John Kozlowski and I went on a trouble shooting trip in late April 1970 to an area on the Mekong River on the border of Cambodia. The pictures are of John and the helicopter  and two shots of the village or town or whatever it was. I think it was near Hong Ngu

From there we were sent out to an outpost where they were having trouble with their crypto equipment. It was a spooky place to say the least. We couldn’t fix it, and it was getting late in the day. They wanted us to stay with them overnight but we didn’t, said we would come back the next day with a replacement machine. Nixon was on Armed Forces radio and I’m sure on the radio and TV back home denying the bombing of Cambodia. That night we could hear the pounding from the B-52s and if I remember right see the flashes coming from Cambodia.

The next morning we asked to get a helicopter back to the outpost but found out it had been overrun during the night and we could go back to Can Tho. We went to get a helicopter but had to wait most of the day as journalists were fleeing the area and all the copters were occupied. We were told journalists had been killed in Cambodia, one I believe from CBS. There was a rumor of CIA involvement but I doubt it.

The New York Times revealed the secret bombing within the week and Nixon was now forced to come clean to the American people, sparking the protests on college campuses and the Kent State Massacre. In his paranoia of the press and leaks from inside the DOD and NSA he ordered illegal wiretaps, ultimately leading to the Watergate break-in and his impeachment.

The carpet bombing in Cambodia and Laos killed by some estimates 450,000 innocent civilians, by other estimates over 1 million.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was written and became law in 1978 to prevent future abuse by the administration.

I enlisted in the Army as I was petrified of getting drafted and going in the infantry. I also believed we needed to stop the spread of communism. I spent part of the break between basic training and Ft. Monmouth in Berkley and hanging out with some college friends and started to question my values and beliefs. While training in New Jersey I went to see the Jefferson Airplane in Asbury Park, the Family of Man exhibit at the New York Art Museum, and spent a few weekends in Cambridge hanging out with hippies with some guys from Boston. Home on leave after completing training at Ft. Monmouth and heading to Vietnam feelings about the war had deteriorated further, and my father objected to my going. I still didn’t get it.

I knew things were really wrong early on in my tour of Vietnam but honestly it didn’t really hit home until that night watching the bombing.