The Book:
SEABEE71
IN CHU LAI
A 350 page memoir of a Navy Journalist's 14 months with the Seabees.
Photographs and text copyright © 1967 and 2019 by David H. Lyman
Seabee71.com
War Games in the North Carolina Woods
The battalion unloaded from the man-hauls and began the march down a dirt road into the North Carolina woods to set up base camp. This was an exciting time. Each man had a full clip M-14 blanks in his rifle and watched the woods intently for signs of an ambush, which never came. This was the start of our last week of training with the Marines, a three-day bivouac out in the open. It was great fun, even if there was no beer, only C-rats, and ice cold water to shave in.
That afternoon, the battalion arrived at what was to be our campsite and we began setting up. I found a spot for my two-man tent and made camp. I dug a drainage trench around my tent, to keep any rain from getting inside and soaking my nice, warm, down-filled sleeping bag. I had an extra pair of dry socks, a fresh tee-shirt and my “douche kit.” I was all set.
I pitched in to dig the latrine, a slit trench, what would serve as our public toilet. This was a ditch, a foot wide, 2 or 3 feet deep, by ten feet long—over which you straddled,
Two men from Alpha Company have set up an M60 mascvhine gun posiotion on the camp permiter, waiting for an impendring attack from the Marines.
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An excerpts from a chapter in Seabee71 In Chu Lai
your pants and skivvies down around your knees, hoping for the best. Once done, you were required to shovel some of the loose dirt over your deposit. Revealing yourself over the slit trench was best done at night, for the privacy darkness provided.
Our camp site had the air of a circus setting up. There was a perimeter to establish, machine gun nests to build, the EEGs and the RM’s, strung communications wire through the trees from the CP, (Command Post) to Alpha Company’s machine gunners, who were busy digging in and setting up their M60 machines. The rest of us dug foxholes, unloading trucks and stacking supplies. The cooks set up a field kitchen and began preparing to feed us. We ate C-rats for lunch. There was no shower, and you had to shave holding a mirror in one hand, the razor in the other, your steel helmet full of cold water hanging from its strap on your tent pole.
The first night we stood watch and waited for the enemy to attack . . . . .
