David E. Parrish

David E. Parrish

4/42 Artillery - 1/22 Infantry

4th Infantry Division

1969-1970

I received my draft notice two days after I graduated from Penn State. I arrived in Long Binh on 2 November 1969
as a newly commissioned 2LT, Field Artillery. I had been in the Army for a year at that time; that’s how long it took to go through basic training,
AIT, and OCS. At 23, I was older than the average 19-year old in Vietnam but like everyone else, I was apprehensive to say the least.
When I was informed that I was headed to the 4^th Infantry Division, I had never heard of it. It didn’t carry the high profile of the 1^st Cavalry
or 101^st Airborne. The 4^th was OK by me. I figured that it probably didn’t have the casualty rate of those better-known divisions.
So my journey began, criss-crossing the country with a trip to Pleiku, then to LZ English, and on to FSB Beaver.
The day after arriving at FSB Beaver I was on the re-supply helicopter to LZ Owens to join Alpha Company, 1^st/22^nd Infantry Regiment
as its forward observer. Like every FNG, I was clueless.

As I wrote captions to my photos, I struggled putting names to faces and identifying when and where the pictures were taken.
Of course, almost 40 years was a big issue. I also decided that the personnel rotation system that the U. S. Army used during the Vietnam conflict
contributed a great deal to my “Who is that?” problem.

Contrary to prior and subsequent conflicts, in Vietnam the U. S. Army employed a system of rotating people and job assignments,
not entire units. We all experienced the revolving door. For officers and career NCOs, there was a further rotation -
a rotation within the rotation - as the Army tried to move career or potential career personnel through line and staff assignments
to broaden experience and promote careers. While this is a common approach in civilian business, it usually involves multi-year assignments.
In Vietnam, the Army had 12 months to accomplish the same cross training. So the revolving door spun faster.

For me, the rotation practices were particularly eventful. Figuratively speaking I never unpacked my suitcase.
In 12 months, I had four different assignments. I spent:

· 5 months as a forward observer,

· 3 months as fire direction officer (FDO) for C Battery,

· 2 months as the artillery liaison officer (LNO) for 1^st/22^nd, and

· 2 months as the artillery liaison officer (LNO) for 1^st/12^th Infantry.

In all of those jobs, people came and went. While I was an FO, I had at least one battery commander (my immediate superior)
that I never met. During my time as FDO and in my two stints as LNO, I don’t think any one person assigned to the section
was with me for more than 6 weeks, if that. It is no wonder I have trouble putting names to faces.

1LT David E. Parrish

4^th/42^nd Artillery, Nov 69 thru Oct 70

BACK