Long , long ago, far, far away on the other side of the
world in a land that nobody cared about , I was sitting in a Continental
airlines circling the DaNang airbase over the Country of South Vietnam. It was
May 1st 1968 Stateside . Thursday May 2nd Vietnam time at about 0900hr. The Captain of the plane had us
circling while a crew of Navy Seabees finished patching some rocket holes in
the run way . I was a 19 year old Seabee Builder LT who had just finish
Builders school in Port Hueneme California and I was on my way for a one year
tour of duty in Vietnam. It would be my job to win the hearts and minds of the
Vietnamese people and to save south east Asia from those nasty Communists who
were trying to take over the world. One year in a war in Vietnam didn’t seem
like a long time. Little did I know that time slows down in a war zone and one
year would become a very, very long time. I just wanted to get on with it, get
it over with and get back home to marry my girl Linda and get on with life. We
had it planned out, get married and settle into a permanent duty station. I was
planning on making the Navy Seabees my carrier, make rate as fast as I could,
become a Seabee construction diver and serve on a Seabee STAT (Seabee Technical
Assistance Team) .We would have at least 2 kids or more to have at least a boy
and a girl. We both wanted a couple of dogs. We would live happily ever after.
In case the Navy didn’t work out we had a backup plan. We would buy some land
around Mist or Jewel Oregon about halfway over the coast range. I would build
an A frame cabin and we would home stead, with chickens, pigs , a cow , and
Linda wanted her own horse ( I didn’t much care for horses) I would be able to
build houses with my Uncle Herb who was a carpenter in Hillsboro. First thing
was to get my tour in Vietnam out of the way. Little did I know that the
Vietnam War would consume my entire life.
The plane started to drop, going in steep and fast. The
pilot said that was to avoid being shot at by the VC. OK, I’m new here, the rooky,
the fresh meat so what do I know about it. I don’t know a damn thing so
whatever you say Mr. Pilot, you’re the one flying the plane. What I really
thought though was he was just putting on a show for us new guys. Well we
didn’t get shot at and we safely landed and taxied off the run way. We were here,
Welcome to Viet----fuckn Nam you FNGs ( funking new guys) !!! I was to hear FNG
a lot in Vietnam. You FNGs get off the plane and fall in over there. You FNGs
march in columns of two over to that building. You FNGs get to the back of the
line. Didn’t take long to figure out that everyone could see that you were a FNG. Brand new starched pressed utility uniform
spit shined boots, close and tight hair cut, kind of a bewildered look on our
face. Yes it was very easy to see we were the FNGs also know as Fresh Meat! It
was bad luck to be around a FNG, he’s just gonna screw up and get someone killed!!
The plane is on the ground and we are still alive! The door opens and we are instructed to stay seated. The troops traveling as a group will dismount first. That would be the Army doggies. Most of the plane is an Army group from Guam. There are only maybe 20 of us traveling independent. So we wait, the air conditioning is cool and comfortable. That is the last cool and comfortable I will ever experience for a long time! The rest of us are instructed to dismount by rank. Well I am an E-3, I am lower than whale shit, so I will be the last one out the door. My turn, I step out and am immediately accosted by Vietnam. I am violated right there on the top of the steps! I am dressed in Navy dress blues (heavy wool winter uniform). The heat and humidity is overwhelming, it almost knocks me off my feet! The smell is horrid, indescribable, smells like dead plants, animals, shit, diesel fumes, shit, did I say shit? The smell just kind of burned my nostrils out and my eyes too. Welcome to Viet fucking Nam you FNG!! ( little did I know that they burned the GI shit in barrels full of diesel fuel right at the end of the run way and there was a trash dump there too!) Down the ramp and march over to an open shed to claim our sea bags. Over 250 sea bags that all look the same so some Air force rookie has to call out each name. That really takes up some time. The doggies are all loaded on buses and taken away. Us independents, there are only about a dozen of us now because the officers didn’t have to hang around, are directed to a class room. We sit around while we are lectured about Venereal disease. We are told to stay away from the whore houses because we might catch the Black Syphilis which will cause your dick to rot off and you will die a slow death and it is not treatable! Then we are lectured about the evils of Marijuana and it can be bought from almost any tobacco vender along the street. They explain how the Marijuana is repacked into Marlboro, Salam, Camel and other cigarette packs. They explain how to identify the Marijuana packs by the broken seals ect. Well we should avoid the Marijuana at all cost or we might become drug addicts. Thanks a lot guy, you just gave us all the information we need to buy pot! We are lectured on how we are to treat the Vietnamese people and when we are finished with that we are released to catch the bus to where ever we are supposed to go next. I had hoped for some lunch as I haven’t had anything to eat in a long time! NO such luck, there is a bus there to take me to Camp Tien Shaw where I will check in and get my assignment! The bus is a small grey school bus with all the windows open with heavy metal screen over the windows. About 6 of us climb aboard and sit near the front so we can talk with the driver. The driver is armed with an M 16 rifle and a walkie talkie radio. We ask questions about everything and he explains what we are seeing on the way. The heavy screen is to keep hand grenades from being thrown onto the bus. We leave through the west gate so by pass DaNang city. There are rice fields on the right side of the road. There are little service stations at the side of the road every so often. They were called jeep washes were you could pull off and get you jeep or truck washed. They pumped the water right out of the rice paddies. Each jeep wash had a little shanty where you could buy a cold beer and relax while you waited for your jeep. What they were really about was each shanty was equipped with some prostitutes who could service you while you got your jeep washed. I never had to a chance to use their services because I never had a jeep. ------------------------------------------------------
LSTs at Bridge Ramp
The Bridge over the Han River
Half way across the Han River
when we were across the bridge you can see Danang on left and Monkey Mountain on the right.
The road from the bridge all the way to Camp Tien Sha was lined with little shacks selling everything you can imagine including a lot of black market military stuff stolen from the US military.
Here I am with Babyson. We were building a hooch next to my hooch for the Korean Tiger marines. I am sitting here with tears in my eyes just thinking about how much I miss Babyson and hoping she had a good life. She was a survivor that's for sure!
Probably the most dynamic person on our team was Bettencourt. He was a steel worker but most importantly was his skills at Cumshaw . Anything you needed Bettencourt could get it.
He was connected to a whole network of guys in the Danang Area of operation. He would bargain using Whiskey , captured weapons, ration cards or just flat ass stealing. Because I didn't drink in Vietnam I would give him my ration card every month to get beer to trade to grunts. He would trade captured weapons that he would get from the Marines . An example would be to give a Sargent a bottle of whiskey for a captured SKS rifle. Trade the SKS to a Navy officer at Bridge Ramp for 3 bottles of whiskey. Trade a bottle for a pallet of sand bags or a couple of bottles for a load of concrete. The well being of our SeaBee team was dependent on Bettencourt. He didn't think small, a list of things he got for us would be very long. Dump truck, Cement truck, the CO's Jeep,Deuce and a half M 35, M37 power wagon, Mechanical Mule, Cement mixer.
The only picture I have of Bettencourt. Here is coming down the trail beside the ESSO plant.We had been diving for lobster off the point. All we got was mud! I worked with Bettencourt on the salvage operation of the Red Beach causeway. I was the salvage diver for that and because of that one job I was excepted as a member of that Seabee Team.
So there are the team members when I came on board on May 6, 1968. My first day of work was on tuesday May 7. At the shop Beerworth gave me two Vietnamese workers and I set them to building our carpenter crew box. One of my workers was from Yosts crew and the other was from Beerworths. The first issue was the Vietnamese could not pronounce my name and I could not pronounce the younger workers name. By the end of the day they had sorted out that issue. I would be called Honcho (Boss) . The young kid would be called Ti Ti Honcho (little boss) The older worker (My grew leader) was Pham Ba. While my new crew was building the crew box. Beerworth and I took his crew out to work on re-building rocket damage and then he and I went out to the main gate to hire six new workers to fill out my crew. We parked the truck inside the gate. Removed everything from our pockets. Removed belts, hats, dog tags, watches. Anything that could be stolen when we were in the pushing and shoving crowd out side the gate. We took Babyson with us. She would make the final choice as to who we would hire. Out side the gate was just a solid mass of Vietnamese, pushing and shoving, grabbing us by our clothes ,trying to get our attention. Everyone of them wanted to work . It was a real mess but we did manage to pick out some possible workers. We took them over behind the gate and Babyson started questioning them and finally settled on six. Those six we took inside the main gate to the IRO office were they would be documented and their information sent to CORDs in Danang for security check. It would take at least a
week before they were cleared and could go to work for us. Our teem would sometimes hire day worker who already had day passes. This was the only time I went out to hire anyone and it was an interesting experience. Later back at the shop Ba told me he wanted to paint the crew box red (lucky color). The Chief said it had to be Navy gray. After Chief left Ba painted it red anyway. Ya , Chief got pissed at me but the box remained red ! I got a lot of respect from just leaving that box red .
My two main guys Ti Ti Honcho on the left and Pham Ba on the right. Ti Ti was 16 years old. His father was a RVN officer in Danang and Ti Ti had come to us through CORDs and was hoping to stay out of the RVN army when he turned 18 by working for us. Pham Ba was 43 years old and was over the military service age. He had been a school administrator before the TET offensive put him out of a job.He was a smart man and was really my mentor on how to work with the Vietnamese. Because of him I became the best crew Honcho at Camp Books.
Our red tool box after we had it all fitted out. Probably took a month to get everything we needed. This was the only crew box I ever saw in the military that was not regulation color. Because of this when I was stationed in Japan I build my personal tool box and painted it bright yellow with red flower on it. I was told to repaint my tool box to gray, I didn't do it and took things one step farther by painting my work safety helmet candy apple green. By the time I was in Japan I had an attitude problem thanks to Vietnam!
May 8,1968 Wednesday
This is the day I started my real job. I was going to start building my own hooch so I would have a place to sleep ! First I had to do a couple hour job at the 1st MP Quonset hut. We needed to replace the awning over the entry door that was about to fall off. This would also give Beerworth time to get his guys out on their job. Then he could pick my guys up and pick up materials to build my hooch. Beerworth dropped us at 1st MPs. I was standing in front of the hut assessing the job. Pham Ba went around back to take a pee. Next thing I realize he has a hold on my sleeve. "Honcho come", he pulls me around the Quonset hut, his eyes were as big as saucers! Around back there was a Jeep with a utility trailer on behind. Inside of that trailer, face down were 2 dead Marines. They had been covered with poncho liners but they had blown off. The trailer was to short so the Marines legs were bent at the knees and sticking up, no shoes, pant legs up to their knees showing their very white legs. Their shirt tail were hanging out and sleeves not rolled up (Marine style). I slowly walked around the trailer checking them out. That was my first time seeing dead Marines. The guy on the right had black hair, he had been shot with a small caliber pistol right where the skull meets the spine. The Marine on the left was blond and looked like a California surfer.He to had been shot in the back of the head. There wasn't much blood ,just a small whelp where the bullet went in. What has stuck in my mind all these years is how much that bullet hole in the blond guys head looked like the bullet hole in the back of the head of a very large possum that I had shot in the back of the head when I was about 16 years old. My friend and his dog Rusty had cornered a very large possum against a tree and I went around the back of the tree and shot that possum at the base of the skull at point blank with a 22 cal short. Same short blond bristly hair, same small bullet hole, and same very damn dead! I had plenty of time to take it all in and it was very UN-nerving. Then a voice came from inside the Quonset hut." Get those Fucking Gooks away from that Damn trailer". So back around to the front of the hut and to work on the awning . While my guys were working I was talking to the Gunny in the hut. I wanted to know everything about what happened to those Marines. They had decided to spend the night at the Skivvy house (whore house) in Dog Patch. Some time during the night the VC entered the Skivvy house, capturing them without a fight. Had tied their hands behind their backs and executed them. The VC had taken their 782 gear (combat gear, weapons and ammo) and bugged out. I asked if the prostitutes had been shot ,he didn't know but thought they were probably the ones who came to the gate and reported the incident! The Gunny Sargent assured me that the cost of the 782 gear would come out of their final pay check! Ya, we continued our work and started building my hooch. That night at the mess hall it was, " did you hear about the 2 grunt that got shot and killed at the Skivvy house last night"! Well sure I heard about it and even saw them down at 1st MPs. Remember the talk we got about staying away from the prostitutes that I got my first day in Vietnam? Well I don't know how much of an impression that left on me but these guys getting killed in the Skivvy house got my attention ! Don't go to Dog Patch at night and stay way from the prostitutes. Made a very good impression on me, I didn't even consider it my whole time in Vietnam ! The two guys shot in the skivvy house that night were, Pvt. James L Chambers (cause of death,misadventure). Lance Corporal James D Feucht (cause of death,misadventure). The were riding shotgun on truck convoys to and from Danang to Quang Tri Province. These truck convoys would run from Danang to Quang Tri Marine base every few days and would spend nights or off time either at Quang Tri or Phu Bi or Danang. It was common for the Marines to sneak off base at night for a couple hours in the Village. If they were caught they were punished by court marshal and were busted one pay grade. I guess that is why there were a lot of E-2 in the Marines.
This was the closest skivvy house to Camp Books , a very short walk. It's claim to fame was that it had a black prostitute. It is very likely this was were the Marines were killed .
I started building my hooch on Wednesday May 8th at just before noon. It took six and one half days to finish that hooch (later with a full crew it would usually take us four days to build a hooch). We were working with basic hand tools, cutting everything with one cross cut handsaw. It was a real learning experience for the three of us. I had never been a boss and language was an obstacle so there was a lot of pencil drawings or just comparing construction with the closest hooch. Mostly I would just build and they would watch and fallow what I did. As soon as they caught on they would take on that task and I would move on to the next. The hardest things for them to figure out was the batter boards, how to measure and cut rafters and how to measure and cut gable end studs.
A typical day and night at Camp Books,
My morning started at 0500. First thing was to get over to the mess hall (100 yards) for breakfast. Marine chow really sucks but if your gonna work you have to eat! I actually got used to eating runny scrambled eggs with burned sausage and also shit on a shingle (chipped beef on toast). Some mornings we got lucky and there was milk but mostly just Koolaid . After breakfast we would walk back to the hooch and pile on the trucks and off to the shop only about 300 yards. Muster was at exactly 0600 ( just role call) and by 0605 we were loading up the trucks with materials and tool boxes and doing any other prep work we could. Then on to the trucks and drive to the gate and pick up our Vietnamese workers. If the prep work was not done in time the workers would already have walked to the shop. Their start work time was 0700. All loaded up we would head for the job sight. That could be on Camp Books, Camp Reasoner, or any of the little outposts within a few miles of Camp Books. We were dropped off there to spend the day. If I was on Camp Books when it was lunch time I would walk to the mess hall taking my Vietnamese with me as they were not allowed to be left alone on base. They would eat out back of the mess hall where they could be watched. Lunch was one half hour. The Vietnamese also got a 15 minute brake at about 1000 hr and 15 minutes at about 1400 hr. I always carried cigarettes in the toolbox for my workers. I would also reward them with cold Cokes from time to time when they were working real hard. People always say how hard Vietnamese work but I found that is not true ! They are basically lazy . Their goal is to get through the day doing the least amount as possible. The reason it seems they get so much done is because there are so damn many of them working together! If I was working off base I would bring a box lunch from the mess hall or bring C rations. The box lunch was always the same. Liverwurst sandwich, no butter or mayo. The liverwurst was half inch thick and the bread was always dry. There was a warm Coke and an apple or orange. I could not eat those damn sandwiches and would field strip it, feeding the liverwurst to any stray dog and then soaking the bread in warm Coke. The apples were always mealy but the oranges were good. A couple times they threw in an candy bar that would be completely melted ! To me the best meals were C rats but often times they were very old ,dated back as far as 1954. The most prized meals were the LRP rats (long range patrol rations) which were freeze dried meals. They were very hard to come by so we would hoard them when ever we could get them. The Vietnamese work day ended at 1700 hrs. Our truck would pick them up then and take them back to the shop. If we were off base I would also go back on the truck. If we were on base I would work until 1800 and then walk back to the shop. We were finished work at 1800 but it would usually take me until 1830 to get my paper work done ! If I was lucky I would get finished in time to get on one of our trucks to the mess hall. The mess hall closed at 1900 so I didn't want to be to late . I would almost always get back to my hooch at 1915. Then it was time to do our own work. First and foremost was filling sand bags. We had 2 bunkers to re build and then a complete knew bunker for my hooch. We had to wash our clothes by hand in a wash pan every evening and hang them in the hooch eves to dry. We were also building our own shower ,laundry room. By about 2200 hrs we would knock off work , take a shower and go to bed.
Nights in Vietnam were uncomfortable at best. As tired as I was I never got much sleep. At first it was because every thing was so knew and exciting. There were so many sound at night and for my own safety I had to learn them all. Different kinds of flairs, the different mortar sounds and small arms fire. I needed to know which of the sound meant danger! There was outgoing mortar rounds and incoming. Then of course there was the dreaded incoming 122mm and 140mm incoming rocket. To know all the different sounds was to be able to read what was happening at night and how safe I was. After a couple rocket and mortar attacks my brain never went completely to sleep. Some part of it was always listening to what was going on . My body was always waiting to react. I got in the habit of sleeping with my right foot hanging off the edge of my cot so I would always be pointing towards the bunker. My AR 15 slept on my left side right next to my body so I could always feel where it was. I got used to the nights but was never comfortable enough to sleep well. Some morning I would be more tired when I woke up than when I went to bed. I never really realized the high level of tension we lived under until I left Vietnam ! Was I scared ? Well damn right I was scared. Not all the time but sometimes . Mostly I was just kind of mentally numb. I didn't think about the danger but was aware of it. Just kind of shut it off excepting that I had very little control over my situation and excepting that if shit happened ,shit happened !! There were other things to screw up the nights. If one of the other bases in our AO got hit by mortars or rockets then our siren went off and we were on red alert which meant we had to role out with weapons, helmets,and flack jackets and man our posts. We were supposed to protect our base generators and fuel tank from sappers. Sometimes we could be called out 2 or 3 times in a night. That sure screwed with our sleep! We had fox holes around the generators and fuel tank and I would sit there looking up at that big ass fuel tank thinking that if the VC hit that with a RPG (rocket propelled grenade) I was going to be turned into a crispy critter. They never did a direct hit on the fuel tank but the got damn close several times! They did hit the fuel bladders at truck company several time so I knew there would be a nice warm fire if our fuel tank got hit.
Another thing that screwed up the night for us was our night radio, phone watch, it was a real bitch ! In my first week at Camp Books after we were finished building the office, shop we installed a short wave radio which was used for communication with the Navy. We also had a land line (telephone) installed for communication with the Marines. They had to be manned 24 hours a day. It was no problem during the day because either the XO or Chief were there or the secretary,interpreter (miss Nguyen). From 1800 hours until 0600 we had to have some one stand watch. As such a small group we couldn't do the standard Navy 4 hour watch. What we finally did was a one man 12 hour watch. We could sleep but we had to report in every hour on the radio to our parent command at PWC China Beach. There were 6 area work centers in the Da Nang AO . So on the hour we would get a call. ALL work centers report in : AWC # 1 reports everything is quite ! by the time they got to us AWC# 5 we would be awake (hopefully) and report in. We set the radio on squelch so it would make a lot of noise and wake us up. If there were any trouble calls from the Marines (usually lights out on the perimeter or something not working at the mess hall) then it was jump in the truck drive out and check and drive over to our hooch and get who ever was needed to go fix the problem. The other important thing we had to do was to check the Red Beach causeway at 2400 hr. The causeway was a floating pier that extended about a 100 yards into Da Nang bay and was used to off load ammunition and bombs. So after the 2400 check in I would jump in the truck with M-16 and ammo. Drive out the back gate and about 2 miles to the Navy Seabee base. Go through their front gate then out their back gate to the causeway. Then walk the length of pier re-installing any buffer pads that might have come out. Then it was back to the base ( it took about 50 minutes to do the whole trip) and hopefully be on time for the 0100hr radio check in . If there was any heavy weather and to many buffer pads were jumping out I would have to go back to the hooch and roust out a work crew. It was creepy doing that trip to the causeway. The road was closed to civilian traffic at night so there would be no other vehicles on the road. There was the real possibility of hitting a mine or being ambushed by the VC (it happened more often then I would like to think about) . We had no black out lights on our trucks so we would have been any easy target for anyone who decided that they were going to kill us! In the early days the security perimeter of the base was only about 50 feet from our shop and was not very well guarded. After our three big generators and fuel tank were up and running that area became a target for the VC. The shop doors were always open and a light on in the shop.( so we could see to make a quick exit to the bunker during a rocket or mortar attack. We were also vulnerable to sappers . Our office was up stairs. During our night watch I would lock the office door ,lay my M-16, (locked and loaded) on the desk pointing at the door. I would sit at the desk and drink coffee, write letters or poetry. Anyone who tried to open that door without giving our pass word would have been shot. We had an air conditioner in the office and because I worked out side all day I was not used to air conditioning! It was a long miserable cold 12 hour night. Drinking black coffee trying to stay alert. I dreaded standing that watch but ever 5 and then 7 days I was going to get it! I hated that phone, radio, air conditioning and black coffee! Even now-days I hate phones,radios, air conditioning and coffee ! Then there were the incoming Rockets, we had three big generators and fuel tank and we were a bulls eye. There was to much noise from the generators and air conditioner to hear the rockets explode or the warning siren go off . Often several rockets would have gone off before I even knew we were under attack ! We got danger close rockets in that area often. Within a hundred feet of the generators. One night I was in the office with LT Branch . He was standing about 10 feet from me and the first round of a rocket attack went through the ventilator on top of our building ,exactly four feet above the LTs head and exploded in the ware house bay next to our shop. That distance above us was only 4 feet. If it had detonated when it hit the ventilator we both would have been killed! That was the LTs first rocket attack and he didn't react fast enough. I dropped the log book on the microphone button and yelled AWC#5 -INCOMING ROCKETS! Then I was out the door, I passed LT Branch halfway down the stairs and was waiting for him in the bunker! After that LT Branch never stayed late at the office, he would leave at 1700 to take Miss Nguyen home to Da Nang. and the LT moved to the Da
Nang officers billeting ! This is the inside of our shop.The office was upstairs and to the left.
This is a 122mm rocket crater at the east end of our shop building. The side entrance is in that build,
just out of the picture on the right. Yes that's puppy and our new steel worker (Calhoun).
Our shop the day we put up our sign and officially became Area Work Center #5. A sad day because we were no longer a Seabee Team !
The day we put up our sign . Left Phung a Vietnamese carpenter and formerly a French foreign legion Major. middle , Mr Kim a Korean Philco Ford electrician . right , Huan one of my carpenters.
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This is a 122mm rocket crater in the road in front of our shop. that's one of our generators upper left. The huge fuel tank was just being build on the left out of the picture. The carpenter flat bed truck. The shop door are between the 2 telephone poles. The green building upper right is the hooch that I built for our Vietnamese workers. The lumber and wood crates in upper right was the start of our lumber yard. We took 2 122mm rockets about where the crates are. That's danger close to the shop! Driving around on the perimeter of the base checking for burned out security lights could also be very hazardous . One night I was called out for some lights on the west perimeter. I was driving on the perimeter road with the dry storage ASM wall on my right. Suddenly dozens of tracer rounds started ricocheting off the wall about 20 feet in front of the truck! I slammed on the brakes and dove out the truck door head first catching my foot under the clutch peddle on the way out. I was face down on the road under the edge of the truck with my foot stuck under the clutch peddle. Tracers were bouncing all over in front of the truck. I lay there waiting for the out posts to return fire, nothing happened! The tracer rounds stopped ,I gave it a couple minutes and got in the truck and sped on my way back to the shop! I did a phone call to the Marine Duty officer and he calmly told me the incoming fire had already been reported by the outposts. The official report was small arms fire on the perimeter. I heard the truth the next day at the mess hall. There was a Marine listening ambush set up outside the perimeter in that area. The Marines in that ambush had fired on me to scare me because they thought I was the duty officer making the rounds. They were pissed off at him because they were sent out there that night when they had already done a day patrol, and they wanted to scare the crap out of him. Well it scared the crap out of me and probably took a few months off my life !
Here is the letter I wrote my parents on May 15, 1968. I was new in country and still in John Wayne mode. I didn't understand at that time the danger of rocket attacks. Our generators were not even running yet so I heard the rocket coming in. All of the rounds hit in swamp area between the main base and FLC command building . They were all in alignment with our generators. I didn't realize at the time that the intended target was me and the generators. They were only a couple hundred yards away! The rocket attacks after that the would be on target! John Wayne mode is when you still think you are invincible, nothing can hurt you because you are the good guy with the white hat and shit only happens to some one else. Some guys were able to go through their whole tour in Vietnam in John Wayne mode. But when shit happens to you and you are the victim, everything changed! Some times a lot of shit happened . I was one of the unlucky ones who ended up shoveling a lot of shit! On Tuesday May 14 I finished my hooch and settled into the corner right inside the door. I had my broken leg cot and was living out of my sea bag. I would have to find some time to build a foot locker. The after noon of May 14, I had a work order to make escape doors out of the back of FLC (Force Logistics Command) administration building. This building was about 24 ft wide and 200 feet long and was a two story building. It had been built the end of April so was brand new. Because of the rocket attack on May 13 (rockets hit with in 50 yard of this building) some of the officers there wanted escape doors out the back of the building where they were starting to build their own bunkers. On May 15 I had finished 6 or 8 escape doors.
The plane is on the ground and we are still alive! The door opens and we are instructed to stay seated. The troops traveling as a group will dismount first. That would be the Army doggies. Most of the plane is an Army group from Guam. There are only maybe 20 of us traveling independent. So we wait, the air conditioning is cool and comfortable. That is the last cool and comfortable I will ever experience for a long time! The rest of us are instructed to dismount by rank. Well I am an E-3, I am lower than whale shit, so I will be the last one out the door. My turn, I step out and am immediately accosted by Vietnam. I am violated right there on the top of the steps! I am dressed in Navy dress blues (heavy wool winter uniform). The heat and humidity is overwhelming, it almost knocks me off my feet! The smell is horrid, indescribable, smells like dead plants, animals, shit, diesel fumes, shit, did I say shit? The smell just kind of burned my nostrils out and my eyes too. Welcome to Viet fucking Nam you FNG!! ( little did I know that they burned the GI shit in barrels full of diesel fuel right at the end of the run way and there was a trash dump there too!) Down the ramp and march over to an open shed to claim our sea bags. Over 250 sea bags that all look the same so some Air force rookie has to call out each name. That really takes up some time. The doggies are all loaded on buses and taken away. Us independents, there are only about a dozen of us now because the officers didn’t have to hang around, are directed to a class room. We sit around while we are lectured about Venereal disease. We are told to stay away from the whore houses because we might catch the Black Syphilis which will cause your dick to rot off and you will die a slow death and it is not treatable! Then we are lectured about the evils of Marijuana and it can be bought from almost any tobacco vender along the street. They explain how the Marijuana is repacked into Marlboro, Salam, Camel and other cigarette packs. They explain how to identify the Marijuana packs by the broken seals ect. Well we should avoid the Marijuana at all cost or we might become drug addicts. Thanks a lot guy, you just gave us all the information we need to buy pot! We are lectured on how we are to treat the Vietnamese people and when we are finished with that we are released to catch the bus to where ever we are supposed to go next. I had hoped for some lunch as I haven’t had anything to eat in a long time! NO such luck, there is a bus there to take me to Camp Tien Shaw where I will check in and get my assignment! The bus is a small grey school bus with all the windows open with heavy metal screen over the windows. About 6 of us climb aboard and sit near the front so we can talk with the driver. The driver is armed with an M 16 rifle and a walkie talkie radio. We ask questions about everything and he explains what we are seeing on the way. The heavy screen is to keep hand grenades from being thrown onto the bus. We leave through the west gate so by pass DaNang city. There are rice fields on the right side of the road. There are little service stations at the side of the road every so often. They were called jeep washes were you could pull off and get you jeep or truck washed. They pumped the water right out of the rice paddies. Each jeep wash had a little shanty where you could buy a cold beer and relax while you waited for your jeep. What they were really about was each shanty was equipped with some prostitutes who could service you while you got your jeep washed. I never had to a chance to use their services because I never had a jeep. ------------------------------------------------------
Soon we came to the bridge across the Han River. On the left
side was a area called Bridge Ramp which was where the Navy LSTs would pull in
and drop their bow ramps. All terrain forklifts would scurry back and forth off
loading the LSTs and loading onto trucks. On the far end of the bridge right
side was a barge with a sign that read Under Water Demolition Team 1. On
the left of the bridge was a large triangle of land that was a Cactus patch.
The Bus driver said it was the Vietnamese version of a public restroom. I was
to see more of these cactus patches and yes they were where the Vietnamese
would stop, drop their trousers and take a poop! Remember this triangle cactus
patch, you will hear about it in the distant future. We took a left hand turn
at the intersection and headed out the Tien Sha peninsula towards Monkey
Mountain. At the base of Monkey mountain was Camp Tien Sha, the main Navy base.
We went through the gate, down Main Street, took a left and stopped in front of
a small building that looked like a hamburger stand. It had 4 windows so I went
to the window for H. I handed the clerk my records pack. Mark Harms reporting
for duty!! The clerk went through my documents and in a few minutes gave me my
duty assignment. I would be going to Public Works Center (PWC) China Beach on Monday
morning. I would be living here at Camp Tien Sha at the Seabee barracks. I walked
to the Seabee barracks and checked in at the duty office. Got sheets, blanket ,pillow
case and was assigned a berthing area. May 2nd was a Thursday so
the Seabee barracks duty office would own my ass to do slave labor for
Friday, and Saturday. Sunday was a day off for most people at Tien Sha. That
was long enough for me to hate Camp Tien Sha!
I found my berthing area. It was a cubicle on the ground floor of a 2
story barracks. There were 4 bunk beds in each cubicle, so 8 men slept in each
cubicle. Only one bunk was made up so I chose a bottom bunk and made up my bed.
Stripped off my very hot dress blues, wrapped a towel around me and head for
the showers. The sign on the shower door said hours 1700 to 2100. Well it was
before 1700 but I didn’t give a crap. There was a Vietnamese cleaning lady in
the shower and when I turned on the shower she fled. Let me tell you that was a
cool shower long remembered!
I took my time cooling myself off in that shower then went
to my new cubicle and dressed in my slightly used green utility working
uniform. It was time to go look for some food! The sign on the mess hall door
said hours 1700 to 2100. It was just after 1700 so I was good. My very first
meal in Vietnam was roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, green peas, 2 large
cold glasses of chocolate milk, ice cream and an apple to go. In the future I
would be thinking about that meal a lot! With chow finished I had the rest of
the evening to wonder about and check out what Camp Tien Sha had to offer.
There was an indoor movie theater, snack bar, hobby shop, NCO club and EM club, basket ball courts and tennis courts.
I pretty much walked the whole base then back to the EM club for a cold beer
and to listen to music. There was one thing that bothered me about Tien Sha.
Every tree trunk was painted white, every rock was neatly lined up along the
paths and painted white and there were white picket fences around almost every
building. I even passed an enlisted sailor with a can of white paint and he was
painting rocks. It seemed a bit strange to see everything so neat and tidy when
there was a war going on. I went back to my cubicle crawled into bed, ending my
very first day of war. Only 364 more days to go!
Main gate at Camp Tien Sha Danang
Main Street Camp Tien Sha. Just look at all that white paint and picket fences!
Camp Tien Sha from the road up Monkey Mountain. My barracks is on the bottom right where you see the two long barracks side by side. Mine was the left building of the two. The main gate is in the middle where the straight road meets the trees.
Well, the Camp Tein Sha barracks got me for Friday, and Saturday. Work started at 0700 hr and we got off at 1700 hr. Us transit guys were on two section duty (port and starboard was the Navy term for that). What that means is we stood a four hour night watch every other night. Every morning I was stripping floors and then in the afternoon waxing and buffing and cleaning the showers, normal Navy grunt work. One night I stood a four hour office watch and another night I was on a four hour barracks fire watch. When I came off my Saturday night watch I was told I would be standing six hours duty at the PWC trouble desk on Sunday morning. So much for getting Sunday off.
Sunday morning the duty officer took me out to China Beach PWC (Public Works Center) office and I was instructed how to fill out trouble calls if anyone called on the phone. If there was anything that I couldn't handle I was to call the duty officer on his truck radio. He kind of hinted that he didn't want me calling him. The office was up stairs from the carpenter shop. There was air conditioning but it was working hard just to keep the office at the same temperature as down stairs. I spent most of my six hour watch siting at the bottom of the steps and only going upstairs if the phone rang. Some time mid morning a 1st class (E-6) Builder came to the carpenter shop to make something for his cubicle. He told me that PWC normally worked six days a week from 0700 hr to 1700 hr, lunch was 1 hour because they had to go back to the mess hall at Tien Sha. They stood 4 section duty (stand four hour night watches every fourth day). He said it was pretty good duty. So when 1200 hr rolled around and my watch was finished nobody showed up to relieve me. After a while I tried to call the duty officer but he didn't answer. I finally gave up. It was after 1700 hr when the duty officer showed up. He apologized that I hadn't been relieved and had missed lunch. He took off for Tien Sha to get me a watch relief. By 1800 I had been relieved and the duty officer drove me to the mess hall . I had just stood two watches back to back, my first 12 hr day. I had no idea how easy that 12 hour watch was.
I was up before the chickens on Monday morning and to the mess hall. By 0530 I was waiting for the cattle trucks to pick us up in front of the barracks (the same as the tractor trailer rigs that hall cattle in the United States). I for sure didn't want to miss my first day of work ! Nobody was around and I started to worry that I was in the wrong place. At 0550 hr several cattle trucks pulled up,the drivers got out and went to the mess hall. Still nobody around. At 0555 hr there was a sudden rush of people from the mess hall and barracks. It was a crazy sight seeing so many people getting in the trailers in such a short time. The last guys were the drivers coming from the mess hall, each with a cup of coffee! At exactly 0600 the cattle trucks pulled away to head for their destination. In the cattle truck not one person spoke. They just sat there on the wood benches with their heads hanging down. We arrived at PWC China beach in short order and I found my way up to the office. By 0700 hr there were 6 0r 7 new guys sitting in a small reception room outside the commanding officers office. A yoyo (yeoman) came in took roll call, welcomed us aboard then gave out our assignments. Everyone was going to be at PWC China Beach assigned to different shops. I was going to work at the carpenter shop. The yoyo gave us a little speech about what was expected of us and what the work hours were and any other information we needed to know. Then the Commanding officer came in and welcomed us aboard and gave his little speech. The last thing he said was " Are there any questions or does anyone have any problems?" Well everyone just sat there except me. I put my hand in the air. "What" Well sir I don't like it here ! He glared at me and I knew I had done a great sin. "Sir, I volunteered to come to Vietnam and I don't want to be stuck here painting rocks white and building picket fences. I want to be where I can do something useful. I want to make a meaningful contribution to the war effort." You could have heard a pin drop. The commanding officer just glared at me. I knew I had sinned big time and just sat there waiting for the shit to hit the fan! The CO dismissed everyone " Harms you stay right here!" That is why we have our names over the pockets of our shirts, so the powers that be have a name to put with the face and right now my name was Shit ! The CO left the room and I just sat there waiting feeling like I might be in real trouble. In a while the Executive officer came in. " We don't like trouble around here so I am going to give you what you want." He read off a list of places I could go. I don't remember all the places but there was Hue, Cau Veit, Dong Ha and Quang Tri. He told me the size of the unit and what they did. Of coarse I had no idea about any of them but at least they were out of PWC China Beach. Then he said " By the way, we have a Seabee team at Red Beach that is setting up an area work center (AWC). They will not be ready for more manpower for about six or eight weeks, but I could send you there now if you can stay out of trouble." " Yes sir, I want to go to the team at Red Beach, thank you very much." "OK then , go see the yeoman, he will do the paper work." The XOs last words to me were. "Harms, I don't want to hear your name again" and he walked out. I went out to the yeoman and his first words were " What the fuck did you do to get shit canned to Red Beach?" " I volunteered said I" to which he said " You dumb shit FNG, they get shit on out there all the time." He said they took 25,122mm rockets at 0200 and another 4 rounds at 0600 yesterday morning. He said Red Beach was not a good place to be. I still sometimes wonder if the XO trapped me into that (and by the way). Yoyo did the paper work and I would have to hang out until about 1000 hr when the Red Beach expediter was expected to stop by China Beach and I would be handed off to him. Well,hell I was out of here, fuck Tien Sha and China Beach !
Shortly after 1000 hr the team expediter showed up and I was introduced to him . His name was Coate and he was a 3rd class yeoman. He was wearing his best short timers uniform. ( Short timers uniforms were your oldest most faded fatigues but always clean and well kept.) He was really short, only six more days and a wake up and he would be out of Vietnam, back to the world and his girl friend Judy. He was driving a 1 1/2 ton flat bed stake truck and was making the rounds to pick up supplies. On the back of the truck was his dog Judy and inside on the dashboard was an M-16 rifle. He had to re arrange his schedule to accommodate me. So off to Camp Tien Sha to get my gear and check out. Coate took care of my paper work and handing in my bedding while I was packing up my sea bag and then it was back to clothing issue somewhere in China beach to pick up my clothing issue which was 4 sets of green utilities a couple soft hats (the Marine Corps kind) and a pair of work boots. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed for one hour for lunch and Coate did not have the time to hang around. That is the only time I had to get clothing issue. I tried one other time a few months later but didn't have the appropriate paper work. So what did I do for work uniforms ? Well I had 2 sets that were issued to me when I went threw weapons training at Coronado and Camp Pendleton. Coate gave me two sets of shorts and short sleeve shirts. The rest of my tour I did what every good Seabee team would do, I stole them ! Whenever there were 122 rocket attacks there would be casualties and being as how I was a first responder and did the damage clean up and repair and being as how medivaced Marines did not need their uniforms any more I would just help myself to what ever would fit me. Another source for jungle fatigues was up at Camp Reasoner. There were two supply tents up there and when the Field Marines (grunts) would come in from the bush they would strip off all their dirty clothes and throw them in piles in one tent then go into the other tent and pick up clean uniforms. Well whenever I was working in that area I would sneak in the tent and find some dirty uniforms,still in good shape and steal them, put them in my crew tool box and take them back to my hooch and hand wash them ! You got to do what you got to do ! Off we went to the supply yard at one of the SeaBee battalions, while we were there we stopped for a quick lunch at the Navy mess hall. I didn't know it then but that was my last good meal for a long time! When we arrived at Red Beach the Seabee team shop was a mad house. Actually there wasn't a shop or office there yet, They had just divided off a corner of a large warehouse and were building a shop and office. The second floor office was just being framed up . There weren't even any stairs going up there yet. There were Seabees, Korean Philco Ford, Vietnamese all working like mad . Coate introduced me to a Chief Boatswain Mate who was our executive officer.The Commanding officer wasn't there( a lieutenant Junior Grade.) He didn't mince words. " We weren't expecting any new men and we don't have the time to train you. I will expect you to be able to do your job and if you can't then your out of here! You will use the chain of command ,don't come to me. You are a builder so Beerworth or Yost will be who you report too." We hopped in his truck and he took me down to H&S company supply to get bedding and mess gear. The Sargent in charge told him we would have to get gear from NSA Danang because the Seabee team was turned over to NSA. The Chief did manage to get bedding (Ha,Ha) I got one bed sheet and one pillow case. "Sorry that's all we have!" Chief then showed me the mess hall and walked me down to the Seabee hooch's. He left me sitting there on the steps saying he would send Beerworth down at 1700 hr to get me settled in. (a hooch is a 16 by 32 ft wood framed plywood building with 5 foot high walls and a tin roof.) The Marines slept 12 to 14 men in a hootch. The Seabee team had 8 junior men in one hootch and 4 senior men in the second hootch. Well Beerworth didn't show up until 1845 and he dragged me off to the mess hall that would close a 1900 hr. I suppose we had a good conversation but don't have a clue of what. Back at the hootch the Seabees got in a major debate about where to put me. Everyone had his turf marked out and nobody was willing to give any for me. The argument got pretty heated. Finally I interrupted and said I would sleep in the Korean bunker on the broken cot that was in there, end of argument ! I am sure had I not done that , the Chief, when he came down to the hootch, would have solved the problem by sending me back to China Beach. It was very clear that they did not want a FNG getting in their way. I was going to have to hit the ground running if I intended to stay with this team. Sleeping in that bunker was not good.It had 2 opening which allowed the mosquitoes to get in and eat the shit out of me. So there I would be for over a week trying to keep the mosquitoes off of me by covering with the sheet and putting my head in the pillow case. Let me tell you that wasn't fun at all. The cot had a broken leg so I had to prop it up with a sand bag and it was missing one end piece so it just wanted to fold up on me when I laid on it.
This is Coate ,he was our expediter. He was very short with only 6 days and a wake up until he went home. On our trip out to Red Beach there are two things that he said to me that I remember. "Harms you will be man number 13 on the team, I hope you are Lucky 13!" and "When ever you really need something that you can't get go talk to Bettencort". On Sunday afternoon May 12 1968. Everyone that was available took our weapons jumped on the Utility truck and headed up Elephant Valley. Coate wanted to see the Village where he had spent a good deal of his tour. The team had lived there and built a school and well and maybe other things. We drove out the front gate, took the first right then the next right.(out in the country there weren't many roads), We went past the dump on the right side of the road (there was one big Banyan tree in the middle of the dump were the Vietnamese sat in it's shade). We drove a couple miles until we got to a river then turned left. As we drove up into Elephant Valley we passed a woman from the Ba Na mountain tribe. She was bear breasted ,dressed in very colorful native clothing with big round necklaces. She was carrying a baby and had 2 young kids in tow on a cord. She had a big friendly smile showing bright red lip and gums and black teeth stained with betel nut . We stopped so the guys could take pictures. I wished I would have had a camara! She lifted up one of her breasts and squeezed a long spout of breast milk at us! What a sight, we took off up the road. The road was just a one lane dirt road and I was noticing that none of the trees along the road had any leaves. I also noticed that high up in these trees tied to the upper limbs were white bundles that looked like cocoons. I asked the Chief,"Whats with the leafless trees and what are those white bundles up in them?" "Well the trees have been sprayed with defoliant to kill them so our helicopters can see any VC who might try to hide under them (I didn't know anything about Agent Orange until many years after I left Vietnam). The white cocoons were young children who had died at birth or very young. The Ba Na people put them up there so they would be closer to the spirit world as children are to weak to jump into the spirit world by themselves." OK, made perfect sense too me. In 1996 I saw the chemical spray maps (which I have)for Vietnam. The mountains Hai Van ,Ba Na between Danang and Hue were the 3rd most heavily sprayed area in Vietnam. I have spent a lot of time in that area these past years and know that birth defects, and mental illness in the Danang area are 6 times as many as in the rest of south Vietnam. Any way when we arrived to the Village where the team had spent so much time I was surprised to see there was nothing there except black spots on the ground. Of coarse the team knew that and explained to me that it had been burned to the ground during the TET offensive and all the people had been moved to re settlement villages near Camp Books.( That would be the area that us GIs called Dog Patch North.There was also a Dog Patch south near the Danang airport.) Elephant Valley was now a Free Fire Zone, a no mans land. Any Vietnamese there was considered VC and hunting season was on for VC! So I am sure Coate said his mental good byes to a village that was no more and a year of his life wasted in Vietnam! Monday we would all get up in the morning as always but when we came back to the hooch there would be an empty rack and the Vietnam war would continue on without Coate. Coate where ever you are I am proud to have served with you even if it was only a week.
The Name of that Village was Hoa Lien. The Seabee team that I had just joined had an area of operation (AO) from Hoa Kahn village to Hoa Lien Village. During Tet of 1968 the teem was pulled back to Camp Books and the people from Hoa Lien were re-settled to Dog Patch north which was next outside of Camp Books and across the highway from Hoa Kahn. After the war Hoa Kahn became one of the largest districts of Danang City. Hoa Lien was never re-settled and I could not find it on any modern map. Well it just recently showed up on Google Earth map. After the war it became an open pit mine for silica sand and the only thing left of the village is the Hoa Lien temple.
Here is the Hoa Lien temple as of 03-26-2014. My guess is that the area has been mined out and they are starting to build housing in the old mine sight now.
This is the dump with the one big tree where the Vietnamese scavengers hung out. It was great fun going to the dump. When the Officers Mess hall took a direct 122mm hit to the pantry and reefers we took all the food to the dump. The powers that be would not let us salvage any food, so that day the Vietnamese got lobster, stake, fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and every kind of canned good you can imagine. I will bet there was even caviar! There was more than 2 dump trucks full of food. Six dump trucks total. Carl Rice drove the truck and I road shot gun up in the dump bed. I had a bag of yellow onions and I would throw them out to the kids along the road. I would Yell. " Apple, Apple , Number one" and pretend to bite into one. They would take a big bite and respond with throwing the onion at me and yelling "Fuck you Marine,Marine number 10"! In retrospect it is doubtful that I was winning any hearts and minds. When we arrived at the dump and slowed down the Vietnamese would climb into the dump bed and start throwing things out to their friends. I would try to keep them out but with little success. As we started to dump I would climb to the ground to safety. The Vietnamese would stay on board until the last second then jump off. Some times they didn't get off in time and were dumped out with the rubbish. I was surprised that no one was ever hurt. I think it was the second run to the dump when we off loaded the dump truck a Vietnamese lady got on top of the pile and with a piece of 2x4 lumber and started swing and hitting anyone who tried to take anything from the pile. As we drove away she was doing a pretty darn good job of keeping everyone off her pile of salvage!
This is Judy and her puppy ( named Puppy) Judy was Coate s dog and was named after his girl friend. Coate was not there to know about Puppy. We had to give Puppy away as we were not even supposed to have a dog. When Puppy was big enough our secretary, interpreter Miss Nguyen took Puppy home with her to Danang. She promised not to eat Puppy. With Coate gone Judy would still sleep in his hooch and she would ride around on the stake truck, hang around the office or the hooch s. Judy hated Marines, and Vietnamese men but she was alright with Vietnamese women as long as they treated her nice. She was especially friendly with our hooch mama-son. We took good care of Judy and she ate very well, We would get stake and chicken from the mess hall and She also loved to drink beer. Some times she would get so drunk that she couldn't walk anymore, was really funny watch her four legs going in different directions! Coate would send dog food care packages to Judy.
The guy on the left is Fox our Utility man, UT (plumber). I didn't have much contact with him as we never worked on the same jobs. On the right is Kominski , he was our electrician EL. On my first rocket attack he volunteered me as his safety man on the first responder crew. There were 2 first responder crews. It was the responsibility of the first responder crew to get to the seen of the rocket hits and get the electricity turned off to the damaged buildings so that it would be safe for the rescuers and Corpsman to take care of the wounded. In the early days when the electric grid was being built the electrician had to climb a pole to turn the high voltage knife switches off. Then down the pole and over to the building to cut the electrical drop wires and tape them off. Then go back and climb the pole again to turn on the knife switches. Later on it was easier because there were pull handles at the bottom of the poles to turn the power off with. Electrocution was always a risk. In the time I was at Camp Books there were 3 Korean ,Philco Ford workers and 2 marines killed by electrocution. After completing our task we would assist the Corpsmen and rescuers evacuate the wounded and dead. As the number 2 carpenter it was also my job to determine the materials needed to repair the damaged wood structures.
Fox UT. We lost fox on 24 July 1968 to a 122mm rocket. At the time he was being prepared for medivac there was a Catholic priest there giving him last rights. We didn't think he would make it. A few days later we visited him at the NSA hospital in Danang. He was in a Striker frame and they had picked more than 500 pieces of shrapnel out of him. The right side of his face was crushed, lost his right eye,lost right elbow, serious shrapnel in right hip, shrapnel in spine, paralyzed from waste down. He was medivaced to Japan and then to Great Lakes Navel hospital. He kept in touch with Ski so we were able to keep track of how he was doing. Several months later he told us that he got a day pass out of the hospital and his girlfriend and some of his other friends took him out to a hamburger place. While they were about to eat his girlfriend said "keep an eye on my hamburger while I go to the restroom". When she came back from the restroom there was Fox's temporary glass eye siting on top of her hamburger ! I wonder if she eat her hamburger. Fox was about 25 feet from the 122mm rocket when it hit.
Kominski (Ski) ET
Clayton Beerworth ,Builder (BU) . He was next in my chain of command and was the one who showed me the ropes. But on a day to day basis there wasn't much contact. He was off running his carpenter crew and I was off running mine. In the late evenings Clayton and Roger Barbee were teaching me how to play guitar and Clayton would loan me his photograph magazines. We lost Clayton on July 24, 1968 from a 122mm rocket. He was about 50 feet from where the rocket hit. Beerworth had the skin peeled off the side of his head and a broken jaw with shrapnel imbed-ed in the brain, compound broken ankle and multiple other shrapnel wounds. I was able to contact Clayton a few years ago. He walks with the help of a cane. One of his daughters was born with Spina Bifida and the other with minor mental illness. Neither of the daughters can live on their own. Thank you very much Agent Orange! Clayton is 100% disabled thanks to the Veterans administration.
Philco Ford guys in office, Driver at right desk
The man in the center is Driver he was a construction mechanic or equipment operator. I had very little contact with him but I do know that he was married and had two children. He was on his second (?) tour in Vietnam. On July 24,1968 he was medivaced with the loss of his testicles (shrapnel does not discriminate). We figured we would not see him again. A couple months later he came back to finish his 6 month extension. He said everything was OK with him being as how he already had 2 children and didn't want any more. Yes he might have lost his testicles but by coming back to Vietnam he sure had bigger Balls than the rest of us ! The two men on the left are Philco Ford employes who shared the office with us. They shared the office and shop with us during the early days and were contracted to build the High voltage system , install and operate the big electrical generators.They also operated the refrigeration systems and a refrigeration repair shop, sign painting shop, and even had two of their own carpenters. My commanding officer coordinated the jobs with Philco Ford. It surprised me how fast things were built in Vietnam. The day I arrived at Camp Books we did not even have a shop. Withing a couple weeks there was a fully equipped office with everything that should be in an office including a very big coffee machine. It was great working with them as it meant we had refrigeration, and that meant ice which equaled cold beer and sodas. Ice meant you had power to buy favors from people!
Driver
This was my first comanding officer (CO). About the only time I ever saw him was at Monday morning muster when we would take about 15 minutes for a jam session to discuss any problems or make recommendation. He rotated out about the end of June or early July. I don't remember his name. He looked almost like Driver except he was about a foot shorter and had a little more meat on him.
This is Wilson he took Coates place as expediter so I don't know what his rate was. When he left us then Yost became expediter.
The man dead center with his back turned in this picture is Yost , he was our heavy construction builder and ran a 6 man Vietnamese carpenter crew. Mostly doing prefabrication in the carpenter shop but would bring his crew out in the field for heavy construction jobs. This was when the officers mess took two direct hits from a 122mm rocket. Of coarse officers get special treatment. We had two carpenter crews here plus the Philco Ford crews. The Vietnamese man ,left front was a Chieu Hoi, (defector from the Vietcong). After defecting he became a Kit Carson Scout for the US military. After a couple years CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) sent him to us for training to become a carpenter. Many of our Vietnamese workers were sent to us by CORDS and all of our workers were paid by CORDS. Every two weeks two CIA spooks would show up with a suitcase full of money. A table was set up outside the shop and our workers would collect their pay.
Fox in the middle, Ski on the right with back turned. Damn funny how I can still recognize Ski from the back! The man on the left leaning against the door frame is the chief Boatswains mate who welcomed me aboard on my first day at Camp Books. Funny that is the exact spot he was standing when I met him. I always thought it strange to have a Boatswain mate on a Seabee team.
Hogan #2 Electrician During the time I knew Hogan his job was running the labor crew. The Vietnamese on that crew hated him. I was told he was an accident waiting to happen. The cot that he is sitting on is the kind that I found in the Korean bunker and slept in for some time.
Hogan standing perimeter watch. Kinda makes you feel safe !
Freeman Builder (BU) He was in charge of the painting crew. Somebody had to paint all those damn building light green! I believe he left us in August when he had a mental break down. He couldn't handle the 122mm rockets after July 24. He went AWOL twice after the next two rocket attacks. He would freak out when the rockets started coming in and we would have to hold him down to keep him from hurting himself. When the Military police brought him back the second time we went to our CO and asked that he be sent home. He was really getting on our nerves. He was relieved of duty and shipped out. Freeman was a good guy and my friend. Freeman and I were the clean up guys after rocket attacks and that could be a very messy job sometimes. He had been with Fox when Fox was hit and had simply reached his breaking point. I hope you are OK Freeman where ever you are. I am proud to have served with you.
Roger Barbee
I don't have a picture of Barbee. He was a UT (utility-man-plumber). He also ran the labor crew a lot,because plumbers need to dig trenches for their pipes. Barbee left us on July 24 after being wounded by a 122mm rocket. He was hit pretty bad so I didn't know if he was dead or alive. When the Vietnam wall was built I was able to not find his name there so he was at least alive. A couple years ago I found his name on a Vietnam veterans web site and was able to contact him. He sent me a Email telling about his experience with the rocket attack.
The Email I got from Barbee
Sunday morning the duty officer took me out to China Beach PWC (Public Works Center) office and I was instructed how to fill out trouble calls if anyone called on the phone. If there was anything that I couldn't handle I was to call the duty officer on his truck radio. He kind of hinted that he didn't want me calling him. The office was up stairs from the carpenter shop. There was air conditioning but it was working hard just to keep the office at the same temperature as down stairs. I spent most of my six hour watch siting at the bottom of the steps and only going upstairs if the phone rang. Some time mid morning a 1st class (E-6) Builder came to the carpenter shop to make something for his cubicle. He told me that PWC normally worked six days a week from 0700 hr to 1700 hr, lunch was 1 hour because they had to go back to the mess hall at Tien Sha. They stood 4 section duty (stand four hour night watches every fourth day). He said it was pretty good duty. So when 1200 hr rolled around and my watch was finished nobody showed up to relieve me. After a while I tried to call the duty officer but he didn't answer. I finally gave up. It was after 1700 hr when the duty officer showed up. He apologized that I hadn't been relieved and had missed lunch. He took off for Tien Sha to get me a watch relief. By 1800 I had been relieved and the duty officer drove me to the mess hall . I had just stood two watches back to back, my first 12 hr day. I had no idea how easy that 12 hour watch was.
I was up before the chickens on Monday morning and to the mess hall. By 0530 I was waiting for the cattle trucks to pick us up in front of the barracks (the same as the tractor trailer rigs that hall cattle in the United States). I for sure didn't want to miss my first day of work ! Nobody was around and I started to worry that I was in the wrong place. At 0550 hr several cattle trucks pulled up,the drivers got out and went to the mess hall. Still nobody around. At 0555 hr there was a sudden rush of people from the mess hall and barracks. It was a crazy sight seeing so many people getting in the trailers in such a short time. The last guys were the drivers coming from the mess hall, each with a cup of coffee! At exactly 0600 the cattle trucks pulled away to head for their destination. In the cattle truck not one person spoke. They just sat there on the wood benches with their heads hanging down. We arrived at PWC China beach in short order and I found my way up to the office. By 0700 hr there were 6 0r 7 new guys sitting in a small reception room outside the commanding officers office. A yoyo (yeoman) came in took roll call, welcomed us aboard then gave out our assignments. Everyone was going to be at PWC China Beach assigned to different shops. I was going to work at the carpenter shop. The yoyo gave us a little speech about what was expected of us and what the work hours were and any other information we needed to know. Then the Commanding officer came in and welcomed us aboard and gave his little speech. The last thing he said was " Are there any questions or does anyone have any problems?" Well everyone just sat there except me. I put my hand in the air. "What" Well sir I don't like it here ! He glared at me and I knew I had done a great sin. "Sir, I volunteered to come to Vietnam and I don't want to be stuck here painting rocks white and building picket fences. I want to be where I can do something useful. I want to make a meaningful contribution to the war effort." You could have heard a pin drop. The commanding officer just glared at me. I knew I had sinned big time and just sat there waiting for the shit to hit the fan! The CO dismissed everyone " Harms you stay right here!" That is why we have our names over the pockets of our shirts, so the powers that be have a name to put with the face and right now my name was Shit ! The CO left the room and I just sat there waiting feeling like I might be in real trouble. In a while the Executive officer came in. " We don't like trouble around here so I am going to give you what you want." He read off a list of places I could go. I don't remember all the places but there was Hue, Cau Veit, Dong Ha and Quang Tri. He told me the size of the unit and what they did. Of coarse I had no idea about any of them but at least they were out of PWC China Beach. Then he said " By the way, we have a Seabee team at Red Beach that is setting up an area work center (AWC). They will not be ready for more manpower for about six or eight weeks, but I could send you there now if you can stay out of trouble." " Yes sir, I want to go to the team at Red Beach, thank you very much." "OK then , go see the yeoman, he will do the paper work." The XOs last words to me were. "Harms, I don't want to hear your name again" and he walked out. I went out to the yeoman and his first words were " What the fuck did you do to get shit canned to Red Beach?" " I volunteered said I" to which he said " You dumb shit FNG, they get shit on out there all the time." He said they took 25,122mm rockets at 0200 and another 4 rounds at 0600 yesterday morning. He said Red Beach was not a good place to be. I still sometimes wonder if the XO trapped me into that (and by the way). Yoyo did the paper work and I would have to hang out until about 1000 hr when the Red Beach expediter was expected to stop by China Beach and I would be handed off to him. Well,hell I was out of here, fuck Tien Sha and China Beach !
Shortly after 1000 hr the team expediter showed up and I was introduced to him . His name was Coate and he was a 3rd class yeoman. He was wearing his best short timers uniform. ( Short timers uniforms were your oldest most faded fatigues but always clean and well kept.) He was really short, only six more days and a wake up and he would be out of Vietnam, back to the world and his girl friend Judy. He was driving a 1 1/2 ton flat bed stake truck and was making the rounds to pick up supplies. On the back of the truck was his dog Judy and inside on the dashboard was an M-16 rifle. He had to re arrange his schedule to accommodate me. So off to Camp Tien Sha to get my gear and check out. Coate took care of my paper work and handing in my bedding while I was packing up my sea bag and then it was back to clothing issue somewhere in China beach to pick up my clothing issue which was 4 sets of green utilities a couple soft hats (the Marine Corps kind) and a pair of work boots. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed for one hour for lunch and Coate did not have the time to hang around. That is the only time I had to get clothing issue. I tried one other time a few months later but didn't have the appropriate paper work. So what did I do for work uniforms ? Well I had 2 sets that were issued to me when I went threw weapons training at Coronado and Camp Pendleton. Coate gave me two sets of shorts and short sleeve shirts. The rest of my tour I did what every good Seabee team would do, I stole them ! Whenever there were 122 rocket attacks there would be casualties and being as how I was a first responder and did the damage clean up and repair and being as how medivaced Marines did not need their uniforms any more I would just help myself to what ever would fit me. Another source for jungle fatigues was up at Camp Reasoner. There were two supply tents up there and when the Field Marines (grunts) would come in from the bush they would strip off all their dirty clothes and throw them in piles in one tent then go into the other tent and pick up clean uniforms. Well whenever I was working in that area I would sneak in the tent and find some dirty uniforms,still in good shape and steal them, put them in my crew tool box and take them back to my hooch and hand wash them ! You got to do what you got to do ! Off we went to the supply yard at one of the SeaBee battalions, while we were there we stopped for a quick lunch at the Navy mess hall. I didn't know it then but that was my last good meal for a long time! When we arrived at Red Beach the Seabee team shop was a mad house. Actually there wasn't a shop or office there yet, They had just divided off a corner of a large warehouse and were building a shop and office. The second floor office was just being framed up . There weren't even any stairs going up there yet. There were Seabees, Korean Philco Ford, Vietnamese all working like mad . Coate introduced me to a Chief Boatswain Mate who was our executive officer.The Commanding officer wasn't there( a lieutenant Junior Grade.) He didn't mince words. " We weren't expecting any new men and we don't have the time to train you. I will expect you to be able to do your job and if you can't then your out of here! You will use the chain of command ,don't come to me. You are a builder so Beerworth or Yost will be who you report too." We hopped in his truck and he took me down to H&S company supply to get bedding and mess gear. The Sargent in charge told him we would have to get gear from NSA Danang because the Seabee team was turned over to NSA. The Chief did manage to get bedding (Ha,Ha) I got one bed sheet and one pillow case. "Sorry that's all we have!" Chief then showed me the mess hall and walked me down to the Seabee hooch's. He left me sitting there on the steps saying he would send Beerworth down at 1700 hr to get me settled in. (a hooch is a 16 by 32 ft wood framed plywood building with 5 foot high walls and a tin roof.) The Marines slept 12 to 14 men in a hootch. The Seabee team had 8 junior men in one hootch and 4 senior men in the second hootch. Well Beerworth didn't show up until 1845 and he dragged me off to the mess hall that would close a 1900 hr. I suppose we had a good conversation but don't have a clue of what. Back at the hootch the Seabees got in a major debate about where to put me. Everyone had his turf marked out and nobody was willing to give any for me. The argument got pretty heated. Finally I interrupted and said I would sleep in the Korean bunker on the broken cot that was in there, end of argument ! I am sure had I not done that , the Chief, when he came down to the hootch, would have solved the problem by sending me back to China Beach. It was very clear that they did not want a FNG getting in their way. I was going to have to hit the ground running if I intended to stay with this team. Sleeping in that bunker was not good.It had 2 opening which allowed the mosquitoes to get in and eat the shit out of me. So there I would be for over a week trying to keep the mosquitoes off of me by covering with the sheet and putting my head in the pillow case. Let me tell you that wasn't fun at all. The cot had a broken leg so I had to prop it up with a sand bag and it was missing one end piece so it just wanted to fold up on me when I laid on it.
The Name of that Village was Hoa Lien. The Seabee team that I had just joined had an area of operation (AO) from Hoa Kahn village to Hoa Lien Village. During Tet of 1968 the teem was pulled back to Camp Books and the people from Hoa Lien were re-settled to Dog Patch north which was next outside of Camp Books and across the highway from Hoa Kahn. After the war Hoa Kahn became one of the largest districts of Danang City. Hoa Lien was never re-settled and I could not find it on any modern map. Well it just recently showed up on Google Earth map. After the war it became an open pit mine for silica sand and the only thing left of the village is the Hoa Lien temple.
This is the dump with the one big tree where the Vietnamese scavengers hung out. It was great fun going to the dump. When the Officers Mess hall took a direct 122mm hit to the pantry and reefers we took all the food to the dump. The powers that be would not let us salvage any food, so that day the Vietnamese got lobster, stake, fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and every kind of canned good you can imagine. I will bet there was even caviar! There was more than 2 dump trucks full of food. Six dump trucks total. Carl Rice drove the truck and I road shot gun up in the dump bed. I had a bag of yellow onions and I would throw them out to the kids along the road. I would Yell. " Apple, Apple , Number one" and pretend to bite into one. They would take a big bite and respond with throwing the onion at me and yelling "Fuck you Marine,Marine number 10"! In retrospect it is doubtful that I was winning any hearts and minds. When we arrived at the dump and slowed down the Vietnamese would climb into the dump bed and start throwing things out to their friends. I would try to keep them out but with little success. As we started to dump I would climb to the ground to safety. The Vietnamese would stay on board until the last second then jump off. Some times they didn't get off in time and were dumped out with the rubbish. I was surprised that no one was ever hurt. I think it was the second run to the dump when we off loaded the dump truck a Vietnamese lady got on top of the pile and with a piece of 2x4 lumber and started swing and hitting anyone who tried to take anything from the pile. As we drove away she was doing a pretty darn good job of keeping everyone off her pile of salvage!
Roger Barbee
I don't have a picture of Barbee. He was a UT (utility-man-plumber). He also ran the labor crew a lot,because plumbers need to dig trenches for their pipes. Barbee left us on July 24 after being wounded by a 122mm rocket. He was hit pretty bad so I didn't know if he was dead or alive. When the Vietnam wall was built I was able to not find his name there so he was at least alive. A couple years ago I found his name on a Vietnam veterans web site and was able to contact him. He sent me a Email telling about his experience with the rocket attack.
Barbee was very well liked by the labor crew. After he was medivaced one young labor worker(Baby son) would ask me every morning If I had heard how Barbee was and if I got a letter from him. Well I never did hear from Barbee. Now I know where Barbee is but where is Babyson? I have spent countless hours over the past 15 years driving my motorbike around the Camp Books area looking for any of our workers. I have never found any but I still have hope. Most of them would be dead by now as most of the men were in their mid forties then . Some of the women were in their early twenties, so there is still hope.
The girl on the left is Babyson. Many of the workers had taken on nicknames, some of them self imposed and some of them given to them by the Americans. Babyson was only 15 years old and she had an older sister on the labor crew. The girl on the right might be her older sister. She was the daughter of a Na Ba Chief. All of her teeth were inlaid with gold and she always had on a lot of gold jewelry. She was very intelligent and had picked up enough English that she became the spokesperson for the labor crew. She had a real sense of humor and was a lot of fun to be around. Her older sister never said a word.
Probably the most dynamic person on our team was Bettencourt. He was a steel worker but most importantly was his skills at Cumshaw . Anything you needed Bettencourt could get it.
He was connected to a whole network of guys in the Danang Area of operation. He would bargain using Whiskey , captured weapons, ration cards or just flat ass stealing. Because I didn't drink in Vietnam I would give him my ration card every month to get beer to trade to grunts. He would trade captured weapons that he would get from the Marines . An example would be to give a Sargent a bottle of whiskey for a captured SKS rifle. Trade the SKS to a Navy officer at Bridge Ramp for 3 bottles of whiskey. Trade a bottle for a pallet of sand bags or a couple of bottles for a load of concrete. The well being of our SeaBee team was dependent on Bettencourt. He didn't think small, a list of things he got for us would be very long. Dump truck, Cement truck, the CO's Jeep,Deuce and a half M 35, M37 power wagon, Mechanical Mule, Cement mixer.
- cumshaw
- unofficial trading, begging, bartering, or stealing from other branches of the service .
So there are the team members when I came on board on May 6, 1968. My first day of work was on tuesday May 7. At the shop Beerworth gave me two Vietnamese workers and I set them to building our carpenter crew box. One of my workers was from Yosts crew and the other was from Beerworths. The first issue was the Vietnamese could not pronounce my name and I could not pronounce the younger workers name. By the end of the day they had sorted out that issue. I would be called Honcho (Boss) . The young kid would be called Ti Ti Honcho (little boss) The older worker (My grew leader) was Pham Ba. While my new crew was building the crew box. Beerworth and I took his crew out to work on re-building rocket damage and then he and I went out to the main gate to hire six new workers to fill out my crew. We parked the truck inside the gate. Removed everything from our pockets. Removed belts, hats, dog tags, watches. Anything that could be stolen when we were in the pushing and shoving crowd out side the gate. We took Babyson with us. She would make the final choice as to who we would hire. Out side the gate was just a solid mass of Vietnamese, pushing and shoving, grabbing us by our clothes ,trying to get our attention. Everyone of them wanted to work . It was a real mess but we did manage to pick out some possible workers. We took them over behind the gate and Babyson started questioning them and finally settled on six. Those six we took inside the main gate to the IRO office were they would be documented and their information sent to CORDs in Danang for security check. It would take at least a
May 8,1968 Wednesday
This is the day I started my real job. I was going to start building my own hooch so I would have a place to sleep ! First I had to do a couple hour job at the 1st MP Quonset hut. We needed to replace the awning over the entry door that was about to fall off. This would also give Beerworth time to get his guys out on their job. Then he could pick my guys up and pick up materials to build my hooch. Beerworth dropped us at 1st MPs. I was standing in front of the hut assessing the job. Pham Ba went around back to take a pee. Next thing I realize he has a hold on my sleeve. "Honcho come", he pulls me around the Quonset hut, his eyes were as big as saucers! Around back there was a Jeep with a utility trailer on behind. Inside of that trailer, face down were 2 dead Marines. They had been covered with poncho liners but they had blown off. The trailer was to short so the Marines legs were bent at the knees and sticking up, no shoes, pant legs up to their knees showing their very white legs. Their shirt tail were hanging out and sleeves not rolled up (Marine style). I slowly walked around the trailer checking them out. That was my first time seeing dead Marines. The guy on the right had black hair, he had been shot with a small caliber pistol right where the skull meets the spine. The Marine on the left was blond and looked like a California surfer.He to had been shot in the back of the head. There wasn't much blood ,just a small whelp where the bullet went in. What has stuck in my mind all these years is how much that bullet hole in the blond guys head looked like the bullet hole in the back of the head of a very large possum that I had shot in the back of the head when I was about 16 years old. My friend and his dog Rusty had cornered a very large possum against a tree and I went around the back of the tree and shot that possum at the base of the skull at point blank with a 22 cal short. Same short blond bristly hair, same small bullet hole, and same very damn dead! I had plenty of time to take it all in and it was very UN-nerving. Then a voice came from inside the Quonset hut." Get those Fucking Gooks away from that Damn trailer". So back around to the front of the hut and to work on the awning . While my guys were working I was talking to the Gunny in the hut. I wanted to know everything about what happened to those Marines. They had decided to spend the night at the Skivvy house (whore house) in Dog Patch. Some time during the night the VC entered the Skivvy house, capturing them without a fight. Had tied their hands behind their backs and executed them. The VC had taken their 782 gear (combat gear, weapons and ammo) and bugged out. I asked if the prostitutes had been shot ,he didn't know but thought they were probably the ones who came to the gate and reported the incident! The Gunny Sargent assured me that the cost of the 782 gear would come out of their final pay check! Ya, we continued our work and started building my hooch. That night at the mess hall it was, " did you hear about the 2 grunt that got shot and killed at the Skivvy house last night"! Well sure I heard about it and even saw them down at 1st MPs. Remember the talk we got about staying away from the prostitutes that I got my first day in Vietnam? Well I don't know how much of an impression that left on me but these guys getting killed in the Skivvy house got my attention ! Don't go to Dog Patch at night and stay way from the prostitutes. Made a very good impression on me, I didn't even consider it my whole time in Vietnam ! The two guys shot in the skivvy house that night were, Pvt. James L Chambers (cause of death,misadventure). Lance Corporal James D Feucht (cause of death,misadventure). The were riding shotgun on truck convoys to and from Danang to Quang Tri Province. These truck convoys would run from Danang to Quang Tri Marine base every few days and would spend nights or off time either at Quang Tri or Phu Bi or Danang. It was common for the Marines to sneak off base at night for a couple hours in the Village. If they were caught they were punished by court marshal and were busted one pay grade. I guess that is why there were a lot of E-2 in the Marines.
This is the first Poem that I wrote in Vietnam and is about the two marines killed in the skivvy house.
I started building my hooch on Wednesday May 8th at just before noon. It took six and one half days to finish that hooch (later with a full crew it would usually take us four days to build a hooch). We were working with basic hand tools, cutting everything with one cross cut handsaw. It was a real learning experience for the three of us. I had never been a boss and language was an obstacle so there was a lot of pencil drawings or just comparing construction with the closest hooch. Mostly I would just build and they would watch and fallow what I did. As soon as they caught on they would take on that task and I would move on to the next. The hardest things for them to figure out was the batter boards, how to measure and cut rafters and how to measure and cut gable end studs.
A typical day and night at Camp Books,
My morning started at 0500. First thing was to get over to the mess hall (100 yards) for breakfast. Marine chow really sucks but if your gonna work you have to eat! I actually got used to eating runny scrambled eggs with burned sausage and also shit on a shingle (chipped beef on toast). Some mornings we got lucky and there was milk but mostly just Koolaid . After breakfast we would walk back to the hooch and pile on the trucks and off to the shop only about 300 yards. Muster was at exactly 0600 ( just role call) and by 0605 we were loading up the trucks with materials and tool boxes and doing any other prep work we could. Then on to the trucks and drive to the gate and pick up our Vietnamese workers. If the prep work was not done in time the workers would already have walked to the shop. Their start work time was 0700. All loaded up we would head for the job sight. That could be on Camp Books, Camp Reasoner, or any of the little outposts within a few miles of Camp Books. We were dropped off there to spend the day. If I was on Camp Books when it was lunch time I would walk to the mess hall taking my Vietnamese with me as they were not allowed to be left alone on base. They would eat out back of the mess hall where they could be watched. Lunch was one half hour. The Vietnamese also got a 15 minute brake at about 1000 hr and 15 minutes at about 1400 hr. I always carried cigarettes in the toolbox for my workers. I would also reward them with cold Cokes from time to time when they were working real hard. People always say how hard Vietnamese work but I found that is not true ! They are basically lazy . Their goal is to get through the day doing the least amount as possible. The reason it seems they get so much done is because there are so damn many of them working together! If I was working off base I would bring a box lunch from the mess hall or bring C rations. The box lunch was always the same. Liverwurst sandwich, no butter or mayo. The liverwurst was half inch thick and the bread was always dry. There was a warm Coke and an apple or orange. I could not eat those damn sandwiches and would field strip it, feeding the liverwurst to any stray dog and then soaking the bread in warm Coke. The apples were always mealy but the oranges were good. A couple times they threw in an candy bar that would be completely melted ! To me the best meals were C rats but often times they were very old ,dated back as far as 1954. The most prized meals were the LRP rats (long range patrol rations) which were freeze dried meals. They were very hard to come by so we would hoard them when ever we could get them. The Vietnamese work day ended at 1700 hrs. Our truck would pick them up then and take them back to the shop. If we were off base I would also go back on the truck. If we were on base I would work until 1800 and then walk back to the shop. We were finished work at 1800 but it would usually take me until 1830 to get my paper work done ! If I was lucky I would get finished in time to get on one of our trucks to the mess hall. The mess hall closed at 1900 so I didn't want to be to late . I would almost always get back to my hooch at 1915. Then it was time to do our own work. First and foremost was filling sand bags. We had 2 bunkers to re build and then a complete knew bunker for my hooch. We had to wash our clothes by hand in a wash pan every evening and hang them in the hooch eves to dry. We were also building our own shower ,laundry room. By about 2200 hrs we would knock off work , take a shower and go to bed.
Nights in Vietnam were uncomfortable at best. As tired as I was I never got much sleep. At first it was because every thing was so knew and exciting. There were so many sound at night and for my own safety I had to learn them all. Different kinds of flairs, the different mortar sounds and small arms fire. I needed to know which of the sound meant danger! There was outgoing mortar rounds and incoming. Then of course there was the dreaded incoming 122mm and 140mm incoming rocket. To know all the different sounds was to be able to read what was happening at night and how safe I was. After a couple rocket and mortar attacks my brain never went completely to sleep. Some part of it was always listening to what was going on . My body was always waiting to react. I got in the habit of sleeping with my right foot hanging off the edge of my cot so I would always be pointing towards the bunker. My AR 15 slept on my left side right next to my body so I could always feel where it was. I got used to the nights but was never comfortable enough to sleep well. Some morning I would be more tired when I woke up than when I went to bed. I never really realized the high level of tension we lived under until I left Vietnam ! Was I scared ? Well damn right I was scared. Not all the time but sometimes . Mostly I was just kind of mentally numb. I didn't think about the danger but was aware of it. Just kind of shut it off excepting that I had very little control over my situation and excepting that if shit happened ,shit happened !! There were other things to screw up the nights. If one of the other bases in our AO got hit by mortars or rockets then our siren went off and we were on red alert which meant we had to role out with weapons, helmets,and flack jackets and man our posts. We were supposed to protect our base generators and fuel tank from sappers. Sometimes we could be called out 2 or 3 times in a night. That sure screwed with our sleep! We had fox holes around the generators and fuel tank and I would sit there looking up at that big ass fuel tank thinking that if the VC hit that with a RPG (rocket propelled grenade) I was going to be turned into a crispy critter. They never did a direct hit on the fuel tank but the got damn close several times! They did hit the fuel bladders at truck company several time so I knew there would be a nice warm fire if our fuel tank got hit.
Another thing that screwed up the night for us was our night radio, phone watch, it was a real bitch ! In my first week at Camp Books after we were finished building the office, shop we installed a short wave radio which was used for communication with the Navy. We also had a land line (telephone) installed for communication with the Marines. They had to be manned 24 hours a day. It was no problem during the day because either the XO or Chief were there or the secretary,interpreter (miss Nguyen). From 1800 hours until 0600 we had to have some one stand watch. As such a small group we couldn't do the standard Navy 4 hour watch. What we finally did was a one man 12 hour watch. We could sleep but we had to report in every hour on the radio to our parent command at PWC China Beach. There were 6 area work centers in the Da Nang AO . So on the hour we would get a call. ALL work centers report in : AWC # 1 reports everything is quite ! by the time they got to us AWC# 5 we would be awake (hopefully) and report in. We set the radio on squelch so it would make a lot of noise and wake us up. If there were any trouble calls from the Marines (usually lights out on the perimeter or something not working at the mess hall) then it was jump in the truck drive out and check and drive over to our hooch and get who ever was needed to go fix the problem. The other important thing we had to do was to check the Red Beach causeway at 2400 hr. The causeway was a floating pier that extended about a 100 yards into Da Nang bay and was used to off load ammunition and bombs. So after the 2400 check in I would jump in the truck with M-16 and ammo. Drive out the back gate and about 2 miles to the Navy Seabee base. Go through their front gate then out their back gate to the causeway. Then walk the length of pier re-installing any buffer pads that might have come out. Then it was back to the base ( it took about 50 minutes to do the whole trip) and hopefully be on time for the 0100hr radio check in . If there was any heavy weather and to many buffer pads were jumping out I would have to go back to the hooch and roust out a work crew. It was creepy doing that trip to the causeway. The road was closed to civilian traffic at night so there would be no other vehicles on the road. There was the real possibility of hitting a mine or being ambushed by the VC (it happened more often then I would like to think about) . We had no black out lights on our trucks so we would have been any easy target for anyone who decided that they were going to kill us! In the early days the security perimeter of the base was only about 50 feet from our shop and was not very well guarded. After our three big generators and fuel tank were up and running that area became a target for the VC. The shop doors were always open and a light on in the shop.( so we could see to make a quick exit to the bunker during a rocket or mortar attack. We were also vulnerable to sappers . Our office was up stairs. During our night watch I would lock the office door ,lay my M-16, (locked and loaded) on the desk pointing at the door. I would sit at the desk and drink coffee, write letters or poetry. Anyone who tried to open that door without giving our pass word would have been shot. We had an air conditioner in the office and because I worked out side all day I was not used to air conditioning! It was a long miserable cold 12 hour night. Drinking black coffee trying to stay alert. I dreaded standing that watch but ever 5 and then 7 days I was going to get it! I hated that phone, radio, air conditioning and black coffee! Even now-days I hate phones,radios, air conditioning and coffee ! Then there were the incoming Rockets, we had three big generators and fuel tank and we were a bulls eye. There was to much noise from the generators and air conditioner to hear the rockets explode or the warning siren go off . Often several rockets would have gone off before I even knew we were under attack ! We got danger close rockets in that area often. Within a hundred feet of the generators. One night I was in the office with LT Branch . He was standing about 10 feet from me and the first round of a rocket attack went through the ventilator on top of our building ,exactly four feet above the LTs head and exploded in the ware house bay next to our shop. That distance above us was only 4 feet. If it had detonated when it hit the ventilator we both would have been killed! That was the LTs first rocket attack and he didn't react fast enough. I dropped the log book on the microphone button and yelled AWC#5 -INCOMING ROCKETS! Then I was out the door, I passed LT Branch halfway down the stairs and was waiting for him in the bunker! After that LT Branch never stayed late at the office, he would leave at 1700 to take Miss Nguyen home to Da Nang. and the LT moved to the Da
The Hoa Kahn Children's Clinic
On Wednesday May 15 I got a work order to build a building at the Hoa Kahn Children s Clinic. The clinic was right outside Camp Books front gate and at the time I arrived there it consisted of one hooch (doctors quarters and office and 4 or 6 15 foot by 30 foot army tents set up right on the sand and overcrowded with folding arm cots. It would be my job to assemble a building using surplus tent platforms joined together and build walls and a sheet metal roof. On the morning of Thursday May 16 my crew with the help of a supply company all terrain fork lift moved three or four tent platforms out to the clinic sight and placed them side by side on the sand. We then pushed them tight together and put a 2x8 rim joist around the outside to hold them together. As we did this we leveled the platforms and put new concrete pads and posts underneath. Most of the work was done by hand as the fork lift could not hang around. By the end of the day we had the platform done and were framing the first wall. The end results was a building 30 feet wide by 45ft long(maybe 60ft).
On Friday May 17 I was sent out on another job. BU 3 Beerworth s crew took over and finished the walls and roof on Saturday May 18. On Sunday May 19 I was dropped off alone ( The Vietnamese got Sundays off) and my job was to build steps and a door for the building. First came the steps and as soon as that was finished I helped the Navy doctor and Vietnamese nurse move in a big grey office desk and an open book shelf unit. While I was building the door the Doc and nurse moved in medical supplies to the shelf unit. It must have been about 1100 hr. and I was just finishing up the door. Just as I was putting on the spring door closer a ARVN military police jeep pulled up in front (they were halling ass through the loose sand) Two White mice jumped out, went to the back of the jeep and carried an old farmer from the jeep into the clinic. I held the door open for them. ( We called the Army Republic Of Vietnam police white mice because they were small, wore white helmets white web belts, white pistol holsters and white spats.) The poor farmer had stepped on a mine. Both of his legs had been pretty much blown off. The feet just kind of hanging by muscle and skin. The MPs had used their white belts as tourniquets just above the knees. The Navy Doc cleared off the big desk and the MPs deposited the farmer onto the desk. The MPs left in a hurry. The Doc told me to help tie the farmer down to the desk. Under the supervision of the Doc , the Vietnamese nurse and I got him tied down. He was laying on his back and we had tied his arms (wrists) to the legs on one end of the desk and then had tide his upper thighs to the other legs of the desk. I believe we also tied him around the waist. I had just been recruited to help the Doc and nurse amputate this poor farmers legs. (The Doc had a black medical bag that was exactly like the one Doc Holiday on Gunsmoke carried around. )The Doc gave me a large stick like a tongue depressor ,except bigger. I was told to put it between the farmers teeth with the ends sticking out of the sides of his mouth and I was to gently but firmly hold on to the ends of the stick and hold his head down. The nurse laid across the farmers upper thighs to hold him in place. The Doc first put surgical tourniquets on and took the belts off. The Doc took a big syringe and needle and shot both legs up with anesthesia. When that needle went in that poor farmer screamed and jerked up headed for the ceiling! I was not prepared and he totally over powered me! But that only happened once as from then on I was ready. The Doc started by cutting the legs off. One about half way from knee to foot and the other just below the knee! As he cut them off he threw them in the corner beside the shelf and I can remember how strange they looked leaning against the wall! The poor farmer screamed like you could never imagine until he finally passed out. Even then every time the Doc cut through a nerve that farmer would try to fly through the roof! I was probably in as much in shock as the farmer. I can still hear the snip of the scissors as the Doc cut away the flesh. ( very much reminds me of cutting up chickens at butchering time). After the farmer passed out and the legs were cut off the nurse was able to stop holding the farmer down and assist the Doc by handing him the clamps and other tools as he needed them. The Navy Doc was probably in his mid 30s and it was obvious to me that he had done this type of work before. He seemed totally comfortable and relaxed. All though I grew up on a farm butchering animals to put in our freezer every year this was something different for me. This was a real live human! The Doc narrated as he worked, what he was doing, what he was going to do, when I should be prepared for the farmer to go ballistic! He told me step by step every detail. I was able to remain calm and under control and do what ever he told me but inside I was on the edge of losing it! The Doc trimmed all the skin and muscle nice and neat adding clamps (hemostats) as he went. Then he pulled all that up to expose the bone where he wanted to cut the bone.The nurse held all the skin and muscle up while the Doc cut off the bones. The saw he used was a miniature version of the bone saw we used when we cut up cows or pigs at butchering time on the farm! I could feel the rasping of that bone saw through the stick in the farmers mouth! Gave me the creeps then and still does now when I think about it! After the bones were cut the Doc tied off all the bleeders and removed the hemostats . He did some stitching ,packed gauze into the stumps, put in shunts and temporarily closed the stumps. Some where along the line the nurse had done an IV drip. When the Doc was finished he told me I could remove the stick. He praised me for staying calm and I had done good then he said I should go outside and sit down as I was looking a little green around the gills! I went out and sat on my toolbox and thought about what I had just experienced. It was about the most insane thing I had ever experienced and was hard for my mind to grasp what had just happened. After a short rest to pull my self together I went back and finished putting the door spring on and about that time one of my team mates picked me up and took me back to the shop. My day was done!! ---- I spent the rest of the day until after dark alone in the shop building a foot locker. I suppose that I needed that time alone to recover from the amputation! The next weekend I asked about the farmer ? Did he live or die? Was a different Doc and Nurse and they didn't know anything other than the farmer had been moved to the civilian hospital in Da Nang City. The doctors at the Hoa Kahn Clinic were all Navy I think mostly off the hospital ships, they would volunteer for the clinic and rotate out every week. The Docs loved coming to Hoa Kahn Clinic. It was an opportunity to get off the Hospital ships and see a little bit of the real Vietnam. So every week there would be a different doctor. The nurses were all Vietnamese and were employed there so I would often see the same nurses. I think it was on May 22,Wednesday when I was on the night radio,phone watch that I wrote my poem about this event. I am not sure what possessed me to write poems there. I think that maybe it was a way to help get my thoughts together, write the event down and then move on. It was kind of like the work orders I got. Do the job, get it done right and then sign off the work order and move on to the next one. What was done was done!
This is my Poem about the farmer who stepped on the mine.
This is the Hoa Kahn clinic at the time I started working there. The hooch in back is the doctors office and residents. The tents were on the right. The new wood frame building that I did was behind the camera. Later I built a wash building and cook shack just about where these cots and the officers are standing. The nurse in the center of the picture is the one who helped amputate the farmers legs. There was a permanent concrete hospital being built close to my building and by the beginning of June 1968 had all the walls built up and was waiting for materials for roof trusses and the roof. Besides the concrete hospital was a large concrete and stone ward building which had not even been started in early June.
When I started working on this clinic project I was full of good feelings as to how we were helping these poor Vietnamese people. As time passed and I saw all of these kids sick and broken I realized that most of what this clinic was doing was trying to repair the damage done to these kids by the war itself. Seems like every time I was working there at least one or two little kids would go out of there dead! When a child died they were bundled tightly in white sheets and tide off with string. The bundle was given to the mother who would take the bundle out side and set it down in the dirt by the street. She would be down on her hands and knees crying and waling. She would throw dirt into the air and scratch at her face until it was bleeding , rubbing dirt into the cuts. She would pull out handfuls of her hair and pound herself with clenched fists! It was a horrifying thing to watch. I couldn't grasp what was going on at the time. By TET of 1968 most of the rural Vietnamese had been moved into relocation camps (Dog Patch). They were simply ghettos with poor sanitation , communal water supply, no roads or electricity. We had devastated their economy and destroyed their infrastructure. All in the name of saving them from Communism. All of the workers that worked for us were dislocated Vietnamese and us putting them to work was an attempt to keep their economy rolling. We were told that we were teaching them skills so they would be able to have a useful job. Well guess what ? Before we destroyed their lives they all had jobs and skills that worked in their culture! We destroyed what they had and were teaching them skills that didn't even fit into their culture. Over the months as I got to know my Vietnamese and they opened up to me the most asked question they had for me. Why are you here in Vietnam ? You have destroyed my country and my family! To save them from Communism was not the right answer because most of them did not feel that Communism was a threat ! The only answer I could give them that they would except was. I am a 20 year old US soldier and my country says I have to be here!
Often times during a rocket or mortar attack rounds would over shoot landing in Hoa Kahn or Dog Patch ,providing children for the Clinic. Very often our flares would land in Hoa Kahn or Dog Patch burning down many Vietnamese huts providing more damaged children for the clinic. Often the convoys would drop off kids from out in the bush. Nobody even knowing where from or if they had families. Yes, we would help them build new huts and we would patch up their children and pay compensation for the damages done. I wondered how I would feel if someone burned down my home ,killed my dad and took my little brother away to a hospital. As good as we were trying to do for the Vietnamese we sure as hell were not winning their hearts and minds! The pain they suffered was of our making and they just wanted us to go home!
Here is the battalion report for May 1968. The village it refers to was just north of Camp Books. The fire was caused by a Air or artillery white phosphorus flare ( WP). The flares were often still burning when they hit the ground. Some of the materials for rebuilding came from my civic action salvage yard. Another interesting point is the H&S Co. Donations for May. $10 of that came from me. I donated money several times while at Camp Books.
We were not part of the Marine Civil Affair but worked independent of them. An example of what we did. A refugee family was living in a lean too in Dog Patch south . There was a young mother with several kid and grandma and grandpa. Her husband was an ARVN soldier who had been killed. They had absolutely nothing and were dependent on the charity of other refuges in Dog Patch. My head carpenter ,Pham Ba told me about her during the week. I went to my CO and asked to help. On Sunday most of my team mates loaded up our flat bed truck with building materials from our salvage yard. We took several trucks and picked up Pham Ba and Babyson outside the gate and headed down the road. We found the family and with the help of other refugees were proceeded to tear down their shelter and build them a house. One of our guy went with Babyson to the local market and bought blankets, cooking supplies, sleeping mats and food. Late in the day we had built them a nice hootch and had them moved in. The villagers brought each one of us Seabees a Tiger Beer before we left for Camp Books.
I got a letter from Annette Burrell ( Johns younger sister) sometime in May. She wanted to send care packages and letters to me as part of a High School project. Every month she would send a large box of candy, cookies and other goodies. I would share it with my team mates but a lot of it I gave to the Vietnamese children at the Clinic or whenever I worked off base. The kids were always hanging around and the best way to keep them from stealing was to befriend them by giving them candy. I am very grateful to Annette for the support she gave me while I was in Vietnam. Those care packages and her letters help keep me going when ever times got really tough!
I don't remember when I stopped doing work at the Children's clinic, Maybe the end of June or early July. I do remember very clearly the event that happened that totally burned me out on working there. It was a Saturday, perhaps we were finishing up the cook shed. What ever it was we were done by shortly after 1600 hr. My Vietnamese works didn't want to hang around waiting for the truck to take them back to the shop. Although the rules were they had to go back and check out. Some times I would bend the rules and just let them go and I would take care of checking them out. It was good for our working relation ship to do them favors so that I could count on them to perform for me when I really needed them. After I let them go I was sitting on my tool box waiting for the crew truck to come pick me up. The doctor and nurse came out of the clinic. The nurse was carrying a little girl about 4 years old. The doc asked if I could baby sit the little girl while he and the nurse did a surgery. The little girl was fusing and didn't want to leave the nurse so it took a little effort to hand her off to me . She smelled horrible! A smell I have never smelled again in my life time. She was wearing light blue pajamas with little lambs printed on it. Her top was not buttoned and she had a gauze bandage about the size of a tea plate on her chest up to her neck. I could see through the gauze and there was some kind of wound underneath that looked like velvet. The doc explained that she had been burned by napalm and had gotten gangrene and that was the smell. I held that little girl sitting on my tool box and in a short time she was used to me and clutching onto the front of my shirt. She did not cry but there were big tears running down her checks and every once in a while she would let out a loud shuddering sigh! The crew truck got there about 1745 hr or so and the doc was still busy. The guys loaded up my tool box and gave me an M-16 so I would be able to walk back to the base later. ( the rules for Camp Books were that to be off base you had to have a weapon). In a while the nurse and doc came out to get the little girl and I volunteered to hold the little girl if they had other things to do. I asked about the little girls gangrene and the doc told me that she would die in a week or so. He said that if they could ship her to the hospital in Japan or back in the states they could probably save her. Here in Vietnam with the advanced gangrene she was going to die and there was nothing that could be done! It really, really broke my heart! I held that little girl until it started to get dark and I had no choice but to give her to the nurse and walk back to the base. I cried to myself on the way back to the base. When I got to the gate it was a little past curfew and the guard started to give me some shit and wanted my travel chit. With tears in my eyes I told the guard that I had been helping the doc at the children's clinic and he could take his fucking travel chit and shove it up his ass! He got the point and let me through the gate, no more questions asked. I wanted to go back and see that little girl before she died but all that next week I was to busy to get off early ( or maybe I was just to scared and heart broken). On Friday I left the shop at 1800hr and went to the Children's Clinic. I asked about the little girl and the doc said she had died Thursday night. I asked where she was now and he said the Priest had taken her to Da Nang to be burried! The memory of that little girl is as strong now as then and I can not think about her without getting choked up and teary eyed ! There are other memories of my time working at the clinic. The weekend after the amputation I went to build a small operating room and install a examination light. Our electricians went to wire up the building for electricity. When we got there the doc wanted to show us around. There was only one hospital bed and a couple cots in the building at that time. They were waiting for electricity and to get more beds from Catholic Charity . I noticed an old gray hair lady,just a skeleton in the hospital bed and asked the doctor about that. I thought the clinic was for children. I was shocked when he told me she was only 15 years old! What the F is wrong with her? The doc had no idea but it was a sure thing she was going to die. Some time that day the Catholic Priest who was in charge of the clinic and also the Da Nang orphanage showed up . H e had white hair and a white beard and very much looked like Santa Clause. He had a little Vietnamese kid with him about 8 years old. The kids head had been stitched up and looked just like a soccer ball. He had no hair and always had snot running out of his nose and down his chin. When I asked the Priest what happened to the kid he said he didn't know, the kid was at the orphanage when he took over. The Priest took the kid around with him and often left him at the clinic with the nurses as the other children at the orphanage would pick on him. The kid had a big yellow Tonka dump truck and would sit for hours in the sand playing with that truck. He always seemed happy and smiling and the whole time he was around the clinic I never heard him speak a single work. I think he may have had scrambled brains to go with his stitched up head . Yes, everyone called him soccer ball head ! After the little girl died I never went back to the clinic. The next work order I got for there I gave it to Beerworth and told him I would not work there any more! Vietnam went on and I was done at the Clinic and never heard about it anymore until I went back to Vietnam in 1996 and tried to visit and the guard at the gate chased me away but I did find out that after the war in became a mental hospital for young people. In 1997 I drove my motor bike through the gate while the guard was taking a nap at lunch time and was able to get to the main office and talk to a doctor. I faked being a doctor from the USA and was shown around a little. I had to make a quick exit when the patients got excited when I walked towards the main ward! It was not exactly what you would call a state of the art mental hospital !
This is the poem I wrote about the little girl who died from gangrene. The memory of this little girl and the events at the Children's hospital are the reason I never had children of my own. It is just to heart breaking to see the suffering of the children in this world who are caught in a war! I am sure this little girl will be my last thought when I punch out from this world. She is always with me ! Here are the Activity reports for May 1968 for the Marines in my AO (area of operation) . The events highlighted in yellow directly affected me. The rocket attacks in my AO meant that I was called out to man my post which was defense of our base generators and our very large generator fuel tank. Some of the rocket attacks were on Camp Books (FLC) . (my home base)
May 5,1968 was my first rocket attack in Vietnam and you can see the hit 7 different places in my AO including my new home at FLC Camp Books. 15 rounds hit us with 3 KIA and 15 wounded. The wounded are only those who were medivaced to a hospital. Because I was just getting situated it was just mass confusion for me . Everyone was busy as hell and I didn't have any idea as to what was going on. The number of rockets are probably plus or minus a couple rockets. Any damage at FLC was my teams responsibility to asses , clean up and repair or replace so I had direct involvement in all rocket and mortar attacks at FLC. Also we took care of damage at Camp Reasoner and the small CAP out posts. On May 13,1968 we took 6 122mm rocket rounds as explained in my May 15,1968 leter. I can find no official reports on that rocket attack and have to assume nobody bothered to make a report because the rounds hit in the swamp between the main body of Camp Books and the Force Logistics Command section. Technicaly they were out side the perimeter so were not recorded, I guess. On May 21,1968 at 2400 hr. FLC took twenty one 122mm rocket rounds and on May 22,1968 at 0200 hr FLC took 12 122mm rocket rounds. Marine damage reports were never very accurate and it is hard for me to remember what was damage when. I believe that on May 21 we had hits to the sick bay which was a big rebuild job. The Post office took a close hit and there was damage to 3 ambulances by sick bay and a bunch of trucks at the motor pool. The Post office was about 75 yards from my hootch. On May 22 at 0200 hr. we took twelve 122mm rocket rounds, there was damage again at the motor pool. Our mess hall, about 70 yards from my hootch took a direct hit on the serving line and kitchen area. The wounded man was the Mess Sargent who was the only one at the mess hall at the time. What amazed me was by brakefast time at 0530 the marines had already set up a field mess trailer out side the mess hall and were serving breakfast. Clayton Beerworth and I were working on major repairs there by 0600 and the Mess hall was in operation more or less by that evening although it took a couple more days to get it up to 100% . On the evening of May 23 we got a knew man in, Karl Voiles. An electrician CN (E-3). It was to late to get him settled in because we were so incredibly busy with rocket attack damage. He spent the night at the shop bunker by himself , totally confused as to what was going on. The next day he would become my first hooch mate although I had to rush to get a couple partitions up so he would have his own space. Some time before the end of the month we got three more guys in . Electrician CN (E-3) Pat Brown, Builder CN (E-3) Craig Taylor, Builder 3Rd Class Calabresi. So my hooch would now have 5 of us. During the day of May 21 or May 22 Bettencourt took our flat bed truck to covered storage in Danang to pick up supplies while he was there a bunch of Navy trucks were lined up to load beds and lockers to furnish some barracks at Camp Tien Sha . He got in line and they loaded his truck with beds, lots of beds. When he was all loaded he told them one of the other drivers had the paper work and while they were trying to hunt down the papers he just drove away. That's how we got our beds, enough for everyone. For the time being they were stashed in my hooch and on May 24, Karl Voiles spent his first day assembling beds. Boy life was improving a lot.
This is the near miss at our Post office. Yes that's me smiling up from the 122mm rocket crater. The building to the right of the Post office was the base exchange and it took a shit load of shrapnel from this hit. Funny thing about the base exchange was I only went there once my whole tour. There hours were 0800 to1700 so it was impossible for me to go. If I wanted something I had to have Bet or Ski pick it up. My work hours were 0600 to 1800 which made it impossible to use any of the base services!
Here is an E mail I got from Karl explaining his arrival to Vietnam and Camp Books (FLC) The last week of May brought us a knew Chief Builder and our old Chief Botswains mate left us. There was about a weeks over lap so the knew Chief could learn his job! May 27 was my birthday. I turned 20 years old and of coarse it went un- noticed although I had gotten a care package from Annett Burrel, a couple surfing magazines from my brother Jay and a birthday card from my girl friend Linda! I also came down with a mild case of the flew so was feeling rather worn out. There was no time off just the same 12 hr work shift.
This is our new Chief Builder. Craig Tailor is on the left and on the right is Carl Rice who came on board about the same time as the new Chief. This was a Sunday afternoon BBQ about 1800 hr. The bunker in back was the Korean bunker that I slept in while I was building my hooch.
So as May 1968 ended I had been in Vietnam for 1 month! It had been a very busy month with a lot of things happening. It sure seemed longer then a month, to me it was more like a few months! Well I had 11 months to go and it was going to be a very long 11 months !
June 1968
A new month was starting and we had a work order to build a free span wood truss building for the Marines Special Services. It would house an indoor volley ball court and a half basket ball court and whatever other toys the Marines had to play with. None of us had any idea how to build it except for our knew Chief so he took it upon himself to supervise the project. My crew and I only worked on it for the first day and a half ,until the concrete slab was poured and the first two trusses went up. Then I was pulled off that to go build three strong back building for 7th Motors who were moving onto Camp Book. The Special Services job turned out to be important to me because Bettencourt became friends with the officer in charge and got access to snorkeling gear. So the first Sunday of the month late in the afternoon we loaded up Bets truck with a few guys and headed up to the ESSO Plant to do some snorkel diving. We had heard from the Seabee Battalion that there were lobsters to be found there. We parked right outside the ESSO Plant and hired two Vietnamese kids to protect our Vehicle from being vandalized by the other kids. With snorkeling gear and M-16s we hiked about a 1/2 mile past ESSO Plant and found a good place to enter the water. We would take turns in the water leaving 2 guys ashore as guards ( it was a very unsecured area) . What we found was water with a muddy layer that went down 20ft. It was beyond the skills of our amateur divers. I was the only one to consistently get below the muddy silt and then there were no lobsters. There was a fuel ship ( French) anchored near by and Bet went over and made friends with the ship radio operator and managed to get radio calls through to a couple of our guys families back in the USA (MARS radio net). I stayed in the water and enjoyed being free for a while. It was great to have a couple hours off for a change!
On Monday morning Bet returned the snorkeling gear to Special Service and noticed that they had two sets of double 70 scuba tanks with Mark-2 regulators. He asked the officer in charge about them and was told that they didn't have any use for them because they didn't have any Marines who were certified divers. When I found out about that I went with Bet to talk to that officer. I was a certified SCUBA diver. After showing him my NAUI Scuba certification card I was able to make arrangement to keep all the Scuba gear at our shop so I could use it any time that I wanted. A couple of our guys , Craig Taylor and Pat Brown were interested in learning to Scuba dive so I took it upon my self to teach them. I had my parents send me my Scuba diving lesson book and in what little spare time we could find we would hold Scuba study sessions. Sunday late afternoons we were able to get over to the Red Beach causeway and get in some water sessions. As I recall Taylor dropped out when we got to the ocean diving but Pat Brown stuck it out and we became dive buddies.
I got my NAUI Scuba diving cerification in July 1966. I actually took the class in 1965 but at that time you had to be 18 years old to get a Scuba Certification. Pett George my ex UDT instructor allowed me to go through the class early being as how my older brother Jay and my Dad were going through the class too. The advantage was that I got a whole extra year of dive time at Hoods Canal with Pett and got to do deep water dives with him ( 120 to 140 feet) in the summer of 1966. By the time I graduated from High school I was a damn good diver! The three strong backs that I was to build for 7th motors was put on hold. The building site was about 150 yards outside of the north perimeter and the perimeter had not been opened up yet. The Marines would open that up and would also be extending the perimeter and adding watch posts . I would have to wait a few more days for that to start. It started raining Saturday June1st and rained continuously until Wednesday morning but that didn't slow down work any. Just keep on working in the rain. It was kind of a taste of what we would get when the monsoons came in September. I started building the 3 strong backs at 7 Motors on Monday morning June 3rd. It was a strange way for a job to start. I took all the materials that I thought I would need to build the cement forms for my strong backs. The truck dropped us at the work sight. It was in a large dirt field 150 yards outside of the north perimeter. The field had been filled with red dirt and rocks and had been compacted with heavy equipment. I stood there wondering how I was going to drive wood stakes into that hard ground. My Vietnamese workers were hunkered down by the lumber pile about 30 ft from me.Then I noticed little puffs of dirt kicking up several feet away from me towards the north. What the hell is that? Then I started paying more attention. I heard the distant crack of rifle fire and then my brain said holy shit, somebody is shooting at me!! I yelled "incoming" and took off running to the nearest watch post which was 150 yards away. I jumped into the fighting hole beside the post and yelled at the Marines there "holy shit some one is shooting at me!" The Marines broke out in laughter. "Ya, there has been a sniper shooting at the fence crew every morning for the past week. He lets fly with 8 or 10 rounds then he is done for the day. He's shooting from a long way out and hasn't hit anyone yet. Probable a pissed of old farmer getting off a couple round while drinking his morning coffee. We aren't sure where he is yet and haven't got permission to go after him! So just go back to work and keep moving so he doesn't have a stationary target and you should be OK!" So that's what I did, went back to work. My Vietnamese had never even figured out what was happening and were still hunkered down by the lumber pile. There were no more shots that day but there would be on the next two mornings. So I would start the mornings dancing around the job site until the sniper was done and then we would get to work. When I look back it sure seems stupid but at the time what else could I do? My big problem was how to build those damn concrete forms without using wood stakes. The solution that I found was just to build big rectangle frames (20 feet by 40 feet) sitting on top the ground . Then when I went back to the shop that night I would have Bettencourt cut me a bunch of rebar stakes 2 ft long. Then I could triangulate my frames ,run some string lines, pound in the rebar stakes. Level the frames and tie them to the stakes and I would have my concrete forms complete. I was finished with my concrete forms before noon on Wednesday . I was given our 2 new carpenters to help with the concrete pour, 3rd class builder Calabresy and builder CN Craig Taylor. We started pouring concrete Wednesday June 5, 1968. It took until 2000 hours to finish that first slab. Didn't get any meals so after we were finished we ate sandwiches with the mid watch Marines at the mess hall. Thursday morning we stripped the forms and started building the framing of the first building. Craig Taylor was pulled from the job to go work another project.He had also gotten cement poisoning in a cut on his foot so would not be able to help on any more concrete work. Friday was an interesting day. while we were starting the wall framing we heard the sound of a UH-1 helicopter. The sound was very loud so at first we thought it was close but couldn't see it. It was at maximum power and flying very fast. Then we saw a little dot far up Elephant Valley. It was the UH-1 trailing smoke. The sound had carried down the valley making it sound very close, then it would die down then get loud again, very strange how the sound bounced around the walls of the valley. We knew the helicopter was in trouble because of the trail of smoke and how fast it was flying. We stopped work and watched. Closer and closer, the engine starting to whine! They were trying to fly that chopper to the safety of Camp Books. It was losing altitude and we were wondering if they would make it. About a mile out the crew started kicking boxes out the doors. I thought they were trying to lighten their load. Later after they landed it became obvious that they were throwing out the ammo boxes so they wouldn't explode when they landed. Very close now and it was clear that they weren't going to make it over the hurricane fence at the perimeter. Suddenly the helicopter went nose high and stopped going forward. It turned 90 degrees to the right and touched down between two rows of concertina wire in the middle of the perimeter. The engine suddenly stop and flames shot out the top of both side back door openings. The two crew members jumped out just under the flames .They carried their M-60 machine guns. The pilots jumped out . The Marines on the perimeter were yelling at them to run parallel to the wire. Don't try to cross in to the base as there were mines. At that time the base fir truck showed up. Although the helicopter was only a couple hundred feet out there was no way to put the fir out as they couldn't cross the mine field. The helicopter crew sat down a couple hundred feet from their UH-1 and waited. Soon there were Marines all over the place. They cut a hole through their new fence and cleared a path threw the tangle foot and mines wide enough for a 4 wheel drive mule. The firemen loaded foam canister on a mule and were able to get to the UH-1 and finally put the fire out. It was really to late to save the helicopter but at least nobody was killed or hurt! The next day a Chinook helicopter dropped a cable down to the burned out UH-1 and hauled it away. There was always something interesting to watch at Camp Books. Here is a poem that I wrote about the helicopter.
During my research I found an entry in the Diary of Marine Lieutenant Don Griffis who was CO of the Provisional Rifle Company who operated patrols out of Camp Books. The Seabee construction crews he is referring to was my crew. So now I know why the sniping stopped. I wish I would have known about it then!
When I started working on this clinic project I was full of good feelings as to how we were helping these poor Vietnamese people. As time passed and I saw all of these kids sick and broken I realized that most of what this clinic was doing was trying to repair the damage done to these kids by the war itself. Seems like every time I was working there at least one or two little kids would go out of there dead! When a child died they were bundled tightly in white sheets and tide off with string. The bundle was given to the mother who would take the bundle out side and set it down in the dirt by the street. She would be down on her hands and knees crying and waling. She would throw dirt into the air and scratch at her face until it was bleeding , rubbing dirt into the cuts. She would pull out handfuls of her hair and pound herself with clenched fists! It was a horrifying thing to watch. I couldn't grasp what was going on at the time. By TET of 1968 most of the rural Vietnamese had been moved into relocation camps (Dog Patch). They were simply ghettos with poor sanitation , communal water supply, no roads or electricity. We had devastated their economy and destroyed their infrastructure. All in the name of saving them from Communism. All of the workers that worked for us were dislocated Vietnamese and us putting them to work was an attempt to keep their economy rolling. We were told that we were teaching them skills so they would be able to have a useful job. Well guess what ? Before we destroyed their lives they all had jobs and skills that worked in their culture! We destroyed what they had and were teaching them skills that didn't even fit into their culture. Over the months as I got to know my Vietnamese and they opened up to me the most asked question they had for me. Why are you here in Vietnam ? You have destroyed my country and my family! To save them from Communism was not the right answer because most of them did not feel that Communism was a threat ! The only answer I could give them that they would except was. I am a 20 year old US soldier and my country says I have to be here!
Often times during a rocket or mortar attack rounds would over shoot landing in Hoa Kahn or Dog Patch ,providing children for the Clinic. Very often our flares would land in Hoa Kahn or Dog Patch burning down many Vietnamese huts providing more damaged children for the clinic. Often the convoys would drop off kids from out in the bush. Nobody even knowing where from or if they had families. Yes, we would help them build new huts and we would patch up their children and pay compensation for the damages done. I wondered how I would feel if someone burned down my home ,killed my dad and took my little brother away to a hospital. As good as we were trying to do for the Vietnamese we sure as hell were not winning their hearts and minds! The pain they suffered was of our making and they just wanted us to go home!
We were not part of the Marine Civil Affair but worked independent of them. An example of what we did. A refugee family was living in a lean too in Dog Patch south . There was a young mother with several kid and grandma and grandpa. Her husband was an ARVN soldier who had been killed. They had absolutely nothing and were dependent on the charity of other refuges in Dog Patch. My head carpenter ,Pham Ba told me about her during the week. I went to my CO and asked to help. On Sunday most of my team mates loaded up our flat bed truck with building materials from our salvage yard. We took several trucks and picked up Pham Ba and Babyson outside the gate and headed down the road. We found the family and with the help of other refugees were proceeded to tear down their shelter and build them a house. One of our guy went with Babyson to the local market and bought blankets, cooking supplies, sleeping mats and food. Late in the day we had built them a nice hootch and had them moved in. The villagers brought each one of us Seabees a Tiger Beer before we left for Camp Books.
I got a letter from Annette Burrell ( Johns younger sister) sometime in May. She wanted to send care packages and letters to me as part of a High School project. Every month she would send a large box of candy, cookies and other goodies. I would share it with my team mates but a lot of it I gave to the Vietnamese children at the Clinic or whenever I worked off base. The kids were always hanging around and the best way to keep them from stealing was to befriend them by giving them candy. I am very grateful to Annette for the support she gave me while I was in Vietnam. Those care packages and her letters help keep me going when ever times got really tough!
I don't remember when I stopped doing work at the Children's clinic, Maybe the end of June or early July. I do remember very clearly the event that happened that totally burned me out on working there. It was a Saturday, perhaps we were finishing up the cook shed. What ever it was we were done by shortly after 1600 hr. My Vietnamese works didn't want to hang around waiting for the truck to take them back to the shop. Although the rules were they had to go back and check out. Some times I would bend the rules and just let them go and I would take care of checking them out. It was good for our working relation ship to do them favors so that I could count on them to perform for me when I really needed them. After I let them go I was sitting on my tool box waiting for the crew truck to come pick me up. The doctor and nurse came out of the clinic. The nurse was carrying a little girl about 4 years old. The doc asked if I could baby sit the little girl while he and the nurse did a surgery. The little girl was fusing and didn't want to leave the nurse so it took a little effort to hand her off to me . She smelled horrible! A smell I have never smelled again in my life time. She was wearing light blue pajamas with little lambs printed on it. Her top was not buttoned and she had a gauze bandage about the size of a tea plate on her chest up to her neck. I could see through the gauze and there was some kind of wound underneath that looked like velvet. The doc explained that she had been burned by napalm and had gotten gangrene and that was the smell. I held that little girl sitting on my tool box and in a short time she was used to me and clutching onto the front of my shirt. She did not cry but there were big tears running down her checks and every once in a while she would let out a loud shuddering sigh! The crew truck got there about 1745 hr or so and the doc was still busy. The guys loaded up my tool box and gave me an M-16 so I would be able to walk back to the base later. ( the rules for Camp Books were that to be off base you had to have a weapon). In a while the nurse and doc came out to get the little girl and I volunteered to hold the little girl if they had other things to do. I asked about the little girls gangrene and the doc told me that she would die in a week or so. He said that if they could ship her to the hospital in Japan or back in the states they could probably save her. Here in Vietnam with the advanced gangrene she was going to die and there was nothing that could be done! It really, really broke my heart! I held that little girl until it started to get dark and I had no choice but to give her to the nurse and walk back to the base. I cried to myself on the way back to the base. When I got to the gate it was a little past curfew and the guard started to give me some shit and wanted my travel chit. With tears in my eyes I told the guard that I had been helping the doc at the children's clinic and he could take his fucking travel chit and shove it up his ass! He got the point and let me through the gate, no more questions asked. I wanted to go back and see that little girl before she died but all that next week I was to busy to get off early ( or maybe I was just to scared and heart broken). On Friday I left the shop at 1800hr and went to the Children's Clinic. I asked about the little girl and the doc said she had died Thursday night. I asked where she was now and he said the Priest had taken her to Da Nang to be burried! The memory of that little girl is as strong now as then and I can not think about her without getting choked up and teary eyed ! There are other memories of my time working at the clinic. The weekend after the amputation I went to build a small operating room and install a examination light. Our electricians went to wire up the building for electricity. When we got there the doc wanted to show us around. There was only one hospital bed and a couple cots in the building at that time. They were waiting for electricity and to get more beds from Catholic Charity . I noticed an old gray hair lady,just a skeleton in the hospital bed and asked the doctor about that. I thought the clinic was for children. I was shocked when he told me she was only 15 years old! What the F is wrong with her? The doc had no idea but it was a sure thing she was going to die. Some time that day the Catholic Priest who was in charge of the clinic and also the Da Nang orphanage showed up . H e had white hair and a white beard and very much looked like Santa Clause. He had a little Vietnamese kid with him about 8 years old. The kids head had been stitched up and looked just like a soccer ball. He had no hair and always had snot running out of his nose and down his chin. When I asked the Priest what happened to the kid he said he didn't know, the kid was at the orphanage when he took over. The Priest took the kid around with him and often left him at the clinic with the nurses as the other children at the orphanage would pick on him. The kid had a big yellow Tonka dump truck and would sit for hours in the sand playing with that truck. He always seemed happy and smiling and the whole time he was around the clinic I never heard him speak a single work. I think he may have had scrambled brains to go with his stitched up head . Yes, everyone called him soccer ball head ! After the little girl died I never went back to the clinic. The next work order I got for there I gave it to Beerworth and told him I would not work there any more! Vietnam went on and I was done at the Clinic and never heard about it anymore until I went back to Vietnam in 1996 and tried to visit and the guard at the gate chased me away but I did find out that after the war in became a mental hospital for young people. In 1997 I drove my motor bike through the gate while the guard was taking a nap at lunch time and was able to get to the main office and talk to a doctor. I faked being a doctor from the USA and was shown around a little. I had to make a quick exit when the patients got excited when I walked towards the main ward! It was not exactly what you would call a state of the art mental hospital !
June 1968
A new month was starting and we had a work order to build a free span wood truss building for the Marines Special Services. It would house an indoor volley ball court and a half basket ball court and whatever other toys the Marines had to play with. None of us had any idea how to build it except for our knew Chief so he took it upon himself to supervise the project. My crew and I only worked on it for the first day and a half ,until the concrete slab was poured and the first two trusses went up. Then I was pulled off that to go build three strong back building for 7th Motors who were moving onto Camp Book. The Special Services job turned out to be important to me because Bettencourt became friends with the officer in charge and got access to snorkeling gear. So the first Sunday of the month late in the afternoon we loaded up Bets truck with a few guys and headed up to the ESSO Plant to do some snorkel diving. We had heard from the Seabee Battalion that there were lobsters to be found there. We parked right outside the ESSO Plant and hired two Vietnamese kids to protect our Vehicle from being vandalized by the other kids. With snorkeling gear and M-16s we hiked about a 1/2 mile past ESSO Plant and found a good place to enter the water. We would take turns in the water leaving 2 guys ashore as guards ( it was a very unsecured area) . What we found was water with a muddy layer that went down 20ft. It was beyond the skills of our amateur divers. I was the only one to consistently get below the muddy silt and then there were no lobsters. There was a fuel ship ( French) anchored near by and Bet went over and made friends with the ship radio operator and managed to get radio calls through to a couple of our guys families back in the USA (MARS radio net). I stayed in the water and enjoyed being free for a while. It was great to have a couple hours off for a change!
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| Bet coming down the trail by the ESSO Plant east wall |
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| The ESSO fuel plant from the north east side where we were snorkeling. |
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| Guard shacks along the pipe line to the ESSO fuel plant |
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| Oil Tanker off loading at the ESSO fuel plant |
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| Pat Brown my dive buddy at the causeway |
I am hoping that my response willl stay intact and not disapear completely from here. Testing, 1,2,3...
ReplyDeleteI read of your arrival in China Beach with a bit of a chuckle remembering how green we all were at that time. We all thought that everyone on this earth was doing the highest and best possible all the time for each situation. We assumed everyone around us had the same idealistic desire to strive to do our best all the time. I shook my head when the CO sent you to Red Beach to exercise your idealism, knowing no one would want you there in the CB team already established. Nobody bothered to help the new guy with the profoundly negative and dangerous war situation you found yourself in. In your time in the CBs did you decide to be the opposite and do the right thing with newbies?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWell I answered once about the FNGs. Then after thinking about it I realized how wrong I was. Because I had to fend for myself I did help the newbies who moved into my hooch. Over time that changed, I didn't want to know any newbies! Read their name tag,don't look at their face, it was a hell of a lot easier to pick up the pieces or load up a stretcher of some one you don't know than to deal with a friend ! So over time it was easier to just not know anyone.
DeleteI feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic.
ReplyDeletegenerator hire & new generator sales
Mark, I served with the Naval Support Activity DaNang from Aug 1966 - Mar 1968. I would like to help you with your content on your website. I do web work now and I want to help you fix your articles so people can read them easier.
ReplyDeleteI'm not asking to get paid I just want to do something for you. I have 'issues' from that crap hole as well.
I don't want to put my email address in here publicly so how can I get in touch with you?
Ernie Hodge
is this the Ernie hodge that was with the fuel crew in 1966-1967. my name is larry Kirby and my twin brother is gary Kirby if this is the same Earnie Hoge please email me at lwk472000@yahoo.vom
DeleteNice history lesson for me. I was in country from June 1969 to June 1970. I was at Camp Tien Sha from June '69 until Feb '70. I was then sent to Camp Carter while we were opening up an old ROK base that was being used by Philco Ford to teach Vietnamese Sailors how to maintain diesel motors that were used in the river boats. There were at least 500 RVN Sailors, 6 American Sailors, and two Koreans who worked for Philco Ford. We also had a couple of American Philco Ford teachers. One of them used to take me to the MACV Club located by the USS Repose. Had fun there, especially since I had to wear civilian clothes.
ReplyDelete