Stories from Grady Olmstead 1970 - 1971

A Night on the Town in Udorn

One night I went to the pool-side at the Paradise Hotel with a couple of friends. After getting a table and having some of the girls of the night sit down with us "chatting" one of the girls ask me (in somewhat broken English): "you Army - you Air Force?".

Well in being PROUD of being in the Army and stationed where there were so many Zoomies, I quickly said "I'm Army". Upon my saying that she turned to the girls that where also sitting there and quickly said ?????????????
(since I was not a linguist I didn't know what she was saying)
But shortly after she stopped speaking all of the girls got up and left the table. I figured they went on looking for some of those "TOP DOLLAR ZOOMIES" to sit/talk/sleep with.
--
"ONE THING ABOUT VIETNAM IS-
IT KILLED SO MANY WHO SURVIVED"

18 Months at the 7th

I was stationed at the 7th for 18 months. I had to extend for 6 months to get the "early out". I didn't know they were also giving it to soldiers that returned to CONUS at the end of their 12 month tour over there.  While at the 7th I had a M-16 issued to me which I saw it twice in the eighteen months I was there. The two times I saw it was when they wanted me to CLEAN the thing. At the time, I couldn't take the "bolt carrier" apart and reassemble it without some supervision. Since then I have built 3 (maybe 4) of them from parts.

  Time with Uncle Sam

When my twin and I graduated from high school (1968) Vietnam was going pretty strong so it was either wait for the draft or join and have a little bit of choice of what we did for our time with Uncle Sam so we joined. Got talked into signing up for the Army Security Agency which sounded alot better than being a grunt. We went through basic training (Fort Jackson), Advanced Individual Training (Fort Gordon) Signal School (72B) and our first overseas tour (4th USASAFS Asmara) AFRICA together.  After working and partying for 18 months over there Uncle Sam decided to seperate us.

     He sent me to the 7th RRFS and my twin (Brady) to Fort Devens where he stayed about 4 months and where it also snowed several times while he was there. So he put in a 1049 for Vietnam which they ready processed. He arrived there in December of '70 and was stationed at the 224th Avaition (BearCat) just outside of Saigon.
     In working in the CommCenter at Operations I had access to the "Class A" phones there. So when "at work" I would call him to see what he was up to.
     The hardest part was getting pass the Vietnamese phone operators in Saigon. The first time I called I asked the operator for the 224th and she says "you mean BearCat"?  Not knowing they used cover names I said "no I want the 224th" whereas she said again "you mean BearCat"?  That time I said "yes" and was connected to the CommCenter at the 224th.
After calling him "a few times" all I had to do was ask for Brady and (if he wasn't working) they would go get him so we could talk for awhile at Uncle Sams expense (of course)

In God We Trust,
All Others We Monitor!
ASA - Army Security Agency
 
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