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A close friend of mine served in Vietnam with the 1stCav. Due to his stature he was utilized to clear underground tunnels. He refers to himself as having been a "tunnel rat". Below ground he carried a .45 pistol ......... above ground a pump shotgun. Next time I talk with him I'm going to ask what that was.

SRH

a collection guide to u.s. combat shotguns, bruce canfield, mowbray publishers, rhode island, ny, 1992, isbn: 0-917218-53-1

Stan, thank your friend for me for his service to our Country, at a time when the piss-headed Hippies were fomenting a revolution and burning draft cards on the "home-front".

My best buddy from HS was in the Air/Cav- believe it was the 7th- They had a Irish themed drinking song, "Garry Owen" that much I recall. He was a 2nd. Looie- KIA Feb. 22/1966- defending a air base held by 5th S/F. From what I heard, he took point, with a M-60, and set off trip wires which released grenades, both Donny and the "slack man" following him were killed instantly. I have a tracing of his name on "The Wall" 5E-63 are the co-ordinates to find his name, with over 58, 000 other brave Americans who paid the ultimate price in the Vietnam "disaster"

With Garryowen as their song that would undoubtedly have been the 7th. This was the marching song of the 7th Cavalry Dating back at least as early as Gen George Armstrong Custer. Some say that Custer was the one who first adopted it. That may or may not be true, but it has been their song for at least that long.

A few years ago I walked into a local pawnshop. And a 37 trench gun was on the rack. $169.00
It left with me and eventually ended up with a collector in NJ.

As a Seabee in Chu Lai 1968-69 base assigned not a battalion. I carried an M-14 on the dozer and grader while working. I talked the base armorer out of a shotgun for patrols outside the base. I was issued a Stevens pump 20" cyl. barrel. It's been 50 yrs now but I think it held 5 in the mag and one in the chamber, 2 3/4" olive green rounds with 9 pellets, it was just the ticket for what we were doing, just wish we had a couple more and I wouldn't have been stuck with point all the time. Luckily we only had to run patrols rarely.

Thanks for your fine service in the "Can-Do" section of our Naval Forces-- I had a distant relative (my late mother's step-brother) born in 1921-- Served in the Sea-Bees in the PTO 3 years- came back in 1945, survived the Kamakazi arracks- Passed away a year ago at age 89-- I saw some of his photos from his tours. I forget what his rate was, I think perhaps E-5 when he was discharged.

I agree, a 12 bore pump gun with a short cyl. bore barrel an 00 buckshot is a superb short range defensive tool. I am glad you came home "To The World" on your feet, and NOT in a body Bag. RWTF.. (Semper Fi)

Hey, Fox

I can remember a couple times I had to remind the SeaBees the difference between green and camouflage. Good times.

McCready�s Strat looks like it�s been through a couple battles...


____________________________
I�d like to see him I�d like to wish this war away
But I wake up every morning and turn on the news and there it is again
On the wayside I�d like to see those eyes but I don�t know whether my brother�s
Coming home in the box or the bag
https://youtu.be/UUyJoojCLnc

Yup-- old jokes we heard about the Sea-Bees while "In Country"
(1) If you go with the alpha notation, C-B-- that means "Confused Bastards"-- (2) WW11- PTO-- a Navy Corpsman reports to the C.O. that they have discovered cases or Beri-Beri at the Sea-Bees camp-- The C.O. tells the Corpsman- "Hell, sent it over to the Marines- those crazy jarheads will drink anything!"

All kidding aside- in my beloved USMC, we hold the lives of the Navy Corpsmen as a sacred thing-- We may joke about "Swabbies", just as Navy enlisted call us "Sea-going bellhops"- etc. But we protect the Corpsmen- they are "life savers"..

Seabee's loved the Marines they were sent to soak up bullets before they got to us.

We had a great working relationship with the Marines. The army would throw away everything they didn't want, I ran the garbage dump in Chu-Lai and would scavenge everything the Marines needed and couldn't get. M-16 Mags preloaded still wrapped in plastic, literally cases, HEAT rockets, C-rats, it was a long list. The Marines needed a pallet of plywood, we stole it from the army and the Marines swapped a stolen army jeep for it our Mechanic built a dune buggy out of it with bomb cart tires and a V-8 out of a firetruck.

We didn't mind being called "Needle Dicked Bug F--kers" by a Marine because we knew it was in jest. From a AF or army it was fighting words. A lot of the Seabees went to Camp Pendleton for weapons and tactics training. That was the only place in the world that is all uphill . You would leave the barracks in the morning with the Marine DI and you would march uphill. All morning you would be going up hill and when you returned to the barracks you were still going uphill and the DI never broke a sweat.