I couldn't be sent out on important assignments for fear my lack of skill would cause me to screw up. I mean, I was working diligently at learning a new craft, but it was going to take a while.

     I got stuck doing in-studio work, ID photos and so on. And I also drew Company duty and as a PFC I was pretty much available for any extra work they needed, with the exception of KP, of which I had had plenty enough back in the States (YES! There was a God!).

     So each morning, I'd show up at SEAPC, perform whatever duties I needed to perform, then report to the Company after lunch. If they needed me, I did whatever they needed...usually manual labor. If the rest of the workers were E-2's, I exercised my perogative as a supervisor (hey, I was an E-3) and watched them work. If there was an E-4 on the work detail, I swallowed my pride and did what I was told. This was pretty much my day-to-day routine.

     Tet was the celebration of the Lunar New Year in Vietnam; in 1968 the enemy had chosen the holiday (31 January) to be the start of an offensive with NVA and VC attacks across the country against American and South Vietnamese troops and bases. Fact is that we smacked their Commie asses pretty good, but the US press had made it sound like we were the big losers. Assholes.

     Somewhere along the middle of February (close to Tet 1969) three of us were sent to Saigon to meet with DASPO, for no apparent reason (this was a recurring Army theme). We picked up a three-quarter at the motor pool and took off, out the gates and turning left onto Highway 1 with me riding in the bed of the truck, wearing the steel pot, flak jacket and brandishing an M-16. Before we had reached the end of Long Binh's perimeter, the truck had broken down. Our driver discovered that he had forgotten to top off a fluid and decided to hitch a ride back to the Motor Pool; Dave Thompson (I think it was) stayed in the cab and I stayed in the back, waiting.

     A few minutes after our driver left, a Vietnamese on what was probably a Honda 50 pulled up about 25 or 30 meters in front of us and stopped. He looked back at us. I got suspicious and, honestly, scared, although I can't imagine now what a guy a hundred feet away could possibly have in the saddlebags of his little cycle to hurt us. He reached into the bag, still watching us. I prepared myself to defend the truck. He pulled out...

     ...a sandwich and ate his lunch. Our driver got back with a mechanic, who made it all okay, and we continued on to Saigion, where the DASPO guys laughed at us for wearing combat gear. We drove around the city a bit, had lunch and some beer and went back to Long Binh. None of us were ever able to figure out why we had been sent into the city.

     Someone, somewhere had decided that since we had uneventfully passed the Vietnamese celebration of Tet 1969 we needed to have a unit-wide party the last week in February.
 

     We felt pretty good that Long Bing and Bien Hoa hadn't been attacked in any major way in more than a year, we felt fairly secure, and the 221st bought a bunch of beer and steaks and we got to partying. It was an extraordinary afternoon and evening and everybody pretty much got trashed.

     Additionally, Johnny Cash and June Carter were USO-touring Vietnam and had appeared at the 69th Signal Batallion's NCO Club that evening. They were staying at the 69th's BOQ, just up the hill from the 221st, within our assigned guard area. We all settled, with appropriately adjusted attitudes, into our bunks.

     And at about 3AM, 24 February 1969, as we all slept our deepest sleep, all freakin' hell broke loose. Incoming explosions from rockets and mortar shells hitting here there and everywhere, the attack sirens blaring, we got moving. Most of us had clothing, boots and flak gear positioned for this sort of thing. We dressed as quickly as we could and moved to our bunkers. When the incoming slacked off, we moved to the Armory and picked up our M-16's and ammo magazines and assembled outside the Company office.
 

     Duties, passwords and countersigns were assigned and we moved off. I was dropped off by our guard Sergeant at the 69th BOQ where Cash and his wife were staying (he later wrote and recorded Singing in Vietnam Talkin' Blues about this night). 20 years old and I was guarding an American Treasure!

     So there I am, on the 69th's hill, looking down at USARV-HQ and the base perimeter, less than a mile away, under ground attack by NVA and VC.

     Johnny and June are to my right tucked (safely) into their BOQ or a bunker, there's a huge water tank in front and there's me with my M-16 hoping that I'm not going to be the final line of defense.

     I stand there on the hill watching the firefight below me advance into the base, toward USARV, illuminated by WP/magnesium flares, lots of smoke in the air, the flares floating slowly to the ground, extinguishing as they drop. The light is blinding but it clearly shows the ground battle; us against them, and it clearly defines the line across which the battle is drawn.

     Small arms fire. Lots of small arms fire. Occasionally the sound of a grenade and what I think may be artillery shells flying outbound. And then there's another sound, a sound that I've never heard before. Continuous, enormous, hugely loud, from above.

     I look up and see the source, and there's noise and light from it way beyond anything I'd ever imagined.

     Something in the sky is shooting at the ground, and I find out later that it's an Air Force AC-47D with three mini-guns, each of which fire 6000 rounds a minute. It's the gunship they call Spooky, one of which was made famous in the John Wayne movie Green Berets (a truly awful film even though it was the only Vietnam movie actually made during the War and the only one ever made that spoke to the necessity of ridding the country of Communists).

     And as I watch this incredible spectacle, something tells me that I need to turn around...right now!