My first night in Cam Rahn Bay...Viet Nam.

“Where’s Dave?”, I asked my buddy, poking my head outside our little room.

It was time once again for one of our almost nightly routines. Glancing at my watch in the light of a bare bulb in the hallway in the plywood walled barracks, I could barely make out that it said 2:35 am. I struggled to pull on my cut off jeans, they had gotten a little tight. Note to self: Cut back on the San Miguel beer.

“How the hell am I supposed to know?”, my buddy growled back, “Do I look like the guy in charge of Dave?”

“Fuck you!”

“O.K., but no kissing”, his usual response to that tout.

“It’s just that he’s not in his bed. Did he make it back from town?”, I asked.

“All I know is that he wasn’t with us.”

Just then, a voice from the room down the hall said, “If you’re looking for Ensign Pulver, he’s locked in Crew Five’s room.”

“What? Why would he be locked in Crew Five’s room, they’re not even here right now. He came over with us this time”, I blurted back. “Is that you Wagner?”

“Listen...every time we come over, he asks one of us to lock him in the room at night. You know...so no one knows he’s in there”, the voice down the hall continued.

Just then, all the lights went out...as usual. The siren continued to wail in the early morning darkness. Funny...it was the same siren sound that we had known from grade school in the fifties. That air raid siren thing. The one that let us know our Early Warning System was being tested every other Friday. When we were in school, we had to get under our desks and pretend there was a nuclear attack coming. The Russians...you know? It was all kind of pretend back then. But, I guess, now, it was real.

Ensign Pulver was a actually Dave Pulver. The “ensign” moniker was acquired for obvious reasons to anyone old enough to have seen and appreciate the movie Mr. Roberts. Ensign Pulver was played in the movie by Jack Lemmon. Our Ensign Pulver was played by Dave Pulver.

Dave Pulver was a tall, lanky surfer kind of kid from the San Fernando Valley...the same place I was from. We hit it off immediately. During one of our home leaves, our families all got together and camped on the beach at Pismo. His family had a dune buggy. It was great fun in between deployments to this part of the world. So, we called him Ensign Pulver. He was a fun-loving, laid-back guy. He didn’t appear to care about anything. Hence, asking his crew to lock him in his room (from the outside with a pad lock) when he retired for the evening. Why, you ask?

I know it sounds like the script from a vampire movie. But, not quite. You see, if Dave’s room was locked from the outside, the MP’s thought that no one was in there. And when we had to evacuate the barracks during Red Alerts...Ensign Pulver could continue to “sleep it off”, ie, not evacuate the barracks...and go into the bunkers outside.

Myself and the rest of our crew stumbled out of the barracks into the sand, and trudged our way to the sandbagged bunker just outside.

You see, no one ever ventured into these bunkers between the barracks...during red alerts or any other time. These bunkers were full of sand fleas and scorpions. Why would you want to go in there?

So, during Red Alerts, we would all sit on the outside of the bunkers and watch the “show”. Most of the time, several guys lit up a joint or three...and we just waited it out.

The “show” was some sort of attack on the base. Usually staged from one of the steep hillsides next to the sprawling Air Force base. The V.C. would set up bamboo rocket launchers...and try to hit the fuel tanks on the other side of the runway. Occasionally, we could see a rocket take off from the distance, heading for the other side of the runway. Most of the time, it landed near the fuel tanks. Sometimes...it actually hit its intended target.

Tonight...everything fell short from the jungle hillsides next to Cam Rahn Bay. None of the rockets hit their targets that night. We watched from the relative safety of the huge compound that was once the largest military base in South Viet Nam.

Just after the attack, U.S. Army Huey helicopter gunships would speed off, just over our heads. A few seconds later, we could see their M-60 waist gunners spraying the hillsides with the tracers from their weapons. The enemy was probably already gone by then...retreated back into the jungle. As for us...we just sat there on the edge of the bunkers...smoking joints and talking about home.

As for Ensign Pulver? He just slept through the whole ordeal. As for me? When the “show” was over, I just climbed back into my “bunk”...and dreamed about home.

That was April 2nd, 1971. My first night in Cam Rahn Bay...Viet Nam.