Today I met this old guy, 73, big tall, big shoulders, well due to his age he moves real slow but you can see he was once a real bull. He was telling me he was in Viet Nam, I said well you must have been older than the rest of the guys, thinking late 60's or 70's. Nope he said. I was there in 1959, left in 1963. I looked it up, in 59 it was mostly a special ranger group, a few hundred at first but it kept growing all the time. 63 saw a big build up from a few thousand it jumped to 16,000.
A jolly guy he is, I didn't pry, I don't know what he did or any more than that. I did read that some of the guys in 59 were sent in in civilian clothes, no uniforms, they were army but working for CIA. Pretty interesting.
Darrel,
ReplyDeleteThat shit was going on way after 59 - they took your dog-tags and ID card, even gave you non-US/NATO weapons in an obviously inept attempt to keep our activities in Indo-China covert.
As late as '75 I seen C-130s - no markings on them and Cambodian registry flown by American aircrews operating out of U-Tapao.
Pilatus porters - It was wild...
Ron
I heard Ike had our guys there in '54 helping the French pack up and leave. After the French left we had people there with no IDs or uniforms until JFK made it official with the "military advisers". Also heard rumors about "Air America" the CIA's Air Force. Heard the CIA had specially built planes with no serial numbers or registration. They would take parts of various planes and put them together into planes that would do what they wanted them to do.
ReplyDeleteI was aware we had a small force in there as you say helping the frogs pack up. I read a book long time ago about some of the early battles, most all were small in size. These guys were pretty much out their on their own in small groups. They had to work with and sometimes be protected by the locals. They rarely had air support, evacs, there was no artillery to be called for. I wish I could remember the book.
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