(A Work in Progress)
Early April 1973
I begin my story here at the crossroads in time when I went from being a boy from Arkansas drifting through my obligatory military service to becoming a career sailor. Perhaps not so coincidentally I was living in an apartment behind the bar district know as “The Crossroads”. Finally in April 1973, after “peace with honor” had been declared and I had served off North Vietnam for 18 straight months with very few breaks, I was back at Naval Communication Station, Philippines (NCSP), San Miguel, Philippines. NCSP served as the parent command from which Communications Technicians (CT’s) were sent to augment ships heading to the coast of Vietnam. At first this down time was a welcomed change. From October 1971 until April 1973 I had server aboard US Aircraft Carriers as part of the “Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club” on Yankee Station providing cryptologic support to air operations off the coast of North Vietnam that included countering the North Vietnamese “Easter Offensive” that began in March 1972. During that time I had spent only about 14 days back at San Miguel, the rest of the time was spent working 12 hour watches, 7 days a week with the exception of an occasional 4 day liberty call (one day for each watch section) at one of the nearest WestPac liberty ports* which followed 60 days or so of operations.
This was the first time I had come back “home” without another set of TAD** orders already typed up and waiting. By April 1973 US combat troops were out of Vietnam; the last American POW was home and the Vietnam war was over for America1. It didn’t end and it wouldn’t end for another two years but this was a turning point, a true crossroads for America and for me.
You would think I would have relished the respite after such a grueling schedule but before long I was missing the action that combat operations provided. I requested flight duty; the guys in flight billets flew out of Cubi Point, Philippines and were back home every night for beer and parties. I was told I would have to wait until a billet opened up. Now with little mission left for us at San Miguel, I and many of my shipmates found ourselves spending a lot of time at the bars in “The Crossroads” just outside NCSP with plenty of free time on our hands. During this period I had the good fortune to meet Teresa Macale Daganta and we almost immediately setup housekeeping. Tess had an ID card that said she was 23 years old (fake documents in the Philippines were easy to get), I figured she was probably around 18 or 19. She turned out to have just turned 16. She was beautiful, intelligent and and had the sweetest accent unlike any other Filipino I had ever heard. She became my central focus and was central to my decisions on about nearly everything I did from then on.
* Usually Subic Bay, Philippines or Singapore but I did have one liberty in Hong Kong and one in Yokusuka, Japan.
** Navy for “Temporary Additional Duty” known as TDY (Temporary Duty) in the other services. The Navy’s distinction meant you weren’t exempt from any of your normal duties while away.
June 1973
As I said, the war in Vietnam wasn’t really over until the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. The US Navy decided it needed to keep up almost continuous operations in the South China Sea off Vietnam just to let them know we were still around. NCSP, my parent command decided since combat operations were not likely only the Commander Carrier Group (COMCARGRU) staff conducting operations off Vietnam would be augmented with cryptologic personnel. This would reduce the number of people required to support the operations as our numbers were rapidly declining with transfers to other duty stations or folks leaving the Navy altogether. We, the CT’s assigned to augment the staffs, were supposed to deploy one month out on the ships and one month back at NCSP. My turn came up on 7 June 1973. I augmented the COMCARGRU Five staff on the USS Constellation (CVA-64) until 17 June; cross decked (flew by helicopter) to the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43); cross decked again on 24 Jun to COMCARGRU Three on the USS Hancock (CVA-19) and then on 5 July back to COMCARGRU Five on the Constellation. I was back at NCSP on 17 July; a total of 40 days deployed. Not bad, pretty close to the 30 I was told and far better than the 60+ days we had been doing.
My next deployment began 27 days later on 13 August, not bad, just a little less than the 30 we were supposed to get. Time at home had suddenly become more important to me given the relationship I had developed with Tess. I was back out with the COMCARGRU Five staff on the USS Constellation for 14 days beginning 27 August and then back at NCSP until 6 October 1973 spending 40 days ashore; great, we’re making up for lost days. I should have gotten even more days ashore as we had a new guy check in, I think his name was Jack Flint, and he was next to be deployed. They asked me to go out in his place so he could get his new wife over to the Philippines but would relieve me once that was accomplished. So on 6 October I headed back to COMCARGRU Three on the Coral Sea; cross decked to COMCARGRU Seven on the Hancock and got news that I wouldn’t be relieved on time because Jack had to move his wife from off base housing to on base housing. I finally got back to San Miguel on 17 December 1973 after a 70 day deployment. To make up for it, the command told me Jack had taken the open flight billet while I was deployed. I never got to meet Jack’s wife. She decided in the meantime that she didn’t like the Philippines or Jack and returned to the States.
Early Years
Lets move back in time a little bit. I was born in Rogers Memorial Hospital on 13th street in Rogers Arkansas on 13 December 1951. I was third from the last of seven kids, five boys and two girls. I attend Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic school from grades one though eight. Since my birthday was too late to register for first grade when I was 6, I had to wait an entire year before I could start first grade; a whole year older than the other kids, how embarrassing. Anyway, on the day of enrollment mom loaded up the car with us kids that were going to St. Vincent. While mom was inside, I was out in the school yard where I met Mark Turner. He was held back having to repeat first grade and was also seven years old; great, now everybody is going think I flunked first grade! Mark and I were playing off behind the school when mom finished her work and left without me. It seemed like an eternity sitting in the hot son in front of the school until mom discovered me missing and returned to get me. I’m sure that the tutoring, care and discipline the Benedictine Sisters so generously bestowed upon me serves to influence my lack of self confidence to this very day.
I started my freshman year of high school at Rogers Junior High School on poplar street. It was the old Central Ward Elementary school and now where the Frank Tillery Elementary School stands. I played on the Ridge Runner’s football team that year but didn’t go back the next year because my wrists were too week to handle the crab crawls required during practice drills. I faced a lot of bullying throughout my high school years. Most of the boys thought I was “queer” because I was timid, shy and very quiet spoken. Along with finding a core group of friends that were much nicer, I finally got a “steady girl” my senior year which put a stop to some of the harassment.
By my senior year, the war in Vietnam had become very unpopular and most young men were finding ways to avoid the draft. With my poor school performance and even poorer economic condition, there was no way I could get into college. After graduating I worked for my dad on construction projects but by August, facing a sure draft call and knowing dad expected me to have acquired skills through genetics and not his coaching, I joined the Navy.
In the Navy
I entered the Navy on the “Delayed Entry Program” so I didn’t actually head to boot camp until November 1970. When I took my induction physical and assessment tests in Little Rock, I was pulled aside into a room for an interview with a petty officer. He tried to talk me into extending my enlistment in the Navy to six years for a billet in the nuclear program and an instant advancement to petty officer 3rd class after completing “A” school. I told him there was no way I wanted to spend 2 extra years in the Navy. While awaiting my flight from Little Rock, Arkansas to Orlando, Florida I picked up a newspaper that was lying on a seat. There I saw an article about Admiral Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations, who said he was going to allow long hair on sailors and beer machines in the barracks. No crew cut in boot camp? The Navy was looking better all the time.
I started boot camp on 12 November 1970 just after company 198 had formed up and began their training. I had to wait two weeks for company 199 to form up. I celebrated Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas and New Years Day in boot camp, away from home for the first time. I was definitely home sick. The companies that had formed up before ours had earned enough time to rate Christmas leave, but we were stuck in limbo for two additional weeks while everybody else was gone. That’s four weeks of dead time in boot camp; it seemed a lifetime. My choices for a rating classification after boot camp were (1) Navy Construction Battalion, builder, (2) Commissaryman (cook) and (3) Communications Technician Radio. Fortunately I was granted my last choice. I graduated on 5 February 1971, just over 12 weeks in an 8 week course, and headed home for a couple weeks leave.
I arrive at the Naval Communications Training Center (NCTC), Pensacola, Florida on 22 February 1971 and chipped paint on lawn mowers for the First Lieutenant’s office for a couple of weeks while waiting for my “A” school class to form up. We were the first class to be taught on a new computer system nicknamed “Ralph”. Everyone was surprised to see some of us closing out basic speeds in two or three weeks so they put us on tapes of actual over-the-air manual Morse transmissions. The sound and cadence of it was nothing like the computer generated code so it turns out we had learned very little. I spent many evenings in remedial code class trying to catch up. My good friend closed out of basic and was sent to gate guard duty waiting for his interim security clearance to start the advance portion of our training. I decided I’d stall in basic and not join him in such crummy duty. The instructor came to me a couple weeks later and said: “Martfeld, your clearance is in. If you close out today you can start advanced next Monday”. I closed out and was fortunate that my friend’s clearance came through as well so we were in the same advanced class.
We graduated “A” school in July 1971 where I finished in the middle of my class. My friend finished in first place and got his choice of duty. He picked Germany, Bremerhaven I believe. I had requested duty stations in Scotland, Germany and another site in Europe but was ordered to the Philippines. I thought I was being sent to hell. The only image I had of the Philippines was an ox drawn cart on my travel motif lunch pail from the 5th grade. After a couple of weeks leave at home in Arkansas I traveled to San Francisco and caught a Grey Hound bus up to my sister’s place in Petaluma, CA. and spent a day or two with her. She dropped me off at Travis AFB where I would catch my TWA charter flight to the Philippines.
Heading Overseas
I arrived at Travis in the early afternoon but the flight wouldn’t leave until about 11:30pm. It was a long and boring wait. The war in Vietnam was raging hot and heavy and the terminal was packed with young soldiers in full combat gear. There was little room to sit and the floor was covered with duffel bags and weapons. Eventually a few other CT’s I knew from “A” school showed so I didn’t feel totally isolated anymore.
The flight was a TWA charter on what was called a stretch 707 which was a 707 with an extra length of cabin space for more seats. Seats were close together and every one was filled. It took forever to load. Lots of soldiers were carrying on gear that they couldn’t stow and trying to get into seats that were too small. About half the flight was filled with depends, wives and children and the kid right behind me, in a middle seat, was a brat that kept kicking the back of my chair the entire flight. Finally, after what seemed like eternity, we taxied to the end of the runway and started our takeoff. The plane was overloaded; the engines were wound up about as tight as the pilot could get them. He released the breaks and we began to lumber down the runway; clump-clump… clump-clump… clump-clump a litter faster together with each second that ticked by. Eventually we were rattling and shacking down the runway at a high rate of speed. An Air Force pilot had the window seat next to me. I peaked out as best I could and saw the blue runway lights flying past us in a dark, drizzly night. “There goes the first abort marker” he announced. The airplane was beginning to bounce over the runway. “There goes the second abort marker”. By now I was sure the aircraft was going to shake to pieces. “There goes the third abort marker” and then the plane lifted off the runway with a huge BOOM as the wheel struts fell to the bottom of their sockets. Needless to say, it scared the living hell out of me but we were finally on our way and I naively was looking forward to getting to the Philippines. Naive because I had no idea how grueling the hours on this airplane would be. We were supposed to stop in Anchorage, Alaska but since we had the “good fortune” of a tail wind we went strait to Yokota AFB, Japan. I was about 14 straight hours flying time in that tiny, cramped seat with kids kicking a screaming the entire way.
We got to Yokota at about 4am. The parents were out of diapers, the kids were tired and hungry and not a single convenience facility except for the public bathrooms was open. No snack bar or restaurant, no shop for diapers or something to read; just hard terminal seats to wait for the plane to be refueled and a new crew to take over. After about 2 hours we boarded again, but this time it was only about half full as some of the passengers were headed to duty in Japan.
It was another 5 hour flight to Clark AFB, Philippines. We got in a 9am and those of us who would be catching ground transportation to other duty stations were out of luck. There was a labor strike at Clark and all the gates were closed. Nobody came in or went out. We were told to stay in the terminal are where we disembarked because a flight was coming from Cube Point Naval Air Station to take us out. It was the middle of the rainy season in the Philippines and we sat, tired, dirty and hungry in those hard terminal seats watching and old C-47 (DC 3) out on the apron in the rain with a guy in a green flight suit pounding on a cowling or something on the right side engine which was facing the terminal. I felt sorry for him even in our state of fatigue and hunger. We complained to anybody that looked like they were associated with the terminal that we needed to get something to eat. Finally at about 11:30 or 12 they told us we could go to the cafeteria and get something to eat. A greasy hamburger and burnt french fries never tasted so good!
Back in the terminal to await or aircraft from Cubi, the rain was still coming down in buckets and that poor guy was still beating on the C-47 engine. Finally about 3pm an airman showed up at the podium and told us our flight to Cube was ready. About 25 or 30 of us were marched over the tarmac to the airplane the guy had been beating on and we boarded. Women and children got the regular airplane seats that faced the rear of the plane and the sailors got the sling seats along the sides. We were aboard and heading toward the end of the runway for takeoff. The “load master”, the guy that had been beating on the engine had the door open and was keeping his eye on that right engine. We started our takeoff and he still hung to the open door until we lifted off. He finally latched the door and we began spiraling up through the heavy clouds and rain to gain enough altitude to clear the mountain range between Clark and Subic. From our sling seats we could see out the windows easily. Every now and then the clouds would break and we could see the mountains which seemed very close. It was only about 20 minutes to get up and over the mountains and land at Cubi Point.
I don’t remember how we got down to the main gate area on Subic Naval Base, but we were in the provost’s office asking getting to San Miguel. The sailor at the counter told us we’d need to check into the transit barracks and they would take care of onward transportation. Fortunately there was a sailor in civilian cloths in the office who was stationed at San Miguel. He told us not to go to the transit barracks, that the bus to San Miguel was due to leave shortly. Turns out the transit barracks were some old floating barracks on a barge tied up across the street with terrible living conditions. We would probably have been put on working parties until they sorted out our orders.
Hes showed us to the old navy gray school bus and we got aboard. It wasn’t crowded but it had no air conditioner and the windows were all down in the damp, muggy tropical climate. We had been in our dress whites with no change of clothes since before we left Travis. This bus just made us that much more dirty and wrinkled. We went out the back gate of Subic and started through the mountains around Subic Bay in the still pouring rain. We went past the bars at Subic City where some girls were out under the eves of the tin roofs showering in the rain, naked and unconcerned about the passer-byes. The road was rough, very narrow with lots of potholes full of water. I was looking at the road ahead watching the slow moving motored tricycles coming up quick on the bus. When we passed, they were so close I couldn’t see them as we drove past them and I was sure they must be getting run down but every time they would reappear right behind us unharmed. I couldn’t believe it. I would later learn these roads were pretty tame compared to the streets in cities like Manila.
We checked in at the NCSP quarter deck and then got our barracks assignments. I was in “Charlie” barracks, and older open bay barracks where the occupants carved out little cubicles of about 8 men to each using the bunks and lockers as dividers. I don’t remember much of what happened after I found my bunk but I must have showered and hit the rack. I woke up the next morning, had breakfast at the chow hall and began my in-processing.
Sources:
- http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html, The Vietnam War, The Bitter End 1969 – 1975, accessed: 27 January, 2017
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_San_Miguel, Naval Station San Miguel, accessed: 05 October 2021.