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Roadrunner |
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To speed completion of a top priority ammunition supply point (ASP) and to keep vital supplies moving for other priority jobs, the Seabees of Eleven are hauling at night. Normally only armored vehicles venture out on Vietnamese roads at night. This is the first time the stretch of Highway One between Dong Ha and Quang Tri has been open for traffic after 6 p.m. After being loaded at the boat ramp at Dong Ha, where the rock and supplies are brought from Da Nang, equipment operators pilot their loaded rigs weighing in as much as 35 tons past Vietnamese hamlets and along dark stretches of rice paddies to Quang Tri. |
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Traveling alone, armed with their M-16 rifles, the drivers skillfully evade numerous obstacles ranging from chickens and children to dud mortar rounds. Although the road has been mined six times in recent months, harassed by sniper fire and hit by mortars, flat tires seem to be the major concern of many of the Seabees. Picking up shrapnel, glass and nails, it is not unusually for one vehicle to have three flat tires during one night of traversing the unpaved road. |
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| The Army is providing security for the project, named Operation Road Runner, patrolling the road and setting up positions with tanks and armored personnel carriers. | ||
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Work
begins on the seemingly unending job |
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Assembling Girders for Sea Huts |
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Sitting outside a hooch during monsoon season
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Delta
Company |
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| More than $50,000 in lumber and cement had been used by Delta Company in their recent efforts building shelters and facilities for the various Army, Marine and miscellaneous groups in the are. Employing men at seven job sites, as well as, in the precut and prefab yards, Delta company has been doing much of the building and supplying of materials on the rush construction projects for the area. Included in their list of projects at Quang Tri were, the building of SEA huts for the Ninth Marines, the Third Marine Division, 18th Surgical, MAG-39 and building of a 500 man galley for the 26th Marines. |
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Charlie
Company |
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The three platoons of Charlie company have been busy for the past few weeks turning out projects for the Army, Marines and other groups in the Quang Tri area. Working on the crew level about 12 group projects were completed by the men of Charlie Company. In the rush effort to build facilities for surrounding groups prior to the monsoon season. Charlie company steelworkers did their part in the construction efforts by doing most of the roof tinning of the buildings and running the precut and prefab works while the builders were on the job sites. Working seven days a week, sometimes at night, Charlie company was a deciding factor in the speed with which the rush projects were completed and the groups allowed to move in out of their original makeshift facilities from the monsoon weather. | |
| Headquarters |
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| Words such as sills, footings, girders, sidewalls and enwalls and the construction work connected with each have become second nature to the normally administrative workers in Headquarters Company. During the last few weeks, leaving only a minimum number of personnel to manage the offices, Headquarters Company moved out to the filed and participated in the constructing on Hill 12 for the Army. |
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Bravo
Company |
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The
UT’s and CE’s of Bravo company have taken on new jobs with the innovation of
the MER projects in the Quang Tri area. Leaving their utility and electrical
jobs temporarily, the Bravo workers have joined with the BU’s in the
rush-building of new quarters and facilities for the Army on Hill 12, west of
Camp Rhodes. Applying what skills they can, the UT’s and CE’s have been
working on SEA huts and showers for the Army personnel. After completion of the
building project, the CE’s have the job of wiring more than 1300 huts and
buildings while the UT’s will be demonstrating their skills in the plumbing of
galleys, showers and other facilities in the camps. Another important project
undertaken and just completed by Bravo company was the construction of a six
inch pipeline to the My Chanh River Bridge, 18 miles south of the base. The
Petroleum Oil Lubricants is to join other sections of pipeline down through
Vietnam. The first scheduled testing of the pipeline had to be delayed when a
portion of the line along with a portion of culvert was blown up by the enemy. |
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Alpha Company working on a MER Road |
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Civilian and Military traffic used the overworked pontoon bridge in the foreground after the original bridge (in the back- ground) was destroyed. Seabees from MCB-11 completed the two-lane timber bridge under construction here to provide for the vital flow of traffic. |
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| Chapel Dedication--RADM James W. Kelly, Chiefs of Chaplains, presented the sermon at dedication ceremonies of the Camp Rhodes Seabees Memorial Chapel, on Dec. 24. The Chapel is a memorial to Seabees killed during a rocket attack at Dong Ha. |
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Soap is distributed to Vietnamese children by HM2 Roy L. Brooks, MCB-11 corpsman, at the battalion's medical station. |
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