Sappers raid Long Binh ammo dump - Aug 13, 1972 - HISTORY.com

Thanks for reminding us that sappers attacked the ammo dump at Long Binh in August 1972 SP5 Michael Rathbun. I expect the observers who "said that the Communists might have been reverting to guerrilla tactics due to the overall failure of the Nguyen Hue Offensive that had been launched in March" may have been correct.
Here are some maps and images of Long Binh for perspective including a picture of a latrine and a picture of the 18th MP Brigade jeep with MPs.
COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. Capt Seid Waddell CW5 (Join to see) CW5 Charlie Poulton CSM Charles Hayden SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt (Join to see) TSgt Joe C. SGT John " Mac " McConnell SGT Forrest Stewart SGT Robert Hawks SPC (Join to see) SrA Christopher Wright

That 25% estimate was probably low.

"In 1966, the Navy discharged 170 drug offenders. Three years later (1969), 3,800 were discharged. Last year in 1970, the total jumped to over 5,000.

Drug abuse in the Pacific Fleet – with Asia on one side, and kinky California on the other – gives the Navy its worst headaches. To cite one example, a destroyer due to sail from the West Coast last year for the Far East nearly had to postpone deployment when, five days before departure, a ring of some 30 drug users (over 10 percent of the crew) was uncovered.

Only last week, eight midshipmen were dismissed from the Naval Academy following disclosure of an alleged drug ring. While the Navy emphatically denies allegations in a copyrighted articles by the Annapolis Capitol that up to 12,000 midshipmen now use marijuana, midshipman sources confirm that pot is anything but unknown at Annapolis.

Yet the Navy is somewhat ahead in the drug game because of the difficulty in concealing addiction at close quarters abroad ship, and because fixes are unobtainable during long deployments at sea.

The Air force, despite 2,715 drug investigations in 1970, is in even better shape: its rate of 3 cases per thousand airmen is the lowest in the services.

By contrast, the Army had 17,742 drug investigations the same year. According to Col. Thomas B. Hauschild, of the medical Command of our Army forces in Europe, some 46 percent of the roughly 200,000 soldiers there had used illegal drugs at least once. In one /35/ battalion surveyed in West Germany, over 50 percent of the men smoked marijuana regularly (some on duty), while roughly half of those were using hard drugs of some type."

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html

SP5 Mark Kuzinski thanks for the "This Day In History" read and share!