Transient Barracks

 

A transient barracks is like Purgatory. It’s not where you want to be, but it’s not the worst place to be while you’re waiting—and there a very real hope that things will get better.

 

 

My next stop was the transient barracks—something I was becoming pretty familiar with. I had slept in a transient barracks for a week at Fort Riley, Kansas, a cheap hotel in San Francisco that was probably no more than a step above a transient barracks, then more transient barracks at Fort Lewis and Cam Ranh Bay. 

 

The 1^st Aviation Brigade’s transient barrack was half of a building that also housed the company’s club, which was adjacent to the volleyball court. For the first time since joining the army I was in a permanent duty station and challenged with the task of making myself at home. The club was a natural place to do this, the volleyball court a less likely location but one never knows.

I met a clerk named Tom Reardon who quickly proved to be one of the more interesting characters I would meet in my year in Vietnam—and I hadn’t even been assigned a permanent bunk yet.

He was from Boston but fancied himself a kind of dandy for whom Boston was good but not good enough. He went the extra mile and fabricated as good an English accent as he could muster and continually made references to Leeds—home to a school he attended, wanted to attend or was going to attend someday. I was never entirely clear about what his relation was to Leeds but the important point to be gained from talking with Tom was that he was different from everyone else, including me.

That said, he was entirely likable and funny and interesting. And, it turns out; he was very influential in introducing me to the men I would be living and working with for the next year.

“If you want them to know who you are,” he coaxed me one day as we watched the volleyball match, beers in hand, “you’re going to have to put yourself in the game.”

“I don’t really play that well—just a few games in college with the fraternity and we were pretty drunk,” I replied, thinking there would be plenty of time to get to know the guys.

“Do these guys look sober to you?” he asked.

 

He had a point. “Next time someone comes out, tell them you want to go in and that you’re the new writer for the HAWK.”

1st Aviation Brigade

     Helicopters. Who would have thought? None of us had even given any thought to the idea that we might be assigned to a helicopter unit. We had all watched the news for the last five years and helicopters certainly played a big role in the war but we just hadn’t put two and two together, which might have explained why we were in the Army in a war in Vietnam in the first place.

In our defense, the three of us didn’t have more than a few months of journalism experience between us, so yes, we may have overlooked the obvious but only because we had other things on our minds. Nevertheless, the three of us held in our hands orders assigning us to the 1^st Aviation Brigade, headquartered in Long Binh—wherever the hell that was.

We were told to be ready to leave at a minutes notice but that we might not leave for a day or two, so hold on to our brooms. We’d be flying to the brigade’s headquarters to find out what our individual assignments might be.

“You know how many helicopters have been shot down in this war?” asked Irwin, implying that his worst fears were being realized.

“You know how many soldiers have been killed by a broom in this war, Irwin? Shut up,” I said implying that I had heard just about enough of fear mongering, woe-is-me, I’m gonna die bullshit.

The same day that we received our orders we were flying on our first helicopter ride from Cam Ranh Bay to Long Binh. We met the First Sergeant of Headquarters Company, who quickly walked us across the helipad to the brigade’s headquarters building. There we were introduced to the CO and First Sergeant of the 12^th Public Information Office Detachment, Captain Cominsky and Sergeant Fox, and SP4 Winer, the editor of HAWK magazine.

What a day. First we’re reminded that this is a helicopter war and now we learn that there are magazines in Vietnam and, as we would soon learn, lots of them.

The three of us were called in for interviews with the three men—for what job or jobs none of us knew. I didn’t know about Irwin or Gary but I had put the idea of job interviews out of my mind back in November of the last year when I signed up. I had not had any success in getting a job after college and frankly found the whole routine embarrassing and depressing. I thought by enlisting I had put those evil days behind me and I was happy to give the army authority to do with me what they wanted. All I asked in return was that they leave me out of the decision. I had agreed to sell my soul to them and wasn’t prepared for having to sell myself again—especially since I didn’t even know what the job was that I was interviewing for.

Still, as interviews go this was a pretty easy one. They asked me where I was from and what I did before the army. I told them I had an Industrial Management degree that had really impressed my recruiter but apparently no one else and had worked in a brewery, paper warehouse, and a liquor store while in college.

After the interviews the three of us sat outside the captain’s office while the three of them discussed our fates. We still didn’t know what the jobs in question were or if in fact there were three jobs. Irwin was convinced that there was only one job, whatever it might be, and that two of us would be reassigned somewhere else and that those two reassignments wouldn’t be good and that one of the remaining two would eventually be killed. Oh yeah, and he was pretty sure that soldier would be him. He was already making plans for his parents to hire a lawyer who would dig deeper into that guaranteed contract he had signed, a contract he was sure had been signed in invisible ink and which didn’t even exist anymore.

Gary was called in first, stayed in the room just a few minutes, then came out to tell us he had been assigned to a company operating out of Ban Mi Thuot. His responsibility would be putting out a weekly newsletter.

“I could have done that,” Irwin declared, sure that the one good job being handed out had been given to someone else.

He was called in next and after a few minutes walked out of the room with the biggest shit-eating grin I had ever seen by a man who five minutes earlier had been preparing him self to die.

“I’m going to the 145^th Combat Battalion at Bien Hoa just down the road. They said from there I could submit articles to the magazine. I’m sorry Phil but I think this one’s the golden egg. But at least it looks like all the jobs are in journalism. You’ll be okay, I’m sure. And you’ll be able to get in touch with me any time. I’ll be right at Battalion Headquarters Company. Good luck.”

“I’ll be sure to look you up when I’m in town,” I said, wondering to myself, just a little bit why they had given this plum to him. He must have put on his happy face for them. I didn’t even know he had one.

I went in the room to learn my fate and was a little surprised that the first thing they wanted to talk about was Irwin.

“Man, is that guy a downer,” was the first thing Winer said to me. “Was he like that the whole way over?”

“Hell, he was like that all the way through the school,” I told them.

“The guy had some good credentials. Did you know he had a journalism degree before he came into the army?”

I hadn’t and was a little surprised. But I was even happier I had whipped his ass in the final mini-paper competition back in Indiana, that sniveling killjoy.

 “But he would have been hard to work with on a day-to-day basis,” Winer continued. “That battalion job is a good one but he could have gotten a lot better if he’d just lightened up.”

“Or just shut up,” piped in Sgt. Fox.

“Yeah, that would have been better,” said Winer, who even though he was only Specialist Four rank, the same as me, was clearly running the show. “He would have sucked the life right out of us but that’s good news for you. By the way, we’re keeping you here to write for the magazine.”

I didn’t know what to think. When I had signed up I didn’t even know the army had magazines. I pretty much thought a newsletter would be the extent of my writing in the army—and I would have been happy with that.

When I left the room I discovered that Gary and Irwin were already gone—both headed to Bien Hoa where Gary would catch a helicopter to Ban Me Thuot and Irwin would sign in with the 145^th. I wouldn’t see either one of them again even though Bien Hoa was only five miles away and I would actually pull guard duty there once or twice a month.

I walked across the helipad again and checked out my bedding and more equipment and uniforms. It was just a little over a year since I had graduated from Lowell Tech in Massachusetts. In that year I had returned home to Rochester, enlisted in Buffalo, done my boot camp at Fort Dix, New Jersey, my AIT at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, my climate acclimation training at Fort Riley, Kansas, drove to Fort Lewis outside Seattle to fly out of country with stops in San Francisco, Big Sur and Haight-Ashbury, and more stops in Anchorage and Tokyo only to wind up sweeping sidewalks in Cam Ranh Bay and now at last I was about to settle into the transient barracks of my new home, 1^st Aviation Brigade, Long Binh, Vietnam. 

Home at last