Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
The 20th sent over a jeep, and I jumped in and we were on our way to the headquarters,
where I met with a Colonel [James A.] Vivian, who was the deputy commander of the 20th
Engineer Brigade.
He said, "Wow, this is wonderful. We have an unprogrammed major." I said, "Well, Sir, I'm
unprogrammed to you because I'm programmed to the 18th Engineer Brigade, your cousins
up north. So, I'd really like to go up there and take that battalion command."
He said, "Don't worry about that. We've got lots of battalions down here. You haven't been
promoted yet"--which was true. I was a promotable major at the time, and they had delayed
promotions that year beyond the end of the fiscal year to save a few bucks.
So, he said, "We're going to assign you to the 159th Engineer Group. If you really hurry up
you can make their change of command ceremony because Colonel Bates Burnell is going to
take over that group this afternoon in about an hour and a half. So, you ought to hustle on
over there."
They put me in a jeep, took me to the 159th Group, and I was taken right in to Colonel
Burnell and his predecessor--I don't remember his name. Colonel Burnell said, "Glad you're
here. You're my new S3." So, I went out and watched the ceremony, and then started
figuring out how I became the S3 very quickly and the old S3 packed his bags and headed
for one of the battalions.
This was the 3d of July in 1968. I spent the next day, the 4th of July, getting organized,
getting uniforms and gear and sewing patches on and doing all of those things required on
moving in. I went to the S3 shop to get started because the next day, the 5th, we were to
start Colonel Burnell's--and now my--orientation. We were to visit two battalions.
We flew the next morning, the 5th, down to the Y Bridge in Cholon, which was a place that
had a lot of action in the Tet attacks--we're talking 1968, of course. Tet had occurred about
four months prior. There was a lot of rehab work being done around the Y bridge, and one of
the battalions was doing that work--the 92d.
After that, we flew over to another battalion at Long Thanh North, and I think that was the
46th. The chopper landed, and then we were taken from the air strip over to battalion
headquarters. As we pulled up, the battalion commander came out and said to Colonel
Burnell, "Sir, you're wanted on the phone right away. It's Colonel Vivian from brigade."
Now I, of course, had told Colonel Burnell the story when I first came in that I really wanted
to go to the 18th Brigade and be a battalion commander. After taking the phone call, he came
back and said, "Well, Sam, you were right. You are going to the 18th Engineer Brigade and
take a battalion. In fact, General [Harry M.] Roper is so unhappy that the 20th Brigade has
tried to squirrel you away that he's flying in here personally in one hour and a half to seize
control of you and take you back. So, you've got an hour and a half to get all of your gear and
be back to Long Thanh North when he flies in here."
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