Biography of Dennis Gruhlke
Specialist 4, E4, US Army, Cold War
I sailed on the Rose from Norfolk, VA in September, 1966 as a member of the 702nd MI Detachment (CI). As a Specialist 4, E4, I shared a cabin with another E4 in a forward cabin, near where the anchor was housed. I recall sitting at anchor at the Eastern entrance of the Panama Canal all day in sweltering heat. We transited the canal overnight and sailed up to the Long Beach Naval Station. After exiting the canal I was part of an honor guard for a funeral for a deceased MSTS Master who had desired to have his ashes spread in the Atlantic. Apparently our Master had speed on his mind and we did not stop until we got to the Pacific. I recall the service was conducted by Chaplin Fink. We were allowed ashore at Long Beach for a few hours and then sailed to Okinawa. The next day our dining table server Baco suffered a heart attack while serving breakfast. He expired and his body was removed from the ship by hoisting an Army ambulance aboard at our first stop at Da nang. We debarked by landing craft at Vung Tau after about 35 days. I recall our landing craft front gate would not go completely down and we had to jump off onto the beach. We were a CI detachment of 17 officers and enlisted, documented as civilians, wearing civilian clothes. We flew from Vung Tau in a Thai C 123 to Saigon. I remember the crossing was mostly uneventful except for few days of giant swells which caused the ship to roll so severely that things flew off the table. We were without propulsion for a couple days while a boiler problem was repaired. The food was excellent! Below decks were several hundred Army E-1s and E-2s who, as the story was told, had been released from Army stockades in exchange for volunteering to go to Vietnam. Our Officers and NCO’s held senior positions among the army compliment and served as a small police force to manage disagreements among those below decks.
----- Dennis Gruhlke
Email: dmgruhlke AT hotmail.com
Copy the above into your mail address window and replace spaceATspace with @
This is to avoid spam mailing.
LINKS
BACK TO JUSTIN ORAL HISTORY ARMY BIOGRAPHIES HISTORY PAGE
Please Share your Stories! E-mail the Curator to share or discuss or with any questions!
Copyright John Justin 2020
the URL of this page is
http://www.justinmuseum.com/oralbio/gruhlkedennisbio.html