“A TIME OF REMEMBERANCE ”

The US Navy also based some of their Market Time patrol aircraft at Cam Ranh. A squadron of P-2 Neptunes operated from the air base. And until April of 1967, one of the final remaining P-5 Marlin sea plane squadrons in service used the quiet waters of the bay as an excellent runway and sea plane tender anchorage from which surveillance flights were made. Here the USS Salisbury Sound (AV-13) is visited by a Swift Boat, with a P-5 Marlin hoisted on deck for maintenance.

 In addition, a large USAF base was constructed with runways long enough to accommodate the huge C-141 and later C-5 transport aircraft. This was used not only for cargo, but also as a main entrance and departure point for many of the American personnel assigned to the conflict. The entire northern half of the eastern peninsula, which protected the bay from monsoon weather and seas, was a beehive of military logistical activity beginning in 1966-67, and remained so for as long as the US was involved in the conflict.

Coastal Division 14 Swift Boats were nested on either side of the long pier extending out into the harbor. Note the plywood covering over the outer front wind screens on PCF 43. This was an early, temporary attempt to prevent the "blowing out" of these wind screens during heavy seas. Certainly reduced forward visibility. {See "Boat Tour"  and "Patrol Activity"  for more permanent wind screen solutions. Also "Silvermace II"  for the ultimate fate of PCF 43}

At the southern tip of the long peninsula, just off the point identified on the charts as Mui Cha Da, and referred to by personnel from other services as South Beach, was Naval Support Facility Cam Ranh Bay.

 This served as home base for the fourteen or so Swift Boats of Coastal Division 14, and starting in mid 1967, the Commander of all Swift Boats (Coastal Squadron One) and the Commander of Operation Market Time Task Force 115.

It also has a long history of military usage going back as far as 1905, when the Russian Fleet under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvenski stopped there during its long around the world voyage to meet defeat at the hands of the Japanese Admiral Heihachiro Togo during the Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese also used the bay to assemble their warships and transports as they prepared for the invasion of Malaysia in the very early part of World War II. Which ultimately led to the downfall of

Singapore.

                               At present our brave men and women of the military are serving in the war against terror on two fronts:  Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraq Freedom.  Our prayer is for their safety and their quick return home to their families!!  Our hearts are with those who have lost loved ones to this conflict and to those on their second and third tours.  You All remain in our hearts and prayers and your sacrifice has ensured our freedom. 

Our BunKer~s

will forever honor your memory!

                   Vietnamese regulars sang their way to death as a 173d Airborne Brigade Ranger team shattered their musical notes with small arms fire and captured five AK47 rifles.
   The team was operating nine miles northwest of Landing Zone English, located near the coast about 300 miles northeast of Saigon. Team Bravo, Co N, 75th Infantry, Rangers, observed lights and heard shots and voices at the base of a mountain during the night.

      the November 1969 Paratrooper contact with the 2d Regiment of the Division, during which the "Sky Soldiers" killed some 150 Reds and wounded another 150. The remainder of the Regiment was chased by the Troopers through November and December 1969 and the 2d Regiment plans for a Tet offensive was nullified.

            The second major incident took place in January and February, when the 22d Regiment of the 3d NVA Division located at the time in Tam Quan Mountains, was whipped by elements of the 173d. The Airborne Troopers had continous contact with the Reds on Hill 474, where they killed 150 Communists and wounded some 200. This was another important victory against the enemy that curtailed the enemy's plans for the Tet Offensive.
   The third major operation took place in April and May when the remainder of the 2d NVA Regiment went to Phu My District, where the 173d Troopers and elements of the 22d ARVN Division killed 200 and wounded an equal number of the enemy.

Michael McKenna is a Vietnam veteran who suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder. He reports his descent into a profound addiction to heroin, and his use of cannabis as a singular medicine for becoming human.

My name is Michael McKenna. I'm 46 years old, and I've been using marihuana on and off since 1970. I've gone without it for long periods, but I use it today and probably will for the rest of my life. I have no choice. I went to Vietnam right after my 18th birthday. When I had been there for two weeks, our company lost the first men that I knew. Back at base camp, I sat in the dark by myself wondering what the hell had happened. I asked myself where these souls went, and was there a heaven for men who died the way they did. As I stared into the darkness I heard a voice behind me say "Man, you shouldn't be out here by yourself thinking about this shit or you'll go nuts." I couldn't look him in the face and didn't even look up for fear that he would see the tears in my eyes. He told me I needed to get drunk to forget it and go on, or I would die there. I told him I didn't drink, and he said he would be right back. When he returned he had a big joint and asked if I had tried pot before. I told him that I had, a couple of times. He said this shit was about 100 times stronger than anything in the States and I should only smoke a little. Then he left.

That night alone in the dark, I smoked the whole thing, and I've never regretted it. He had given me my mental survival tool. It did not make me forget, just allowed me to digest the pain and fear peacefully and respectfully with dignity. I'm sure you've heard before that over there we had Jesus freaks, straights, potheads, and diesel freaks (drinkers). While the diesel freaks made up the majority, pot smoking became more and more open. The straights became potheads by the drove.

My job over there meant I had to deal not only with our dead but theirs also, along with murders, suicides and heroin overdoses. I did not allow my crew to get high on the job, but when we hit camp we all smoked. There was not one drinker in my crew, because we had to move on a moment's notice, and you could not trust the drunks to be ready or sometimes even able. The potheads came through like champs, always ready, always able. When I returned home, I was hit by the same crap that most other vets got: unemployable, hate, prejudice, called all of the names I'm sure you've heard. All you had was family and close friends, and that didn't last, because in your head they knew that you were the murdering, rapist scum that they had been reading about and seeing on the news. So I threw away all the people who knew me and loved me and turned to vets and then threw them away too, just as some had thrown me away because they knew the scum that I was. Soon no one I was seeing even knew I had even been in the Army, and I wasn't talking. My way to cope was heavy drugs and booze.

About this time my father (a combat vet from WWII) told me in a loving way that something was wrong with me, that I wasn't adjusting. He saw death in my eyes, and knew that I was killing myself. He and my Mom begged me to get help before it was too late, or my rage and anger would kill me or someone else. So with my Dad almost holding my hand, we went to the VA hospital in St. Louis. They told me there that I didn't really have a nervous problem, and in time I would adjust like everyone else who had served in combat. They gave me Valium and told me to come back in 90 days. When I went back and told them the Valium wasn't working, they said there was nothing else they could do, and I had to live with it. I began to hit the drugs even harder, running all over the country from my demons. Eventually I got strung out on heroin, a $500 a day habit. When I found myself thinking about robbing places because I could no longer support my habit, I decided to quit so I wouldn't hurt my family any more. All the people I knew who took methadone in the morning were still doing heroin at night, so I decided to quit cold turkey.

I called my father to come and get me. All I told him was that I need his help. He never asked why, and I never told him until later, but he knew anyway. He put me in a camper on his property not too far from their home, and then the hell began. He watched me from time to time, puking, screaming, not able to sleep or even stay in the trailer. I would build campfires to sleep by, if I slept at all. If the fire went out, he would keep it going when I didn't even know he was there.

On the third day, while I was rolling on the ground screaming in pain and puke, a yellow convertible pulled in and a barefoot guy with waist-long hair and no shirt got out. He said my father had sent him to help me. Seeing my confusion, he said, "Just call me Dr. Jim, and you're going to sleep tonight." He had a bag of pot and a gallon of whiskey. I told him to take his shit and get out. Pot wasn't going to do shit, and the whiskey would probably kill me. But he said getting drunk would help me sleep, and the pot would make the withdrawal less violent and help with the puking. I stayed drunk and high for a week.

When I finally went to my Dad's to take a shower, he came over and hugged me, as nasty and disgusting as I was, with tears in his eyes. He told me that I had been through enough, that he would have gone through the withdrawal for me if he could have, but that I still had a long way to go. He said that he was never so proud of me as he was when he realized that I wasn't going to turn back to heroin instead of continuing the withdrawal. He suggested that I quit the booze, but maybe the pot wasn't a bad thing. Well, I drifted away from the other drugs, but continued to drink and smoke pot. I was unknowingly starting to refine my own treatment. Pot was no longer just a party high for me but a survival tool. I used it to cope with everyday things that others seemed to do on their own, going out, seeing friends, working.

I was just another bombed-out crazy vet, useless, suicidal, and violent. I've had a lot of women in my life who liked me but could not stand the mood swings, the striking out and fighting, and the depression. After a while they all would learn the same thing: that when I had pot, I was nicer and more romantic and didn't get into fights. So they made sure I had pot even if they had to buy it for me.

I'm in my third marriage, and my wife has mixed feelings about pot because it's illegal. I've bought my first home, and she's afraid we will lose it if I get busted. So she's scared, but she sees that pot helps me. Since 1990 I've been in therapy for PTSD. I've been in the Stress Recovery Unit at Bay Pines VA hospital in Florida four times. My doctors there have tried me on different medications for depression and anxiety such as Valium, Prozac, trazodone, Cetrizine, and Serzone. All of my doctors know I self-medicate with pot, because I never hid this from any of them. Most of them don't really discuss it with me, but some have, and have even told me that the only problem is that they can't control the dose. They ask me not to smoke while I'm adjusting to their drugs, but I always go back to the pot because it is what works for me. I still use trazodone to help me get to sleep and short-circuit the nightmares, but pot is my daytime drug. I've had a lot of pain in my lower back for many years. During one of my stays at the VA, they told me I had a spondylopathy there that they could not operate on, and that I would probably end up in wheelchair. While pot does not stop the pain, it sure makes it a lot easier to live with at bad moments. My pain pills don't stop the pain and are addictive.

I think it is important for you to know that I'm not a "Cheech and Chong" type. I've been a deputy sheriff as well as a police chief and a private investigator, but the PTSD always made me crash and burn. I've lost everything several times, and for the last few years I have been rebuilding again. My doctors have told me to retire and try to maintain as normal a life as possible.

Yes, I'm still in a lot of pain mentally and physically, but I am still alive, and I know that I would not be if it weren't for the pot and my family. And as I said earlier, without the pot I would not have maintained my family. I'm sorry I've been going on longer than I thought I would, but I guess I had to defend my continued use. I hope I can help others who have guilty feelings because the stuff is illegal. We must make choices, and mine is to continue to smoke and tell others about the benefits that I got.

Thank you for helping me vent.

More Information on those Paper Airplanes Here!

                                    More than 50,000 of our military service personnel and veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with

 serious wounds and permanent disabilities.

Yet the federal government is not providing sufficient, timely, and predictable funding to treat their visible and invisible wounds of war.

 Our veterans stood up for us. Now it's time we stand up for them.

 Ask Congress to keep our national commitment to providing our veterans with the mental and physical health care they need.

173rdAirborne Brigade ~