First Day at Song Be
by
Lester G. Frazier

In 1962, word reached those of us flying the F-100D at Misawa AB in Japan that the Air Force needed ALO/FAC Advisors in Viet Nam [in 1970, at Phan Rang AB, RVN, we received a message from 7th AF HQ noting that the correct spelling of "Viet Nam" is as I have spelled it]. As I recall, the ALO/FAC requirements were two fold: AGOS [Air Ground Operations School] attendance, which was located at Kessler AFB, MS at the time -- and one had to be a Captain as Lieutenants were considered too junior to act as Advisors. In October of 1962, I was promoted to Captain and volunteered for a six month TDY in country as a FAC as I had attended AGOS [a "six month" tour meant 180 days from the day of departure to the day of arrival back at one's permanent duty station] . I was accepted and arrived at Tan Son Nhut shortly thereafter. Surprisingly, my experience level was higher than most due to a 30 day TDY to the Army's Yakima Training Center in Washington State in 1959 where I FACed for F-100s from a jeep equipped with a UHF radio. Because of my experience, USAF Major Hal G. Bowers, who was in charge of in-country assignments, promised to find me a "good job." In the meanwhile, I was checked out in the VNAF's L-19s at Tan Son Nhut and Bien Hoa, which at the time, had only a PSP runway. Additionally, I would accompany Army advisors to various locations, either hunting missions in the jungle, or to inspect the strategic hamlet program. We always traveled to villages via the HH-21 "Banana Boats," a really scary helicopter. The Banana Boats were painted Army green but had huge red meat balls on the sides and top. To me, the meatballs looked like large bulls eyes and when I pointed that out to one of the pilots, I was told that if the helicopter "flew in a crab, gunners could not accurately fire at the machine." I've often wondered how long that concept lasted. The meatballs were supposed to help in locating any helicopter down in the jungle. While in the Saigon area, I stayed in the Votahn Apartment house with several Americans stationed at Tan Son Nhut. My memory of Saigon was that it was dirty, noisy and big. The streets were filled with pedicabs, tiny cabs and scooters with beautiful, slim, young Vietnamese girls riding sidesaddle in their native costumes, the ao dai. There were lots of uniformed Vietnamese, most looked like teenagers and most acted like they were trying to emulate John Wayne. We were cautioned to watch for the "Bread man," a Viet Cong who rode on the back of a motor scooter and tossed grenades, imbedded in a bread loaf, over walls where Americans gathered. Military buses had a strong wire mesh over all the windows. It was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that. Sometimes I stayed in the Majestic Hotel and when I would come in, red clay caked fatigues, Armalite AR-15 in one hand and .45 caliber automatic pistol hanging low in a western type holster, bright red Aussie bush hat on the back of my head, I would see tourists in the lobby and bar stop and stare at me. At first, I though they confused me with John Wayne. Later, I found out it was probably the really baggy-assed fatigues I was wearing that caught their attention. The Rex hotel was just a few blocks away and there was an American Officers Club upstairs where just about everyone I ever knew passed through even though only 5,000 Americans were in-country at the time. I met a full colonel at the club who told me he always shot Viet Cong in the belt line as that's where they carried their grenades and he could trade blood covered grenades for equipment that he needed. I've wondered in later years if the colonel might have been Bull Simmons because the colonel was one mean looking piece of work. Finally, I got the call that my duty assignment would be Song Be in Phuoc Long Province, about 60 miles north of Saigon, near the Cambodian border. I gathered my equipment and rode up to Song Be on an Army Caribou with an Army Brigadier General who, along with his entourage, was going to Song Be for a briefing. At the time, all Americans stationed at Song Be were Rangers and Special Forces and never more than about 12 while I was there. There was a difference between "Special Forces" and "Green Berets." Only those soldiers living in the villages could wear the Green Beret; those not assigned to Montagnard village duty could not wear the beret and were known as Special Forces. So all Green Berets were Special Forces but not all Special Forces were Green Berets. We were met at the airstrip, about eight kilometers from the village of Song Be, by Major Nulsen, Chief Army Advisor and his assistant, Major Pitts [both West Pointers] and Lieutenant Colonel Dien, who was a favorite of the then President Diem. Colonel Dien was the Phuoc Long Province Chief and the Military Commander of three provinces: Phuoc Long, Binh Long and Phuoc Vinh. Collectively, the military term was "The Phuoc Bien Thanh Special Zone" and I was to be the ALO/FAC for the Zone. Along with the Colonel Dien and Majors Nulsen and Pitts, all the Americans turned out to meet us and I caught a ride in with an army second lieutenant named Keenan and a captain named Rivera. Lt. Keenan seemed pretty old to be a second lieutenant; a good bit older than me and I was 26. Frank Rivera was about my age and born in the country of Columbia. Both were Rangers. Our arrival was evidently timed for lunch and we caravanned in to Colonel Dien's quarters for lunch. The table was set in the western manner with white linen tablecloths and napkins along with silver and stemware. The food was already on the table and I immediately noticed all the food was covered with flies. So as I sat down, I began to brush them away. To my embarrassment, no one else seemed to notice the flies, so I ignored them too. The food, Vietnamese fare, was delicious. Several young girls stood behind the table, set for about 20, to serve us. After the meal, Colonel Dien presented a Viet Cong flag to one of the Rangers who was leaving for the US and would travel back to Saigon with the general. Colonel Dien's accent was difficult to understand, but he did quite well with the presentation. I learned later that he could also speak French. After the presentation, we walked over to Colonel Dien's headquarters building where he had a large map set up and began to brief the assembled Americans of his area's military situation. Not long into the briefing, he began to lose control of his English and said, "Excuse me General, but I'm unable to continue in English, would you mind if Lt. Keenan came up and interpreted for me?" The general told him that it would be fine. I had sat next to Lt. Keenan at lunch and he told me he was from Miami, AZ and joined the Army to get out of the copper mines. He had gone through OCS after having obtained the rank of Sergeant First Class. It really surprised me that Lt. Keenan was going to be the interpreter as his English was none too good. I suspected that Colonel Dien and he had planned the whole thing in advance. Lt. Keenan mounted the podium and Colonel Dien rattled off a string of tonal Vietnamese at him. Using the map, Lt. Keenan traced the advance of and suspected locations of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Regulars in the Phuoc Bien Thanh Special Zone. Wow! I thought these two guys really have a good act going. Then there was something Lt. Keenan evidently didn't understand and shot a string of Vietnamese back at the colonel. Whoa, I thought, this guy Keenan is no casual Vietnamese speaker; he's had lessons somewhere. Later, Keenan told me he attended the one-year language school at Monterey and that he spoke High Vietnamese better than English. This became evident later on when I would watch him joke with the troops and interpret for me, occasionally forgetting to switch back to English so I could understand. The general took his leave after thanking both Colonel Dien and Lt. Keenan for the briefing. I didn't go back out to the landing field and Keenan, Rivera and a Special Forces Captain named Joe Zummo took me to the sleeping quarters: a large room where everyone [except Majors Nulsen and Pitts] slept on cots under mosquito netting. As I was unpacking, the three soldiers had field stripped my AR-15 although none had ever seen one before. They also wanted to see my "blade" [my knife; they never called a knife a knife, it was always a "blade"]. So I took out my AF survival knife and showed it to them. They took the knife, got down on the floor and rolled around, laughing and passing my little "blade" back and forth. Their merriment exhausted, one of them produced a Randall knife catalog and we sat on my bed and decided what sort of blade I should have. A model 14 was selected and I wrote the Randall Company for a price list [surprisingly, the blade was sent to me by return mail. My name, rank and service stamped on the blade near the hilt. There was a personal, hand written note from Bo Randall, the owner of the company, and he wrote that he thought I probably needed the blade immediately, so he took the liberty of sending it along with the scabbard. The note also read "the price is $30.00 and you can pay it whenever you get the chance if you decide to keep the blade." I still have the blade]. After stowing my gear and being assigned a window to protect in case of attack, the three troopers escorted me to the work area, a large open room on pier and beam with screen walls. The kitchen was also located in the work area, concealed behind a partial wall. Vietnamese cooks, under the supervision of a Ranger NCO, were at work [the Ranger had the duty because an aerosol can blew up while he was burning trash and his eyes were temporarily damaged]. Several desks, tables, chairs, benches and lounges completed the work area. A bed sheet hung at one end of the room to act as a screen for a movie that had come up on the Caribou that day. Majors Nulsen and Pitts had their own desks, the rest of us had to share. The troopers showed me how to work an FM radio that was sitting on one of the chairs and I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting and explaining my mission to the Army guys since I was the first Air Force guy to be stationed at Song Be. I was surprised at the formality that existed in the Army. The young Captains like Rivera and Zummo called the more senior Captains "sir," something we didn't do in the Air Force. Dinner, ah supper as the Army called it, was served at exactly 1700 hours and consisted of Vietnamese vegetables and canned American meat and potatoes. We sat down at the benches and the Vietnamese cooks served us. As we were eating, a loud hammer-like stutter filled the air and I was literally the only one still sitting, everyone else was on the floor, side arms drawn. Quietly and gently, I too slipped to the floor wondering what had happened. There was a communications truck parked just out side of the building and the radio operator in the truck's module was fooling with his .45 caliber grease gun when he accidentally hosed off a burst through the ceiling. He sheepishly came out of the van and looking through the screen told us what happened. As best I recall, no one seemed upset over the incident. Later that evening, I helped set up the room to watch the movie. I remember it starred Stella Stevens and the film had to be rewound before the next reel could be shown. Frank Rivera and I were seated in deep, light gray lounge chairs familiar to all fighter squadrons at the time. As one reel ended on a really horny note and thinking only non-English speaking Vietnamese women were in the building as someone switched on the lights, I shouted out in a true fighter pilot manner, "I'M GONNA FUCK EVERY WOMAN IN THE HOUSE!" I was totally mortified when I heard a small voice say "Mommy...?" Looking around the lounge, I could see there was a civilian couple with two small children in the room seated behind us. "Oh my God, Frank," I whispered, "Who are those people?" "He's a Canadian missionary and she's his American wife. She cooks us pies and we invite them to see the movies." "Oh God, how can I apolized for what I just yelled?" I asked. "She's probably heard a lot worse, don't worry about it." But Frank stayed with me, buried in the lounges, until the missionaries left. So started the first day of my assignment at the base of Nui Bara Mountain, the Province of Phuoc Long in the village of Song Be in the year of our Lord, Nineteen hundred and sixty-two. When I was leaving, I decided to give Major Nulsen a small going away present. He had a pen that he was extremely proud of. It was a ball point and one could select one of three colors of ink by pushing down the appropriate slide [common today, but not then]. He also constantly complained that people would remove other pens and pencils from his desk top without his permission. So I stole his multi-colored ink pen. I went to a Special Forces Sergeant who de-armed and gave me one of the old pineapple grenades. I had the grenade wired down, handle side up, on a wooden base by a Filipino contractor in the area. Straightening out the grenade pin, I attached the ink pen to the grenade pin ring with a dog tag chain. The idea, of course, was that anyone who stole his pen would pull the grenade's pin and it would blow up [again, now days one can see this type of set up at gun shows, etc., but not back then]. Of course, all ordnance was handled with a great deal of respect and I knew Major Nulsen would not accept the "gift" of a possible live grenade, so before having it mounted on the base, I had Joe Zummo, one of the Special Forces Captains, inspect the grenade and scratch his initials on the base to indicate it was inert. Joe and I were sitting on my bed disassembling and reassembling the grenade and talking quietly because there was another Special Forces Captain across the room, laying on a cot, reading a magazine. I wanted the minimum number of people aware of the project. After the grenade was reassembled, Joe called to the other SF Captain on the cot, whose head top was toward us. The guy twisted around and looked over at us and Joe held the grenade up high, pulled the pin, let the handle fly off and lobbed it towards the guy on the bed. When I saw what Joe was doing, I tried to stop him but wasn't fast enough. With the grenade in the air, the SF Captain rolled off the cot, bringing the mattress with him and the grenade bounced off the mattress and lay on the floor with the mattress between it and the SF Captain. The Captain executed the maneuver so beautifully, my first thought was that they had planned it. I knew I was wrong when the Captain's face appeared from behind the mattress while Joe was still laughing. The Captain was one of those naturally silvery haired guys with a red complexion. His face was as bright as a tomato and I had to step between them to prevent a fight. A couple of nights later I presented the grenade/pen to Major Nulsen. Everyone but Joe, the Red faced SF Captain and I sort of sucked in their breaths and pulled back when I pulled the grenade/pen out of a bag. It was only after Joe checked his initials on the base of the grenade that everyone became somewhat more comfortable with a grenade in our midst. Song Be Crew: The photo below was sent to me from Bob Nulsen, the Senior Army Advisor when I was at Song Be. It had to be taken in late '62 or early '63. Most of the faces are familiar to me although I thought our group never exceeded 12 -- 15 [I count 22 in the photo]. Clearly, judging by the rank I see, not everyone was a Ranger. Colonel [a Major then] Nulsen is first row standing, 2nd from the right. His flankers are Major Pitts on the left and a new Major, whose name I don't remember, on the right, holding one wrist with his hand and a hat in his other hand. They were assistants to Major Nulsen. The unknown Major could speak some French. My best buds were Frank Rivera, first guy standing on the far left. Farguson in the dark glasses standing third from the left [Farguson either played or could have played pro foot ball], Bob Keenan, standing on the far right [Bob could speak Vietnamese better than English and better than most of the Vietnamese in the area]. Joe Zummo, kneeling, third from the right. Joe was Special Forces. Oh yeah, I'm the guy in the goat skin, kneeling, second from the left. I think it was one of the two guys between Zummo and me who fired off the grease gun in the radio van. As I recall, the big Master Sergeant, standing, third from the right, was the chief EM there.

Les@LesFrazier.com