First-hand account of Vietnam - family friendly, yet
WARNING AIR FORCE PEOPLE - THIS EXCERPT IS PRO MARINE! ;)
Chuck Truitt is a retired Marine and Viet vet. He now pastors an Independent Baptist Church, Marantha Too. He and his family were in Okinawa for years, where I met them while on a music gig there - and they are now in Germany.
Chuck wrote this book, and from the bits I have read, I think some here might be interested in it. He has a mailing list too for the goings-on in his parish. Please have a look here.
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The following is from my book "Pop A Yellow Smoke" -Chuck sends
http://www.swanassoc.com/pays
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LZ Snoopy USMC (page 145, chapter 19 of 28)
After spending a 2 to 3 week hiatus from Fire Support Base Fuller working as DF (Radio Direction Finding) Net Control back at Dong Ha, I had to go back up on Fuller again. Don’t get me wrong - I was all for it, I wanted to go back - although, being in the “rear with the gear” at Dong Ha Combat Base (if you could call that the rear!) definitely had its major benefits.
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Looking south from our ops bunker towards the 105mm arty area. There is an army "slick" about to come in on the purple smoke. Notice the baby-blue 105mm shell casings, just before they painted the LZ!
It was certainly nice to spend the 1969, Christmas, and New Year holidays in a place that had a real chow hall - errr, kind of anyhow - and that wonderful shower. Also, in Dong Ha I slept in a nice “hard-back” hootch, with a living area that was big enough to walk around in, a nice change. The guys had also made a hootch into a clubhouse (I guess you could call it that), and as I recall they had cold beverages available.
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A freshly painted "army" 105mm howitzer.
On Fuller, my home was a hole-in-the-ground bunker with dirt walls and floor, and a leaky PSP (runway matting) ceiling covered with sandbags, but I had really grown fond of that place. Though the Army’s 1st of the 5th Mechanized Division had replaced the 4th Marines about November (the whole 3rd Marine Division was leaving Vietnam) which left just the few of us from 1st Radio Battalion as the only Marines there. Remember, the Marines took that position three different times before deciding to keep it manned. So FSB Fuller had a completely Marine heritage.
Just after the army arrived, they started bringing in can after can of paint. Those guys painted everything. For instance, all the engineer stakes around the LZ, as well as any others who’s sharp end could injure someone, had a spent 105mm shell casing put over the end. I’ll never forget - those doggies didn’t like the bare brass of the shells - so they painted every single one of those shell casings “baby blue” at our end of the FSB, and red at the artillery’s end. Those folks were serious about it; they painted everything that didn’t move for more than a day.
Well, after a little while they got bored, I guess, with nothing else to paint. I thought they would start painting the sandbags themselves. But they decided to paint the LZ. Yep, that’s right, they painted the LZ. It was maybe about 50 foot square. There was a real artist there in the army, and that guy did a decent job of painting a big Snoopy sitting on his dog house. Snoopy had his WWI fighter ace, leather helmet on, with his arms outstretched, holding a joystick that stuck up between his legs. Every bird, fixed wing, or otherwise in the whole northern “I” Corps area could see “Snoopy the WWI ace sitting on his Dog House.” Actually, it really did look great. But, us Marines were a bit peeved.
Up there, on top of that mountain, we used to get really “socked in” there in the clouds. Sometimes you couldn’t see anything. Well, I knew where their paint locker was (made out of ammo crates, the common building material. Our own Joe Armstrong could make anything out of an ammo crate). It was right close to the LZ and not far from our bunker. I went over to the LZ and walked all over that thing, and laid out a plan in my head, to paint a great big, black USMC on the top of that yellow Dog House. The joints in the PSP worked out just perfect to paint the big letters too. I then went back into our Ops bunker, laid it all out on paper, “talked it up” to the other Marines, and one of them was recruited to help.
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Looking north from the 105mm howitzer emplacements after the army painted the shell
casings red in this area, but baby-blue on the other side of the LZ, closer to the flags.
After dark and while we were still heavily “socked in,” we got two cans of black paint, and brushes from the locker. The visibility was really bad but we crawled out onto the LZ and painted the “needed” addition. We could have been shot, but since we were inside the perimeter, and most everyone’s attention was to the outside we did okay. After just one interruption, we proceeded to finish the job about an hour later. Then we went and put the paint back as if absolutely nothing was different.
WOW! When the morning came, that really created a lot of “hate and discontent.” I’m not sure, but my memory seems to tell me that I, a sergeant, was the senior Marine in the bunch ATT, for a couple days anyhow. Maybe, SSgt. Joe Armstrong had left permanently, or was gone on a resupply run. Regardless, I was the man responsible, and definitely the guy who was chewed on by the Army OIC, a Captain. He said stuff like, “we try to make things nice, and you Marines always screw everything up.” Actually, those soldiers had really been pretty decent to us, and we certainly got a lot of “bennies” from them.
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LZ "Snoopy," from an approaching "46" before the USMC addition. (Courtesy of SgtMaj "Fighting Joe" Joe Armstrong.)
The captain, wanted me to go out and paint over the USMC, but I refused. I countered with something like, “it was the Marines who fought and died for this mountain three times, and we haven’t left yet. We’re just letting you stay up here with us.” Then he insisted on me getting our OIC on the PRC-25, which I did. After a little while he called me back on the “25" and said “don’t do anything, someone is coming up.” Whoa, I thought I was in “Deep Kimchee,” and waited with anticipation for the arrival of “I don’t know who.”
Well, it was either later that day or the next that it cleared up to be beautiful outside. I could hear a “Huey” approaching with a distinctive thump, thump, thump from the blades “breaking wind” as they cut the air. I heard it from way off and thought that this might be our anticipated visitor. As I watched the approach, a UH-1E - with USMC on the sides - began circling overhead. Ha! There were a couple people hanging out taking pictures. I walked on over to the LZ as the bird landed, and a Marine major with at least one other officer stepped down off the bird. In retrospect, I believe it was Major Robert O'Brien, the XO for 1st Radio Bn. in DaNang, who had come all of those miles just for this event. The major immediately started walking toward me with a great big smile on his face, and his hand held way out in front to shake my hand.
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LZ Snoopy in the middle of FSB Fuller just after the army painted it. (Courtesy of SgtMaj "Fighting Joe" Joe Armstrong.)
Without a doubt, that was a huge “show of support” as well as a big relief to my psyche. Our battalion headquarters was in DaNang and the rest of the 1st Radio Battalion was so “spread to the winds” from Chu Lai to the DMZ, that us DFers rarely ever saw our battalion’s field grade officers; he was sure a sight for sore eyes that day. Do you know, he never said one bad word to me, and I was not spoken to again by that army captain either. If I’m not mistaken, he is the same major that came out bringing gifts, such as a canned ham and a couple cases of beverage, and to be with us on 10 November 69 (The Marine Corps’ Birthday).
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A UH-1E, Notice the MARINES on the side; it's a HUEY!
The last of us Marines ended up departing the mountain just a few weeks later in conjunction with the 3rd MarDiv leaving earlier. But, I did create/illicite one more incident as we, the last Marines, left FSB Fuller. Di Dah, Di Da Dit
