This site will be evolving as I add photos and text from time to time, as my memories awaken and as I find other photos, etc.so keep checking back, and here we go...

First Tour...

I volunteered for Vietnam service while in Special Forces training at Fort Bragg. The endless stream of dots and dashes in Morse Code training just wasn't for me. I arrived in Cam Ranh Bay on 27 May 1969, feeling "10 feet tall and bulletproof", a typical gung-ho Airborne cherry. The first night in An Khe brought my first experience with incoming rockets and mortar fire. Scared and shaking, huddled in a bunker with the other "FNG"s, my attitude changed right then and there. Surviving this place became "not a sure thing".

After Jungle School, I was sent to LZ English and, since my MOS was 11Charlie, I was assigned to the Echo Co. mortar platoon on " The Hill" over looking Bong Son Pass.

View from "The Hill", North toward Bong Son, QL-1 is at the right.