The American Legion

I talked to Vickie about restarting the newsletter the way that Joyce did it in the past. Which was people putting their personal stories on there for everyone to read. Some were a remembrance about out days in Vietnam, I think everyone enjoyed these stories because we were not all there at the same time and also the Battery at one time was split up and sent to different places, I spent a lot of my time after Con Thien at places like A3  but mostly at Ca Lu and Khe Sanh, I never knew some of you that were at C4 or what all happened to the part of the Battery that was at C4. like wise the people there never knew what the Guys  that were at Ca Lu and later Khe Sanh were involved in. During the 68 Tet Offensive the Guns at Ca Lu supported 3rd Bn 9th Marines in some pretty heavy fighting all around Ca Lu especially in a Battle named Valentines Ridge, Which was so named because it was on Valentines Day that the 3rd plt of K-3-9 got cut off from the rest of the company and they did a John Wayne Charge up a hill that was about 2 miles west of Ca Lu toward Khe Sanh, They had lots of wounded and dead that day, Whiskey Battery fired almost  non stop for about two days until we go them out of there, To get them off of that hill and down to Rt 9 where our trucks picked them up, we walked our Mortars down the trail in front of them, we were dropping the rounds about 5 yards in front of them as they came down  the trail with the walking wounded carry those who couldn't walk, That was the only time that I remember the grunts coming by and thanking us for helping them get out of that trap

I went to one of their reunions here in Nashville in 2005 and those guys were still so appreciative of the support that Whiskey Battery gave them in Vietnam, One of the guys told me that were it not for us they would not have made it home alive, I think that was the best compliment that anyone could ever pay Whiskey 1-12.

I got way off track of what I wanted to say but basically the point I wanted to make was that everyone of you has a simple little story like this that you can tell that the rest of us may not know about,

The stories don't have to be just about Vietnam, Everyone has stories about what they have done since Vietnam, My hobby was coaching womens softball. which I have already did a story about, I  had one of the best womens teams in the Nation for a few years, I am planning on getting back into Softball Coaching full time this next year Playing in both League and Tournament play, That will keep me busy when I retire sometime in the next year.

It is stories like this about what you have done since Vietnam that we would all like to hear, Mike Meads hobby was doing some Drag Racing and showing a car that he built, Russell Hicks hobby is playing Golf, Charile Biddix like to do a lot of fishing. Everyone of you have stories about things that you like to do that you can write about.

I think we need to do this to get everyone back to reading the newsletter and keeping up with each other like we were doing when we first started having the reunions,

 I hope what I have said here will make a little bit of sense to some of you and get everyone back to contributing to the newsletter without Vickie having to twist arms to get stories.

Dick Stroud

PS Everyone should get on Facebook that is a good way to stay connected also.