George Dahl was drafted in to the Army 4 days before Christmas in 1965 and was sent to Fort Leonardwood with about 1000 other draftees from Minnesota. They spent 10 days there doing nothing over Christmas, as the post was vacated for the Holidays. On January 3 orders came for them to go to Fort Lewis, Washington.

 Then the fun began. Otis Lewis {KIA} met them at McCord at midnight and decided to let us sleep in till 5:00am. Otis would teach them all of the Basic Training skills. They became the 1/22, 2/22, 3/22 Infantry. The 2/22 would be mechanized and after all of the training in September 66 they took the USS Walker to Vung Tau. (21 days to acclimate) George was part of the 3rd Brigade and the other two were sent to Pleiku as part of the 4th ID.  They were detached to the 25th ID out of Cu Chi.

 From Vung Tau, Bear Cat, Long Bien, through Saigon in the middle of the night to Cu Chi and on to Op. Attleboro eventually getting to their base in Dau Tieng in November. It was located between the Ben Cui and Michlein Rubber Plantations with Cambodia on three sides of them. It was the supply route from the Ho Chi Minh trail right into Saigon.

 George was one of the squad leaders in charge of an APC and at the age of 19 he made his E-5. Sometimes they had an E-6 , but not often. Sometimes they even had a platoon leader.  Search and destroy, ambushes, convoys 24/7 for a year. All but two of the guys in the squad were wounded at least once. George’s track carried a 90 mm recoilless, and all of the demolitions…shape charges, crater charges, and at least a case of C-4, 10 cases of C’s and 5- 10 gallons of water and more, more , more.

 They lost their first CO to an RPG, and the second two were super leaders.  George lost two guys in his squad to RPG and claymore hits.

 Today George is a retired school teacher.