Radio First Termer: Photographs of Dave and his tours in South Vietnam


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Here is Dave in this USAF publicity shot for Stars and Stripes in the tape room looking over the music library list during his days at Radio Phan Rang.  He would go here to retrieve the music selections for each evening's show.  Look closely at Dave's watch  Around it is what appears to be a ribbon of some sort.  When someone got to a point where he had less than 30 days left in his tour, referred to as being "short", he would take this ribbon off a bottle of liquor and wear it. It was a symbol of "I'm short, and pretty soon everyone can kiss my ass goodbye!"

This is a shot of the door to the tape room at Radio Phan Rang.  The photo of Dave to the left was taken beyond this door.

This is a picture of the broadcast position at Radio Phan Rang. The DJ is Dave's roommate and the voice of the unsuspecting "New Troop" in the gag "First Short Time."

This is Dave's roommate and the Major who oversaw the operations of the Radio Phan Rang.

This is Dave driving a deuce and a half (2 1/2-ton Truck) between Cam Ranh Bay and Phan Rang on Highway One. Even though he was not officially with the motor pool, Dave had made some friends who allowed him to participate in some of the convoys on his day off. The main reason Dave liked participating in convoys was because he also got to do "Favor Runs" for some of his friends at Phan Rang as the Cam Ranh BX's (Base Exchange) inventory was much wider than the Phan Rang BX.

This is a picture that Dave took during his tour at Phan Rang AFB of one of the F-100s stationed at Phan Rang taking off as a rocket hits close to the runway.  According to Dave, the base was the target of tons of rocket, mortar and "sapper" (infiltrator) attacks. Sappers would strip naked, throw their explosives over the perimeter (barb wire, claymores, etc) and could go right through if they were not seen or caught. They would then get close to the aircraft and try and blow up several of them. While visiting the office of a friend who was in the security police, Dave remembers seeing photos of dead VC who were killed the previous night and recognizing one of them as his barber from the Phan Rang AFB Barbershop (spooky!). The military bases routinely hired Vietnamese civilians to supplement the military, and doing so was good for public relations.

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