Mr. Penley, I'll top post here because of the orderliness of your post:

First, the reason I made such remarks (they weren't intended to
be disparaging) was that I was familiar with SP's from my own
4 year tour. I roomed with one, had several for friends, and knew
that the LE's (Law Enforcement Officers) constantly raided their
barracks with dogs to find dope.

This is something they rarely even did to us, the flightline techs, so
we saw their life as a rather miserable one, relegated to watching
the 'line, admitting cars in and out of the gate, and consistently
being lorded over by the LE's, who were the ones you had to
watch out for.

None of the guys I had talked to were affected by Tet, and if any
had been stationed at Tan Son Nhut I would have heard, because
the majority of them were stationed in Thailand or points out of
country at the time. All they could say is that things got real busy during
Tet
and nobody was sleeping for a while (my memory is fuzzy, it's
not my recollection - but trying to recall what someone else told
me) that they were going 12 - 16 hours at a time, but that may
be wrong. Although I know they train you guys to be able to
function deprived of sleep, it was the opposite for guys on the
line, particularly the armaments guys. You don't want them making
mistakes with the ordinance, although we used to pull 16 hours
all the time - but Luke was just a training base.

Like I was trying to say before, and I guess I didn't do a good
job of holding my tongue the right way, is that outside of Tet and
the incident at Da Nang, the picture the guys painted was that
the Air Force bases were the safest place you could be in country.
They made it sound like when you left the base to go on R&R,
was when you were crossing the threshold. We were always
curious as to what life was like on the other side of the fence.

Anyway, remember, these are guys that fixed airplanes for a living,
if they were in SAC, a few of them got rides in B-52's and that's
where the one of the fellows got a bronze star - kicking out a
phosphor bomb that got stuck in a B-52 bay.

Anyway, there was no intent to disparage you or any remembrance
of SP's - to the best of our knowledge, there were no SP's that
ever saw action, so your recollection is news to me.

Thank you for the heads up.

Paul

"Charles Penley" wrote in message
news:vu7o5e2maj89e@corp.supernews.com...
> Paul, whoever the individual was, that was telling you about
> the U.S. Air Force Security Police in Vietnam did not know
> much about them. What about your experiences with Security
> Police? Know much about the Security Police?
>
> There were ten, USAF Bases in Vietnam. (None was ever
> taken.)
>
> Each base utilized Security Police as:
>
> 1. Base Police
> 2. Entry and Exit controllers at various gates.
> 3. Pass and ID Section
> 4. Customs Section
> 5. Sentry Dog Handlers
> 6. Vet Techs
> 7. Military Police Investigations (Controlling Black Market and
> all other Minor Crimes)
> 8. Central Security Control
> 9. Joint Defense Operations Center
> 10. Training Section
> 11. Tower Guards
> 12. Perimeter bunker guards
> 13. Administration
> 14. On Base Patrols
> 15. Reserve Security Alert Teams
> 16. Quick Reaction Teams
> 17. Desk Sergeants
> 18. Radio, Telephone Operator
> 19. M-60 Machine gunners
> 20. M-50 Machine gunners, quad-50's
> 21. Town Patrol
> 22. Embassy Duties in Saigon
> 23. Nung Guard, supervisors
> 24. Heavy Weapons Section, V-100's
> 25. MACV guards
>
> There are others but will not list them here.
>
> To date, I have never had a Vietnam Veteran from any of
> the services who has anything negative to say, to me about the
> Security Police as a whole. If they were lucky enough to
> be on a USAF base and sleep in a real bed, they knew that they
> would be safe that night. The only exceptions from being safe,
> would be from in-coming rockets and mortar attacks. Possibly
> some kind of stand-off weapons attack also.
>
> At Tan Son Nhut Air Base, during TET 1968, Security Police were
> instrumental in initially stopping a large human wave of VC and NVA.
> The NVA were pilots who were going to snatch a jet or helicopter to
> use that to attack Tan Son Nhut and then Saigon. They also utilized
> NVA personnel who could operate SVN tanks. They were also going to
> utilize the tanks, to attack us. This human wave, consisted of three
waves.
>
> Yes, the US Army 120th Attack Helicopter Co, was heavily involved with the
> Security Police during the TET 68 attack. Then having several helicopters
> being shot down during the heat of the battle. (The 120th became OPCON
> to the 377th Security Police Commander.)
>
> Yes the 3/4 Cav of the 25th Inf Div had to fight their way from Chu Chi
> to Saigon, to help defend the base and the city. Then having several
tanks
> and numerous Army personnel killed during the heat of the battle. (The
3/4
> Cav also becoming OPCON to the 377th Security Police Commander.)
>
> Yes, it was the US Air Force jets, from Tan Son Nhut, bombing the enemy
> who was on our perimeter and inside the perimeter where they had advanced
> approximately half a mile before being completely stopped. These jets
also
> had to bomb one of the French Bunkers, which was reinforced concrete and
> steel, that contained at the beginning of the shift, five Security
> Policemen.
>
> The enemy had over-run that bunker. Many hours later when that bunker
> was re-taken, four Security Policemen were dead and one SP was severly
> wounded. Having spent many hours with the enemy inside the bunker with
> him. With the friendlies shooting and bombing the bunker. (All were
> thought
> to be dead inside.)
>
> Then there was your remark, in your message:
>
> > ... they said there were three rings of
> > protection around them, the inner ring was SP's (USAF - which everyone
> > there knew was a joke, but you had to have them somewhere),
> >
> > Paul
>
> That is why, many people will not tell you of a war story. You were not
> there and yet you trivalize the Security Police.
>
> From the outside you can not understand it, and from the inside I can
> not tell you.
>
> Charles Penley
>
>
>
> "Atlanta Ramfan" wrote in message
> news:e3PEb.5720$wL6.289@newsread1.news.atl.earthli nk.net...
> > > >Hey guys, just found the newsgroup after having waded about in
> > > >the WWII newsgroup.
> > > >
> > > >I'm not a complete novice about the war, I volunteered and did
> > > >my 4 years in the USAF starting in 1976, got to work on the
> > > >first batch of F-15's to come out of St. Louis.
> > > >
> > > >My question to REAL Vietnam vets (not to someone wanting
> > > >to give their anti-war views) is why it was so hard to get someone
> > > >after they got back from war to tell me what they had been through,
> > > >particularly when I was in high school 1972-5 and particularly before
> > > >that, Junior HS 1970-2.
> > >
> > > I don't think many of us were too into analysing what had happened for
> > > one, and for the other, nobody would have understood it so why bother.
> > > I think most of us here let a couple of decades go by before we even
> > > started evaluating what had actually transpired.
> > >
> > > >Now there's a plethora of films out there to watch, but it seems
> > > >they all have some kind of spin to give, and there's few that just
> > > >show a real story (maybe Full Metal Jacket, but even that seems
> > > >overboard in places, particularly in basic - did any of you know
> > > >of someone who went ballistic and killed their DI?)
> > >
> > > No way, boot camp was very, very controlled but I liked the Movie. It
> > > had a message, the next time you watch it, see if you can find it. It
> > > is that once they did get through boot camp, it was almost always an
> > > an E-4 and under who had to make the life and death decisions in the
> > > field. There were a lot of exceptions, but the reality is, no matter
> > > what the rank, the age group was appropriate for the message.
> >
> > Thanks for your quick response.. when I was in, it was about a year
> > after Vietnam had officially ended (April 1976) but the actual combat
> > had been at least 3 1/2 to 4 years earlier, so the only guys that had
> > seen anything were lifers, and even then they were stationed at places
> > you would have dreamed of... they said there were three rings of
> > protection around them, the inner ring was SP's (USAF - which everyone
> > there knew was a joke, but you had to have them somewhere), the
> > center ring was Army guys being given a "breather" assignment, and
> > the outer ring would be Marines that actually did patrols from time to
> > time.
> >
> > The guys that told us the more believable stories (you had to sift
> > through the whiskey, beer, and BS) said they didn't really go through
> > anything, but some of them were decorated with some pretty heavy
> > s***, one had a silver star and another had a bronze star, but you
> > had to know them for a couple of years and THEN get them drunk
> > to ever find out what the story was.
> >
> > The kicker was, I think most of them saw more action (of sorts) with
> > the Asian women they married once they got back stateside.. one of
> > those decorated guys I spoke of got in an all out knife-fight with his
> > Thai wife after it was disclosed she'd lost $50K gambling with the other
> > Asian wifes on base. The day before it happened was the last time
> > I saw him, he got transferred somewhere real quick, and I hated it
> > because he was such a great guy, nothing ever seemed to bother him..
> >
> > another couple of guys we (enlistees that were never going to re-up)
> > admired, had been in since the early 60's, had known each other for
> > close to 15 years, one stole the other guys' Asian wife after all that
> > time, and they had been inseparable bike ridin' buddies, riding every
> > weekend they weren't on standby.
> >
> > It's not like we didn't have our own s*** happen while I was there..
> > One night when one of our guys was testing the hydraulics on a bird
> > that had been down 6 months and put back together, the line broke,
> > he lost his brake pedals, the F-15 jumped the chocks and was going
> > between 80-120 mph by the time it crossed the flightline and hit another
> > bird, which had just been fueled. The whole flightline got out there
with
> > hand held fire extinguishers until the Firefighters (who had to come a
> > couple miles from the end of the runway where they were stationed)
> > got there to do their thing - if that plane would have gone up, we'd
> > have lost 15 - 20 guys, but as it was, Davey (the guy doing the engine
> > test) got away with a broken leg from jumping out of the cockpit.
> >
> > The only story I heard that I had any prior knowledge of (having
> > heard about from news reports during the war) was when an armory
> > bunker at DaNang got blown up. I remembered that it played for
> > at least a week while I was in Junior High or something, and sounded
> > like such a huge thing ("how could they get that close to us" or
> > something like that). When one of those lifers I was telling you about
> > had been there, and said that a Viet Cong had just gotten lucky with
> > an RPG. He said they never had the range to threaten where the
> > planes or runway were, and someone had left the door open to the
> > bunker - or something like that.
> >
> > Anyway, that's about the extent of what "real" stories I know about
> > Viet Nam, save some real interesting books by guys I really believe
> > and obviously the documentaries and History Channel stuff.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
>
>