Davisville

   The linked photographs were taken from 1967 through 1969 and are in no particular order.  There are misspellings and I would suppose a few descriptions that are not correct. Please overlook those little inconsistencies. I was on the advanced party on both deployments for the BEEP.  My travels were from Da Nang to the rock pile at Vin Dai on Route 9.  I saw some beautiful country.  I ran the tire shop during both deployments and ended up the Battalion Tailor, inheriting my own sewing room adjacent to the tire shop.  Most folks probably noticed the shined magnesium wheels with some fancy "General" tires on the CO’s jeep?  I was given the wheels off a jeep that had broken loose from a helicopter.  They were of course painted green.  Using sandpaper and steel wool, I brought out a shine.  The tires as I remember were trailer tires that were a 10 or 12 ply, being quite difficult to mount. The CO’s used them on their jeep for both deployments. I also gave illegal haircuts for those who did not like the barber. During the second deployment I had two local “helpers” who could do some amazing feats of physics moving tires around using sticks and bars, where I would need a forklift and chains. I experienced rocket attacks, a few flew into our base trying to get to MAG-16 across the road.  The 1968 TET Offensive Lunar New Year Attack was an eye opener, but after about three days with no sleep, I crashed 10 straight hours.  The ammo dump blowing up, for half a week, during the second tour, was also memorable.  We could see the crushing shock waves rolling towards us.  Entire Camps were leveled, but the speed in which all the bases were put back together was totally amazing.  My enlistment ended before the end of the second deployment, so I was not able to fulfill the whole stint there.  Arriving back at the states in San Diego was quite disgusting. Leaving the base as a civilian, walking past the anti-war folks chanting slogans, attacking all of us as being baby killers and the like.  It was nasty, to say the least.  I enrolled into a junior college, earned a degree in forestry, and have never been employed in forestry.  Instead, after shuffling through several different jobs, I ended up in the cable television trade, starting off with tube amplifiers.  I saw transitions from tubes to transistors and solid state to fiber optics.  I designed two systems and helped maintain four of them, finally exiting the business after wrecking my knee falling off a pole during a snow storm.  23 years down the tubes?  No.  I went back to school again and after two semesters, have become a desk jockey and love it.  I am currently a manager/assistant in one real estate office and an assistant in another while on the side do minor property management for apartments.  I have been married 38 years and have two outstanding daughters and sons-in-law with four grandchildren.  I worship at the Evangelical Free Church where I am the webmaster and am on the local parks and recreation district serving over 20 years on the board of directors as well as other organizations. The "Can Do" slogan followed me into civilian life.  This linked photo album originally were slides that I converted to jpg format.  If you would like to learn this technique, please contact me directly or through the caretaker of our web site.

Stephen Cutting    CMA-3

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  Below an excerpt from a past issue of the VFW magazine.