I was stationed at Nakhon Phanom in Northeast Thailand from 1973 to 1974. After leaving, I assumed that my year's experience there would just become some minor memory relating to none of the rest of my life, but I never forgot about that place.

Since that time, I've not only lost contact with everyone I was stationed with there, but I've often wondered about how Invert managed through the end of its mission, and what had happened to the Americans and Thais that we had worked with up to 1975.

In 1987, I saw a brief news item on television with Tom Brokaw standing in an overgrown area saying,
"This used to be Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai airbase...".
I was amazed, because nothing that I remembered was recognizable beyond a few concrete footings sitting amidst the grass and bushes. I was shocked that the Thais had not maintained this expensive installation.

I thought that many of the other folks who were stationed at Invert at various times had also lost track of their friends and associates and wondered too about the place where they had worked and the things that they had experienced in their tour.

In early 1995, after finding nothing on the Internet about NKP except for some railway train enthusiasts, and a few references by the Jolly Green Giants' and Skyraiders' Association sites, I was moved to start this as a solitary and probably unnoticed venture. It didn't turn out that way.

The Motivations:

1.       To jog some memories in those who worked there, and provide pause to reevaluate that
       Vietnam service in light of the past 30 years.

2.       Provide a means for them to get back in touch with each other if they chose to do so.

3.       Pay some small tribute to those unheralded servicemen and women who performed such
       lonely, tedious, and unacknowledged duty so far away from home, by documenting  some
       recollections of the time served over there.

The fact is, somebody out there wants to know if you made it back to The World all right; and whether you got married, stayed married, or had those kids you dreamed about after all. So please sign the Visitor’s Log book.

I'm also a member of the TLC Brotherhood (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia), an organization dedicated to recognizing the invaluable contributions and activities of all the military, NGO and civilian participants in combat and support operations from (and in) Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia - up through the fall of Vientiane, Phnom Penh, and Saigon. My interest with them involves the TLCB Assistance Program and our work with orphans and school children in the Issan (northeast) area of Thailand.

So try and visit them at http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org/  -  they would really like to hear from you.

Chris Jeppeson
Invert Radio Maintenance,
Det. 5, 621TCS, Nakhon Phanom RTAFB,
Thailand, 1973-1974

Figure 1: NKP RTAFB can actually be found for Microsoft "Flight Simulator ®"