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  1. #1
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    US Army Thailand 1971-1975

    US Army in Thailand 1971-1975


    I did a search of TD archives and could find no posts about this topic: what were we doing here and why. While many here may believe we had no business being involved in the war in SEA to begin with, a little discussion of the history cannot be a bad thing. I thought some members may have personal experiences or opinions that they might like to share. I'll be happy to start.


    I dropped out of university and volunteered for the Army in 1967, not because of a strong belief in the righteousness of our cause in Vietnam, but because I was tired of school, wanted to see the world, and Oriental women turned me on. After 2 years in Vietnam, mostly with the 25th Infantry Division, I volunteered (I'm a sucker for volunteering) for assignment to Thailand. I had no idea what I was getting in to, and could only hope it would work out for the best.


    The Army camp was located just east of Highway 2 about 10 kilometers south of Udon near the village of Non Sung. This was a new and rather posh base, complete with very nice barracks, dining hall, club, and even a bowling alley, much of which I never used. ( The buildings are still there, but don't know what it is used for now.) Many of us (and I'm guessing there were a few hundred soldier here) rented houses across HW 2 in the village, where we spent most of our off-duty time. The village was not developed – I don't remember bars or clubs, just a decent restaurant. For real action, we had to travel into Udon.




    Flying over our home base just south of Udon.



    Our unit was call the 7th Radio Research Field Station, which was an intelligence collecting site. We spent 12 hours a day working in a windowless operations building, often being bored silly. In 1972, with the drawdown of troops from Vietnam, several Army aircraft were transferred to the unit, and based out of the Udon RTAF base. I was lucky enough to get assigned to that detachment, and spent most of the rest of my time in Thailand on flight status, flying either out of Udon or Utapao.



    Preflight on the tarmac, Udon RTAFB about 1973.



    The aircraft didn't look like much from the outside. Just modified Beechcraft King Air's. But when they were build (about 1970), they were loaded with state of the art electronics and a computerized internal navigation system (very important since Global Position System (GPS) was not operational until 1994). Keep in mind the Apple 1 computer wasn't developed until 1976 so these planes were way ahead of their time. The plane I usually flew on was one of only three ever built, and one of those was lost in Vietnam. We flew regular mission supporting operations in Laos and, later, Cambodia until early 1975.

  2. #2
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    Not sure if this is the right forum, but I am looking forward to this thread and pics. Keep them coming,

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    You quite likely know or used to know one of our members, he was also based there around that time, there is a thread about it on here somewhere, hopefully someone with a better memory will post a link to it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Borey the Bald
    I did a search of TD archives and could find no posts about this topic: what were we doing here and why.
    A few TD members wrote about their experiences in this area. There were a few threads but they can't be found anymore as some idiot crippled the forum search function so it only shows a maximum of 500 results.

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    Fascinating- do keep it coming, please. The righteousness or folly of the 'cause' is a geopolitical matter, most often determined in hindsight, and invariably judged with hindsight. Your individual tapestry of experience is a valuable archive. I would say the same for an individual account from the other side.

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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Fascinating- do keep it coming, please. The righteousness or folly of the 'cause' is a geopolitical matter, most often determined in hindsight, and invariably judged with hindsight. Your individual tapestry of experience is a valuable archive. I would say the same for an individual account from the other side.
    I agree. Forget the politics. The experiences and the stories are worth telling, and reading, on their own.

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    Many military retirees and ex-service men living in and around Korat. Most were US Air Force stationed at Tac Lee near here. F-105's plus other type aircraft were flown on missions to VN from early 60's to the end in 70's.

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    I am really hoping some other old vet would pick up the thread and run with it. I may have to dig out some more photos tomorrow to add to this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DrB0b
    Forget the politics. The experiences and the stories are worth telling, and reading, on their own.
    Yep come on BtB keep it coming!

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    Quote Originally Posted by DrB0b View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Fascinating- do keep it coming, please. The righteousness or folly of the 'cause' is a geopolitical matter, most often determined in hindsight, and invariably judged with hindsight. Your individual tapestry of experience is a valuable archive. I would say the same for an individual account from the other side.
    I agree. Forget the politics. The experiences and the stories are worth telling, and reading, on their own.
    +1. Look forward to more Borey, would be very interesting to hear about Laos and Cambodia too.

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    Looking forward to this thread, don't be shy Baldy.

  12. #12
    Thailand Expat armstrong's Avatar
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    That's an 'Affirmative' on liking the thread Borey. The Eagle Has Entered The Go Go Bar.

    Over.

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    When I earlier showed the above photo, I should have provided a better description. The aircraft in the photo is the second type of Army reconnaissance aircraft in our unit. It's a radio direction finding aircraft code name Laffing Eagle, a bird that I rarely flew on. Note the vertical antenna at the end of the wing. We are flying over the village on Non Sung with Highway 2 (barely visible) leading toward Udon to the left of the picture. The main part of our base is not visible to the right of the picture. The large structure in the distance (looking like a huge circular fence) we called the elephant cage. It was a highly directional multi-frequency antenna system.






    This is a picture of the type plane I usually flew in (code name Left Jab). This is what it looked like when the direction finding antenna pod was lowered for operation. My specialty was North Vietnamese voice radio communications. I never could speak the North Vietnamese dialect worth a shit, but I knew their procedures and understood well enough to be good at my job. Our unit had two of these planes. As I mentioned earlier, the third plane of this type was shot down while flying out of Phu Bai in central Vietnam in 1971. I've read that it was hit by a surface to air missile while over North Vietnam.

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    If we know anything today, Thailand [or the high elite and govt sectors] made quite a bundle as America's pimping-out process and underwriting took place from 1955 through 1975. Naturally, the hundreds of millions of dollars were welcome and changed the social landscape in those years as it had never been before [in comparative time measurements].

  15. #15
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    Looking forward to more posts on this thread! Thanks Borey! Have a green!

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    During this same time period BtB, while I was stationed in Korea, my high school friend and Uni Frat brother was in the US Army and stationed up in that area. He was an MP. I'm going to direct this thread URL to him as he may find it interesting.
    "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff....and it is all small stuff"

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    If I remember correctly, the facility at Non Sung was called Ramasun. It achieved vague notoriety as being the only American facility left operating after the Kukrit Pramoj government effectively ended the US military presence in Thailand. This was because its intelligence gathering capacity was important to the Thai military.

    I worked all around the perimeter of the camp in the 90s and it seems to be pretty much a ghost town now.

    My boss in the early 70s had, what he called, a cross between a King Air and a Queen Air. He was the only civilian I knew at the time who had unrestricted flying privileges around Thailand.

  18. #18
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Borey the Bald View Post
    I am really hoping some other old vet would pick up the thread and run with it. I may have to dig out some more photos tomorrow to add to this.
    Closest I came to that area (& that's a few klicks for sure) is once pulling into Sattahip to offload some VIP who was headed out of U-Tapao.

    Good thread, Borey.

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    Other than coming to Bangkok on I&I, (intoxication and intercourse) leave in May of 67 I have no memory of black ops in Thailand. The closest we came to it was in support of 5th special forces in Ban mi Touit, Central Highlands.

    We built a serviceable bunker system, perimeter clearing, CMP runway and a few other facilities for them. Our base camp was on the Cambodian border and a morning land mine sweep was mandatory prior to any start of the workdays. We often found Charlies hardware inside the perimeter.

    Our Montanyard troops, really primitive looking Indian like creatures were some of our fiercest combatants. Often at night during flares going off and random fire these people would huddle so close to you they almost became part of you. They liked to stroke the body hair on the Ferangs as they had never seen men with hair on their arms. Happened a lot with the Vietnamese as well.

    I Served with the 20th Combat Engineers and later transferred to HHC 35th Engineer Group. 5 separate companies, 7 battalions and a couple special engineer companies for port building in Cam Ranh Bay. Drafted most quickly after dropping out of collage in 65. Seems Sam had a plan for me. Spent 15 months in-country and saw most of it from the air and on road recons to expand the drivable roadways in S.VN.

    I'm sure the tour in Thailand was enough to make you want to re-up Baldy.

    BTW, while in Bangkok in 67 there was a bath house where you would strip down and the covey of ladies would pour water on you with wooden buckets first. Next it was jump into a wooden barrel/tub for some hot water and scrub down. Next was a rinse and dry-off. Lastly you got on a table where they scraped your skin with a bone bladed tool and pushed the red dirt from RVN out of your pours.

    The coup de gra was the final rub down with stroking of the pant lizard while insertion of several knotted silk baubles into your anus while bringing about the over the top clasmatic orgasm of your life on pulling the rip cord at just the right moment. YEEHAAA!!!! Wish I could find that place now.

    Ladies cost $11/24 hr. then and you always got a cab to go at the same daily rate. The cab went out for food, beer, more beer, food and occasionally we took a ride someplace.

    Shared some really great moments on leave with these ladies and never ever had to worry about being ripped off or taken advantage of. It was a celebration thing. Lots of smiles, lots of sharing of what you had and most of all a welcome relief from the drudgery of RVN. Arrived with $250 and left with .25 cents. Best 7 days your ever going to have at 21.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by SEA Traveler View Post
    During this same time period BtB, while I was stationed in Korea, my high school friend and Uni Frat brother was in the US Army and stationed up in that area. He was an MP. I'm going to direct this thread URL to him as he may find it interesting.
    Good idea. We had a detachment of MPs at the camp providing tight security. A little like airport security today. Maybe he could add to the discussion.

  21. #21
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    Itnt:
    "I'm sure the tour in Thailand was enough to make you want to re-up Baldy."

    I was forced to reenlist while there. Bought a little yellow Mazda pickup truck. I think that was the only time in my life I could afford to pay cash for a new vehicle. Was great for spending my "off time" driving around Isaan and, later, when our detachment was transfered down to Utapao, it came in handy. Allowed me to live in a very plush apartment building a very few meters from the ocean on Pattaya beach. A real hardship tour.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shy Guava View Post
    If I remember correctly, the facility at Non Sung was called Ramasun. It achieved vague notoriety as being the only American facility left operating after the Kukrit Pramoj government effectively ended the US military presence in Thailand. This was because its intelligence gathering capacity was important to the Thai military.
    You remember better than I. Totally forgot that it was call Ramasun.

    I believe that its importance to the Thai military was its income gathering capacity.

  23. #23
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    I thought I'd give you a picture of one of our missions:

    Here we are crossing the Mekong River in the area of Ban Nong Kung, Thailand, and Ban Hai, Laos, not far northeast of Udon.


    It wouldn't take long to reach the highlands in north central Laos. This was a hotly contested area in the early 70's, with Pathet Lao forces, led and sponsored by North Vietnam, fighting the primarily Hmong forces led and sponsored by the CIA. I, personally, was targeting North Vietnamese regular forces.

    This was my view during the five hour long flights, looking forward toward the cockpit. The object with the screw shafts directly in the foreground, was the antenna mast in the landing position. For operations, it was lowered to move the antenna pod away from the interference of the aircraft body.

    If I remember correctly, I took this photo as we overflew the Air America base at Xieng Khouang, Laos.

    And finally, our approach back at Udon. I'm showing the larger pictures, since I hope some of you now in Udon, might find them interesting.



    This first picture is looking roughly West.



    In this view, Udon is to the right.


    And this one is looking straight down Highway 2 toward the city.





    And finally a shot from a slightly different angle. Udon doesn't look quite the same anymore. The good old days.

  24. #24
    Thailand Expat Bobcock's Avatar
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    Awesome thread..."

  25. #25
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    Thanks for sharing Mr Bald. Keep the stories coming.

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