| July 19th 2006 The excert below is from Capatain Bruce Brockway who commanded the 104th from September 1969 to Setember 1970 After your call last night I read over the history of the 104th and was very impressed with this undertaking. I often wondered what the history of the 104th was and what happened to it after I left. As you recall I was CO from Sept 69 to Sept 70. I left my home in Massachusetts on the evening of our daughter’s 1st birthday party wondering if I would ever see her again. I returned to Logan airport in Boston on the morning of her 2nd birthday where my family was waiting for me. I will never forget the smile on her face when she saw me and reached out her little arms. My wife had her kiss my picture good night every evening at bed time and she actually recognized me. That was her baby photo that I accidentally included with the slides I sent to you. You can use whatever portion of the following that you want to. It is not my intent to hi-light problems, only to report what I remember. I was assigned to the 104th on the day after I reported to the 79th Group at Long Binh. Colonel Wright told me that he had a hard working engineer company that needed some help with maintenance and morale as discipline had been a problem. Ist Sargent Gobble sent the company jeep to pick me up and I reported for duty. I was surprised at the number of Article 15’s and special court marital’s indicated in the history. I did have to administer article 15’s for infractions like fighting, and being off base after hours. There was a small group of men who seemed to enjoy the fights and frustrations were often high. We also had a group of men from Louisiana and another group from the Chicago area who liked to mix it up. A couple of the drivers actually showed me their identity cards from Cook County Jail in Chicago and I was amazed that they were proud of them. We also had a minor drug problem. The First Sgt and I would inspect the billets every day and we often confiscated drugs, usually marijuana but sometimes opium or pills. One day I noticed a pillow that looked odd and when I checked it the pillow case was stuffed with marijuana. My wife remembered that I had to administer Article 15’s for some of the men who had not paid child support at home. I do not remember why there were special courts martials held at Group HQ. Everyone worked hard and there weren’t really that many problems. I remember Sargent Cruz in the motor pool, 1st Sargent Gobble, a Sargent Plummer and a Sargent Harris. There were others that I can’t quite remember their names. Sargent Cruz would steam clean the frames of the old 5 tons that were continuously breaking down. If he found a crack in the frame he could requisition a replacement truck. I suspect he helped a few of the problem trucks get to the grave yard. The history reports that in September 1969 we had 6 CY transit mixers. I do not recall them at all. One part of the history puzzles me. It is the section about the Cambodian invasion in the spring of 1970. All of a sudden we had convoys going to places that we had never heard of before. I only remember one hostile action and I thought that happened while on the road not at firebase Colorado. I was not present. We had two men wounded severely enough to be med evac’ed and I visited one of them at the base hospital in Long Binh. We had a young Lt that religiously cleaned his M16 every night after that ambush. His weapon had jammed on him during the fire fight. Hope this helps. I will send more comments if the web pages trigger any memories. Bruce Brockway |