The DISCOM compound occupied a rectangular plot of land facing Basin Street. Left - The entrance into the compound was at the northwest corner of the property. Center - The driveway ran between the mess hall and a USAF weather team barracks/ personnel shelter. Right - A civilian-run gift shop was north of the air force billet and in front of the DISCOM transportation pool, which was run by a detachment from the 709^th Maintenance Battalion.

The enlisted man (EM) latrine was in front of the motor pool slightly west of the outdoor movie screen. The latrine used 55-gallon steel drums cut in half for sewage hoppers. Prudence dictated that you brought your own toilet paper and held on to it. There was a storage shed behind the movie screen and a company urinal east of it.

The EM shower was in the northeast corner of DISCOM. The water cistern was filled from a water truck. During April 69 the band fabricated a shed to keep the civilian laborers out of the sun and rain. They typically waited for transportation under the water tank. After the shed was completed, they still waited under the tank. It was cooler! The sign on the pole implores: BE NICE THROW TRASH IN CAN.

Left - The DISCOM mess hall was large enough to feed visitors to Dong Tam in addition to the headquarters company and band. There was a separate dining room for officers and VIPs. The KP roster included duty waiting on officers' tables. It was easy and clean work but I found it degrading and always opted to scrub pots and pans with the Vietnamese civilian laborers (they left before dinner and darkness). Ranks up to Specialist-Five were eligible for the KP duty roster. Hard-stripe E-5s and ranks above were exempt. If you didn't screw-up too much promotions came automatically without regard to time-in-grade or qualification tests. The policy of the USARV was intended to keep its troops comparatively well paid and content. Center & Right - Much of the Division's command structure consisted of senior grade officers and NCOs who possessed an occupation army mentality. They celebrated their birthdays and had barbecues like they were still in non-combat postings. At times it was surreal. One never knew when a 122mm mortar would come sailing in and splatter a little of your blood on Command Sergeant Major Sturtz's nice birthday cake. The day I arrived at DISCOM they were hosing blood off the side of the mess hall where the battalion's ARVN interpreter caught a mortar literally in his back pocket.

Left - This open expanse of parade ground was at the center of the DISCOM compound. Here headquarters company would assemble for morning roll call, report for pay, and participate in ceremonies. The building in the center is the DISCOM commander's hootch - a fortified,  air-conditioned, mobile home. Right - A concrete sidewalk was later installed between the colonel's hootch and the mess hall so that he wouldn't get his boots muddy during the monsoon season. There was quite a bit of concrete left over from the project so sidewalks were also installed in the barracks area. My initial impression was shrapnel. The affect of muddy soil on mortars and artillery was to permit the warhead to burry itself and the ground absorb much of the explosion and shrapnel. Not so with concrete.

Left - There were four barracks at DISCOM. One was used by the band. Center - The engineers began replacing older bunkers constructed of filled sandbags and PSP with wooden shells backfilled with soil. The nylon weave of the sandbags in the old bunkers did not stand up well to the bright sunlight. Every time it rained the bags shifted. A sand filled volley ball court replaced an old bunker that once stood at the north end of the court. Right - Early in the evening on June 13, 1969, during a lull in the rain, a 120mm mortar impacted in the sandy soil of the volleyball court alongside the band barracks. The concussion rocked the building, toppled double-bunk beds, ripped off nailed plywood partitions, and otherwise caused a mess. Ten more feet of trajectory and it would have landed inside the barracks! A somber SSG Joseph Frease stands in the crater contemplating how close it really came. My buddy, Larry Wolf, took the photograph while I was in the bandmaster's hootch getting some iodine dabbed on my side and back. During my unplanned ejection from an upper bunk berth I landed on my roommate's French horn case. OUCH!

Cooks were a strange lot. All of that heat and grease tended to make them a bit surly. KP started at 0400 and lasted until 2000 hours. That's 16 hours of heat and grease that tended to make KP's surly, too. I did not like working in the mess hall and always preferred guard duty to KP. When I was given the added responsibility of band clerk/supply sergeant, I was removed from the duty roster. The chow at DISCOM was too Latino spicy for my taste. I ended up eating only breakfast and a sandwich for lunch. I passed on supper. The cooks were, fortunately for me, not authorized to spice up eggs, bacon, pancakes, or toast. When the little people dropped a mortar round next to the kitchen and perforated every DISCOM pot and pan with shrapnel, we ate Korean War era C-Rations from Greenland. The cooks dumped the cans into a tub of boiling water and you ate your MACV promised hot meal, as well as melted chocolate, hot cookies, hot peaches, and hot whatever else was in the can. You know what? It tasted great compared to mess hall chow!

The Army hired plenty of civilian laborers to help keep Dong Tam and the local economy running. It was part of the political mission of winning their hearts and minds. The corrupt Vietnamese politicians that the US backed hadn't won much local approval even after the republic's first president (Bao Dai) had been ousted in a rigged election and the rigger (Ngo Dinh Diem) later got assassinated in a US intentionally ignored military coup d'etat.  The 9^th ID expended much effort in helping the south Vietnamese through medical assistance programs called MEDCAPs (medical civic action program) and by improving the infrastructure of their country through engineering projects. The cone shaped hats the ladies are wearing are traditional farmers' garb and called a Non La.

Left - Wooden bleachers and a bandstand distinguished the DISCOM compound from other unit compounds. The last remaining sandbag bunker at DISCOM is visible behind the bleachers. I spent many hours in this shelter. Center - While the old sandbag bunker was being dismantled several pounds of shrapnel -  including bullet, mortar, and rocket fragments - were found. It appears that the infantry unit billeted across the road is suffering under Lifer-Mania. When it was announced that the Division was pulling out, units started moving into Dong Tam for out-processing. Most of these guys were from 10 to 20 pounds underweight and were little more than skin, muscle, sinew, and bones. Only a occupation era Army lifer would make physically fit combat troops do PT in 115 degree weather. Right - The band supply room and office were behind the bandstand. Bandmaster CWO-3 Earl W. Jones opted to set his hootch up in the office while his replacement, CWO-2 Jerry E. Cottingham, chose living in one of the enclosed private rooms in the band barracks.

The architecture of personnel shelters and bunkers changed from sandbag and PSP construction to dirt-filled, hollow, wooden forms. This large, company-size, personnel shelter eventually eliminated all of the EM sandbag bunkers at DISCOM. The upper story was a game room and sun deck.

The Vietnamese had no inhibitions about differences between the sexes. It was not uncommon to be going about your business in the latrine or shower when a civilian female laborer would enter to clean. I personally found this unnerving and would always keep an eye out for the mama-sans. The locals made their own brooms out of palm fronds. The brooms were very short but, then, so were the locals!

9^th Infantry Division troops under the administration of Division Support Command wore a distinctive insignia that honored the Division's participation in various campaigns during World War II. The fleur-de-lis symbolized Northern France, the disk - Central Europe, the nine rayed sun - Sicily and the numerical designation of the Division, and the red crescent background - Tunisia.

The headquarters and offices of DISCOM were situated in the southwest corner of the compound. When I first came to DISCOM, a large sandbag personnel shelter occupied the southeast corner of the compound. It had been the first bunker dismantled in favor of a company-size personnel shelter.

SSG Walter M. Jenkins asked me to ride shotgun for him on a trip outside the berm. He needed dirt to plant crops in his wood ammo box. I asked what was wrong with the dirt on Dong Tam. He said that it was poison. Nothing grew in it. I fetched my M-16 and a couple of bandoliers of ammunition.

 

The DISCOM headquarters company XO, an affable young lieutenant, lived in a bunker with the CO. If you wanted a picture of him you needed a flash attachment on your camera. One day he received a sliver of mortar shard in his forearm in an attack while returning from the mess hall. After that the only time I ever saw him or the CO was when I played chess in their bunker or did some research for the captain who, looking for a way out of Vietnam, had utilized my personnel management MOS training. I later heard a rumor that he had settled on a concocted marriage hardship DEROS.

View #1 - The band barracks had several private rooms on each floor. The austerity of each living space was altered by the taste of its inhabitants. View #2 - Every morning and evening my roommate, SP-5 Albany S. Devers, appropriately greeted his ladies - pictures of beautiful women that he had stapled to the partition. Views #3 & #4 - The hootch that I occupied was rustic but comfortable with writing desk, twin bunk beds, radio, tape player, wall lockers, and shelving.

Bandsmen didn't come into close contact with officers often. Although the band was attached to DISCOM's Headquarters Company, it operated fairly autonomously under the command of a warrant officer. The DISCOM headquarters company was commanded by a captain and assisted by a lieutenant called an executive officer (XO). Both of them lived together in a bunker attached to the back of the company orderly room. They rarely came out other than for meals and to attend ceremonies. The company top-kick or first sergeant, an SFC, administered roll calls and the duty roster. For a short period of time the HQ company had an ancient first sergeant with two stars on his CIB (infantry participation in three wars). This fellow had developed a fondness for me after he had spotted me atop a bunker taking time exposures of a ground attack that I had foolishly confused with a night probe. (We, apparently, didn't use green tracers.) The old sergeant thought that this had been just fine and would, inevitably, summon me to join him on top of a bunker whenever Dong Tam was hit. Once he even came into the personnel shelter to find me. In truth, as scary as he was, I liked him. He inadvertently coined a phrase describing how he felt about the quality of career Army officers of the era, he said that he had spent the first half of his time in the Brown Shoe Army (in World War II and Korea the US Army had worn brown, leather, combat boots) and the second half in the Brown Nose Army! Then one day the old warrior just wasn't with us anymore. The buzz was that he had been Sectioned Eight (medical discharge concerning mental competence) out of USARV and into retirement. I even missed him for a few hours!