Engineer Memoirs
Q:
Was RMK [Raymond International and MorrisonKnudsen] still active in Vietnam?
A:
Very. We interfaced with them some. Of course, they furnished us a lot of rock.
Most of the rock had to be moved to the delta by barge. They had a quarry in Saigon
which would load out rock. We had a "delta rock plan" which involved who would
produce the rock and how much would move by barge to which locations.
I had a port construction company that built most of the rock piers in the delta. When
the barges would come alongside, we'd move a crane to the pier, and unload the rock
from the barge onto trucks. The pier on the riverside from which to do this was built
by us.
We interfaced with RMK's quarry. RMK was also down in the delta building things.
For example, when we moved down to Can Tho, we went into an area called Binh Tuy.
RMK was building a logistic installation there next to Can Tho.
We were allocated a piece of real estate in this area. We built our own buildings for the
headquarters using essentially the same design as those being built by RMK.
Q:
How good was their work overall?
A:
Good. Certainly better than the troop work. They had tradesmen who were skilled
journeymen. And they had access to the supplies. We would get basic things, but special
things we couldn't get.
Q:
They made a lot of money, those guys.
A:
I'm sure it was expensive. I'm not familiar with any of the administration of it.
Q:
What do you think about the idea of a contractor doing construction in the theater of
operations like that, alongside of troops? Did it work out okay?
A:
I think, by and large, it did. We were amazed at some of the areas they were working
in. We worked on the southern part of QL4. They worked on the section north of us,
between where we were and Saigon.
Evidently, they were paying people off or something, because they were able to leave
their equipment out. This was something we were always assessing, because, if you had
to take all your equipment in every night, that was very time consuming. So we asked
how they were doing it, but never received a real answer. We were convinced they were
114
Previous Page
