| These are some personal notes that describe some of my memories and opinions of the organizations that I served with in an Army career that spanned nearly 30 years. If you find this site by accident through a search engine you are welcome to contact me and share your thoughts. Thanks. My e-mail address is BradenClan@ gmail.com. |
169th Engineer Battalion (Construction)Vietnam 1968-1969
Travis Air Force Base, California, was known as the "Gateway to the Pacific." For me,
I was spending the night in a BOQ room before departing the next morning. It was a two-man room. I was in bed and almost asleep when my roommate arrived. He was an older-looking Army captain. He did not say much. After a few words, he asked if I was on my way to Vietnam.
When I answered yes, he said something like:
"Hope you do better than the guy I'm here to meet."
Then I learned that he was at Travis to escort home the remains of an Army officer who had been killed in Vietnam.
I spent the next hour wide awake, reviewing "How I got here." The answers:
I don't remember much about the flight except that it was long. Finally, our flight was on its approach to the Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon. Looking out the window I could see rocket craters in the grounds around the field.
After we landed and gathered our duffle bags, we were loaded into yellow school-bus-type vehicles for transportation to the Army's nearby Replacement Battalion. By 1969, there were two Army replacement battalions in Vietnam, the 90th Replacement Battalion in the Saigon area and the 22nd Replacement Battalion at Cam Ranh Bay, about 188 miles to the north. My reactions on that bus ride were twofold:
Soon we arrived at the 90th Replacement Battalion compound in Long Bình, about 20 miles north of Saigon. The enormous military complex contained roads, ammunition depots, storage areas, motor parks, helicopter landing zones, and numerous tenant units. In many ways, it resembled a large city. It was the home of the Army's Vietnam headquarters, as well as many other subordinate headquarters. Its footprint was about 11 square miles, and it had a perimeter of approximately 15-20 miles. At the replacement battalion we were checked in, given a safety briefing, shown to our barracks and bunks, and introduced to key buildings such as the PX and the Mess Hall. Like everyone else, I spent the next several days being processed, receiving orientation, drawing equipment, exchanging U.S. currency for Military Payment Certificates (MPC), and checking the Assignments Bulletin Board about six times a day waiting to receive my in-country assignment. While there I met my cousin, Roy Braden, who was also processing in. Small world. I finally found my orders posted there. They assigned me to the 169th Engineer Battalion (Construction), located on the north side of Long Bình. That afternoon I was picked up by a driver from the battalion where I met the Battalion Adjutant, and I was given a quick briefing and bunked in a visitor tent for the evening. The briefing did include pointing out the bunker I was to use if there were a rocket attack that night.
The next morning, I was introduced to the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Prentiss, and he invited me to ride with him and his driver as he visited the various construction projects that the battalion was working on. During this time he asked me about my background and things I had done in school and about places where I had worked. He was sizing me up for what assignment he would give me in the battalion. I must've mentioned my summers working with the Indiana State Highway Commission building highways because I learned that I would be assigned to Company D and be a Construction Platoon Leader on a huge concrete project to construct an underground bunker for a major headquarters (III Corps) that had become a target for rocket attacks by the Viet Cong.
The battalion area, as with other units in the Long Bình compound, was within its own, fenced enclosure with gate guards at the one entrance/exit. It consisted of a set of buildings and a motor pool (maintenance building and hardstand A whole lot of the company cleaning tasks were done by Mama-sans and Papa-sans. These were fairly older Vietnamese who worked via the battalion's Civilian Personnel Office (CPO). Each morning they would gather at a certain Long Bình gate and be trucked to our battalion to sign in and then report to their work area. As to personal services, I was asked to give some money ($15?) each month to the Company First Sergeant who would the pay the various Mama-sans for things like washing my clothes, pressing my uniforms, and polishing my boots. There was one Papa-san I will never forget: not that old but missing an arm. He worked in the Motor Pool and was forever being called upon to help fix tire flats on heavy engineer equipment. Fixing flats on large engineer equipment like a front loader requires prying the tire off the rim - a very, very hard task. This was a tough job for someone very strong and with two arms - but he did it well with one.
One of the things that immediately drew my attention to the 169th Engineer Battalion (Construction) was that the battalion area was very neat and orderly. Yes, it was located in Long Bình, which was essentially a rear echelon area in Vietnam, but surely the battalion had many many missions that fully occupied the troops during the day; so the question would be, "Where is the labor coming from to make the areas look so good?" The Company areas were very neat. The sandbagged structures were also very neat with the sandbags perfectly aligned. And any other small details that result in a very well-maintained area were evident.
Biên Hòa, Vietnam June 1968 - February 1969 My first project was a massive, reinforced concrete mostly-underground bunker for the III Corps Tactical Operations Center (TOC) in Biên Hòa, a base a short distance to the north. This project was right in the middle of the corps headquarters so it got plenty of visibility. The project had been started by another unit, but the word was that they were relieved of the job. To do the work we had my platoon of about 35 men, and we had about 25 Vietnamese workers that our battalion hired via its CPO. These were men too old for Vietnamese military service, and they had their own work leader who spoke a smattering of English, but mostly we communicated by signs and gestures. Because of their age they were not nearly as strong as their American counterparts, but they were steady and got their tasks done. Could not have asked for more.
The project got lots of visitors. When you are building something in the middle of the corps headquarters you can be sure that your boss will be checking on you. And his boss, and his boss's boss. In general it went well. Looking back over the years, perhaps I got lots of visitors because everyone knew where to find me. (In subsequent years in the Army, I learned that lieutenants can find lots of things to do to keep them from "being there" for training or building, and maybe that's good because that lets NCOs get the job done - and done right.) And then there was one morning early on in the project when it had rained the night before, and the base of our TOC excavation had about six inches of water in it. We must have been short of men to get the pump running to drain the water, so I climbed down to assist. I hadn't been down there long when one of my sergeants called down to say that someone wanted to speak to me. I climbed up to ground level - remember that this was an underground bunker we were building - and came face to face with a lieutenant colonel who informed me that he was the Headquarters Commandant.
Thankfully I had some very good sergeants. Note to self: an officer might command the platoon, but - if he is smart - the sergeants run it. We worked six days a week; I was at the job site six days a week. The days we worked, the lunch meal was brought out to the site. Sometimes, often because of a concrete pour, we were late finishing. But we were back out there the next morning. I learned that concrete was a valuable commodity in rainy Vietnam. A concrete sidewalk or - even better - a concrete patio, were highly desirable, and I had to tell many of the officers who were billeted in the area that, "Sorry, I just cannot give you concrete; it's needed for this critical project."
Saigon River, Vietnam November 1968 My platoon was pulled off the project just once. We were called to run a generator and light set down to a bridge spanning the Saigon River to help light the piers so that the Vietnamese forces guarding that key structure could better defend it against VC sapper attacks. There was a taciturn Special Forces major there who was advising the local South Vietnamese bridge defenders. He was a man of few words as I recall. It was tough getting the equipment set up in the slick grass and mud of the riverbank but we did it. All the while we expected a firefight to break out because VC had come back to take out the bridge. Thankfully, this did not happen. I was glad when the light set worked. We drove back to Long Bình that night; QL1 was largely safe. Never knew what happened to that equipment.
III Corps TOC, Biên Hòa, Vietnam February 1969
Long Bình, Vietnam 1968 - 1969
While I was in Long Bình I had additional duties, as most officers had. Lieutenants had Staff Duty Officer duties both at the battalion and brigade level. A staff duty officer (SDO) is the person "in charge" when everyone else is sleeping.
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QL1, Vietnam February 1969 After we completed the TOC we spent a short amount of time helping widen that part of QL1 that ran north of Long Bình. Mostly our work consisted of extending the length of the culverts running underneath the roadway so that the road could be widened. Of course culverts carry water and we could not close the road, so we were often doing our work while waist deep in water. One day I recall helping at one of our worksites so I was down in the water with everyone else. US troops working anywhere near civilization always drew a crowd and we were no exception; young boys selling soda and stealing things off your trucks if we were not alert, and older Vietnamese simply watching. We were used to it; sometimes we "bought off" the boys to keep them from stealing our stuff. The next morning we returned to the site to finish the culvert work, and arrived to learn that there had been a skirmish that night when a Vietnamese patrol discovered VC getting ready to booby trap the culvert that we were working on. There was a firefight and three VC were killed. My Platoon Sergeant, SFC Brown, noted that one of the dead VC was one of our curious observers the previous afternoon. Good thing about that ARVN patrol or you might not be reading this. |
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it was the final stop in the United States before Vietnam.
for vehicle and equipment parking) for each company: HHC, A, B, C, and D. There was also a battalion headquarters building. The buildings were one- and two-story wood frame structures going back to WWII facility plans. Troops lived in open bays in two-story structures. Each troop billet had a single room on each floor for a junior NCO who had the additional task of keeping the building - and the troops in it - in good shape. Senior NCOs and officers also lived in a two-story wood barracks, but with partitioned individual rooms. Except for the NCO/Officer barracks, our company area was probably like many in the U.S. Look past all the sandbags protecting buildings and you would not know where you were. Oh, yes, there was a building that was the Officers' Club. I went there only once. As it turned out, I was either eating, sleeping, in the motor pool, or on my jobsite(s). I had little time to use Long Bình's social and recreational amenities. On one occasion, however, I heard Filipino singers perform the unofficial anthem of American troops in Vietnam: the Animals' "We Gotta Get Out of This Place."
QL20, Vietnam
February 1969 - June 1969
Soon we were moved to a road building project on QL20, restoring a section of the road originally built by the French, but in disrepair. QL20 ran from the Vietnamese highlands city of Da Lat south to where it connected to QL1 about ten miles north of Long Bình. Da Lat is known as the Center of Agriculture and its bountiful food produce was needed in Saigon. QL20 was economically significant because it was a highway that Vietnamese farmers used to bring their produce from the central highlands down to the Saigon area. It was politically significant because the opening of secure highway links across any section of the country helped unite dispersed villages and assisted significantly in extending governmental presence and assistance. It was militarily of importance because that would be the land route to rapidly move Vietnamese military reinforcements around in that section of country in order to respond to Vietcong and/or NVA attacks in the area.
The concept was for my company to leap forward along the road to begin work, and as troops from our battalion became available, they would also join the effort. So we were about to set up a base camp and begin road building operations with no US troops nearby and where the security would be provided by Regional and Popular Forces, commonly called Ruff Puffs.
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The task was to establish a base camp, which I did on the south side of the La Nga River, somewhat across from the local village and regional forces (RUFF-PUFF) outpost. To do this, I had large timber bunkers pre-cut at our base in Long Bình and we made the trek up QL20 with an escort from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. We really just begged our way into the escort, and the 11th ACR was none too happy when it dawned on them that they would be going two hours up and two hours back a dangerous stretch of road. On the way, for example, we passed a battleground, with military equipment strewn around the ground – a Vietnamese unit had been tricked into thinking it was responding to an attack further south but was actually lured into a massive and costly ambush.
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 QL20 Base Camp Aerial View. See the La Nga River that bordered a portion of our perimeter. Center is the Camp TOC and officer/NCO quarters. At around 1:00 is the mess hall and at around 2:30 is the maintenance area. Note the two concentric circles of berms with bunkers built into them. |
Upon arriving at the river, we pushed up two large concentric circles of berm, the inside one for us, and the outside one for Vietnamese infantry units that would be rotated into the area for our security and for a bit of rest for them. We constructed our bunkers, sandbagged them, put lots of wire and trip flares around the perimeter, built a mess hall and showers using Navy cubes for the latter. Each morning we forded the river with our heavy equipment and began working our way north with road repairs. Essentially we cleared trees and brush back at least a football field from the roadway. With this accomplished, VC could no longer not step out from the brush onto the road and demand supplies or food from the Vietnamese truckers taking theirs loads south. We also widened the shoulders, installed culverts for drainage, and prepared the road for asphalt paving. For this task we had an element from the company headquarters for mess and maintenance, two earthmoving platoons (one from another company), and a construction platoon, over 100 men.
 QL Base Camp Ground View. This is a photograph from the ground of our Base Camp. The tallest structure you see is a sandbagged tower above our Base Camp TOC. We manned this tower at night with a crew that had a 50 caliber machine gun with a starlight scope for night vision. In the foreground you can see the bunkers in the outer perimeter that the Vietnamese troops used and behind that the inner perimeter with the larger bunkers that our American troops used. |
I might note that my company commander remained in Long Bình. Guess he had things to do there. So there I was building and occupying a base camp that was fairly isolated and housed around 100 soldiers and probably a million dollars worth of construction equipment - at age 25 and with all of a year and a half in the Army. That put a lot of pressure on me, and also there was an added challenge because platoon leaders do not have all the authority that a company commander has, as in administering punishment. But with the help of my NCOs we got the job done; and we were working so hard that soldiers didn't have the time or energy to get themselves in trouble.
 Perimeter Security. The very outside of our Base Camp perimeter was marked by a four wire barb wire fence. Hanging on the Barbwire many places were signs that indicated that inside the wire was a minefield. Actually we placed command detonated Claymore mines set in concrete. Wires to the Claymores ran back to our bunkers. The wire fence also had a number of tripwire detonated flares that would identify forces trying to breach our perimeter. I set most of these tripwires flares myself - just to ensure they were done right. |
 Resupply by Air. On one or two occasions we got intelligence that enemy activity was such that travel along QL20 was unusually dangerous. This meant that we could not be re-supplied by vehicles that usually traveled to and from the base camp by riding along with the asphalt convoys. In these cases we were supplied by a Chinook helicopter with a sling load of needed supplies. This work well except for the occasions where the powerful winds created by the Chinook blades blew over some of our wooden buildings in the camp that had to be righted. |
Being in "command" of an isolated base camp and simultaneously being in charge of the road building was, in retrospect, a whole lot of responsibility for a First Lieutenant. There was a field mess operation that  prepared daily Class A (fresh) breakfast and supper meals using food brought up as part of the asphalt truck convoys. The lunch meal, for those out working on the road was C-rations. There was also a maintenance operation that required repair  parts. And a water purification unit that took used water trucked in from the La Nga River and made it potable. And there was getting gas and diesel fuel supplied. A lot of logistics and the respective NCOs did much of the work by communicating with their counterpart back at Long Bình.
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One day, not far into the project, I was out measuring a culvert beneath the existing road that would have to be lengthened so we could widen the shoulders—much like the work we had briefly done on QL1.
For daytime security along the road work we had a "gun truck." It was a 2⅐ ton cargo truck (deuce-and-a-half) that had a machine gun crew and moved from work site to work site along the road each day. Also, the local forces went out each day and deployed in the wood line nearby where our crews were working. For base camp security, in addition to the Vietnamese Army and the trip wires on flares, we had a 50 caliber machine gun with a starlight scope in a tower at the center of the camp.
The VC did not do much to impede our progress. We did turn up some mines with our heavy equipment, but our best defense was clearing back the vegetation and opening the road to more civilian traffic. Every now and then the VC would pile rocks in the road that would stop all traffic until we used a grappling hook to drag the pile off the road.
I had my driver stop the jeep on the road, and I made my way very carefully down to the culvert. Very carefully. I had not forgotten that VC had tried to booby trap one of the culverts I was working on on along QL1.
After measuring the south end, I considered how to get the measurements from the north end. I could climb back up to the road, cross over, and work my way down again—or I could simply crawl through the culvert.
It was the dry season. Only a trickle of water flowed through the 36-inch culvert, and, strange as it may sound, considering the danger of booby traps, crawling through it actually seemed the safer choice.
Armed with a stick to swish the water ahead of me—mainly to discourage any snakes or other unwelcome creatures—I started through.
About a third of the way in, while concentrating on the water ahead, I heard a rustling sound overhead.
I looked up to discover that almost the entire inside top of the culvert was home to hundreds and hundreds of dark, furry, winged creatures.
I won’t say I came out of that culvert like a bat out of hell, but I retreated about as fast as a human being could crawl.
After my heart slowed from about 300 beats a minute, I took the longer route, carefully worked my way down to the north end of the culvert, and finished my measurements.
My driver probably had a pretty good story to tell his buddies that night.
But the VC were "out there." One Sunday I was traveling North on QL20 to consult with some US Advisors in the town of Định Quán. My driver and I came upon some Ruff Puffs in a medical jeep who were wailing with sorrow. I got out of the jeep and followed them to a spot about 15 yards off the road. This location had vegetation because our crews were working their way north and had not yet done the land clearing in this stretch of road. We came upon a pond about 20 feet in diameter, and on the other side of it were two, obviously dead, Ruff Puffs. They had been killed by a VC booby trap. The medics knew they had to retrieve the bodies but were fearful of becoming booby trap casualties themselves. Well ... they had two military canvas stretchers and I took the forward spot on the first stretcher. Because their dead comrade's bodies were near the pond and I was wary of other booby traps, I thought wading through the pond might be safer than trying to walk around it, so we carefully moved through the water that was not quite waist deep. We recovered the remains and got them back out to the medic jeep. I did not share that story with Bonnie in my letters home to her.
Security Forces. Ruff-Puff regional forces provided security for our road building work. Security for the Base Camp was provided via an outer perimeter with bunkers with the understanding that Vietnamese military forces would occupy these bunkers to supply the primary security for our base camp. That is what happened. It appeared that the ARVN regular Vietnamese army forces used our base camp as an R&R site while out performing their duties in this particular sector. This worked well. The ARVN forces moved into well established camp that already had bunkers for their soldiers to live in and they had access to our purified water supply. In turn, while they were at our base camp, they did send out patrols at night to help us with our overall security.
Our main road crew was ambushed in March. I was to the south of the attack where I heard the gunfire and explosions. I had my driver, Specialist Ford, speed north, and we stopped our M151 jeep at the the top of a hill overlooking the ambush site down in the valley. I could see a D-7 dozer burning, see my soldiers in defensive posture on the east side of the road, and hear the firing. It appeared that the enemy force was in the wood line on the west side of the road. I happened to be carrying a box of four M-72 Light Antitank Weapons with me on that day, and Ford and I fired the four rockets into the wood line there. That might have broken up the attack as maybe the enemy thought they were getting hit with artillery, but I don't know. I do know that they responded by walking mortar rounds over the jeep. I yelled at Ford "RUN!" and he and I ran away from the mortar rounds being "walked" over the jeep and toward us. But it was almost immediately evident that we were not going to be able to outrun them. I hollered, "Get down!" and we both dived into a very shallow ditch as the mortar rounds hit all around us. At that point the enemy force broke off its attack and there were no more mortar rounds or weapons firing down in the valley. Amazingly, there were no engineers on the work crew even wounded; the dozer operator had been blown off the earthmover when it was hit, but he landed softly and unhurt. The dozer was a loss, hit by rocket propelled grenade. Ford was lightly wounded in the side by mortar schrapnel. My jeep had something like over 60 shrapnel holes but it was repairable. Ford received the Army Commendation Medal with V-for-Valor device for his actions that day, along with the Purple Heart. I received the Bronze Star Medal with V-for-Valor device. Certificate, Citation, and General Orders are at the end of this posting. There was one enemy NVA confirmed kill though the search of the NVA attack site was very brief.
Dozer Struck by RPG. When the NVA ambushed us we lost a D-7 dozer to a rocket-propelled grenade, but not one member of the road crew was even wounded.
Holy Jeep. Maybe 60+ shrapnel "wounds" to my jeep, but it was soon repaired and back on the road.
QL20, Vietnam
April 1969
| One of our most interesting engineering challenges involved a low area where QL20 crossed a small valley. A creek flowed through the valley. Rather than build a bridge or have the road descend into the valley and climb back out, the French had solved the problem years earlier by constructing a large earth embankment across the valley. It was a good engineering solution for that location. Two 60-inch culverts, each about 100 feet long, had been installed beneath the roadway to carry the creek beneath the fill. The Viet Cong had blown up both culverts. With the culverts blocked and collapsed, the creek could no longer drain properly. Water had gradually backed up on the west side of the embankment and was steadily rising. It would not be long before it reached the level of the roadway, overtopped the fill, and washed out one of the most important roads in III Corps. Replacing the culverts was not technically difficult. The real problem was time. QL20 was a major civilian highway carrying produce from the Central Highlands to market. It was also the primary military route for moving reaction forces north and south. Closing the road for several days simply was not an acceptable option. We looked for bypasses. The only roads we found were long, winding, in poor condition, and extremely vulnerable to enemy interdiction. They were not a practical solution. |
 Culvert Replacement. This is from the site where the VC had blown the culverts under QL20 which backed up the creek and threatened to overflow and wash away the road. This picture was taken just before the two destroyed culvert sections were removed and replaced with new sections. |
Have you ever noticed that dry beach sand is soft, but wet sand becomes surprisingly firm? Water does an excellent job of compacting sand. We decided to use that principle to our advantage.
For several days we hauled in enormous quantities of sand and stockpiled it near the site. At another location, crews assembled the replacement culverts so they would be ready for immediate installation.
When everything was in place, we began early one morning.
Heavy earthmoving equipment quickly removed the roadway earth above the damaged culverts. As soon as the excavation reached the backed-up water on the west side, the water rushed through the opening, carrying away much of the loosened earth with it.
Soon the ground became too wet to support the earthmoving equipment. Cranes equipped with clamshell buckets took over the excavation until we reached creek level and exposed the shattered culverts. The cranes lifted the damaged sections out, and the new culverts were rolled into position.
The cranes then began placing the stockpiled sand around the culverts while our water truck continuously sprayed the sand to compact it. Once there were about two feet of compacted sand over the culverts, earth replaced the sand fill. The first layers were compacted carefully, and before long the ground was firm enough for scrapers, dozers, and rollers to return and rapidly rebuild the roadway to its original elevation.
Approximately six hours after we had begun, traffic was once again moving along QL20.
There was one unexpected ending to the story.
| As the backed-up water drained away over the next few days, it revealed a small Vietnamese farmhouse along the creek that had been submerged by the backed-up water. First we saw the roof; then - as the water drained - we saw the walls; then then entire farmhouse. Before long, the farmhouse family returned to live there. |
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QL20, Vietnam
May 1969
We did lose two men during my time with the 169th:
One was Specialist Five Terry Heiser.
He died in a construction accident on QL20.
A Conntact Truck (a wheeled maintenance vehicle) backed over him when the driver was not aware that Terry was behind the vehicle.
I was in Long Bình at the time, and identified his remains when they were returned there. Sad.
Terry Richard Heiser is remembered on the Vietnam Wall of Honor on Panel 25W, Line 71.
Born Oct 25, 1947; died May 12, 1969. You can also leave a remembrance on his Wall of Honor web page.
Prayers for Terry's family and friends; he was a very good soldier.
Based on information I later received, it appears that QL20's route north to Da Lat opened up past the town of Định Quán. So the NVA and VC essentially lost their ability to shut down this vital national highway.
Tan Son Nhut Air Base - Going Home
June 1969
I had received a letter from the Engineer Assignments Officer wanting to know if I was willing to extend my service, at the time a two-year obligation and soon to be up. The Army would send me back to school at Purdue in return for an added service obligation. Of course an "added service obligation" was certainly another tour in Vietnam but evidently Bonnie agreed and - because of my upcoming schooling assignment - I got about a two-week drop, i.e., an earlier return time, from Vietnam. This would be so that I could begin the summer term back with my Boilermakers.
p.s. Bonnie did not know I got the drop until I knocked on her door in Virginia Beach. What a joyous occasion!
p.p.s. Bonnie and I had to get to Purdue in time for me to register for the summer session. On the way we stopped at my parents' home in Severna Park, Maryland. My Dad asked me, "Did your soldiers like you?" I replied, "I don't know, but they respected me."
 Bronze Star Certificate |
 General Orders for the Award |
 Bronze Star Citation |
I have written a fictional novel based on many of my Vietnam experiences. It is called QL20.
There is also a sequel; also fictional. It is called Delta Dogs.