My first assignment as a lieutenant colonel was as Staff Judge Advocate for the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. After a month's leave in Wisconsin, I caught a commercial flight from Madison on June 30, 1968, and headed for San Francisco. I arrived in mid-afternoon and a military bus took me to nearby Travis Air Force Base. I processed for overseas deployment, ate dinner in the mess hall, and about 9:00 p.m. boarded a chartered commercial airliner for the flight to Vietnam. Then we just sat there on the runway for three hours. The reason? If we took off before midnight, the 200 or so of us on the plane each would have been entitled to $65 hostile fire pay for the month of June.

After about six hours in the air, the plane landed at Hickman Air Force Base, near Honolulu, Hawa<br>ii, to refuel. With the three hour time differential, it was about 3:00 a.m. when we got off the plane. We spent more than two hours on the ground, milling around the darkened airbase in beautiful weather, before boarding again just before dawn. It was bright daylight by the time we were in the sky and remained bright for the rest of the flight, making it very hard to get any sleep.

We flew for about 16 hours before landing at Binh Hoa Air Base near Saigon. With the ten hour time change from Hawaii, it was only about noon in Vietnam. (But it was July 3 because we had crossed the international date line.) The wet season supposedly had begun in the Saigon area, and it was extremely humid. But there was no rain, only a blistering hot sun. With both the heat and the humidity near 100%, our khakis were soaking wet the instant we stepped off the plane.

Buses took us to the 90th Replacement Battalion in nearby Long Binh where we were processed in. The first thing we did was change our U.S. dollars for military payment certificates (MPCs or script). We were issued our jungle fatigue uniforms, right down to the olive drab underwear and handkerchiefs. There were commercial kiosks where we could have the proper insignia sewed on in less than five minutes. That was the most efficient activity there.

As a lieutenant colonel, I was privileged to be assigned private quarters, a six by eight foot plywood shack, free-standing, on stilts, in the full sun. With a temperature at least 20 degrees hotter than it was outside, it was like a kiln. I think the barracks for the enlisted soldiers would have been much more comfortable. By the time I got to lie down on the cot, it had been about 45 hours since I'd slept. And now it was just too hot to sleep.

Even aside from the heat, conditions here were appalling. Everything was gritty to the touch, probably a remnant the red dust from the dry season that had never been cleaned up. All the drains were plugged in the large communal shower so the water was eight inches deep and filthy. There was no cool water to drink. The only potable water was from a lister bag (a long canvas bag suspended on a tripod) sitting in the full sun. There wasn't anything else cool, either. They had milk in the mess hall, but it was "reconstituted" from powdered milk, coconut oil and water. It tasted funny to begin with and even more so because it was never cold. No communication with the outside world was permitted, so I couldn't even contact the 4th Infantry Division to let them know I'd arrived. It was four days (7 July) before I was finally released from this prison.

Early that morning I joined several other soldiers on a military bus to Ton Son Nhut Airport in Saigon where, after much delay, we boarded a C-130 transport plane. It was a fairly short flight to the air base in Pleiku. There I was met by Lt. Col. Jim Thornton, the outgoing SJA, who took me by jeep several miles south on Highway 14 to Camp Enari, the base camp for the 4th Infantry Division. The entire region was on a large plateau known as the Central Highlands. The land between Pleiku and Camp Enari was mostly flat, but with occasional rounded rock formations abruptly breaking the surface. A range of low mountains was visible on the western horizon.

As we approached Camp Enari, the most prominent terrain feature in the area was Dragon Mountain, actually two wooded peaks connected by a saddle. A short distance away and inside the Camp was Signal Hill, where the Division's signal battalion had its main antennas. The three peaks together, from the right angle, looked like the humps of an arching dragon, hence the name Dragon Mountain. Except for these features, the Camp and the area around it were mostly flat. There was some grass and scrub vegetation but only a few scattered trees. It definitely wasn't a jungle. A little to the west, though, the landscape was very different, with thick jungles.

Camp Enari, named after a young lieutenant who had been killed early in the war, was about one-mile square, ringed by multiple rows of barbed wire, interspersed with Claymore mines and guarded by watch towers and bunkers spaced along the perimeter. Enlisted men from the Camp, including the legal clerks and court reporters from my office, regularly pulled duty in the bunkers at night. They also took part in occasional daylight sweeps
outside the perimeter to make sure the enemy stayed at a distance.

Lieutenant colonels and above lived in old, three bedroom house trailers left over from some Stateside hurricane relief operation. I was assigned to share a trailer with the Division Chaplain and his Deputy. We each had a bedroom and shared the one bath. We had hot and cold running water (nonpotable) and a flush toilet, luxuries few soldiers had at Camp Enari.

Most of the latrines were traditional outhouses. Every few days, some poor soul had to clean out what had collected, put it in a metal barrel with gasoline, and burn it. The smell of the horrible black smoke was absolutely atrocious. Fortunately, the wind was almost always blowing in the Highlands and usually dispersed the smoke quickly.

The SJA office was one in a string of Quonset huts (20' x 48') right across from the Division Headquarters on the Administrative Street. The office didn't look like much from the outside, but the inside was wood-paneled and had vinyl tile floors and fluorescent lights. There was a large reception/administrative office across the front and a courtroom across the rear. These were connected by a central hall with private offices off of it on both sides.

Jim was leaving the next morning, but he helped me through the processing and introduced me to the people in the SJA Office, as well as to the Commanding General (CG), Maj. Gen. Charles Stone, and many members of his Staff that I'd be working with. General Stone was an imposing man and what is sometimes referred to as "a legend in his own mind." He fancied himself another George S. Patton, complete with a pair of ivory-handled pistols. He was a lot of show and bluster, but really both sensible and sensitive underneath. He publicly and conspicuously relieved (fired) officers at the drop of a hat (including my predecessor), but I learned later that none of them actually lost his job.

I experienced his bluster first-hand in just my second week as his SJA. It was at the meeting held every evening to review the day's events, where every battalion-size or larger unit in the Division had a representative present. Gen. Stone launched into a tirade about the inadequacy of the punishment a Brigade Commander proposed (on my recommendation) for a Lieutenant who had stolen a jeep from another unit to use in his own. The General wanted the Lieutenant hanged, drawn and quartered. I winced but held my peace.

I knew the General always walked by his office, alone, after the evening meeting to pick up his mail. I thought that this would be my best chance to confront him about his improper conduct. I expected that he would relieve me, but figured that it wouldn't hurt my career much because he couldn' give me a performance evaluation until I'd worked for him for 30 days.

I found him in his office and told him that what he'd done was improper and disqualified him from acting on the Lieutenant's case. I expected him to explode, but instead, he meekly said, "Yeah, I know. What do I have to do to fix it?' This is how I learned that, if I could give him unpleasant news when we were alone, with no audience for his usual bluster, he was a calm and reasonable man.

So I wasn't worried when, sometime later, I had to tell him that the Army couldn't legally hold the officers who had led the construction of Camp Enari personally liable for millions of dollars worth of construction equipment that now couldn't be accounted for. The problem this time, though, was that the Chief of Staff and one of our Brigadier Generals sat in on my briefing. When I gave my legal opinion, Gen. Stone flew into a rage. He ranted on for a full half hour before asking me quietly, "Where do I sign?" Then he left. The Chief of Staff walked over, covered with perspiration and mopping his face, and said to me, "I've never seen anybody in my life who could stand there so perfectly calm and relaxed while the General is chewing him out for half an hour!" I pointed out that the General never said a word against me; he was only complaining that he didn't like the rules for determining liability.

I'd only been in the SJA office a few days when my Deputy invited me to join the other officers for a trip to the range. He showed me a closet holding a small arsenal of unauthorized weapons that we took to the range. Everyone seemed to enjoy the opportunity to fire M-16 rifles on full automatic, something I'd never done before. They also asked if I wanted to fire the M-79 grenade launcher, a weapon I had never seen before. It was breach-loaded like an old shotgun, but indirect fire. The projectile traveled in a high arc toward the target. You also had to use a little Kentucky windage in aiming it. The target was a dead tree about a hundred yards down range.

My first shot was dead center, but over the top of the tree. My second shot hit the tree. Everyone was amazed, and the range officer ran over to me and exclained that no one had ever hit the tree before. They all urged me to take another shot, but I quit while I was ahead, casually remarking, "I must be slipping. It took me two shots." When we got back to the office, I quietly reminded my Deputy that we were violating regulations by having these unauthorized weapons and told him to get rid of them.

In addition to the luxury of living in a trailer with running water, another privilege of being on the CG's staff was membership in the General's Mess. Although we got basically the same food as other mess halls, General Stone had his own military chef, and the food was always very well prepared. That alone made a tremendous difference. In addition, the General's Mess had better equipment and more of it. The water was always cold, and we even had iced tea with ice cubes. The milk was the same reconstituted stuff I'd had at Long Binh, but it was much more palatable served ice cold. On rare occasions (twice, I think) we even had ice cream, hand-cranked from that same reconstituted milk. Instead of going through a chow line, we sat at tables for four and were served by waiters (soldiers) wearing black slacks, short-sleeved white shirts, red vests, and black bow ties. (Every few weeks each of us would be invited to sit at the General's table, a large round table for ten where our three generals and five colonels sat.) There even was wine available, but it was rarely ordered except for special occasions. (I ordered it once, on my birthday, because that was the tradition in the Mess - birthdays and promotions.)

Once we had a very unusual treat (?) in the mess, tenderloin of tiger. One of our soldiers had been killed by a tiger near the Oasis, a base camp near a French tea plantation. For some reason the tigers loved that plantation and were often spotted there. A few weeks later a soldier in that area was in his fox hole on guard duty. He had removed his helmet. He didn't hear a sound, when suddenly a tiger clamped its jaws onto the top of the soldie''s
head and started dragging him out of the fox hole. The soldier, still holding his rifle, managed to unlock the safety but couldn't bring it to bear on the tiger. Nevertheless, he pulled the trigger and fired several shots. The tiger dropped him and ran away.

A few nights later (28 Dec) in the same area, soldiers lying quietly on night patrol saw a tiger just a few feet away and about to spring. They emptied five magazines at him before they finally killed him. The tiger was more than eight feet long and weighed 400 pounds. Eventually they loaded the tiger on the hood of a jeep and brought it to Camp Enari where it was a great attraction. Somehow the General's chef wangled the tenderloin for our mess. The tiger meat wasn/t bad. If I hadn'' known what I was eating, I would have thought it was pork tenderloin, almost white and a little on the dry side.

The General's Mess served all three daily meals. In addition, there was a bar that opened at 6:30, half an hour before the evening meal. Except for wine with dinner a few times, though, I don't think I had an alcoholic drink the whole year I was there. But I would try to get to the mess close to 6:30 for the comradery. I got to know the other lieutenant colonels very well and became quite close to about half a dozen of them. Probably my closest friend was Lt. Col. Jay Childers, the Finance Officer. In fact, my social life, such as it was, involved people from the General’s Mess more than those from the SJA office. That came as a surprise to me but, in retrospect, it really was very logical.

Although I usually spent about 12 hours a day in my office, it was pretty much all business. My people there were almost all ten to fifteen years younger than me and, of course, I was their boss. The opportunities for social contacts outside the office were constrained by the Army’s rank-based segregation of living and eating facilities, and the lack of any “neutral” places where we could gather. There were a few office social events (cookouts, holiday parties, etc.), but probably less than six over the entire year I was there. The people in the General’s Mess, on the other hand, were generally closer to my own age. I saw them in a relaxed atmosphere where talking about things other than business was natural.

I ate at the General’s Mess almost every meal. The only exceptions were when I was traveling or when the SJA office had a cookout. That was rare, only about two or three times in the year I was there, as I recall. It depended on us being able to get some steaks. Theoretically they were issued to every unit on some rotating basis, but as a practical matter, it depended on having an in with someone in the right place.

The General’s Mess showed a movie almost every evening after dinner, selected by the CG from those provided to the Division by Special Services. I probably watched the movie once or twice a week, but it depended on what was going on in the SJA office at the time. The office was generally open 14 hours a day (7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.), seven days a week, but everyone got to leave at least for meals, and usually for whatever personal time they needed. I usually left the office around 6:00 p.m. so I had time to shower and change to a clean uniform before going to the General’s Mess. It would be close to 8:00 p.m by the time we finished dinner, and I would go back to the office to see what was going on. Usually it was quiet and I would use the time to write my daily letter home and record my daily tape to Jane and the boys.

Besides the daily letters and tapes, I was able to talk to Jane and the boys twice using MARS (Military Auxiliary Radio System) in which amateur radio operators (hams) provided "phone patches"  to allow overseas servicemen to contact their families at home. It was a one-way radio connection so you had to say “over” after you said something so the ham would switch the microphone over to the other party. Although it was great to hear all their voices, the conversations were very awkward and unnatural. Imagine, “I love you. Over.” I could have called more often, but enlisted soldiers had to wait in long lines to call home and I didn’t want to preempt their time.

There was a large Post Exchange (PX) on the base when I arrived, but the only merchandise I found when I went there was a large box of brown shoe laces. (Our boots took black laces.) That PX burned to the ground in November, and a new one was built soon after. But it was only toward the end of my tour that it actually began to have any merchandise.

For the most part, there were about a dozen people assigned to the SJA office. The SJA (me) was a Lieutenant Colonel and the Deputy SJA was a Major. In addition, there were about four other military lawyers, usually Captains, who prosecuted or defended general courts-martial, provided personal legal assistance to service members, and handled claims and various other legal work. My office also had a Warrant Office who took care of office administration and supervised the enlisted men. We also were authorized two enlisted court reporters and three legal clerks. (One of the clerks was Jere Meacham, father of Jon Meacham, many years later an editor and columnist for Newsweek.) The military judges for our general courts-martial flew in from Saigon. For the first few months, the judge was Lt. Col. Jack Crouchet; then it was Lt. Col. Wayne Alley, a close friend who had taught with me at the JAG School a few years earlier.

The Camp employed dozens of Vietnamese, and a few Montagnards in various jobs inside the perimeter. Most did menial work. The officers in the trailers (including myself) hired Montagnard women to wash and iron their uniforms. The SJA office had an elderly "mama-san" who cleaned our office. (It really needed it because the floors were covered with red mud in the wet season and everything was covered with red dust in the dry season. After mopping the floors, she always insisted on washing my desk with the then muddy water, despite my best efforts to keep her away.) Others Vietnamese served as interpreters, clerks, typists, etc. Each one was given a special pass upon entering the Camp in the morning, and the military police kept a record of each pass issued. In the evening, the passes were turned in as the employees left. That way we knew if there were still any Vietnamese inside the Camp. If so, they were located and escorted out before dark.

The weather at Camp Enari wasn’t too bad for Vietnam. It was noticeably cooler than Long Binh, mostly in the mid to low 80s when I arrived. The warmest months were in the spring when the average high was about 90. The coolest month was November with an average high of 76. Perhaps the best thing, though, was the cool nights. The average lows were never above 70 and from November through March were in the low 60s. We had a wet season (June-October) and a dry season (December-May), the opposite of most of the coastal region. When I arrived, it was still early in the rainy season, and it only rained part of each day. Less than a month later, the rain was constant, the dampness permeated everywhere, and everything mildewed. There was no place to get dry. Even our fresh uniforms were damp when we put them on. I finally scrounged and dismantled an old light fixture and installed a light bulb in my metal wall locker so all my possessions wouldn’t be ruined.

As the rainy season tapered off and it rained less and got cooler, the weather was really pleasant. In the early dry season, the vegetation remained green for a while and there still was little dust. As the dry season wore on, though, the plants turned brown and the red clay soil turned to a dust finer than talcum powder. In areas with traffic, it would hang in the air for days without settling. Eventually it came down, though, and by June when the first rain came, the red dust would be 12 to 18 inches deep in camp Enari. Even the rain drops raised clouds of dust as they landed. With the end of the dry season came a constant west wind.

Malaria was prevalent in Vietnam. The vivax strain was found all over the country. In the Central Highlands we also had the falciparum strain. To prevent vivax, we had to take a huge horse pill (mefloquine) every week. It caused stomach and intestinal problems for many soldiers, but fortunately it didn’t bother me. To prevent falciparum, we took a small dapsone pill every day. (Dapsone was originally a medicine for leprosy. Someone noticed that lepers taking dapsone didn’t get malaria.) None of the pills conferred complete immunity. There were frequent cases of malaria in the Division, but they were rare at Camp Enari.

Getting back to my arrival at Camp Enari, the very next day I had to fly by helicopter to Kontum to talk to the 3rd Brigade Commander (Col. Gordon Duquemin) about criminal charges against one of his lieutenants (the jeep thief mentioned earlier). The Division'
s main combat units weren’t regularly at Camp Enari. They were deployed in blocking positions, usually to the west toward the Cambodian border. Each brigade and battalion maintained a small element at the Camp, however. In addition, battalions would take turns
standing down, that is, returning to the base camp for several days to refresh the troops and allow them to attend to personal matters.

When I finished at Kontum, since I was already that far north, I flew further north to Dak To to meet the 2nd Brigade Commander. (The Brigades didn’t always stay in one place but moved from one area to another as conditions required.) In the ensuing months I also had occasion to visit several of our battalion fire bases by helicopter. A fire base was usually a hilltop in the jungle that had been cleared of vegetation and was manned by U.S. soldiers, including artillery to support infantry operating in areas beyond the normal range of fire support from their own base camps.

These trips were uneventful in that we never encountered enemy fire or had any other problems. Only once did we have any excitement. We had completed a visit to a forward fire base and were flying back toward Camp Enari when the pilot picked up an emergency radio call. A nearby fire base was under attack and had casualties to be evacuated. There were no “dust offs” (medevac helicopters) available and any helicopter in the area was asked to fly in (under fire) to evacuate the wounded. Our pilot said we were close and should go. As the senior officer aboard, I had the final call, but we all agreed, even though it meant a “hot” landing. Fortunately, the pilot received another call only a few minutes later saying they didn’t need us because another helicopter had already arrived. I must admit to feeling some sense of relief.

On another visit to some of the forward fire bases near the tri-border area (where the borders of Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam come together), our pilot asked if I’d ever been to Cambodia or Laos. When I said no, he turned the helicopter west and flew a wide circle around the mountain peak where the three borders met. That took us (illegally) over both Cambodia and Laos. I never mentioned to Jane when I’d been out in a helicopter because I knew it would add to her worry.

For the most part, I was never subjected to direct enemy fire. However, the Viet Cong (VC) launched many attacks against Camp Enari during my tour. Most were by 122 mm. rockets fired from distant hills to the west. For the first several months, the rockets missed the one square mile camp completely. Word was that the VC were using old French maps and that a mismatch of adjoining pages fell between their firing point and the camp, causing a miscalculation of the distance. Whatever the problem, the VC eventually corrected it. From then on, most of the VC rockets hit inside the camp.

I think there were probably less than ten rocket attacks in all. In perhaps the first four of them the rockets missed Camp Enari. I didn’t record dates at the time but later found some for the later attacks. On March 21, 1969, nine rockets hit the camp around 5:30 a.m., destroying a couple of our Cobra helicopter gunships, and damaging other helicopters and equipment. A siren sounded when the first rocket landed, and those of us living in the trailers rushed from our beds to an adjacent bunker constructed of wooden beams and sandbags. For some reason, one of the beams (about a 4 x 12) had not been cut off flush and projected several inches into the door opening. On this occasion I ran into it (without boots) and gashed my shin bad enough that there was a lot of blood. The Division Surgeon was there and took a look at it, finally tying his handkerchief around my leg to stop the bleeding. One of the other officers remarked that I was now eligible for a Purple Heart (true!), but I was embarrassed by the mere suggestion and avoided ever mentioning it again.

On April 15 rockets started falling inside the camp about 7:30 a.m. and again we rushed to our bunker. There were 13 hits in all. I managed to photograph one rocket at the exact moment it exploded. We saw from the bunker that about three rockets had already exploded in almost the same spot, an open area about 40 yards away from my trailer. We could also see a flash in the distant hills every time a rocket was fired. So we timed the interval between the flash and the explosion. It was 16 seconds. A friend counted the seconds after the next flash, and I clicked the shutter at 16. Bingo! A great picture. Unfortunately, though, not all the rockets fell in open areas. The 24th Signal Battalion mess hall was destroyed by a direct hit, killing two soldiers inside. Fifteen people were wounded.

The VC also made various attempts to breach the camp's barbed wire and bunker perimeter by stealth, patiently returning night after night to cut through the many layers of barbed wire, then loosely reattaching them as they backed out so the opening wouldn't be noticed during the day. On one occasion they succeeded in breaking through and placing satchel charges under dozens of vehicles in a motor pool. Fortunately less than half the charges detonated. On another occasion, a VC sniper managed to hit and kill a soldier through the narrow gun port of a bunker.

Another rocket attack took place late in the afternoon on May 18. As usual our helicopters took to the air to try to suppress the fire. Unfortunately, as dusk approached one of the Cobras apparently lost its bearings and crashed into Dragon Mountain. Both pilots were killed.

There were a couple of times that I was concerned that I might be the specific target of enemy fire. One such time I had to take a jeep from Camp Enari to Pleiku before dawn to catch a flight to Saigon. I had a driver but, with no other security, we were sitting ducks on the deserted highway. I put a clip in my .45 pistol, not that it would have done much good against rifles or mines. The other time was when my helicopter landed in an unfamiliar Montagnard village that, for all I knew, might have been under VC control. (Details below.)

We occasionally had VIP visitors to Camp Enari. Nguyen Van Thieu, President of Vietnam, came with much fanfare in October (1968). The following month, Gen. Stone, our commander, retired and was replaced by Maj. Gen. Donn Pepke, a much more congenial officer. There was a large change-of-command ceremony on 30 November, attended by Gen. Creighton Abrams, the almost legendary USARV commander. (He became Army Chief of Staff in 1972, but died of cancer in 1974.)

On December 1, 1968, I was appointed a Foreign Claims Commission with authority to settle and pay claims against the U.S. by foreign nationals. (As SJA I already had authority to settle claims by U.S. personnel serving in my area. Most of those claims were for loss of personal property due to enemy action.) The foreign claims were quite different and usually arose from the activities of our soldiers (e.g., tanks driving through rice paddies; burning huts; traffic accidents; assaults; rapes; etc.). Dealing with the claimants, especially Montagnards, was also very different, since few of them could read or write. We had them sign off on the claim settlement by dipping a thumb in ink and pressing it on the form (which we changed to read, “I, the underthumbed, do hereby . . . .”).

Also in December, Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hodson, the Army Judge Advocate General, visited us at Camp Enari. Our new CG loaned me his personal helicopter to fly up to the airport in Pleiku to pick up Gen. Hodson. On the flight back to Camp Enari, the helicopter gave us a real demonstration of “nap of the earth” flying. We were never more than a few feet above the trees, crossing valleys and folds in the ground by flying down into them rather than over them. At one point as we dropped deep into a ravine, the helicopter blades clipped the branches of the trees on both sides, sending up a spray of leaves and twigs. When we finally landed, Gen. Hodson, who clearly had never had such an experience before, turned to me, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Quite a ride! Do you do that all the time?” Acting very nonchalant, I replied, “Oh, sure,” even though it was the wildest helicopter ride I’d ever had.

The 4th Infantry Division protocol people had arranged for Gen. Hodson to be taken on a tour of the largest “consolidated” Montagnard village in our area of operations. There had long been many Montagnard villages in the Pleiku area. The Montagnards weren’t ethnic Vietnamese but were more primitive tribesmen (in our area, mostly members of the Jarai tribe). After the Americans arrived, many of their villages were consolidated, meaning several of the original villages were relocated to a single cluster so the combined population was sufficient to form a Popular Defense Force to defend against small bands of Viet Cong. This also allowed the establishment of schools, clinics, and resident U.S. Army Civil Affairs teams. Naturally, I escorted Gen. Hodson, on his visit to the largest village. It was also my first visit to such a village and I found it very interesting.

Upon his departure, my office presented Gen. Hodson with a Montagnard crossbow. The Montagnards used small crossbows, crafted of local wood by skilled artisans, for hunting birds and small game. However, the one we presented was an oversized teak replica and wasn’t made by any Montagnard. (I brought the same kind home as a souvenir.)

A few weeks later Lt. Col Bill Oldham, Deputy SJA of USARV, unexpectedly showed up in my office one morning with his camera, asking to visit the same village. I called Hensel Army Air Field (located on Camp Enari), explained the request, and asked if we could get a helicopter. All the regular choppers were out on operational missions but, after some scrambling, they offered an ancient OH-23 "bubble" chopper that they no longer used. (This was the Korean War vintage helicopter seen in the “MASH” series on TV.) When we got to Hensel Field, they had to jump-start the engine because the battery was dead. We took off and had flown a few minutes when the pilot asked me where we were going. I had no idea! I thought he knew! I didn't know the name of the village or in which direction it was. So we just flew over one village after another, but none of them looked familiar. Out of desperation, I told the pilot to land at the next village with a helipad.

It was a large village, but with no U.S. military presence and therefore no security or guarantee of a friendly reception. I put a clip in my .45 pistol as we landed giving Lt. Col. Oldham quite a start. The pilot said he had to stay with the chopper and keep the engine running because he was afraid it wouldn't start again. Fortunately, a Montagnard in a military fatigue shirt rushed out and gave us a friendly greeting. He spoke no English but managed a little very poor French, explaining that he had served as an NCO under the French. My French was worse than poor but it was better than my Jarai, and we managed to communicate. He showed us around the village, explained the social structure (e.g., all men without wives lived together in a hut whose roof-line ran perpendicular to all the others), and introduced us to his family.

The unmarried men were roasting a pig in a pit when we came there after the tour. They offered to dig it out on the spot (even though it wasn't yet done) so we could share it. I declined, explaining that it was Friday and, as a Catholic, I couldn't eat meat. Lt. Col. Oldham had an instant conversion to Catholicism and similarly declined. Our guide accepted this and explained it to the others. Then they insisted that we share their rice wine, drunk through a long reed from a large crock. We couldn't refuse without offending them but did our best not to swallow much wine (due to hepatitis warnings). The rice wine actually tasted quite good.

After spending nearly two hours in the village, we made our way back to the helicopter. Just as we hadn’t known where we were going, we also never knew where we’d been. We probably were foolish to undertake this visit to an unknown village with unknown risks, but the Montagnards couldn't have been friendlier. And I'll bet Lt. Col. Oldham thought all along that I knew what I was doing. And he told everyone back at USARV Headquarters that I spoke French.

We Americans in Vietnam celebrated Christmas as best we could. I had my own two-foot artificial Christmas tree and received a total of 13 cards, all greatly appreciated. We also celebrated New Year's Eve with an office party, and someone even scrounged up a couple bottles of champagne.

I had now reached the halfway point of my tour in Vietnam, so perhaps this would be a good place to recap the four overnight trips that I took away from Camp Enari during that first six months. I had only been in Vietnam a month when I flew down to Saigon (August 1) to attend a Judge Advocate conference. I spent two days there and came back on August 4. I couldn’t get into the Rex or Brinks, the biggest and most well known hotels, so I stayed in a small place a couple blocks away with just a few rooms. As I walked down the street to a meeting, Vietnam children swarmed around and clung to me. I thought it was cute until I realized they were trying to steal my watch. I didn’t have time for sightseeing, but I could readily see how different Saigon was from the Central Highlands.

On August 26 I flew to Nha Trang, a beautiful city on the South China Sea that, in its setting and architecture, would have fit in very well on the French Riviera. The HQ of the U.S. Army's II Field Forces (equivalent to an Army Corps HQ) was located there. This was the 4th Division's next higher HQ and I was expected to make a courtesy call on the SJA there upon my arrival and departure from the 4th Division. I was several weeks late in making this first visit. I flew back to Camp Enari the very next day and didn’t see much except from the air.

Then on October 23 I had to go to USARV Headquarters in Long Binh for a meeting with Col. Douglass, the SJA. I flew from Pleiku to Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, and a jeep took me to Long Binh. The next day I hitched a helicopter ride to Tan Son Nhut and flew back to Pleiku. I got to see some of the countryside each way and it was pretty dismal.

The following month (November 22) I flew down to Saigon for a two-day Judge Advocate conference, returning November 24. The meeting was in Cholon, the Chinese quarter, and a Chinese-American JAG officer (Maj. John Fugh) led a group of us to a Chinese restaurant for lunch one day. The food was good, but nothing like that served in Chinese restaurants in the States. That was the extent of my travel in my first six months.

I made five overnight trips outside of Camp Enari in the second half of my tour, three of them outside Vietnam. The big event was a trip to Hawaii on R&R to meet Jane. I took a C-130 flight to Tan Son Nhut Air Base on January 13, then a charter flight to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu the next day. What with the time zones and the International Date Line, I arrived in the wee small hours of the morning on January 14. Jane was there to meet me. It was a glorious reunion except that we couldn’t check into the luxurious Halekulani Hotel for several more hours. So we took a small and spartan room at the Air Base for the remainder of the night.

I had made reservations at the Halekelani for just one night; then we were flying to Kauai for three days, then back to the Halekelani for the final three days. I had done extensive research and chose the Halekelani because it had several beautiful acres dotted with 37 small bungalows. I much preferred that to the other big hotels, all high-rises. When we finally got to the Halekelani in late morning, though, we were surprised to find that they hadn’t put us in a bungalow, but (for the same price) in a lavish, stand-alone structure right on the beach. It was obviously their best and most expensive suite. The long, curved side toward the ocean was completely covered by large windows, giving us a fantastic view, and the furnishings were fabulous. We greatly appreciated the Hotel’s generosity and had a wonderful stay there.

The next day we were off to Kauai, seeking a more quiet and private atmosphere than Honolulu. We stayed in the Wailua area at the Coco Palms Resort, said to be the most well known resort property in all of Hawaii. Much of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Hawaii” (and other movies) was filmed there. Its 2,000-tree coconut grove, dating to 1896, was the largest in Hawaii, and there were several lagoons. The lobby was breathtaking. All the rooms were in small bungalows.

Our room had a lanai (porch) which could be closed off from our room only by a porous reed curtain. The bathroom sink was a huge conch shell. Each evening there was a ceremonial torch lighting ceremony, introduced by a native blowing a conch shell. The food was great. And best of all, it was the most romantic setting you could imagine. (Sadly, the resort was devastated by a hurricane in 1992 and has never reopened.)

A lovely sandy beach was right across the road from the hotel, and we enjoyed that. We had rented a car and spent a day exploring the south shore and west side of Kauai, most notably visiting the spectacular Waimea Canyon (described by Mark Twain as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific). But the Coco Palms was so beautiful that we were reluctant to leave it for too long.

When our three days were up, we flew back to Honolulu, hoping to get the same room we’d had at the Halekelani. That was too much to ask, and we got a room in one of the bungalows. It was very nice, but paled in comparison with our first room.

Our friends from Italy, Roy and Lucy Brown, were now stationed in Hawaii. They not only entertained us, but also loaned us their Volkswagon Beetle for three days so we could get around Oahu. We drove around the coast of much of Oahu, most notably including a full day visiting the Polynesian Culture Center at Laie. The Center included adjacent villages representing the various Polynesian peoples. While we were in one of the huts, a tourist mistook Jane, who was wearing a floral pattern dress, for one of the native docents and asked her to pose for a picture.

Like all good things, our week together came to an end and we had to say goodbye for another several months. I caught my charter flight back to Saigon, and Jane flew back to the States the next day. (A snowstorm in the Midwest disrupted the latter stages of her trip.) I got back to Camp Enari on January 23.

Just over a month later (February 28), I flew to Saigon again. The USARV SJA, Col. Jay Douglas, perhaps feeling guilty for having diverted the replacements for my two court reporters, had asked me to be the Trial Observer at a case in Hong Kong. I went first to USARV HQ to be briefed on the case. (A U.S. soldier on R&R had gotten drunk and become violent, causing considerable property damage and assaulting a policeman.) Then on March 2, I caught a commercial flight to Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport. The trial was uneventful, but difficulty in getting a return flight caused me to spend four days there instead of the two I had expected. (Because the length of the trial was uncertain, I couldn’t book the return flight until the trial was over.) I didn’t mind the delay because it gave me two full days for shopping and sightseeing.

I stayed at a hotel in Kowloon. It was a short walk to the ferry terminal on the south tip of the mainland. The famous Peninsula Hotel (1928) was also located there. I had dinner at the Peninsula one evening, apparently earlier than most people dined because I was the only customer. Seven waiters stood watching me the entire time. If I took a sip of wine, the sommelier immediately rushed over and topped off my glass. It made me very uncomfortable. I had borscht (beet soup), then beef stroganoff, so the waiters may have thought I was Russian.

Another day I took the ferry across to Hong Kong Island. I rode the Peak Tram (1888), a funicular railway, to the top and had a great view. Following my guidebook, I went to a large outdoor market located on a long flight of steps. But it seemed to be frequented only by locals. I felt out of place and left after half an hour.

I walked to the Tiger Balm (Aw Boon Haw) Garden (1935), built by a man who made his fortune from this popular curative balm. The seven acre site was covered with a grotesque and surrealistic conglomeration of colorful concrete animals, pagodas, religious figures, and other garish objects. I was disappointed because everything seemed to be in very poor condition. I was the only person there. (The Garden was converted to an amusement park in 1985 and demolished in 2003. The adjoining Haw Par Mansion survives.)

I also spent a lot of time shopping. The British had established the China Fleet Club, a huge area of shops run by local merchants, but with controlled quality and fixed prices. There were fantastic bargains and I went on a buying spree. Among other things, I bought Jane a mink stole, a large gold pendant, and two classy designer outfits. I also had a lovely silk brocade Chinese dress made for her, and had a suit and a uniform made for myself. I got some hand-carved ivory artifacts, including a couple of chess sets (one for my brother Don).

The remarkable thing about my visit to Hong Kong is that I didn’t see a single tourist all the time I was there. I was alone at every tourist site I visited. (I went back in 2000 and found the place completely overrun by tourists, not to mention being grossly overbuilt.) I flew back to Saigon on March 6 and was back at Camp Enari the next day.

Now, besides my regular duties, I had to spend much of my time preparing for a major change in the military court system. In October 1968, a new Military Justice Act had been enacted requiring, among many other things, that, beginning August 1, 1969, both the trial (prosecuting) and defense counsels in special courts-martial be lawyers. Until then, these lower level courts-martial could be handled by non-lawyer officers. There were several times more of these trials each month than the two or three general courts-martial we usually had in our Division, so there would be a great increase in the resources we would need. But the Army wasn’t ready to supply us with those resources, so it was up to me to find a way to handle the new requirements. I planned and got our General to authorize an additional building, an additional jeep, the necessary office equipment, additional clerical personnel, and six more lawyers. But it was up to me, with the help of our G-1 (director of personnel) to find and recruit the lawyers among the officers already assigned to the Division. (By the time I left Vietnam, I had four of the new lawyers on board.)

In March (1969), an educated Vietnamese woman (wife of a Vietnamese Special Forces officer) was assigned to our office as a clerk. Her English was so-so, but she was still able to help us some by typing repetitious forms, especially those that required translation, such as foreign claims.

About that same time, Gen. Pepke decided that there ought to be a camp theater where our soldiers could watch movies when in base camp. I thought it was a foolish idea to have a place where large numbers of soldiers would be gathered because it would be an ideal target for enemy rockets. The theater was built, a huge barn-like structure, but I never went inside.

March also brought the hot spring weather, with daily highs around 90. I don’t know if the weather had anything to do with it, but I started to lose weight. I’d been about 150 pounds when I came to Vietnam and may have lost a couple pounds before March, probably from never eating snacks. (There were none.) But now I started losing about a pound a week. I started running for exercise sometime that spring (in uniform, including combat boots), but I don’t think that had anything to do with it. I only ran a mile each day. (I’ve continued running regularly ever since.) As my weight fell below 140, I was somewhat concerned, but in May I finally stabilized at 134. (I gained the weight back in a few of months after I left Vietnam.)

By May I was well along in the planning for the new court system. By then I had discovered that many R&R spaces on charter flights weren’t being used and were available for travel on leave. I managed to get leave for a trip to Bangkok (May 3-10). While there, I spent a day visiting a Thai Cultural Center outside the city that included many aspects of Thai life, including traditional dancing (with 3-inch artificial fingernails), sword-dancing, kick boxing, silk weaving, jewelry making, hut building, logging (with elephants), and agriculture. I also took a couple of guided bus tours in Bangkok to visit the Grand Palace (1782), a number of temples, the sheds housing several elaborate royal barges, and much more. Another day I took a boat tour of the canals (klongs), then across the river to the fascinating Floating Market, where farmers and artisans brought and sold their goods in small boats tied up along the banks of the canals . Our tour boat was also small, like an elongated row boat. There were only three of us on board (plus the driver). It was powered by a V-8 automobile engine with a propeller attached directly to the end of a long drive shaft (no gears). It could go extremely fast and did so as it crossed the river.

I probably spent as much time shopping as sightseeing. Bangkok was noted for its jewelry, especially its rubies and sapphires. I bought a 3½ carat sapphire for Jane and designed the gold setting myself. I also bought ruby and sapphire “princess” (tiered) rings, with opals, for her, as well as sapphire rings for my two sisters, and semi-precious stone necklaces for my nieces. I got back to Camp Enari on May 10.

On May 23 I flew to Saigon for a three-day USARV conference to discuss preparations for the new court-martial system. Again I couldn’t get into the Rex or Brink’s Hotel, but stayed in a small Vietnamese hotel close to the Rex. I returned to Camp Enari on May 27.

The last trip of my tour came nearly a month later (June 19-20) when I flew to Nha Trang for my departure courtesy call on the II Field Forces SJA. The 4th Division's Air Liaison Officer offered to fly me over in an Air Force 0-2 Skymaster observation plane. I greatly appreciated this private chauffeur service, even more so when he gave me a flying lesson en route and let me fly the plane the entire distance. Of course, he handled the take off and landing. He also offered to arrange a flight in a fighter jet while I was in Nha Trang, but unfortunately I had to decline because I didn't know what my schedule would be. It turned out later that I did have a little free time, and Field Force SJA kindly drove me around in a jeep to see some of the city.

In addition to these trips, I got into nearby Pleiku City a few times. Most of the time it was to the U.S. air base to catch a C-130 flight to Tan Son Nhut Air Base, but once I went in just to look around and take pictures.

At my final dinner in the General’s Mess (June 27), Maj. Gen. Pepke awarded me the Legion of Merit for outstanding service as SJA and the Bronze Star for my innovative implementation of the new court-martial system. The next day I left Camp Enari for the last time. [The 4th Infantry Division left Camp Enari less than a year later (March 1970), and moved east to Camp Radcliffe near Ahn Khe. They turned Camp Enari over to the Vietnamese Army in a formal ceremony on April 15, 1969. Apparently Camp Enari was razed after the war because pictures taken by veterans returning as tourists show that nothing remains of the camp except the concrete island where the MP booth stood at the main gate.]

I flew to Cam Ranh Bay on June 28 and reported to the 22nd Replacement Battalion for out processing. With it’s beautiful setting on the coast of the South China Sea, this was a far cry from the 90th Replacement Battalion in Long Binh where I’d processed into Vietnam a year earlier. Furthermore, one of my classmates from Fort Leavenworth was the Battalion Commander and saw to it that I got VIP treatment, including eating at his table in the mess. He also got me on a June 30 charter flight to the States, two days earlier than the 4th Division people had been able to arrange.

My flight left Cam Ranh Bay at 4 p.m. on June 30 and stopped to refuel at Tachikawa Air Force Base, Japan (near Tokyo). We landed at McCord Air Force Base near Tacoma, Washington, about 5 p.m. on July 1. I had a plane reservation for the next morning and had intended to get a room on base to rest up overnight. But some of my fellow passengers invited me to share a taxi to Sea-Tac Airport as soon as we processed through McCord. I accepted, thinking I could sleep in the airport waiting area. We got to the airport about 11:30 p.m. and I went to the Northwest desk just to see if there might be any flights to the Midwest before my reservation. It turned out that the gate had just closed on a midnight flight to Minneapolis. They phoned the plane and had the ramp reattached so I could board. I figured I could sleep just as well on the plane as in the airport. I’d be that much closer to Wisconsin in the morning and would look for a flight to Madison.

Seated on the plane, I noticed a box of flight schedules on the bulkhead right in front of me. I took one and started browsing. There was a flight from Minneapolis to Madison leaving just ten minutes before we were to arrive. I asked the flight attendant if there was any chance we might be early. Amazingly, she told me the flight to Madison actually was leaving 20 minutes later than scheduled because an intermediate stop it normally made had been cancelled due to airport repairs. She had our pilot radio ahead to let them know I’d be taking that flight. I could hardly believe my luck. I’d be in Madison more than ten hours before Jane expected me. I have to say that the Northwest personnel gave me very special treatment. They went all out to make sure that I got home to my family as fast as possible.

We actually landed in Minneapolis a few minutes early (before 6 a.m.), so I even had time to find a phone and call Jane to let her know when I’d be arriving in Madison. She barely had time to get the boys up and rush to the Madison airport before my plane arrived (around 7:30 a.m.). It was Wednesday, July 2, 1969, and I’d been away 368 days.

The plane was a small one that used a mobile stairway for deplaning. In those days, people meeting the passengers were allowed on the tarmac, and they formed a half circle just beyond the bottom of the stairs. I was the first passenger out. I stood at the top of the stairs for a minute in my uniform, all eyes on me. Despite the outstanding treatment by Northwest, I didn’t know what to expect. I’d read stories about people jeering at soldiers in uniform or even spitting on them. But no one made a sound. They just stared. Then I spotted Jane and the boys and hurried down the stairs to meet them. It was a wonderful reunion. Jane tells me that everyone started clapping while we were hugging, but I don'
t remember that. I don't think I even heard it. My only regret is that, as I was hugging and kissing everyone else, when I got to Larry, now 14, I was so startled by how much he’d grow that I just shook his hand.

After the happy reunion at the airport, we drove the 20 miles to 1126 Harmon Circle in Sun Prairie where the family had spent the last 13+ months. It was great to be home with them, and we spent the next couple days by ourselves. But Friday was the Fourth of July and a big Peck family reunion at the Honey Lake cottage was planned for the weekend.

Beside our immediate family and Grandma Peck, Jean and Ozzie were there with Sharon, Don and Terry with most of their six children, and Midge and Casper with most of their eight. This was the first and only time so many of thel 19 cousins (my mother’s grandchildren) were together. Maggie and Eppie were there, too. It was really great. By the time it was over I hardly felt I’d been away. We also spent part of the weekend with Jane’s family in Watertown and visited both sides frequently for the rest of the month.

Don’s family was visiting us on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on its surface. Upon seeing the broadcast on TV, Larry and Dona ran outside to look at the moon, but I don’t think they could see him.

But we also had a lot to do in the next three weeks to get ready for the move to Germany. My friends in Vietnam had gotten approval for us to travel to Europe on the luxurious S.S. United States, sailing August 3. As before our tour in Italy, we had to divide our belongings into what we would carry with us on the ship, what would be shipped to Germany as hold baggage (to arrive within a month after we did), what would be shipped to Germany as household goods (to arrive a couple of months after we did), and finally what would be put in storage until we came back to the U.S. Unlike our tour to Italy, though, in Germany most of the necessary household goods would be provided by the Army, so the amount of our own things that we could ship was greatly reduced.

At that time, the commercial carriers (train, plane & ship) only restricted what we could carry with us by the number of pieces, not by weight. We didn’t have much in the way of suitcases anyway, so to maximize what we could take, we bought six cheap oversize suitcases (blue vinyl over wood). We managed to get all our worldly goods separated and packed by July 28 when the movers came. The next day we officially vacated the quarters and turned them back to the Air Force. That left us three days for more visiting with family before our flight to New York. Our last piece of business was to sell our car, the 1963 Chevrolet station wagon we’d bought from the Browns. We were getting up in the world and planned to buy our first new car as soon as we got to Germany.

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