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Dan Bower-Detail Yankee Red Beach 1970

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On QL-1 about 20 miles south of DaNang with jobsite "mascot" a local boy. Foreground is Mike Gabrielski-Hidden is Jim Wheat
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On QL-1 about 20 miles south of DaNang with jobsite "mascot" a local boy. Foreground is Mike Gabrielski-Hidden is Jim Wheat

  • On QL-1 about 20 miles south of DaNang with jobsite "mascot" a local boy. Foreground is Mike Gabrielski-Hidden is Jim Wheat
  • PO-In-Charge is EO-1 Reardon with his jeep and jobsite "mascot", a local Vietnamese boy
  • Mike Gabrielski and our jobsite "mascot" bargaining with roadside vendors. When the vendors couldn't sell the fake Seiko watch or silk cloth, would offer his WIFE! No Kidding!
  • EO-1 Reardon in his jeep ingoring my picture-taking with Jim Wheat. Jim did a hitch in the Marines before transferring to the Seabees
  • EO3 Dan Johnson using the grader on the new QL-1 shoulders.Later Dan was the only man in Detail Yankee to receive a Purple Heart. He suffered minor injuries after being blown off the road while driving a HUGE transit mix (TM) truck loaded with 4 yards of concrete. It was a command detonated mine on a paved road! The wreckage was buried right there in the rice paddy
  • This is our Grad-All (pronounced Grade-All) straight-boom truck with a scoop on the end. It was used to try to drag all those truckloads of rock back up on the shoulders after being washed out in the monsoons. Many of us got a crack at running this machine
  • As the monsoon waters were receding from the QL-1 roadway, our whole crew was hard at work replacing the rock in the shoulders of the road. That's my 15-ton dump truck in the foreground, a mid 60's International Harvester in gray Navy colors
  • During the 1970 Monsoon, the new rock shoulders of QL-1 that we had been laying was washed out. The rest of our time in DaNang was spent repairing these shoulders. Here is a shot of the road almost covered, with our cargo truck parked
  • During the floods, all the villagers would come out to catch fish along the roadway, as seen over the hood of my 15-ton
  • What was only a few days before a vast landscape of rice paddys and patchwork wuilt dikes, was now underwater
  • Out on the daily extremities of our jobsite, we would dump our loads of rock and the rest of the crew would come in behind and push the loads into place along the shoulders of QL-1. Those dip-nets were a good way for the villagers to catch lots of wriggling little fish to eat
  • A common site in Vietnam, the local papa-sans leading their farm equipment (water buffalo) from one area to another to perform strong work
  • In Vietnam many American servicemen of all services would name their trucks. I drew up this placard and hand drew a cartoon of Snoopy the Dog, joyfully dancing on his hind legs with eyes-closed smile of his. The little word ballon says that he is thinking, "Lifes' a bitch". Sort of my outlook on life in a crude way. Yes, life can sometimes be "a bitch", but there's always a little something in it to give you a reason to dance anyway
  • At the DaNang East Rock Quarry over by Monkey Mountain ARVN Navy Base, all our trucks got the loads of rock that we transported from 10-20 miles south on QL-1 through heavy traffic to our daily-expanding jodsite, This is my 15-ton and another 5-ton truck waiting to get loaded
  • A through-the-steering-wheel view of the inside road in the quarry
  • We would be loaded by these huge articulated quarry loaders called Hough (pronounced "HUFF") and the buckets were so big that one scoop would fill your truck! We had to get out during the loading because the sudden weight of the load dumping in would bounce the truck violently
  • Views and scenes seen by all who drove QL-1 south of DaNang in those days
  • Views and scenes seen by all who drove QL-1 south of DaNang in those days
  • Here is a view of ancestors buried on the centuries-old land. There are so many graves here that the entire field is no longer being used to grow crops
  • Views and scenes seen by all who drove QL-1 south of DaNang in those days

  • Dan Bower

    on December 10, 2008

    Just a historical footnote worthy of mention, is that Mike was our Details' "Seabee of the Month" for Nov 1970. I wonder if he still has his MCB-74 plaque?

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