Background/Context on Phu Bai Combat Base, Vietnam - and what happened there June 1, 1969?

PatrickAustin 

I am brand new to military research and have two additional questions:

1) how do i find out what specific training this soldier would have received, which I believe is a different question than asking for his military record. For example, every Army soldier gets the same training in boot camp, in his case at Fort Polk, but how can I find out the actually day-to-day or week-to-week at Fort Polk in March 1968, which was his enlistment date?

And would he have picked the military history detachment himself, or would it have been assigned to him? What is the training for a soldier assigned to the military history detachment?

2) Secondly, how do I request his military record? I have some information, but not the record itself - and I am not family.

Much appreciated!!

I am brand new to military research and have two additional questions:

1) how do i find out what specific training this soldier would have received, which I believe is a different question than asking for his military record. For example, every Army soldier gets the same training in boot camp, in his case at Fort Polk, but how can I find out the actually day-to-day or week-to-week at Fort Polk in March 1968, which was his enlistment date?

And would he have picked the military history detachment himself, or would it have been assigned to him? What is the training for a soldier assigned to the military history detachment?

2) Secondly, how do I request his military record? I have some information, but not the record itself - and I am not family.

Much appreciated!!

Well, let's break this down into parts:

1) Fort Polk, during the Vietnam War, was an Infantry Replacement Training Center. If you go to the Army Heritage and Education Center's digital archives at Carlisle Barracks, you can search for "Fort Polk," then select "Annual Historical Reports" to limit the number of records to look at. You'll probably find the annual reports of the Training Center, which will give you a basic idea of what they were teaching at the training center. He could, of course, also have been sent to a follow-on course if, for example, he was being trained as a clerk-typist. But you won't know that without having his personnel record. You can also try searching for "31st Military History Detachment" and selecting either "MACV Historian's files" or "Annual Historical reports" and seeing what pops up as well.

I will warn you that their search engine is a complete textual search, and their file naming is erratic, so you've been warned. Download or bookmark anything you find interesting, because you may never find it again otherwise.

https://arena.usahec.org/web/arena 

I've attached a document related to the 31st from AHEC's holdings, from 1968. it is their Letter of Instruction from USARV--basically their mission statement. It gives you a good idea of what they did.

He would not have picked the Military History Detachment himself. It would have been assigned to him. That said, according to the book I referenced (if you're going to write a book on him, you need to read it for background) and other material I've read, they would go looking for people with an appropriate background to place in the detachments. So if, for example, he'd completed a history degree and then got drafted, he might have been snatched up for use in an MHD. It wasn't just them who did it; my former mentor was a Military Intelligence Detachment Commander in the 4th Infantry Division in 1968-69, and he had men with bachelors, masters---even a couple of lawyers--in his detachment, either because they didn't want to go to OCS, or didn't pass, or just want4ed to do their two years and move on.

Now, that's assuming he was drafted. If he enlisted voluntarily (and a lot of recruits were volunteers, although in many cases it was because their number was coming up, and they wanted to control what they got to do), he might have had more control over his specialty--although, again, not his assignment.

2) As for getting his record, the best thing to do if he's alive is to get him to request a copy for you. If he's not still alive, get one of his next of kin to request it for you. Otherwise, you'll have to FOIA it, and it will take a lot longer, and you'll get a lot less. Having a family member make the request (or at least sign the form for you) is always better. 

You can find more information here:

https://www.archives.gov/veterans 

And put in the remarks block "Request copies of all releasable/redacted documents/information for research purposes. Not an extract or summary file."

31st MHD Mission letter.pdf

PatrickAustin 

Thank you for posting your request on History Hub!

U.S. Army unit records for the Vietnam War era in our custody do not include the record of training assignments for individuals. The public feedback provided to your response is the best information available for searching these records.