| HOME Letter of Commendation to MSgt Robinson at Song Be - following attack on camp in January, 1970. dated 15 August, 1970. |
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HEADQUARTERS This is to commend you for the excellent manner in which you conducted yourself and carried out your assigned duties in the defense of your compound and your comrades during the enemy attack on the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Compound, Song Be, Republic of Vietnam on 20 and 21 January, 1970. The enemy attack consisted of more than one-hundred rocket and mortar rounds and automatic small arms fire impacting inside the compound with deadly and devastating accuracy. As a result of a direct hit within the nearby ammunition and POL storage area, a fire began which saturated the entire area continually with debris caused by subsequent explosions of approximately 3,000 mixed 105mm and 155mm artillery shells, several thousand assorted varieties of grenades and recoilless rifle shells, 1,000 mixed 60mm and 81mm mortar shells, 800,000 rounds of mixed small arms ammunition, miscellaneous other types of munitions and 93,000 liters of POL products. The compound was rendered totally uninhabitable and was evacuated. Your instant response to the emergency at hand and your excellent and unfaltering performance of your duties under such extreme conditions most assuredly contributed to the fact that the compound withstood the enemy attack and friendly casualties were held to a minimum with no fatalities. It is through outstanding military personnel of your caliber that the United States Military Services continue to progress. Signed: Robert
T.
Hayden |
| Letter from "Robie" Robinson to webmaster 11/1/2004: |
Alan, I can tell this is a form letter because my name is a different color font that the rest of the letter. Everyone there must have received the same letter or higher depending on what they did. I was just there. I spent most of the time in a bunker, safe from the shelling and rifle fire. I don't know if I could have done what Ed DeLeon and the others guy did. The building where I bunked in was right next to an ARVN ammo dump and, as the above letter mentions, a fire which set off the ammo dump set our building on fire and we all lost everything that wasn't on our backs or in our pockets. We were forced to move into the almost completed new compound. As I
recall it, on the evening of 20 January, 1970, around 8:00
p.m., one motor round landed somewhere within our compound. What the VC
was doing is seeing if they had our compound sited in. They certainly
did! Around
3:00 a.m. they started a motor barrage that lasted until
around 8:00 a.m. when an AC-119 boxcar called came over and sprayed
their area with their gatlin' guns or whatever they had on-board. I'm
not sure but I think the AC-119 was called a Shadow as opposed to
Spooky or Puff the Magic Dragon which was the AC-47 gunship. It was
then that we saw how bad our compound was hit. I believe
it was later
that morning that I was sent to Tan Son Nhut for three days of rest and
to pick up new clothes. I have some pictures of before and after at the
old compound and some of the new compound. Getting the pictures scanned
is my problem. I don't have my own computer so a friend does it for me
when he has time. I should have gotten everyone's name and put them on
the back of the pictures but I didn't. I'm hoping someone will see them
and recognize who they are and let's you or I know. I was at Song Be from 28 December, 1969 until 7 July, 1970. I wish there was a website where guys from DaNang and Song Be could get in touch with each. I don't know of any, do you? Thanks for making the 8th APS website. I guess this is as close as I'll come to talking to guys who were there when I was. I don't know if I mentioned it before but I was a ground radio operator (293X0) and worked in the small ALCE building right next to the 8APS building. Take care!.. Harold
Robbie Robinson
Robbie Robinson's photos of Song Be 1970
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