Although incoming was more or less a way of life I have a couple of little stories that may amuse some. It seemed rather odd that we could sleep with the artillery battery firing all night and never miss a wink of sleep. Let one mortar hit the flight line or land in the antenna field and everyone in the room was awake. If a second one hit, we were all on the way to the trench line.

One evening I had gone to the theater to watch a movie, it was supposed to be a good one. I was not impressed with the kinda funky war flick, so I picked up my lawn chair and headed back to the barracks. As I was walking alone in the dark down the street by the warehouse, the artillery battery fired their first round of the evening. When the round went off the shock waves hit the corrugated edge of the warehouse just right causing a whistling sound, then the BOOM. My brain told me that it was incoming, I jumped in the ditch. The ditch as I remember was rather deep, for what reason I do not know. It was about half full of water and I almost drowned and almost killed myself with the lawn chair. It is easy to laugh at now and to relate this to others, but I was glad no one saw me that night.

One other little story is related to an incident after I was back in the world. When I left Phu Bai I had orders for Ethiopia and was to get my passport and plane tickets while I was home on leave. The package never came so I called the Hall to find out what I was to do. The sent me to Ft Riley, Kansas till they could figure out where to send me. I was bunked on the second floor in an old wooden barracks on the opposite end from the stairs and latrines. They actually had a reveille at 0600 in the morning, for what purpose other than playing Army I do not know. I woke up at about 0555 and just laid back down knowing that I would be awoken in a few minutes. While in a state of half sleep, a clap of thunder came rolling in, which must have sounded a lot like incoming. When I awoke, I was half way down the open bay headed for the stairs hollering "incoming". Everyone was sitting up in their bunks, looking at me, but I do not recall any remarks. Not one of my proudest moments, but my brain didn't let me down.

Steve Head

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