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Seabee71 Works with Local Villagers

One of Seabee71's trucks arrives with a load of used and cumshawed lumber for a village recently desimated by a VC raid.

Civic Action . . .  Helping the Vietnamese people


Of all the military units in Vietnam, the Seabees have the most connection with, and positive impact on, the local Vietnamese people.



The Seabees became the Navy's version of the Peace Corpse. Why? The Seabees had construction equipment, savvy, man-power and materials the people outside the wire need to rebuild what this conflict is blowing up.

     General Westmoreland, who was running things in Vietnam, had said: “The real war in Vietnam is winning the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese people, to turn them against the encroaching communism from the North.” To do this, all military units are encouraged to volunteer for Civic Action projects. These included rebuilding schools, orphanages, churches, markets, roads and entire villages destroyed by the war.  The Seabees became the Navy's version of the Peace Corpse. Why? The Seabees had construction equipment, savvy, man-power and materials the people outside the wire need to rebuild what this conflict is blowing up.

     Seventy-One was engaged in a number of projects, or I should say, John Murphy, a 50-something IPO, former construction company owner, was so engaged. Murphy lived in the villages, working on a new market for Tan Ky, a school and orphanage  in Chu Lai. While Seabee71's medical department ventured into the villages each week to provide the Vietnamese with medical and dental care.

Corpsmen treat the kids for scrapes and pass out bars of soap, together with instructions—in broken Vietnamese and lots of hand-waving—on how to use the soap to prevent future infections.

Click on any image to read and see more . . .

Market At Tan Ky

Murphy,  a first class EO,  owned his own construction company back in the states, but signed up with the Seabees, specifically to help the Vietnamese rebuild what the war was tearing down. He got his wish.


21-year-old EO3 Jim  Slater, from Pennsylvania,  as been devoting any spare time working out in the village of Chu Lai, helping the locals build an orphanage.

The Book:

SEABEE71

IN CHU LAI

A 350 page memoir of a Navy Journalist's 14 months with the Seabees.

Photographs and text copyright © 1967 and 2019 by David H. Lyman

MEDCAP clinic in a village

     “How do you say, ‘where does it hurt?’” Doctor Hubbell asks PN3 Bruce Kohfield (back to camera) to translate.  Bruce was one of the few Seabees to have completed the Vietnamese language school back in Davisville. Bruce joins the MEDCAP field trips each week to help the doctors and corpsmen communicate with the villagers.