Vietnam

Bill was sent to Vietnam.  He worked out of the Finance Office in Cam Ranh Bay as the disbursing officer.  Bill was responsible for making sure that the troops Bill in Vietnamwere paid. Oddly enough, the officer he sent his requests to was the other ROTC cadet from his Summer Boot Camp days who happened to be stationed in Saigon.

Bill was stationed in Cam Ranh Bay before being sent to Nha Trang to run the Finance Office there. But before he left Cam Ranh Bay, on August 25, 1971, he experienced the scariest day of his service when an ammunition dump was blown up.  (To read more about the blast: https://www.newspapers.com/article/enterprise-journal-315-aug-25-1971/35029849/)

Bill felt fortunate to be in the Finance Office. They didn’t think of themselves as regular Army. Usually, when someone asks Bill what movie about Vietnam most closely depicts his experience, he replies, “None.  My experience felt more like the movie M*A*S*H.” Bill told me that when someone would leave and return to the “Real World” (U.S.), they would have parties that included steak and wine.  “It was nice sending them back to the real world that way.”  Bill even remembers the finance department saying,

“Ours is not to do or die, but to add, subtract, and multiply.”

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