Getting into the War
Interviewer: What year did you go to Vietnam?
Hoffenblum: The first time was 1965, August of ‘65, it was my 25th birthday, and there was only about 35,000 GI’s in Vietnam at that time. In fact, I remember how surprised I was. We landed in Tan Son Nhat airport, we went up and the sergeant says okay go get a taxi, go downtown and get yourself a hotel. And sure enough we went down and we got a flea bag of a hotel called the Saigon Inn or something, but eventually I ended up staying at some hot hotel in downtown Saigon that was run by a Chinese man and run by a bunch of Chinese teenagers. It had a sign outside, “No Vietnamese allowed.” And actually had somewhat of an enjoyable time. I mean we were able to be with the economy. I understood the seriousness of the war don’t get me wrong, and I did not take that lightly, but I lived on the economy. We had some great French food and what have you. And then the second time I told you when I came back the following year and that was down in the Mekong Delta. The city, the capital was called Can Tho. The air base that I was, was Binh Thuy. It was also a Green Beret air base and there was a Navy air base in close proximity. But there I was there for nine months and there I was the base intelligence officer. I was making sure the base commander and the pilots were properly briefed as to what the dangers were and what have you.
Interviewer: What would you say your attitudes were about the War before going to Vietnam?
Hoffenblum: I was very supportive of the war. In fact, I went over the first time by assignment, it was at March Air Force Base and they needed an airman intelligence officer, who would be able to annotate photographs for bombing missions. When jets go over bombing missions, they don’t just drop bombs here and there. They have photographs in their cockpit with the buildings annotated where the anti-aircraft guns might be and surface to air missiles. And so they would have a photograph in their cockpit that usually was no more than 24 hours old and my first job in Vietnam we’d be there getting the photographs and annotating them and being prepared for the Air Force officers and their strikes on North Vietnam. Then, I came back after three months and back to March Air Force Base and then they sent me over to Bangor, Maine to be a bomber intelligence officer up there. A very very boring job. So the first thing I did was volunteer to go back to Vietnam because it’s like there is a war going on. If you’re in the military, you know, get there. Remember, I’m not an infantryman, I’m not being shot at, I’m an Air Force intelligence officer. So I did some pulling of the strings and persuasion and letter writing, so I was sent back to Vietnam and they stationed me again in Saigon, but then I got myself down to the Mekong Delta, where I was the base intelligence officer. But I was very supportive of the war during the war and very supportive of the war for the most part after the war, which is what got me involved in politics, was the war in Vietnam.
Interviewer: How did you get involved in the war?
Hoffenblum: You gotta remember back then, the Army was the only service that drafted and if you got drafted you only had to spend two years. Now, if you volunteered, you had to spend four years. If you got drafted into the Army, they didn’t send you to intelligence school or anything. I mean you got the artillery, you got the infantry, or you became the cook or something like that. But if you volunteer and of course you volunteer to the service you want and more often than not you had to volunteer what field you wanted to go in to. But for some reason when I went into the Air Force they sent me to armed forces air intelligence school and I became an intelligence officer and I was in the service for quite awhile before. When I was first in the Air Force, there was no war in Vietnam, we always talked about the war in Laos. So there were no real ground troops, that was the first time I went over there, there was only 35,000. Now when I came back a year later, there were 250,000 American GI’s that were in Vietnam at the time.
Interviewer: Did the soldiers ever talk about the French involvement in Vietnam prior to 1965?
Hoffenblum: Not anymore than I guess you all would be today talking about what’s going on in Crimea. If it was concerning, we’d be discussing it. I remember we were thinking that there would be no need for tanks and conventional military because the terrain would not allow it and we talked about it. None of us ever thought we’d be sent over there.
Interviewer: What were your daily duties?
Hoffenblum: Well the first one I would just say was routine. I had a commission. I was lieutenant, but the job was very routine, annotating photographs, not the most exciting job in the world. Most of the excitement was in the off hours when people would be down in Saigon. Now in the Mekong Delta, I was the base intelligence officer. In fact, at one time because of the information I got I probably predicted that the base… there was going to be a Christmas recess and I predicted and I said I believe we are going to be attacked some time before the Christmas recess, which was going to be like midnight after Christmas eve. And people started harassing me as the base wasn’t attacked. I remember they walked in, it was Christmas eve and said where is this attack? Well, it was right at midnight and the base was attacked, but the pilots were quite prepared because I briefed them on that and they were really in action. Very little damage was done on that attack. But my job was to keep them informed. We had over 200,000 Viet Congs throughout the Mekong Delta surrounding us and Can Tho was secure. Again, in Vietnam it is very interesting. Unlike the Iraq War where everybody was scared to death to go outside their compound, I had no trouble walking around Can Tho, I had no trouble walking around Saigon. I lived in downtown Can Tho, but that was the GIs, and same way in Saigon. We felt very secure. It was only when we got outside the parameters that you know, you better be careful.