There I was in the Air National Guard looking for advancement and promotion. I spent four years in the regular Air Force working in Communications; and I was promoted to E-4 (Sgt.) in the summer of 1969. I was stationed in Alaska at the time, and to this day I still feel that I should have been awarded the Vietnam Service medal. You might ask; why, since you were stationed in Alaska? What does Alaska have to do with the Vietnam War? A lot. When I was stationed at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska with 1931st. Communications Group, Alaska was considered overseas, and in the Vietnam theater.
The requirements for the Vietnam Service medal involved three area's: 1) Fly over Vietnam doing missions. Which basically means that if I was a fighter pilot stationed in Korea; I could be awarded the Vietnam Service medal if I flew one sortie over Vietnam. 2) to be in country, or in the contingent waters of Vietnam. This means that a cook on some naval vessel; who never dealt directly with the Vietnam War effort, can receive the medal just because he was in the contingent waters. In other words, 12 miles off shore, or 3) To participate directly with the Vietnam War effort.
I believe that I fit in the third category simply because Alaska at the time I was there was considered overseas and in the Vietnam theater, and because I worked directly with the Vietnam War effort. I arrived in Alaska in February 1969; and found myself participating at the tale end of the American counter offensive of November 1968 to February 1969. Shortly after the conclusion of the American counter offensive, the Vietnamese launched their TET offensive beginning in late February 1969 and lasted to about May 1969. Considering that in order to meet the requirements to receive the Vietnam Service medal all I had to do was to participate in the Vietnam effort for one day; I participated for over a week. No sooner did I get to Elmendorf AFB; I found myself working under combat conditions at the Communication Center of the headquarters building in 12 hour shifts.
What was interesting is that when I wasn't in combat mode; or under combat conditions, I worked 3 days (7:30 am to 4:pm), 3 swings (3:30 pm to 12 midnight), 3 midnights (11:30 pm to 8 am), and then I had 3 days off. Since I was in combat conditions; I had no chance of having a day off, or getting much sleep. I also came close to going to Vietnam on several occasion at this time. I think what prevented me from going was the clearance that I had. If I went to Vietnam; my security clearance would have had to be down graded, and that would have taken a long time. Also, since I would be working in a communications facility, my life expectancy wouldn't be very good. It seems that the Vietnamese would first take out the communcations facilty with motars, and then engage any of our infantry troops. That means that I had less of a chance to get out of Vietnam alive than a regular infantry soldier. Also, I found out that there was a 50 dollar bounty on my head.
I had a Top Secret-Crypto clearance with a secondary Restricted clearance. This means that I had two of the three highest clearances in our military and government. The highest clearance that you can get is "Q" clearance. Those that work for Security Service, or the Communications Center in the basement of the White House have these clearances. However, I also worked with and for the National Security Service, CIA, FBI, DOD; and Air Force Commands such as: TAC (Tactical Air Command), SAC (Strategic Air Command), Logistics, ADC (Air Defense Command), MAC-ACP (Military Airlift Command-Airlift Command Post), CINCAL (Commander in Chief of Alaskan Forces), AAC (Alaska Air Command), foreign nations, such as: Canada, Japan, Norway, and others. At that time; I don't know about now, but the Alaska Air Command was the largest United States military command in area. It stretched from the Little Diamede island off the coast of Siberia east across the northern sector of the earth to Norway. In other words, it covered a lot of ground.
Concerning Vietnam, in essence we acted as a FOB (Forward Operational Base); We had direct communications links with Vietnam; to such bases as, Da Nang, Saigon, Cam Ranh Bay, and Dak To. I had the ability to monitor all of the actions that went on in Vietnam; and I was responsible for sending and receiving much of the battle operations that had occurred there. We were primarily linked to the 7th. Air Force in Saigon. To say that I was not involved with the Vietnam war is a misnomer. On the contrary, I was more involved than even I may have realized.
At this time security was tight. There were Army Military Police, Air Force Security Police (They were known as AP's or Air Police; but we use to call them Ape's, so their name was changed), and Marine Infantry surrounding the headquarters building. We were constantly under security surveillance, and lock down; and even had restrictions on where we were to go while on base. Elmendorf was actually closed down during this time, and Air Force SP's with guard dogs patrolled the perimeter of the base. I also noticed that there were large concrete machine gun emplacements around the flight line; each of them being manned, and a 20 foot deep ditch around the perimeter that was constantly patrolled by Air Force Security Personnel.
A few of our people; while driving through this ditch to get to a communications facility that was situated on the other side of the flight line, were stopped by the security police. With weapons drawn, the security police frisked them and checked their vehicle for any weapons or explosives. We didn't know that we weren't allowed to drive through this area; and since there was no other way to get to that facility, we found that we had to abandon it. Shortly after this incident, we were informed that Vietnamese sappers were in the area. I was thinking what, in Alaska? what Vietnamese would want to come to Alaska and blow up things. Aren't we a little far a way from the war? Evidently not, because when I was thrown out of my bed because of a massive explosion; I found out how serious they were. We had a few incidents with Vietnamese sappers; however, they were never caught.
Earthquakes were another menace that we were faced with. The buildings were constructed in such a way that during an earthquake they would sway back and forth in order to keep them from falling over. If there was a wing attached to the building; it may fall off, while the rest of the building remained standing. The buildings were constructed with metal plates that attached the wing to the main part of the building. In other words, the entire building wouldn't be lost during an earthquake. There were times when people occupying one section of the building felt the earthquake; and the people on the opposite section didn't. When I worked at the Weather Relay Center; one day we had an earthquake that was felt by a soldier that was working at the front of the facility; but the rest of us didn't feel anything.
I was also involved with the counter offensive of late summer of 1969 to January 1970 and the Vietnamese TET offensive that started in February 1970 and lasted to about May of 1970. For some reason the Vietnamese always had their TET offensives right at the beginning of the year; and they were at least two to three month in duration. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, the monsoon rains that would last for weeks and bog everything down; and two, because of the pagan religious holidays that occurred at that part of the year. Looking back at all this; it is good to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and not be concerned with pagan rituals.
The one thing that disturbed me was the information that I was receiving. thousands of North Vietnamese Regulars and Viet Cong were killed; yet they kept on fighting. Where did they come from? did they come back from the grave? What was also disturbing was that amongst the dead were found Koreans, Chinese, German (probably East German), Polish, Rumanian, and other soldiers from the eastern block nations. In other words; we were fighting more than the Vietnamese, we were fighting the entire communist block nations.
In the year and four months that I participated in the Vietnam War; I estimated that over a million North Vietnamese Regulars and Viet Cong were killed, and that we won literally every battle. Still we lost the war. How could this be? I started thinking; Maybe we weren't suppose to win the war. Maybe it was a staged event for some political and monetary purpose. I know I'm a conspiracy nut, but maybe the war was being instigated by an internal force for some unscrupulous purpose. This made me wonder; especially when I received information in early 1969 of the Vietnamese wanting to sue for peace, but they were told to wait it out for a couple of more years.
