We stole the name from the Lee Marvin movie of the same name.

Only the officers on the scopes were The Named of Monkey Mountain.

Bill Bosserman

Bill Brown

Jerry Elliott (D)

Joe Fernandez

Ken Gardner

Rick Griffin

Gary Griffith

Bill Gwaltney

Gerry Hunt

Larry Lein

Mike Stankowski

Larry Thomas

These were the first MTDS MACS-4 controllers who began under the call sign Moon Man, so as to be a seamless transition from MACS-7 in Chu Lai  to MACS-4 Monkey Mountain Danang.  On Sep 30, 1967 (as I remember), we picked up the call sign Vice Squad and I believe that it was in use throughout the MACS-4 tour of service in RVN.

Only officers controlled aircraft in this first crew in deference to the Air Force, as only officers were allowed to control Air Force aircraft in combat operations.  Whenever an Air Force CAP (combat air patrol) was depolyed with F-102's they were augmented by USMC F-4's and control by officers was required.

While it is my understanding that enlisted controllers were used in later times, please keep in mind that they had not gone to GCI or any other qualifying school.  While some of the Assistant Controllers could easily handle our functions that were for the most part enroute traffic control to and from aerial bomb delivery operations, when it came to tanker joins of USMC/USAF/USN aircraft or CAP control  it would have been reckless to use the enlisted controllers.  Enlisted air controller MOSs did not exist at the time.  And, they were not certified by anyone as "qualified".  In the event of aircraft mishap the proverbial feces would have hit the rotating element of the manual cooling device.

In April 1967, some of us redeployed to MACS-8 in Okinawa to train follow-on air controllers and to set up a training program for them.  Just like the Marine Corps, either MACS-8 controllers went in as replacements or others were tranferred directly to 1st MAW.  We never got anyone to "train".

The Dirty Dozen was thereby disbanded, never to repeat.  Only Rick Griffin, Gary Griffith and Larry Lein left active duty and the remaining went on to retire in later years.

Hopefully this helps explain the who and what of the Dirty Dozen of Monkey Mountain.