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.