Army Security Agency units in Vietnam were a prime target for the enemy simply because our sole purpose was to find the enemy through their radio and Morse code transmissions and decipher the enemy’s order of battle.1 The Agency changed its Army Security Agency designations to Radio Research Unit designations upon deployment to Vietnam. Army Security Agency enlisted members were recruited from those scoring in the top 5% of aptitude tests given during initial induction into the US Army.2 Our mission in today’s computerized environment would be hacking into the enemy’s electronic environment to intercept and harvest classified data on troop movement and planned missions. Our method back then was similar but achieved via radio and Morse code intercept means.
Upon completing my training in electronics, I was assigned to the Army Security Agency’s 509th Radio Research Group in Tan Son Nhut on the outskirts of Saigon. After a few days of orientation and briefings, I was dispatched to 8th Radio Research Field Station in Phu Bai just south of the imperial city of Hue. The 8th Radio Research Field Station, affectionately called “Rufus,” was a small community of mostly mobile homes with permanent buildings for the work areas. I was just beginning to enjoy my new tour of duty at Phu Bai living in an air-conditioned mobile home, two different Enlisted Clubs, a fabulous snack bar serving good quality burgers and oven-baked pizza when my world was crushed just two weeks later. A radio repairman was needed at the 101st Airborne Division's Radio Research Company. Being the newest radio repairman at the 8th Field Station, I was quickly shuffled off to our 265th Radio Research Company (cover name for 265th Army Security Agency) supporting the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Eagle near Hue.
I was processing out of the 8th Field Station and asked a Specialist Five doing my paperwork, "Tell me," I asked, "What's the story about the 265th Radio Research Company?"
"Well, never been there, and sure as shit not planning on going there any time soon." That alarmed me somewhat.
"So what's so bad about it?" I asked.
"Well, for starters, it's assigned to the 101st Airborne. Bad shit happens there. They haven't completely recovered from getting their asses kicked at A Shau Valley.3 But I'm sure you'll be okay. Just stay alert and you'll do fine."
A PFC4 parked his jeep next to my mobile home and helped me load my belongings onto the jeep. We joined a convoy to Camp Eagle, and I was dropped off beside a half-plywood, half-screened hooch which I determined to be our Orderly Room sitting precariously on the sloping edge carved out of a steep hill. Without even dismounting from his jeep, the PFC stated, "Look, I'm not hanging around here. Just go up that hill and tell the clerk there that you're the new replacement." He was in a hurry to leave Camp Eagle.
Dragging my duffel bag uphill, I entered the Orderly Room where a shirtless clerk welcomed me to the 101st Airborne. I handed over my 201 file5 then signed some forms, got a five-minute briefing and was directed to the Supply Room to draw my weapon and gear. The shirtless supply clerk seemed quite annoyed that I had interrupted his day. He grudgingly handed me an inventory list, tossed me a laundry bag loaded with standard Army gear and directed me to inventory and sign on the dotted line. He handed me an M-16 rifle, two pre-loaded ammo magazines and pointed out the hooch where I'd be living. Dragging my duffel bag and the gear I'd just signed for, I set off to find an eight-man half-plywood, half-screened hooch with corrugated metal roof and laid claim to the only empty cot in the far-left corner. I walked out the back door to find my corner of the hooch was perhaps the safest sleeping area to be in since the hooch foundation had been cut out of a sloping hill with only some three feet of space between the hooch and the walls of the hill. Unless it were a direct hit, if a rocket or mortar were to hit anywhere close, I surmised, the cutaway hill wall would protect me. “My God is good,” I thought and thanked my God for providing me a safe corner. Assessing my sleeping area further, I realized I did not have a blanket or pillow. I walked back downhill to the supply room to inquire about the missing sheets and blanket. The Specialist Four supply clerk was opening a can of sardines and seemed even more annoyed at seeing me again.
"Damn, you just left here. I gave you everything you need. What the hell do you want now?"
I informed him there was no bedding on my assigned cot and asked him where I could get my blanket or at least a pillow. "Didn't anyone tell you?" he asked. “You're in the 101st Airborne now! You don't get no more than a cot, and you're lucky to have even that!" He walked back behind a counter, grabbed a soiled poncho liner and threw it over the counter to me. "It gets cold at night. Here's something to keep you warm. That's all you’ll need." Camp Eagle was at a high elevation and being close to Monsoon season, I just knew it would be cold at night.
I had gone to two separate tech schools with Jim Ballentine who later went on to retire as a state trooper and martial arts instructor at the Michigan State Patrol academy. After Jim left tech school, he was assigned to 801st Maintenance Support Battalion, 101st Airborne while I continued on to two other electronics security courses that the Army Security Agency required. I set off trying to find Jim and walked around for an hour or more stopping every now and then asking where the 801st Maintenance Support Battalion might be. Camp Eagle was still being established, so unit locations were not known to many. I had already decided to look for Jim another time and was walking back to my unit when I noticed a hand-lettered sign displaying "801st MT BN". Jim's 801st MT Bn happened to be over a hill right behind my own 265th Radio Research Company! Someone pointed me to 801st hooches.
I walked through two or three hooches to find Jim was sitting on his cot writing a letter home. He was as glad to see me as I was to see him. Seeing an old friend in a combat environment provides a certain comfort. We talked for a while, learned his wife, Sandy, (whom I had known from Ft Benning and Ft Gordon) was having a baby. I jokingly asked Jim if she knew who the father was and received a cold hard look from Jim. Quickly changing the subject, I noted that Jim had a blanket, a pillow and even a sleeping bag on his cot then told Jim about my bedding situation. As he was finishing his letter to Sandy, Jim asked me to write a few lines to Sandy. I wrote a couple of lines wishing her and her baby best wishes. Jim closed the envelope and told me "Don't fret about your bedding. No big gig. Let's go grab some of that crap at the mess hall then we'll go get you a sleeping bag, blanket and whatever else you need."
Dinner was cold, dry roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy and canned beans with frostless and quite dry chocolate cake. Reconstituted milk, black coffee, unsweetened tea or water were available. I was to learn this was the standard lunch and dinner for weeks and months on end. After dinner, Jim and I walked behind his unit where a huge pit had been caterpillar'd in the ground. At the bottom of the pit was a large cache of duffel bags, laundry bags, loose clothing, sleeping bags and blankets. We walked down into the pit and Jim advised me to, "Just open the bags and look for whatever you need. You'll find many of them need some sewing or washing, but if you're lucky you will find something you can use." We both started searching and started putting aside the marginally acceptable items. We'd gone through most of the bags when we decided to quit. From the marginally acceptable pile, we selected the best of the lot finding a decent wool blanket and a sleeping bag with a few holes in it. I was concerned about the holes on the sleeping bag. "Damn, Jim, why would anyone ruin a perfectly good sleeping bag?" "Well, Tony, you can't be so damn picky. Just be glad you found a decent one. As for the bullet holes, probably some new SOB was shot in his sleeping bag. But, no, wait…. that can't be. There's no blood on it. Anyway, I've got needle and thread. I can help you sew it up."
I found a newly-cut fifty gallon drum destined to become a “piss tube”6 and used my bar of soap to wash the blanket that night. It took some three days before it was sufficiently dry to be useable. I never washed my sleeping bag. After sewing up the holes in it, I started using it that first night. We had a half-filled sack of mixed nuts which some enterprising fellow hooch mate had liberated from a supply warehouse in Danang. I emptied out the pecans, cashews and other nuts and stuffed the sack with clothing items I had brought from the pit. This made a respectable pillow which served me well for the duration of my tour. Men in need learn to cope, to improvise, to adapt. Amazingly, when I left the 101st Airborne Division some thirteen months later, my sleeping bag was a prized commodity with several of my friends asking me for my sleeping bag. I don't recall whom I gave it to or how I went about selecting the new owner, but I was always grateful for Jim's guidance and the comfort my sleeping bag provided me during my thirteen months with the 101st Airborne Division. No one showed interest in my pillow.
I found Jim on www.military.com a couple of years ago. I emailed him and was thrilled to hear back from him. He was now retired and takes pride in having taught defensive tactics at the Michigan State Patrol Academy for many years prior to his retirement. Jim and Sandy divorced a few years ago, but he reminded me about one particular Thanksgiving while at Ft Gordon, Georgia. He and Sandy invited me over for Thanksgiving though Sandy had never previously baked a turkey. We sat down to dinner and Jim began carving the turkey when he found the bundled pack of neck, heart and whatever other organs included with the turkey. Sandy didn’t know enough to empty the turkey’s cavity prior to baking. Sandy apologized and was thoroughly embarrassed, but we all shared a good laugh and enjoyed an amazingly good turkey.
1 Enemy strength, their locations and their strategy and tactics
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Security_Agency
3 (Hamburger Hill) Men from our company joined elements from the 101st Airborne and engaged the North Vietnamese regulars at A Shau Valley where 630 North Vietnamese were killed. Americans sustained 72 killed and 372 wounded during the ten day battle.
4 Private First Class
5 Personnel jacket containing all administrative information. Every soldier has one
6 A hole some four feet deep with a fifty-five gallon drum cut in half and ends removed. Empty beer and soda cans were placed at bottom then filled with gravel or dirt. An artillery shell casing some six inches in diameter was placed at an angle protruding some three feet and covered with window screen. When the stench became unbearable, the shell casing would be disposed of and the hole would be covered up. A new piss tube would be installed nearby
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