Phan Rang

Spending too much time in Bill’s Pool Hall and not enough in class, I flunked the 8^th grade.  That failure, along with an early school-year birthday, placed me in draft status while still in high school.  The draft board informed my school that if I didn’t maintain at least a D average, I was theirs.  I graduated with a D+.  It was nip and tuck.  Two weeks after graduation, though, I received the greetings.  I took the induction notice to my father and moaned, “Gee, Dad, what do you think I should do?”  During WWII, my father was one of Darby’s original 500 Rangers, selected in Carrickfergus, North Ireland, and trained by British Commandos in Achnacarry, Scotland.  In 1942 at a place called Dieppe, the Rangers were the first American soldiers to experience combat against the Germans in Europe—the first to kill and be killed—and during every invasion that followed, they, along with paratroopers, led the way, were the head of the spear.  While on a scouting patrol, my father was wounded and captured by Rommel’s troops at Faid Pass in Tunisia on Valentine’s Day in 1943, just prior to the German rout of the American forces at Kasserine Pass.  Except for three escapes, during one of which he remained free for a month, he spent two and a half years as a prisoner of war.  He was flown from Tunisia to Italy where he and other POWs were marched through Naples while the Italians lined up to spit and throw garbage.  Eventually, he ended up in Germany and bounced from camp to camp, but spent most of his time at Stalag 2B.  He was liberated by British troops in April of 1945.

 

Dad read my draft notice and, laughing, threw up his arms and said, “Join the Air Force!  They get coffee and doughnuts every morning!”  I did.  Six months later, following basic training and tech school, I found myself in Vietnam, but in the relative security of Phan Rang Air Base.  I worked in Life Support for a fighter squadron; that is, supporting the life of the fighter jock.  Anything that touched the pilot’s body was my responsibility: helmet, oxygen mask, survival vest, parachute, G-suit, survival seat pack with life raft, &c.  I trained on the equipment’s use, as well as escape and evasion applications. Jocks flying the day’s first sorties showed up all bleary eyed at squadron headquarters around 5 AM where I met them with coffee and doughnuts, suited them up, and sent them on their way to roar into the dawn in camouflaged F-100s.  Mostly due to the equipment, the headquarters building was air conditioned.  Frequently in trouble, I was also responsible for mowing lawns around the building, a task I performed wearing a shoulder-length, blond wig—a gift from a jock.  The wig originally belonged to a blow-up doll who was the life of the party at the Officer’s Hooch until, alas, punctured beyond repair.

The job was gravy; the assignment was gravy; no war stories here.  Oh, Charlie lobbed in a few rockets from time to time just to let us know he was out there, but little damage was done, nothing of consequence that I recall.  Phan Rang was a world away from the combat Army grunts and Marines experienced out on the rice paddies or in the jungle.  In fact, we were so secure, those ground pounders came to Phan Rang for in-country R&R.  No doubt about it, we flyboys had it dicked: coffee and doughnuts every morning.  Well, except for the fighter jocks who got shot down, but that happened yet another world away.  I returned to the States physically unscathed.  The worst thing I experienced was the welcome a few college students provided when I passed through San Francisco on my way home to Arkansas.  At that time, troops were required to travel in uniform.  As the harassment increased, the mandate changed to travel in civilian clothes: My America.  After leave, I spent a year on a SAC base outside Columbus, Ohio, then back to a fighter squadron at Keflavik, Iceland, for a year, and then I was out.  I was discharged in New Jersey, having paid my dues for the natural facts, as John Lee Hooker would say.

A decade or so later and free of military obligation, I began to question the old man’s advice.  Killing time at my parent’s house one day, my Dad and I watched television; I stretched out on the sofa and he on his recliner and in charge of the remote, as always, and flipping channels.  We shot the shit, discussed politics and the war de jour.

“You know, Dad,” I said, “as a man, I feel like I missed something in life by not experiencing combat.”

“Stevie,” he replied, not looking away from the screen and still flipping channels, “you didn’t miss a thing.”