Over the years I’ve noticed those searching in the Viet Nam web sites have mostly belonged to three or four different categories. There’s the guys who woke up one morning and started wondering about what had happened to all their old buds. Then there’s the guys who’ve had problems with the VA and are looking for supporting documentation. But the one that interests me the most at this time is the kids of vets who want to know about what their father did in the War. I find the fact that it’s mostly daughters who are looking for information about their fathers most interesting. Of course the most common unasked and asked question is about what it was like over there. The best analogy that I can come up with that they, those who weren’t there, might understand is to compare being in a war zone to marital sex. If you’ve ever been married someone can give a sigh when asked about marital sex and that’s all that’s required. You understand. You don’t need a hug by hug graphic explanation. If you’ve experienced it then you know it and you really can’t explain it graphically to where someone who hasn’t experienced it can understand it. It’s the same with being in a War, any War. I’ve sat down with the WWII vets and listened to their stories and they’re basically the same as those of us Viet Nam vets. It’s about the extremes, cold, heat, wet, dry, hunger, and black humor. I say black humor because those who weren’t there might find some of the things a vet finds funny really unfunny. But under the circumstances you had to either laugh or cry. Laughing makes you feel better most of the time. I was not in combat. I didn’t have my best friend die in my arms. But that happened to lots of men over there. And those who survived such hardships with their souls intact are to be appreciated for being heroes. What we did was work. We worked very hard in the 267. Here’s my story. Basic was fun for me. I was seventeen and had just quit high school at the end of the first semester. I was in great physical shape and basic training is more about getting one in good physical shape than anything else. So the part that was so hard on my fellow soldiers was a breeze for me. It was fun. I left basic feeling I’d found my calling in life. I was meant to be a soldier. I think it was a ten day vacation and then I was back at Ft Ord for advanced training. I was to be an infantry wireman, 36K MOS. It was about then that I started having reservations about my future in the United States Army. Four weeks into an eight week course and they grabbed about forty percent of the class and sent us to Ft Gordon, GA for signal corps training. My new MOS (military occupational specialty) became 36C. What I remind best about that change in duty was we flew from California to Georgia. Two of us got to fly first class while the rest were on coach. That was cool. It was my first time to get drunk on champagne. I don’t remember much about signal corps training. It was hot in June in Georgia. I remember that. I also remember having a fellow trainee ask me if my first name was Harvey. He’d been in the CQ (company office) when a telegram came in for Harvey Lacey. I ran to the CQ where the first sergeant asked if my name was James. He said the telegram was for a James Lacey. A week later I was called out in the evening formation. I was handed a telegram. It had been opened. It notified me a neighbor who had been like second father to me had been killed in a construction accident. He had been buried by the time they gave me the telegram. That was a glimpse into what I later accepted as the military attitude towards the soldier. With one week to go in training I called home to tell my parents that I’d see them in two and a half years. Most of the graduates of the other lineman classes were going to Europe. And since I was too young, seventeen, to go to Nam I was probably going straight to Germany from school. The next day they let us know that a hundred and forty some out of a hundred and fifty in the class were to report to RVN training. I was in a state of shock. There were three of us that got orders for Nam that were seventeen. I was the only one that had a birthday coming up. I turned eighteen on a Greyhound going across the country. Saigon was a shock to my system. I don’t think it really hit me where I was going to be until I was on the bus from the airport in Saigon to Long Binh. All the soldiers, ARVN (Vietnamese Army), white mice (Vietnamese Police), and our troops too. It was pretty scarey. The 90th Replacement Battalion was another shock to the system. It was tents and cots. My first night was spent out of doors because there were no cots available inside a tent. We’d got there too late for supper. So when we got up for breakfast I could have eaten the south end of a north bound hog without blinking. The waiting line for breakfast four men abreast. And it was about a quarter of a mile long. And it seemed to take forever. Breakfast was a couple of biscuits covered with some gravy that wasn’t as thick as milk. I wanted to cry. But as I entered the dining tent I saw all kinds of quarts of Foremost milk. I figured I could live on milk if I had to. I grabbed a quart and turned it bottoms up. I might have got down one mouthful when the godawful taste of recombined milk hit. It’s the most terrible tasting stuff ever concocted by man. It was about the third day when my name was called and I got on another bus back to the airport in Saigon. There we climbed onto a Caribou for the trip to Vung Tau, headquarters for the 267 Signal Company. It was getting dark when the Caribou took off. This is a picture of a Caribou. They are a short take off and landing specialty plane. The back door folds down for loading and also for parachuting out. The passenger seats are along the sides of the plane and are web seats. They aren’t comfortable. The noise with the motors so close is deafening. But you can hear the pilot’s voice over the racket. It’s not very intelligible. But you can hear it. We took off just after dark. I was staring in total fascination out the little window by my seat. Below us I could see a firefight. I knew it was a firefight and not just perimeter firing because the tracers were crossing each other. It was about that time the voice came over the loudspeaker. It was the pilot explaining we were in the trajectory of artillery and needed to go up another couple of thousand feet. I agreed it would be a good idea. I was glued to the window counting my blessings for not being part of the light show below me when he cut back the motors as he leveled off. The motors coughed, hicced, coughed, and hicced again as cut back. Needless to say I died right on the spot. Harvey -- 06 29 05
	This is a picture of a Caribou
	What I recall most about Vung Tau was that it was the safest place in Viet Nam. It was the R &R (rest and recreation) center for both sides of the conflict. The ocean was the prettiest light blue I’d ever seen. And I’d come from California and loved the ocean there. But it had two problems as far as I was concerned. The first was the waves weren’t waves, just ripples. And there were lots of jelly fish. So when you went in you had to be very aware or you’d be very stung. It seems I was in Vung Tau just a couple of days. Then they sent five of us new guys to the second platoon stationed in Bien Hoa. I don’t remember that plane ride but most of the flights I was on were on C123’s. They were limousines compared to the Caribous which were like old pickups. Bien Hoa was a whole nother world from the rest of the War. We lived in a compound in town. It was a group of hotels and shops that was fenced in with bunkers. The second platoon was stationed there along with a group of helicopter pilots and some medical personnel. MP’s provided security but we did have to stand guard duty occasionally. I was assigned a bunk in a room with six other guys when I first got there. Eventually some guys rotated out and I got a second floor room and there were only two or three of us there. We had a communal shower. And we had house girls. The house girls polished our boots and did our laundry. I don’t remember if they made our beds or not. But it wouldn’t surprise me to find out they did that too. I can’t remember how many soldiers each house girl had but I do know they showed up in the mornings and busted their butts all day long. Ours was named Phuong. She was a saint putting up with all of us kids. I can’t imagine going through what she did with us being such characters. Her father worked there as a handyman. He was a real personable guy. If he’d had better control of our language he would always have had a new joke for you along with the latest gossip. A happy party hearty kind of guy that was always ready with a laugh and a smile. Then one morning he shows up for work miserable looking and with a hair cut from hell. It looked like he’d stuck his head into a fan and it’d grabbed out chunks of hair at a time. I asked Phuong what had happened to papasan. She explained that he was a pretty man. And that he liked the bad girls down town. So mamasan decided if his hair was cut just wrong he wouldn’t be pretty anymore and the bad girls wouldn’t like him as much. So while he was sleeping she gave him a good husband hair cut. Since we were living off base we got extra pay to compensate us for our lodging and meals. They provided us our lodging. And we had a choice between two mess halls in the compound. Ours was like thirty dollars a month. But we could eat with the officers for something around fifty. Good months we ate with the officers. Bad months we ate sorry meals in our own mess hall. While we were getting Spam and whatever three meals a day the officers were getting regular rations. The scuttlebutt was the big difference was our mess sergeant was selling our rations on the black market. There was a lot of that going on over there. Some of the people in the supply chain made a ton of money serving in Viet Nam. A typical day in Bien Hoa would be for us to go to the airbase after breakfast. Our trucks were parked in a yard there. We’d string up cable either on the airbase or between military compounds in town. Sometimes it would be with the aluminum poles that came as five or six foot long tubes. When you opened them up there were four or five sections one inside the other. So to make a pole you’d take the biggest or outside section. Place the next piece inside it on top of it. It would be a press fit. Each piece was tapered. The taper allowed them to stack inside each other for transport. And when they were stacked on top of each other them made a telephone pole. We also used native teak poles. In pole climbing school they told us a sixteenth of an inch of penetration would hold one up when climbing a pole. The teak poles were so hard that a sixteenth of an inch was all you could hope for. The Vietnamese also manufactured concrete poles. They were scary to climb. We used bolts we’d stick in the holes in the pole or a ladder sitting in the back of a truck. The reason they were so scary is they looked like they’d break if you sneezed while going up one. To build a telephone cable line with poles you start off with setting the poles. We had a pole hole digging and setting truck.
	We had a pole hole digging and setting truck.
	Once we got the poles set we then framed the lead. Framing involves putting up the strand or steel cable that will hold the telephone cable itself. The strand is the shiny cable that you see used for down guys at corners and ends. A down guy helps hold the pole straight by anchoring the strand to an anchor placed in the ground. 2nd platoon had three sections. The first section had the digger truck and were the ones who dug the pole and anchor holes and set them. Second section that I was in was responsible for framing up a lead. And the third section was the one that attached the telephone cable to the strand with a lashing machine. When we first started everyone would be digging holes and setting poles. When a line was set, it might just be one straight line before the lead changed directions, the second platoon would stop setting poles and start hanging the strand and placing down guys while the first and third sections continued setting poles. When a lead was framed the third section would break off from helping the first section and start putting up the cable. When all the poles were set the first section would go back and help either the second section frame up or the third place cable. Eventually all three sections would be placing the cable. The problem was a lot a of places the digger truck was a shirt rack. Even though it was six wheel drive sometimes it couldn’t get in to dig the holes. So those holes were dug by hand with a spade and a spoon. A spade is a long handled shovel with straight blade. It was used to loosen the dirt. A spoon had a folded end and it was used to bring the dirt up out of the hole. The holes were about a foot and a half across and four to eight foot deep. Here’s some pictures from Rodney’s collection of a spade and spoon in action.
	Pictures from Rodney’s collection of a spade and spoon in action
	Pictures from Rodney’s collection of a spade and spoon in action
	There were times when we couldn’t get our line truck or digger truck into set the poles. When that happened we had to carry them in and then set them using only man power. This was challenging to say the least. Again I go to Rodney’s pictures to show how we did it. This is how we carried a pole when we didn’t have access to get a truck in to do it.
	Rodney’s pictures to show how we carried a pole when we didn’t have access to get a truck in to do it
	Rodney’s pictures to show how we carried a pole when we didn’t have access to get a truck in to do it
	Rodney’s pictures to show how we carried a pole when we didn’t have access to get a truck in to do it
	Rodney’s pictures to show how we carried a pole when we didn’t have access to get a truck in to do it
	Once we got the pole to the hole then it was a matter of standing it up in the hole. If we had the digger or line truck then it wasn’t much of an issue. If we couldn’t get them in then we had to do it by hand. Again, I lean on Rodney’s pictures to show how it was done without power equipment. His pictures were taken on a job going up a hill in Vung Tau. But we did the same thing where we couldn’t get our trucks into the lead. A lot of the time this was because of the mud. Imagine doing this when it’s pushing a hundred degrees and ninety plus percent humidity. That’s the way it was a lot of the time.
	Again, I lean on Rodney’s pictures to show how it was done without power equipment.
	Here’s some shots Rodney got of working off of the native poles.
	Thanks for the photos Rodney
	I guess I’ll get some stories started. Ya’ll can correct or modify them to accommodate your perspective. In 67 we built a lead from Long Binh or maybe it was an ARVN compound into the Bien Hoa airbase. We had to go through a WWII Japanese minefield. I remember driving a deuce and a half in the tracks of the mine clearing crawler and all of us being real nervous working that section. On the same job we had to place poles in the swamps next to the road inside the airbase. It was a nasty and very difficult project. I was driving the deuce and a half to and from the place where we got softball and a little larger sized boulders. It seems I had to back into this pit and then the Vietnamese filled the truck up by hand. It was tough backing in and even tougher pulling out. Somewhere they’d got fifty five gallon drums and knocked out the ends. Then they welded two of those together end to end. Using our spades and spoons we started digging pole holes. We were up to our knees in muck and our waists to chests in water. Once we got the hole started we’d put one of the barrel assemblies into the hole. Then it was a matter of using blocks and sledge hammers to drive down the barrels as we dug out with the spade and spoon. When the barrel was just above the water level we stopped. Then we used a crane because line trucks couldn’t set the pole out in the water. This lead it seems was fifteen twenty feet away from the road. Once the pole was in the hole I’d show up with a load of rock. Then we’d pass them hand over hand packing them around the pole until we filled the barrels. I was up in the deuce and a half tossing stones to the next guy when a big snake came across the water. Jesus might have lost a walking on water contest that day. Our boys were motivated. It seems like to me the cable was like four hundred pair nineteen gauge. It was huge and heavy. And we were in the water laying it out to be lashed up. It wasn’t fun. I do remember that. Then it seems a couple of months later they’d drained the swamps and our handiwork looked so silly sitting out there in dry land. Does anyone remember the back gate that closed at six pm at Bien Hoa? The platoon was at Black Horse. They’d put us out next to the perimeter of course. In the video you can see bunkers and towers there with our motor pool. The EM club was inside the base and we were under blackout conditions. So the guys had to got through heck to get to the EM club. And when they got there the Cav guys didn’t have much use for REMF’s. Invariably there’d be fights. All that for two beers, it was a hassle. I was driving the truck to Bien Hoa about this time. I had a deuce and a half I’d named “Sweat Pea”. # 211 as I recall. I’d drive into Bien Hoa one day, spend the night, drive back to Black Horse the next day, spend the night, and it was all started over again. The guys got together and gave me some cash and about fifteen ration cards, all of them not punched for that month for beer and liquor. When the convoy hit Long Binh the next afternoon I headed for the main PX. There I went back to the OIC’s office. He was a first lieutenant as I recall. I explained to him that I needed a bunch of booze and our circumstances. He let me know I could buy the beer and booze on my ration card and that was it. I pulled out the wad of MPC and ration cards and let him know he could punch cards until his wrist fell off if that’s what he wanted to do. But I needed the booze. He was a jerk. About that time a voice came from a doorway. It was a bird colonel and he said, “give the boy his booze lieutenant, have a heart.” I left Long Binh a very happy camper. It was close to six but I decided to try to make the back gate to the base. It was through the boonies but I was young and dumb and I had a large foot for a kid my age. I was cutting through there like a wild man when all hell broke loose. Automatic weapons fire made it sound like a war zone. I remember thinking my parents would have a hard time with that telegram. Almost as much of a hard time as the captain would explaining what had happened to me. Later on I figured out I’d probably crossed a patrol going out for an ambush or whatever who decided they’d have some fun at a REMF’s expense. They did. At Blackhorse I was a hero needless to say. That night we had some probing of the perimeter. I remember most of us being a little inebriated and carrying on as the tracers from the bunkers and towers found the little people out there under the flares. Harvey