Conv-Book about AFVN / Navy with AFVN / Attack on Det 3

From: Marc Yablonka

Dated: April 6, 2018

Subject: Author Seeking Interviewees for Book about AFVN
Through the good graces of Bob Morecook, I'm a new member who is a military journalist and author of three Vietnam-related books. At this juncture, I'm hoping to write a book about AFVN. About its history, yes, but through the eyes and minds of those of you whose MOS meant your tours in Vietnam were spent at AFVN: disc jockeys, newsmen, producers on the radio side, and those both in front of and behind the cameras on the TV side. In previous years, I wrote an article about Pat Sajak for Vietnam magazine and a piece for American Veteran magazine (the AMVETS quarterly) about the history of AFRTS, for which I interviewed Pat, Chris Noel and Gene Frederickson among others.
FYI: My two published Vietnam books are "Distant War: Recollections of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia" (Navigator Books 2011) and "Tears Across the Mekong", about the secret war in Laos (Figueroa Press 2016). My latest work, tentatively titled "Bao Chi: Bringing the Nam Home", about combat correspondents and photographers who served in Vietnam in uniform, is slated to be published this fall by Castemate Publishing.
Anyone who is interested in being interviewed for my book, please contact me directly at marc.yablonka@sbcglobal.net, or through my web site below. Just click on "Contact Marc" and send me a message.
Thank you for your time. Hope to hear from you soon.
Marc Phillip Yablonka

Military Journalist & Author

"Tears Across the Mekong"

Available through: www.amazon.com or

www.marcpyablonka.com

marc.yablonka@sbcglobal.net

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From: Marc Yablonka

Dated: April 10, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

The name doesn’t ring a bell, Bob. I wish I’d been able to interview him for my upcoming book on combat correspondents and photographers. Finding Navy and Coastie reporters and photographers was like pulling teeth. Army and Marines were plentiful and easy to come by. Air Force pretty much as well.

From: Dick Ellis

Dated: April 10, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

Joe Ciokon should be able to put you on a big list of photogs and Navy PIO people....he is the Senior Daddy of all!!!!

Dickie

From: Joe Ciokon

Dated: April 11, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

Operation Frequent Wind epilogue
Vinh Q. Tran, a Lt.Col./flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force visited our USS MIDWAY library today. He and his family escaped during Operation Frequent Wind; Vinh was 2 years old. His father was a pilot in the South Vietnamese Air Force, was injured and went to work for the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. When Saigon started to fall, his father, Lu Ngoc Tran, mother, Yen Nguyen and Vinh went to Tan Son Nhut, the international airport in Saigon. Because of shelling, planes were unable to take off from the airport. The family waited under a truck for protection from the shelling. Finally, helicopters were allowed to fly from the airport and the family arrived on the USS Midway.
The family disembarked in Guam (where they were given Social Security numbers) and Vinh grew up in San Diego. Vinh became a doctor and joined the Air Force. In 2010, his wife talked him into leaving the Air Force and he taught medical school in Pennsylvania. He rejoined the Air Force, became a flight surgeon and is currently in command of the 412 Aerospace Medical Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base.
He is open to being interviewed for an internal news article. Vinh was hoping that we had a list of the people who came on board. He was disappointed that we didn’t because he wanted to find his parents’ names. He looked through the 1976 Cruise Book, and I shared with him the photos we have on PP5 of Operation Frequent Wind. Unfortunately, he didn’t see his parents in any of the pictures.
Vinh’s wife, Lynn, came to the United States in 1980 at 9 years of age with her 20 something year old brother, no parents. They were on a boat from Vietnam for 7 days before being found and they were boarded by pirates every day they were out to sea. She said she spent every day on the boat hugging the 50 gallon fuel drum and crying. Lynn made the comment that this is the best country in the world and that is why they wanted to come to the United States. (posted by LCDR Dick Walker, MIDWAY Speakers Bureau)
FYI,
Joe Ciokon, MCPO,USN (Ret.)/AFVN Saigon News 1967/8

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From: Bob Wilford

Dated: April 8, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

I had just replied to your first message. I am interested in being interviewed for your book. I have a couple of anecdotes I think you'd find interesting. I was at Det 3 through the first half of 1969 and Det 4 for the last half of 69. My cell is 678-772-9402- metro Atlanta. Email above. I can tell you about Det 3 being overrun, being rescued twice while alone in enemy territory, pulling bodies out of a burning chopper and pink elephants. I was TV news anchor and DJ at Det 3 and production and programming at Det 4. Love to hear from you

Book about AFVN / Navy with AFVN / Attack on Det 3

April 2018

AFVN Home

From: Bob Morecook

Dated: April 9, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

Hi Bob,

Why not tell the rest of us too about Det 3 being overrun. We all know what happened at Det 5 but not about Det 3!

Thanks,

Bob M

From: Jim White

Dated: April 11, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

For Marc Yablonka,
You wrote about not getting many Navy types. One possibility is Ken Kalish -- ken@carmabiz.com, who was with the Brown Water Navy in the Delta for the first half of his tour, then with AFVN. Another, even more rare, was a SeaBee who was with AFVN in Quang Tri, Dennis Woytek. And a third is Dennis Harper who was with AFVN in Saigon. I don't have a direct email address for either of them, but put out a notice to the AFVN@groups.com and put their names at the top. In recent years both of them have been somewhat active with the group so they might reply. My apologies for not having their direct email addresses.
Jim W

From: Bob Morecook

Dated: April 11, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

Marc,

Terry Oliver was also Navy and did news.

Bob M

From: Marc Yablonka

Dated: April 10, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

I wish I had known Joe back when I was writing the book, Dick. I contacted three Navy organizations, the US Navy Public Affairs Association, the Navy Photographers Association and the current USN media relations office back east and was only able to come up with three or four Navy guys! Publication of the book is slated for this fall. I believe and it's a tad late to make changes--unless the editor comes back to me and requires me to include more Navy guys, then I'll bug Joe!

Best, Marc

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From: Rick Fredericksen

Dated: April 9, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

For Bob Morecook. This is from the AFVN website:

[NB: More accurately it is on the MACOI.net site but linked from the AFVNVETS.net site. Webmaster]

. . . in Lieu of a Medal, Please Accept our Sincere Appreciation !
AFVN Det #3 on Dragon Mountain near Pleiku came under enemy fire on more than one occasion during the first half of 1969. On one such occasion, using heavy rain as cover a team of sappers penetrated the perimeter and overran the compound. The enemy had disabled the Claymores and managed to crawl through the concertina. The main thrust of the attack was the west end of the compound, and AFVN personnel were assisting defenders from other units in trying to repel the attack. I was detachment machine gunner, and was assisted by a Marine gunnery sergeant in deploying the M60. Rich Brooks was armed with an M79, and all Det 3 personnel were in the bunkers with M16's. As the enemy breached our defenses, they managed to cut the land line to the field phones we used to contact the Army IV Division headquarters assigned to assist in our defense. They dispatched Cobra gunships, which focused their assault on what we believed to be the main force, but their efforts were hampered by rain and darkness. One gunship crashed in the side of the mountain during this defense. We don't know what their real target was, as AFVN shared the mountain top on the south half of the ridge with other service signal and intelligence personnel, but AFVN sustained the most damage. Satchel charges destroyed the small studio building, and the co-axial cable running from the transmitter in the back of the van to the studio was nearly severed. We found out later we could broadcast audio, but no video.
The next day, Brooks and I were fully dressed out in helmet, flak jackets, weapons and ammunition, reading news and sports into the disabled camera, with nothing but open spaces and blue sky behind us in the ruined studio, when an engineer managed to repair the co-ax and there we were, live to the world! It was obvious to all what had happened.
Detachment CO Lt. Homer S. Cutlip later told us he'd submitted all Det 3 personnel for Bronze Stars, but the recommendation was rejected as "we were only doing what we had been trained to do." To this day, I get irritated when AFVN personnel are referred to as "non-combat."
--Bob Wilford

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From: Bob Wilford

Dated: April 10, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

Thanks Rick,

Don’t know there is much more to tell. I have since writing this (below) remembered the Gunnery Sergeant feeding me ammo was Johnson. And note to Mr. Yablonka, we had a sailor named Dale Pittman who I believe was a photographer, and could be the one you have spoken to. (He was an extra in a movie, Sand Pebbles, Sand Pipers, something like that. He also taught me how to drink gin in substantial quantities.) As some point that night I managed to find the break in the phone lines and make a splice in them and so regained phone contact, but it was surely too late to call the 4th for help…that had to have been by radio.
I recall we had a deuce-and-a-half parked beside the hootches, and as things were winding down I joined Lt. Cutlip to survey the damage. He was leaning against the truck, and one of us finally noticed an undetonated satchel charge in the bed of the truck. The enemy has gotten within “an easy toss” of our beds.
Mostly I remember the fear. Stomach-churning, sweat-producing fear. NOTHING is as terrifying as the echoed call “gooks in the wire” being shouted in alert from one bunker to the next. Adding to the confusion was our inability to identify the enemy-in the monsoon rain and midnight darkness the shirtless Samoans from the adjacent buildings were impossible to distinguish from shirtless VC.

From: Marc Yablonka

Dated: April 11, 2018

Subject: Author seeking interviewees for a book about AFVN

Note to Jim White:
Thank you for this info about Navy personnel who were either correspondents and photographers. I wish I had made your acquaintance while I was writing the book. As I believe I mentioned, the book is slated for publishing, I hope, sometime this fall. I knocked on the door of two Naval photographer associations, one of which had a retired admiral as its president who never even had the courtesy to get back to me; the other of which did produce a couple of Navy photogs. I also wrote the OIC of the US Navy's media relations offices back east, who was very helpful. She even contacted the admiral herself, but to no avail. Nonetheless I did get two or three responses. Will keep your suggestions on file in case an editor from the publishing company brings up the fact that my Navy pickins are slim and tasks me with finding more.
On another note: Bob Morecook suggested I contact you to find out, all told, how many AFVN staffers there were. Any idea?
Thank you!
Marc

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