As the first people out there in 1965, we had no one to tell us what to expect. The turnover procedures hadn’t really been developed, the rules of engagement were literally incomplete, and we’d get ROE message changes every day. It was really quite chaotic. There were beaucoup international orange flight suits, which are great for spotting people on the ground and exactly what we didn’t want. If anything stands out in that early period, it’s how well we did for being so ill-prepared, and by ill-prepared I don’t mean in the training, but in the knowledge of what kind of training we should have.
—Wynn Foster, VA-163, quoted in Jeffrey L. Levinson, Alpha Strike Vietnam