by William Gritzbaugh
In Vietnam, as a soldier’s deployment neared its end, excitement began to build and time became an agony of “X’s” marked off on a “short-timers” calendar. Most such calendars were comically obscene, often featuring a nude woman provocatively reclined, with the final day to be “X’d” out conveniently placed over her reproductive area. That final “X” was rarely filled in, as the soldier would be in transit a few days prior, leaving the raunchy sheet of paper incomplete on a sandbagged bunker wall.
“DEROS” stood for (and probably still stands for) “Date Eligible to Return from Overseas.” My own DEROS date was November 1, 1970. I didn’t keep such a calendar, believing it hubris that invited calamity. During my tour with US Army Special Forces, I thought a calendar, taking pictures, or any other manifestation of assuming my survival and a safe return home would tempt fate—a bullet, mortar round, or chopper crash. However, occasional bouts of rationality allowed me to take pictures of my various camps and the countryside from helicopter rides.
My process to leave Vietnam would be convoluted and span several days. First, a helicopter flight from my remote Special Forces “A” Camp Ha Thanh in the jungled mountains of Quang Ngai Province to Chu Lai on the South China Sea, another up the coast to the Special Forces I Corps HQ in Da Nang, then a fixed wing aircraft to 5th Group HQ in Nha Trang, and finally down to Cam Ranh Bay for my “Freedom Bird” flight home.
While still at Ha Thanh, Typhoon Kate arrived with torrential rain and wind, but did no damage. In Da Nang and anticipating soggy conditions in the coming days, I took an old poncho to our little tailor shop and asked the Vietnamese proprietor to cut and sew a rain jacket for me. He was happy to oblige, using my rough measurements and an existing template.
One afternoon, a group of us were called to an awards ceremony. We stood at attention as an obligatory “I showed up and didn’t fuck up” medal was pinned on. Only decades later did I come to resent that paltry, generic ribbon, given the many risks I’d taken.
Orders in hand, a buddy checked out a Jeep and drove me to Da Nang Airbase for my flight to Nha Trang. The day was heavily overcast and rainy, with gusty winds. I manifested on an “Air America” single-engine aircraft with no more than eight or ten seats. My “Oh, shit…” thoughts were interrupted when I met fellow passengers, including two Navy SEABEES I’d bonded with a month earlier while they installed steel PSP planking on our Ha Thanh airstrip. We climbed aboard, stowed our duffle and sea bags and found seats in the cramped interior. With no choice, I ended up in a rear-facing seat, opposite a passenger facing the direction of flight. My sense of foreboding increased when our young pilot climbed aboard, said hello, stumbled over gear in the aisle, and entered the cockpit alone—no co-pilot. The hatch slammed shut, and we taxied down the tarmac for takeoff.
The flight to Nha Trang would take about two hours, but no sooner had we left the ground than I knew I was in trouble. The little aircraft pitched, rolled, dipped, and climbed nonstop as the pilot struggled to reach cruising altitude. Unfortunately, that altitude didn’t take us above the trailing end of Kate, now downgraded to a tropical storm, and the skies over Vietnam remained a cauldron of turbulent air. Waves of airsickness swept over me, and I struggled to avoid vomiting. Soon, however, I puked into my hand, and it spilled down the front of my fatigue uniform. I still recall the guy facing me getting dry heaves as he watched.
Suddenly remembering my new rain jacket, I mustered all my remaining focus to remove it and tie off one sleeve. Now, at least, I had a vessel to barf into, though the sound and smell likely tormented the other passengers for the entire flight. Others were similarly distressed, but my own discomfort blinded me to their plight.
Taxiing to our tie-down space at Nha Trang, I was soaked in sweat, sick as a dog, and barely able to stumble from the aircraft. I lay on the tarmac until a shuttle bus arrived to take me to SF Group HQ, but as the bus rocked along the potholed road, my dry-heaving continued. To this day I will not sit in a rear facing seat on a train, bus, or any other conveyance.
Out-processing at Nha Trang took a couple of days, and I have little recollection of it, save for an episode while drinking at the SF Group club. A new lieutenant, assigned some sort of duty, ran through the club yelling, “Red alert! Red alert!” to a dozen alcohol-buzzed, incredulous DEROS’ers who hollered, “Shut the fuck up!” and continued guzzling and swapping war stories. A mortar round landing within earshot of the HQ wasn’t about to send those battle-weary guys to a dark bunker for an hour.
Soon, I had orders for a Freedom Bird departure from Cam Ranh Bay, thirty miles down the coast. A group of us were issued M1 Carbines (no ammo since the area was very secure) and loaded into the back of a ¾-ton, pickup-style Army truck with a green canvas top. The trip should have taken an hour, but flooding from Kate forced the truck to navigate stretches of road submerged with water flowing back toward the bay from inland. We crawled along with water up to the axles for quite a distance until the truck suddenly lost traction and was washed off the road into a rice paddy. The force of the flow was significant, and we bailed out of the now-floating truck into four feet of water. We swam to the bobbing pickup, retrieved our gear and weapons, waded back to the roadway and began a major struggle clawing up the muddy bank against the rushing water with our gear.
Many other trucks—deuce-and-a-halfs and five-tons—lumbered by, but our pleas for a tow went unanswered. Finally, we accepted a ride, abandoning our Vietnamese driver standing forlornly on the flooded road.
Cam Ranh Bay, a vast facility, teemed with activity. We were assigned to a transit barracks where our bunk mattresses needed to be shaken out to remove windblown sand. That task completed, we stored our gear and went to explore the place. Discovering a well-stocked PX, we looked around but no one wanted to add anything to our already bulging duffle bags.
Later that evening while strolling along with another lieutenant, we passed by three young Air Force enlisted men. Each was black, wore starched fatigues with E-3 rank and pronounced “Afro” hairstyles with silly blue Air Force berets Bobby-pinned to them. Their salutes were a clenched-fist “Black Power” version that was apparently allowed at Cam Rahn Bay. Having spent our tours in the Vietnam hinterland, we’d no idea of the racial turmoil plaguing such rear area bases, and our “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” expressions no doubt amused those airmen.
The next day, we were trucked to a building and admonished ad nauseum about taking home “contraband,” with threats of imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth for the slightest violation. I’d kept as a souvenir the fin section of a Vietcong 82mm mortar round that exploded ten yards from me but ended up pitching it in a trash drum for fear of doing hard time. I’ve kicked myself ever since for not calling their bluff. Soon, we boarded a chartered DC-8 and roared into the bright morning sun on our way back to the “World.”
Years later, watching the movie Out of Africa, a Kenyan character said to Meryl Streep’s character, “God is happy, Msabu! He plays with us!” Of my many Vietnam memories, that scene somehow triggered recollection of those final days in-country and the almost comical episodes as my trip home inched closer. Imagining that God was monitoring my DEROS trip and “playing” with me, casts Him as an adolescent prankster. Still, the idea that I might have contributed to the Almighty’s happiness is a comforting thought.
I’d survived my tour in Vietnam, witnessed death and destruction, firefights, heat exhaustion, mortar and rocket attacks, medevac extractions under fire, bouts of fever, dysentery, and leeches on my penis and testicles. Just days away from leaving that war behind, God, in His infinite wisdom, thought, “Maybe I’ll give him a swat on the ass to help him on his way. Heh, heh, heh…”-
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William Gritzbaugh is a Vietnam veteran (draftee), currently retired, and volunteers at a VA Hospital, USO and Meals on Wheels. He has several nonfiction works published in As You Were: The Military Review, and is the author of a novel, A Long Day to Denver.
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