“We Were Firing As Fast As We Could”: A Field Artillery Soldier In The 173rd In Vietnam

Dean Logan was born in 1944 and grew up in Trafalgar and Franklin in Indiana. He is the oldest of five siblings, two boys and three girls. His father was a farmer who eventually lost the farm to a disreputable lending company. His mother was a stay-at-home mom until his parents divorced and she became an accountant for a tent and awning company. Dean did not really enjoy high school because he did not have many friends, and he skipped school a lot. He had been drafted, but having moved without informing the draft board of his new address, it took awhile for the news to catch up to him. He went to basic training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, and had the option of going to OCS. He initially picked Transportation, but had to switch to Field Artillery when the number of Transportation slots decreased. He had a 1963 Studebaker Lark convertible and was having trouble making the payments, so he volunteered for Airborne school for the extra $55 per month. Airborne School and OCS conflicted, so he dropped OCS. He enjoyed being Airborne and later completed three jumps in Vietnam (jumps to stay current when the 173rd was still in Vietnam on TDY), and three jumps later at Ft. Campbell. After completing basic training, field artillery training, and airborne school, he traveled to Okinawa to join the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He was only in Okinawa for a month, when the unit was scheduled to go to Korea. Instead, they were diverted to Vietnam, deploying aboard the USS General W.A. Mann and debarking in Saigon. From Saigon, they traveled to their base camp at Bien Hoa with their guns arriving five days later. On a typical day, they performed maintenance on their 105mm howitzers and received instruction on what to do if their position were attacked. He describes firing harassment and interdiction (H&I) missions to target suspected enemy areas. Once, he thought they were under attack when a bomb fell off a returning plane, bounced along the runway, and exploded in an ammo dump. B Battery provided general support to the Brigade, and he describes setting up firing positions to support troops on missions. Once they arrived in position, pulled by a ¾ ton truck, it took about 20 minutes to get ready to fire. Later, after his time on the gun line, he was assigned to the FDC (Fire Direction Center), where they took information from troops in contact, plotted the fire mission, and transferred the information to the guns to shoot. In his down time, he played cards or visited Saigon, and he describes playing tic-tac-toe with bar girls for drinks. On January 1, 1966, they were providing fire support in the Mekong Delta to a unit in danger of being overrun. Dean and the crews were firing as fast as they could, with each gun firing 150 rounds or more, over 70 rounds per hour. He returned to the States on April 28, 1966, and since he still had time left in his contract, he was assigned to A Battery, 1-321 Field Artillery in the 101st Airborne Division. In September, he was promoted to E4 and he worked in the Supply and Arms Rooms until he left the service. Near the end of his time in the Army, he broke his arm in a motorcycle accident. The loss of mobility he suffered kept him from getting a job at an Allison airplane engine plant. Instead, he painted cars for six years before becoming a draftsman for an asphalt manufacturing plant in Indianapolis. After working as a draftsman, he worked in the service department, and then was in charge of the electrical department. Later, he worked 16 years at an asphalt paving company. He attends several reunions a year, including the 101st and 173rd reunions, because he likes to “listen to the other guys.” He is proud of his service and says, “It means a lot to me.”