I raise my glass to the men of Echo Co. Mortars! Bartender-make that a double!
Echo mortars on FSB David
Nick Mychajluk has forwarded some good photos. I think I see what’s going on here. Echo must have just arrived on the firebase and got some aiming stakes up. Have to sight in the tubes.
Firebase Exodus
Jeez, can’t you guys clean up a little? Actually I like this because it does show the conditions when setting up and building a firebase. They just don’t spring up out of the ground. Everything has to be built and you still have to be ready to defend yourselves at the same time.
Doc Schramm, Buynak and Burleson on FSB Exodus
Did I mention the mud? We were out of Cambodia but the monsoon rains were still with us. Exodus was the our next firebase when we pulled out of David.
FSB Exodus
The monsoons, snakes, scorpions, fire ants, rats, Viet Cong. You know, the usual stuff. Here is Nick with a python.
Is that a Burmese Python (Python bivitattus)? Be careful man! That thing is a carnivore!
Bearwallow, Gates and Turay on VN firebase…Eagle or Granite.
Nick with Dickhead and Fifi/FSB Nancy
Dave Martin – I’m guessing in Cambodia
Ok, Martin wasn’t in mortars, but Nick sent this one as well.
Bird-out
I came to Exodus in June ’70 and remember the snake. If I remember correctly it was in a hole just outside someones hooch and we tied some boot strings on a pole and lassoed it. I remember the mud also being out of water. Also I remember a bunch of guys getting diarrhea from bad water they dropped us. My first days were just a taste of what was to come over the next year.
John, thanks for commenting and Welcome Home! Were you in the mortar platoon?
Yes.
It was my hooch. I used to trip over that hole at night getting in or out of the entrance. When the snake was being pulled out, a bunch of people jumped on my roof and it kind of collapsed at a culvert joint. So much for being able to take incoming. I have a picture of the collapsed roof with new -in-country FDC mortar man James Lopata posing on it.
Nick