VIETNAM BOUND
I arrived in San Francisco in the early afternoon of Dec. 30, 1966. It had been cold and windy when I was dropped off at JFK Airport by my dad. We shook hands and he told me to be careful. I thanked him for the ride and strode into the terminal with a small bag of personal items. Our instructions had been to travel in our class A uniform and that we would be issued everything we’d need when we arrived “in country.”
I reported to Travis Air Force Base and spent the night in the barracks. The next day we were assembled and assigned to flights leaving that afternoon. I was assigned to a Continental Airlines 707 charter and flew first to Hawaii where we refueled and resumed our flight around 2030. A few hours into the flight, the stewardesses handed out hats and horns, and we celebrated the arrival of the New Year 1967. Not long after our celebration, the plane became quiet, the lights went out and 150 soldiers heading to a war zone each entered into sleep or contemplation of what was to be our individual futures. Hours later we were awakened when we made our approach to Clarke Air Force Base in the Philippines and were told that it was 2330 and that we could deplane for an hour and a half. I walked onto the tarmac with several of the boys I’d met on the plane, and, realizing that we had gone back in time, we hurried to the airmen’s club to celebrate the New Year, again. The plane took off a bit later than we had been told, and when we finally landed at Bien Hoa AFB it was 0530.
