Reply #33: During TET many of us "repair" guys were engaged in our first real combat.

[county worker]

I was a radar repairman at Long Binh. During TET we found out that the enemy had infiltrated every city town and village surrounding us. We were given hasty training on M-60 and M-50 machine guns and sent out to defend our repair facilities. Ours was just across the road from Ben Hoa air base.

The ammo dump on the base was blown up and we were surrounded. I owe my life to the guys in the huey's and cobras who all night fired mini guns and rockets into the enemy.

I don't mind saying that I wasn't a combat troop but still at times we all could have been killed. My chances of survival were better than theirs for sure.

On edit: For six months I was part of an on call repair team. We were called to go anywhere and fix radar sets. We would ask some warrant officer in a heuy if he was going in our direction and if he had room he would take us but they would never bring us back.

Rarely did I know where we were going or where we were. On the return we had to hitch rides on caribous and were dumped off at various air strips cut out of the jungle. We were left there all alone with our equipment waiting for another plane to come and take us the rest of the way. I always thought we were sitting targets then.