First Marine Regt was pulling out, all the men there the longest were being sent home, all the "new guys" stayed and were transfered to a different unit. I walked accross the rice paddy to Division QH,, just a mear 400 yards, my new unit. Well that messhall was trying to use up as much chow as they could so they didn't need to give it away or send it back to the States. They served lobster and steak about four times a week…yup we were served Officer food. The only place in the Corps where I ate like that, all the lobster tails you wanted. I gained weight for a month….but all good things came to an end. To bad they were not trying to get rid of the beer. which only came in two brands, Black Label and Falstaff, I never knew why till years after when a high well placed Army buyer finally got busted on "kick backs". Someone with more rank than me wanted to know why also….and speaking of beer, I was in Phu Bai in a rocket attack and when they hit a huge building next to us, the quards for the First Division beer took off for safety, we on the other hand started a relay race from that building to our bunker, had lots of leaking cans from the rockets, …later than next day they knew they lost about 20 cases of beer, they looked at us very hard, (being next door),. Well we put months into building that bunker of sandbags, steel runway matting and timbers. it had a false ceiling, just held 20 cases of beer and the MP's didn't find it. They did take our still, we were making "Raisen Jack" in the time honored tradition or my Marine uncle in WWII.
Day before Tet 86 we went to Hue City to look at where we might try putting in a radio relay van, that night we were in the MACVN compound to have some good chow and a cold beer,…that is the night it hit the fan, Tet. We should have been back in Phu Bai.Trying to order a steak and a cold beer got us right in the middle of the whole thing. When we walked in we thought it was strange that the Claymores were stacked three high on the light poles….I'm glad they were there. Just an hour or two the VC/NVA built a bunker accross the street from us, but we got on top of the MACVN, 4th floor and that gave us the high ground, a short easy lob for grenades. We piled them up in the street, had to swich barrles on the M-60, got pretty hot. Most of the big buildings looked like WWII Europe.
I soon learned that my best friend was an Ontos, and an Army track with the 40mm Ackack (palm palm) on it. beleived they called it a "duster"….only problem is they need to be reloaded from the outside. and the Ontos doesn't have a lot of armor, while they are standing outside loading it, they draw fire like a magnet….those guys are totally nuts, they have my respect., they earned their pay. Because I roamed around so much nearly daily I seen and was involved in so much in country. I met dozens of Marines Marine, have seen them do a lot in two tours. 67-68, 70-71.
Suds, retired