PRESERVING A MILITARY LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The following Reflection represents Cpl Daniel Crispell’s, Jr. legacy of their military service from 1966 to 1968. If you are a Veteran, consider preserving a record of your own military service, including your memories and photographs, on Togetherweserved.com (TWS), the leading archive of living military history. The Service Reflections is an easy-to-complete self-interview, located on your TWS Military Service Page, which enables you to remember key people and events from your military service and the impact they made on your life.
What do you miss most about your time in the service and what made this especially significant to you?:
The bond of Friendship. My Marine Friend Bob born 04-06-1946 . We met in Vietnam and were both Dump Truck drivers leading convoys and building roads into the jungle. While at Hill-55 we worked on Liberty Road and camped in a tent over looking the river and our bunkers below. Everynight after 8 pm we were attacked bullets whizzing through our tent. While working on this road I had a bulldozer track blown up in front of me. During the day working I had another Marine’s truck reared blew up by a landmine.
On our last day which happened to be a Sunday we worked but the Sgt forgot to tell them we were working and we took a little friendly fire . Mortor were being dropped up and down the road to help scare the VC away from planting mines. We finished anyway. When we returned to base camp in DaNang the Sgt was asking for Volunteers to got South by ship to ChuLai and then to Hill-63 area. We were warned that the landmines were much larger down south. Bob and I and a couple others went. We got our equipment loaded and sailed South to ChuLai taking our convoy through TamKy Hill-29 and then Hill-63 and set up our tent. The very next morning our first job was to build a dirt road around a bridge that the VC blew up during the night. We loaded our trucks with dirt and headed back down Highway1 to the bridge. On the way their our security team of 5 Marines checked one place in the highway that looked like it had been blown up previously. Nothing was found and we worked on it for about 4 hour hours with out any problems.
Around noon the Sgt said looks like two more loads of dirt should finish the job. I was in line first and my Marine friend Bob was second so we went and took a security riding shotgun in our trucks. On the way back to get dirt I could see the bad spot in the highway so, I started shifting down from 5th to fourth to 3rd. I do not know if I got it in to 3rd or not . I did not hear the explosion from the landmine that blew my truck to pieces. The next thing I remember was the Brightest light shining but yet not Blinding. Then i remember floating away and then in the distance I seen people dressed in white robes beckoning me toward them.Then as I got closer I saw my Grandmother and I knew I must be almost in Heaven. Then I said I’m not supposed to be here and I was immediately back in my body.
Then I was coming back to life. The pain was also setting in and I was having a hard time sitting up. I remember i could not see and I thought I was Blind. I put my finger on my eye and found that my eye lids were closed and I could not open them. So, I grabbed on eye lid and pulled it up and I could see but it would not stay open. It felt Grady so, I tried to think and then I thought sand. So thinking I reached around feeling for my canteen found it and took a swig and then holding one eye open I poured water into it after a couple two or three times it stayed open and then did the same thing to the other. The first thing I saw was the Marine that had been sitting next to me laying next to be, dead all cut up form the metal of truck blown up. The second thing was my truck tires burning and in pieces.
Finally I saw Bob and yelled to him. I could not hear what he said though he sounded like a person on a long distance telephone call. He came over and with the help of an M-16 I was able to get to my feet. I said Bob you have to go get help, he said are you sure? Yes, and he left with hist Marine riding shotgun and pretty soon a Maring Chopper came in and took us out. Shortly after getting into the Chopper I passed out from the Pain. We were taken to the Naval Hospital in DaNang.
I don’t remember the first day. But on the second day our Major and Captain and a couple others visited me. A nurse brought me a piece of paper and said I had to write home and let them know I was alive, cause she said right now they do not know if your dead or alive. On the third day I went back to camp but it took 60 days for me to regain my strength and 90 days for my ear drums to heal.
The comradeship in the Marines through it all was the greatest friendship of all. I have to say if it wasn’t for GOD I would not be here today.
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A moving and sincere story from the heart. I’m sitting here with shiny eyes.