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LT….I heard they will change the name of the beer to Pabst… RED… Ribbon.
Decided I will never touch a can of PBR for the rest of my days for two reasons: It is no longer a good beer and a Russian Brewery just bought the name of PBR, Colt 45 and Old Milwaukee.
What beer do you drink? Not many brands still owned in the U.S. of A. anymore.
Just an update on Linda. They took the cast off of her ankle last week and she is now wearing a boot for at least 4 weeks. Her next appointment with the doctor is on the 8th. He told her to start weaning herself off the walker which she is doing around the house. We were able to go to the Americal reunion in Houston last week. The trip went well and the reunion was a success as usual. Anyone serve with Col Al Coleman? I met him at the reunion. I don’t know how old he is but his mind is still pretty sharp. Maybe someone has a memory of him; good or bad!
LTC A. H. Colman was in command of 2nd Bn, 1st Inf. until he was replaced by LTC. Henry G. Watson on 4 Nov. 1970. I was only a PFC in A/2/1 at the time. So I doubt he even knew that I was around. Never heard a bad word or complaint about him.
I never heard a good word about Watson.
Copy and past this to your search bar:
.http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/sloat/?from=hp_spotlight
The President awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to the brother of a guy who was from Delta company 2nd of the 1st 196th LIB. He was working off of Hawk Hill in January of 1970.
Watched it on C Span over the internet. A little emotional for Don Sloats family. Benny Atkins the other one who received the MOH was alive and there. He was wounded 18 times in 4 days. It was estimated that he killed between 135 to 175 enemy in those 4 days. Why does it take 45+ years to figure this out!!! Don Sloats mother fought for his MOH since his death and unfortunately died 3 years ago never getting to enjoy this moment.
A lot get lost in the paperwork then. Not making excuses but we are much more electronically geared today. Remember when the VA went to record keeping on the computer in St Petersburg, FL & that was about 10 years ago. Sorry his Mom missed out on her son’s honor.
Gary,
Glad to hear that Louie and Sherry are alive. Haven’t seen them at a reunion for a while and he don’t answer emails. Glad you are back safe!
Just got back from a week in Detroit. While there, I spent the night with Lou and Sherry Laparl and visited briefly with Frank Ripley over breakfast at Sawyer, MI. It was good to see them all and I thank Louie and Sherry for having me in their home.
Larry…..Many thanks to you and Brandon for creating this website and best wishes to you and your whole family.
I have not been able to see any photos on this site for a couple of months…..Is it just me or has the photos section been disabled?
It has not been disabled. This site has been up awhile and the software used on the photo section does not work any longer. My son Brandon is the web page administrator and is aware of the situation. He has a lot going on in his life right now and will get it going hopefully soon.
NEVER FORGET!
Oddly the name of the beer in the 99 pack is Peacemaker Anytime Ale! Good beer for soldiers, eh!
Give me a bottle of whiskey anytime…..Beer is only a chaser!
Did somebody say something about Old Style?
If it ain’t Shiner or Dox Equis, it ain’t drinkable.
Hey GI, you are dinky dow on the Shiner and Dox Equis, they are number 10. Coors is number 1.
Is it 3.2 beer? At my age it would take me and 10 of my friends to carry it.
Hey guys!
I saw recently that a brewery in Austin TX came up with a case of beer right up our alley. They are producing a case of beer with 99 cans (999 bottles of beer on the wall) which is 8 feet long and weighs 80 pounds. The price I believe is $98! No Larry, it is not Coor’s Light and no Gary and Tressa it is not Miller Lite.
Mark: The Army will never cease being the Army, I guess. Near the end of my tour, we’d secured an LZ for extraction and a single bird flew in and kicked off some boxes of clean fatigues. We had to change fatigues right there in the LZ so we’d look sharp when we got back to Danang. Once there, they even made us polish our grunt boots! That nearly caused another mutiny.
Of more recent vintage, I have a friend who got an Article 15 in Iraq because he was walking next to another soldier on the FOB and they weren’t dressed the same.
It was around Christmas 1969. About ten of us were pulled from the field to go to the Bob Hope show. We had been in the field 2 or 3 weeks and were pretty filthy. When we arrived, there were at least 3000 REMF’S . They were all in clean fatigues , shined boots, and baseball type hats; and of course not a weapon to be seen. They looked at us like we were from another planet.
Concerned about supplies getting through? LOL I may have had something to do with that!
I got mad one day when we were out around LZ Mary Ann, before the DMZ operation, and wrote Nixon a letter wanting to know if the draw-down of troops meant a draw-down in supplies too. I mentioned several things we couldn’t get, such as fatigues, hand grenades and bug juice. We hadn’t seen bug juice in weeks. I got a nice return letter from some General in the Pentagon.
Fast forward a few weeks. Slim Stravens was eating in the brigade mess hall at Hawk Hill while the company was up north. He overheard a couple of officers at the next table talking about “some son of a bitch wrote the President and told him he didn’t have any bug juice.” It turns out that somebody brought some heat on them over that and they had to dispatch a truck load of the stuff from Hawk Hill to the DMZ.
LOL
It takes all kinds. Once I went to Chu Lai after coming in from the field. Showered, clean clothes from the pile, shaved. I was as spiffy as I ever got. Got my heels locked near division HQ. I think I looked too good to be a grunt and too bad to be a remf. I came back from the DMZ and got picked up by a deuce and a half with a Lt. in the passenger seat. He had his guys throw my ruck in the back. He scooted over to the middle and asked all about the DMZ. He was really concerned about whether our supplies were getting to us. I was impressed.
Several of us ran into a REMF LT. like that at the Freedom Hill PX in Danang. We had just come in from the bush and the showers were packed so some of us went over there to get some things while the shower crowd cleared out. A spit-shined LT met us at the front door and told us we couldn’t come in looking like that. We were too dirty. Naturally, that pissed me off and I started cussing him, but Tiny Goble dragged me away and said he knew where the back door was.
We went around there and that same LT met us there too! Tiny knocked him out cold with one punch. We decided to di di and come back after we’d cleaned up and were unrecognizable. LOL
Gary,
Must have been all that water buffalo crap we step in.
The closest I ever got to a rear job was pulling bunker line duty at the firebase.
Mine weren’t shiny but to this day I still don’t know why I got pulled out and made a REMF. All I know is I tried hard to get the best I could find out to the field. Oh, and tried to empty PBR”s too!
Bill: Your boots weren’t shiny enough for a REMF job.
I wanted that job but they said I was to valuable as a “killing machine” in the field or was it my big body would be excellent on point. My memory is hazy why I did not get the job.
I saw that and thought, “He drew the same combat pay that I did.”
Hey guys check out the LT who ran the PX and ate steaks at the Brigade CDRS mess and such in 71-72 in Da Nang who had the guts to post on the 196LIB blog site. I really wanted get on there and the word REMF came to mind but I held back as he apparently got cokes and beer out to the good guys??
Dan: Were you dusted off out of Antenna Valley? Which platoon were you in?
Charlie company usually has 2 reunions a year, one for the 70-72 group and one for those from previous years. There’s a lot of intermixing, though, as anybody is welcome at any reunion. We really should just have one, but that’s not up to me. Anyhow, if you’d like to come, we’ll need your contact information. Click on the red “admin” word above and send it to the site administrator for inclusion in the roster. He’ll give you the password too.
Welcome home. I was in Charlie company at that same time and, though I don’t remember your name, I’ll bet I’d remember your face.
Didnt mean to interupt your como really just wanted to say hi i remember a grafti with changing charlie. On one of the hutches.
Hey i was at hawk hill in c/2/1 196 for short time got medevac to states 24 dec 70 went to va for shoulder hadnt been since 1980 had to have tests found out have agent orange cancer