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Compound, "home sweet home" Dam Doi. We had a bunker attached
to the compound, a gravity shower, bunk room, combination kitchen and living room. In the dry season you could only take a
shower if you went on an operation. We played allot of Poker and drank allot of beer. We would get mortared almost every night,
my first night we caught 42 rounds. I crawled under my bunk in the pitch black. Everyone else was on top of the bunker drinking
beer and watching the rounds come in (I was the rookie). I had a new uniform and new jungle boots and the locals soon started
to call me "new boots".
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Lt. Paul E. Cary, Phoenix Advisor Dam Doi Village An Xuyen Province, Jan. 1969-Oct 1969. Deputy Phoenix
coordinator An Xuyen Nov. 1969-Dec. 1969
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Compound that housed seven team members: Capt.Hahn (senior advisor),1Lt.Chan
Prince (deputy advisor in above photo), Sgt. Stevens (communications), AF medic, Army medic, SFC (weapons advisor).
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Supplies arriving by Huey! We would radio in our order weekly
and hopefully our supplies would arrive. We did our own cooking and had a house boy (man) who we paid to do laundry and clean.
We also had a 16'Boston Whaler with a 40 hp. outboard, since we live on the Dam Doi River it came in handy. Some of our food
we bought from the locals i.e. fruit (pineapples, mangos), peanuts, rice and rice bread. The coffee shop also served beer
Ba Mui Ba (Beer 33) and Beer la Rou (French beers). Local cigarettes were "Capstain" (French) and looked like fat Lucky Strikes
with tobacco twigs inside.
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Dam Doi could be reached only helecopter. We recieved all our
supplies and food via huey. We had two 10 kw. generators a propane stove and two propane refrigerators. The vietnameese were
Regional and Popular forces. The village had a few hundred residents, a coffee shop, barber and local market. Most of the
Americans could speak a little Vietnameese, however there were Vietnameese interpreters assigned to the team. We had joint
ventures with Navy Seals and PRU's stationed on Sea Float on the Nam Can River. There was a DIOC and a National Police Fied
Force assigned to the area. Most of our encounters were with V.C. who were extreemely stealth. We went on several operations
including many night raids. Sea Float
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Advisory Team 80. Dam Doi Village was actually below Sea Level
year round. I had a special patch for the "Phoenix unit" in Dam Doi. I have only a few photos of the patch on my uniform in
Oct. 69, but the images are quite small. The patch was about 2.5 inches in dia. and had a white Phoenix Bird on a red background.
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