Kim Martin – Fire Direction Control – Part One
Sixty Words A Minute
I graduated from Purdue in the summer of 1968. Knowing I was going to get drafted I had signed up for artillery Officer Candidate School at Ft. Sill. But first I had to go to basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri, or as they called it: Fort Lost In The Woods. It was winter and that was something else. I remember on overnight bivouacs they told us to put our clothes inside our sleeping bags. The first night out I forgot and in the morning had to put on these cold, wet, icy clothes. Then we had to put cold water in our helmets and use that to shave.
I remember our drill sergeant as being a frequent smoker. When he stopped us for a break, he would put us at ease and announce, “Smoke if you have too, and if you have two, give one to me.” Immediately a volley of cigarettes would fly through the air at him from our formation. I don’t think he ever bought a pack of cigarettes during our time in basic.
After Leonard Wood I went to Ft. Sill for Advanced Individual Training in fire direction control, with the plan to stay there for artillery officer school. But there were a handful of us who got sent to Ft. Belvoir in Virginia for Combat Engineering. I don’t know why that was, maybe had to do with the fact that I graduated from Purdue, although I was not an engineering graduate. So the summer of ’69 I went to Ft. Belvoir, Virginia for Combat Engineering OCS.
Combat engineers built roads, bridges and air strips – often in remote, exposed locations.
There were three stages to the training, eight weeks to the first stage, and then eight weeks intermediate, and eight weeks of being a senior candidate. During that first eight weeks – here again I was a kid without a lot of sense I guess – I realized I’ve got to serve an extra year, and I’m gonna be out in the boonies in Vietnam without a whole lot of protection. The impression I got from people was you got sent out on these missions to build things with very little support. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I thought, I don’t think I want to do this. If I drop out of OCS I go back to my primary specialty of Fire Direction Control, which seemed like a better deal and I get out earlier. Plus the war was so unpopular it was hard to get my mind in the right set to serve as an officer. And I was not looking at the long term. During that first eight weeks you could choose to leave. Funny thing was that during those first eight weeks people were getting kicked out, and when I decided I wanted to leave they tried to talk me into staying. I did what they called “wimped out” when I left OCS.
Going to Vietnam we were in the air a long time and when we finally reached the coast I looked out the window and I was scared to death, not knowing what to expect. I’m looking down and thinking, Is this thing going to be shot out of the sky? I am looking for any antiaircraft activity or weaponry. Of course there wasn’t any. It was very tropical looking and I did see little artillery layouts in the clearings, you could see the guns. My initial reaction was one of concern for my personal safety and the safety of the plane. When we landed at Cam Ranh I was surprised at how big the airbase was. How sprawled out it was.
When I processed through Cam Ranh Bay, it felt like I was there forever, but it was probably for only a week or so waiting to be assigned. If you scored well on a typing test you could get a job as a Rear Rank Rootie and I could type sixty words a minute. When I was in junior high school, they had this award for typing sixty words a minute. All these girls were getting the award except for this one guy, and that was me. It didn’t do a bit of good however. Everybody who was a college graduate was trying to do that. They had more clerks than they knew what to do with.
Deluxe Accommodations
We flew into LZ Sherry on one of those helicopters they called a Slick (Huey helicopter – the workhorse of Vietnam), and the one thing I remember they kept the doors open. You’re sitting there with your foot about an inch from the door and you look straight down on the whole country side. Lot of jungle. A clear space every once in awhile with a military installation of some sort. I remember seeing a shrine, very old looking. I see LZ Sherry coming into view, and it looked like just a large slum. I thought, My god, I’m going to be here for a whole year?
When I first got there everybody was already situated, except for Lynn Holzer who arrived about the same time I did. We were the new guys. They assigned us to the FDC section chief, Harlan Hansen. He said, “This hooch right here is the one that belonged to the guy you are replacing.” I looked in, this hooch was half sunk into the ground, there had been a lot of rain and it looked like a swimming pool.
I said, “You got to be kidding me, I got to sleep in this thing?”
He said, “Well, that’s what’s left.”
I think I ended up moving in with someone temporarily. That was my first day at LZ Sherry – not the greatest welcome I’ve ever had. You’re on your own!
I ended up building a new hooch with Mike Leino, which turned out really great with nice paneling. After we got the shell built we stripped down some ammo boxes and made paneling for the walls. Then I got a blow torch and scorched the walls just enough to bring out the grain. It was really nice.
Mike Leino on a construction break
Kim in their new hooch
Note elegant paneling
No Trump
The battery commander was Captain Kevitt and I really liked him. He had been an enlisted man and then gone through OCS. He was career military. He had a good rapport and understanding of the people he was responsible for. He was a disciplinarian, but reasonable and not arrogant. He was a good officer. The men really respected him.
There were two guys in FDC that had been there awhile and had become really good buddies. One was Bill from Atlanta. He had been accepted into law school at Emory University while he was in Vietnam. The other guy, Fred, was the son of a career military officer. They were both pretty bright guys, well educated, and kind of knew it. Nobody wanted to be on their shift, so of course that’s where I ended up.
The captain liked to play bridge. The first day I was there he asked me if I played. I said, “I know how to play, but I’ve hardly played at all. But I know the rules, I know how it works.” So we decide to play bridge – the captain, Bill, Fred and I. I hadn’t realized it, but these two guys Bill and Fred were hugely competitive. They were bright, they were driven, and they had no use for idiots. Anyway, we’re playing bridge and I just screw up right and left. These two guys were both disgusted with me and from then on I was looked down upon as not on their level. Well, that was the last time I played bridge with them. They were nice guys, they weren’t rude or anything, but they sort of shunned me. That was the atmosphere. I was really glad when I got off their shift, but until then I kept to myself and read a lot of books when nothing was going on.
