James Lairson

Army Security Agency 1964-1968

The great day had arrived. We were all give fifteen days leave to go say good by to our families and get our affairs in order. In California, the whole class was scheduled to leave on a Pan Am jet until the last few minutes. A ninety-day wonder came up and took my seat so he could get to Vietnam sooner. That was my lucky day because I left two hours later on a TWA flight. When we landed in Saigon, we observed a Pan Am wing lying on the right side of the runway. We were informed that the plane that was running two hours in front of us had received a round in the engine and caught fire. No one was injured but the plane lost its wing. We all arrive at Phu Bai at the same time. What had we gotten ourselves into? There was not much to look at. The airport was a short runway with a tin hanger at one end. There were sandbag bunkers all over the airport (which we learned to use real soon on guard duty.) We were taken across the road and there it was, "The 8thRRUFS". There was not a tree in sight that I remember, just huge steel trees with wires strung on them. Our first stop was to get the famous GG shot in the ass. As we waited our turn, bags still lying on the ground, several others and myself were pulled out of line and taken into operations to get to work. I think we must have been the dumb ones that had their badges with them.

We kind of had it made when I first got there. We lived in brand new trailers; mine was row "C". We ate in an air-conditioned mess hall, worked in air-conditioned operations and did little else except work. In fact, I worked 137 twelve-hour or more shifts before I got one day off. The ARVIN'S were our protection to start, we would sit on the concrete bunkers drinking beer and shout at them as they left for night patrol. They would fire their guns into the air as we waved our beers at them. One morning, the first sergeant was walking the trench lines checking the wire when he found a naked Arvin laying in our concertina barb wire. He was still alive and every time he moved, he would get cut more. The first sergeant called the Arvin's, told them to remove this man from our wire. An Arvin office came up, had his men drag hem out of the wire and then he shot hem. Seams that they had caught hem trying to go over to the VC so they had striped hem and threw hem in the wire to show what would happen if any more tried it.

Several months later, the Marines moved in to take over. Take over, they did. The price of you know what went from about $2.00 American to about $7.00 over night. We could not go to Hue without a Marine escort, took all the fun out of it. They had no idea why they were there, only that if they failed to stop a attack, we would wipe them out when we opened fire. They did not like us either to the best of my knowledge. We did have a small opening during the day that they could enter to go the the PX or get a beer at our em club. That ended when one got drunk and fell off the trench into the mine field. We only opened it then for a USO show when and if we had one. The Marines had all the meat to eat; we had the ice cream machine. Our mess Sergeant would do some trading now and then to get real meat for us to eat.

Speaking of the USO show, we had Martha Ray on one trip. She was fantastic but had to leave when the mortars started going off. We had Dean Martin come in one time, went straight to the EM Club and started drinking. I never even knew he was there till he had left drunk There were some young singers, pure knock outs, that came in and gave a show. Can not remember their name.

I am sure everyone remembers the newspaper and magazines with the picture of a VC with the side of his head leaving his body. This VC was captured in Hue by the Arvin's and was shot in the middle of the street for everyone to see. This was during my time and the body was left in the middle of the road for days.

General Westmoreland was the man when I was there. He called the men at PhuBai "His Men". He showed up one day when a new Major from the Infantry was assigned as a base Commander. He started putting us on details and all sorts of mess. That lasted about a week or two and, one of the men sent a urgent message to the General. Next day, here came General Westmoreland's jet, landing at our airport. He proceeded to chew the Major out and told hem in front of everyone, we were his men and he was to leave us alone. We had a job to do and we did it well and if our job was effected by hem, he would be put in the deepest fox hole the General could find. The Major could not go into operations. Had tried and was stopped. He had no idea what our jobs were. When he asked, we responded "he did not have the need to know".

More to follow!