Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
So, the Vietcong had kept the populace in mind, but had done something to thwart the
Americans. It was a real challenge to get the road back in, and we solved it by building what
we called the "band-aid." We drilled straight down in the rock, put steel rails in vertically,
then used vertical anchors to tie cable to horizontal steel rails that would hold a wood frame
onto the mountainside. We then filled behind the frame to grade with rock and resurfaced the
road. We bound that "band-aid" to the side of the hill, which dropped off 100 feet or so--
patched it. That took about two days.
The last incident of the three was on the day before my change of command. The Vietcong
blew a bridge down Route 21, just at the boundary of our area of operations where we met up
with 116th Engineer Battalion to our south. Route 21 was the main supply route and we
needed to open it quickly.
We had a panel bridge at our location in Don Duong, which was across the outlet from the
dam and spillway. That bridge facilitated movement right after coming up the hill from Phan
Rang and led straight into our base camp, rather than going around through the village.
I'd already asked that our people pull the bridge and then put it up again, just for some
training, and that was ongoing. We sent a recon party down to quickly recon the blown
bridge site, and we needed more Bailey bridge.
We started one company immediately to pulling out that Bailey bridge. There was another
Bailey bridge down in Phan Thiet, and that bridge was moved overland, under command of
some other engineer battalion, to the bridge site. Then we moved our Bailey bridge south on
21 Alpha, then 21 down to the bridge site, and the overall operation was my responsibility
and under my control.
Through the next afternoon and evening we put the bridge in. One morning we found out it
had been blown. That day the recon was made, and then we put things into motion to pull out
our bridge and bring up the other bridge, so they were moved the second day to the bridge
site to be put in that afternoon and evening. It was finished in the early morning of my last
day--change of command and departure.
Colonel Barnes, the 35th Engineer Group commander, and Lieutenant Colonel Jim
McKnight, the incoming battalion commander who had just come in that morning, arrived.
Jim McKnight's postponed arrival prohibited any overlap with me. Our overlap was a couple
of hours after Colonel Barnes arrived. I jumped into the helicopter, and we flew down and
looked at the bridge site. We returned to Don Duong, talked for a few minutes, and then we
went out for the change of command ceremony. General Morris presided.
We flew down and saw that the bridge was in and the operation was complete. I could now
leave. We'd had a few wounded down there by mortar fire and some mines left in the area.
Q:
Maybe this is a good place to ask you to compare and contrast what it had been like, what
you'd seen, what it had been like in Vietnam in your first tour, '62'63, and what it was like
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