S-1 was the administration section for the battalion. If you were in 1/1, this is the first place you reported when you showed up at the battalion.
PFC Starkey outside the front door of the S-1
The Battalion Tactical Organization & Equipment Roster list how many people, of which MOS, are assigned where. 1st Lt Neil Sorenson main goal as the Battalion Adjutant (S-1) was to insure that the TO&E was filled out properly in 1/1. This proved to be an unobtainable goal. I was an 0351. The S-1 was suppose to have several 0141 clerk/typist. During my tour, Starkey pictured above was the only legitimate 0141 I saw show up at the battalion. Since I could type 24 words per minute, and the S-1 needed somebody who could type, I never made it past the S-1.
Duties of the S-1 office included:
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Assignment of personnel of companies |
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Travel Orders (R&R and rotate to CONUS) |
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Write ups for medals |
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Dreamsheet Endorsements |
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Disemination of standing Battalion, Regiment and Division orders |
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Casualty Reporting |
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Morning Reports - Daily company strengths |
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Provide at least two people for guard duty every night |
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Office watch 24x7 |
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Everybody knew somebody that was different than anybody else. For me, it
was Cpl. Darryl Kernek. I spent my 21st birthday in a bunker (post 6 I
think) with him. He did not care for the way the war was being run. He
proposed that we go AWOL, break into the armory, steal an M-60 and a M-79,
all the rounds we could carry and take it to the VC on our own. I declined
his invitation. I don't ever remember Darryl laughing, but he was a funny
guy. You just never knew if he really was crazy or just making a joke. As an admin guy, he was completely professional. If you went on R&R or rotated home through around Oct '69, you were able to do so because of the countless hours Darryl spent maintaining a very old, probably shouldn't have worked mimeograph machine, so your orders could be printed. |
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View from the center of the S-1 towards back door. Sitting around drinking some warm Carling Black Labels. (l-r Starkey, unknown, unknown, Mark Cameron, Dan King) |
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The S-1 was normally a very orderly place. One night I was sitting at my desk, facing outbound toward the screen, writing a letter home. The S-2 office was right next door, about 15 feet away. Suddenly there was a loud bang on the S-2 roof, and the sound of whatever it was sliding down the corrugated tin roof. I naturally turned to say, "What the ..". That's when what was later determined to be a 105mm round went off about 3 feet off the ground. Blew a perfectly good tree down, picked me up an and threw me into the Lt's steel desk and put shrapnel in everything including Cpl Kernek and Cpl McDaniels. |
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Cpl Roy McDaniels and Cpl Dan King had purchased a refrigerator that day. It was a big deal since we had secured a full case (unopened) of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The S-1 was going to have COLD beer. In addition, I had a can of Dole pineapple chunks in the little freezer compartment. The beer never had time to get cold before the shrapnel destroyed the freon tubes. Roy's pointing to shrapnel in my pineapple; I'm pointing to a exit wound in the refrigerator. |
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Under my desk was a can of white paint. Since I only had on tiger shorts when it blew, I was picking paint from short hairs for weeks after this. I holding a black stick here, since it was no longer a rifle due to shrapnel through receiver. The S-1, me and the battalion were living right that night. No one was seriously injured. Within a few seconds of our explosion, three more lob bombs came in. One hit the PX, but nobody was there. The lob bomb that hit the S-3 didn't go off. The one that hit the Bn movie theater did some damage, but there was no show and no companies back in the rear. The biggest damage was Kernek's mimeograph machine. We almost had to beat him to take the medevac, he wanted to tend his wounded, but he had a chunk of metal in his chest. |
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This is the back door of the S-1. You can see the CONEX box that contained the safes for the S&C files. Immediately after the explosion, Cpl Mark Cameron got me to my feet and into this bunker. We did a lot of work to make this a presentable bunker, since the colonel's house was about 10 meters to the right of it, but we never went in it. I'm in the back of this nasty bunker, dazed, can't hear anything, wondering what is this white stuff, when I notice that there is a case of termite grenades sitting next to me. Two of them are starting to glow. These are the things you use to melt the safes with the secret and classified documents in them. I'd never seen one go off, so I didn't really know what they do. I sitting there watching them, thinking I bet this is not a good thing to sit next to when it gets hot enough to melt a safe. Seemed like a long time before my head cleared enough to start shouting at Mark who was guarding the door to the bunker. I thought I was shouting, I still couldn't hear anything. Finally I had to punch him to get him to turn around. We left the bunker and let the grenades burn. |
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When I was short, this was the S-1 FNG. Don't remember his name, but he was a good guy. I remember feeling sad that he had so much more time to do. |
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Not a very good picture, but Applebee was a very good driver and a good
guy. I rode shotgun on many trips to Regiment and Division for him. Here's a better picture that he sent me after not hearing from him for almost 33 years. |
| I regret that I don't have pictures of Sgt Bruce Severson (I've got his
Cpl chevrons on my cover now), Cpl Moore (called everybody a hockey-head),
SSgt Mckee (big man with a Morrocan wife), 1stLt Neil Sorenson (master of
organization and he taught me to know the rules), 2ndLt Schulte (change of
command can be ok), Cpl Martin J Cavanaugh (a draftee who was traveling on
a different plane). There's one more guy that I can't remember his name.
He was from Hickory, NC. When somebody complained about something, he say,
"Sheeeet, up in Phu Bai...", and start a story about how nice
things were now. His accent painted a picture.
I didn't know that I would want to remember those times. |
