Viet Nam War 1970-71 - One REMF's story of a year in Nam
SEARCH AND DESTROY WHAT?
Patrolling outside the wire with an M-79 and a Marlboro..
PERIMETER SECURE
A happy Marty Knanishu on guard duty. On occasion. troops on guard duty at Long Binh would fire automatic weapons, grenade launchers and parachute flares. Generally the LT on duty would stop by and ask what was up. "Thought we saw something", was generally the answer. We once spotted a hopping jack rabbit who was KIA.
RELAXING TEAM
The nightly "Circle" at Long Binh between the hootches, next to the basketball pad. On this night I was given a lesson in how to drink fine wines properly. The tipped chair, far right, came from the 557th LE Engineer Bn., part of the 18th Engineer Brigade. A cassette tape played on the table provided the tunes. Marty Knanishu, lower right, gestures as refreshments are consumed by all. © 1971, MJ Roche.
AL GORE WINS THIS ONE!
The winning team photo from a basketball league at Bien Hoa, Vietnam, March, 1971. Brigadier General Kenneth B. Cooper poses with NCOs and enlisted men including Albert Gore, Jr., (lower right). Not long after this photo was taken, Gore and Alan Leo joined the newspaper staff at Long Binh. Photo by SP5 H. Alan Leo, US Army Engineers. Alan owned a high-end Haselblad camera which had a viewfinder lens ground to his personal prescription. He was a pro's pro!
ALBERT GORE IN VIETNAMAL GOREGENERAL COOPERALAN LEO© 1970 1971 MJ ROCHE
PRESIDENTIAL RUN - 2000
Front page, above the fold. Melinda Henneberger quotes Mike Roche about Al Gore's time in Vietnam. © 2000, New York Times. Printed 07/11/2000.
EDITING COPY
Castle Courier Assistant Editor Bill Smith at the Head Shed (US Army Headquarters, Vietnam). Bill's artistic talents made our countrywide newspaper, with the largest circulation in Vietnam, unique and widely read by our engineers. © 1971, MJ Roche.
NOT LALLI GAGGIN'
The LT was always hard at work...unlike most officers at Long Binh. Wonder if he's writing a letter to Jade?
Sergio Lalli went on to work for the Associated Press and several major newspapers. He co-wrote a best selling biography of Joseph Bonanno in 1983 in Tucson, AZ. © 1971, MJ Roche.
CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES
A secretary types a news story at the Castle Courier office at USARV Headquarters. © 1971, MJ Roche.
-30-
Author's Editor desk at the newspaper office at Long Binh. Note the Coke can opened by a "church key" in pre-pop-top days. My DEROS calendar shows about 40 days remaining in Nam (JUNE 1971). You will note the USARV sign through the top of the window. © 1971, MJ Roche.
DEROS
A DEROS calendar (acronym for "Date of Eligible Return from Overseas" ) hangs over a bunk in Long Binh. This jet airplane was designed and created by Castle Courier Assistant Editor, William Smith. It was undoubtedly the most popular feature that ever ran in our paper! Traveling in the field we would find it hanging in hootches, bunkers and above bunks all over Vietnam. © 1971, MJ Roche.
DRUG CHECK
Urinalysis was required to get on a freedom bird (at Long Binh from the web). The Army was really looking for heroin and other hard drugs in these checks. Marijuana detection was not possible. From the web.
LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY...
One of our duties as US Army photo journalists in Viet Nam was to assist in the verification of daily body counts for senior officers. This meant being choppered in to remote sites and photographing the killed-in-action to provide evidence for the brass and Congress, I never retained any of these images.
EXPOSE'
The cover news article that changed lives for REMFs in Vietnam. It detailed the ugly underbelly of the culture in the rear areas. Some PIO (public information office or journalists) personnel whose units were named in the article were reassigned to other duties. Steam baths inside the wire were forced to close. Drug testing prior to DEROS became a requirement. The American public's dislike of the war only intensified and, even though day-to-day REMF life was less comfortable for GIs, it likely hastened the end of the conflict due to the reaction back in the US.
COULDN'T KEEP A JOB!
Army Times article. I worked at the ARMY TIMES DC civilian news office It was boring, but better than sitting in Long Binh waiting for a rocket. I was driven afterwards to my hotel across the river and would then change clothes and head to Georgetown in a taxi to have a good dinner and hang out with the antiwar protestors who had staged massive marches during the "MAY DAY" event two weeks earlier.
THOMAS JEFFERSON AWARD
Henry Luce III, the elder son of the founder and editor in chief of Time Inc., presents the "Thomas Jefferson Award" for best military offset newspaper in the world. Accepting for the Engineer Command, Long Binh, RVN, is the editor of the"Castle Courier" newspaper, in May, 1971, at the State Department, Washington, D.C. Lief Ericson, actor and star of the "High Chaparral" TV series, served as emcee (right at podium). His son was an Army Captain who was a casualty in Vietnam. I am wearing sergeant stripes because they said jungle fatigues would not suffice and these were the only E5 dress blues they could borrow in DC. © US State Dept. photo.
MEETING THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS
THE PENTAGON MAY 1971. Posing with Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and fellow awardees. We met with the brass during the day, and I hung with war protesters in Georgetown at night.l I resisted my urge to tell Tom how fucked up our strategy was in Nam.
TRAVELING SAIGON
Cyclo drivers and Roman Catholic nun, Saigon streets, winter, 1971. © 1971, MJ Roche. This image wall pulled from an Ektachrome slide developed in 1971, color corrected in Photoshop.
GATHERING FEED
Stopping to collect feed his horse. The ARVN soldier at right discusses the issue of who owns the selected lunch. © 1971, MJ Roche.
HORSE LIKES THE ATTENTION
Roadside scene near Di An. Note the "mini arm" extension at the center right above the "206" sign on the cart. © 1971, MJ Roche.
WHERE THE CIVILIAN PRESS STAYED IN SAIGON
Caravelle Hotel, January 1971. I would return to stay at this hotel in 2001. © 1971, MJ Roche.
Outside Saigon, shot from a bouncing jeep. © 1971, MJ Roche.
Where GI's played in Saigon. © 1971, MJ Roche.
GI hangout, Saigon. © 1971, MJ Roche.
GI APARTMENTS
Many Army personnel who worked in Saigon lived in hotels. Mama San washed uniforms during the day and hung them to dry on the railings of the balconies. © 1971, MJ Roche.
RUSH HOUR, SAIGON
The ubiquitous motorbike-infested traffic jam in Saigon. I never went through a single motor trip in Nam without seeing a serious accident on the roadways. © 1971, MJ Roche.
WHAT STOPLIGHT?
Street scene, Saigon. Traffic lights were generally ignored. © 1971, MJ Roche.
CU CHI BASE
MAP OF CU CHI BASECAMP 1969. THE 3/13TH FIELD ARTILLERY is located in two spots near the wire on the northwest, with the HQ in the center of the base (from the web).
BASIC BEGINNINGS - MOST WENT TO NAM
Basic training company at Ft. Campbell, KY. Dan Potter, center front, was the platoon guide. The squad leaders were Joe Putnam, Tom Morgan, Chet Morawski, and myself. Drill Sergeant was Robert (Dick) Kohlman. Since the war was fairly docile in late 1970, there is a good chance that most of these guys made it home in 1971.
COMPANY E-1-1 CADRE FORT CAMPBELL
Basic training Co. E-1-1, Fort Campbell, KY, March 1970.
Front row: James Patrick, Tom Morgan, Chet Morawski, Joe Putnam. Back row: Platoon Guide Dan Potter, Mike Roche.
THE GULAG
The "Gulag". Having a smoke in front of the basic training barracks that housed crack soldiers.
ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL TRAINING
Just prior to heading to Vietnam, I attended the Department of Defense Information School (newspaper, radio and TV journalism training) at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana. There, all four US services were in attendance, as well as foreign servicemen (we had a South Vietnamese Navy Seaman in our class). There were also female service members from all four US services. Here I discuss interviewing techniques with Paula, a "Private" in the US Army.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE JOURNALISTS
Our Journalism AIT graduating class in July, 1970, from the Department of Defense Information School at Ft. Harrison, Indiana. Steve Hoffman from Indiana and Howard Hodges were my roommates. Always wondered what happened to the South Vietnamese Seaman, Nguyen V. T. Dung.
BRONZE STAR
Received from General Cooper after the new organization I led placed first in a worldwide, five service competition for best newspaper.
FELLOW JOURNALIST KILLED!
SP4 Stephen Warner was killed in action in February, 1971, at time when many of us in the journalism core felt we were gonna make the cut and survive Vietnam. He taught us all an important lesson when he was killed by an RPG covering stories on the Laos incursion. Operation Lamson 719. Rest in Peace brother.
DONUT DOLLY MURDERED BY AN AMERICAN GI
Ginny Kirsch, a Miami of Ohio cheerleader and member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority, who had many opportunities when she graduated college in 1970 but elected to join the American Red Cross to serve with the SRAO (Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas) program -- more affectionately known as Donut Dollies. The FIRST DAY I arrived \ for duty with the 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi, the entire base was locked down by the MPs. Ginny had been brutally murdered in her hootch adjacent to the 25th Div. Headquarters at Cu Chi. A witness saw a white male in civilian clothes running from the building. I did not have even a vague idea of what to expect in Vietnam as I arrived in-country, but this was not even fathomable. High school yearbook photo.
SAFE LANDING!
The first view I enjoyed after leaving Vietnam in mid-August 1971. It was out the window of a chartered "Tiger Air" airliner peering at the runway at a US Air Force base in Okinawa where we stopped for refueling on our way to THE WORLD.
THE VIETNAM WAR IN 1970
This is a scan from a page of the Stars and Stripes newspaper from October 24, 1970. The paper was an "authorized unofficial" publication that was printed in Tokyo and distributed daily to armed forces throughout the Pacific theater. Content was carefully controlled by the military. Articles written by US Army journalists in Nam, including myself, were often reprinted on these pages.
This article refers to the drop in military action and casualties in Vietnam at this point in time were due to the May 1970 US incursion into Cambodia that cut off military supplies from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
I found it interesting the kicker says "40 Killed" and yet did not include the "33 others that died from causes other than battle". Mechanical failure of a helicopter that caused it to crash represented "other than battle". © STARS & STRIPES.
ENEMIES MEET IN SAIGON 2001
Former enemies meet in a Weapons Museum in Saigon in October, 2001. During a two-hour interview, which was guided by an interpreter from Anh Tours (now "Ann" Tours) of Saigon, this former officer discussed how he was in the area when a rocket was fired into Cu Chi only days after I arrived at the 25th Infantry Division Headquarters. He was 92 years old in this photo.
