Rick Holt's Adventures in Vietnam
Letters Home from Vietnam, 1971
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Da Nang
April 1, 1971
Thursday
6:45 pm
Dear Folks,
Well, chalk up one more day with no mail and no pay. The plane that was supposed to come up today was used for some other mission. Paulson went back to his unit to get paid this evening. He'll be back in a couple days. So now there are only 3 radio operators. Duff, Seacord and myself. and two crew chiefs left up here. Everybody else has gone back to Long Thanh for some reason or other.
I flew that one mission last night, by my calculation number 9. The mission for tonight has been cancelled. All the while we were up last night we were above a thunderstorm. It was one of the bumpiest rides I've had yet. This was one of the more interesting missions that we've had. We were supporting ARVN's in Laos. The guy on the ARVN radio spoke good English and we had him hooked up with the 101st Airborne Div. We could hear them calling in air strikes and gun-ships and talking about activities on the ground. We usually have our missions supporting operations and intelligence nets and all we hear are situation reports and call for supplies. This was a little different and made it seem like we are playing a little more active part in what is going on.
The pilots just came in here asking if any of us took their jeep. Apparently somebody stole it. That's not the first thing they have lost. The other day they took our truck to the beach and then into town. They came back stone drunk and minus a tool box and a nose wheel for one of the planes. I guess the next thing they'll lose is a U-21. I just hope I'm not in it.
Nothing else happening around here right now. Had that delicious old standby today for lunch--hot dogs, beans and potato chips on a paper plate of course. Potato chips and pretzels is one thing I haven't seen much of in the last two months. Well, hang in there, so much for now.
Rick