Chapter Two

The End of an Era

As the sun set at their backs and their eyes were fixed over the sea just above the horizon, they stared in disbelief as three UFO's disappeared from view.

It was late April 1975 at DaNang Air Base and the witnesses to the sighting were Ameircan Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen along with nearly the entire population of that port city on the east coast of South Vietnam.

Just minutes before, the formation of the slow moving, glowing disks had passed directly over Saigon from the southwest, proceeded on a vector directly over DaNang on the coast and continued in a straight line out over the ocean until they disappeared in the east.

TSgt Ralph Benson was inside the comm center at the sprawling Saigon facility when an excited young Airman came running in out of breath. "Sarge! Sarge! You gotta come see! There's UFO's flyin' overhead outside!"

"Glen," he replied, "will you give me a break? I've got enough work to do here without any of your crap."

"No, no. I'm serious as a heart attack Sarge! There's UFO's outside! They're flyin' overhead even as we speak. I swear to God! Come take a look.""Okay," he said as he got up to follow him outside. "But I'll have every damn stripe you've ever thought about having if you . . ."

He was cut off by the sight of three glowing disks, slowly moving over the compound to the east. He had heard about Project Blue Book and all those knuckleheads who swore they had seen flying saucers. He had always thought it was all a load of crap, but here they were, bigger'n caribou dung - flyin' directly overhead.

As amazing as the sighting was, the timing couldn't have been worse. Vietnam was being evacuated of all American personnel, effectively signaling the end of the war and North Vietnamese Regulars were rapidly approaching the city to exploit the power vacuum that would guarantee an unimpeded invasion. "And me and my crew in the middle of it all right here in downtown Saigon." he said to no one in particular.

His deadline was just hours away before the destruction of the comm center had to be completed and he wasn't even half-way through the classified yet. The boys from that Air National Guard unit out of Arkansas sure made quick work on the equipment though. "Damn," he thought to himself, "I wish I could swing a sledgehammer like that. I guess they must spend a lot of time chopping wood back home or something." He knew as he thought it, that more than likely it was from swinging sledgehammers erecting all the tents and antennas during the numerous field exercises they put them through in Combat Comm. All in all, it's a pretty good program with the G.I. Bill and the college tuition and all - except in time of war. Then you gotta take your chances with the rest of the active duty types. Think about it, why take recruits when the guardsman's already in uniform, trained and ready to go? Besides, those boys had a field day tearing up the "Switch".

The "Switch". An odd name for one of the bigger hubs in the South Pacific. But then again, any site that works as the central switching facility for a country the size of Louisiana typically is nicknamed a switch after its function. But it's the true hubs that carry the heavy traffic in and out of country that carry the real loads. Saigon was one such hub in a vast telephone and data communications network.

The ORION network, named after the stellar constellation due to the close similarity of the locations of the sites spread out over the eastern Pacific, evolved over the decades since WW2 out of necessity to provide communications between installations in theatre and from the far east back to the U.S. by way of Hawaii.

The primary backbone of the network included sites in Korea, Japan through Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Philippines, branching there to Vietnam, Australia and Guam. There was a back-link from Vietnam into the hub in Thailand that covered communications to the bases there, and from Australia there were two links down into sites in the Antartic completing the stellar constellation map of the hunter. From Guam, the long-haul traffic extended through Hawaii and to the gateway in California.

The line of communications during the Vietnam War extending from Thailand to California was nicknamed ORION's Belt and carried orders from the White House concerning the war and other such important communications as updates from the front to include Kissinger's efforts at the Peace Talks towards the end of the war.

As ComSec NCOIC for the facility on Taiwan, Benson was briefed on the network and it was common knowledge with anyone in any way connected to maintaining the system. Benson was a just a single little cog in the machine, stationed on an island off the coast of mainland China waiting for his orders to come in for a change of station back to the 'States like everyone else when he got temporary duty orders to go into Saigon and head up the team to destroy the comm center - especially all the classified.

He was only about half-way through counting off each sheet in each file, signing off the destruction of it, passing it to the guy at the shredder and moving on to the next sheet when a call came over the radio from his radio operator at the Embassy. "Charlie Romeo, Charlie Romeo, this is Charlie Whiskey, how copy, over?
"Benson keyed the radio and replied, "I got you five by, Charlie Whiskey, what's up Red, over?"

"Charlie Romeo, be advised, the mob outside my location is getting way out of control. Further, I have been authorized to pass new orders for you to wrap up what you're doing the best you can, blow the place and get over to my location for emergency evac, over."

The best placed plans of mice and men. - They were supposed to have at least three more hours, make their way to the Embassy, get choppered out to DaNang where their freedom bird waited, then back home. But no, "We've got to bug out now before the job's done." he thought. Well, at least the equipment's been destroyed and the guard guys are safe back at the Embassy, if not already in DaNang, but Benson was nowhere near finished with the classified.

According to proper procedure, each page had to be accounted for and it's destruction documented by at least two individuals. He had five, four-drawer file cabinets full of classified left with no time left to go. He looked over at the SSgt assigned to help him and told him, "Steve, it doesn't look like we're gonna make it out of here with a clean and documented destruction."

"It don't look like it to me either." Steve replied.

"Go get me five thermite grenades", which he did.

"You know how these work, right?" he asked him."Yeah, put 'em on top of the cabinet, pull the pin and watch it go into meltdown, but the cabinets are right next to each other. It might get a little hot in here for us to stay and witness it."

"Better for the burn, guy. We do this and the destruction is as good as done. Let's light 'em up."

Just then, the radio came alive again from who he thought was the operator back at the Embassy.

"Charlie Romeo, Charlie Romeo, this is Charlie Oscar, how copy?"
Besides recognizing the call sign, Benson could tell by the gravelly voice at the other end, it was his Chief of Operations, Lt. Colonel Moss. "I read you five by five Charlie Oscar, how me, over." he replied.

"I got a good copy on you Charlie Romeo", the radio came back, a little off frequency and starting to fade out, "I need you to pull a file for me before you finish up there, do you copy?"

"I understand, one file needs to be returned, is this correct?", he said."Yes, Charlie Romeo, I need you pull file four-fifty-seven and return with it to this location for me only, as soon as possible, do you copy?", he was starting to break up into static towards the end.

"That's affirmitive Charlie Oscar, file, I say numbers, four, fife, seven. Is this correct Charlie Oscar?", he passed back.

"That's affirmative, Charlie Romeo, file number four, fife, seven." repeating the correct way to pass numbers over the air. "I say again, ensure you return it only to me at my location. I urgently need that file before we leave for the coast, over." reiterating his earlier missive.

"Will do Charlie Oscar, return to you only, ASAP, Charlie Romeo out."

"Charlie Oscar, out."

He went over to the cabinets, checked the drawer indexes, ended up at the next cabinet he was to set to destroy and opened the third drawer. Quickly flipping through the tabs looking for four-fifty-seven, he saw that the divider holding the entire four-fifty section was sealed in a large manila envelope, about an inch thick and labeled in big, red bold print that read, "PROJECT ORION - TOP SECRET ULTRA V - NO FORN". He grabbed the whole one-fifty section, turned around to Steve and said, "Light 'em up and get EOD in here to blow the place. Our flight is gonna take off without us if we don't get outta here."

While Steve was pulling the pins, he scanned around the workcenter for a classified pouch with no luck. What he did find was one of those blue Air Force fiberglass briefcases with the three-digit tumbler lock on it. He opened it, found the combination on a slip of paper inside and tested it. 2-3-9. It worked. He tossed in the manila envelope along with his destruction documentation, closed the case and scrambled the lock. On his way to the door, he grabbed Steve and made their way outside to find EOD.

Outside, the perimeter was packed with locals trying to get in past the constantine wire-topped fence with no sucess. he found "Gramps", a MSgt EOD troop they had brought in from Thailand, the only other person left besides Steve, a couple of marines and himself. Gramps looked to be much too young in years to be a Master Sergeant, but in his thoughts, Ralph chalked that up to the probable high turn-over and nature of a career field having anything to do with bombs and high explosives. He told him the place was ready as soon as the cabinets were done.

Gramps went in with an ALICE pack full of C4 and came out a few minutes later. Benson stopped him and asked him for his empty ALICE pack for the briefcase and then said, "How're the cabinets coming?"

"Slag, man, they're already slag. You might want to move a little further away from the building though."

"Oh, you're ready to blow it?", he asked.

"No, I mean I've set the charges on a three minute timer and it took me a little over a minute to go around and set 'em all", he said as he quickly moved past Benson. "What I'm saying is, it's about to blow any second and you might want to move a little further away from the building."

The small group of American servicemen barely made it to the gate before the building went up. The explosion was a blessing in disguise because it tended to clear the streets around the compound so they could make their way over to the Embassy without too much of a crowd to struggle through.

Getting to the Embassy front gate is what proved to be the greatest fight of the day as the mob outside the big gates had reached riot porportions with the Marines barely holding them back from the inside. One chopper was taking off from the roof as another was landing as they made their way through the crowd to the gate.
Sporadic small arms fire could be heard all up and down the boulevard, the crowd was keeping pressure on the gate to get inside, and the Marines weren't giving up any ground.

After they were safe inside the compound proper, Ralph turned to Steve and said, "You just gotta love them guys," motioning to the Marines back at the gate who were still fighting the crowd back trying their best to keep the gates closed.