{"id":6840,"date":"2021-10-18T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T13:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6840"},"modified":"2025-06-27T16:03:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T20:03:06","slug":"getting-to-the-bottom-of-the-bottle-of-drambuie-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2021\/10\/18\/getting-to-the-bottom-of-the-bottle-of-drambuie-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting to the Bottom of the Bottle of Drambuie, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A photo snapped of Rod in the field somewhere in Vietnam.<\/p><\/div>\n

On January 1, 1967, New York Times headlines buzzed with coverage of a deadly war raging thousands of miles away in Vietnam. By February, journalists hustled to be the first to break news of the quickly deepening tensions surrounding the Vietnam War: \u201c2,000 in Capital Protest War: Clergy and Laymen March in Front of White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the country, civilians everywhere were beginning to see the true effects the war was having. Rod MacKay was not oblivious to what was happening around him. \u201cThe Vietnam War was starting to become more noticeable, and a lot of stuff was going on,\u201d he said. A young man from small-town life in Maine, Rod was a bright 18-year-old. His family had moved several years earlier to southern California. \u201cSeveral friends and I had been talking about it one day,\u201d he said. \u201cWe knew a lot of people had been drafted and we just had a few drinks one night and decided we were all going to enlist. So, that\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rod knew the next step was going to be a tough one: telling his family. \u201cFirst I had to decide to go home and tell my folks I had enlisted, because they had no clue. Which was\u2026,\u201d he laughed. \u201cThat was an experience. My mother was very upset. My father looked at me and he was a bit upset, too.\u201d Both of Rod\u2019s parents had served in World War II. \u201cMy mother, the lieutenant nurse, and my father the sergeant,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, they knew what could possibly happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rod’s sister Shari, standing with framed photos of her brothers Rod (left) and Craig (right).<\/p><\/div>\n

Rod\u2019s parents were not the only ones horrified that he had enlisted. His younger sister, Shari, shared in their fear. \u201cIt broke my heart because I had heard dad\u2019s stories,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd everything in the news that was going on at the time\u2014the idea that he would be over there putting himself in such danger\u2014and I know that because of the position that he had. He would be in frontlines and stuff like that, clearing areas in the jungle. Doing all these things that he did, it just terrified me.\u201d Though scared for her brother, Shari knew there was no stopping him. \u201cI knew my brother,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew he wasn\u2019t just there to be some idiot. He was doing what he thought was right for his country.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What He Was Doing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rod’s military portrait.<\/p><\/div>\n

Rod\u2019s first stop after his initial enlistment was Fort Ord, California, for basic training. After that, he would travel to Fort Devons in Massachusetts for Advanced Individual Training, or AIT.<\/p>\n

During his time in AIT, Rod was being trained to identify and intercept Non-Morse radio signals by means of a radio receiver and associated equipment. In other words, he was tasked with monitoring, collecting, and interpreting military voice and electronic signals from countries of interest. Much to his sister\u2019s dismay, this position came with risks. \u201cThat\u2019s when you started hearing about members of the ASA (Army Security Agency) and when they were in Vietnam,\u201d he stated. Rod began telling a story of the CONEX boxes that housed agents listening to electronic signals being transmitted around them. CONEX boxes were standard shipping containers developed to transport supplies during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. \u201cIf there was a problem, or the camp was being overrun,\u201d he said, \u201cthe guards were told to shoot the ASA people so they wouldn\u2019t be compromised.\u201d This was a common practice because if an ASA agent were captured by the enemy, they risked torture and death for the knowledge they held. He was grinning by this point, traveling back with his memories from what feels so long ago. \u201cI thought that wasn\u2019t a very nice thing to do,\u201d he remarked. \u201cBut I understood it.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his time at Fort Devons, Rod participated on an honor guard unit while taking classes for the ASA. The group had drill and attended ceremonies performing rifle drills and even marched in parades. \u201cI also was on a British Drill Squad,\u201d he said, scratching atop his white head of hair. \u201cThere were 10 soldiers and we practiced British Drill, which is different than American. We performed at different functions, too, which was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the people of the honor guard were people that were oriented or going toward their OCS (Officer Candidate School),\u201d he explained. \u201cOr Special Forces or Airborne or Ranger. We all wanted something more than just being in the service. I ended up going to OCS. I left Massachusetts and went down to Fort Belford, Virginia, and six months later I got my commission as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. Then I came back to Maine to see my future wife, and two weeks later, I was in Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting to Vietnam<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rod sat back in his chair, taking a sip of his cranberry juice. Setting the cup back down on his kitchen table, he crossed his arms across his chest. \u201cIt was quite an experience, you know,\u201d he finally said. \u201cYou take a civilian airplane, fill it up with brand-new soldiers and start flying over to Vietnam and no one\u2019s got a clue. We certainly didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

A quick Google search today reveals the average age of U.S. soldiers going to fight in Vietnam was 19 years old. \u201cI remember when we were coming in for a landing or started heading in for a landing,\u201d Rod said. \u201cThe plane pulled up and the stewardess started running up and down the aisle passing out little bottles of booze to everybody. Didn\u2019t matter how old you were, she was passing out booze.\u201d He recalls looking around at all the men unscrewing the bottles and guzzling their contents. \u201cThen the pilot comes on and says there\u2019s been a short delay because they (the enemy) were dropping mortars,\u201d he said. \u201cExplosions, on the airfield. \u2018We can\u2019t land right now.\u2019 So, we took all those bottles and kept asking for more. A few guys had bottles in their packs and started pulling them out. That was our first experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a holding pattern, a maneuver that keeps aircraft within specified airspace until clearance was permitted, Rod\u2019s plane was finally able to land. \u201cThen the busses pulled up,\u201d he said. \u201cGreen Army busses with steel cages all around the windows, you know, so stuff couldn\u2019t get in to the passengers.\u201d The busses were also outfitted with plates running along their sides. That\u2019s when he had a little realization. \u201cOh,\u201d he said he remembers saying. \u201cThis really isn\u2019t a good place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 1, 1967, New York Times headlines buzzed with coverage of a deadly war raging thousands of miles away in Vietnam. By February, journalists hustled to be the first to break news of the quickly deepening tensions surrounding the Vietnam War: \u201c2,000 in Capital Protest War: Clergy and Laymen March in Front of White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8232,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions\/8232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}