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Alan
wrote: Say - if
you were at Song Be until April of '70 - where you there when the MACV
compound
- and the det's hootch was hit - when Ed Deleon spent the night firing
an M-60
until he warped the barrel?
Alan: I saw that on the website and have been
thinking. I have to go back and check my stuff (letters) as to
when I got to Song Be. I went there before the big attack, and
right after
it, taking some pictures of the rubble. But I had not yet been
stationed there...so the date I saw of January 1970 threw me, since I
was there
then, but not during the attack...
(ref Song Be attack of Jan
1970)
I came later, and we stayed at a
fairly new
MACV compound down the road from the airfield, near the ARVN regional
headquarters...we took some rounds from time to time (some on my very
last day there) but
that big attack was before I got there.
The closest “incoming” to
my underground hootch was when a stoned out Army guard on the perimeter
fired his M-60 grenade launcher into our compound at the beer hootch,
which
exploded
about ten feet from my rack, fortunately, at ground level so over my
head.
I was in charge of the Det. there, and some of the guys
had
been
there for the big attack that wiped out the compound...names I am
terrible
with...but I saw that one photo and those two guys lounging in our
flight line
shack I know but cannot name...very familiar looking. A couple of
my guys
stayed at the airfield in a bunker, the rest of us stayed at the MACV
compound. (Robbie
Robinson's photos of Song Be)
I think I got there around the end of 69, cause when I
got back from
R&R to
Australia in late October 69, Ray Rubel approached me about going to
Song
Be. I'll get to work on the photos I have. Thanks.
Let me attach one here…this is me and some 1st
Cav dude at Song Be. You can see the infamous red dust smeared on
my
face.
Jim Knight 
8th APS Lt. James Knight in jeep with
1st Cav Sgt
Song Be, 1970
Lt. James T. Knight - Binh Thuy, Vietnam 1969
Outside the bunker in the housing complex in Binh Thuy. It was
taken in late 1969. Ran there more than once, in the middle of
the night. My roommate had built his rack in our hooch on top of
a sandbag bunker with a steel plate under the mattress. All he
had to do was roll out of bed and roll into his bunker.
Lt. Knight at Song Be receiving a plaque from an unknown general, of a
chrome-plated 122mm rocket that hit the base.
USAF & USA officers at Song Be in 1970
8th APS Commander Col. Victor Lisec on left, 8th APS Det
Commander of Song Be, Lt. Knight on right.
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