We have been learning about Marshall’s Rich Maurer, who grew up in Colorado and began college there, but enlisted in the Army in March 1968, believing he would be drafted anyway upon graduation.

Rich completed Army Basic Training in Texas and initial radio operator training in Arizona. He then trained as a radio-teletype operator in Georgia. He received orders to Vietnam in October and deployed from San Francisco, arriving in Vietnam in November 1968.

The Army assigned Rich to the twenty-two man communications platoon of Headquarters Company of the 326th Engineer Battalion. The 326th was a unit of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Camp Eagle in the far northern, I Corps region of South Vietnam. The communication platoon’s mission was to provide communications (commo) support to the engineer battalion and its three engineer companies.

Rich described their living conditions at Camp Eagle.

“I remember for the first month the roofs of the hootches were tent coverings. I think it was a ten-man tent. After I’d been there about a month, the Seabees came in and gave us metal roofs, (Rich laughed) which was really nice. They had sandbags on the outside and then they had screen around the top. We got good airflow through there and it kept the mosquitoes out.”

Rich laughed when describing their bathroom facilities.

“[It was] an outhouse. They had about three or four places to sit in each latrine. I had to do the burning of the stuff a couple times. You just had to make sure you were upwind.”

The showers were a little less rudimentary. “I didn’t use them very often because the water was too cold. They had a heater, but because there were so many people using it, you were lucky to get a warm shower. It was a little better in the summer because it was hotter, so it kept the water warmer. But December, January, and February were pretty cold because it was monsoon season.”

Rich regularly pulled security for Camp Eagle, during which he was out on the fortified perimeter.

“They had bunkers out there. I remember trying to sleep in the bunker once when it was raining. If it wasn’t raining, we were on top of the bunker. I didn’t want anything to do with inside the bunker. (Rich chuckled) You didn’t know what was in there. I don’t know exactly what kind of snake it was, but I almost stepped on one by the bunkers. It went one way and I went the other. (Rich laughed) Whenever we got in a sleeping bag, we always looked first to make sure there wasn’t something else in there.”

Rich explained the commo platoon’s mission in the battalion.

“They had the Battalion Net and also the Battalion Switchboard. So, we were either on the radio or we were switchboard operator. A big part of our responsibility was the NCS — the Net Control Station — for the Battalion, which was radio. A big part of that job was communicating with the line companies. We had three of them: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. They were engineer companies working with the different brigades. So, we were in contact with our line companies all the time. If they needed anything or if they wanted to talk to somebody, we’d make sure they got through to whatever officer they wanted. I enjoyed working on the radios. You weren’t busy all the time, but particularly towards the end of the day, when the SITREPS (Situation Reports) were coming in, it was pretty busy.”

Rich remembered two of his sergeants in particular.

“We had an E-5 sergeant from the Iowa National Guard. His name was McKinney, but he went by Mac. He was the guy who, if you needed something, he’d scrounge it. Every now and then there’d be people complaining about stuff disappearing. It was Mac. (Rich chuckled) Our Platoon Sergeant was an E-7 Sergeant who had been in many years. He knew those radios backwards and forwards and that’s where our radios were boosted. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. So, all of our radios were stronger than they were supposed to be.”

Word of the 326th’s boosted radios got around. Rich recalled the day the division’s Commanding General walked in the commo shop.

“He wanted to talk to somebody up on the DMZ and he heard that our radios could do it — his wouldn’t. That was kind of a surprise that day. I was on the radio at the time.”

Rich shared a good experience from life at Camp Eagle.

“We had one USO show come in while I was there. It was the Miss America show. Miss America wasn’t there, but everybody else was. (Rich laughed) That was pretty good.”

He also shared an unexpected consequence of life at base camp.

“They had a bigger hootch built for an Enlisted Man’s Club. The only thing we drank over there was beer and Coke products because the water tasted terrible. It had to be purified and everything, so you drank beer and pop. When I got out of the service, I had thirteen cavities and the VA paid for all of it.”

Although Rich spent most of his tour at Camp Eagle, he volunteered for a couple firebase commo support missions, which lead to unexpectedly dicey situations.

The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the impact of the Vietnam War on Lyon County. If you would like to share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, please contact me at prairieviewpressllc@gmail.com or call the museum at 537-6580.