The Move to Long Binh
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With the draw down we were closing down our compound at Lai Khe and moving back to Long Bien on the outskirts of Saigon. One evening at our nightly briefing the commander asked me how long would it take for me to be ready to roll out. He told me that we were about to be overrun by the NVA and we needed to leave ASAP. I looked him in the eye and told him to get everyone to load their gear on the trucks and we would be ready to roll out at first light, but I would have one on the hook behind the wrecker. They did and we did.
They had delivered four trailers of ammo and rockets to us two days before and as we rolled out two Cobras rolled in and took out the ammo dump and the fuel dump. It was like the fourth of July when it went off.
I was on the ground in the lead vehicle, a ¾ ton truck. I had sand bagged the back and had a forty millimeter grenade launcher, a sub machine gun and two M-16 rifles with me; and every corner we came to that I couldn’t see around I dropped a WP grenade to either side of the road. Nobody bothered us the entire 90 miles to Long Bien.
When we got there I took over a Direct Support Maintenance facility and set up the parts supply area for my maintenance guys and drivers housing. One room became my roommate and my BOQ.
I was always a scrounge even when I was at Bad Tolz in Germany, so I had continued that role. I had set up an air conditioner repair center in Viet Nam. Everybody had AC’s that didn’t work so I would take three that didn’t work and give them one that did. The air force would repair three and give me two back. They gave me one for free on every repair deal. I had air conditioned the CO’s quarters, the mess hall and had started on the pilots’ quarters when we had to abandon Lai Khe. We took those with us to Long Bien and I continued to air condition the compound.