Welcome to the memories...
If you served with us, be sure to leave your contact information for sharing with others, along with any memories and/or any photos you want posted. Send this link to others and let's have a common place to find each other. After all, nobody knows us like us. We depended on each other with our lives then, the least we can do now is stay in touch, share our memories, and maybe even help each other when possible.
But this web site isn't about the 169th Engineers, at least not in the broad sense. They have a web site of their own (and you can actually find it in our link list). It's about a certain group of people who served their country between 1966 and 1971. They served together as members of the 169th Engineer Battalion, Charlie Company in Long Binh, Vietnam.
This web site is for you, those very people to share their stories, their memories, their photos, and reconnect to those you served with. Despite what information you can find on other web sites, no one can know what its like, except for those that served and endured as you have.
While this site is being updated with a major redesign, if you find a page you wish to view has not been updated yet, you can click here and navigate the old site. Once the redesign is complete of the entire website, the like the old site will be removed.
Site Ring by Bravenet.com
UPDATES:
February 3, 2012
Method of Reservation, Our Group Code is S120434 and it is as 169th Engineer Battalion Vietnam Vets Reunion, Can Make Reservation by their website www.ipbiloxi.com/groups. Or you may call hotel reservation department at 1- 888-946-2847 and press 1 for reservation and identify your self with the group code and present a credit card number to hold your reservation.
You must also make your hotel reservation by the 29 of April, and send 25 dollars single or 30 dollars family to Louis by the 29th of April also, this will be used for the Hospitality Room.
January 17, 2012
UPDATE ON THE REUNION! Please see the Reunion page or the 169th Engineer's Facebook Page for more information!
October 28, 2011
UPDATE ON THE REUNION! Please see the Reunion page for more information!
September 29, 2011
With regret due to circumstances beyond their control, Brenda & Eddie Yelton will not be able to host the next reunion as planned. They send their apoligies along with their disappointment.
Your help is being requested in the form of a volunteer to host the C Company169th reunion. Tommy & I hosted the first reunion in Biloxi, we would gladly due it again if he was not going through these cancer treatments. We planned & organized it all by phone, except for the itinerary & invitation which we did by mail. Pat & David hosted the second, the third was done by Shirley & Louis, the fourth by Sue & Larry - any of us would be happy to answer any questions & help where we can.
Until a new volunteer will accept to host the next one, the reunion is put on standby status. If you have questions it is easier to reach me by e-mail.
June 27, 2011
Few new members and photo pages are added to our members page, and fixed the bugs and such with Mike Reed's obit. I realize the memory pages are a bit more buggy than originally thought, and due to a glitch in uploading with dreamweaver, a few of the "template" pages ended up over writing the official page itself. Mike Reed was the first that was brought to my attention, so there may be more, and I'll be looking those over when possible.
If anyone stumbles over anything else, such as broken links, pages with pictures not loading, or template pages loading instead of the real thing please don't hesitate to let me know! It helps when I know there is a problem, and I can fix it asap.
June 11, 2011
More images are now up on Van Allen's page, we have another member (Richard Hodnett), and few other bugs that were brought to my attention are being addressed as we speak.
May 13, 2011
Information was given to me that a member many have been looking has been found, but unfortunately, he's already passed. Charles Phillip Van Allen Jr. has been added to the memory page, has a personal memory page, and I'm looking through for photos for him. Currently there are only two, a picture I was able to get from his official obit page and one from Lt. Kaminski's photo gallery.
May 8, 2011
Alright, I have finished the coding completely on the member pages with photos, and added a few more captions to the photos on the pages (atleast photos that had captions to begin with).
I haven't gotten to the reunion photos there, so there still may be glitches that crash computers as the other pages have, so tread carefully. I don't think there are any major problems, as no one's brought any about the reunion pages to my attention, but the plan is still to code them as the other pages have been.
April 18, 2011
Another member of Company C, 169th Engineer Battalion Vietnam has been found : Rodney Hedrick
Rodney was one of the first members of Company C to arrive in Vietnam as part of a advanced party. Along with Red Dawson and Billy Galloway, he was sent to Saigon to unload heavy equipment arriving by ship from Okinawa.
April 17, 2011
Alright, few changes! All the member pages with pictures have been re-coded, so they should not crash again. I haven't been able to actually test the pages, so tread carefully. With that said, we have two new picture galleries, one from Tom Shannon and one from R. D. "Rags" Raghanti.
I may also look over the reunion pages, because they were set up in the same way the member pages were, so I will be taking some time to reset the coding for those pages so they match up and everything runs the same way.
We also have another member turn up after finding the website. A welcome to Brock E. Lindley. He served with the Charlie Company from 1969 -1970 as a 62L20 wheel tractor operator.
And it has also come to our attention that Ed Ingram passed away Oct. 13 2010. He will be added to our memorial wall post haste.
March 2, 2011
Another member has come to our attention. Welcome R. D. Raghanti a.k.a. "Rags"
"I served at Charlie Company just south of Dinh Quan from 13 April 70 to 9 September 70. My name is R. D. Raghanti “Rags” first name is Ralph but I did not go by that."
Updates to the members page will follow. On that note, it has come to my attention that some of the picture pages have a glitch that is overloading the ram on some computers, causing them to freeze up and ultimately crash. PLEASE DO NOT VIEW THE PHOTO PAGES. I'm working on the problem now, and hope to have remedy the situation as fast as I can.
Also, once that problem is solved, I've received photos from Thomas Shannon and he will have a photo page as soon as the photo page problems are resolved!
February 5, 2011
"It is with great regret that I need to inform you that David Eilert from Branson, Missouri passed away last night [February 3rd] at 8:15pm. David and Pat hosted the second Reunion in Branson which was immensely enjoyed. Arrangements are currently being made by his family, I will update you when I get more information. David was diagnosed with ALS from Agent Orange in the fall of last year." - e-mail from Cathey Reynolds
The updated arrangements I've recieved in email is as follow:
David Paul Eilert Jan. 5, 1947 - Feb. 3, 2011
Memorial Mass Feb. 7, 2011 at
Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic Church, Branson, MO
Rosary Feb. 9, 2011
Funeral Mass Feb. 10, 2011 at
St. John's Catholic Church, Beloit, KS.
December 16, 2010
Alright, we have a new member found, Dave Rittenhouse! Welcome to the page! Also, John Fedun has submitted photos, and they are up and displayed on his photo page, on the members listing page.
September 27, 2010
"We received a phone call from the wife of Larry Holt, he lost his battle with cancer and passed away on July 17, 2010. He was a great guy who had a passion for finding other member of " C Company", he had a great and giving heart, and will forever be with us in spirit...." - Cathey Reynolds
With this news, further updates to the Memory Page will be made, as well as moving and updating a few of the member pages that are to be linked together by the Memory Page.
September 19, 2010
The memory page has been finally been properly updated, though I'm still toying with the idea of the "memorial video". Also, we have another find to our members list.
"My name is David Burmaster I was the Medic attached to C company when John Wilk was killed in an ambush while running his dozer early in the day on the road leading up to our base camp.� I was just looking around the net and my grandson asked what I did in Viet Nam.� I was in country from Jan. 69 to Jan 70."
I'm looking forward to prepare a page for his photos. On that note too, I'm still working on trying to alphabetize out member lists, and maybe find a way so they are not so long down the page. Especially since we have names doubled up, on both the looking for and found lists. In fact, I still have to add in our latest finds as well, so thats the next major adjustment to be made to the site.
It's slow going, and I do apologize for the slowness.
April 28, 2010
I will be in the process of adding the newest Reunion media up to the page, as well as making some major clean up. I know that our members listing is a bit of a mess with repeat names, some that are found that are still listed as missing, and more. I have been given a roster, which I hope to use to get that list updated, and I have been made aware that there is an updated copy of that roster as well, so the upcoming updates won't be entirely correct until that time. I'm also working on trying to get the memory page up. So that has my full attention at the moment. (1. memory page, 2. latest reunion, 2�. Member listing.. etc.).
I am happy to have met so many people at the reunion, and I'm glad you were able to give me feedback on the site. Please, don't hesitate to shoot me an email if you want to know something about it, or have a concern, or even if you just plain don't like something, let me know! Thank you!
April 15, 2010
WELL! Tomorrow is the start of the 4th Reunion for our guys! Been busy all over the board. First, now everyone who has photos are now up (There are a few pages I still need to tweek, but atleast they are all online. I need to add captions yet - for those who had them, and a others will get a further break down). I do apologize for not having the memory page up yet, and that is next on the list for revamp. After the Memory page, with the uploading of the latest reunion page, I will revamp the older ones as well.
We do have a few more finds with our members page, and once I sort out a few emails, I'll post our new finds on the members page, and hopefully I'll also be able to clean it up and get that list better organized.
With that, me and pa will be there at the reunion come Friday, so hope to see you there!
January 31, 2010
Few member pages are up and fully completed, others still need thier photos retouched and uploaded yet. Also to make things a little easier, the reunion forms are now available online! There are two formats, Doc and PDF. Be aware that each file is 4 pages in length. More information can be found on the reunion page!
January 25, 2010
New members and new look!
There has been news that an official roster has been discovered, and with that, we have new members to add!
The following are the newest members to the website:
William G. Rinker
Roger Noble
George L. Jammer
Spencer Means
Lestell L. Dawson
Douglas B. Berry
Lenny Cristo
Darrel G. Boulware
ALSO!!!! Just a reminder to sign up for the upcoming "169th Engineer Reunion" in Tunica, MS at the Hollywood Casino on April 15-18, 2010. We need to get good idea on the number of people attending by the end of this month. Payment does not have to be sent until the end of February, however, we would like an advance head count.�
Just send Sue Kraatz an e-mail if you know you are attending even if you haven't sent your form in yet.
The new and improved website is slowing coming up. After going over the little bit of feedback I've gotten, I've made a few changes.
First, the site no longer uses frames, which means that if you search for this site through google, and end up with one of the other pages, you can navigate alot easier without too much trouble.
Second, the images now open with a new viewer that let you cycle through the photos in bigger sizes. There will be no more flash slide shows, as I heard that they are not working for a few people. Also this way, if people wish to save the photos, you are able to, where the flash slide shows would not allow it.
Third, the member pages have been cycled through. Originally they were written up by those who found the site first and asked to be added. However it came to me that if someone was looking for a certain name, it might be better if it was alphabetized, which it is now.
And last change is the actual appearance of the site. I've simplified alot of the buttons and links. I've boosted up the text to make it more readable. Hopefully these changes work for everyone, and the site will be easier for everyone to access and flip through.
Thanks for your patience and your feedback.