It was August 25, 1967, and I was on a civilian 707 airplane and had just landed in the combat zone in Da Nang, Vietnam. I would spend the next year in this location. On one side of the field was the U.S. Air Force and the other side of the field was the First Marine Aircraft Wing and that was to be my home. I took in as much of the surroundings as I possibly could after I got off the plane, but it was midnight and raining and I couldn’t see much. All I knew was that I was finally here and, if I did everything right, I would be going home in little more than a year.
The stewardess closed the door and the pilot taxied out to the runway and flew the plane off into the night mist. The very irony of coming into a combat zone on a chartered civilian 707 was the first of many strange things I would see in my year in the crazy war. The airliners usually arrived at night and spent very little time on the ground. The possibility of rifle fire at night was minimized because you couldn’t see the airplane. Staying on the ground a short time limited the possibility of incoming mortar or rocket fire which happened almost every other night.
It was too late to do anything, so we were assigned a cot in a tent, and with a blanket, I stowed my luggage under the bunk. Before I went to sleep, I did a lot of thinking. First, I wondered whether my family was doing all right in Hawaii where I had left them. Then, would I make it through my tour okay and leave here in thirteen months? After a half hour of these thoughts, I fell off to sleep with no trouble because I was tired.
I left Cherry Point, North Carolina about six weeks before with my wife and five children, and we went on vacation across the northern US in our travel trailer. Our trip included a stop in Pennsylvania to see Pat’s mother and father, then a stop in Iowa to see my mother followed by our vacation to the Bad Lands and Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone Park, Reno, and Lake Tahoe before going to our intermediate point which was San Francisco. By this time, we had rented a station wagon for our final phase before flying out to Hawaii.
After checking in at the airport at Fairfield, California, Travis AFB, I found out that our flight left at four AM and there was nothing to do with my family until that time. I attempted to get a motel, but they had no available rooms. One clerk told me I could try one in Fairfield. It was really great, no air, very small and no other facilities, but I took it anyway. This is one problem of a military career, finding motel rooms on short notice. We made it through the evening, and I even went to sleep because I was dead tired.
We made another trip to the airport; I turned in the rental car and we were Hawaii-bound. Once again, the kids were tired from being awakened in the middle of the night, so we had to put up with them at the airport. But we let all the hardships go, and everyone agreed that this was the best vacation we ever had. When the plane took off in the early morning hours with all aboard, we were able to sleep on the airplane. We landed at 10 AM to bright sunshine at Honolulu International Airport. It was another world for us, but we still had a lot to do. We left the airport with another rental car. We went to a hotel and found they had a room for us for only $60. I was running out of money, but I figured we could stay there a night or two.
We did stay two nights but with a lot of luck, we found a house in Kaneohe that we could afford. There was no furniture or anything to cook with and we were only a little better off. We bought a used car the next day and got rid of the rental car, but our car wouldn’t be here for another month. We drove our 1960 model Dodge convertible to the downtown junk shops where we bought some used pots and pans. We still have some of them to this day. We also got a courtesy kit from the Marine base at Kaneohe. This gave us quite a few dishes, but it was made for the average family, and we were a family of seven so we were short a few things. It would be another month before our furniture arrived so being short a couple of glasses or plates didn’t matter much. Pat and the kids had a lot of picnics using paper plates and cups until the furniture arrived.
I left my family in these conditions and flew on to Okinawa. In the middle of October, I got a letter from them to let me know that the furniture had arrived but one of the boxes leaked and the china closet was damaged. We really didn’t need it anyway. Pat and the family had everything they needed to live in Hawaii for the next year. When I arrived home at Christmas on R & R everything was great, no one was sleeping on the floor, and no one was sitting on a suitcase to eat. Pat had done wonders. Pat’s car also arrived, so it was time to sell the convertible. Pat said that she would live on the beach if she could go to Hawaii. So far, no beach.
