1/83 Artillery Update
July 12, 2020

1/83rd Unit News

and

General News

May 18th was the 51st Anniversary of the death of our Fred (Doc) Paddleford, a Veteran of HQ, A and C Batteries (1968-69). More on Doc can be found on our website.

(Rubbing from the Vietnam Memorial)

June 25th was the 49th Anniversary of the death of our Wayne Murphy, a Veteran of HQ Battery (1970-71). More on Wayne can be found on our website.

(Rubbing from the Vietnam Memorial)

Lest we Forget.

3. 2020 Reunion - As you know, because of the virus situation, the Reunion scheduled for this year has been cancelled. No future plans have been discussed and nothing more can be planned at this time.

4. Political Emails - The response I received from my recent email about the sorts of the emails that I do not want to see pass through our group has been overwhelmingly positive. I want to thank all of you who took the time to reply and express your support on this topic. Keeping our 1/83rd dialogs free of all the political garbage is a courtesy to us all.

5. Update emails - As you probably have noticed, I have sent fewer "Update" emails this year. The simple reason is that I don't get as much from all of you as I did in the past. So, if you have something you think may be of interest to our group, be sure to send it to me.

6. Helping Out our Group - Through our forum we have been able to provide a lot of help to our members. When one of our guys asks me to pass along a question to the group, almost always the response is wonderful. This is a tribute to all of you that take the time to provide answers to whatever question is raised. So, don't ever hesitate if you have something that you would like our group to help you answer.

6a. Artillery Artifacts  - In regard to the last item on helping each other out, the recent question posed by our Dan O'Brien on identifying some old artillery artifacts was very successful and also helped out our Artillery brothers currently serving.

I did want to mention something for those of you who submitted answers to identify the items.  After I added the photos to the website I was looking through them and realized that some photos of the same item were not being grouped together. In other words, instead of having all the photos of the same item follow one another, a few were separated. To have it make more logical sense, I rearranged the photos so that now all 22 photos have the same items grouped together.

By doing this, I had to re-number some of the photos since what might originally have been photo16 is now photo 8 (that's just a for instance). I hope this doesn't cause any of our guys who submitted answers any confusion but I think having the photos of similar items grouped together outweighs any problem with re-numbering.

You can review the photos at this link.

7. Nui Dat - Heavyweight and the Bypass Road. - I recently had a dialog with Bob Billiards, one of our Aussie members, that I think those of you who were at Nui Dat would enjoy reading. We discuss the Heavyweight call sign and, perhaps of more interest, is a discussion (and Photos) of the Bypass road that the Aussie's built to keep Vietnamese traffic off of Highway 2 (I use that term loosely) that passed the front entrance to Camp Everett. Click here for that dialog. Be sure to let me know if you have questions on this or have anything to add to that discussion.

8. Your Personal Contact Information - Once again I am asking you to please be sure to let me know if your contact information has changed.  I have had quite a few lately where either your email address or postal address is outdated and I was not notified. If your email address changes and you haven't provided a current postal address and phone number it makes it difficult or impossible for me to find you. Nothing is worse than losing someone just because of "paperwork" so keep me updated so I can keep the Full Roster up to date.

9. Support - Please let me know if anyone of you or your family have health situations so we can let everyone know of the need for our support.

10. News - if you have any good news that you want to share send it along. Having good news to share would be a real pleasure, as it seems like we are constantly only talking about sad news. Here is the latest 1/83rd News.

Interesting Links and More

1. Barney Downey (70-71) sent this story about how the low, slow A-1 Skyraider earned its place in the hearts of US troops in Vietnam. It is an interesting story.

2. Roger Hatcher (66-67) sent this video, The Boy on the Beach. You may have seen it before but worth another look.

3. Ken Mitchell (70-71) sent this video, “Bunker Buster” Bomb that ended the 1st Gulf War in 1991.

Did you Know

The Vulcan nerve pinch was improvised by Leonard Nimoy when a Star Trek script called for him to punch someone. Nimoy thought a Vulcan wouldn’t just slug somebody in the face and created the maneuver to allow Spock to subdue someone without a punch.

(Courtesy of How-To Geek Newsletter)

1/83rd Website

1. Please let me know if you come across any links in my website that are broken. With so much content, it is inevitable that links go out of date so let me know if you find one that does not work.

2. 1/83rd Unit Merchandise - Here is a link to the latest merchandise.

3. If you come across anything that you think may be a good addition to our website let me know. Also, if you have any questions or suggestions regarding the website, let me know.

4. Check out all the latest updates by looking at the website Table of Contents.

Vietnam Veterans of America

1/83rd Roster

Full Roster on Website - Check your entry on the Full Roster to make sure all your information is up to date. Notify me if any changes are necessary. If your email stops working, I cannot reach you if you have incomplete or incorrect contact details on the roster.

I have recently become aware of several changes to contact info. It is important that you keep your contact information up to date on the Roster, it is the only that your buddies can find you! Let me know when things change.

Please remember that all contact info that we have for our group can be found on the Full Roster. This is the best spot to start if you need to contact one of the group.

There is a long-standing page on our website where I list men that are either missing, inactive or trying to be located by someone in our group. I am asking everyone to review that page and let me know if you have updates you would like me to make.

I am sure that each of us has someone they would really like to reconnect with. If we all pitch in, we may find many more of our old buddies. Here are some ways to do that:

1. If you are in contact or have contact info for any 1/83rd guys please contact them and tell them about our group or at least tell me and I will contact them.

2. Look through the roster on the website and if you know of others who are not listed, let me know who they are. Also, if you see any incorrect or missing info (including your own entry) let me know.

3. If you have copies of old orders tucked away someplace, send me a copy so I can make sure those names are on the roster.

4. Sometimes all it takes is a name and location and we can find someone but the more details we know the better our chances.

Please make sure that your email system allows emails to be received from both of my email addresses, bill_t_08012@yahoo.com and artillery_83rd@yahoo.com

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