Hey, Alan- I wasn't there yet, but heard about the event within a day or two of arrival at Holloway, (Jan '70) and remember looking toward the Mang Yang and hearing of the French and their last ditch stand just beyond, and thinkin'
'awshit"-what have I gotten into here?

I remember spending the first night of Tet (my first nite on guard) on Bunker 26, (you may recall, just past the Christmas tree, facing PAB and Marvin's Tank Park-but I digress...) and we had three booms over the main post area...
somebody said the next day it was airbursts of some kind- no injury or damage- I'd heard it was 122s- but apparently not. Not LOUD enough, or messy.

According to on of the ORLLs George pointed out, I think it was stated that those were RPGs, but I was surprised at that, since they were point-detonating, not proximity-fused.

First nite in-country, at LongBinh (40th Repl'Depot??) there was an unexploded 122 sticking out of the mud, with white engineer tape around it, right next to the hootch I was assigned for the nite- needless to say, I found a place to sleep somewhere else...

Got to Nha Trang, and overnited there, and there was mortar/rocket/buku small arms fire. Two nights in a row, and I felt I was no longer "cherry"...the word the next morning was that several aircrewmembers were killed, and several injured by rocket and mortar, and that a ground attack was beaten back.

Then, on to Pleiku; all quiet, best I recall at Holloway for ALMOST a week.

That first night on guard, I swear I heard someone in the wire... got on the phone to the OG and he said not to fire unless I SAW something. After a couple of calls, he had an Illum mission, and later a firefly, both of which revealed nothing.. the OG had a 3/4 with a landing light on it, and swept the area, ME included, from the road behind the bunker. No sign of Chuck.

On being relieved from guard the next a.m. (I did NOT sleep a wink, a don't think I ever did even while not on shift) the explanation was that it was likely "a FRIENDLY testing our defenses"...

That was long before I ever heard of anyone going out to the ville thru the fence....you listening, Bob, Ron, others?

Trigger-Happy Tom