I was glad to visit with Dob Neuhaus at the Myrtle Beach reunion. He reminded me that we used to shoot the rats in our bunker with soap bullets. FSB Nancy was the first firebase I was at that we didn't have to build ourselves. That was the good news, bad news was the old bunkers were infested with rats! Now I remember! We would "pull" a bullet from an M-16 round and shove the cartridge into a bar of soap. Gee whiz Wally! We can safely shoot our service rifles inside the bunker! Blam! One … [Read more...]

In memory of Tim "Salty" Brown (Photo: Cossey)   Greetings all, Just trying to remember everything that went on at our first big cache site. I recall walking off another LZ nearby where we had flown in. I believe that may have been Bravo Co. They had a cache site of their own there. They had secured that and cleared an LZ. Don't know if it had a name. This was as rugged a place as I have ever been. Steep, steep ridges covered with heavy jungle. We started down a road from … [Read more...]

Fire Base Ann April, 1970 Memory is a funny thing; why one day or night would stand out, one event is so vivid and others aren't. I have a great memory of one night on Ann. I had been out with Recon on my first patrol.  We had walked off, patrolled several days and walked back in. There was plenty of beer for Recon and by the time the sun went down, everyone was three sheets to the wind. Well, of course, Cossey would have been sober, but I think he was listening to the Armed Forces radio … [Read more...]

I remember flying into FSB Granite in what must of been mid-March, 1970. My first firebase, my first day assigned to Echo Co. 1st Battalion/5th Cavalry, 1st Air Cavalry. It looked like it had been hacked and bulldozed out of the jungle, a rough barren circle in the middle of the all that green. Echo company saw fit to put me in the .50 caliber squad. My MOS was "unit armourer", earned OJT in Hohenfels, Germany, my first overseas assignment. I had attended a weapons maintenance class that … [Read more...]

Excerpt from the "Rouge Bouquet" by American Joyce Kilmer, killed in action 1918   In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet There is a new-made grave today. Built by never a spade or pick Yet covered with earth ten meters thick. There lie many fighting men, Dead in their youthful prime, Never to laugh or love again Nor taste the summertime. … [Read more...]

I may be overstating the obvious, but we're not expecting parades. So that's understood by veteran and non-veteran alike. There is a legacy though and that does count. So ok, Bird, what is that legacy? Well, it comes in several parts. Today soldiers, sailors and marines do not pass through airports and other public places without being recognized. Not everyone, but someone is going to thank them for their service. There was a cultural shift across the US of A after the Vietnam war. People … [Read more...]