Photo of Cpt.Tony Colburn (THE ROYAL PINEAPPLE)

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This is a rare photo (sorry for it's quality) of our company commander Cpt. Tony Colburn (Nickname The Pinapple) picking & grinning for us. The date was ?? maybe May of 1966, place was Vancouver, Wa. while we were on maneuvers. I suppose that it was times like these that molded us into a fine tuned fighting machine. I know only a percentage of the total # of troops were as fortunate as we were. We trained together for 8 months before we all loaded up on the same ship for our trip to the RVN.

Getting Ready To Be Inspected Before We Went On Guard Duty

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Do you Remember this old photo? Me & Dudley are the only names that I can remember! I do remember that this photo was made in front of our Barracks in Fort Lewis, Washington and the date was sometime early in 1966 as we were getting ready for inspection before our guard duty. I welcome all comments with the names of the others.

Front L to R: Me, Dudley, ?Parsons? & ?Calicutt?
Back L to R: ?Stein?, ????, ?Teal?, ?Bromell?

Photo Of A U.S. Army CH-54 Sky Crane Helicopter

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The CH-54 is better known as the Sky Crane. It was very successful in Vietnam where it was credited with the recovery of hundreds of downed aircraft as well as having the ability to move artillery and supplies to fire bases that were unreachable by land. It had a 4800 hp turbine engine & could lift over 40,000 pounds. I remember it carrying a D-8 Caterpillar Dozier in this photo without the blade out to us on 1 occasion in order for us to build a Forward Fire Base. Then on its 2nd mission it carried the Blade to the Dozier.

Photo Of The 170th Assault Helicopter Company: "The Bikini's"

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I will never forget those wonderful birds. They were our lifeline with the outside world. I remember them having a Bikini Clad girl painted on the nose of all their choppers. They resupplied us every 4 days with food, ammunition and on the 8th day they would bring us our SP packs.

I remember the SP packs contained our mail, toiletries, one pair of clean clothing , 1 hot meal. I still remember whenever it was possible a chaplain would come out and hold a church service with us.

I believe that after every 8 days in the Bush they would rotate one of our Line Company's (A,B and C company) to guard our Forward Fire Base. I believe the term was in Reserve. The Forward Fire Base contained our Headquarters Company and our supporting Artillery. I remember that we operated with 2 line companies @ a time in the Bush. We were also close to each other in case we had to assist each other. We only could operate a certain amount of distance between us and our 105 MM Artillery in the Forward Fire Base because of their limited range of fire support.

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