Wendy in the Sandbag

Wendy in the Sandbag By Robert Flanagan The 1st Radio Research Company (Aviation), euphemistic moniker for an Army Security Agency airborne operation which deployed to Viet Nam in 1967 under the code name CRAZY CAT and was, in a confusing interplay of cover names, re-named CEFLIEN LION (Sea-Flying Lion) by NSA. The “Crazy Cats” flew bastard step-child aircraft—the Navy’s cast off P-2V “Neptune,” six of which were acquired from the “boneyard” of military aircraft in Tucson, Ariz. The platform, flown out of Naval Air Facility/Air Force Base, Cam Ranh Bay in II Corps, was an intelligence collection project (initially manual Morse; later voice) which was to provide good intel to XXIV Corps and III MAF for some five years. Untold numbers of ARC LIGHT strikes and myriad tactical air attacks fell on targets acquired and “worked” by Crazy Cat. When I arrived in-country in September 1968 for my second tour, I came on orders for the 1RRC as Mission Controller on the P-2 flights. Initially hijacked by my own 224th Aviation Bn. headquarters to head up a job at Tan Son Nhut for four months, I finally reached CRB on New Year’s Day, 1969. After reporting in, getting briefed by a hung-over Exec, I was squired about the compound by a warrant officer pilot with an ulterior motive. First thing he showed me—before my billet room, before the latrine, before the messhall—was The Sandman Lounge. 1RRC had been in-country more than a year and had firmly established its priorities. The Sandman Lounge—wryly euphemized as The Sandbag—was a very small room on the downstairs, outside wall of one of the Army’s two BOQ billet, believed to have been built into the structure to serve as a storage shed for cleaning materials for the house girls. It had one door, leading out into Viet Nam. Inside was an Alice-in-Wonderland transition into fantasy, pulchritude and Pilsner. A camouflaged cargo chute was pulled up to the ceiling in the center of the tiny room, stapled about the shaft of a ceiling fan which turned listlessly below. Across the entire ceiling were stapled row upon row of military headgear, from a fatigue cap with an army PFC emblem, to a dress garrison cap with two stars ... and all ranks/services in between. Every wall was covered with Playboy centerfolds, Hustler hard-core Hannahs, and some personal photos of U/I round eyes. Interspersed among all the lovelies were short and pithy epithets, commenting on war, man’s folly, and literary themes. Almost every branch of the US Army came under fire: “Artillery: A noisy, aggravating intrusion into a benign, amiable scrap.” “Signal Corps: An organization of limitless interference into otherwise convenient means of communications.” Like that ... The bar, a flimsy affair of 2x4s and plywood overlaid with Masonite, was just large 1 enough to accommodate five elbows and six beer bottles. The thing had been thrown together by some out-of-work SeaBee neighbor in exhange for a brew. There were, at various times, one or two high stools of questionable substance which, when they hadn’t been fallen on and broken, served as props for drunks. There were no tables or regular chairs, no room or need for such trappings. And then there was the booze. A refrigerator, purchased in the P.I. by one of the early pilots while on a desalinization run for the aircraft, sat in the corner. It was kept filled with beer, mostly San Miguel Export. Occasionally someone coming back from Australia or Singapore would donate a case of Smithwick’s Ale or Foster’s; it didn’t matter. It was all drunk with equanimity. And for the dedicated, a variety of Scotch and Irish, bourbon, gin, vodka and every mystical concoction from the Caribbean and European spas. The Sandbag had acquired a reputation across Southeast Asia. Often aircraft dropped from the sky with pilots and movers-and-shakers making the most obviously phoney excuses for a TDY to somewhere, “stopping off for RON at CRB.” There was always an empty bunk, and the Sandbag was open any and all hours. The last drunk each night (early morn) to leave the holy spaces would lock up. But everyone, in the unit and in-country, knew where the key hung on a nail just inside the door to Lt. Fuzz’s room. Fuzz was another euphemism for, in this case, a young, cherubic lieutenant; an inveterate gambler—any game, either side—could play apparently any musical instrument ever made, and served as the “club officer,” a non-existent necessity. He kept the booze stock filled. Just inside the door, where a light switch should have been in most normal rooms, there was a small (1" x 2") slip of dirty white paper on which was written in minuscule script: “Hats: Wear ‘em in here; lose ‘em.” (sic). It accounted for the ample display of various headgear on the ceiling. A sailor’s white “Dixie cup” next to some LRRP’s boonie hat, baseball caps with Air Force squadron insignia, Army and Air Force dress hats; a Marine “piss-cutter” with a first lieutenant bar ... the whole gamut of hats. Just outside the door of the Sandbag was a concrete slab, a sort of poor man’s lanai, a gift from a neighboring SeaBee detachment. About the lanai was a woven, wooden-board fence. Scattered about were a few decrepit chairs, a couple of “Papa-san” bamboo seats, and a charcoal grill with several bullet holes. In addition to the The Sandman, another attraction that brought visitors slithering through the night to visit Cam Ranh Bay, was the Navy Mess where our Army 1RRC troops fed. This wonder of military culinary exotica was overseen full-time by a Navy warrant officer whom, it was rumored, slept there, so resolutely was he to be found at any time of the night or day in the kitchen. And as a result, the feeding frenzy in the mess hall was legendary. Unique, exquisite and varied cuisine met the diner on the line every day. My first move through the chow line there stopped me short at a pan of deep-fried 2 cauliflower, an old-South delicacy I’d grown up with but never encountered or even imagined in a military mess. The Mess was repeatedly accorded honors as “Best Food Service in Southeast Asia,” across service lines. Because the Navy warrant occasionally drank at the Sandbag, when a “beach party” was held at 1RRC on the lanai, the steaks and lobster on the grill came without a pricetag. As you can imagine, in that country where most GIs never saw clean sheets, a hot meal, or any hint of normality, life in the 1RRC was gracious living. The mission flights were a bitch: 12-14 hour flights on decrepit aircraft prone to failure and aborted missions; but the ground time made it all worthwhile. And when a Crazy Cat party was on, it was usual to notify the 6th Recovery Hospital at South Beach, farther down the peninsula. Nurses were also known to drink and party. A few Donut Dollies, USO workers and the odd female soldier at 1st Log Cmd would flock to the festivities, however they could get there. 1RRC’s CO’s Jeep was known to be deployed ... known to make regular runs. So that’s our setting. On one fine evening in the spring of ‘69, such a beach party was in full swing when my flight returned early from our mission, courtesy of some obscure but necessary part that had either broken or fallen off the aircraft. After debrief and gear turn-in, I shambled back to my room (I lived on the exact opposite side of the BOQ from The Sandbag; we shared a back wall.) and heard loud rock music and raucous singing, a not-unusual occurrence. Too early for the rack—it was only midnight—I headed to the bar. I’d seen women at the Sandbag before, some even in shorts and cut-offs in deference to the coastal mugginess at night, but you can imagine my surprise (and delight) at the picture before me. A gorgeous, young, female thing ... wearing only a small bra not up to the task of containment and bikini panties in baby blue, standing at the bar, one foot up on a stool rung, having a Foster’s. She was the only female in sight, and she was being unmercifully bird-dogged by every pilot, operator, ground-crew mechanic, parachute rigger and anyone else who could get anywhere near the bar. As I fought through the slavoring lot, just to get a brew, I got close enough to enjoy an appreciation for her obvious attractions. And she smelled great! One of the pilots, tossing a bone to a non-pilot WOPA Rep, said, “Hey, Bob, meet Wendy. She’s from Australia.” “Wendy,” I think I said; my tongue was thick. “Hello, Bob. I’m a showgirl,” she said coquettishly. “Indeed, you are,” I blurted out. 3 But our love affair went nowhere. Too many big guns trained on this one solitary target. She was swept away into a faux arm-wrestling competition; and because of her opponent’s open-mouthed infatuation, won handily. And the Foster’s flowed like water. She was a sight! Turns out, Wendy was with an Aussie-Kiwi entertainment troupe who were in-country, entertaining Australian troops and Americans at wretched little firebases and fire-support bases and other sinkholes in the back country.

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