327th Infantry
The Tale of the Eltinge
by John Pagel
Since at this time on the 29th of July of 1965 we’re on our way to California figured it would be a good time to give you all my memories of the El Tinge. I had written this to Pat Payne who was a member of B Company who was a member of the Brigade Advance Party and didn’t experience the 20 day cruise. Because he was advanced party and they would fly to Vietnam they were held back at Campbell to clean and close our barracks. I pity them for that, the barracks were bad, bad, bad. What’s even worse they did fly but the trip was made on C-130s all the way and then when they got to Cam Rhan Bay they had to live in PUP TENTS in the sand until the Brigade arrived on the 29th. Have to make a special point of calling Pat a HERO, during the battle on February 7, 1966 he and another man, Richard Crossland took out a .51 CAL machine gun that was causing a lot of American casualties. For Pat’s action that day he was awarded the DSC.
So sit back and take another trip down an old mans memory lane.
John
