I landed at Bien Hoa VIA Branniff Airlines (no 2 planes were the same color)Feb. 9 1967. I spent a year and 3 months at Vung Tau, came back May 9 1968 and got an early out after 1yr 9mos. in service.
I never looked back...I don't regret one day of it.
In 1962, I was stationed at Clark AB in the Philippines. One afternoon, some guys in my squadron and I were playing flag football out on the quad. One of the guys looked up and in a few seconds, everyone was looking up. Guys came streaming out of the pre-WW2 barracks, looking up. Seeing airplanes over a forward air base is not newsworthy. Seeing little dots exiting the C-119s was for us pretty exciting and seeing the little dots enlarge into paratroopers. A lot of us would have signed up for jump school on the spot. We learned in the Pacific Stars and Stripes the following day that they were from one of the 173rd’s Battle Groups from Okinawa and were participating in some joint war games.