because they seemed nervous.. The main collections were at various mess halls, I watched a cook come out with a pick ax and punch holes in a bunch of Number 10 cans because they were past date. It seemed to me that most, if not all of them would end up, hole covered with candle wax, on the black market or in a VC supply depot or both. Most of what went in the ruck was swill from the line. In that heat it had already taken on a certain odor. It was a long day and about ten or eleven in the morning, near the end of the run, I was watching them dump the take from the 235th's mess hall, Suddenly I saw a flash of brown, like a tech manual cover. I told the crew to stop. They ignored me. I told them again, using all the Vietnamese at my command, and still they went on. I put my hand on the .45 and shouted "Stop!" and they did, looking at me warily. I got down off my perch on the top of the truck, made them all move away from the back and put both hands in the mess that was fermenting there. About two feet down, I found not one, but two classified techical manuals for the Huey Cobra. I was, frankly, dumbfounded. How the hell had they gotten into the garbage and what was I supposed to do about it.? I looked around and saw the orderly room for the 235th. I indicated to the crew that they should stay right where they were and, taking the two manuals, which were actually in pretty good shape, I walked into that orderly room. The First Sergeant, who, in the middle of a combat zone, was attired in dress greens with bloused combat boots (A uniform combination supposed only to be worn by the Special Forces out of a combat zone) looks at me and wrinkles his nose. Yeah, no doubt about it. I reeked! I was a mess. Hot ,sweaty, covered with spolied food, etc. "Who the Hell are you?" he half screamed at me. I was ticked! I had a truck to get back to, with at least one probabl;e VC agent on it I was going to have to report this. Still...why make it any worse than it already was. The 235th kept the bad guys away. So, I simply said, "These are yours, I believe." and dropped both manuals, with a wet, messy, satisfying smack on his immaculate bare desktop. His face turned white when he saw what they were. Undountedly, his whole career flashed before his eyes. "I have my first sergeant call you, " I said. And I did. Tozzi was aways the soul of tact in situations like this. Making a big deal about this would have created more attention for us than we wanted and the Airfield Commander would have gotten into it. (We'd already learned to avoid him, if we could), So it was settled at the NCO level. I spent the rest of my ride on the garbage truck trying to figure out how those manuals got out of that orderly room and into the mess hall garbage. I didn't worry about which of the crew might be VC. Pretty obvious to me that they all were, in one way or another. Anyone else have a tale of bad Op/Sec?