SCRAPBOOK 5

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SARGE'S PERSONAL PHOTOS PAGE

Photo's from the Sarge's collection.
Errrr.... that's me.... Bruce Holzhauer [Co. A, 2/12th INF 1969-70]

Ann Arbor News, November 17, 1965

The "Viet Cong Push Attacks In Mountain Valley Fight" was the Battle of LZ X-Ray depicted in the book and movie We Where Soldiers....

Donald B. Roddy

A high school chum was Killed In Action during the battle at LZ X-Ray. You can find his story in the book 'We Where Soldiers Once and Young.'

This newspaper story brought the war home for the first time.

Me at left in 1967 – a punk – selling clothing at the Ann Arbor Mall store for a well-known Detroit haberdasher.

In one of those little ironies of life; at Patrol Base Dees I was reading a wadded-up piece of newspaper my mother had used as packing material and learned that the guy in the middle of this picture, Bob Pretzfelter, had been killed in a auto accident back in Michigan.

Herbert "Niel" Stehle

A close friend perished when I was in Boot Camp in the Spring of 1968. Neil had been 'in country' for four months with the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) when he was wounded. He died of his wounds two months latter.

A bad hair day for me at Boot Camp.

Yours Truly the night I left home for Viet Nam – April 18, 1969. I was a "Shake-n-Bake" – and still a punk!

May 1969 – after a week or two in 'the field' – bewildered!

I see worry, fatigue, and fear on that face; and that smile is not genuine. May 1969... two weeks into my tour. I've already been in an ambushed convoy; a firefight (or two or three); seen a sergeant in my platoon "lose" a leg to a land mine; had my platoon leader killed and several members of the platoon wounded. I'd been mortared, RPG'd, and shot at. Personally shot at...... "Why are they trying to kill ME?!"

Three to four months into my tour – giving what passed for a smile.

After I was wounded in October '69, I spent a month recovering in Cam Rahn Bay. When I got back to FSB Pershing, 1st Sergeant Johnson took pity on my sorry ass and gave me a 'kick-back' job as the Company Supply Sergeant [Forward]. The smile became more genuine.

My Army issued wrist compass. I don't know who the W C Company is, but they made a damn fine product! I wore it every day and it never let me down – despite cracking crystal early in my tour.

The ubiquitous Sieko watch. Almost all of us bought a Sieko from the PX in Cu Chi or from the PX conex on a duce-and-a-half that came out to the firebases. I spent many nights on guard watching the minute hand – of this very watch – slooooooowly go round.

In 1969 this DX model Sieko cost me all of $35. Today – on e-bay – you can get one just like it for twice that much.

This Tropic Lightning Association card was given to us upon completion of our tour. The Tropic Lightning Assoc. was an honorary thing just for Vietnam and should not be confused with the 25th Infantry Division Association. I carried this card in my wallet for 30+ years and it shows it.

My son, Chris, the US Army Captain and me.

I am very proud of him!¹

A two-tour man. He deployed to Kuwait with the 82nd Airborne in February 2003, at the start of the war, and was in Iraq during the war. He came back home for a couple of months and then went back in – after "the end of major combat operations." This time, he was in the Sunni Triangle at Camp Champion Main, near Ar Ramadi. He returned safely. And I love him.

¹I have two other children, Amy and Matt, and I'm proud of you too!