In August of 1967 I was re-assigned from the
Weather Service detachment at Naha AB to the detachment at Tuy Hoa AFB,
RVN. I had volunteered for a direct transfer from an overseas assignment to
Vietnam in order to get this inevitable assignment out of the way. I did
not want to return to the states from Okinawa for a year, get re-accustomed
to state-side life, and then have to leave for a year in Vietnam. I also
was led to believe that by volunteering I would be given one of the better
assignments available, over non-volunteers. I also had the slightly
altruistic objective of giving my older brother, who at the time was serving
with an Army combat engineering group somewhere in III Corps, the
opportunity to terminate his tour early. I was very unlikely to be ordered
into a combat role during my tour in Vietnam, and my brother could claim a
re-assignment out of country as as soon as I arrived. Being an older
brother, of course he did not let his kid brother bail him out. I think
today he is still picking shrapnel pieces out of his butt because of that
dumb decision.
Here
is Capt Stevenson, USAF Meteorologist hard at work at the Tuy Hoa AFB Base
Operations Weather Station. As the saying went, "... at first time
goes slowly here, but after a while it stops altogether." Actually my
expectation that I would get some preference for the better assignments was
justified. Tuy Hoa was the Air Force's showcase base in Vietnam.
Most of the other Air Force bases in Vietnam were converted air terminals
(Ton Son Nhut), upgraded ARVN bases, or bases operated by the Army or Marine
Corps. I believe Tuy Hoa was the first base built in Vietnam from the
ground up by the Air Force for the Air Force. Consequently the
base was built with the usual Air Force priorities: First build the
Officer's and NCO clubs, then the recreation centers, and then ... and then
... oh yeah, build the runway.
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