By Guy Miller

The “Tales from Nick’s FARRP” series are a fictionalized version of real events and are dedicated to the memory of friends and classmates from the Class of 1969.

“So, Tony, why is your hat different from everyone else in here?”

*     *     *     *     *     *

I was talking with a guy I knew as Major Tony Williams, who was sitting at my bar with a bunch of other Army guys.  My late uncle had left me this drinking establishment, Nick’s FAARP, in Fayetteville, NC, when he passed away several months ago.  We were located just off post from Fort Bragg, and a lot of Army guys hung out here.  Since I know nothing about the Army, it seems I am always pestering these guys with questions.  My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards.

*     *     *     *     *     *

          “Well, Gil,” Tony replied, “surely you have heard of the Army’s Green Berets.  That is another name for the Special Forces, the guys I served with on my first tour in Vietnam.  This precious head cover I am holding is in fact none other than an example of the famous Green Beret.”

“How come I have never seen you wear it before?” I inquired.

“That’s because I have just come from a job interview at the JFK Special Warfare Center.  Since the JFK job as Special Warfare Center staff aviation officer calls for a flash-qualified field-grade aviator, they wanted me to show up dressed as one.”

“I thought you already had a job.  Wasn’t it psychology, or something like that?”

“Close, Gil.  I have been working in the Army’s 4^th Psychological Operations Group, better known as “the PSYOP.”

Our headquarters mess hall is known far and wide as having the best chow in the entire Army.  No offense to you, Miss Peggy,” he added, nodding to my bar manager, known for serving up a pretty good cheeseburger with fries, and a few other things on our short menu.

“So, what is PSYOP?  And what is ‘flash-qualified?’” I peppered him with more questions.

“Gil,” interrupted Chief Rod, sitting beside Major Tony.  “PSYOP is those wimpy guys with their leaflets and loudspeakers, trying to persuade the bad guys to quit fighting and come over to our side.”  Rod Jordan was a very senior Army helicopter pilot, or as I found out they like to be called, an aviator.  He had also been best friends with my late Uncle Nick, ever since they had gone through Army Flight School in the early 1960s along with Miss Peggy’s late husband Mike.

“Rod, you know that’s an oversimplification,” Tony responded.  “PSYOP really encompasses everything you could think of that might help persuade an enemy to lose his willingness to risk his life by continuing to fight.  It can involve some things that are highly classified, too Top Secret for your simple aviator ears.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Military Intelligence Hot Dog,” Rod replied with a grin.  “Peggy, would you mind bringing another beer for this poor simple aviator?”

“Wait, Tony.”  I interrupted with my earlier question.  “What does ‘flash-qualified mean?’”

Captain Kenny spoke up from the other side of Chief Rod.  “Gil, anyone can buy one of those green berets at the PX, but only fully qualified Special Forces soldiers are allowed to wear it.

You can tell that they are true Green Berets by that shield shape on the front, called a flash.  The colors of the flash tell which Special Forces unit the soldier belongs to.”

“So then, Tony, I see the yellow diagonal slash with three red stripes inside.  What is that supposed to tell me?” Another of my endless questions.

“Gil, yellow with three red stripes indicates the colors of the flag of South Vietnam, which you will see often on ribbons worn by the guys who served over there.  This is the flash of the 5^th Special Forces Group, the guys I served with during my first combat tour in Vietnam.  If I am selected for the staff aviation job, I will wear the JFK flash, which is black over white and gray.  When you see the solid red flash in here, that indicates 7^th Special Forces Group, the guys assigned here at Fort Bragg.”

“Yeah,” said Chief Rod.  “Those are the guys who every so often put on ‘The Green Beret’ show at the Gabriel Demonstration Area on Smoke Bomb Hill.”

Puzzled, I had to ask, “I’ve heard of Smoke Bomb Hill.  What is that?”

“That, New Guy,” [I recognized the affectionate term Chief Rod had for me], “is the part of Fort Bragg where the Special Forces and other special operations units are located.”

Kenny jumped in here, with a grin on his face.  “Those green beanies really keep to themselves over there.  One Friday afternoon early in my first tour here at Fort Bragg, I needed some cash for the weekend.  I was still a naïve airborne cav Second Lieutenant at the time.  On my way home, I passed the little Smoke Bomb Hill annex of the Officers’ Club, where I knew I could cash a $25 check.  It was Happy Hour at the tiny hut, right in the center of the Green Beret units at Fort Bragg.

“As I entered their small O-Club and my eyes were adjusting to the darkness inside, I heard a bell start to ring. Ding, ding, ding, ding.  Curious, I asked what that meant.  One of the guys at the bar said, ‘Lieutenant, anyone who wears his hat in the club has to buy a round of drinks for everyone present.’’’

“Oh, no, you didn’t!” groaned Tony.

“Yeah, I really did,” responded Kenny.  “Ashamed, I removed my hat and said I only wanted to cash a check.  The bartender said, ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to.’  I approached and laid my hat on the bar as I pulled out my checkbook.  Ding, ding, ding, ding.” 

          “Dang, Kenny, you sure were dumb as a lieutenant, weren’t you?” said Rod.

Kenny continued.  “‘What is that ringing again for?’ I asked.  ‘Lieutenant, anyone who lays his hat on the bar has to buy a round of drinks for everyone present.  That makes two rounds you owe us.’ So, I quickly pulled my cap off the bar and slipped it at the small of my back under my belt.

“While I was waiting for the bartender to cash my check, my curiosity got the best of me.  Wondering how this magical bell kept getting rung, I bent down to look under the bar.  There it was, a white cord running the length of the bar.  Reaching out to test the tension on the cord, I gave it a slight tug.  Ding!  A cheer went up among the dozen or so Special Forces officer in the bar.  Embarrassed, I asked sheepishly, ‘Now what?’  ‘Well, lieutenant, when you deliberately ring the bell, it is the signal to the bar that you are buying a round for everyone.  That makes three rounds you owe us. ‘

“Seeing my obvious chagrin, a major spoke up.  ‘Hey, guys, this new lieutenant obviously doesn’t know anything about Officer Club etiquette.  How about we give him a break.  Just one round for all of us here ought to settle up for him, don’t you think?’

“A grumbling consent emerged from the other officers in the hut, most of them probably remembering their own naïveté when they were Second Lieutenants.  Since it was Happy Hour, drinks were half price, so I emerged from the hut still holding about half of my $25 cashed check.  But I never set foot in that Special Forces club annex again!”

“Good story, Kenny,” said Chief Rod.

“Well,” Captain Kenny answered.  “I was pretty green as a lieutenant.”

“Still are, don’t you think?” teased Major Tony.  “Peggy, another beer for me and our junior companion here, if you please.”

“At least I wasn’t the dumbest lieutenant at Fort Bragg.  That distinction went to none other than a brand-new Green Beret lieutenant just graduated from the Q course.”

I couldn’t help from piping up.  “What’s this ‘Q’ course?”

“That, my young civilian friend,” replied Major Tony, “is the many-months-long Special Forces Qualification course, completion of which constitutes ‘flash qualification.’  All the Special Forces training happens at Camp Mackall, which is a sub-post of Fort Bragg located some 50 miles west of main post.”

“Anyhow,” continued Captain Kenny, “this brand-new flash-qualified lieutenant was part of the Special Forces capabilities show being presented for a bunch of VIPs at the Gabriel Demonstration Area on Smoke Bomb Hill.  His role was to rappel from a helicopter hovering at 50’ in front of the viewing stands, to show the ‘fast rope’ assault capability of the Green Berets.

“This hot-dog lieutenant had been practicing for a week how to take the 50’ rappel in a single bound, ruining many nylon ropes in the process by melting the nylon from the heat absorbed by the metal snap link.  He would push off from the 50’ rappel training tower, releasing all braking tension on the snap link, essentially in free fall.  At about 40 feet down he would yank tension on the rope, turning all of the kinetic energy of his fall into heat, bringing him to a halt about two feet off the ground.  Then he would just walk out of the rope, presumably to the cheers of the VIP audience in the stands.

“He practiced this repeatedly, until he could judge it perfectly.  Just one problem – on the day of the Gabriel demonstration, they had installed a brand new nylon rope in the helicopter.”

“Oh, no!” groaned everyone listening at the bar.

“What?” I asked, baffled by everyone’s reaction.

“Gil,” explained Tony.  “Nylon always stretches under a load.  The nylon ropes used for rappelling have been used and stretched repeatedly, so you can judge how much stretch you will find at the bottom.  But a brand-new nylon rope that has never been loaded will stretch a long way the first time it is used.”

“So?” I asked.

“Gil,” continued Captain Kenny.  “When he braked his rappel at the 40-foot point, the new rope stretched and stretched.  He slammed into the ground with most of the full force of his 50’ fall.  He broke both his legs and compressed his spine and spent the next several months in a full body cast, like a potted plant.

“And thus, ended his illustrious military career.”

In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

The “Tales from Nick’s FARRP” series are a fictionalized version of real events and are dedicated to the memory of friends and classmates from the Class of 1969.

“So, Rod, what’s that horse thingy on your shoulder?”

*          *        *        *        *        *      *

I was speaking to an Army guy sitting on a stool in the bar that I had recently inherited from my late Uncle Nick.  Nick’s FARRP is the name my uncle gave the bar he bought after he had to leave the Army. They retired him because of cancers he got from several combat tours in Vietnam, where he was a helicopter pilot.  Knowing nothing about the Army, I am always asking the Army guys who come in here questions, which they patiently explain to me.  “Rod” was Chief Warrant Officer Rod Jordan, who had been best buddies with my Uncle Nick, along with the late husband of Miss Peggy, my bar manager and guardian angel.

*        *        *        *        *

“Well, New Guy,” Chief Rod began. My name is really Gil Edwards, but by now I knew that “New Guy” was his affectionate name for me. “That is the shoulder patch of the Army’s First Cavalry Division. It is the largest unit patch in the Army, and its bright yellow shield shape makes it the most recognizable patch as well. The black slash represents the cav saber, and the horse silhouette speaks for itself. The guys who wear it proudly call it the ‘horse blanket.’”

“So, what’s so great about the First Cavalry Division?” I asked.

“Okay, New Guy,” replied Chief Rod. “Are you ready for a history lesson?”

When I nodded, he continued. “Back in 1964, before Vietnam really started heating up, the Army created an experimental division, the first major combat unit with their own helicopters, hundreds of them. They called it the ‘airmobile division,’ and it was intended to begin a new era of Army combat mobility. In 1965 it was re-designated as the First Cavalry Division, a historic unit from World War II and Korea, and deployed as the first Army division sent to Vietnam.

“Your Uncle Nick, Miss Peggy’s late husband Mike and I deployed as aviators with the 1^st Cav to Vietnam aboard ships in 1965. The three of us had already served a tour in Vietnam, flying H-21 helicopters supporting the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, what we called ‘ARVNs,’ right after we had graduated from flight school in 1962.  We were young in ‘65, full of piss and vinegar, but at the age of 22 we were considered old combat veterans by the majority of the thousand or so aviators in the Cav who had never seen a shot fired in anger.

“Not only was our 1^st Cav the first Army division deployed to Vietnam, but when Miss Peggy’s husband Mike was shot down and killed in June of 1972 on his third combat flying tour his Cav aerial rocket artillery unit, the ‘Blue Max,’ was the last Army division unit still in combat. The 1^st Cav served as bookends for all the other major Army combat units throughout the Vietnam War, although some American advisors and aviation units were still in combat into 1973.”

“I can attest to that,” responded the tall guy sitting next to Chief Rod that I knew as Major Tony Williams.  “To give the other guys in my assault helicopter company a break for the holidays, I volunteered to fly the only missions for those days. On Thanksgiving and Christmas days of 1972, plus New Year’s Day in ’73, I was the Aircraft Commander for the only helicopter flying on those holidays in the entire II Corps region.  And on Christmas day an American advisor to a Vietnamese Army battalion played us holiday music over our FM radio while we flew. I logged 8.5 hours of direct combat support time on January 1, the last mission I flew in country before coming back.”

“Wow,” I replied.  “I always heard the war was over by that time.”

“That’s what the American public thought,” spoke up Chief Rod, “because all the news organizations had packed up and gone home long before then.”

“Yeah,” replied Major Tony. “Nobody realized that there were more Korean troops in Vietnam by that time than there were Americans.”

“So why was an Army division called cavalry when they didn’t have horses?” I asked these guys.

Captain Kenny Wayne, sitting on the other side of Chief Rod from Major Tony, spoke up. “Back in the earlier years of this century, after Pancho Villa’s bandits began raiding our states along the Mexican border, the Army combined four of its cavalry regiments into a division to patrol and secure our border. They called it the First Cavalry Division.  My daddy served in the 1^st Cav at Fort Bliss, Texas, in the 1930s, when the Division had 12,000 men, 10,000 horses and 20,000 mules. He told me stories as a child about West Pointers he had known, in the Cav and later in World War II.  One who impressed him particularly was a brand-new second lieutenant just assigned to the Cav in 1936, a short stocky kid named Creighton Abrams.”

Major Tony interrupted, setting down his beer.  “Gil, for your civilian edification, the late General Creighton Abrams succeeded General Westmoreland as top commander in Vietnam, then served as the Army Chief of Staff.”

“Yeah,” resumed Captain Kenny, “my dad later served under Colonel Abrams in Combat Command B during the Battle of the Bulge. My dad’s stories are partly why I decided to go to West Point.”

“Resuming the history lesson, New Guy,” continued Chief Rod. “During World War II the Cav turned in their horses for jeeps and served as infantry in the Pacific.  In retaking hundreds of islands in the Philippines during 1944 and 1945, the 1st Cavalry Division made more amphibious landings and put more men ashore than the entire United States Marine Corps in every theater of every war in our nation’s history.

“MacArthur loved the Cav and called them his ‘First Team.’  They were his first troops in Manila, first in Tokyo and first in Korea. Sadly, when they were occupation troops in Japan, they were severely under-manned, under-equipped, under-trained and poorly led.  They got deployed directly into combat in Korea, where they did not perform well, and got over-run, losing their colors in disgrace.

“The new 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) saw their deployment to Vietnam in 1965 as the opportunity to regain their lost colors and restore their honor. Their baptism of fire at the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, was the first major battle between US Army troops and the North Vietnamese Army in the war. Battalions of the 1^st Cavalry Division, including 7^th Cav, 5^th Cav, 8^th Cav, 12^th Cav, 1-9^th Air Cav and 8^th Engineers and their supporting aviation units, took horrific losses in the Ia Drang. But, by golly, they won back the Cav’s colors with distinction. Thirty Cav troopers from the Vietnam War were awarded the Medal of Honor, known reverently as ‘The Medal.’”

“And those 1^st Cav guys were sure proud of that ‘horse blanket, ‘” said Major Tony. “Everywhere you went in Vietnam you could see the Cav patch painted on any flat surface that wasn’t alive.  They went crazy, painting their patch everywhere they ever went in country.”

Captain Kenny spoke up. “After the Vietnam War drew down, the 1st Cavalry Division was relocated to Fort Hood in Central Texas, where it became the experimental test bed for every crazy idea the Army had. When I served there after my Engineer Advanced Course, the Cav was called the TRICAP (“triple capability”) Division. The first brigade was armored, with two tank battalions and one mechanized battalion. The second brigade was the Air Cav Combat Brigade (ACCB), with an Air Cav Squadron, an Assault Helicopter battalion, and an Attack Helicopter Battalion. The third brigade was an airmobile infantry brigade, with three light infantry battalions. The division also had operational control over Alpha Company, 75^th Infantry [Merrill’s Marauders, the Ranger Long Range Recon patrollers], and some supporting military intelligence units.

“In those days, the Division was a kaleidoscope of colors, with each unit authorized to wear their own distinctive headgear. The ACCB guys strutted around with their black Stetson hats and spurs when they weren’t flying.  The armor guys in first brigade wore black berets. The infantry guys in Third brigade wore light blue berets, except for the 2-7^th Cav guys, who wore camouflage patrol caps with two reflective stripes on the back. The field artillery units wore red berets, and the Division Support units wore Kelly green berets. Although lighter in hue than the Special Forces green berets, they still pissed off the flash-qualified guys who thought non-SF personnel should never wear a beret that is any sort of green.

The 8^th Engineer Battalion, my unit known as ‘Skybeavers,’ wore red baseball caps, and the signal battalion wore orange baseball caps. Division staff wore yellow baseball caps and the Rangers wore black. Sure was colorful.

“And the Army was trying all sorts of crazy ideas. We had a dune buggy platoon, and scouts mounted on 250cc dirt bikes, air-delivered on special racks mounted on the skids of Hueys.

We were experimenting with ground-surveillance radars and unattended ground sensors, small seismic detectors to report foot or vehicle traffic.

“There was a self-propelled 155mm howitzer battalion to support the armored brigade, and air-transportable 105mm howitzers to support the third “Grey Wolf” brigade. Our engineer battalion had two armored engineer companies and two airmobile engineer companies for direct support of the brigades. It was a really exciting time to be in the Cav.

“A few years later the division converted again into a conventional armor division. But all the battalions retained their designation as units of the 5^th, 7^th, 8^th and 12^th cavalry, the historic horse regiments that formed up the division back in the 1920s. Exception was the 1-9^th Cav, the Army’s original Air Cavalry squadron, which retained their designation as ‘Buffalo Soldiers.’”

“And Tony, you mentioned how they painted the Cav patch everywhere they ever went,” continued Captain Kenny. “While I was in the 1^st Cav at Fort Hood, they even painted a 30-foot-tall Cav patch on the town water tank next to my house in Copperas Cove, Texas.  You could see it for miles, all the way to Lampassas County. They sure are proud of their horse blanket.

“There’s a reason for that,” Kenny added with a grin.  “Serving in the Cav, I learned that the official logistics deployment package for the division includes 20,000 gallons of yellow paint and 5,000 gallons of black!”

                               

In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ol’ Weird arrived in Vietnam early in 1972 and served entirely in the mountainous part of II Corps, the central section of South Vietnam, mostly flying Huey helicopters in support of the Korean Army [ROK] White Horse and Tiger Divisions.  He got as far north as Marble Mountain, outside Da Nang, and as far south as Phan Thiet, the nouc mam [fermented fish sauce] capital of the world, east of Saigon.

When Ol’ Weird was there, the Vietnamization program had been under way for three years under President Richard Nixon and GEN Creighton Abrams.  The idea was that, if the US would continue to provide aviation, intelligence and logistics support, the US would transition all ground combat over to the Vietnamese forces to assume the entirety of the fighting and bleeding to defend their country.  That was the deal – our definition of winning the war.

When ’Ol Weird arrived in early January, all of South Vietnam was holding their breath, because intelligence said the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was planning something really big and nasty for Tet (Vietnamese New Year), the end of January.  But Tet came and went and nothing happened, so MACV headquarters in Saigon heaved a huge sigh of relief and resumed drawing down the US forces.  First came 30-day drops from the one-year tour length, then 60-day drops, then 90-day drops, and by the end of March, 180-day drops were stripping troops out wholesale.  By that time, there were more ROK troops in country than Americans.

On the first day of April 1972, everything changed.  The NVA came out of the woodwork in the so-called “Easter offensive,” rolling tank formations across the Central Highlands and using heat-seeking missiles against some of our helicopters, which had become accustomed to flying at 2000’ altitude. That got scary, as we tried to devise techniques to survive the missiles.  The fighting was so bad that the NVA actually drove the ROK Tiger Division out of the An Khe pass.

In II Corps, QL 1, the major national north-south coastal highway, was jammed with refugees fleeing the onslaught, streaming south.  The South Vietnamese Army may not have done well elsewhere, but back in their own home villages the Regional Forces/Popular Forces, so-called “Ruff-Puffs,” dug in and fought like hell.  They took horrific losses, but where ’Ol Weird was they stood their ground and eventually, with our support, drove back the NVA.  They had done everything we had asked of them in the Vietnamization program.  In 1972, we had won the Vietnam war!!!

It makes his blood boil when ’Ol Weird hears people, including military types who should know better, saying we lost that war in Vietnam.  Anyone who saw what ’Ol Weird saw in 1972 knows damn well we had won it, by the standards we had established.  The NVA threw everything they had against the south, and they lost it all.  That is why they were finally willing to come to the bargaining table – they had been wiped out.

In fact, the day the North Vietnamese finally agreed to sit down at the peace table was his 366^th day in country [leap year, no less], his departure date or DEROS, so Ol’ Weird has always told people he is the guy that won that war.

One great thing about serving in Vietnam is that we had Royal Australian troops as allies, fighting alongside US forces as they have in every American conflict for the last century.

When Ol’ Weird was there the troop count may have been way down, but the chow supply still worked the same: a whole shipload at a time, provided by the lowest government bidder.  When a shipload of chicken came in, the mess halls in country served chicken three meals a day until it was gone.  Then tough stringy beef three meals a day, and so on.

But every so often, a ship arrived with beef from Australia.  The Aussies took great pride in supporting their troops, so the beef they sent was the very best they grew.  For a couple of weeks, the troops got to eat the finest, most tender steaks imaginable.  No one will ever enjoy more superb meat than the troops in Vietnam did when the Australian beef ship came in.

One other benefit from Australian logistics was the liquor.  Alcohol purchases by the troops in country were closely controlled using ration cards, which limited the duty-free liquor per troop to “one bottle per month.”  American booze was shipped in fifth bottles [about 26 fluid ounces], and European liquor came in liter bottles [about 33 fl.oz.], but the Aussies provided the system with huge Imperial quarts, measuring over 38 US ounces**.

Ol’ Weird determined to souvenir himself some of a famous-brand liquor with a black label for his trip back to “the world.”   The day of his departure on the so-called “Freedom Bird,” he carried his helmet bag with him, containing his liquid treasure.  The plane that day was an ancient narrow-body Convair 880, the kind with two seats on the left of the aisle and three on the right.

As soon as the plane took off and had cleared into international airspace, to the great cheers of all aboard, the stewardess started down the aisle taking beverage orders.  When she got to Ol’ Weird, she offered his choice of hot beverage or soft drink, but he said, “Just a cup of ice, please.”

“Is that all?  Can’t I get you something to drink?’

“No, thank you very much.  Just some ice will be fine.”

After she brought the cup of ice and moved on down the aisle, Ol’ Weird reached under his seat, extracted his Imperial quart of the famous liquor, and poured a healthy cupful over the rocks.  He set the bottle on the tray table in front of him and settled back to enjoy his first drink with ice in months.

When the stewardess passed by the next time, she noticed his bottle sitting there.

  “I’m really very sorry to have to tell you this, sir, but alcoholic beverages are not allowed on this contract flight.  My, but that’s a really big bottle, isn’t it?  I don’t think I have ever seen one so big.  I’m afraid I am going to have to secure your bottle in the storage area in the back of the plane until we land in Honolulu in nine hours.  You can have it back after we are on the ground, but you aren’t allowed to keep it while we are flying.  I’m really very sorry to have to tell you this, because I know that you have had to do without for so long, but I just have no choice.  I hope you can forgive me.”

Ol’ Weird smiled at the stewardess, and said, ‘That’s ok.  I don’t mind at all,” as he handed her the bottle.

“Are you sure?  I’m just so very sorry to have to enforce this rule on you.”

“Don’t think twice about it.  It’s fine, I assure you.”

And as she turned to carry the bottle to the back of the plane, Ol’ Weird reached under his seat to his flight helmet bag.  Very quietly, he brought out his next Imperial quart bottle, poured himself another inch over the remaining ice, and tucked it back under the seat.

It really was nice to be flying home.

** By the way, the whiskey was a Black Label Sour Mash bottled in Tennessee in Imperial Quart bottles, exported to Australia, and then shipped to Vietnam. Ol’ Weird was unknowingly bringing it right back to the USA!

The “Tales from Nick’s FARRP” series are a fictionalized version of real events and are dedicated to the memory of friends and classmates from the Class of 1969.

“HEY, NEW GUY!”  I felt every eye in the bar focused on me.  “Gimme a beer!”

*       *        *        *        *

My Uncle Nick used to be a helicopter pilot in the Army.  All I know is, he was in Vietnam for a long time when I was growing up.  After the war was over, he got too sick to stay in the Army, so he was medically retired from the Army.  So he opened a bar in Fayetteville, NC, which he called “Nick’s FAARP” – why I never knew.  It’s right next to Fort Bragg, where he had been stationed at the time.

Last month the cancers finally took him.  To my complete astonishment he left me his bar!  Don’t know why he did, because I really never knew him very much.  Maybe he just felt sorry for me, after I flunked out of college in my first year.

By the way, my name is Gil Edwards.   Anyhow, I had just arrived in Fayetteville, and only about ten minutes before had walked into Nick’s FAARP, the bar I was now owner of.  I had been warmly welcomed to the establishment by Miss Peggy.  She was Uncle Nick’s bar manager, now mine, who had been with him since the day he opened the place.

Miss Peggy had written me a letter after his death, telling me that her late husband and one other guy had been Nick’s best friends, ever since they had all finished Army flight school together in the early 1960s.  She had lost her husband in Vietnam in 1972, and had been struggling to raise their son as a single mother.  So when Uncle Nick offered her the job as bar manager, she had jumped at the opportunity, and was fiercely loyal to him.  I had been surprised when I met her, although I guess I shouldn’t have been, to see she had a lovely milk chocolate complexion.

*        *        *        *        *

“Gil.” Miss Peggy startled me out of my shock at being called “New Guy.”  “I told all of the regulars here at the ‘FAARP’ that you were arriving today.  And that short, fat rude bastard who just walked in and yelled at you is Chief Warrant Officer Rod Jordan, your Uncle Nick’s other oldest and best friend.”

I noticed he wasn’t really very short or fat either, but rude certainly fit.  I also saw now that there was an amused twinkle in his eye.  He sat down between two other guys in Army uniforms who were at the curve of the bar, looked me over, and said, “Well??”

I gulped, and figured I’d better do something, so I reached in the cooler and pulled out a can of the classiest beer brand I knew, Mitchell “Great Life!”  Popping the top, I poured it into a frosty mug and set it in front of him.

All of a sudden the whole bar went silent.  The look on this Jordan fellow’s face got icier than the mug I had handed him.  He stared at me, then at the beer, then me again, growled “FNG!” and stomped out of the place.

I looked helplessly at the guys at the bar, then at Miss Peggy.  “What the hell just happened?”

Miss Peggy shook her head sadly at me and said, “Now, you’ve really done it.”

“What?” I asked.  “What did I do?”

“Kenny, maybe you’d better tell him,” she said to the younger of the two men at the bar’s curve.  “By the way, Gil, this is Captain Kenny Wayne, one of our regulars here at the FAARP.”

The soldier called Kenny looked me in the eye and slowly said, “You gave him Mitchell beer in a can.  You don’t ever do that to anyone who served in Vietnam.”

“Why not?” I implored.  “What’s wrong with that?”

Captain Kenny patiently began to tell me the story:  “It seems that during the height of the Vietnam war, when we had over half a million troops in country, the US government was awarding huge contracts to supply everything the troops needed.  Every major American company was getting their ‘fair share’ of the government business.  It seems the Mitchell Brewing Co. had a batch of beer that spoiled on them in their process.  Instead of dumping it, they decided to can it anyway and send it over to the troops.  Guess they figured, what the heck?  They’re just a bunch of GIs, so who cares?

“Back in those days canned beverages came in steel cans, not these new aluminum pop-tops we have today.  As soon as that Mitchell beer started getting distributed in country, the troops who tasted it began puking their guts out.  Very soon the word went out, that stuff is bad, bad, BAD!  The units quit issuing that brand of beer to the troops, so it just sat in the PX warehouses, corroding in the steel cans and getting nastier and nastier.  Anyone who ever tasted that rotten stuff will never again in his life touch Mitchell beer from a can.  And that’s what you just gave to Chief Rod Jordan.”

“Wow,” I said.  “I guess I’ll never make that mistake again.  Thanks for telling me, at least.”

“The tale of the Mitchell beer doesn’t end there,” said the older guy sitting there beside Kenny.

Miss Peggy introduced me. “Gil, this is Major Williams, another of our regulars.”  I just now noticed some kind of gold leaf on his uniform.

“Gil, I’m Tony Williams,” he said, reaching out his hand to me.  “We all loved your Uncle Nick like a brother.  Kenny,” he continued, “let me tell Gil the rest of the story.”

“Yes, sir, Major Williams, sir!” said Kenny.

“Oh, cut the crap, Kenny.  You know we don’t have rank in here.”  He turned to me and pointed to Kenny’s collar.  “You see those two silver bars?  They mean that Captain Wayne here is still a probationary officer in the US Army.  He is a company-grade officer, as we field grade officers refer to our juniors.  After ten or twelve years of exemplary service, he might be selected for promotion to major, like I was.”

“I’m Gil Edwards,” I said, shaking his hand.  “Guess I don’t know a thing about the Army.”

“That’s ok.  We don’t mind –” and he turned his head and made a spitting sound, “– civilians.  Now, as I was going to say, here is the rest of the story:

“By the time I got over to Vietnam for my second tour at the end of 1971, the American forces had been drawn down so far, there were more Korean troops in country than Americans.  I was still a captain then, fresh out of flight school.  My first tour had been with Special Forces, and I had been so far back in the boonies we never saw beer of any kind, so I hadn’t heard about the bad Mitchell.

“I had just arrived in Saigon for a few days in-processing before going up-country to my flying assignment.  In the PX there I noticed that beer was $2.40 or $3.60 a case, depending on the brand.  But they had Mitchell ‘Great Life!’ for only a dollar a case.  Sounded like a bargain to me, so I took a buck’s worth of beer back to my temporary hootch.  But when – “

“Wait a minute, Tony,” I interrupted.  “Hootch??  I thought that means rotgut liquor.  What are you talking about?”

Captain Kenny interceded, “Gil, ‘hootch’ is Army slang for living space.  It can mean anything from an infantryman’s tent in the mud to the fancy apartments the Air Force guys have, even in a combat zone.”

“As I was saying, thank you very much, Kenny,” resumed Major Tony.  “When I punched a can opener, what we called a churchkey, into my first can, I almost vomited.

That’s when I noticed the can was corroded, as were most of the others in the case.  I took the case back to the PX and demanded my money back. The cashier showed me the asterisk on the sign, which said, ‘Absolutely no refunds on Mitchell beer.’ I just walked out, leaving the case behind.

“It seems the PX system still had tons of this nasty Mitchell beer in their inventory.  With all the American units standing down and going home, the PX was desperately trying to get rid of this stuff.  Under government rules they had to clear it off their books.  They could write it down and sell it at a discount, or else they had to ship it all back to the US.

“A month later, Mitchell beer was going for a quarter a case, then a dime a case, then a nickel a case, but still no takers!

“Finally, in the spring of 1972, at the giant PX warehouse in Nha Trang, they got a great idea:  ‘Let’s let the little people steal it!’  That way, they could write off the beer as stolen and be finished with it.  So one evening they moved all their pallets of Mitchell beer just outside the PX warehouse yard by fork-lift.  Then they instructed the MPs to stay completely away for the entire night.  That should take care of it!”

“So, what happened?” asked Captain Kenny.

Tony Williams continued.  “Next morning, when they came in, the little people had been there in the night, sure enough.  They had broken down the pallets of Mitchell beer and stacked the cases to build a ramp over the fence.  Leaving the Mitchell beer behind, dang if they hadn’t gone over the fence and stolen all the Coke and Pepsi in the whole PX storage yard!”

IN MEMORY OF BILL AND TERRY AND EDDIE AND JERRY

 

 

The “Tales from Nick’s FARRP” series are a fictionalized version of real events and are dedicated to the memory of friends and classmates from the Class of 1969.

“SO, MISS PEGGY, what does FARRP mean, anyway?”

“I was standing behind the bar at my uncle’s cozy watering hole for Army guys in Fayetteville, North Carolina, just outside Fort Bragg, which I had only recently found myself the new owner of.  My Uncle Nick, whom I barely knew when I was growing up, opened the bar after he had to leave the Army several years ago because he got really sick after all his tours in Vietnam.  Two weeks ago, I found out he had finally died, and to my astonishment he left the establishment, called Nick’s FARRP, to me.

I had just arrived here a couple of days ago, to learn that it was being run most effectively by Miss Peggy, widow of Uncle Nick’s long-time Army buddy Miguel, who died in 1972 when his Cobra gunship was shot down in Vietnam.  Because of her deep affection for my Uncle Nick, Miss Peggy has really taken me under her wing.  Knowing nothing about the Army, I have to ask lots of questions in order to try to understand what these Army guys are talking about.

“Well, Gil,” Miss Peggy replied [my name is Gil Edwards], “the best person to answer that question is sitting right in front of you.”  She nodded to a stout fellow sitting at the bar.  “Rod, can you explain the term FARRP to Gil?”

“Sure, New Guy, that’s really a good question,” he began with a twinkle in his eye.  He always referred to me as New Guy.  “Your Uncle Nick was a master Army aviator, right along with me and Miss Peggy’s husband Miguel, that we all called ‘Mikey.‘  We three all entered the Army in 1961, then went through flight school as Warrant Officer Candidates, and served together from time to time in aviation assignments over the years.  We were known as the Three Musketeers.

“Your Uncle Nick came down with cancers while we three were all serving here at Fort Bragg in senior aviation positions.  The Army gave him a medical retirement, because he was a few years short of the twenty years’ service it takes to earn a regular Army retirement.  Because his cancers were caused by exposure to Agent Orange during his three flying tours in Vietnam, he received full disability health benefits.  He decided to open this bar as a watering hole for his aviation buddies, as well as any other guys who wanted to hang around.

“Several years ago, the Army’s battle doctrine evolved to apply maximum use of the aviation lessons learned from Vietnam toward the Soviet threat in Europe.  They established stations to refuel and re-arm combat helicopters as far forward toward the battle zone as possible.  These stations were designated as Forward Area Refuel/Re-arm Points, or FARRPs for short.  When your Uncle Nick opened this bar, he chose that name to represent a refuge where his aviation buddies could relax and recharge themselves from the stresses of duty here.  Hence, Nick’s FARRP.”

“I get it,” I replied.  “It’s a helicopter pilot’s refreshment place.  But all the guys in here aren’t helicopter pilots, are they?”

“Good point, young lad.  Sitting next to me here is Captain Kenny Wayne.  Kenny, tell this New Guy what your connection to aviation is.”

“Right, Chief,” spoke the fellow in starched Army fatigues.  “I have the distinction of having over 65 more aircraft take-offs than landings.”

“That’s crazy,” I replied to Captain Kenny.  “How can you take off in an aircraft but not land in it?”

“What Kenny is trying to say, in his clever way,” spoke the man on the other side of Chief Rod, “is that he is a master paratrooper, what we call a Master Blaster.  The mathematical difference between his take-offs and landings is the number of successful parachute jumps he has made.  And as you have seen in these past few days here, paratroopers are really proud of those silver wings on their chest.”

“Okay,” I said to Major Tony Williams, “I know about the parachutist wings with the wreath on Kenny’s chest.  But you have two types of wings on your chest.  What are they, anyway?”

“Sure,” replied Tony.  “My upper wings that go out long and narrow are aviator wings.

You see mine are plain, but the aviator wings Chief Rod wears have a star surrounded by a wreath on top.  That’s because he is a master aviator who has been flying for 16 years, since 1962.  Below my flight wings are my parachutist wings, with a star on top which means I am a senior parachutist.  But you see the big insignia on top of Captain Kenny’s jump wings?  That long rifle with a wreath wrapped around it is the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, known as a CIB.  That means he served in combat in an infantry role.  That is the most highly esteemed award you see around this bar.”

“But, Kenny,” I replied, “I thought you are an engineer.  How did you get your CIB?”

“Well, Gil, it might interest you to know that all Army engineers have the secondary mission to fight as infantry.  However, I did not get this CIB as an engineer.  Originally, I was commissioned as an Armor lieutenant, and served my first two years in armored cavalry.  In Vietnam I served in the armored cavalry unit in the 173^rd Airborne Brigade, E Troop of the 17^th Cavalry.  Armored cavalry units, even at the platoon level commanded by a lieutenant, always contain an infantry section, along with their scout sections, tank sections and mortar sections.

“We were organic to an infantry brigade and we had infantry troops in our command, and we operated primarily with modified infantry armored personnel carriers.  The brigade headquarters assigned all the officers in E Troop the secondary specialty code of mechanized infantry and awarded us the CIB after we had served a few months in combat.”

“So, Tony,” I asked, “you wear a CIB too, over your aviator wings.  I thought you told me you are in Military Intelligence.  So how did you get that?”

“Well, Gil, when I graduated from Texas A&M in 1965, I was commissioned an infantry lieutenant and assigned to a mechanized infantry battalion in the Panama Canal Zone, the 4^th battalion of the 20^th Infantry (Mechanized).  It was pretty neat in the Canal Zone, because the Army element of the Southern Command, the 193^rd Infantry Brigade, contained our mechanized infantry battalion, plus a straight leg infantry battalion and an airborne infantry battalion. On top of that, the 8^th Special Forces Battalion in the Canal Zone operated a jump school plus the Jungle Operations Course, known as Jungle Warfare School.  I spent almost two years down there, and went through both schools, earning my jump wings and ‘the coveted Jungle Expert tab.’

“It was while hanging around those Special Forces guys, the Green Berets we called ‘snake eaters, ‘that I decided SF was what I wanted to do.  I completed the Special Forces Officer Qualification Course here at Fort Bragg in 1967 and served two years in 5^th SF Group in Vietnam.  They awarded me my CIB.”

          I was puzzled.  “But why did you tell me you are Military Intelligence?”

“Gil, in Special Forces everyone on a twelve-man A-team has specialties, besides their language qualifications, such as medical, explosives and engineering, weapons and communications.  As the senior officer on the team, my specialties were operations and intelligence.  After Vietnam, while still an infantry officer, I served in several intelligence roles in various places.  When the Army created Military Intelligence, or MI, as a new officer branch toward the end of the Vietnam war, it became a magnet for duds and turds who weren’t competitive in their own branch to get a fresh start.  MI branch had a bad name, so I avoided it like the plague.

“After I made Major and completed Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in 1976, the Army sent me on an exchange assignment to the Mexican National War College.  I could never have performed that assignment if I had been in MI, because the Mexicans would have regarded me as a spy and never let me in country.  But once I completed that assignment and became a fully qualified Foreign Area Officer for Latin America, MI branch finally won me over.”

“But why do you have aviator wings too?” I had to ask Tony.

“Well, Gil, in 1971 I applied to go to flight school before returning to Vietnam for my second combat tour.  So, I flew Huey helicopters in Vietnam from January 1972 to January 1973.  My last day in country was the day the North Vietnamese finally agreed to sit down at the peace table, so I have always told people that I am the guy who won the war.”

“Wow!  So, you’re the guy!  But I am really puzzled.  ‘A lot of you guys are helicopter pilots, but you keep saying the word ‘aviator. What is the difference between a pilot and an aviator?”

“All right, New Guy!  That’s the best question you have ever asked,” replied Chief Rod.  “The Air Force has pilots.  All those guys do is operate aerial machinery.  An Air Force pilot colonel does exactly the same thing that an Air Force lieutenant does – fly an airplane.  The only difference is that the colonel is at the front of the formation and the lieutenant is flying the last bird.  The Air Force does their own thing pretty much, sometimes supporting the Army with airlift or close air support.  But they never know the people they are supporting.

“In the Army, aviation is integrated with the ground forces.  Major troop units all have their own organic aviation assets, guys they eat and sleep with and know face to face.  A pilot is a machine operator, but an aviator is a pilot who is primarily focused on the troops he is integrated with.  In fact, for commissioned officers like Tony here, who we Warrant Officers like to refer to as RLOs, meaning real live officers, being aviation rated is considered an additional skill.  Tony started out as a combat arms officer, was still a combat arms officer when he was flying in Vietnam supporting combat troops, and remains primarily a combat arms officer, if you want to consider MI a combat branch.  That is the difference between a pilot and an aviator.”

“Yes, Gil,” concluded Miss Peggy.  “We have a lot of aviators here at the FARRP, but we hardly ever see a pilot.”

IN MEMORY OF BILL AND TERRY AND EDDIE AND JERRY