LCM8 Vietnam Combat Veteran Mike Beaver's Story

Mike Beaver in Saigon

Mike Current

LCM8

Anyone recognize this Patch?

                      

If anyone has any info that may help Mike contact anyone from his division or if anyone recognizes the patch please Email US:

Some Email's from Mike Beaver on his Vietnam experiences:

I noticed that the sight had a place for patches. I was a river rat. 34 months in nam. I have a patch that I haven't seen in any of the river rat patches, maybe you can put it where it belongs thank you.

I am looking for guys I served with. I know lots of them are dead. but I also know a few made it. most of us in our group did multiply tours either back to back or skipping time like I did. I started in 65 and believe my last time over there was 71 I think. all together it was 34 months. I am looking for the guys that were on the haze gray LCM8's we belonged to literage in danang. we had detachments in the whole I corp. I was in hue during the tet lost my boat the LCM 8 850. lost one guy one wounded.. the next day my buddies boat got it we were both carrying fuel in our well deck. both boats burned out. he had no one wounded or killed. I got wounded the next day on another boat that I took over. boat was ok and crew was ok. I was the only one hit.

Over the years I have found that a lot of the guys died either over there or here in the states. we were all drunks. not many people wanted anything to do with us. we were non combat but had more than our share of combat. the monitors and tangos and pbr's mostly helped us after the tet started. the pbr's moved by the island tan mi. they operated off a barge and covered for us. that wasn't very fair. they were good but could not move slow and survive. when they got hit it was because they were going slow for us. we could only do about 3 or 4 knots.. we were very slow. I think that's the main reason they lost boats when they were with us in hue. the monitors and tangos came to qua Viet after the tet and took care of that river for us.

like I said not many people knew of us  or cared we were like the bastards no one wanted., we carried everything from Sherman tanks to fuel to boxed fresh eggs. dont get us confused with the u boats. the guy that wrote the battle of hue made that mistake. he said that lcu's were sunk carrying fuel. it was wrong. it was my boat and my friends boat both were LCM8's the lcu and yfu were either army or ours out of danang. they just traveled the coast and went up river we off loaded aks and lst's and took the cargo up river and up canals.

we also made assault landing when needed and some of our guys even opened rivers for the first time.,

just a little bit about us. thanks

I am looking for some of the guys that i served with. didn't have many enemys in any of those groups. seems for the most part especially in the LCM8 detachments we were very close. no one could fight with one of us without taking on all of us.

we were given a act div unit it was one LCM8 boat and crew. nice boat. it had everything looked brand new to us. hell most of our boats were running on bailing wire and bubble gum. Anyway, we pretty much welcomed them to hue this was shortly after the tet in hue. we were all back to making as many runs a day as we could. sometimes we even got stuck up river and had to anchor out away from the ramp. we used hand grenades to drop every so often for security. back to that act div boat. I was on my second run heading toward hue ramp anther boat was with me. as we turned this corner the act div was getting fired at rpg's and small arms. he had be towing a ammi barge full of fuel. this barge had a four man crew and no weapons except what they carried. wasn't meant to be shot at. the act div boat cut the tow and opened up full speed to get away. that is something our group never did no boat was ever alone to fight their way out of anything. that just didn't happen. unwritten rule. we stuck together.

I went for the barge and the other boat opened up on the beach and also threw some rounds toward the act div boat. we got the barge and the other boat and barge came back to the island. we were pretty angry. they sent the act div back to the lsd it came from. we got no more help from any of those types of units.

I dont know if that was wrong or right in the scheme of things but I know my life was saved a few times. so were many others. you could not beat us as a unit.

anyway thank you for taking this interest and helping me. I sure am looking for some of the guys in any of the units I was with.     mike beaver bmc retired.