1st Marine Air Wing

I was assigned to the 1st Marine Air Wing as an Air Traffic Controller (6711 MOS) at Iwakuni Japan in the Spring of 1962 when I was deployed to Southeast Asia.  As an E4 Corporal I knew how to prepare and implement controlled airspace charts.  My small detachment of men were sent into Soc Trang, South Vietnam to set up controlled air space charts that were subsequently approved and implemented by Saigon for use in controlling the air space around our very primitive air strip outside Soc Trang.  We were at an old bombed out air field that was one used by the French, and there were no facilities.  1-2-3 trenches, chow tent, water buffaloes for showers and 26-man tents.  The air facility was completely field built and we ferried the South Vietnamese regular army into and back from the front lines nearby.  At that time in the war between the South and the Viet-Cong our unit was the very first U.S. Marine presence in that war.  This fact is supported by a plaque at the Marine Corp Museum in Quantico, VA.

Cpl James T. Kline  1881725  (1959-1963)