Bill Curwick grew up in Marshall, graduated from Marshall High School in 1968, and attended some college before enlisting in the Army and training as a combat engineer. He deployed to Vietnam in November 1970 where the Army assigned him to Company D, 26th Engineer Battalion, 23rd Infantry Division at Chu Lai.

Bill was working to detonate a suspected mine at his platoon’s road construction side when a sniper’s rifle round detonated the mine and Bill’s plastic explosive charge only ten feet away. His uniform and boots were shredded and his helmet was dented from gravel thrown out from the explosion. Bill listed his limited injuries as painfully-embedded gravel in his arms and legs and hearing loss for a couple weeks.

Other members of the unit were not as fortunate when they encountered sniper fire, mines, or booby-traps.

My best friend, Terry Dolan, and I went through AIT together. His dad was a lifer in the Army. Terry volunteered for Vietnam so his dad could come home. There was a shortage of medics, so he volunteered. He went through a week’s training and went out with Bravo Company one day. He climbed down from the 5-ton truck at their site and stepped right on a mine. Blowing his legs off wouldn’t have killed him, but he had fragmentation grenades on his utility belt and suspenders. Those went off and literally blew him apart. He died very quickly.”

Bill described the memorial process at his unit.

“For those who were killed, we’d put their bayonet on their rifle and stick it in the ground with their steel pot on top. Then we’d say a few words and move on. You didn’t have time to process a death. Chances are you didn’t know them that long.”

He made some commitments following Terry’s death.

“I made my mind up to extend my service there to get even. I don’t know that I did anything to get even, but that was my thinking. I also had to write his fiancé. He had just sent her a diamond ring for their engagement. I sent her a letter of his death. I could have gone home with him to the funeral, but I chose not to. A couple other friends went.”

The Vietnam War was often grim business and lots of hard work in lousy living conditions, but it also offered up the occasional, unexpected moments of amazement.

“One day a Huey came out to our worksite and we were stunned to see two Playboy bunnies as passengers. The first question we asked them revealed our priorities of the day, ‘Did you bring any hot food with you?’ They hadn’t, but I’m sure we were able to hide our disappointment because it was pretty amazing to see them in the field. We enjoyed the music they brought and danced with them. They must have gone through a tube of lipstick before they left because we all had lipstick on our faces.”

Bill took leave in Marshall during the Christmas season of 1971.

“I came home for my 21st birthday. They had a sign above the bar at the Corner Bar that said, ‘Happy Birthday, Bill! It’s about time!’ (Bill chuckled) I used to go in there drinking when I was a kid. I didn’t fool anybody. They all knew I wasn’t old enough.”

Bill returned to Chu Lai in time to help close the installation after the 23rd Infantry Division and its units redeployed to the States.

“They sent most of the 23rd home. When they did that I was assigned to Company A of the 26th Engineer Battalion. Our job was to close down the Chu Lai base and turn it over to the South Vietnamese. So, we did a lot of digging big holes in the beach, pushing excess equipment into it, using explosives and thermite grenades to render them useless, and bury it all. We buried six or seven helicopters. We also buried trucks and Jeeps and all kinds of equipment.”

Bill had been promoted to sergeant by this time and his last task was to supervise the cleaning and turn-in of the unit’s weapons.

“There was a white glove inspection of your weapon. I went with the weapons by LST (Bill’s voice tightened with emotion) from Chu Lai to Danang to turn them in. We got there; the guy inspected them; and tossed them out the back door in the mud. (Bill laughed) If I had a working weapon on me at that point, I probably would have shot him, I was so mad!”

He returned to Chu Lai without killing any weapons inspectors.

“Once we closed everything down and got rid of everything, we drove up to Danang. I was assigned to Engineer Company (Provisional) of the 196th Infantry Brigade in Danang. That’s where I stayed until I left Vietnam on 16 June of ’72.”

Bill described his responsibilities in his new engineer company.

“I put together a demolition platoon. It wasn’t really a platoon because I only had 16 people. We were all demolition people, which means we were paid hazardous duty pay for handling demolitions. We would be farmed out in 3-man groups to whoever needed a demolition crew. So, often I would be with one of the companies with the 196th Infantry Brigade as they’d go out on whatever mission they had for that week or two weeks.”

Bill and the other demolition specialists earned their hazardous duty pay.

©2025 William D. Palmer.