Was right along side the engineers in early 69 from Bastogne to Cannon and everything in between. With A/1/83rd ARTY, 8in track howitzers. Camped out in the woods when you stopped the road and went with you the next day. Between all 30 some odd of us, we could lay down all our pictures on the ground and have most of the A Shau covered. I have saved over 200 messages from the last 6 weeks we have been emailing in case somebody needs a reference to write about the Valley. It started with myself and Brian Beltman, then Roger Ables out of Sally and he brought all the gunbunnies from that sight. And it is gaining guys a few every week. When our guns drove into Firebase Arrow, your plows had started up the hill to Cannon. We all witnessed one ROME PLOW climbing the steep hill and about 100 feet up, the driver started pushing this huge tree. And it didn't move and the dozer kept going forward and up the tree until it flipped backwards 3 or 4 times down the hill. On the second flip, we watched as the driver lurched out the right side of the machine. The roll cage really saved his life.. Was April or May 69. 27th is under 591st CER. My DAD spent 3 years in WW2 with the 591st eng boat regt and later named 591st combat engineer regt. He took this of a friend in north Africa.
written by Dan Feb'2002 |
