So after 18 monthes in Viet Nam  Sgt Pleiku came back to "the World" , Land of the Big BX". The powers that be had stationed me within a hour by freeway from home at Mc Clellan AFB,  Sacramento, California. There was less than a year left on my enlistment and I was assigned to the 2049th Communication Group. Sgt Pleiku should of been a happy camper, but he wasn't. They put him working in a standby diesel power plant with nothing to do but stare at the 3 big diesel generators. I missed the "Nam". A month after arriving at Mc Clellan I was in personnel filling out a "Dream Sheet". Crossed out the Stateside choices and requested in big bold letters #1 Viet Nam, #2 Thailand . Three weeks later I was selected for Viet Nam with the proviso that I would have to extend my time in the Air Force by 4 months.  When people asked why I going back , I told them there was a Viet Namese girl I wanted to marry. They thought I was crazy, but it was a craziness they could could relate too.  The deeper craziness which I kept to myself were the feelings of leaving a job undone. I had to see this thing through to the end.

So In November of 1971 a very young Staff Sergeant arrived in Cam Ranh Bay , Viet Nam. Sgt Pleiku was easy to spot , he was the one constantly glancing at  his sleeve making sure those brand new Staff Sergeant stripes were still there. It was like coming home, Kept running into people I knew, guys from Pleiku, Da Nang, and a High School buddy.

Back to working the Barriers, I was made crew chief on one of the crews. Back when the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing had been at Cam Ranh Bay , flying the F-4 Phantom II the Barrier Maintenance Shop taken  the nickname, " The Phantom Catchers".  The 12th was gone, replaced by the 483 Tactical Airlift Wing, but the barrier crews remained " Phantom Catchers". The 483rd flew the C-7 Caribou a light weight cargo hauler that could fly into just about anyplace. The Air Force flew the C-7s basically because they didn't  want the Army flying them.

Cam Ranh had 2 runways when I arrived one concrete and one AM2 aluminum matting. We had a BAK-12 at each end of the concrete runway.  That was soon changing, Viet Namese crews with Korean foreman were pulling up the AM2 matting.. .And sure enough just as Sgt Pleiku was getting comfortable in his new job, came the word, the barriers are coming out.

Thus came the birth of the "Special Demolitian Force" . First  we pulled the BAK-12s out then down came the Alert quarters, then there was an old storage shed. They must of been really impressed with our work because they had a major project for us next. It was a maintenance hanger for a C-7 Caribou.  Now the Caribou  has a very tall tail structure and the hanger had a very tall steep pitch to accomodate it. I've always guessed the top of the roof was 80 feet tall, and that's where we started.  My first lesson on the project was...Staff Sergeants are not allowed to be afraid of heights...but "Buck" Sergeants were. The sheetmetal tops and sides of the were fastened with thousands of screws. They wanted us to unscrew each one of them.  The years in the tropical envirornment had rusted them all , so we used cold chisels and hammers to pop the heads of the screws off.

It was New Years Eve of 1972 when we got our new assigments. Most of the "Special Demolition Force" would be going home. Five of us were going to Thailand and one to an island off Okinawa. Its hard to understand now, with  the clarity of 20/20 hindsight why I was not happy about going to Udorn, Thailand, but I wasn't. I wanted to stay in Viet Nam. I was tempted to go to the powers that be to protest my new assignment...but then I realized it could be worse I could be going to that island off Okinawa.

We finally got done with the Caribou hanger. Then it up the hill to tear down some Quonset  huts that had some contract civilian workers. We were a couple of days into that project when we got called for a special project. The night before some Security Policeman had been caught smoking dope in one of their latrines.So to keep this from ever happening again, it was our job to tear down the latrine. The plumbers had already been there and pulled all the fixtures out. Now it was our turn. In less than 3 hours we had wiped out all traces of that latrine....And I can proudly say no one ever smoked dope in that latrine again.

So we were back up on the top of the hill finishing up the Quonset huts when we got the word we were shipping out. A few days later 5 of were on a plane to Thailand, 1 to Korat, 2 to Ubon, and 2 of us to Udorn.