Most viewed - Leon "Lee" Dixon
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Dixon19.jpgUnique 2/9th Icon208 viewsAnother photo showing the 2/9th symbol again on the nose of a truck. These were only painted on our vehicles and appeared on the nose and the hood. Later in 1968, they seemed to stop doing this graphic. Someone high up in 4th Division resented what they viewed as a leftover icon from 25th, but as far as I know, the symbol was not 25th and was used by 2/9th.
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Dixon14.jpgDeadly attack207 viewsA friend of mine was killed when this gun took a direct hit from a VC attack. This is what it looked like when it was hauled away on a deuce and a half truck.
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Dixon15.jpgFellow Redlegs205 viewsAnother Polaroid photo. These two guys are friends from another battery....but their names are forgotten.
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Dixon54.jpg205 viewsHere is what kind of damage a communist 122mm rocket could do in the hands of a VC. This building in Saigon was hit during the Tet Offensive and so was I... but that's another story.
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Dixon40.jpg"Moonraker"203 viewsWe owed a lot to these boys! "Moonraker" (long before the James Bond film of the same name) was a deuce and a half truck, fully armored and equipped with both 50 caliber and M-60 machine guns. They brought SMOKE if anyone dared cause trouble for us out there on the road! They ran protection for us all along the way to Bong-Son and elswhere. Brave guys.
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Dixon18.jpgThe 2/9th Hexagon graphic202 viewsThis is one of our HQ Btry guys with one of our trucks. Note the special 2/9th hexagon graphic on the door. It is basically a yellow hexagon with a red overlay. It you look at it the right way, it appears to be a box tipped at an angle.
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Dixon34.jpg155mm Self-Propelled201 viewsTaken when assisting another unit's commo group. They were on the far end of Montezuma from where 2/9th was. This was a self-propelled) 155mm howitzer as it sat at Montezuma/Duc Pho. Taken with a Polaroid and an officer got bugged at me for taking it. I reminded him that I had top secret clearance and he got de-bugged. The marking above the white star is a cartoon of a duck sitting on a squashed egg. Don't recall anymore what it said, but was quite humorous.
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Dixon44.jpgLZ English - Bong Son201 viewsMe and some of the guys in commo managed to "acquire" a few unauthorized, non-standard arms. Along the way I had a "grease-gun", a "B.A.R.", a captured AK-47, and others. I also carried an M-16 "over and under" (grenade launcher underneath the barrel) until they took it away! Here I am at English with one of my "slightly modified" early M-16s (note that the prongs on the barrel end are NOT joined) and an M-1 A-1 rifle I loved. I also carried a .45 sidearm given to me by one of the officers. And would you believe that I am NOT a "gun guy"?
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Dixon13a.jpgPitching In200 viewsGetting with the program...even us Commo guys!
Note the "macho" version of artillery ear plugs. No wonder we go deaf as seniors.
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Dixon43.jpgLZ English - Bong Son200 viewsBong-Son was a scary place and we had a lot of weird things happen there, so I kept armed to the teeth 24/7! We were spoiled by the perimeter bunkers we built at Duc Pho. At English, all we had was a flimsy culvert section and some worn-out sandbags with broken-down barbed wire for protection. ONE AK-47 round probably would have gone through this like cheese! I was always told that I was exempt from guard duty due to my critical MOS... but that meant nothing when I got to Viet Nam- especially at Bong Son! Here is an example of my perimeter guard post. Note the M-60 machine gun and ammo, M-79 grenade launcher, flare, box of C-rations, bug spray, etc.. And EVERYTHING looked like it was moving out there at night!
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Jet.jpgChina/Taiwan Airline199 viewsMany of us had never seen a "China Air Lines" jet before, thinking of the bitter enemy at the time, "Red China". It caused a little stir and a lot of cameras were clicking away as it rolled past. But Taiwan is the base of China Airlines.
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Dixon2.jpgRemember we had berets?198 viewsHere are the berets. Note the 2/9th embroidery and the shield on the red one. The other also as "2/9 Arty" embroidered on it, but hard to see. We were told that we were authorized to wear the red only at special functions or on post. And the camouflage was for the field... but our sergeants never made much comment about them and we could not wear them in formations.
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