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The Vietnam War – Dave Ziemke — serving in a field artillery battalion

We have begun learning about Tracy’s Dave Ziemke, who enlisted in the Army in June 1967. He completed Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT) as a field wireman. The Army deployed him to Vietnam in December 1967 where the Army assigned him to the 1st Battalion of the 5th Artillery Regiment, a unit of the 1st Infantry Division. The battalion’s base camp was at Quon Loi, north of Saigon and not far from the Cambodian border.

Once Dave settled into his new barracks, consisting of sandbags with a tent over them, an NCO told the new arrivals that their MOS (Military Occupational Specialty in which they had trained) was secondary to anything the unit needed to be done. Dave explained the first order of business after that was a form of cross-training into other operational requirements as his battalion established new fire bases in the field.

“My first experience of Vietnam — you’re there and you’re going to do whatever needs to be done. We filled sandbags for a couple weeks. It felt like forever. Our unit would clear a place in the jungle and then we would move and the Cav (Armored Cavalry) would take over. We’d go somewhere else and set up in the jungle. I didn’t run that much field wire. (Dave laughed) Filled a lot of sandbags; humped a lot of ammo; crawled in some tunnels. We were always moving. We were in a Michelin rubber tree plantation once.”

The 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery had 105mm towed howitzers and 155mm self-propelled howitzers as well as 4.2 inch mortars, all of which they fired in support of Army operations in the surrounding region. Dave cross-trained into many jobs at the battalion’s base camp and in the field at fire bases.

“I basically helped with all of them (the big guns) as a field wireman. (Dave laughed) I’ve done just about every job there is in a battery because the one thing you learn quickly when you are in Vietnam is there is no ‘I.’ It is all teamwork. Everybody pitches in helping everybody. You learn those other jobs. I had guys, who were supposed to be humping ammo, who would run the wire while I was humping ammo.”

Dave celebrated Christmas 1967 in Vietnam. “We all got together and got Care packages from the Red Cross,” he remembered, “we sat around and ate cookie crumbs and opened little Christmas presents.” He continued, “Amazingly enough, we had all these letters, Christmas cards from everywhere in the U.S. from grade school kids – just tons of them – and we sat down and read every single one of them.” He paused for a moment and reflected, “It was very emotional — here you are a million miles away and you don’t know if you’ll make it home. You lived day-to-day over there. One day you’d see someone die and it could have been you.”

Despite the cross-training, Dave continued to carry out his primary function as a wireman.

“We would have to run the wire. It comes in carry spools — probably about 75 pounds when you start and it’s two strand, twisted wire. You run it to each battery and you’ve got a crank phone that’s probably twenty pounds. The crank sends an electrical pulse through that wire to the next phone and they’re all hooked together to an old-style switchboard at the command post. I also had to run wire to different remote batteries, like we had Firebase Julie and Firebase Rita.”

Dave explained that running wire often required pole work, which posed unique dangers in a war zone.

“Where we had enough tall trees, we climbed up there and ran the wire in trees or poles. The first time I got wounded, I was up on a pole that was chewed up from climbing it so many times, running wire. We got incoming while I was still strapped around the pole. I went down that pole and the whole pole just tore my chest up. Little chunks of wood got stuck in my chest. That was the first time I got wounded, but I didn’t get a Purple Heart for that because it was not from in-coming fire.”

Dave was in a dangerous place learning to do dangerous work when he celebrated his birthday, shortly after the pole-slide injury. “I turned nineteen after my first month in Vietnam,” he remembered with a thin smile, “I had gotten wounded before I turned nineteen — I was eighteen in December when I went and turned nineteen in January.”

Dave and the other communications guys were part of Headquarters Battery. Their commander rotated them between the battalion base camp and the remote fire bases.

“I probably went in the field two weeks of each month because they gave you breaks,” Dave explained, “they knew you couldn’t take all of it because it’s stress.” He added, “After the others got shot or whatever, I ended up being the top dog in less than six months.” But Dave found being the lead commo guy was a mixed blessing, “Being top dog isn’t so nice because you’re needed here, there and everywhere.”

Despite being “top dog,” Dave still spent his share of time out at the fire bases. He began describing life at those remote sites with a laugh and one word, “Grubby.”

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.

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