Vietnam -- Sea Bees and other things that went bump into the night

When the time came to begin rebuilding our unit with maintenance support buildings, it wasn't the 20th Engineer Battalion or the US Army Corps Of Engineers, it was the Navy Sea Bees who performed the work.

Below, is a picture of our old hanger just months away from destruction.

This is a picture of the new work area built on the cement slab where the hanger used to be.

But let me be quick to say that while the Sea Bees were responsible for much of the rebuilding, I don't believe that a single one of us didn't pump on from time to time and helped them.  Me included.

We wanted our jobs, organization, and our unit back. More importantly, we wanted a sense of dignity put back into our lives.

From May 3rd to July 31st, 1970 our unit not only went from literally nothing to fully operational. And while I was running from Da Nang to Camp Evans, I also performed the following functions:

1. Supported a fire mission on May 4th
2. Moved the 2 minute section to A Company, 5th Transportation
3. Moved the 2 minute section to A Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry
4. Helped with loading rockets into the Cobra rocket pods during the evacuation of Firebase Ripcord
5. Helped with loading rockets into the Cobra rocket pods when confirmation was given that we had 128 known NVA in bamboo huts just north of Hue.  
6. Helped fill sandbags.
7. Fabricated a replacement part for one of our Cobras that took a round.  Then was flown up to Quang Tri  and repaired the Cobra that was supporting Command And Control of North Vietnam (CCN). missions.
8. Drove Lt Craig Geis and Capt Denny Kramp to Eagle Beach
9. Flew down to Red Beach with Lt Graig Geis to drop off the log book and other related documents that tracked the life of a Cobra that was picked up by CH-47 Chinook and taken down by sling to that location after its fuel bladders were ruptured by a 122mm rocket.
10. Maintained my vehicle by washing and waxing it. Extended radio capabilities with a longer antenna.
11. Participated with Lt Craig Gies on various occasions while performing FSANGC raids through out Vietnam. I'll explain what FSANGC stands for later.
12. Performed a wide variety of other sorties including officer ass in seat missions to the PX, the hamburger joint, and to the special services movie runs.

Somewhere in between all of this, I got some sleep and played soldier.