Page 116 - Stand Down Vietnam

My family was supportive of the Vietnam War and our
efforts to help the South Vietnamese people. A friend

of my dad was in the reserves, and somehow, he got the
recruiter to get me tested. I got high scores in
clerical and mechanical; he asked me what I wanted to

be. When I told him, I wanted to be a mechanic in the
Seabees, he wanted to know how I knew about the Seabees

and I told him from John Wayne.

He told me that the only way to get in the Seabees was
if I had a family member that was in the Seabees.
Nobody in my family was or had been a Seabee. I don’t
know how he did it, but he got me into the Seabees.

While I was in the Navy reserves, the Cuban Missile
Crisis broke out. My Reserve Battalion was attached to
MCB Four, Mobile Construction Battalion Four. We were
sent to GITMO to build bunkers.

In 1962, NMCB Four was called into action at U.S. Naval
Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Seabees of NMCB Four
worked to fortify the base's perimeter and assisted the
Marines in the base defense.