HOST: [00:00:00] More than 3 million American servicemen fought in the Vietnam War, and two thirds of those were Army. During the build up, troops traveled to Southeast Asia with their units just as they had in Korea and World War II. But unlike the men who fought in those wars, these guys didn’t stay for the duration of the conflict. Tours in Southeast Asia were defined as 365 days for the Army, Navy, and Air Force and 13 months for the Marine Corps. Because, you know, it’s the Marine Corps… These 12 or 13 month rotations meant that each branch needed a steady stream of troops to replace those who were killed in action, sent back home, or otherwise taken off the chessboard. Those replacements didn’t get to travel as a cohesive unit. By and large, they arrived in Vietnam individually, often on commercial passenger jets. Once there, they had to be processed into the theater of war and assigned to a unit. Their first stop, a replacement battalion, otherwise known as a repo depot. Here’s Jimmie Spencer describing his experience at the repo depot.

SPENCER: [00:01:05] The first time I set foot on, on the soil in Vietnam, I had the impression that that there was no place on Earth that I could be that was more foreign than where I came from. I suspect if I’d have been on the moon or Mars or something, it would have been okay. But, and it was, it was just something that, that just sort of overwhelmed me. I was immediately, uh, taken from the airplane to a bus and sent to a replacement center where we were basically confined to a compound. And people were just stuffed in there. And what passed for leadership was a disembodied voice over a loudspeaker telling you that that you were, that you were expected to report to the orderly room because you were, you’ve been assigned to a unit. And we were there for… I was there, I guess, for about four or five days before I got my first assignment. And it was not a very, uh, not a very good way to start. Start your tour.

HOST: [00:02:04] Life in the repo depot was defined in part at least, by one big contradiction. On one hand, you might feel dehumanized, like you’re just another unit being processed, one that might not even survive its intended use. On the other hand, you might find yourself overwhelmed by a swirl of feelings that are distinctly human: feelings of duty, of longing, and of uncertainty. This crazy crossroads existed, of course, entirely in the context of a military operation, which meant there were people assigned to run it. In this episode, we’ll hear from Ray Welch Jr, who commanded the Army’s 544th Replacement Company at Cam Ranh Bay in 1970.

WELCH JR: [00:02:47] When you deal with as many folks as we did during the day, I mean, there are just problems. Uh, they were scared. Sometimes. They just needed to talk to somebody. Uh, so you had to be available to to be a listener.

HOST: [00:03:05] Stick around. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Founders of The Wall, this is echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict… More than 50 years later. This is Episode 47, “Repo Depot.” Ray Welch, Jr. served two tours in Vietnam during the war. His first tour started in September of 1965, when he led a rifle platoon in the 1st Cavalry Division. In February of 1970, he returned to Vietnam for a second tour, this time as a captain on the list for promotion to major. While he waited for an opening at the next level, the Army parked him at the 544th Replacement Company in Cam Ranh Bay, where he served as the company commander for two-and-a-half months before being reassigned. More than 50 years later, his memories of those ten weeks are still vivid.

WELCH JR: [00:04:25] I was originally supposed to go back to the 1st Cav to the Adjutant General’s office in the Personnel Service Division, Chief of Personnel Services Division. But the assignment was changed, uh, for whatever reason. And I wound up at Cam Ranh, and I got assigned as the company commander of the 544th Replacement Company.

HOST: [00:04:54] The first time you went to Vietnam, you went as part of a unit that moved en masse to Vietnam…

WELCH JR: [00:05:04] Correct.

HOST: [00:05:04] By this point in the war, uh, guys are not coming in in units anymore. They’re coming in as individuals.

WELCH JR: [00:05:13] That is correct.

HOST: [00:05:14] Your unit’s job now at the replacement company is to process those individuals.

WELCH JR: [00:05:19] Yes, sir. That’s, that’s correct. Yeah.

HOST: [00:05:22] Into the the theater of war, essentially.

WELCH JR: [00:05:26] The deployment of major units, you know, had to be by, by sea… By ships, because of the large amount of personnel that were being moved and the need for various units. Uh, by mid ’66, ’67, there became the need for individual replacements, because a tour of duty, uh, was 365 days as opposed to Korea, of course, World War II, when you went in, you were there for the duration… But they had established, they being the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, that you would only do a one-year tour. So thus the need for individual replacement. Now in previous situations, uh, personnel were moved by boat because that was the the largest, the quickest and easiest way to move people. But because of the lack of air superiority by the enemy, then it became feasible to introduce replacements in, via air and uh, there were charter aircraft, uh, usually DC-8, “Stretch Eights,” and those aircraft could handle anywhere from 204 to 200 and uh, 10 or 12 uh, passengers. Yeah.

WELCH JR: [00:07:18] There were basically two entries for Army forces into South Vietnam. One was in the Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base, uh, where the uh 90th Replacement Battalion originated in the early days of the war. It was Camp Alpha and later re-designated 90th Replacement… And Cam Ranh, uh, Air Force Base came available, and thus the need for the 22nd Replacement was established there. So there were two ports of entry via air, at that point, the 22nd Replacement Battalion was located, uh, in the Cam Ranh Bay area, and uh. Flight schedules were maintained and most of our planes incoming were coming in from, uh, Fort Lewis, Seattle, Washington area. We would get anywhere from three to eight aircraft a day. Yeah. Uh, the battalion basically had several companies. The 544th, uh, processed all E-1 through E-6 incoming in the country. There was another replacement company and they processed all E-1 through E-6, outgoing or returning back to the states. There was a third company that handled nothing but R&R, uh, in country and out of country. There was a fourth replacement company that basically handled the officers and senior NCOs. Uh, E-7 and above, coming in to country and also departing out of country. There was also a headquarters company that provided personnel that made up the various staff agencies within the battalion.

HOST: [00:09:54] The one that you were assigned to was the E-1 to E-6, incoming?

WELCH JR: [00:09:59] Correct. Okay.

HOST: [00:10:03] And your role there? You were the company commander?

WELCH JR: [00:10:06] I was the company commander. Uh, one of the things that we also were responsible, uh, because of need for a contingent of replacements, we kept a 100-man, 11-Bravo, which is the basic infantry MOS, uh, group of soldiers for about a week, two weeks, depending upon arrivals. Basically, we kept them as a guard force, but they are, their primary mission was in the event of a mass casualty of a unit, we could, in fact, within a very, very short period of time, move these 100 men in as instant replacements for infantry. Uh, they basically performed guard duty in around the battalion area. Uh, just to keep them trained in some, you know, most of the time these were lower-ranking enlisted men E1 through E4, and uh, it was to indoctrinate them a little bit about how to guard things. You know, also the, uh, because of the need for defense of the Cam Ranh Bay area. Each area, each each unit that was there had a part of the defensive perimeter which we also had to maintain. And, and, uh, I had to make sure that those defensive positions were, were organized properly and, and, uh, defended properly. I was there about two, maybe two-and-a-half months, and, and I really was over-grade for the assignment because I was on the promotion list to major, and, uh, so basically, I got reassigned to Long Bình post to the 29th General Support Group.

HOST: [00:12:36] Well, during that two, two-and-a-half months, um, are there particular incidents that stand out in your memory as being, uh, you know, surprising or eye opening in some way?

WELCH JR: [00:12:49] There were two specific things that come to mind… Uh, the replacement battalion assignment was relatively secure. You know, we were subject to being rocketed and so on, but, uh, I had to maintain a mess hall that was open 24/7, uh, because the flights came at various times of the day, and so we had to feed these folks. In some cases they hadn’t eaten in some 11, 12 hours. Uh, one afternoon I was, actually in the morning, I was wandering through the company area, checking, making sure things were what they were supposed to be. I went into the mess hall and into the the administrative area, and I noticed a typewriter sitting there with a piece of paper in it. And, uh, no one was around and I just happened to start reading the letter. A young, uh, clerk for the mess hall was typing a letter to his parents, and he had written this horrible, you know, letter about being attacked and, uh, how bad things were and so on, which was not really the truth. I found a sticky note, stuck it on and said, uh, please come see me. So right after lunch, this young man reported in and I said, uh, I’m glad to see you’re writing your parents. However, you’re not telling them the whole story and the truth. Uh, I want you to not write your parents those kinds of things because they’re not happening. They’re untruths. If I ever find out you’re telling them these stories again, I will help get you reassigned within the hour to a location where this is going to be your day-to-day routine. Do we have an understanding? He said, “Yes, sir.”

WELCH JR: [00:15:31] Uh, the second incident that, that was of kind of eye opening, uh, I was in the orderly room in my office, and my first sergeant came in and he said, there’s two MPs that need to speak to you. So I said, send them in, and conversation basically was that they wanted to apprehend the young man who had allegedly robbed a bank, uh, off the post at Fort Lewis, and he had gone back to the post, uh, got on a plane and was on the plane, incoming as part of the replacements. They wanted to apprehend him at the plane, and I told them this was not a good idea, that it would be best if we brought him over to the company area and our procedure was to have all the men line up, and then we would call them into the processing building, uh, one by one. And if they would be inside the door when this young man stepped in and they could easily apprehend him without a whole lot of danger or anything to others that might be in the area. Uh, basically, that’s what happened. Uh, they apprehended him, put him in a jeep and took him right on back and put him on the same airplane in hand irons to go back to face, uh, bank robbery charges at Fort Lewis. Uh, I guess the young man thought he would be able to escape. However, when he robbed the bank, he did it in uniform with his name tag, and, uh, it was pretty obvious who he was. And, of course, they had him on camera. He just didn’t really think through the whole situation, I guess.

HOST: [00:17:51] More after a short break. Can you feel it? That little tingle of excitement in the air? That’s because we’re just two weeks away now from kicking off the 2023 tour of The Wall That Heals, VVMF’s exact replica of The Wall at three-quarter scale that travels to cities and towns all across America. If you want to know more about this traveling exhibit and the impact it can have on a community, check out Episode 15 of this podcast. More than 100 communities applied to host The Wall That Heals this year, which is the 50th anniversary of the close of combat operations in Vietnam. The tour schedule includes more than 30 cities and towns stretching from South Carolina to Idaho, and Maine to California. Is it coming anywhere near your town? Visit vvmf.org to find out. Do you have a loved one who survived the Vietnam War and died after returning home? Did you know that you can honor them at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? We’re still accepting applications for the 2023 In Memory Honor Roll through March 29th. We have an In Memory Facebook group also with almost 20,000 members, so be sure to join that if you want to feel part of a community of people who’ve experienced a loss similar to yours, you’ll find the In Memory Honor Roll application and a link to the Facebook group by going to vvmf.org and clicking on In Memory. And finally, I want to say a quick thank you to our friends over at Witness to War. That clip of Jimmie Spencer that we used to open this episode came from them, and the clip of Bill Crossley that you’ll hear at the end of this episode also came from Witness to War’s tremendous and growing archive of interviews with U.S. service members who fought in World War II and every conflict since. Check them out at witnesstowar.org.

SINISE: [00:19:54] Hello, I’m Gary Sinise. Nearly 3 million Americans served in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 have their names inscribed on The Wall. Those that pay the ultimate price in service to America. Some might ask why the Vietnam War still matters. It matters because more than 58,000 lives were cut short and their families forever changed. It matters because we should never forget how Vietnam veterans were treated when they came home. A lesson learned so that our current generation of veterans are treated with respect. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the organization that built The Wall, works to ensure that future generations will understand the war’s impact. I’m asking you to help keep the promise The Wall was built on. Never forget. Visit vvmf.org to find out how you can get involved.

HOST: [00:21:06] And now the rest of my interview with Ray Welch, Jr. Well, so walk me through. You know, let’s say that I’m a young enlisted guy, so I land at Cam Ranh Bay… What’s my experience?

WELCH JR: [00:21:20] The aircraft coming in? Uh, basically, were civilian aircraft. The majority of them were civilian aircraft. And they would come in, uh, they would fuel sometimes in Japan, Guam, various places. But they only came in with a, a, uh, half a fuel load, primarily for safety reasons, because they could be attacked at any time on the on the ground, and they only wanted to spend minimum time on the ground. So when a flight landed, you basically looking at about a 30-minute window maximum that that aircraft was going to stay on the ground. As soon as it landed, and came to a standstill, baggage was off-loaded. Uh, those that were on the plane that were incoming got off the plane. There was also a contingent of people who were returning back to stateside on their DEROS. And those folks would be, their baggage would also be on-loaded. Plus they would be getting on the plane, uh, fairly quick. Uh, those that were being, of course, off-loaded would get on the buses that had brought those who were exiting the country, and they would be brought back to the 544th. That’s the lower-ranking enlisted. And we would form them up outside of our processing building. Uh, and then we would then move them into the building, and there were table and chairs for them to sit at and fill out various paperwork that would be collected, taken to our, uh, operations people who then would, uh, check with uh, US Army Vietnam as to needs of, uh, military occupational skills, uh, ranks and so on, and gather assignments for these folks.

WELCH JR: [00:24:02] And they would stay with us probably a minimum of eight to, uh, 72 hours, depending upon their military occupational skills and rank and needs and, uh, trying to find them appropriate assignments. Uh, then we would then transport them back, usually over to the airbase where they would get either C-130’s, 123’s or helicopters as need be to get them to their, uh, next units. Uh, we would offer, you know, we had shower facilities. We had beds. Most of the time they wanted to eat and take shower and rest, and that kind of fit into the… To our needs to get us enough time to, for USARV to find assignments or to tell us where they needed to go. And of course, that changed hourly based upon activities throughout, uh, Vietnam… And most of our people, they arrived in Cam Ranh were going to go into, uh. First and Second Corps, uh, which was the two Northern Corps areas of, uh, South Vietnam. If there was an assignment in, uh, Third and Fourth Corp that normally would be filled by the 90th, uh, is basically the country was divided into two parts, as best I remember.

HOST: [00:26:12] So your job is to, in a sense, to be sort of a matchmaker. You’re sitting where the supply meets the demand?

WELCH JR: [00:26:19] Well, actually, the, the, the battalion operations people did that. My job was more like a hotel keeper. Uh, I provided a place for him to eat, sleep, rest while assignments were being, uh, obtained.

HOST: [00:26:39] I see. Is there any recreation available for them?

WELCH JR: [00:26:43] Yes. Within, uh, within my area, uh, of the battalion, uh, there was a huge USO club staffed by, uh, civilian personnel. Uh, they had phones that you could call the states. Uh, they had all kinds of recreational things. Ping pong, pool tables, uh… Basically anything… Cards… They, uh, just a variety of things. There was also a detachment of Donut Dollies, uh, Red Cross girls, uh, who had a facility. And they also could provide recreational activities. But, you know, most of the people that, that use those were to stay with us longer than eight to 12 hours because usually they were wore out from the flight, but still that opportunity was available to him. And of course, the the use of the phones, uh, was, was very important. The battalion also had a chaplain and we had a little chapel, uh, for those that felt the need. And of course, the chaplain ran various religious services, uh, for these young men incoming. As we were on the inlet of the Cam Ranh Bay, uh, of course, we had a nice beach in, in sandy beach and so on, but, uh, there and created a problem in that there was a tremendous amount of waste being dumped into the bay by those units that were there, and sometimes we developed a little health hazard by swimming in the in the ocean. We also had a PX in our area, uh, which was an interesting thing. I don’t know if you anybody talked to you about the ration cards and various things that were rationed.

HOST: [00:29:08] No. Not really.

WELCH JR: [00:29:10] Every soldier entering the USARV was given a ration card and you could buy so much, uh, we called it “class six.” Beverages… Alcoholic beverages. Uh, so many bottles of alcohol in a month’s time. Uh, there would be places for TVs and cameras, uh, which were in very, very short supply, but in high demand. And, uh. In order to buy, you had to have a place to be punched on your ration card. You know, uh, that was another thing that as these folks came in, all that had to be taken care of to make sure they got their ration card on those that were incoming, uh…. Those that were leaving country, uh, on permanent assignment or reassignment, of course, their ration cards needed to be taken up and destroyed because otherwise they could be used for black market purposes. One of the things that had to be done with the incoming people is that all the, their US currency had to be turned into Military Payment Certificates. So we had a finance detachment attached to us and they would do this conversion. Uh, because US dollars were forbidden to be used in in Vietnam. Now, if you were leaving country for any reason, obviously you had to convert your, uh, military payment certificates back into US currency.

HOST: [00:31:22] What were some of the recurring issues that you had to manage?

WELCH JR: [00:31:26] Uh, we had a, as I was telling you, we had this hundred-man guard thing. And of course there would be problems that somebody could go to sleep on guard duty. So each morning you had to deal with those by, uh, determining whether non-judicial punishment, uh, Article 15’s, were were necessary or whether it just required a talking to… Uh, there were just a variety of things you had to do, normal things you would do in a regular unit. Uh, somebody had to go through and make sure that, uh, the shower room was in working order, uh, if there was a plumbing issue, you had to make sure that it got fixed. Uh, of course we had to issue uniforms to these folks coming in. Uh, issue them jungle fatigues and boots and various and sundry things that they needed, immediately upon arrival. Uh. Uh. When you deal with, with as many folks as we did during the day, I mean, they’re just just problems. Sometimes they just needed to talk to somebody. Uh, so you had to be available to to be a listener. Uh, they were scared. You had to assure them that, that things were going to be all right. Uh, they didn’t know what to expect. And, you know, you just tried to do your best to assure them that things were going to work out. It’s… It was a tough job, but it had to be done. The main thing is, you know, keep them busy. Uh, busy mind, uh, keeps the devil away.

WELCH JR: [00:33:54] Plus you had your, your, your own cadre that you had to keep their morale up. Uh, but when you run basically a thousand people a day through a facility, you’ve got to continually do maintenance. Just wear and tear.

HOST: [00:34:16] So a thousand a thousand a day was about the the rate of flow for you?

WELCH JR: [00:34:22] Yes sir, yes sir. Because anyway, I mean, you might get three flights today… You might get nine flights tomorrow. Now, the operations people, of course, would get enough notice that they knew what was incoming. Uh, and of course, that, uh, dictated how many got sent home. You know, that we could process that many seats for people to return back to the United States.

HOST: [00:34:58] Ray Walsh, Jr. left active duty in 1981. He joined me from his home in Middlesboro, Kentucky, where he’s trying his best to retire from his third career as a professional photographer. We’re grateful that he shared his story with us. A quick editor’s note you heard Ray mention a military term “DEROS.” That’s an acronym, and it stands for date of Estimated Return from overseas for the Army, Navy and Air Force troops in Vietnam. It was set at 365 days from the time your Vietnam-bound transport left the United States. It can also be used as a verb, as you’ll hear in the clip that follows. It’s from Bill Crossley’s interview with Witness to War, and it illustrates yet another way that Vietnam veterans changed things for the generations who followed them into service.

CROSSLEY: [00:35:49] You know, when I went to Vietnam in ’67, it was an army of replacements. At that time, there was no unit cohesion. All the guys who had trained together at Fort Sill and with the battalion and gone with the battalion, they were all gone. And and the army had the craziest, the dumbest of personnel policy. They used to, they tried to leaven the units in such a way that not all the soldiers would be DEROS-ing. The 12 months wouldn’t be up all at the same time. So they would yank soldiers out of organized units and put them into a different unit, and then put new soldiers into the other unit. And there was absolutely no unit cohesion. And I assure you, uh, when, um, when my generation got to be in a position where we could have a serious influence in the Army, we told them that has got to stop. Never, ever again. Soldiers fight for their buddies. And when you start screwing around with the buddy system, you’re screwing around with the guts of the Army. Just don’t ever do it again. Um. Uh. All of us felt very, very strongly about that. It was a ridiculous way to run an army. We should have trained together before, before launching into combat that way. Never again will the Army do that, I think.

HOST: [00:37:28] We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice and healing. We’ll see you then.

[00:37:44] Hey, wake up in the morning and I’m ready to go. Don’t contemplate. Don’t hesitate. Just feel it and go. I know that if you do what you can, be the best. Know that if you do what you can, be the best. Don’t let anybody tell you you ain’t got what it takes. Cause the truth is, everybody here on earth makes mistakes. And I know that if you do what you can, be the best. Know that if you do it, you can beat the rest. I believe in me. I believe in me. I believe in me. I believe in me. I believe in me. I believe in me. I believe in me. I believe in me.

Full Interview with Ray Welch Jr.