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1 October The bulk of the Battalion, less 24 men for an Advance Party, departed the Oakland Army Terminal, California, aboard the USNS [United States Navy Ship] General Daniel I. Sultan. Also on board were a group of U.S. Marines, an Army Engineer Battalion and an advanced party from the 9th Infantry Division.

    The huge ship shuttered slightly as two Army tugboats slowly nudged it away from the docks to begin the long journey.

     As part of the departure ceremony, an Army band of twenty-three strong in dress uniform saluted them with music from dockside. Whatever tunes they played at the time were not memorable enough for any of the troops to recall.

     Once the ship was finally set free by the tugboats, it proceeded west through the bay at a leisurely speed with many of the troops gathered on the open deck taking in the fresh smell of the salt marshes, the cool ocean breezes and the spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge as they slowly passed beneath it.

     Just like their predecessors of 1942 two and a half decades before, this would be the first and last view of the American west coast for many as they headed into the Pacific Ocean on the first day of their journey to South Vietnam.

     The top rack held their TAT (to accompany troops) Bag’s; the three beneath it were for sleeping. The racks provided only a few inches clearance between your face and the one above, so you quickly learned to sleep head to head and feet to feet.

     If you were prone to snoring, you received your first experiences of enemy incoming as projectiles of varying size and shape landed on and around you in the dark. If you were subject to any degree of claustrophobia, you were doomed! If you were taller that six-foot, you were doomed! And, if you were prone to motion sickness, those who slept below you in the “splash zone” were doomed!

    "The 27 day boat trip was uneventful, but worthy of mention. The advance party of the 9th Infantry Division traveled with us. Our Battalion Commander, LTC Glenn A. Hill, was the Troop Commander and all battalion staff officers were assigned.

     The 720th mess personnel were the cooks and the 9th Infantry Division pulled KP [kitchen police]. The four Criminal Investigation Division (CID) officers were designated as Mess Officers.

     One morning, while having coffee with LTC Hill at the rail on deck, I commented, "Well sir, I’ve made a little progress." LTC Hill asked, "How’s that Mr. Garcia?"

3 October While the Battalion is in transit to Vietnam, the Soviet Union (USSR) officially aligned itself with Communist Party of Ho Che Minh and North Vietnam by announcing it will provide military and economic assistance to aid in their struggle to free the peoples of the South from American Imperialism.

8 October The Advanced Party of six officers and eighteen enlisted personnel, commanded by MAJ James O. Richardson the battalion executive officer, departed California by air for South Vietnam.

     "As the story goes, there was a group from the Battalion who departed ahead of us. I heard that when they arrived in country they broke out the ammo and discovered all they had was blanks, no live rounds, so they had to scrounge new ammo for themselves.

     Someone screwed up while making that packing list. They were the advance party who also set up our camp (squad tents) at Long Binh. The original camp was directly across the road from LBJ (Post Stockade) and the back of our perimeter was the perimeter of Long Binh Post. We built the Adams huts after living in the tents for about 9 months."  SP/4 Gary C. Watts, A Company, 720th MP Battalion, 4th Army, Fort Hood, Texas, October 1966-October 1967.

       At the time we were not issued jungle fatigues or jungle boots, we had the regular cotton fatigues and full leather boots. I was really lucky when I ran into a good friend of mine who had been in-country for six to eight months and was the supply officer for an infantry company close to us. He supplied our whole detachment with the new jungle fatigues and boots and I never got that chance to pay him back.

      I stayed with the advance party until the main elements of the Battalion arrived and a short time later I was transferred to Saigon and became a Platoon leader in the 300th MP Company and later the 188th, both subordinate to the 92nd MP Battalion at Pershing Field".  ILT John A. Hannon, B Company, 720th MP Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas and Vietnam, 1966.

     Also, in the head, at the rear of the ship you didn't want to sit at the far end of the "seats." It was manly a trough with a long row of toilet seats and a continuous flow of water. However, if the ship would roll and heave just right, it would backwash and surge out of the last seat or two on the end. Sometimes undesirable "solids" would come floating out all over the seats. So most guys learned real quick to avoid the far end of the seats.

     Taking a shower was always fun because you had to constantly shuffle back and forth from one foot to another with the stream of the water as the ship rolled.

      "  SP/4 Gary C. Watts, A Company, 720th MP Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas and Vietnam, October 1966-October 1967.

15 October The USNS Sultan dropped anchor at the Island of Okinawa, Japan. The last time the Battalion saw Japan was when they departed the country for their return to Fort Hood, Texas, on 21 February 1955 after eleven years of WWII occupational duty in Tokyo.

     "As we approached the island of Okinawa, Japan in the early morning hours, our 3rd Platoon Sergeant, SSG Kenneth McClain [B Company] pointed out Red Beach to me. SSG McClain said he landed on Red Beach in WWII during the invasion of Okinawa. He also said it was hell landing during the assault. SSG McClain served in the Korean War too.

     We stopped in Okinawa at 0930 hours for shore leave and left at 1600 hours. It took every MP on Okinawa to round us up. There were four 720th MPs that missed boarding and were left on the dock as the ship headed out. They got on a tug boat and chased the Sultan as it pulled out of the harbor, and just did catch up with it to get on board.  Journal of SP/4 Allan M. Portnoy, B Company & 615th MP Company, 720th MP Battalion, October 1966-October 1967.

   The Battalion was required to stay onboard throughout the night while the ship remained anchored in the harbor awaiting for daylight to depart for Vung Tau, its final destination.

   PFC Allan Portnoy, B Company, was assigned as a deck guard and recalls spending his night watching the flares and tracers light up the distant sky beyond the city.

Personal Reflections  "We dropped anchor in Da Nang harbor, South Vietnam late on 18 October 1966 and dropped off the contingent of Marines that were aboard. I was a deck guard the night we spent in Da Nang harbor. I watched artillery going off all night on shore.

    The next day the ship pulled into Vung Tau harbor and we hit the beach on a WWII landing craft."  Journal of SP/4 Allan M. Portnoy, B Company & 615th MP Company, 720th MP Battalion, October 1966-October 1967.

   When the Battalion arrived in South Vietnam MACV was conducting their 4th U.S. Campaign, Counter-offensive Phase II, 1 July 1966 to 31 May 1967.

19 October In the early morning hours the USNS General Daniel I. Sultan entered the port city Harbor of Vung Tau, South Vietnam, the final port of call of the 720th MP Battalion.

   The soldiers of the Battalion awoke at dawn, climbed the three flights of stairs to the top deck of the troop ship with full gear, weapons, duffel bag, and AWOL bag for inspection and roll call.

   They then waited for the order to walk back down the same three flights of stairs to the gangway to disembark. They were each issued 100 round of rifle ammunition.

1030 hours The 720th MP Battalion 579 strong including the seven-man CID unit arrived on the beaches of Vung Tau, one of Vietnam’s most beautiful coastal resort cities.

     LTC Glenn A. Hill and SMG Richard J. Hall were greeted by the 89th Military Police Group Commander COL Robert Sabolyk, and 18th Military Police Brigade Commander COL Thomas F. Guidera.

     The troops were in awe of their beautiful tropical surroundings, and for a brief but pleasant moment forgot they had just arrived in a country at war. Unfortunately, the brief moment came to a sudden end with the all to familiar smell of diesel exhaust and the sounds of two dozen Deuce-and-a-half’s arriving at the landing site. Quickly snapped back to reality, they began offloading their gear onto the beach.

     The Battalion Assistant S3, CPT David L. Lemon, didn’t join them on the beach; he remained on board the ship with a small detachment to oversee the transport of their vehicles and equipment from Vung Tau up the Nah Be and Saigon Rivers for off loading at the Saigon Docks.

     After another quick head-count, the troops boarded the trucks and were transported the short distance from the beach to the Vung Tau Airfield. Once again they had to wait, and sat alongside the runway in the hot tropical sun until it was their turn to board the C123 Provider transport planes for a brief flight north to the much larger Bien Hoa  Air Force Base, Bien Hoa Provence, III Corps Tactical Zone.

     It wasn’t until during the flight that the troops had a chance for the first time to look down upon the rich colors of the vast patchwork of rice paddies and jungle forest they would soon live and work in for the next twelve months. Upon landing at Bien Hoa Air Force Base, they again boarded trucks and Army buses for the five-mile drive to their new cantonment area at Long Binh Post.

     From Bien Hoa Air Base the Battalion was again transported, this time by truck to its new base camp area at Long Binh Post, III Corps Tactical Zone, Bien Hoa Provence (in the area of the above map shown as 18th MP Brigade cantonment) where it would spend the next 2,128 days in Vietnam before returning to the United States and Fort Hood, Texas in August 1972.

20 October The entire battalion was involved in the construction of their permanent base camp at Long Binh Post from 20 October through 4 November 1966.

     During this time period the new post was under construction and there were very few tenants. All battalion operations, billets, mess hall and other functions were run out of field tents.

Tactical Operations Center Battalion TOC was operated on a 24 hour basis. The day shift was staffed by the Operations Officer (S3), Operations Sergeant (S3), Intelligence (S2) and a clerk supplemented with a TOC Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) and a Radio/Telephone Operator (RTO).

     Each unit within Long Binh Post had their own perimeter for additional security within the outer post perimeter, and each provided men to guard both 24 hours a day. That included pulling physical security shifts in the Battalion 'Tree House' watch tower.

     The living conditions were "Spartan." With the influx of new units utilities and water services were primarily the responsibility of each unit, under field conditions.

     Portable generators provided electricity, there was no plumbing. A battalion water truck would transport the potable water from the post processing plant to locations with the compound where it was stored in 5 gallon 'Jerry Cans,' and poured into canvas 'Lyster Bags' for drinking.

     Toilet facilities were outhouses utilizing 55 gallon drums cut in half to catch the waste. Once the waste reached a certain level within the cans, they were drug out from under the bench and a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline was added. The contents were stirred with a large stick and burned.

     You eventually became accustomed to the smell and trying to avoid being picked for the daily "shit burning detail."

     Of course the one thing that the Battalion had plenty of besides dust and dirt was sand bags to fill! And that created even more dust and dirt in the air.

     When the rains came it all turned into a consistency of molasses and stained and stuck to everything it touched. The men first used a layer of sand over the clay dust to assist water drainage in their tents. Later they had to put pieces of wood under everything inside their tents to keep them from sinking down into the mud.

     The majority of the Battalion perimeter bunkers were constructed by 1st Platoon of A Company under the command of 2LT John Milligan.

Personal Reflection  "This wasn't even the early days as I see the wooden floors in the photographs of the tents. When we arrived in country in October 1966 we had mud floors with sand covering it . We were the ones that finally put the wooden floors down. "They were still that way when I left in May 1967.

     The latter coming guys sure had better living conditions than we did but in some ways they had a lot more tough duty than we had at first, what with the recon and ambush duty and the 1968 Tet offensive. I sure am glad I wasn't there for that."   PFC Gary W. Short, A Company, 720th MP Battalion, Fort Hood Texas, and Vietnam, October 1966-May 1967.

Personal Reflections  "We arrived in Long Binh to nothing but the red clay earth, and the Long Binh Jail "LBJ" [USARV Stockade].  We had to erect our tents, and of course, bunks, foot lockers, etc. all sat in the dirt and mud.  No floors... everything dirty and muddy.

     We filled sandbags every day, and had to stack them around the tents.  We also filled the sand bags and built the bunkers.  I didn't think it would ever end."   SP/4 Cecil A. Rhodes, C Company, 720th MP Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas and Vietnam, 1966-1967.

28 October A Viet Cong sapper team attacked the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) Ammunition Supply Depot on Long Binh Post with mortar fire and satchel charges resulting in two soldiers Killed In Action (KIA), nine Wounded In Action (WIA), and 13,000, 8” artillery rounds and, 3,700 propellants destroyed.

Personal Reflections  "The October 28th 1966 explosion was the result of a satchel charge, not a mortar round. We had a report that the Viet Cong were spotted in the ammo dump and were clearing the area when the pad went up.

     It hurled the shells (250 pounder's) a mile over the compound, landing in a field behind our hootches. One hit a tree branch, broke the branch (big branch) and fell about twenty feet from the kennels."  SP/4 Charles J. Hahn, Long Binh Detachment, 212th MP Company (Sentry Dog), 95th MP Battalion, 89th MP Group, 18th MP Brigade, 1966-1967.

Exact Date Unknown - Can Tho HQ Detachment assigned three communications specialist from Long Binh Post to the 560th MP Company Can Tho Detachment in IV Corps Tactical Zone (Mekong Delta) to operate a Radio Teletype Station.

    SGT Ronald Wonders, and SP/4’s Robert D. Bell and Carl G. Brewer, trained as MOS 05C Radio Teletype Operators, manned the radio box located in a bunker beside the motor pool. They lived in the Villa with the MP’s of the 560th. The three built the bunker with 55 gallon drums filled with sand and surrounded it with sand bags.

     During their shifts the RTT’s received messages pertaining to captured enemy prisoners under their call sign of UL8K, and relayed them to Vinh Long, call sign 4SIJ. The unit was still operational in October 1967 when SP/4 Brewer departed.

     "The first beer I had in country was Swan Lager, Auzzie beer, nice rusted cans at Vietnam air temperature. Seems it took a month or so before someone was able to acquire a couple cases. We hid out to drink the beer not wanting too many guys know we had beer. Beer/whiskey was in short supply early in the Battalions tour of 1966 .

    I in fact had a friend send me a pint of whiskey from the States in a plastic container that I kept hid in my foot-locker and would only occasionally nip at it after lights out. Not wanting to share a scarce commodity.

     We then got ration cards and would team up to acquire larger quantities of beer. I forget how much we were allowed on a months ration card. It was good to find a friend that didn’t drink beer to use his card.”   SP/4 Gary C. Watts, A Company, 720th MP Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas and Vietnam, October 1966-October 1967.