Griff Murphey
07-03-2010, 05:07
I was a Navy dentist with the 3rd Marine division. I had volunteered for a "float" which was rumored to be a good deal. I did not know that my particular float was going in harm's way. After I read Charles Henderson's book GOODNIGHT SAIGON I found out all about these very serious planning sessions for us which ran the gamut of having us outright invade to shore up the ARVNs, to covering an evacuation. Well, the evacuation plans were what we of BLT 1-4 did in 1975. If anyone is interested I will talk about that sometime, but now for some less serious stories of the Navy-Marine Corps Team.
After the Vietnam and Cambodia evacuations we did two nice cruises. About mid-summer of 1975 it was announced that we were going to Singapore. The Marine officers got up the idea to fill up a conex box with liquor and trade it to a hotel in Singapore for a hotel suite. This was because Singapore had very high taxes on liquor making it totally ridiculously high in cost. So they asked all the officers in the battalion to give their liquor ration cards to the guys that were doing the buying, along with X dollars in cash (Maybe $5 to $10, but a fifth of booze at the package store was UNTAXED and cost maybe $2!). The Conex box was dutifully stacked ceiling high and padlocked aboard USS NEW ORLEANS LPH-11.
When we arrived in Singapore two of our lieutenants, Lee and Macklin, in the tradition of China Marines of long ago, put their EGA's on sun helmets, wore their UD's, equipped themselves with swagger sticks, and headed off to find a hotel. And they found one (Let's call it the Festive Day Lodge) eager to take the deal. So that was how the officers of 1-4 got a "free" hotel suite.
It was great liberty. We docked at the Sembawang Naval Base which was British and we had the run of the o-club there. Actually a fair number of 1-4 enlisted Marines slipped in as well and nobody said anything about it. I made the mistake of eating a "hamburger" out in town and got commode-hugging sick for 24 hours, so I wish I had taken all my meals there in retrospect.
The Marine officers all went to Boogie street but I missed that. They came back with some wild stories I can't, or SHOULDN'T, tell here.
One of our "crack" platoons was doing a display for the Singapore Armed Forces and they were flown in by CH-53's off of the NEW ORLEANS. They had a jeep-mounted 106 Reckless Rifle which was to come zooming out but when they tried to start it, just as they were landing, the battery was dead. So they pushed it down the ramp, popped the clutch, and it roared to life; luckily all was well in front of the high ranking dignitaries.
At this time the Marines were also still using the 3.5" rocket launcher, or "Bazooka," which was fired by D-cell batteries. I asked why they did not have 90mm recoilless rifles like I had fired 5 years earlier in Army ROTC summer camp at Fort Sill. Well they said, "Aww, doc, you mean the 106!" like a dumb dentist can't know anything.
Our XO was Maj. Mike McGowan and he had been to the Army Command and Staff College with a Col. Singh from Singapore. He invited, I think, all of the nominally Catholic officers - at least it seemed that way to me, and the Chaplain, Father Mattie, to a dinner at the Col.'s house. The Colonel sent a Singapore Army Mercedes complete with driver who popped a British-style longest-way-up;shortest-way-down salute. The house was a sprawling pre-WW-2 British Officer Quarter, replete with massive pre-War bathroom fixtures made in England and breezy airy open areas. There was plenty of ice-cold Tiger Beer. The Col. was a Sikh with the full turban and his wife and daughters were in Saris. Truly you felt like Rudyard Kipling was going to walk in the door at any moment. The food was really weird and awful for us Americans. There was rice, but with whole little tropical fish scattered throughout. They had poky hard fin-spines sticking out. There was pork on a stick, so spicy it burned hotter than a raw habanero pepper. The priest, Fr. Mattie, had tears rolling down his face. Lt. Flores, from New Mexico, claimed to be enjoying it but he too looked a bit warm. Finally out came some lovely chicken, looking just like mom's home-made. Everybody took SEVERAL pieces. It wasn't spicy hot, but it tasted like it had been marinated in Chanel No. 5. We had all taken 3-5 drumsticks apiece, and had to eat all of that defiled chicken. I learned at that moment to take small servings of unfamiliar food when it was offered in the mysterious East. Thankfully, there was no shortage of ice-cold Tiger.
After the Vietnam and Cambodia evacuations we did two nice cruises. About mid-summer of 1975 it was announced that we were going to Singapore. The Marine officers got up the idea to fill up a conex box with liquor and trade it to a hotel in Singapore for a hotel suite. This was because Singapore had very high taxes on liquor making it totally ridiculously high in cost. So they asked all the officers in the battalion to give their liquor ration cards to the guys that were doing the buying, along with X dollars in cash (Maybe $5 to $10, but a fifth of booze at the package store was UNTAXED and cost maybe $2!). The Conex box was dutifully stacked ceiling high and padlocked aboard USS NEW ORLEANS LPH-11.
When we arrived in Singapore two of our lieutenants, Lee and Macklin, in the tradition of China Marines of long ago, put their EGA's on sun helmets, wore their UD's, equipped themselves with swagger sticks, and headed off to find a hotel. And they found one (Let's call it the Festive Day Lodge) eager to take the deal. So that was how the officers of 1-4 got a "free" hotel suite.
It was great liberty. We docked at the Sembawang Naval Base which was British and we had the run of the o-club there. Actually a fair number of 1-4 enlisted Marines slipped in as well and nobody said anything about it. I made the mistake of eating a "hamburger" out in town and got commode-hugging sick for 24 hours, so I wish I had taken all my meals there in retrospect.
The Marine officers all went to Boogie street but I missed that. They came back with some wild stories I can't, or SHOULDN'T, tell here.
One of our "crack" platoons was doing a display for the Singapore Armed Forces and they were flown in by CH-53's off of the NEW ORLEANS. They had a jeep-mounted 106 Reckless Rifle which was to come zooming out but when they tried to start it, just as they were landing, the battery was dead. So they pushed it down the ramp, popped the clutch, and it roared to life; luckily all was well in front of the high ranking dignitaries.
At this time the Marines were also still using the 3.5" rocket launcher, or "Bazooka," which was fired by D-cell batteries. I asked why they did not have 90mm recoilless rifles like I had fired 5 years earlier in Army ROTC summer camp at Fort Sill. Well they said, "Aww, doc, you mean the 106!" like a dumb dentist can't know anything.
Our XO was Maj. Mike McGowan and he had been to the Army Command and Staff College with a Col. Singh from Singapore. He invited, I think, all of the nominally Catholic officers - at least it seemed that way to me, and the Chaplain, Father Mattie, to a dinner at the Col.'s house. The Colonel sent a Singapore Army Mercedes complete with driver who popped a British-style longest-way-up;shortest-way-down salute. The house was a sprawling pre-WW-2 British Officer Quarter, replete with massive pre-War bathroom fixtures made in England and breezy airy open areas. There was plenty of ice-cold Tiger Beer. The Col. was a Sikh with the full turban and his wife and daughters were in Saris. Truly you felt like Rudyard Kipling was going to walk in the door at any moment. The food was really weird and awful for us Americans. There was rice, but with whole little tropical fish scattered throughout. They had poky hard fin-spines sticking out. There was pork on a stick, so spicy it burned hotter than a raw habanero pepper. The priest, Fr. Mattie, had tears rolling down his face. Lt. Flores, from New Mexico, claimed to be enjoying it but he too looked a bit warm. Finally out came some lovely chicken, looking just like mom's home-made. Everybody took SEVERAL pieces. It wasn't spicy hot, but it tasted like it had been marinated in Chanel No. 5. We had all taken 3-5 drumsticks apiece, and had to eat all of that defiled chicken. I learned at that moment to take small servings of unfamiliar food when it was offered in the mysterious East. Thankfully, there was no shortage of ice-cold Tiger.