Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: 71st evac

71st Evacuation Hospital, Pleiku, Republic of Vietnam, 1971. Many G.I.s died here. Many more survived because of the efforts of the medical staff.

This is the photo I was looking for the other day when I discovered the picture of the pool .... OK, here's the thing. Lynda Van Devanter, who wrote a book about her Vietnam year, Home Before Morning , served in the 71st Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku in 1969 and 1970 (71st Evac photo link from Steve Streeper's site ). I lived in the 71st complex for most of 1971, but worked elsewhere. Shortly before my arrival, the facility was downgraded from a major field hospital to a relatively small detachment. ( This chopper was part of that operation .) Since the medicos were using only a few of the buildings, the army repurposed several of the abandoned wards as barracks, and moved parts of the 43rd Signal Battalion into them. My unit, called Signal Support Detachment Pleiku, lived in what had been Wards 1 & 2; other Signal folks lived elsewhere in the complex. Anyway, I spent a year in the place. Like many vets, I bought a good camera while I was overseas, and (of course) took pictures. Many of those have been posted to Flickr. Fast forward to 2007. The Vietnam Veterans of America , an organization Van Devanter had helped establish, was publishing a magazine to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the dedication of The Wall . The issue included an excerpt from her book, and two of my Flickr photos were among the illustrations ( here and here ). I told about the experience on my blog . Finally got around to reading Van's entire book last week. It's painful, and it's wonderful.

"Only evac hospital in-country with our very own pool." --Lynda Van Devanter, quoting Captain Bubba L. Kominski (quite certainly a made-up name) Been reading Van Devanter's Home Before Morning . Didn't remember any swimming pool in the 71st Evac. But it appears I took a picture of it....

Pleiku's 71st Evac was still a functioning hospital in 1971, but it had become a small-scale operation by the time I and my mates arrived. All in all, we Signal folks thought the medical operation a mysterious and wonderful thing; we shared the complex but had little interaction with the professional staff, and less with the patients. Here's one of those patients out catching some rays as he recovers from his injuries. I remember this as a unique event; it was pretty rare for us to see the evacuees except as they arrived or left the complex. We did see, and admire, the Medevac crews. This chopper's crew is on-board and the chopper's ready to leave on another rescue. The scenery beyond the helicopter pad is the Pleiku Airbase. Camera: Minolta SR-T 101 Revision 12/8/05: Replaced the original photo with a far better scan. Hadn't previously noticed that the rotor was turning....

"When I have your wounded." ---Major Charles L. Kelly, hero --explaining when he intended his chopper to leave the battleground Dustoffs, parked, and waiting. MedEvac helicopters, downhill from (former, apparently) 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, sometime in 1971. The 71st was a large hospital earlier in the war, but by the time I arrived in Nam it was a small operation and we signal folks lived in what had once been hospital wards. Since the place was still busy enough to support an air ambulance operation, these Hueys lived on the complex. The red crosses painted on these birds weren't magic shields. They'd land on the battle field, often while the battle raged, and face the dangers which had summoned them in the first place. Perhaps a mile from the hospital, a motor pool had become final home to the twisted and bullet-scarred hulk of a dustoff chopper whose crew had taken heavy fire during a rescue attempt. Brave men. Dangerous work. Camera: Minolta SR-T 101. Replaced with new scan on 12/17/2005.

Roscar Siminski and the Central Highlands skyline, in 1971. This is the road between 71st Evac and Tropo Hill , as shown on this map ; we're looking toward Engineer Hill. (Map courtesy of Ray Smith ; Tropo Hill photo from Ray Browning's website --my photo, though.) This is the first photograph I ever took with a quality camera, and it came out quite well. Ray Browning's site includes this photo --I think it's by Rick Stolz--which I've always found painfully like my memory of the view from 71st Evac. The first building in the foreground, with the red cross on top, was Ward One, and was my home for most of my tour.... Camera: Minolta SR-T 101 New scan (from negative) posted on 12/29/05.

Vietnam in the morning, 1971. This is Ward One of the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, RVN; home of Signal Support Detachment Pleiku at that time, but once a crucial part of a large hospital. In the background are the water tower and a corner of one of the large tropo antennas everyone associated with the Signal Corps in Pleiku. During my year in Nam, I first lived in Ward Two, then moved to Ward One when a less public room, suitable for NCOs (and real people, for that matter), became available there. Camera: Polaroid SX70