Rufus Harris said: “Tan Son Nhut ’68, little remembrance…just arrived in country. Rather than falling in line at the PAX terminal with all the grunts for a C-130 ride to Pleiku and my Spad squadron, which might mean hanging around the airport for a day or two, I went over to base ops to see if I could find my own hop. Sure enough, A C-7 pilot says he’s taking some Purple Hearts up to the 4th Division at Pleiku and I’m welcome to hitch a ride. I’m thinking sure, I can just hold the medals in my lap, so we walk out to the plane as the loadmaster finishes strapping down a 700 pound pallet of Purple Hearts. Whoa, maybe a couple of extra days at Tan Son Nhut wouldn’t be that bad!”
Jack McTasney responded: ” Why were you in such a hurry to get to Plieku? Good to see you are still out there enjoying old age like the rest of us. Actually I remember going to DaNang in a C-130 hauling ammunition, and wondering what would happen if we were hit? When we landed and taxied in the “Hillsboro” C-130 hulk was still on the ramp from the rocket attack in July 1967. I sort of wondered if I was getting into trouble ; but then the good old AF started building bunkers, revetments and having us sandbag our hootches. Once you moved to the bottom bunk on the ground floor you didn’t even put your helmet on when the rockets came in, but the guy in the top bunk hit the deck and the “Gunfighters” on the top floor usually went to the bunkers. Then again we were probably just stupid and lucky.”
Awesome video of Tan Son Nhut! Thx!