“It isn’t much of a war, but it’s the only war we’ve got, so enjoy it.” – MG Charles Timmes, Chief, MAAG Vietnam (We tried our best to follow this sage advice.)
When the 2nd Platoon arrived in Pleiku, they were assigned a place on Engineer Hill, right next to the perimeter wire, across the highway from Camp Holloway and overlooking the Pleiku Airbase. The men of the 2nd Platoon could sit on the hill and watch both Holloway and the airbase take incoming rockets and mortars on many nights. The night air around the hill was always filled with the sound of miniguns and the spectacle of parachute flares. This choice location was otherwise filled with emptiness – no buildings, no shower, no bunkers, no shade, nothing but red dust that became red mud when it rained. The 2nd Platoon received their supply and administrative support from the 330th RRC, which was across the road. That is also where they ate their meals.
The newly formed platoon had two separate teams which were led by Bob Rose and John McCann. At the time of the move to Pleiku, Rose’s team was ‘in the field’ on a mission (in Pleiku as it happens) while McCann’s team and the platoon leadership moved everything up from Saigon and set up housekeeping. ‘In the field,’ in this case meant Rose’s team was staying in a hotel in downtown Pleiku where they were ‘working.’
McCann’s team, not being ‘in the field’ at the time of the move, was sleeping on the ground and had the task of setting up the platoon area. They began by clearing the grass and erecting two G P Mediums, which are military tents measuring 16 by 32 feet and weighing in at nearly 800 pounds each. A third and smaller tent was set up for Lieutenant Dahlke. The tents would provide some shelter from the weather but would not do too well against shrapnel, so some sandbags were in order for protection.
Someone noticed an outstanding supply of sandbags nearby, and they were pre-filled. The engineers on the hill had hired Vietnamese girls to fill sandbags for them outside the gate for several days. At the end of the workday, the engineers would drive the workers back to Pleiku City, leaving their newly filled sandbags unattended for about thirty minutes before they returned to retrieve them. This gave the 2nd Platoon members enough time to drive down to the gate and load up a truck. After a couple of days, though, the engineers caught on and started leaving an armed guard on their sandbags.
After the platoon got moved in, Sergeant First Class “Ike” Eisworth took Lieutenant Dahlke on a training mission. They took two gallons of white paint to a Special Forces team and traded it for a few captured A K 47s and a K 54 pistol, which was a highly sought-after war trophy. Then, they took these newly acquired weapons over to the Air Force base and found a buyer for them. In exchange for the weapons, they got a metal bomb crate to use as a water tank, all welded up so it wouldn’t leak, a submersion heater, shower head, faucets, pipes and everything else they needed to build a shower, including sandbags (empty, unfortunately), plus gravel for a walkway from the tents to the shower. Trades of this type were a common way to supplement, augment, and circumvent the established supply system, and those who were good at it were quite valuable to a unit. Where the white paint came from, though, and why the Special Forces guys wanted it remain mysteries.
A few months later, Ike found the materials somewhere and ran electricity to the tents.
Ken Wilkes remembers Ike as a ‘quiet teacher.’ Ike took Ken aside when he was attempting to crack the 5th Special Forces’ unauthorized BLACKHAWK code. Ike taught him how, without doing the work himself. They took the results to the Group S 2, who took Ken in to brief the Group Commander. They asked him what to do about it, and he gave them the speech about the security of authorized CAC Codes. They ordered CAC codes that afternoon. It is good when someone you are trying to help actually listens to you.
On occasion, such as when the nights in Pleiku turned cold and nobody had a sleeping bag, there was another method used to circumvent the supply system. Not knowing what the statute of limitations would be, no further details on that will be provided here. Apologies, however, to the 330th RRC’s supply sergeant, but the purloined sleeping bags were most welcomed.
Return to the History Page.