Veteran's Story | Ohio Express band member served in Vietnam
Editor's Note: One in a series of stories on local veterans' military service.
Veteran: Dale Powers, age 69
Branch: United States Army
Service period: January 1969 to October 1970
From performing in the Mansfield garage band Sir Timothy and the Royals while in high school to becoming the Ohio Express and touring as an international act, Roseland-area native Dale Powers has used music as a vehicle from which to see much of the world.
He saw Vietnam courtesy of the United States Army.
“I graduated from Mansfield Senior in 1966; me and Dean (Kastran, a bandmate) weren’t allowed to walk with our graduating class (during commencement) because our hair was too long. We (Sir Timothy band) were together maybe two years, but they changed our name when we signed with New York and we became the Ohio Express.”
Super K Productions out of New York signed Dale and his bandmates to a performance contract.
“We were doing shows, one-nighters, 250 to 275 days a year for two-and-a-half years. It was a lot of traveling for us as young as we were. (Eventually) myself and the bass player (Dean Kastran) left and moved to New Jersey; we were working on another music project up there, kind of spinning our wheels. We said ‘we’re going to go home for the holidays’ and when I came home, close to Christmas, I walked out to my mailbox and had my draft notice. My dad, a World War II guy who got a Purple Heart during the Normandy invasion, said ‘go in there and make the best of it’ and that’s what I did.”
On Jan. 21, 1969, Powers was at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina.
“I had ‘zero’ week there and then they sent me to Fort Gordon, Georgia; I think it was because they had barracks (space) there (Gordon) for us. I kept telling myself ‘just do what you’ve got to do’, like my Dad said, and I got through it. It was a shocker, though.”
Powers made it through basic training, though there was a bump in the road.
“I had stress fractures in both heels. They put me on light duty for a week-and-a-half then I went back (to regular training). It was hard keeping up but I did.”
One incident, during an evening late in boot camp, Dale recalled with a smile. “We had a television in the barracks they used to show training films on. As we got close to the end (of training) they (drill instructors) let us watch a little TV; guys were shining their boots, kind of sitting around, and I’m sitting there and the Merv Griffin Show comes on. The Ohio Express comes on the show; I said ‘hey, guys, this is the band I played with.’ So they all came in and gather around, must have been 20 guys, and the band is playing; they (Ohio Express) get done and all these guys are looking at me, to see my reaction, and I’ll never forget this one guy, he says, ‘hey, man, you used to play with that band?’ and I said ‘yeah, until I got drafted.’ He looks at me and says, ‘so what you doing here?’ That was the million-dollar question right there,” he laughed.
Fort Lee, Virginia was Dale’s next stop.
“That was where we took our jungle training. They took us out in the swamps so we could see what it (Vietnam) was like. Before we left Fort Gordon we got our orders that we’d be going to Vietnam, about 190 of us,” he said. “That’s also where I got my training to be a unit small arms supply specialist; you learned how to tear down the M-16, M-14, M-60 (military field weapons) and the 45 (caliber sidearm) and grenade launchers, which I enjoyed because I’m into guns. Then they sent me to Forest Park, Georgia, outside of Atlanta, the Army depot. They switched me to quartermaster/supply and I spent three months there. It was a pretty nice place, a good duty station, and then I got to come home for 30 days (leave).”
From Mansfield it was on to Vietnam.
“We left from Oakland, landed in Tokyo, Japan, and then went to Long Binh (Vietnam). It was interesting because when I was with Ohio Express we flew a lot; this time, coming in to land in Vietnam, they (pilots) corkscrewed in (flew in a descending, circular pattern to throw off enemy gunners). As we’re coming in it got really silent on the plane, solemn; guys were thinking about their kids, their wives. As we’re coming off the plane the stewardesses were crying, hugging everybody; I’m sure they knew they were hugging some guys that wouldn’t be coming back. I’ll never forget that.”
Dale Powers was assigned to Cam Rahn Bay Army Depot as a supply specialist with the Army’s 504th Field Depot Battalion. CRB, as the installation was known, also included a naval complex and an air base. “It was huge,” Powers remarked. “The Air Force was at one end of the peninsula, we were in the middle and the Navy was at the other end.”
Being smack in the middle of the complex didn’t mean the installation was secure by any means. “We’d get rocketed or mortared (by North Vietnamese and/or Viet Cong) at night, from across the bay. During the day we were pretty safe, but at night is when we’d get incoming. I was in one of the supply buildings, working nights, and it got hit by shrapnel (from a Communist rocket that exploded very near by).”
The base wasn’t immune from ground attack, either.
“We (quartermaster detail) would have to pull perimeter guard detail once in awhile where they’d take you out to different spots and drop you off (in guard bunkers). One night some guys (enemy sappers) got into the base and were running between buildings, throwing satchel charges (demolition explosives, about the size of a messenger bag) into them.” Powers said that there were local Vietnamese civilians who worked on base and believes some of them might have been involved in the attack.
The 12 months spent at CRB wasn’t all bad for the young soldier.
“I was friends with some of the MPs (military policemen) and I’d occasionally go out to the villages with them. I’d bought a couple of cheap guitars over there, and I’d take them with me and play for the villagers for an hour or so. I really enjoyed that, though those guitars were hard on the fingers.”
Processing out of the Army at Fort Lewis, Washington, Powers returned to Mansfield and went to work for Reece Optical for three years, playing gigs at Park Lanes in the lounge on weekends. Using the GI Bill, Dale attended classes at North Central Technical College, studying industrial sales and marketing; he then worked for Industrial Technical Sales and Service for 38 years, retiring in February 2017.
In retirement, Powers continues composing Christian-themed music and recording his work. “I don’t really have any hobbies or anything, I just like writing and playing music.” Dale also founded and manages Race Ministries, an organization providing Christian music performances in area venues.
He and wife Annette reside south of Ontario and Powers someday plans to revisit Vietnam. Concerning his service in the military, Dale said “it got my feet on a more stable path. The Army put stability in my life.”
Tim Clark, a retired local law enforcement officer, is now a freelance writer and has a blog, Through an Old Cop's Eyes. Clark can be reached at oldcop135@gmail.com.