62 EBC Advance Party Phan Rang, September '65

Jim,

I was a member of the advance party sent down to Phan Rang from Cam Ranh in September ahead of the rest of the battalion. If memory serves, there were about 80 of us, and our mission was to survey and set up a perimeter for the battalion base camp. We were there a week or ten days before the rest of the 62nd joined us. I was a radio operator, and the only communications guy in the advance party. I had a 3/4 ton with a GRC-19 mounted in the back and slept in the back of the truck with the radio on in case we got called. I remember being pretty scared because the rumors were that Charlie had control of the area, but actually, nothing happened.

I was there until I rotated back home and was REFRADed out at Oakland in August '66. By that time, the base had grown from a single PSP strip to paved runways and taxiways, the Air Force was there with F-4s, and the 101st Airborne had established their base camp in the area as well.