Rick Holt's Adventures in Vietnam
Letters Home from Vietnam, 1971
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Long Thanh North
June 28, 1971
Sunday
9 pm
Dear Folks,
Hayes woke me up this morning and asked me if I wanted to go to Vung Tau. He said I could get 4 guys from my section. They were going to take a U-21. So I ran around trying to find somebody who wanted to go. Found Deskin and Kadramas. Nobody else wanted to go. I told Hayes and he said he'd try to get some more people from his section. As it turned out they couldn't get enough people together. Didn't want to fly a plane to Vung Tau for only 5 people. It was a spur of the moment thing anyway. He said maybe next week they'll try to find out a little bit ahead of time so we can make plans. I was really looking forward to another day of sun and fun at the beach.
Since we were already up Deskin and I decided to go to the PX at Long Binh. Walked out to the main gate to catch a ride. I was surprised to see Seacord at the gate. I saw him following a garbage truck around at about 10 this morning. Well, it took about a half hour to catch a ride. Made it to the PX about 11:30. I bought a dozen cans of Vienna sausage and a couple pre-recorded tapes. I couldn't find any blank tapes.
Had a cheeseburger, lemonade and potato chips at a snack truck by the PX. Then munched on some popcorn. It was getting cloudy and looked like rain so we figured we'd better start heading back.
We walked down to the finance parking lot hoping to catch the bus to Long Thanh at 12:30. We waited till 1 pm and it didn't come so we started walking to the main road where we could catch a ride to the gate. Got a ride part way with some colonel and the rest of the way with a couple MP's. At the gate we got a ride on an armored personnel carrier headed for Bearcat. That's the first time I've ever been on an APC. Rode all the way back sitting on top. It was really kind of fun. Just lucky it didn't rain.
We walked from the main gate at Bearcat almost to the back gate to Long Thanh and from there we got a ride on a 3/4 ton truck back to the hooch. And that ended our journey for today.
Had a feast on a couple cans of Vienna's and a coke then laid down to rest. Davis woke me up about 6:30 pm and said we had to check the write-ups on the planes that came in. 001 needed a high frequency radio and that was all we had to do. Also had to take the parts for the CO's air-conditioner motor out to 001 so they could take it to Bangkok tomorrow and get it fixed. That plane goes to Bangkok tomorrow to get painted.
Got two letters and a tape today. Seacord gave me a book he just finished reading, "Please don't eat your snowshoes." It's supposed to be a super funny book so I guess I'll read it as soon as I finish the one I'm on now. Guess that does it.
Rick