Reflections

WHETHER YOU WERE IN THE SERVICE FOR SEVERAL YEARS OR AS A CAREER, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DIRECTION OR PATH YOU TOOK. WHERE DID YOU GO TO BOOT CAMP AND WHAT UNITS, BASES, SHIPS OR SQUADRONS WERE YOU ASSIGNED TO? WHAT WAS YOUR REASON FOR LEAVING?
During boot camp I thought I would try for UDT training. Took the test and passed. After boot I was ordered to Coronado for BUDs (Basic Underwater Demolition) school. The swimming was no problem. I was like a fish. It was the running in full combat gear on the soft sand of Coronado beach that did me in. Blood blisters bigger than half dollar coins on both feet and mental and physical exhaustion that did me in after 4 wks. So, I being a screaming seaman apprentice, got orders to ACB-1 WestPac Det, Yokosuka, JA with amphib sailors and SeaBees. Great duty. Loved Japan. Visited Tokoyo, Yokohama, Lake Hokonii, all over. Not just the bars on the Honshu. Took trains all over. At ACB-1 not 2 months and off to Viet Nam on the Westchester County LST-1167 with my warping tug on main deck and 4 causeway sections slung to sides and off we went. Off loaded in DaNang and a salvage boat towed us and the causeways up the coast to My Tui. Married the causeway sections together and pushed them up onto the beach and set 3 anchors on each side to hold it in place. The LST hooked onto the causeway pier we built and it offloaded all the rolling stock it had. Then the rest of the LST's came and offloaded thier rolling stock also. The whole OP took about two months and another detachment came down and relieved us. After returning to JA, and after seeing what the SeaBees were doing I wanted to be a heavy equipment operator. Bulldozers, scrapers, forlifts, etc. So I cross rated to Seabees. Transfered from water front Boatswains mate to motor pool. Learned to drive in a jeep on the wrong side of the road. Then up to 3/4 ton weaps carrier, then 5 ton dump, then 5 ton semi tractor. Also on TD25 international dozer, RT forklift and others. Great time. Made another 3 month deployment to Nam. This time to lay bottom layed fuel line so tankers could offload fuel to tanks we were also building. That was interesting 3 months. After getting back to JA again, I requested EO school and got it. So off to Port Hueneme CA just an hour north of LA. I was class leader as I had been in the longest and had some leadership skills. School was super easy as I had most of the skills already from ACB1. Still fun though. Orders day came and mine were for a Mobile Construction Battalion - 62 out of Gulfport MS. Was there for three months for military training and sent to meet the battalion in VietNam, namely DongHa. They had been there a month when I meet them. Was put in Alfa Co in the tire shop. Then they gave me a 5ton dump to haul asphalt up to VCB (Vandagrift Combat Base) where we were building a 2 lane highway from DongHa. About 20 miles or so. There were about 10 trucks making the round trip. Each making about 5 or 6 trips a day to the pavers. Then they sent me to QuagTri to an orphanage and a small TD10 tracked skip loader to help move mud from the building we were rebuilding. Cool job. Kids were great. Various other odd jobs for the 9 months the Battalion was over their. The last major build was the Dong Ha bridge. The new design was to do the bridge deck in sections that can be replaced fast and easy. This is to get the bridge open faster after the VC try to blow it up. It would only blow a section and can be replaced fast instead of having to do the whole bridge when blown up. So with that job completed in just 3 months, our deployment was completed. Back home in Gulfport, we started cleaning up from Hurricane Camile. I lost all my photos and personal gear to the hurricane that was left in storage. While doing the cleanup, we also had preps for the upcoming Admin Inspection. That includes military training (fire arm requals/personnel insps/inrate training) and admin updates. While in Dong Ha, the battalion was informed that they had won the "Peltire Award". Best in type of all Navy Seabee Battalions. Good stuff. Also received an Army Meritorious unit award for work done for the Army. More good stuff. The C.O. for MCB-62 for the 2 yrs I was with them was CDR John Paul Jones Jr. The following year 62 won the Peltier Award again. Great Battalion and great guys.
The next deployment was to Danang. I was detailed to hill 55. This was to build a paved road from a cow path out to route one. This route was named route four. On the first day there, we were not told that a battary of Marine 8" howitzers was on the other side of the hill from us. After getting settled in and just getting off to sleep, roughly midnight 0100, that battary started firing. We all thought we were going to die that very first night. We were not told about them and they were not told about us. After that to two senior NCO's knew each other and shared info. We were told when they were going to fire and they got help from us with chow, hootch repairs, vehicle repairs, etc. That first night took me a month to get over. Great guys but Lord those guns were loud and scarey. That was a heck of a start to a deployment. The next eight months were a big learning experience. At the outset I learned to operate a 50 Ton rubber tire roller, A TD15 dozer with sheepsfoot roller for compacting the base course of route 4 we were building. A Terex scraper for loading material for the base course and hauling it out to the roadway. D8 Cat dozer for pusher duty of the scrapers to help them get through the cut. We lost a couple of men on this job that are now listed on the VietNam wall in DC. They hit landmines on the road we were building. VC plant them at night. It was hard loosing them as we all lived together in the same camp on hill55. We were only about 30 guys, operators, mechanics, expiditors and cooks. We finished the job in Nov and flew back to Gulfport. Of all the accomplishments of these two deployments, I think being a part of the Peltier Awards, 2 of them, were the most important to me. After Gulfport, I was posted to NAS Barbers Point, HI. I was with Staff Civil Engineers, the motor pool. The primary job was driving school bus for the Navy kids in and around NAS Barbers Point. Between runs we repaired roads, did odd projects around the base that required heavy equipment. I was here two and a half yrs trying to make second class. No Joy. My Dad, Army LTC with Signal Corps, was stationed up at Kunia Tunnel. It was a secure facility with huge blast doors, etc. I used to visit occacionally. Saw what military communications was all about. I liked it. So I requested to reenlist for "Radioman""A" School in San Diego. It was approved and off to San Diego I went.
Being a 3rd Class and VietNam Vet, I was made Class Leader, again. The school was super easy, I finished with a 96% and received orders to the USS Lynde McCormick, DDG-8. Was assigned to OC Div, got my bunk down forward, just aft of sonar. We got U/W several times before deploying to Westpac in Sep. I learned a lot before the deployment and took the second class exam. By the time we got to Westpac I was almost running an U/W watch section. We did ops in and around the Phillipines. In Nov, we were operating with the Tiawanese Navy and pulled into port in Koasung. It was there that I got word that I was promoted to RM2.

Denison, Raymond, RMC