I am Billy Gramlin
The 110th man on the VSPA K9 list for Handlers of Da Nang AB Oct 1970 - 71.
My first name was spelled Billie, which I was led to believe that was the way it was spelled on my "hospital" birth certificate, the one they put your footprint on. In 1977 I was in Okinawa where my second son was born and I had to get my official birth certificate to certify him as a US citizen and found out the actual spelling was Billy, as it should have been.
Richard Schacht was the Kennel Master during my tour at Da Nang. I actually handled two dogs while I was there. My first was a dog named Selig 7A96 that was brought in from Phu Cat by Louis Tyler in late 1970 or very early 1971. If I'm not mistaken, Selig was probably one of the very first drug dogs, if not the first in the world that had been trained for that purpose. I think the site lists Selig as having been previously handled by Charles Collins at Phu Cat 12/68-7/70. I believe Louis Tyler retrained him for drug detection at Phu Cat after Collins rotated out. I liked Selig, but the brass acted like they had a new toy and they would break us out at all hours of the night to search some barracks on a moment's notice. Louis trained me to handle Selig for the job and we were good at what we did, but the brass that showed up at every "big bust" kept trying to tell me how to handle my dog and you know how that goes over with dog handlers! You want to just hand them the leash and say, “Here, you know so much about it, you handle him!” We were hated or not welcomed by so many guys including other dog handlers that I quickly got discouraged with what I was doing.
That wasn't what I volunteered for the K9 program and for duty in Vietnam for. A war was being fought and I wanted to be on the perimeter and other posts where the rest of the dog handlers were. After a couple of months I requested a change of duty. They relented and assigned King to me, which I am ashamed to admit that I don't remember his tag number, but it may have been A150. We had several Kings at Da Nang and since the site lists so many handlers with unknown dog names, I can only assume it was King - A150. He could have been my dog since the last handler who had him prior to my time is listed as Dale Ramsey from 1969-70 and I got King in late 1970 or very early 71. Around the Da Nang kennel my King was better known as "puppy King" because he had a puppy looking face as compared to most of the other dogs. King was a true Patrol Dog. He was vicious enough for perimeter work, but we got pulled off the perimeter from time to time to ride patrol with Law Enforcement teams to quell violent "civil rights" crowds that spawned at the NCO and Officer's clubs. In the list of dogs on the 366thSPSK-9 web site under the link for King X516 the dog in the lower left picture looks so much like my King, that I wonder if it is not him. As soon as I can find the pics of my King I should be able to compare the markings and verify whether it is the same dog. The handler's name is Steve Jantz and the dog's name is King, but his tag number X516 is not listed at all in the VSPA K-9 web site list of dogs, below.
In the Da Nang AB handlers list, Steve Jantz is listed, but that site has his dog ‘s number as X765 which I don't have a picture of, but Jantz's dog picture from the 366thSPSK9 site is the dog whose picture looks like my King. I tried to find a King X516 on the list of dogs at VSPA K9's web site for Da Nang AB, but that dog tag number is not listed there.
My thought is that Jantz's King is my King, but was his number X765 or was the X516 Dog name and number not listed on VSPA.com.
I'll post some pics as soon as I can round them up. I've got some of my King and I think I have a couple of Selig. Also, have some of downtown Da Nang, Dog Patch, and some up on Marble Mountain.
