The photo to the left is of Randy Christan, John Winbon, and Ray Sulger, LZ Young, January, 1971. I am spl 4 Ray Sulger, and this was my “tour of duty”.

It began in September of 1970. I was assigned to Bravo Battery 1 st of the 14th artillery and was sent to LZ Maryann. At the time I did not know that Maryann was the farthest outpost in the 23 Infantry Division. The monsoons had already started and it was had to avoid the mud. I was assigned to gun 4.

The battery was made up of 4 105mm howitzers. I latter found out our other 2 guns were somewhere else, I don’t remember where . They had almost finished building permanent houches when I arrived . The second night there we “borrowed ‘’ some lumber from a different unit to finish our roof. It was in place by the time the sun came up and no knew where it went.

In mid November we jumped to LZ Young.. That was a dump. It had been there for a while and no permanent living quarters had been built. So we had two weeks to get it done. Since the were no vehicles on the hill ammo had to be carried up the hill on our backs from the “hook “pad. We stayed there until mid January when we jumped back to LZ Maryann.

It felt like coming home. We were only back a couple of weeks when they took anybody with a military drivers license, only those with a lower rank and sent them back to LZ Hawk Hill. We had an IG inspection coming up and we had to get our trucks ready for inspection, the monsoons were over and the trucks were packed with dried mud. That marked my three and half months in the rear area.

During that time LZ Maryann was over run on March 26 & 27. Thank God our guns had been moved to LZ Mildred. Also during my time in the rear the Marines up north we going home. So the Army took over there bases in DaNang and we had to move our headquarters up there . After a few weeks there I was called into “Top's” office and was told I was going to LZ Rawhide to join our long lost 2 guns. They were going be ’jumping” soon and no one there had any experience slinging out the gun with the ammo, I did. So I was sent out on a Loach.

A sgt. jumped in ahead of me and took the only seat in the back so I asked the pilot if it was ok to sit next to him up front, he said sure. Boy was the Sgt. pissed off . What a ride!!! After a couple of weeks we jumped to Hill 868 . Due west from DaNang. 3000ft Straight up. The only way up was by chopper or by rope . You could see DaNang any all of the bay around it. During the time we were there we went through 3 typhoons in two weeks, no one was dry for that period of time. You still had to pull guard duty and 15 seconds after you stepped out into the rain you were soaked to the bone.

While on that hill our gun was almost destroyed by an Arvin Chinook pilot in training. They almost dropped a water tank right on top of our gun. The only thing that stopped it was everyone in both guns were throwing rocks at the Chinook trying to get someone's attention. They all seemed oblivious to what they were doing. Finely one stone hit the door gunner in the helmet they woke up, but still dropped the tank so close to the gun you could not walk between them. They sent another Chinook out to move it so the gun could be used. ( see photos)

From there we jumped to LZ Linda. At that time I had little more than a month left to go in country. When we got to LZ Linda we were reunited with our other 4 guns. Some of the friends I had made on Maryann and Linda were still there but most had already gone home. Those that were going home before me but we still there were re-assigned to FT Sill. Me and one other, John Winborne were assigned to Ft Carson, Co. We had agreed to meet a the main Px on a date after we both we at FT Carson. He never showed up and I never saw him again.