Back to Vietnam

[gemmer]

Back in country after 44 years. My wife and I have been here for almost two weeks. We flew into Tan Son Nhat. While taxiing I saw 5
UH-1Hs lined up, intact and apparently flyable. Engines covered with a tarp and blades tied down per SOP. Next to a hanger wall were 4
dismantled MI-24s. Further down, an intact,perhaps flyable AN-2 and a C-47 fuselage in faded camo. Along an old flight line, we could see the footprints for the revetments. At Phu Bai airfield, now Hue International, where I flew with the 101st, nothing exists of the military installations. Totally gone and grown over. We did find the road that ran down through the compound and a few remnants
of what looked like bunkers. Quang Tri airfield is gone, but the footprint of the active is still there. Marble Mountain is one big bare patch except for maybe 10 blast shelters closest to the ocean. There's a road going to Hoi An along the beach right where the airbase ended. Khe Sanh's runway is grown over. They have a museum there and several VNAF aircraft on display. UH-1H, CH-47A and a C-130. Just about every static display you see of captured VNAF aircraft have been repainted and given US insignia. Helicopters have ARMY
painted in white with USAF star and bar insignia.

Duane

[sandiego89]

Good report, hope you have a good trip.

Would love to poke around the boneyard at Tan Son Nhut.

I think we had some commentray on the aircraft near Khe Sahn a while back- with decidedly non-standard "close enough" paint jobs.

[p51]

Be careful with anyone trying to sell you anything from the war. That area is a hotbed for making fake just about everything from the war to sell to round eye tourists...

[gemmer]

Be careful with anyone trying to sell you anything from the war. That area is a hotbed for making fake just about everything from the war to sell to round eye tourists...

Yeah, well selling bogus stuff here is nothing new. I did have two locals at Khe Sanh trying to sell me dog tags. Probably(hopefully) fake, and I'm pretty sure they didn't know I was American. What ever, I was having none of It and sent them on their way. There was also a group of about 20 USMC officers on a tour of the battlefields of Vietnam, as part of an advanced history course on tactics. I spoke
To one of them who had a bit of an officers's attitude. They had to come all the way there to learn that you don't put your people at the extreme end of a supply line only serviced by air while giving up the high ground to the enemy.

Duane