Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
engineer that Colonel Wilson hadn't just thrown out of the office. He thought engineers
might finally be making some headway.
There was real pressure on engineers everywhere at that time. We were really there as
advisers, but because you were an engineer you were expected to make everything run in the
facility compound. So, Major Hughes, the senior Corps engineer, never went out and
advised. He was trying to keep the generators running, and when the generator would cut off
in the middle of the movie, I mean that poor guy was under the gun.
When they decided to expand the
compound, he was supposed to design it and
then contract out for it and make it happen.
There were no divisions, districts, or
command; I mean, there was nothing. So, it
befell to the engineer on the spot in every
MAAG detachment to do all those things.
So, with the advent of the battalion adviser,
his point was, "Best to get out into the field.
You're going to be doing the advice out
there on the ground. I'll check with you
periodically. Come back in and see me; I'll
try to keep the compound generators
operating."
Captain Kem was an advisor with the
201st Engineer Battalion of the Army
On the second day after I arrived I went out
of the Republic of Vietnam in 1962.
on an operation. Major Nagata said he'd
take me over to meet my battalion
counterpart, and it turned out to be one of the more exciting days in my year there. We drove
down Route 19 from Pleiku to An Khe through the Mang Yang Pass. You have to know from
reading, as we all did back in those days, Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall that it was
between An Khe and the Mang Yang Pass that the French Mobile Group 100 had been
ambushed and decimated by the Viet Minh. So, we were driving that route, and there were
still a couple of tank hulks off to the side of the road from Mobile Group 100's demise.
We drove up to the An Khe airfield, and there were several H21 helicopters, which was the
other aviation asset we had in the Corps, one company of H21s. They were ready to lift off
because there was an operation ongoing, and there was to be an infantry sweep north of An
Khe. My battalion, the 41st Engineers, had two missions. One was to rehabilitate and expand
and improve the old French airfield at An Khe. Second, to build a road north from there to a
town called Kannack. I don't recall exactly, but I think it's probably about 40 kilometers
north of An Khe.
The infantry sweep was a sweep up into this area, and my battalion sent a survey party along
to survey the road that we were going to be building over the next several months. Both of
those projects figured heavily into my daily activities over the next year.
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