Ed+Digiacomo

25th Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade
Mr. DiGiacomo was in the area of mostly Cu Chi, that’s was a big base camp. He served in Vietnam for 14 months. His job was a radio teletype operator and was also required to pull bunker guard duty on 18 hour shifts. media type="custom" key="4607474" align="left"

Cu Chi Base Camp Map 

media type="custom" key="4607472" align="right"  I was mostly around the base of Cu Chi and it was a very large base and was the was the division headquarters for the 25th infantry division. And there was a lot going on there, and all night they were firing all night, a lot of helicopters went out of there and basically they were firing heavy guns all night. Every night, but what was actually going on I didn’t know. When in 1970 when they went into Cambodia in May, we had no clue before hand, and one night they had us tear everything down, the moved units over to the boarder and the infantry units went into Cambodia. They had us pack up everything in the middle of the night, and we loaded on helicopters and we flew into a town on the border called Godaha, up North, and set up there. And we had no idea before that what was going on. That was in May of 1970. I was in Vietnam from August 12, 1969 to October 1970.  Nui Bo Den

 Where I was in Vietnam it was flat, pretty flat, you could see for 50 miles and there was a mountain. Nui Bo Den. A bunk playku. About 50 miles away. Nui Bo Den, I think that’s translated the black virgin mountain. And it was very high, I think it was over 3000 feet of rock straight up, and we had a base up on top of that mountain and it was straight down. There were 3 chopper pads on the top, and I was up there for 3 days one time. We had a lot of antennas up there, set a lot of equipment there, and they had a schnook. What they did was they brought in supplies slung underneath on an electric hook underneath the helicopter and the pilot had the trigger on the hook and the schnook came in. They came in high with a big conex there like big steel doors like these things you see on railroad cars. Just that quick everything dropped. I thought it was gone, I thought it was going to crash, and he dropped the load and the conex missed the pad and went down the mountain and I saw doors open and the eggs coming out. And he flew away. And I found out later that they lost fuel pressure to the rear engine and lost power and dropped the load and luckily they didn’t crash. 

Prior to the war, Mr. Digiacomo worked for AT&T American Telegroup, Telephone, and Telegraph Company in the long lines division in Washington D.C central office. After the war, he returned to Myerstown, and got married.

Full transcript of interview with Mr. DiGiacomo: