Log Scaler Delivers Veterans Memorial Wall Address; Winn Par., Louisiana Submitter: Billy Hill Date: 30 Mar 2005 Source: Piney Hills Journal Date: ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** LOG SCALER DELIVERS VETERANS MEMORIAL WALL ADDRESS Vietnam Veteran Grew Up in ''Piney Woods''©Byl-ine = By JAMES RONALD SKAINS©Firstpar = There is no doubt in my mind that growing up hunting,fishing, and roaming around in the Piney Woods gave me anadvantage in surviving Viet Nam,''said Eugene Chellette, QualityControl Log Sealer at Willamette's Dodson manufacturing complex.' 'When the shooting started, you immediately had to get down inthe mud with the leeches and snakes. I didn't hesitate like someof the city boys did. The snakes and leeches just had to moveover.''Chellette, who spoke at the dedication of the Veterans MemorialWall adjacent to the new Dodson City Hall also told the Journal,' 'Every kind of tree and bush imaginable grew in the jungles ofViet Nam. I remember seeing many mahogany trees that were 5 ft dbhand at least 200 foot tall.''The Veterans memorial wall, which was the brain child of BillyHill of Dodson currently, has 330 bricks in place with at least 57more on order. Each brick has a name with a notation of what waror era that veteran served in. One name dates from the War of 1812with others from all American wars since 1812.''I bought 13 bricks myself,'' Chellette pointed out. ''One wasfor Victor Mayo who was the first guy I saw killed. I had onlybeen in Viet Nam two weeks when Mayo and I were door gunners on achopper.My machine gun jammed, so Mayo, being very experienced with gunstold me to trade guns and he would fix mine.''''Just as he sat down in my seat an enemy round caught him rightin the forehead,'' Chellette noted. ''Mayo only had two weeks togo on his Viet Nam tour.''Eugene Chellette had to two older brothers that preceded him inmilitary service, one a Korean vet and the other during the Berlincrisis, who worked at the Dodson sawmill and plywood mill thenoperated by Hunt Lumber Company. Wayne Parker, now Vice-Presidentof Willamette, was Safety Director with Hunt in the mid-1960'swhen Chellette went to Viet Nam.'"I had only been back a few days when Wayne called me and askedme if I wanted to go back to work,'' Chellette recalled. ''Ididn't really know what I wanted to do at the time. I was prettydown about things but Wayne told me that if I wanted to come backto work to report in 30 days. I did, and I've basically beenaround ever since.''' 'Those were some tough times for me when I first came back, ' 'Chellette stated. ''The time-line that I went through was reallyincredible when you think about it.''''The travel time straight through from Viet Nam to Shreveport was22 hours,'' Chellette explained. ''The morning that I left VietNam, I had just come in from Recon patrol outside the wire at thecamp. I showered, changed clothes, grabbed my bags and headed forthe airport.''' 'We flew into San Francisco airport where we went through agauntlet of people screaming, cursing, hitting at us and spittingon us,'' Chellette recalled. ''I reacted and was detained at theairport security office, although I was not officially arrested.''' 'The military carried us out to a local base, fed us and sent usthrough a short processing routine to make sure all our paperswere in place before they put us on a plane for our homedestination.''' 'Within 28 hours from the time I came back under the wire frombeing in harm's way in Viet Nam, I was on the ground atShreveport,'' Chellette noted. ''My mother, brother and sister metme at the airport in Shreveport. If it hadn't been for their loveand support at the time I would have volunteered for another tourin Viet Nam.''''I actually felt like that I had left my family back in VietNam,'' Chellette pointed out. ''On my way back from Viet Nam, Icouldn't remember anything about Dodson, even what it looked like.All I could think of was what was going on back in Viet Nam.''Chellette is now a Quality Control Log Sealer with WillametteDodson. ''My job is two-fold. First and foremost, I make sure thateach and every load of logs that comes in the Dodson mills gets afair shake on the scale no matter who the owner of the logs is.''''My second job is more quality control working between the milland the loggers. If the mill is complaining about the quality ofthe logs, the knots, the sweep, etc., I go out and explain theproblem to the logging crews and tell them to make adjustments.''Chellette, who has three Purple Hearts plus several medals toldthe Journal, ''We went to Viet Nam as boys and came back not justas men, but as 'old men' with two many memories.''' 'Viet Nam is never far from you, ' ' said Chellette who spent mostof his time in a Ranger Recon unit. ''Everytime I shower, I seethe scars on my legs and body. Everytime I look in the mirror, Isee the scar on my head.''' 'You have flashbacks which are when you actually see people andincidents that happened over there,'' Chellette explained.''Sometimes in a flashback, I see two of my best buddies who werekilled at the time I got my most severe wounds all dressed in'dress blue uniforms.''' 'The way my buddies were killed was that we went in on a 'hotlanding zone' in a chopper,'' Chellette explained. ''We were about50 yards from the chopper when the enemy mortar rounds startedcoming in. My two buddies were blown up and I was severelywounded.''''I remember coming to in the chopper,''Chellette said. ''Thebodies of my two buddies all blown up were next to me. I was allbloody and about to choke on my own blood. The next time I wokeup, I was in the hospital. I bought bricks at the Dodson memorialfor my two buddies.''''The nightmares are different and usually don't make any senseexcept just the horror of the situation,'' Chellette pointed out."'One that is recurring for me is that I'm somewhere in Viet Namin uniform on guard duty when another soldier drives up with adump truck full of bodies and asked me, 'How many do you needtoday?''''There is nothing glorious about war,'' Chellette stated. ''Itsjust a legalized way to commit mass murder. Part of our job onLong Range Recon patrols was to set up and execute ambushes. Assoon as the shooting stopped, we searched the bodies for anypaperwork or information, killed any of the wounded and then movedonto the next ambush.''' 'When I first got to Viet Nam after 8 weeks of training, four atFort Polk in Tigerland and four at Fort Benning for jump school Iwas in a regular line company in the 101st Airborne, ' ' Chelletterecalled. ''I was in A company 502 of the 58th Infantry of the101st. I didn't like the line company because the 2nd Lt.'s comingover there had very little more than we did so we were getting inreally bad situations that could have been avoided with moreexperience and training.''"'So I transferred out of the regular line company through a 1049transfer to a LURP Unit which was a Long Range Recon Patrol Unitthat went outside the wire in groups of six or eight men to seekout the enemy,'' Chellette explained. ''You got to know and trusteach of the guys in your unit because you lived very close to themfor several days at a time.''''Each man in the unit was cross trained,'' Chellette noted. ''Youhad Team Leader, Asst. Team Leader, Two Scouts, and Two RadioOperators. We were sent out to find the enemy by looking fortrails through the jungles.''''The smaller trails were for men moving through the jungle whilesome were high speed trials where vehicles could move supplies,guns and ammo,'' Chellette stated. ''Once we would find a trail,we would be told to watch the trail and try to develop a situationinto an ambush or gather useful info on troop and supplymovements.''' 'We were fully camouflaged and very quiet in our movements whileon Recon patrol. If you moved 100 yards per hour you were movingtoo fast,'' said Chellette, who grew up in the Dodson area. ''I'vehad the enemy come within 3 foot of me without seeing me.''''Some one once asked me if I had seen the movie, 'HamburgerHill'' which was originally designated as Hill 937 in the Awshavalley near the Cambodian border,'' Chellette recalled. ''I toldthem, no, I don't need to see the movie Hamburger Hill because Iwas there. We took 70% casualties over a two week period.''''I was helping to load the wounded for evacuation when someonetook the wooden top off a C-ration case and wrote 'HamburgerHill,'' Chellette noted. ''Later, someone else wrote underneathit; 'was it worth it?''The small town of Dodson, Louisiana's Veterans Memorial is a scanttwo blocks off Hwy 167 in downtown Dodson adjacent to the new TownHall across the street from the Dodson K-12 school. Memorial bricks to honor U.S. Military Veterans from any wars or peace timeservice are available.