56th Signal Co. (DS) and 85th Lt. Maintenance Co. (DS) -- 5th Maintenance Bn

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1 ]

Subject: 56th Signal Co. (DS) and 85th Lt. Maintenance Co. (DS)

Author:
Doug Crawford

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 19:46:29 12/05/06 Tue

I was so pleased to find the 5th Battalion website and to read messages from fellow Vietnam Vets who served in the Qui Nhon Sub-area Command and the Danang Sub-area command 1966-1967, especially my good friend Bill Bellinger. I had not heard from Bill since the day I left Vietnam in April, 1967. I first served as a Logistics Officer for the 56th Signal Co. in Binh Dinh Province west of Qui Nhon (Phu Tai Valley) Then, I became the first CO for a new company formed "from scratch" in-country, the 85th Lt.Maint. Co. Ultimately we moved to Danang and became responsible for maintaining (including replacing worn-out tubes) the 175mm guns by Dong Ha in Quang Tri Province. By that time Captain Elmo Young had arrived to become CO and I became the Executive Officer for the 85th.

During the past few years I have served as a consultant to help develop community colleges in Vietnam, including Quang Ngai Community College. I am fulfilling a dream I developed while serving in Vietnam during the war. During my consulting tour of Vietnam in 2004 I got assistance from local Vietnamese to take me to all three locations where I was primarily stationed west of Qui Nhon. Two of them are now Vietnamese Army bases and one is the site for a new factory. I was also driven up highway 19 to An Khe along the same route that I had ridden with a convoy in 1966 to the 1st Air Cav. compound. A Vietnamese man who used to work for the Americans, a Vietnamese ex-pat from Norway, my son, and I walked into the compound (although it was off-limits) by the old airstrip right by Vietnamese soldiers, who dress like the NVA did during the war. It was a bazaar experience, to say the least.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]