| Jesus (Jay) M Roig - Inactive |  | Address: New Bern, North Carolina
Email:
Dog(s) :ROYAL - 19X8
Branch: Army
Unit(s): 48th Infantry Platoon Scout Dogs (DaNang)
War(s): Vietnam
| | Biography:
I arrived in Vietnam with the original 48th IPSD as a Squad Leader. We were not there too long before we lost Mugavin, a member of my squad. A short while later we were moved to Chu Lai.
Mid-way through our tour I assumed duties as the Plt Sgt when SFC Harvis left and was assigned to the HQ CO 196th. I was replaced by an SFC a month or two later, but then got the job back within a few weeks when he was fired by Lt Ian Jones and sent to a line company. The SFC and a friend of his had gotten intoxicated at our little base camp cantina and had been found mistreating one of our dogs (Tina, I think). That was too bad for me too, because I really did not want the job, but mostly I did not want to give up my dog (Royal (19X8). Can't tell you how many times I tried to come up with a plan to sneak him out of the country. But he went to a good man (Hickman), who Royal had bitten a day earlier (call it "bite at first sight") and did well until his death in 1970.
It was during our time in Chu Lai that I lost one of my best friends, John Olmsted. Everytime I visit The Wall in Washington,DC I find it harder to touch his name on the Wall. We were brothers and had been on many assignments together.
To the best of my recollection we left Chu Lai for LZ Baldy in late 1967 and it was there that we were relieved by our incoming replacements. Several of us, including Jones and Catania were sent back to a tent city near the airfield at Chu Lai to await orders to go back to CONUS. I was never under the command of Jones' replacement or the new Plt Sgt, so I know some of us shortimers left about the time he did. We traveled together and met up at the airport in Seattle, WA, where we said our last good-byes.
I was then sent to Ft Leavenworth, KS to become the HQ Garrison Company's Training NCO, NCOIC of the Post Honor Guard, taught some classes at the Staff College's Vietnam Orientation Course and had additional duties as the Acting 1stSGT until my discharge in 11/1969.
I had met a local girl and gotten married in 08/1969 and she talked me out of OCS and/or Chopper school and out of the Army. Anyway, I started a trucking company in KC, MO and visited Frank Catania at his kennels near KC, KC for the next 10 years. In 1979 I went to work for the IRS as a Revenue Officer and was assigned to the Los Angeles District. From there I was sent to Bakersfield, CA where I later became a Group Manager and the Collection Division Training Coordinator/Instructor. I retired in 03/2006 and it was back to Leavenworth, KS at the urgings of my wife. Four miserable years working for the Kansas Dept of Revenue followed. I hated that job and it's do-nothing/spineless political boneheads. By that time Frank Catania had had an accident while riding his horse and he was now in wheelchair. That was a painful blow to my heart as well.
In 2000 I left KS and divorced my first wife. (That's another story best said over a dozen beers.) I started work as a Background Investigator and spent the next two years on the road from Boston to San Juan, PR and from Chicago to Gallop, NM. I literally lived out of two suitcases.
In 12/2002 I moved to New Bern, NC and have lived here ever since with my new wife. I even had a daughter along the way in 2005 (at age 60). She is the love of my life.
For the past 4 years I have been an independent contract investigator working for USAID, ATF and USIS doing background investigations on federal and military personnel in SC, NC, NY, VA, MD and DC. I never got rich or been famous, but I love my work, love my home, and love my family - life has been good to me.
I'm 66 years old now but have never forgotten my time with the 48th IPSD. The many of the events and details of this life are fuzzy now, but some of the patrols Olmsted and I went on and the stories he told me about the girl back home, little Mugavin yelling at his dog, the good times in Bangkok with Frank Catania and the "ladies" we met, as well as the awful pains felt at the lost of one of our platoon members - are all in vivid 3-D in my mind. I can still recall the smell and feel of mixing dry and wet dog food; cleaning kennels; watching the "Harvest Moon" outhouse burn down in Chu Lai; Catania grabbing Flash by the groin and tormenting him (he would have needed heaven's help if Flash had gotten loose); Harvis and his famous "Hmmm"; Mugavin arguing anything and everything; Harrison and "Bear"; Prince's (30X7) shrapnel wound healing with Catania's constant care; Catania giving Bruno (?) a shot of booze twice a day until his URI was cured (the booze worked); the night Royal alerted and saved us from being wiped out by another ambush patrol; and trading excess Penicillin to the Navy in exchange for steaks to BBQ back at base camp.
How could I forget this time in my life? |
|
