I enlisted in the Navy on a delayed enlistment on October 1967 and completed basic training in San Diego, California in January 1968. My first duty station was Midway Atoll after one year of duty I volunteered for service in Vietnam. The next duty station was Port Hueneme, California where I was assigned to Delta Company of Mobile Construction Battalion Eleven (MCB 11) of the Navy Seabees for military training in preparation for deployment to Vietnam. The men of MCB 11 received weapons training like M-16 rifles, M-79 grenade launchers and M-60 machine guns. The battalion received additional training at Camp Pendleton, California with more classroom training and bivouac training.
After weeks of training the time had come for the nine-month deployment to Vietnam. The men of MCB 11 (1,100 sailors) flew out of Point Mugu Naval Air Station on Tiger Airlines arriving in Da Nang, Vietnam in June 1969. After we disembarked the aircraft, we loaded our equipment and supplies onto a C-130 cargo plane for a short flight to Camp Haines. As we approached our base the C-130 rear door opened and the pallet containing our equipment and supplies was pushed off the plane onto a dirt runaway without stopping the plane. Once the aircraft came to a stop, we disembarked, and then the aircraft took off, being on the ground for less than two minutes.
Camp Haines was located north of the ancient city of Hue and Quang Tri, just off of Highway 1. My first duty in Vietnam was base security around the perimeter of the base in a three-person sandbag bunker. One night early in the deployment a few bunkers from mine. We experienced a North Vietnamese sapper infiltrated are base perimeter by crawling undetected under concertina wire before being killed. This created pandemonium on the base not knowing how many infiltrates penetrated the base. We found one Vietnamese sapper, and we never determined how he was able to penetrate the base. We realized just how vulnerable we were.
Another incident one night while guard duty in the bunker. We had a small water hole just outside the perimeter wire. When two Asian tigers met at the same water hole and got into a fight. The fight only lasted a few seconds and then dead silence. This is how we found out that Vietnam had tigers.
After about 30 days in Vietnam, I was transferred out of base security back to Delta Company and the remaining tour was spent building a bridge on the Song Bo river.
Before our scheduled tour of duty ended, the battalion received noticed that our battalion would be decommissioned part of President Nixon troop reduction in Vietnam. After about 6 months in country MCB 11 ending our tour of duty in November 1969 returning to Port Hueneme, California and was honorably discharged.
In memory of CM1 Milford Tongnazzini, fatally injured in a vehicle explosion.
