Looking For

If you're looking for someone, found someone, or have heard about someone, let me know and I'll post it HERE! Or you can post it to our Bulletin/Message board.

What is going on! I can not find any new info, even from the national league of families. I know of the lawsuit against the government but little else. Any updates and is the Col Shelton issue forgotten?
Thanks lawrence

Hi George,
I am sending a picture I found in my file. Thought you might want to post it on the internet. The officers from left to right are: First one
unknown, Todd Marsh, John Norris, Fred Bell, Max Thurmond and Bob Breckenridge. Maybe you can find someone to identify the name of the first officer on the left. These officers were 54th group battalion commanders with John Norris being the group commander, January, 1968
Former six
Col. Todd Marsh

richardinga@bellsouth.net
Looking For:
Info: One of our own needs a little help.
His problem: he served with the 7-8FA in April '71 at FSB Husky and he needs help remembering which Btry he was assigned to. He had a house fire a few years ago and lost all of his memos from that time frame.
His name is Richard E. Sweat. His email is richardinga@bellsouth.net
If you can help, please email Richard with your info.
Thanks.
Redleg!

George

KASEYMURPH@aol.com
Looking For :
I talked to my brother-in-law. He said he was in maintenance. He also stated that all called him Hank / nick name/. He also wanted me to find out if any one knew a man called Jim Stack. Again any help would be great.

beddinger@rochester.rr.com
Looking For:
Looking for Thomas R. Shadden and his buddy Cruz (who bravely defended the personnel clerks in Long Binh at Tet) and for John Clark from Jersey who was on guard duty with me every February night we got shelled in Bien Hoa. I also can't believe that 1LT Jesse James Anthony Marsano doesn't have his own web site, he took a million pictures while ammo officer in 68 - LT Bohatch. I've located Stuart Fergen and James Petersen. Buddy David Sullivan died in Michigan in 2000.

hippy4@gallatinriver.net
Looking For :
Trying to find anybody from the old group. Been a long time. Anybody know where
Johnny T Landress (from Conyers GA) or Rick Hughes (Pittsburg) are.

CTJREID@aol.com
Looking For :
During 1970-71 I served with C Coy, 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment in South Vietnam. Ours was an infantry battalion and spent the bulk of our tour operating from a feature known as The Horseshoe. Our main role consisted of setting up night ambushes to deny the VC access to the local population and thereby preventing them from obtaining food and recruits. During this time we were supported by several US units and amongst those were the men and guns of A Battery 7/8th US Artillery.

I would be happy to hear from any of your guys that served with us.
Kindest regards

hippy4@gallatinriver.net
Hi Gary New to this machine so hang on. GREAT SITE. Thought I'd let you know that it works! Got an e-mail from one of our group. Pretty cool after 30 some years. I just wanted to say thanks .

kjorve@yahoo.com
Does anyone remember my father SFC Robert Kjorvestad C-Battery 68 to 69?

Bair_all@hotmail.com
Howdy, and welcome home to all. I spent 70-71 based out of Tay Ninh, supporting
anybody and anything that had to do with arty engineers and quartermaster equip.
Was on a contact team and drove a wrecker as tail end on more convoys to FSBs
than I can count. Was involved in an incident at a fire base somewhere middle
Jan 71 to end Feb. 71, and have been trying to find out where I was. Sapper
attack. Took out a duster and about 12-15 of our guys. If anybody could help me,
I would be very grateful.
Thank you so much for all that you did.
Sincerely,
George Gutzmer SP/5 Survivor. Welcome Home.

Answered:
You were with 'A' Btry that night at FSB Blue. I was stationed at FSB Happy just
west of Tay Ninh in 'C' Btry. Capt. Spears was our BC and I was one of the LT's in
the Btry.

LT Middleton, Thank you so much for your help, and the information you gave me.
I have been trying to put together my last 5 months over there, and you filled in a big blank.

Do you know the coordinates of FSB Happy And Blue, and what other bases did the 7/8th have?
Also on 16 April 71 I was at Happy with my wrecker changing a gun tube. While bouncing in and out of the truck to adjust the manual throttle, a sniper took a shot shattering the windshield and putting some glass shards by my left eye and collar bone. As I dropped out of the truck to get away, I landed on an Engineer
stake tearing up my right ankle foot and leg. You had a black medic there, E-5 I think, who took care of me. It was late afternoon, and we weren't due to come back to Tay Ninh until the 17th. I got bad enough during the night that He thought of calling in a medivac, but I nixed it. Turns out I had a chip fracture of my ankle, but the bad part is I'm allergic to Morphine, and that is what caused the worst of my problems. I never knew who He was or what unit or the opportunity to thank Him for what He did for me. Can you help with another blank.
Thank you, George Gutzmer SP/5

I am trying to find the morning report for service battery for 7th/ 8th
artillery from June 69 to April 70 could you help me find it.

There was a incident in the company area involving myself and another GI . The GI was drunk and he started shooting at me. I do not remember his name or what month or day this happen on. I was in Nam from June 69 to April 70. This had to happen between September 69 and February 70.

Hi,
My name is Herb Worthington and I'm the service rep for Vietnam Veterans of America in NJ. I have a client, (Larry Hinton) that was in your unit at the aid station on 5/4/68. He is suffering from PTSD badly and we have a VA hearing on 2/11/03. I need to find out what happened around that time, about your unit, what traumatic events might have taken place and if anyone can say they know him and he was there when..... happened. That will all go as material evidence. He has been diagnosed with PTSD but I need to establish stressors. I am running out of time as I have a hearing on 2/11/03. Any help you can give Larry I appreciate as a service officer. All the help you gave in Nam, I appreciate as a Infantryman with the 9th Infantry Div. 1970.
Herb Worthington
NJ VVA Service Rep.

Hi Herb
I will need a little more information on Larry. First the 7/8th Artillery was a 8 inch 175 heavy artillery unit. It was assigned to the II Field Forces Vietnam. These units had 3 Batteries Alpha, Bravo, and Charley plus a Serves Battery and a HQ Battery. Do you know what MOS Larry had? Why he was at an Aid Station on 5/4/68? Any information like that would help.
But when you ask what would cause stress. These guns the M110 and the M107 self propelled howitzers packed a great deal of force. I have seen this an a lot of other veterans, having served in two M110-M107 units the 7th /15th and the 7th /8th and seeing what has happen to the guys after a number of years. PTST is very common. The forces of just firing these guns (they where not enclosed) was very hard on the nervous system. I would talk to a neurologist.

Gary,
Forgot, Larry's MOS was "16F20 LADA"
"Crewman"
Here is a little about the unit and some names. I can send you a lot of war stories
but I think the best defense would be the exposure to the trauma for repeated artillery fire. It's more like shell shock. The thing about Vietnam is that we fired 24 7 for 365 days. How much can the nervous system take? Gary

The 7th Battalion, 8th Artillery was formed at Fort Sill Oklahoma in the spring of 1967. It was fitted with 8 inch M110 self-propelled howitzers, and M107 175 mm self-propelled guns. On June 9th 1967 the unit departed from Oakland California abroad the USNS Nelson Walker for deployment to Viet Nam. It arrived at Vung Tau June 29, 1967.

It was sent to Bear Cat with the 54th Artillery Group. On October 14, 1967, it was transferred to the 23ed Artillery Group Second Field Forces Viet Nam and Headquartered in Bien Hoa. The unit was redeployed to US Army Viet Nam in May of 1971. The unit was deactivated July 27, 1971 B Battery was the first 8 inch 175 unit to be airlifted in the history of the U.S. Army The nickname "Automatic Eighth" comes from the Korean War when prisoners asked to see the new Automatic Artillery guns. There were none, the unit was just that good so the name stuck.

I joined the battalion in early Feb 67 and was assigned to command Service Btry for the training period and then
become S-4/Svc Bty BC for the move and duty in RVN. As best I recall our
commanders and staff were - LTC Price, Bn Cdr, Major Bernard Campbell, XO,
Sgt Major Raymond Brown, S-1 Cpt Ken Johnson, S-2 (am drawing a blank), S3
was Major Bob Salzman, Asst S-3 was Cpt Glenn Hanna, S-4 was Cpt Rich
Henniken, Commo Officer was Cpt Dale Wilson, Motor Officer was 1LT Carol
Proby, HQ Btry CO, Cpt Quint Holten, A Btry CO, Cpt Al Ackerman, B Try CO,
Cpt Gordon Walker, C Btry CO, Cpt Al Haid, Svc Bty, myself. 2LT Dick
Bloodgood was the bn ammo officer; CW3 Robert Chevalier was the bn property
book officer.l CW2 Chet Nichols was the metro warrant. The first sergeants
were King in HHB, I don't recall A Btry's (Bonner?), Bravo Btry was named
Walker, I believe, same as the BC, Charlie's 1sgt was Graves and Svc btry was
Floyd J. Kelnhofer. I don't recall where all the lieutenants were - Faber, I
think was C btry, Fantelli was B Btry, Bradley, Goertmiller, Bohatch and
Verbach were in the other firing batteries. Also, our maintenance warrant
was Chief Walters, but he did not stay with us long. The bn maintenance NCO
was Foster and the Bn supply sgt was SFC Gregory. After a month or so
incountry, changes were made with Cpt Dale Wilson taking over A Btry, Cpt
Glen Hanna assuming command of B Btry and in early Oct I assumed command of C
Btry. Cpt Holten was reassigned to the 9th Div and I do not recall his
replacement. Cpt Ken Johnson replaced me at Service Btry. 1LT Bill McCarthy
was killed the night before I assumed command of Charlie btry. LTC Price had
attended a barbeque with the members of C Btry at Xuan Loc on Sunday before
he was killed on Thursday night. We had a good time visiting with him,
especially those of us who had joined the battalion at Sill and had gone
through the pre-deployment training. At the time of this death he was the
assistant Division advisor to the 18th ARVN Div which was headquarted there
at Xuan Loc. There was an American 0-1 platoon stationed there at the Xuan
Loc airfield and one of the regiments was being attacked at a town just north
of Xuan Loc. We, Charlie Btry, was firing a mission for them, when Colonel
Price went up in one of the 0-1's to try to maintain commo with them. The
story goes his plane was hit by a single round which hit him between a flack
jacket he was sitting on and a flack jacket he was wearing. One of the
advisors at the 18th Div TOC, called me with the news, as did the 0-1 unit
commander. When I told the NCO's, we were all in tears since he had been a
really good commander and it was just like him to be out looking after the
troops. LTC Todd Marsh had replaced LTC Price in December and our new XO was
Major Frank Avent. Both were fine leaders and we continued to have good
successes. There was a lot of ground covered in that first year and many
good men served in the battalion. Wish I could remember all of them so I
could thank them for their service. The Automatic Eighth was among the best
of the FA units over there - and I say that not just because I was there, but
I heard stories about other units who were there throughout my career, and I
shall always be thankful to have served with them.

Gary,
I agree with you about the trauma and so on. I'm surprised any of you can hear anything at all and that your insides are not totally upside down from the shaking but the VA likes the blood and guts stuff. Let's face it, we have fought the establishment all these years and what has it gotten us? If I am to get this brother veteran some compensation that will make his life a little easier, then I'll tell them what they want to hear. On the other side of that coin is the vet himself. If he gets denied, can he go on living the way he was? The answer is probably but worse then not having the money is the thought that there is no recognition from the government of his service or ordeals by them refusing him. We have to work within the system in order to help each other out. So anything as far as war stories during his time in country is greatly appreciated.

Trying to help my dad find his old buddies.
23 Arty-group, II Field Force, Charlie Battery, 7-8 Artillery
he was there 70-71

Looking for my dads buddies, 23 Arty group, II Field force, C-battery, 7/8 Field
Arty. spent time at FSB Happy, FSB Blue, FSB Blackhorse. 1970 - 1971

Thanks,
Randy Baber

Randy,
There were two 8" howitzers in the battery when your dad was in the unit.  I
remember his name, but I can not recall which gun section he was in.  SSG Rowe
was one gun chief and there is a picture of SSG. Rowe and his gunner that Frank
Ledford sent in last month to the web site.  The gun was called Calley's
Comrades.  Your dad would probably remember that.  The Battery Commander was
Capt. Spears.
As far as accessing unit rosters, the following is a possible guide 
http://grunt.space.swri.edu/records.htm

I hope this helps.

Hi,
I'm trying to locate anybody who was with B btry 7/8 field arty 1970/71. I
was known as Commo. Can you help by giving me some web sites to look at.

Hello,
We are trying to find about events with the 7/8th Arty HQ/Service Battery sometime after September of '69-Sept '70. Also, events during the time of 30th Signal Brigade. If anyone has any info on this, or can direct me somewhere, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

First of all, thank you for responding. I am trying to help my father because he is seeking counseling for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In his words, "you work so hard to forget and then someone asks you to remember". Anyways, he arrived Sept 69 and was in 7/8th Arty HQ or Service Battery. We are trying to get as much info as possible while he was there. Especially any events that might have been particularly disturbing. I would certainly appreciate any info or direction you could give me.